I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but this year I made a conscious decision to make several changes in my life, and I figured that January was as good of a time to start as any. And because Tai blood runs through my veins, I stick to the resolutions that I make. One of them was to become more involved in a church here.
It took me some time to pick the church that I wanted to attend, but I finally settled on Faith Missionary Church. I really wanted to be able to meet people my age who were into other things besides drinking, partying, and objectifying the opposite sex, and one of the things that drew me to FMC was the 20somethings Bible fellowship on Sunday mornings (prior to the worship service). It has been forever since I attended a Bible study or Sunday school, so I was really excited about plugging right in. And these are all young professionals, so it's really neat to see what everyone else does.
The other thing is that I really wanted to jump into a children's ministry. It just so happened that they needed extra helpers, so I signed right up with the children's ministry director. Tonight was my first night - I will be helping out with the 1st and 2nd grade girls for the next few weeks, and then I will be switching over to the 2- and 3-year-olds. Here are some notable quotes from this evening during the craft activity (painting suncatchers):
"I'm good at painting this stuff because my daddy's an artist."
"I learned not to get any paint on my hands because I learned art from a real expert."
"Why didn't you tell us not to wear our nice shirts before we got here?" (to which I responded, "because we had no idea we were dealing with paint!")
"This is a new shirt. The shirt I wore yesterday was new too, and I got ketchup on it."
"My favorite sandwich is cheese and ketchup." (ewwwwww!!)
It was really a lot of fun - such a change from my life at work. I admit that I have multiple personalities (that's a topic for another blog), and most of you have never seen this side of me. Honestly, being around kids is incredibly fulfilling for me. Even small things like playing a game of duck-duck-goose or tag brings me immense joy. Maybe A-dawg was right when he jokingly suggested that I become a kindergarten teacher.
Don't get me wrong - I am happy with my engineering education, and I am glad I became an engineer. My career happens to be a very busy one, but I know that someday I will be a wife and mother. If I do end up quitting my job once I have kids, I know that I will want to become involved in their school and extracurricular activites. But for right now, it is satisfying to know that I can contribute to kids' lives in this way - through my church. Maybe that's why God has kept me single all this time - to pursue my career dreams yet still contribute to children's lives, all before I officially "settle down" and make the dreams of my children my own!
The added benefit of serving is that I can truthfully say my life is not ALL about work. Sure, my Blackberry is still attached to my hip (I get those Blackberry "phantom rings" constantly - even when I'm not wearing my Blackberry!), and I still answer e-mails at all times of the night, but I finally figured out that I cannot going on living my job 24-7. In 2007, I made NO new friends here. Not a single one. All I had were a bunch of work acquaintances from across the state. (And you really can't build good relationships with folks that you only see about once a month.) Much of the loneliness I felt was the same that I experienced during my very first co-op in Philly; the only difference was the city: I hated Philly but I love Indy! The truth is, although I loved living here, I did end up talking to myself A LOT.
What a contrast to 2008. It has only been two weeks into this new year, and I've already met at least 20 people my own age! It's been a fantastic start to the year, and I've never been happier. I fully intend to keep this up!
To end on an entertaining note, here's a picture of me when I was the girls' age:
FYI: that was my very first fro. :-D And the Wonder Woman shirt was my favorite. (I guess this explains a lot about me!)
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