how did i get into this, anyway?

on my trip to Alaska last summer, we visited the sign post forest. my favourite sign was one with the words, "whose idea was this anyway?". it's currently set as the desktop of my computer as it seems that it fits my life - it's either that or "how did i get into this?". on the bright side, i usually end up with great stories - and a lot of laughter.

this weekend, i was on the weekend team here. which means that i helped make sure that there was food on a regular basis, chapel was held, and activities were planned (we ended up with a boat ride yesterday afternoon, pool yesterday evening, and church and the beach today). i'm not entirely sure how i got on it as i've only been here three and half weeks now - and the schedule was made awhile ago (probably somebody figured i wouldn't mind helping out - and they were right :)) anyway, that means that i shopped this weekend, spent a lot of time with a lot of people, cooked a bunch of times, led a chapel, and generally was busy. but i had a grand time. i laughed so hard so many times.

i'm bad at pool (so obviously this was not my choice of activity). i know where to hit the ball (most of the time) to make it go where i want it to go but i can't usually get the white ball to hit the other one in the right place or at the right speed. a bunch of us played half a dozen games last night. i had one really good game. and the rest weren't so good. after i completely missed a really easy shot, my opponents let me do it again from about the same place. and i completely missed again! (they decided that i probably didn't deserve a third try). it was so absolutely ridiculously horrible that my only response was to laugh and laugh and laugh. overall, i had decent partners, so it wasn't a complete disaster. we won sometimes. and we laughed more.

for church today, i figured since whatever one we chose it would be in Dutch (and my Dutch is pretty limited), it didn't matter to me where we were going. we went to a Salvation Army church that is around the corner. it's not a very big church - and the dozen of us kind of stuck out. after the first verse of the song (which we'd sung acapella) the person leading the singing asked if any of us from Oudezijds 100 played the piano. i didn't understand much of what he said - but i caught the question of whether any of us could play. i wasn't particularly enthusiastic about responding. but in response to the leader's question, most of my 'family' looked at me or said my name (they had, after all, all heard me playing the last couple of days). so, i went up to the piano and told both of the people leading the service that i didn't speak Dutch.

it went well for the most part, although there was one moment that was absolutely priceless. for one of the songs, the leader explained (i think) that she would read the first verse and then we'd sing it and then she'd read the second verse and then we'd sing it and so on. her explanation was in Dutch and i wasn't entirely paying attention because i was trying to look over the song to see if i could play it. so, after playing the first verse, i went right on to the second. the woman turned her head quickly around, told me to 'shh'. i stopped immediately (nearly jumped) and said sorry very quickly. and she went on with reading the passage - and when given some kind of cue, i started the next verse. i was on the stage/platform with the leaders so i had a great view of the faces of some of my family. the looks on their face were priceless. it was such a surprising, funny moment.

and the service describes well how things are going: sometimes i'm more aware of what's happening than people expect and sometimes i have absolutely no idea what's going on or what people expect of me (which leads to odd results at times). sometimes i ask how i get in the middle of some of the things - but i wouldn't change it. and it's been awhile since i've laughed so much and so hard as i have here. which seems to point to God's hand having something to do with how i got into this :)