I can best describe my experiences this summer as a roller coaster ride. There were times that I wanted to scream, cry and leave the situation, but I was firmly restrained and protected. Some times I felt like I was being shaken up or thrown for a loop, whereas at other times I willingly smiled for the camera. But, the funny thing was, at the end I wanted to do it over and over again and tell all my friends about the incredible ride I just had. This summer has truly been like one of those rides where you just have to step back and say, “Whew, wow, that was a good ride”.

My dad often says on road trips, “Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield”. I was always slightly confused by this saying, because I was never sure which was really better. But, since the bug faces a harsh death, I guess the windshield unanimously wins. But anyway, lately I have felt like that windshield, getting pummeled with sticky bugs or obstacles that sporadically smear across the surface. Let me explain.

 I am so amazed by CHAT, Church Hill and all the people who are working to make the first two things in this list, better. Sometimes it is just overwhelming to think that a nuclear family would be willing to take in teenagers and allow them to live with the family. This is just so mindboggling to me, because I can’t remember a time where anybody stayed with my family for more than a week, other than my grandmother. Letting someone into your home for long periods of time requires getting to know their habits, what they like to eat, what time they come home at night, if they are a morning person or a night person, etc. It requires stretching your mindset to including that new person’s needs and desires. This whole process seems so strangely foreign, yet beautiful to me.

Today, CHAT went to Virginia Beach. I was talking with one of the other volunteers about how expanse the ocean is and how we barely see 1% of it when we are at the beach. We only really experience the break of the waves as they hit the coast. I was thinking about how that related to my time at Church Hill, I am only here for 10 weeks and then I am going home. So, I have been given the opportunity to observe how CHAT funtions, although it is just a small portion of a greater entity. Moreover, in my personal life, 10 weeks equates to about one-fifth of the 20th year of life. Once again, it is just a fraction of a much longer time span. However, the sweet part is that God knows about every minute detail of CHAT and he knows about every second of my life, so He has put me in this exact place at this time for a reason.

    From the time that I was four, until I left for college, I have lived in the suburbs. I do not say that boastfully, but rather as a starting block from which I would like to leap. For many years, I only knew of one other black family in my neighborhood, so I was inwardly shocked and excited to come to Church Hill and see black and white people be neighbors, often. I think I was so disillusioned because my grandmother lived in Church Hill about sixty years ago, so she told me that they were about 75,000 black people here. She said she used to sit on her front porch and watch people get robbed. Nonetheless, I was still ecstatic about living in Church Hill, I was just preparing for the worst. What I found were people from many different cultures, who seemed to be living peaceably beside one another.