Right hand side of the road

Well I got my jeep it’s a bright blue Jeep Cherokee, Its pretty old style but cool and my favorite colour! Dave the person in charge of the churches etc cars was very apologetic that it wasn’t better said there was a couple of missionaries over from Africa in the other ones, but really who would turn down a jeep with free petrol for 6 weeks in American sure not me I'm happy as larry- whoever he is! Was out for a wee lesson today Dave said I did well so I’m allowed out on my own, Cheryl the woman I’m staying with is going to take me out later to get familiar with how to get to the church, the mall and the cinema etc. Also when I went to pick up the keys the guy Dave hands me a wrapped present and says they are so happy to have me here and that he, randy and bob would like to take me to lunch sometime- I ask who are randy and bob when they are at home?! So that could be pretty random! Here is some of the people I’m working with:

The guy is Ryan the senior High youth pastor, left of him is Cheryl the woman I’m staying with, the girl in the middle is Kelly she picked me up from the airport and served me Moose! And the girl on the right is Jen I stayed at her house on my first night because Cheryl was out of the state. There’s also Kurt and Brendon but I couldn’t find a picture of them. I meet with Ryan today to define what I’m doing for the next 6 weeks. So far I know I’m working with both middle school and senior high which is pretty much like junior and senior youth, I’m also helping to organize a big once a month event for the High School and helping organize a Super bowl party don’t know much about American Football so should be interesting! He's also given me the opportunity to meet with some of the churches pastors to ask them about certain aspects of ministry [The call, context, boundaries and devotional life etc] which is cool Stuart and Jill Briscoe ill hopefully be able to meet some of you may have heard of them they've a load of books out and are from England. He also wants me to do an evaluation paper looking at the aspects of the American church that encourage/concern me, how did I see God at work in the lives of the students here, and what are my thoughts on the effectiveness of the ministry to students and give some suggestions and ideas to help their ministry. Now this scares the crap out of me as this is a mega big church with 200 paid staff this includes 23 pastors, a congregation of 9,000 they have a graphics, human resources, cafe, a full on Christian book shop, a library, finance, technical, missions [Their mission budget is 2 MILLION DOLLARS!!] and maintenance departments and that’s only a small handful of what does on here and I've to write about it all the good and the bad- Oh crap! Yeah and tonight I’m helping with the middle school programme they have approx 500 kids and tomorrow night with the senior high there will be 800 kids- The size of this place is mind blowing. Please pray for my safety on the road and keep in touch.