Eenie Meenie Miney Mo, Should I Stay or Should I Go, and other answered questions.

How I spent my time yesterday night depended on what I decided to follow--the sneaking suspicion I had for what God wanted of me or my own personal crusade for acceptance. The day camp that I work at is attached to a church, and every summer this week-long event called NBT takes place. NBT stands for Neighborhood Bible Time, and right at the beginning of the summer, hordes of exorbitantly cheerful male evangelists descend upon the place to start preparing. There are activities and services for kids from every age group, from pre-school through high school. Part of the deal I struck with my mother that allows me to go to a different church on Sundays (for the sake of my spiritual growth) mandates that I have to attend at least one service regularly, and I picked Wednesdays. This Wednesday was right in the middle of NBT. I went, but for adults there isn't much to do other than help out. My old Bible Quizzing coach is the NBT coordinator, and he said it'd be great if I could just chill with the teens and help out with the girls. You'd honestly have to drop by to understand why they'd be needing help. Bethel is a predominantly white, extraordinarily straitlaced, relatively quiet place, and the bus ministry they run brings in predominantly black, most likely ghetto, pretty freaking loud group. During NBT, the numbers swell and, for the teens, being white means you're now in the racial minority. Pastor Koontz didn't say as much, but he probably thought it'd be easier for me (black, yo) to deal with the rowdier girls than someone else. There are a few reasons why this isn't necessarily true, but I digress. The point is, I helped out. I didn't play any of the games, but I struck up conversations with girls that refused to play and opted to stand on the fringes of the action. During the service portion, I was assigned the role of counselor. Bethel's really big on keeping apples with apples, as in girls with girls, etc. If any girls came forward with questions, or if any girls wanted to talk about how be saved, I was there for that. Wednesday night, I didn't do a single thing. I went out of the room with a couple of other people, but there was only one girl and someone else took her aside. Basically, I was off work early. My mom and my siblings were done, too, so we left not too long after that. I saw Pastor Koontz as we were leaving, and told him I was debating about whether or not I should come back on Thursday. At Charlene's church, the place I've been going almost every Sunday that I've been home, there's a college-age Bible study type gathering every Thursday, and I have yet to attend one. All week I had been planning on going that Thursday, since it was close enough to walk and I had walked the route before anyway. After Wednesday, though, I felt torn. Should I go to AFC (the church) or should I stay to help out with NBT? Pastor Koontz just told me to pray about it, and that neither option was a bad one. I went to sleep feeling pretty certain that God wanted me at NBT, but after I woke up in the morning I started to convince myself that it would be okay if I went to AFC. My rationalizations included It would be good to get to know people better and It's a Bible study thing, so I'd be learning about God anyway. Whatever I said to try to convince myself, I couldn't help feeling that I was angling for AFC for the sake of people. My constant drive to win over everybody was at work, and no matter how I tried to justify going I couldn't shake the notion that I was up to no good. This pretty much lasted all day. I knew going to NBT would be the right choice, but I didn't want to give up the idea of befriending more people at AFC. As silly as it sounds, I feel like I need to invest double-time into AFC people if I'm going to make any friends, for various reasons. To me, it's a legitimate concern. I was still agonizing over it after my kids woke up from nap time, and I tale of woe-d my dilemma to Miss Lupi. I haven't mentioned this before, but that woman is a prayer warrior like no one you have ever seen. It is her answer to everything, from bug bites and lost keys to impending divorces and deaths in the family. She listened to my whining for a grand total of three seconds before saying, "Pray about it, lady. Let's pray now." After we prayed, "Now just wait. God will tell you." And every time I thought about NBT, I was pretty sure God was telling me. So, with some reluctance, I'll admit, I stayed after work to help out with NBT again. I felt more useless on Thursday than I did on Wednesday. There weren't too many girls talking or willing to talk to me on the sidelines of the games, and I ended up reading inside of the building, in the air conditioning and away from the mosquitoes that were making meals out of my legs. When the teens came back into the building for the service, I sat down in a chair by some girls who seemed likely to talk. This is the deal--if you sit next to talkers and you aren't talking, they notice. They notice even more if you're talking notes, and they care what you're doing if you offer to share your Bible, etc. A glance or two when the girls started getting louder was all it took. Those NBT evangelists are wasting time with some of their more heavy-handed approaches. Again, I'm getting off track. The point was, I sat in the service and listened and took notes. Great. Then, when the service ended, the evangelist asked if there was anyone in the room who wanted to know how they could be sure they were going to heaven. One guy very vocally made it known that he was curious. I didn't see his face, but I liked him. The cool thing about the bus kids is that they're most straight shooters. They say exactly what they think. After he said he wanted to know, a bunch of other kids felt comfortable enough to raise their hands and head to the back of the room. That was my cue, so I got up and followed, my Bible in tow. Turned out that this time there were enough girls for me to counsel. There was, in fact, a surplus! I headed to a quieter location with two girls. Qarie and Dymond were their names. Dymond had been one of the talkers I hadn't sat next to, and Qarie was a quieter, smaller girl I hadn't even noticed until then. They both had a lot of questions to ask me, and we spent a long time just sort of going over things. What sin was and how God felt about sin, how they thought it was possible to get to heaven, what they thought being a Christian meant. I was really careful while I was talking to them, because something I hate is when I feel like people are being bullied or coerced into Christianity. It's an important decision that everyone needs to make, yes, but that everyone needs to make for themselves. If they don't make the choice themselves, it's meaningless.I'll go ahead and skip to the end of the conversation (if you want painstaking detail you can email me or something) and let you know the AWESOME news. Both Qarie and Dymond accepted Christ. It was my first time ever leading anyone to that point, and I had to pretend to be all cool while I was really crying inside (and maybe tearing a little outside). I got their emails and, in Qarie's case, Facebook so that I could contact them later to see how they have been doing. I've actually got their addresses now so that I can drop by their homes to see how they've been doing. I felt so blessed by the two of them, but the overwhelming feeling I had was that God wanted me to be there. I'm sure that Qarie and Dymond would have gotten saved regardless of my involvement, but I felt blessed on another level knowing that God had used me. I was all inwardly emotional. I told Pastor Koontz and his wife, and they couldn't have been more overjoyed for Qarie/Dymond or for me. God bless 'em, haha. In the end, I wound up feeling that I had actually walked in God's will for my life. It was, I'll tell you, quite incredible.