It's a Small World
So, I was back in Indiana this past weekend (which I will post about later...), and I had the chance to hang out with a group of friends on Friday night. One of the friends was the one and only, Brent Boles. While we were hanging out, he mentioned that he has a friend who used to live in Indianapolis, but has moved to NYC. She went to Common Ground when she was in Indy, so he thought he might be able to give me some suggestions on churches to try out there that were similar. So, I kind of forgot about that whole conversation, but luckily Brent didn't. He sent me her facebook profile this morning. I thought to myself, what do ya have to lose??? Might as well shoot her an email and see if she knows of any good churches. So, I sent her one, and this is the response I got.
"Hi Kelly! We have tons in common already and I'm glad you got in touch. NYC is daunting especially coming from Indy. I go to Trinity Grace Church, which has four services and one is in Park Slope. It's similar in feel and size to Common Ground, and full of social-justice minded people. I am also teaching/living in Harlem next year. Where will you be? What grade? I start my job tomorrow at my charter school and will be on a retreat for the next week but we should connect sometime before the school year starts. Here is my number, give me a call when you have time. God bless your transition. Breathe and know He is here with you!
*Beth"
So, what is so funny about this story you ask?? Well, I happen to be teaching at a charter school in Harlem next year, that starts tomorrow with a retreat. We are teaching at the same school! How ironic is that? I looked up and contacted 1 person I had a connection to in this entire city, and we are going to work together. I am still blown away by this. The coolest part is that she said "Breathe and know He is here with you," and I really feel like this is proof.
Dumpster Diving
This story is a little less cool, and a little more humorous. So, about a week ago I went on a mad cleaning spree through our apartment, trying to combine all of my files with Eric's, my junk drawer with Eric's junk drawer, etc. I felt very good about my accomplishments for the day, until about 11:45pm. When I realized, I couldn't find the baggie of gift cards we got from the wedding, that totaled about $500 (I only tell this, because it helps you realize the urgency of this story). I looked and looked everywhere until I realize the only place it could be is in the trash can...I had thrown out tons of stuff.
So, I went to the trash can, and remembered that I had changed the trash about 2 hours previous, and had taken the bag of trash and put it down the trash shoot of our 45 floor apartment building.
Pretty big huh???
Hmmmm, I thought to myself. Eric is going to be PRETTY frustrated about this....what should I do?? Well, I decided I should go on a mission. I confessed my mishap to Eric, changed out of my pajamas into regular clothes, and went on a search for the end of the endless trash shoot. Now, I thought that this would be pretty tricky, since I know 45 floors worth of people can produce a lot of garbage. This is what I found.
Yep, that's right....I found a huge locked trash room. I went to the front desk to explain my situation. Keep in mind, its almost midnight, so there is no one with any authority working....just the night time desk guy. However, someone decided to send me an angel that evening. His name was Jerry. Jerry is a 6ft 5in bald guy that happens to know the front desk worker. He was there visiting, and decided that this sounded like a fun mission. I think it is important for you to know that Jerry is about 40 years old, has lived in Brooklyn all his life, and has one of the thickest accents I have heard out here. I thought, this is JUST the kind of guy I need for a mission like this! So, Jerry and I went back to the locked trash room.
Jerry, being the resourceful man that he is, quickly broke into the trash room using a sheet of metal that was laying around. My hopes soared when I saw the door open, but it quickly dropped when I realized what was inside.
Though I was a bit discouraged, Jerry did not seem to be. He tossed me a pair of dirty work gloves and said, "I'd get diggin if I were you!" (don't forget the strong accent...).
So, we started to take off the black trash bag from the green trash compactor that was attached to the endless tunnel. It didn't take long for us to realize that this was all mush, because it had already been smashed.
Plan B was to open the green door on the front, and see if we had any luck with that. Luckily, the trash wasn't smashed yet up there, but there sure were a lot of white trash bags, that looked exactly the same. Well, we started pulling them out, one at a time with a rake. I mean, we were reaching pretty far up that silver tunnel, because we weren't sure how far up my bag was, since I had only threw it away a couple of hours previously. After extracting about 15 white trash bags from this contraption, I saw a ray of light.....a Crate and Barrel magazine that I knew I had thrown away, showing through the white plastic way up high....good ole Jerry got really excited at this point. He climbed up through the little green door to fetch my bag, saying "Man....you better not tell no one I did this....diggin in trash around here ain't considered a good thing..."
But, sure enough my angel Jerry got the bag, and I fished through it. There it was....my baggie of gift cards. I returned upstairs at about 1:00am, very excited to show my accomplishments to my husband. He was in disbelief:). I will forever be grateful to Jerry for his help, and sorry to the Avalon workers for making a mess in there trash room. Not only did Jerry leave me with my baggie of gift cards, but he left me with the skill of breaking through a lock with a sheet of metal.....I just used the skill to go take these pictures of the trashroom. Thanks Jer!
Too long???? Sorry!
