The first week of my assignment was to say the least hell on earth. I felt out of place, unsettled, not funny, useless, and unknowledgeable. After that first week I needed feedback from those who were around me. Chad, Tex, and I sat on the dining hall front porch and I listened as they offered insight into this chaotic world I had somehow ended up in. Chad kept saying "Adrienne you are leading the Israelites through the dessert". (Chad if you happen to ever read this, which I doubt you will... I'll be honest at the time I was like come on give me something practical). I felt no comfort in these words and wondered why the heck God wouldn't have just left them out there. I was constantly having to say the same things over and over again, infamous phrase, "If you need a job, come see me!" I knew if I said it again not only were the servers going to stone me but I might just join them and stone myself.
Repetition = exhaustion.
Needless to say God was patient and I tried to be and surprise I survived the month. Trust me when I say week 2-5 was fabulously exhausting but so much fun. Of course there were days I wanted to just sleep or get outside, anyplace but the dining hall, but I was blessed with amazing servers who worked so hard and were patient with me even though they probably did want to stone me.
Coming back though I kept thinking about those darn Israelites and that first week. Let me break this down a bit more, come along. That first week I had a microphone, a stage, a list of jobs, and a bunch of servers who along with me had no idea what they were doing. I would give them a job then tell them to come see me after they had finished it. I'm not one for sitting back and watching them do all the work when I could be "doing", "earning", "working" beside them. We are all in this together right? Right! God was transitioning me into something far greater than I thought, which I believed was just getting me ready for that month. He was taking me from one point in my life and guiding me gradually into this next phase, YoungLives.
It wasn't until Nehemiah and I started hanging out did what Chad say and what I did that first week make sense. Nehemiah went into Jerusalem with the purpose and heart for rebuilding the wall. There was already a community of people there, they had lived with the wall being broken. Maybe every once and awhile they said "something should be done about this wall" who knows, all we know is that this was the 3rd people group to have arrived back in Jerusalem and these people had at least been there for 13 years because thats when Ezra had brought the last group through. The wall was still broken. Nehemiah went in and grabbed those who had lived with it, given them jobs and together they all rebuilt the wall. Nehemiah rallied the troops without them they had no direction or structure for rebuilding. I offered direction, structure, and supervision to the servers giving them jobs, had I been working alongside them they would not have known what to do that first week. Oh how this is the next year of my life.
I will be taking a step back from the direct high school girls ministry which I love and take a different role. My heart, my passion, my holy discontent was for placing women in our community (who I believe are fabulous and underused) and placing them with girls who need and want to be loved on. I believe that each generation needs and desires to know the other but they don't know how to do it. Since I've returned it has been fun meeting with the amazing organizations that already serve the communities in Charleston and hearing that they've been thinking about a teen mom ministry for years but didn't know what that looked like. Nehemiah coming in and using the people who long to do something and don't know how to get from point A to point B.
Lessons I learned from Chad... people need leadership, they need someone to point them in the direction they want to go, and their desires and needs will be satisfied. I may feel out of place while I rally the troops but knowing that once everyone understands their job and knows that without them the wall won't get rebuilt... I will be able to get my hands dirty and help put a brick or two in place myself!
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