steal your heart away

This has been a pretty good week. On Wednesday, the kids didn't have school, so we decided to take 11 of them on a trip to Philly for the afternoon. We were planning on playing "red light, green light" on the art museum steps, or going into the Comcast building to let them see the massive screen thing in there. But it was a MISERABLE day, so we thought that going bowling might be better. I was happy we were going bowling, since I haven't been in a long time, and it would be fun to brush up on my skills from when I was in the Nickelodeon league with David (ha!). But after we picked up all of the kids, half wanted to go bowling, and half skating, so we took a vote. I don't know who really won, but we ended up in Millennium Skate World for the second Wednesday in a row. Although I had my heart set on bowling, and I had a skirt on which i thought might make skating difficult, it was a really fun afternoon. More kids seemed to get into it then the kids we took last week. And a lot of the kids who had never been skating before persevered the whole time. I have twin boys in my class who went, and every time i turned around, one of them would be pushing forward slowly, flailing limbs, and if he didn't recover well enough, would end out sprawled on the ground. But neither gave up...they would get right back up and try again. I think about all the times I used to go skating as a kid and realize that where I take these memories for granted, most of these kids wouldn't be able to go skating if it weren't for Urban. It still amazes me every day how many opportunities Urban provides for these kids that they otherwise wouldn't have.

Last night we had our weekly intern class. This week was on conflict resolution. Thankfully, by God's grace, there haven't been any major conflicts in either of the intern houses in the 2 months that we've been living here (that I know of). But Dana, the StreetLeader director, came and gave us really good pointers in how to manage conflicts with people, especially in our houses. I'm not really one who is good at resolving conflicts. I guess maybe I thought I was, but I' definitely more prone to be passive-aggressive towards a person over telling them what they are doing that upsets me. This is something I've realized I really need to work on this year. My stubbornness and passive-aggression has caused too many problems (and conflicts of their own) in living situations in the past, and so hopefully I will be able to work on being open with people, with misinterpretations and miscommunication, so that we all can continue to live together and love each other as brothers and sisters. I really value the housemates God has blessed me with this year and pray that we will all strive to live in a loving an open community with each other.

And now for some pictures!