Adventures in Apartment Living part 2, by Sarah

Sundays are generally a quite day filled with much sitting around contemplating why the specks on the wall look like the face of Benjamin Franklin. And so this Sunday was no different when all of a sudden my tranquility was disturbed by the loud rumbling of firemen racing up to the second and third floor of our apartment complex.

Benjamin and I listen to muffled bangs and shuffling of many feet above and I finally pick up enough courage to poke my head out of our apartment hoping that I wouldn't be caught in the middle of some major disaster.

I find my neighbor in the hallway with our upstairs neighbor looking utterly bewildered and in disbelief.

"uh...is everything OK?" I ask hesitatingly.

"No!" responded our next door neighbor, "The "flipping" idiot on the third floor just pulled the hot water pipe out of his bathtub and all that water not only went through his (the upstairs neighbor's) apartment but into mine as well! And they just carted this guy off for possession of firearms and drugs! No wonder he was so giddy about the whole thing!"

A few hours later after helping my neighbor clean up, she is still waiting for the water sucker up people to get the water out of her apartment and I am back to staring at Benjamin thankful that his speckled image was not damaged by a firearm wielding, drug overloaded man who thought he'd teach the world a lesson by pulling out a pipe.

Greek Conference

So… I (matt) just got back from InterVarsity’s Greek Conference. I bet you didn’t know that InterVarsity even had a Greek ministry! For someone who doesn’t associate with Fraternity and Sorority types I can see where all the stereotypes arrive: the outgoing loud party animals sure did live up to their potential but I was also struck by another fact; these are tomorrows leaders. I learned that Greeks are the most driven partiers I know, and these 600 were striving to go somewhere for God. There was more to the weekend than the Tacky Dance Party on Saturday night; there were seminars about sex and intimacy, there were students struggling over issues of oppression and hate in the world, there were Greeks learning how to share their faith with others like them, there were amazing talks by pastor Alec Gee about being desperate for God, and there was a track where students that were unsure who Jesus is and who had tough questions were met where 85 people became Christians!

I was lucky to interact with students and staff as I helped 2100 tech and photograph the event. You can see some of the photos I took as a slideshow at http://www.intervarsity.org/greek/conference/indy/ as well as links to talks and student quotes.

I am not about to go and join Alpha Gamma Omega but I guess my perception of the Fraternity and Sorority life is a little bit different now.

Reading list

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend the book "Dear Church: letters from a disillusioned twenty something." It's an interesting commentary on the church today from the eyes of someone who has been hurt by the church and what she has chosen to do with that disillusionment. It's cool cause I think no matter if you are a twenty something or some other age, my guess is that most of us have encountered disillusionment with the church at some point or another. I think it's an unavoidable reaction to belonging to a community made up of humans. Anyways, it a good, quick, easy, challenging read.

Car adventures

When we moved out to Wisconsin, Matt and I decided it would be in our best interests to sell one of our cars and just drive one out. By the luck of the draw, my wonderful silver Mazda Protégé lost out to the mean and tough and majorly altered Jeep Cherokee. Reason's being that "we needed a good snow car" (-unnamed source).

Ever since moving, we've been having off and on trouble with our mean and tough Jeep Cherokee. It seems it can't handle the cold. Today however was by far the best. After work I decide to run an errand to JoAnn Fabric store. It's a good place to go when Matt is away at a conference. Anyways, I come out to the car and low and behold it will not start! I hear clicking and but no go. I sit in the car for about 2 minutes trying to decide what to do. Do I leave the car and walk the three blocks home? Do I call AAA and see if they can come out and help? Or do I sit in the car contemplating such life altering decisions while the temperature continues to drop to a comfortable 10 degrees? I decided to call AAA. To my surprise, low and behold my membership had expired yesterday! (ah, the joys of forgetting to update your address and slow mail forwarding). So 30 minutes later after updating all my records and paying membership fees, the desperate plea for help finally goes out from AAA to some tough Wisconsin man just waiting to go out into the cold to rescue poor stranded ladies like myself.

Deciding I've had enough of the 10-degree weather, I head back into JoAnn's to try and thaw my now frozen toes off. I head over to the only window where you can see the Jeep to watch for the tow truck. Pushing aside long strands of spring florals I gazed out into the frozen wasteland of a parking lot.

A half an hour later the tow truck arrives and the big burly mechanic pronounces that the starter is dead! But will that stop a Wisconsin man? Nope, he raises our big burly Jeep onto his even more monstrous truck and tilts the bed up on a sharp angle. The with a gleam in his eyes he says, "jump into the car little lady, put your foot on the break and push the clutch in as hard as you can, and then when I yell go, let your foot off the break and two seconds after hitting the pavement let go of the clutch!"

"What the....." I respond!

"Trust me! It's fun" He responds.

So I get my wimpy shivering California butt into the Jeep and close my eyes as I let go of the break. Thud goes the car, off goes my foot off the clutch and up roars the engine into life! Who would have thought!

So my toes are still thawing out and I'm starting to see some humor in all this...and boy I can' t wait till Matt calls home tonight to tell him that I broke the jeep!