Friday Night Lights

Happy Halloween everybody! I'm not sure how many of you actually did anything to celebrate today, but hopefully everyone enjoyed their day.

Here in Mt. Vernon, Halloween was actually celebrated yesterday. The Rockcastle County High School Football team had a big game tonight, so the city moved Halloween to last night. The tradition is for businesses to set up booths on Main Street and all the kids come and trick-or-treat for two hours. I helped run CAP's booth with Liz and Jenny from my house. We had a good time, but we were a little overwhelmed by how many kids there were (the kids had to wear numbers and at one time I saw the number 1,416 - I'm really hoping there weren't that many kids there though!).

Since the city moved a holiday for the football team, we decided that we would go watch the game tonight. The undefeated Rockets were taking on Mercer County High - who are actually a 5A school (Rockcastle is 4A). Within the first ten minutes of the game, the Rockets had scored a touchdown and a field goal. Probably thanks to #22, Casey Hays, who appeared to be the only player on the team who actually did anything. He looked kind of scrawny, but he played offense and defense, and his name was somehow connected to almost every play of the game. By the end we were joking that we could yell, "Go Casey" without knowing who had done what and be accurate 90% of the time. The best part about the Rockets scoring was the fact that they set off these huge fireworks after every score.

The game, however, was not terribly exciting, although they did at least move the ball back and forth. It was not until the fourth quarter when Mercer County finally scored. They got a touchdown but they didn't have a kicker and they failed in their 2-point conversion. They were about to score again right at the end of the fourth quarter, but the Rockets made an interception (Go Casey!) and ran the time down. The final score was 10-6.

After the game was over we realized why small town football games are fun. We looked around the crowd and saw the pastor of the church a few of us have been attending, the music director from the church, and one of the jailers that I work with at the Rock. To celebrate the victory we headed to the local truck stop, however, they did not have the traditional after-football-game-meal that I was hoping for (at least typical for the Soule family): they didn't have milkshakes!!! So there was no french fry dipping in a chocolate milkshake for me last night, but at least the French Toast was good...

A picture from the football game: Me, Jenna, and Jenny.

Learning Boldness

Today our center was closed while we had our monthly staff meeting. It is traditional that one of the teachers will lead staff devotions in the morning to start us all off - and today that was me. I found out late yesterday afternoon that I was going to be leading devotions this morning, so I didn't have a lot of time to prepare; I was also told that I could talk about anything I wanted. But what do you share with a bunch of people who are older (and most likely wiser) than you?

In search of inspiration I flipped open my journal. The last entry I had written caught my eye, and as I read it again I realized that it applied to my work environment in many ways. So, in an effort to share another side of myself, here is what I shared with my staff this morning...

From October 23, 2008
'"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit..." Ephesians 2:19-22

It's that last verse that really gets me. Why does God want to live inside of me? I know how messed up I am, so why does he even bother? I keep thinking of Dirty* - it doesn't matter how many times I wash, how often I pray, how often I read scripture, or even how often I serve others - I can still clearly see how broken I am, what a failure I am. Every once in awhile I can remember what Kingslove feels like - but it certainly isn't everyday. I'm not even sure how to ask for more of it. And I don't feel like I deserve to ask for more of it. I get so distracted - everyday, every hour, every moment - and I forget about Christ. I am guessing there are days that go by when I am not even thinking about him (which is terrible!).

And yet I know that he doesn't ask me to be perfect. In Hope Lives,** the author brings up Philippians 2:12-13: 'Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.' She goes on to say, 'This isn't up to me. God is working in me, to change me and give me his love of others. I'm not perfect. I have made and will continue to make mistakes. But God is the one at work in me, as I continue to work out my salvation, and he will bless my desire to become more like Christ.'

It's comforting to be reminded that I don't have to have it all figured out, that this is supposed to be a lifelong process. At least I can be honest with myself that I have a very long way to go.

*The references of Dirty and Kingslove are from a children's story that I grew up on. Dirty is a girl who lives with the pigs because she doesn't want to love people; then she meets the king and realizes that she wants to love and be loved by him more than anything, but since she is so dirty she knows it is impossible. She ends up learning that we can't become clean on our own, for it takes Kingslove to make us clean.
**Hope Lives is a study on poverty I have been participating in with a church here in Mt. Vernon.

...

As I read over this entry last night I realized that this relates to my experiences everyday at work. Everyday one of us teachers (and most often it is me) says that we missed an opportunity with a student, or maybe we didn't explain something well, or maybe we're just having an off day and feel like we took it out on someone else. What I need to realize/remember is that this is okay. I don't have to be perfect; not here or in any other part of my life. Without believing this simple truth I have a hard time letting go of each of my mistakes and failures; but I don't need to hold on to them. Yes, I need to continually be striving to become more like Christ as I seek to understand what it means to love and to serve, but there is room for my mistakes and failures. Christ already paid the price for those failures - I don't need to dwell on them, I need to learn from them and move on.

I can't help but think of something one of my choir teachers always used to say in rehearsal. If you're going to make mistakes, make them loud; if you don't know your part and you only sing quietly, your mistakes will never be caught and then they cannot be fixed. It saves everyone time if you're brave enough to try loudly, even if you fail loudly. This also reminds me of a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "The grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, confronts us with the truth and says, 'You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are to the God who loves you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and others, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner.'"

No, I don't plan on trying to make mistakes with my students, but I do want to be brave enough to put myself out there so I could make mistakes.

Ironically, I feel a little scared just writing all of this down on a blog that can be accessed and criticized by anyone on the internet. And yet, if I keep all of my thoughts to myself I'm not allowing you all to know me and share in my journey. So hopefully these random musings have allowed you to do just that - and maybe they even made sense along the way.

Thanks for reading. Peace.

Testing and the "Final Frontier"

Well, I have been at work for an hour and the sun is just now coming up. Maybe I haven't mentioned it before but three out of five days I work the opening shift in Adult Ed. This really isn't a problem, it is just something new to get used to; surprisingly, 5:30 am isn't as bad as it sounds (although now that winter weather is setting in, it is getting a little harder to crawl out from under my blankets). And lucky for me, yesterday we figured out why our classroom has been so cold - our vents were closed! (I had the same problem in my room...silly me).

Anyway, I know it has been a while since I last posted, so I just wanted to give a few brief updates.

A few weeks ago I asked for prayer for a few of my students in the jail who were going to be taking their WorkKeys tests. Well, overall things went really well. We had class right before the tests and one of our students, who has a real gift for prayer, prayed for the three ladies who would be testing. It was a pretty phenomenal experience just being there - she prayed for Therese and myself and I was just so truly humbled by her prayer. Anyway, we had one student take the full test and she passed in every area which was great because she had just found out she would be going home in a few days. My one student who was retaking the math portion, unfortunately, did not pass again - but she has not given up and is determined to study even harder and try again (which is awesome!). And finally, "Diana." After the test finished she looked ready to cry; she was positive she had failed. When Ragan walked over and handed her her score, which was passing (!), she burst into tears. It was beautiful. She had told me before about how this class was building her self-confidence, but in that moment you could actually see it washing over her whole person. She finally had a reason to believe that she could do something, and do it well, and I just felt blessed to be there watching.

We'll have more testing with the jail ladies next week, so I'm excited to see what happens next. Tomorrow, however, is the GED testing day for Mt. Vernon. There will be five students from our center taking test over the next two days. They will have three tests tomorrow and two on Thursday. Some of these students I have been working with since I started, and some I only helped sign up for the test, but I am really excited (and nervous) to hear how they all do. So if you have some spare prayers, feel free to say one for these students!

Outside of work, things are still going well. I think we're all settling into our community a little more and are having a blast getting to know one another. Last week we had an epic space journey (aka - Jessica climbed into a box and decided it should be a spaceship and a few of her housemates agreed and we spent a few hours making our spaceship/box really really cool and then had three "flights" into space/down our hallway). It was great...and no, there is nothing wrong with a bunch of recent college grads/young adults playing with boxes; we're just practicing the whole "young at heart" thing. :)


Until the next time, this is Starship Captain Jessica signing off...

Weekends and Festivals

If you are anything like me, perhaps you have been wondering what people do in Kentucky for fun. This will be my attempt to share with you what we, at least the volunteers around here, do for fun since I haven't shared too much about all of that.

Weekend #1: My first weekend here we had an all-volunteer meeting up at Natural Bridge State Park, which is a pretty incredible place. A few of us hiked up to the top to see the natural rock bridge structure that the park takes its name from, and boy was it beautiful! The hike was brutal (mainly because of a little thing called humidity) but rewarding in the end because we could see for miles around. I only wish we would have had more time to hike around another ridge so we could have looked back to see all of the bridge. (This is Zaneta, Terri, Helen, and I on top of Natural Bridge)

After our meeting was over, the majority of us headed out to go camping. This was quite the experience. It was fairly overwhelming because I was pretty much meeting everyone at one time, but trying to get a group of thirty to forty people to go camping is quite a task. Especially when only one person has really had any experience in the area. Eventually, however, it all came together and we headed off to the Red River Gorge where we set up camp.

The next day we went for a hike, which was awesome. The country out here is incredible. Our hike was an adventure in itself since our "guide" decided to bushwack our way through until he found the actual trail we were supposed to take. When we eventually found the river, it looked mighty enticing. We all settled for a break on this huge boulder on the edge of the river, which was perfect for jumping in - so we did. At least a few of us did. All in all it was a great first weekend in Kentucky and really helped me feel more comfortable with the other volunteers and my housemates.

Weekend #2: This weekend was a lot more laidback. I went to Berea for the first time, which is home of Berea College and is the arts and crafts capital of Kentucky. There are lots of fun shops to wander through because of the artisan community - everything here is handmade or handcrafted. It's pretty phenomenal. Berea is also home to the annual "Spoonbread Festival." Since most people from the north have no idea what spoonbread is (or so I'm guessing), I'll explain. Spoonbread is basically undercooked cornbread. I was optimistic when I tried it, but it's just not as good as cooked cornbread. Sigh... After hitting up the festival Jenny, Zaneta, and I (the only ones who went) headed out to Jackson County to visit the volunteer house out there and watch some college football. Unfortunately for us, all the teams we were cheering for lost that day...but it was still fun to watch some football and be with new friends - so all in all, a good day.

Weekend #3: This weekend I got inducted into one of our volunteer duties - grocery shopping. Maybe this is weird, but I have always kind of liked grocery shopping and I really enjoy the whole process of finding the best deal while shopping (last year my roommates would laugh at me because I read the grocery ads religiously and could tell when certain "sales" weren't really sales). Shopping for ten or twelve people, however, is much different than shopping for one. It took us almost two hours to get all of our shopping done - and that was with three of us! But it was still fun; although I did feel a bit like a babysitter when Paul started jumping on the cart and riding it down the aisles...

Shopping, however, was not the highlight of this weekend. That spot was reserved for contra dancing. For anyone not familiar with contra dancing, it is a form of line dancing. I think the best description is if you have seen a dance scene from Pride and Prejudice, or some movie in that genre. Picture that dance and speed it up a bit; now throw in some twangy music and replace the dancers with random old men, a few hippies, and a bunch young adults. That is pretty much contra in a nutshell. And if you have never gone, you should. It is a blast! I learned how to contra last spring at folk life and have been slightly obsessed ever since. Oh good times. A bunch of the volunteers came out for the dancing which only added to the fun.

Weekend #4: This weekend was the Bittersweet Festival in Mt. Vernon. The only actual part of the festival that I saw - or sort of saw - was the Bittersweet 5K which Kim, Jenny, and Jenna (three of my housemates) ran, along with Kelly and Allen from McCreary County (the volunteer house south of us). Everyone from CAP ended up placing which was pretty exciting - although it might have had something to do with the fact that their age brackets were pretty small...minor detail. Those of us who did not run in the race showed our support by making a big sign for all of them to cheer them on as they came in the end of the race. Or at least that was the plan. Have I mentioned before how incredibly tiny our town is? Well, apparently there is only one main street that goes through town; so when we tried to get to the end of the race, all of the roads were blocked. We eventually made it - about ten minutes after everyone had finished - and we were at least able to cheer them on as their placements were called and their trophies were presented. (Jenna, Jenny, Allen, Kim, and Kelly holding the sign we made for them)

For anyone who is a country music fan, John Michael Montgomery had a cd release party down the road from us, so a few people went to check that out while the rest of us stayed and played a little frisbee. We ended our evening by heading to Berea and wandering around for a few hours. In our meanderings we discovered the local roller skating rink, a fun playground that has this giant structure that none of us could figure out what to do with until a couple of six year olds ran up and started playing on it (although it still didn't make much sense - playgrounds are getting so high-tech these days!), and we learned how to play a traditional Appalachian game called "Skittles" (basically a game where you spin this top thing and it has to pass through all these chambers and knock down pins).

Weekend #5: We are slowly discovering in our house that we all plan things very differently...which sometimes means a little chaos in our planning. This weekend was one of those weekends. Saturday we all headed to Lexington to meet up with a bunch of volunteers from Jackson. Half of the group went to see some of the horse races (after all, we are in Kentucky) and the other half of us went to play frisbee golf. I know I have played before, but I officially decided this weekend that I am a terrible frisbee golfer. If I play again, I might just use a normal frisbee - it's a little easier to aim with. Luckily the point of playing had more to do with enjoyine one another's company and less to do with keeping score. Afterward we decided to check out another Lexington jewel - a Bible themed putt-putt golf course. We played the "Miracles" and "Old Testament" courses. Both were very amusing. If you can't imagine a little place like this, then picture a normal mini golf course; imagine it being filled with random kitschy things that are somewhat biblically themed. There was the "Parting of the Red Sea" which featured the parting of a stream (held up by plexiglass), or there was "Mt. Sinai," which looked like a volcano structure with the hole on the top of it (I eventually gave up trying to hit it up to the top and just dropped my ball in), or the "Seventh Day of Creation: Rest," which happened to be the section of the course that was designed so everyone could get a hole in one (so you could rest at this hole), but somehow I managed to need two hits. Sigh...

While most of yesterday was a pretty low key day, in the afternoon five of us set off for the "Pumpkin Festival" which was only down the road from us. If you haven't noticed yet, people in Kentucky are a little obsessed with their festivals; there is one for just about everything. The pumpkin festival was pretty small, but we still managed to have a lot of fun. I got to play "Corn Hole" for the first time - another Appalachian/Southern game - which is pretty similar to bean bag toss, except the bags are filled with corn, there is only one hole in the target, and you keep score a little differently. Apparently I have some mad corn hole skills because I got my bag o'corn in the hole quite a few times. We also attempted to learn how to lasso (on my first try I somehow managed to lasso myself; it made for an auspicious beginning and I never really got better...oh well). Despite being a small festival it made for a very enjoyable afternoon and was a great ending to a fun filled weekend. (Terri, Paul, Zaneta, Jenny, and I posing for our "family photo" at the pumpkin festival)

Okay, well hopefully I have convinced y'all that there are lots of fun things to do in Kentucky, especially when there are great people around to join you. Thanks for taking the time to read up on what I'm doing. I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the beautiful fall season!

Blessings.

"The Rock"

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I head with another teacher, Sister Therese, to the local jail (nicknamed “The Rock” because we’re in Rockcastle County). From 12 to 1:30pm we sit in a windowless cell – a room that has only a picnic table bolted to the floor, a stack of lawn chairs, and a few exercise mats. On any given day we may have two to twelve students file in to our makeshift classroom.

“Diana” is one of these students. The first day that I went to the jail I started working with Diana. She is in her early forties and she has two daughters; one is about to turn twenty-two and the other is nine. I don’t know why she is in jail – to be honest, I’m not really sure how important it is to know – but she has about a year left right now until she goes up for parole.

Diana already has her GED, so she is working to earn her Kentucky Employability Certificate. This certification program is a statewide program meant to prove to employers that Kentuckians are employable. The test is composed of three sections: reading for information, applied mathematics, and locating information. By receiving this certificate, recipients have a greater chance of getting hired; in fact, there are quite a few employers who will automatically give you an interview just for having this certificate. A few weeks ago three of the ladies tested for the KEC; two of them passed and the other missed it in one section (she’s trying again this week as well). In celebration of the two who passed we threw them a little party one day after class. Therese talked to the guards and they allowed us to bring in some ice cream sandwiches and cupcakes for all of the ladies, which was quite a treat for them. We’ll have to get a little more creative in our celebrations if (hopefully when) the two testing this week pass their tests!

Next Wednesday Diana will take the math portion of her KEC test. I spent most of Tuesday afternoon working with her on proportions and cross-multiplication. I’ve worked with her on these before, but for some reason, on Tuesday it just clicked for her and suddenly it all made sense. She took some extra practice problems back to her cell that night and when she came back on Wednesday she was raving about how easy all those proportions were now. I’m not sure how many of you can relate to this experience – of having a student finally grasp a concept that they have been struggling with and seeing the light bulb come on – but let me just say that it is pretty exciting. And perhaps the best part is that I know I had very little to do with it; her brain just needed a little time to figure it all out, and it did!

The first day that I worked with Diana she told me a little bit about her learning history. School was always hard for her, especially reading, but she never really understood why. She didn’t find out until high school (I think) that she suffers from a form of dyslexia, although it was much later until she discovered a few tricks to help her cope with it. I don’t understand very much about dyslexia, but the way that she describes it is that when she is looking at a page with a lot of words she has trouble focusing enough to read because they are all jumping around so much. One trick that Diana has discovered is that if she lays a rose colored transparency over a page she is reading it helps calm down the chaos on that page. Using pink notebook paper has also helped her out. We’re not sure how she will react to the computer screen on Wednesday (for her test), but we’ll be sure to keep the rose transparency handy.

Working with Diana and the other ladies at the jail is one of the highlights of each week. Every time I walk in, I am reminded of all of the blessings I have in life: freedom, family, friends, education, hope for the future…unfortunately, these are all things that many of the women I work with lack. I can’t help but think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

If it wasn’t for our cell or the fact that all of the ladies are wearing grays, I could probably forget that I was even in the jail. In all of my visits there I have never once felt that my safety was threatened and the ladies are so friendly sometimes it’s hard to remember that they are criminals. As in Diana’s case, I have yet to ask any of them what they are there for. From what I understand, however, it most likely had something to do with drugs; meth is a large problem in southern and eastern Kentucky.

I’ll close with another story about Diana. When I was working with her last week we finished going through most of the problems and she wanted to save the rest for practicing that night so we were chatting. Diana was asking me about whether or not I go to church in the area, so I told her about the various churches that I have visited since I’ve been here. She encouraged me to check out a church whose pastor comes in every Monday night and ministers to the women. She proceeded to tell me about how it through this pastor’s ministry that she has felt a call to turn her life around and to live for Christ. She even wants to serve in a prison ministry of some sort.

Working with the various populations that I do, I have been warned several times about being “taken in” by my students. I think everyone is a little worried that I’m too naïve or something – and I honestly appreciate their warnings because I know that I am probably naïve about many things. So I know that a lot may happen in the next year and that maybe Diana doesn’t really mean what she said about turning her life around – I completely understand this is a possibility – but I guess when it comes to things like this, I simply choose to hope. To hope that she really means it and that she understands how hard it may be; to hope that she really does know Christ and wants to use her life to glorify him.

If you ever think of them, please pray for the women in the Rock. Especially as winter is coming on and germs and viruses come on strong – if one of them gets sick, they pretty much all take a turn dealing with it – and they don’t always get medicine. Please pray for the two students who will be testing on Wednesday for their KEC’s. And please pray for all of their families – most of the women have children.

The peace of the Lord be with you all.