$15,000 will get you alot of Pizza Parties

Another busy couple of days...The Presbytery meeting was on Thursday and luckily no churches were able to leave. It was a very interesting process for me to observe considering I'm about to enter the craziness. Firstly, it was super old-school, lots of bowties and sweater vests. Secondly, there was strict adhesion to Robert's Rules of Order via a moderator, something I am actually proud of because I feel that it allows room for all opinions. At the heart of the meeting though was the issue of some churches wanting to leave because the issue of homosexual ordination hadn't been settled to their liking. This is where things got interesting. Basically the churches in question were condemning the overall church for not taking a firmer, more conservative stand on the issue saying they were being unconstitutional. However, they seemed to have no problem going against the constitution when it came to property issues. Presbyterian rule says the Presbytery owns the building and the land, not the pastor or congregation. Therefore if they don't want to belong to PCUSA anymore, they can't try to take the property with them. This particular group was conveniently fighting this rule, saying it gave the higher governing bodies more power. In the end, it was decided that the resolution attempting to be passed wasn't specific enough and that committee would have to rewrite it before the next meeting in February, which might be enough time to have things cool down a bit.

Its very sad to me to hear of churches wanting to pull out. I know that I have very specific feelings on the issue and that many others are feeling the complete opposite way. However I feel like we should follow a model presented at the meeting by the Moderator of General Assembly (she's sort of a big deal) who came to hear all the various concerns. She told a story about a couple going through marriage counseling who were told to hold hands every time they fought and that that's what saved the relationship. Hopefully we in the Presbyterian church can hold hands while we're going through this rough patch.

The rest of Thursday was great because we had two whole kids at the after-school program, and they were all about it! There was some questions like, "Um...are we the only ones?" And so we encouraged them to bring friends. Basically, we'll do anything to keep these two kids coming. We've promised them pizza and field trips and parties, basically anything they want.

While I think the girls are excited and want to tell their friends, I also recognize that Thursday to Tuesday is a long time and the process of them telling their friends and the friends telling parents might get a little tricky. Therefore, I spent Friday preparing flyers to get passed out to the 6, yes 6 elementary schools of Gulfport. The first step in this was getting the flyers approved by principals. Well, you would have thought I was passing out the communist manifesto to the kids the way the flyer got scrutinized (although, it wouldn't be terrible for them to read some Marx). A secretary at one school told me she would pass it on to the principal but it might not be approved because they already had an after-school program there so it would be a conflict of interest. Seriously? Because from what I see and have heard of these programs its mostly, I hope no one gets hurt from now until when the parents come to get the kids. There's not really enrichment being offered.

Thursday night was Karaoke at the Gay bar in Biloxi. That's right the Gay bar in Biloxi. I never thought I would have occassion for that combination of words. It was super fun though. We were invited by another volunteer group called Hands-On who go every week apparently.

Last night and today were spent with board games, football and friends. A great combination. I'll give a shout out here to the New Orleans girls who I know are internet stalkers.

Then...I went to an audition. I know, WHAT?? Well I found the real Gulfport Theatre, not the one in Florida, and auditioned today for Guys and Dolls (to be put on the first and second weekends in February- mark your calendars). For those of you who have seen Waiting for Guffman, it was alot like that. While definitely not the most professional bunch, they seemed fun nonetheless and fairly easy going. I think as long as they do a chorus I should at least get into that. I would love to be Adelaide, but I'm afraid my age might be against me since she's supposed to be in her 30s. This is made more awkward by the fact that the youngest man there was probably 40. In fact I had to do a line reading with a 65 year old man basically accusing him of trying to seduce me. VERY uncomfortable, but I think I pulled it off.

More to come. Miss you guys!