Cars, Crashes, and Culture

For the past year, I've always believed that Nebraska had little to no culture. Obviously, the Hispanic and Asian populations here are a lot fewer than in Southern Oregon where I grew up. (However, I will note that there is a significantly higher African American population.) I found it to be kind of crazy when the rest of the summer staff was saying we had a very diverse staff. Out of over forty staff members, there were only two Filipinos, one Chinese, one Mexican, and one half-black. (By the way, all of our few "diverse" staff members were very proud of their races/ethnicities and even made jokes about themselves, so this is by no means meant to insult them or the cultures they represent.) Well, this past weekend made up for all of the culture I had been lacking in for the past year.

Last year, the week before I came to camp, there was a Slavic camp, the biggest camp of all year. It was so big, that even the staff cabins, with current conditions that make them too bad to normally rent out, were completely filled so that there were over 200 overnight guests, but many others came just during the day. For the past year, I've only heard stories of this group, so it was great to finally experience it for myself. The Slavic group isn't one particular church; it's organized by people in Nebraska and they invite Eastern Europeans from all over the country. Walking through the parking lot, I found plates from Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, and many more. This year, there were even several tents set up so that more people could stay overnight. I loved this weekend. I spent most of it in the kitchen, and it was just so interesting to have a different kind of group here, and they were all fun to talk to. During their chapel meetings, I would sometimes sit in my office (the chapel itself was way too full as it was!) and listen to the sermons. I couldn't understand them since it was all in Russian, but you could tell that they were very passionate and enthusiastic. Even though their chapels went late into the night (which usually bugs me since I can hear everything in the chapel while I'm in bed), it was actually very soothing to fall asleep to multilingual worship music.

After that exciting weekend, we all took a much-needed day off. Sunday evening, Emily and I went to Omaha to meet up with Jeremiah and Ryan at Old Chicago, where we had this great Thai pizza. I think Emily and I bugged the boys a little too much by speaking in Eastern European accents. We had heard that accent so much over the weekend that it was almost as natural as our American accent! After eating, we went to Jeremiah's house to watch a couple of the Bourne movies. Emily and I ended up not getting home until 4am, so the next morning was spent in bed.

I almost didn't go out Sunday night because I had found a car on Craigslist. I've been looking for a car for a few weeks now. So far, I only test-drove one and that didn't work out because it was a Saturday and the banks weren't open. (Looking back, I'm glad I didn't buy it because there were several problems, and the deal seemed kind of sketchy, but that may have just been from it being in a part of Omaha that looked like a Mexican market.) However, I ended up going because I couldn't contact the Solmens to take me there. However, they finally got all my text messages and missed calls, so we made plans to see it Monday evening.

Monday afternoon, when we finally were mostly awake, I asked Emily to take me into Fremont so I could get some cash. On the way back to camp, I switched cars and rode with Jeff and Mikayla back into Fremont. I had volunteered to be a patient for his summer class' final EMT exam. I spent that evening suffering from a Black Friday induced heart attack and falling off of a balcony from having my fans drop me while crowd surfing at one of my concerts. Towards the end of the class, we called Mike to come so that we could have a three-victim car crash scenario. In this scenario, I was unconscious and bleeding in several places. This was a really interesting experience for me. I kept my eyes closed most of the time to keep in character, so I was never really sure what was going on. I was bandaged up, placed on a backboard, loaded on the stretcher, put in the back of the ambulance, and then moved to the bench seat. After getting on the ambulance, I opened my eyes, but I still couldn't figure out what was going on since my spine was stabilized. In fact, at one point in time, I had to ask one of the students to take off one of my bandages because it was too tight and making my foot fall asleep! After this, the other two patients were put on the ambulance and we went for a ride. (It was really weird having NO idea where we were going since I could only see the ceiling!) Then, Mike and I left for Omaha so that I could get this:

It's my first car! After a year of living in the middle of nowhere without one, it will be nice to finally have the freedom to get around. It was truly a blessing; very few flaws and at half the price of the other Explorers I was looking at on Craigslist! The owner was very nice and I could tell that she was being honest about the vehicle. I'm really excited to be able to use it, and I hope it will help me get more involved with ministry. I'll be able to volunteer at places, possibly attend Christian conferences and events, meet up with friends, and drive people around. (I even gave a driving lesson at camp today! Haha... I mostly just wanted to see what it was like from the passenger's point of view, but I think he enjoyed getting the opportunity to drive.)

Speaking of today, we had yet another group come in. This one was Grace University Student Leadership. I got to facilitate a group at our challenge and initiatives course (which is one of my favorite things to do) in the morning, and then work at high ropes after lunch. It's kind of nice to have so many groups come in, even though it means fewer days off. And we'll have several more groups come out this weekend! Fun!