When I think of how I would describe our last few weeks (heck, months even), I think of a rollercoaster…weeks are filled with high highs and low lows. I know this is true for most people and their lives, but it has felt more intense than normal these last few weeks (months).
Let me start with the low lows – Friends struggling with some pretty heavy things that I am entering into with them, having lots of hard conflict resolution conversations that are no fun but so needed, losing monthly partners with ministry partner development in our ministry, hard character things with kids that we are dealing with, and then most recently, more drama with St. John’s administration.
Lows – This past week, I went on campus with one of our staff ladies. As I was traveling to campus, I talked with our advisor who is actually a close friend of mine, and she warned me to be careful on campus that day because at the end of the previous week, some people were arrested for coming on campus and trying to sex traffic students under the ruse of having a Bible study. An email had been sent to students and students were told to be on high alert against anything weird. We met with a senior soccer girl for discipleship, we met to do a little coaching/training for her, and we had a great spiritual conversation with a boy and a girl. Then, I left campus to come home and she stayed to help a track girl prepare Bible study for the following evening’s AIA meeting. While they were meeting, campus security approached her and asked her to come to public safety office because someone had called in that we were looking suspicious. They essentially said that she hadn’t been vetted through campus ministry and she was put on the “No Trespassing List” and would have to leave campus and if they caught her on campus with her name on the list, she would be arrested. So….she went off campus to meet with the student.
After LOTS of convos there and since then, it will be a process to get her name taken off the list and she will likely not make it back on campus this semester. It is way complicated, there are lots of miscommunication, and though we somewhat have approval to be there, it hasn’t all been ironed out. Because of that, Ed is also being really cautious to only be on campus meeting with our students and has pulled back a ton from St. Johns. The great news in all of this is that AIA is getting approval to be an official organization under the Athletic Department, that there is someone in the athletic department who was involved with AIA at Rudgers and wants to help out, and that when AIA is approved, Ed and Erin (and possibly me as well) will have full access on campus through AIA, even if not through Cru. But again, highs and lows, even with her getting kicked off campus and AIA getting pushed through.
Highs – We got to experience a TV show first hand this week! Last Monday, we started seeing signs go up for a TV show they were shooting on our block. Not a biggie, we see that all the time around here. Then, on Tuesday, they approached our house and asked us to move our car back in the driveway so its not visible since the show is based in the 1940s. They handed us a flyer saying what the show was and what it was about. Then, on Wednesday, they ask us if they can put a light in our front window and put a period car in our driveway, for a price of course (meaning they paid us for it). We said yes. Then, on Thursday, they started fixing up the inside and outside of the house on our corner that they were going to use in the show, including putting a Christmas tree inside, planting plants outside, and changing everything including the curtains.
Then, on Friday, they asked if they could use our bathroom all day for the crew to use the bathroom while setting up. Sure, we said! Who minds awkward when you are getting paid for it? Then, that night, they asked to rent our living room for the cast and crew to sit in between takes. They ended up using a bunch of other houses as well on our block so they only used ours for equipment and a person to do some downloading and editing of the film, but it was still cool for Ed to talk to them and hear more about what the process. They are shooting 100 days and this was only day 3, and because they hadn’t worked out all the kinks and were behind schedule, they didn’t finish shooting until 2 that morning. Poor Ed stayed up with them…though the excitement made it hard to sleep. Check out these fun pics of the cars, how bright our street was, the shoot at the house, and them taking away some of the cars the next day.
Early Friday morning set-up.
Cars arriving.
Check out how they changed the stop signs to make it look more antique. So fun! Anyways, it was neat to see the process and it amazes me every time to see how much work goes into just one scene. Most people think TV and movie is so glamorous, but they were in the pouring rain, working insane hours, and so much work goes into it for just a little output. Whew!!