It’s been just over two weeks since we got married and one week since we moved to Dayton. We wanted to give you just a little taste of what our new community here looks like. We really interact with three different groups of people so far – our BCN staff, the BCN college and young professionals, and the Bridge Cafe students. Since Wright State doesn’t start until September 8 (they’re on quarters, not semesters), we’ve not gotten to interact much with Bridge students. And you’ll be hearing more about the staff later as well. This post is dedicated to our week spent with the CYP of BCN.
We had previously met Clarissa, who has been coordinating a lot of the collegiate/young adult activities for the past couple of years. She left for Honduras the day we arrived in town, so she wasn’t in town this week. Her roommate Elizabeth came up to us at church on our first full day in town, however, and invited us over to their place to hang out with and meet everyone (we would find out later that this is WAY outside her comfort zone, so in retrospect we’re even more grateful). We took a trip to IKEA (more on that later) and spent the afternoon putting together furniture, so we were pretty wiped. We almost just stayed home, but we decided to at least put in an appearance, to be social.
We got to the party about an hour late, and walked into a game of Cranium. We quickly joined teams and right away JR. had to do a Christopher Walken impersonation. After Cranium, we played a game called ‘Four Men on a Couch’, which involves everyone having fake names, so we probably didn’t learn names as quickly as we could have.
Wednesday was LOVE Beavercreek (more on that coming soon), and after that we got some Cold Stone and went to Kendra’s house to hang out for a while.
We’d also found out on Sunday night that several of the guys are big fans of Steve Jackson Games, so we invited them over on Thursday for a rousing game of Ninja Burger (Todd also brought over Munchkin Bites, and though we didn’t get to play, it looks awesome!). Elizabeth and Kendra played with us as well, so we have high hopes for a Munchkin tournament in the not-too-distant future.
Friday was Bible Study night, so we went again to Clarissa and Elizabeth’s house. Kendra led the last lesson in a series on Abraham, and we discussed Genesis 22 – the sacrifice of Isaac. JR. found himself reflecting on Abraham as a sympathetic figure – he had been called to leave his homeland and follow God into an unknown country (though so far we think Ohio has been much more welcoming than Canaan). The lesson was all about vision and following God no matter what, and we were encouraged by the level of excitement evident in the group because we had come to BCN. They all are thrilled to have a staff person, and we see a lot of potential for the group.
Saturday was our journey to the Cincinnati Zoo; I got to drive the church van (w00t!), and we all loaded up at 10:00 am and headed out. Here is a visual recounting of our day:
We began the day with a group picture. From the left: Elizabeth, Kendra, Manda, Joel, Benjamin, Peter, JR. and Robert. The only one missing is Dani, who came later.
We found this peacock wandering the walkways of the zoo. He had twice the autonomy the giraffes and tigers do!
These flamingos made JR. nostalgic for his former neighbor in Columbia.
For all you SBU alumnae out there, here is a real, live BEARCAT. We always thought they were made up.
Here are the lovely ladies of our group: Manda, Kendra, Dani and Elizabeth. This was at a play area we’d found. Where are the guys, you ask?
Well, JR. found this sweet turtle shell in which to hide. The others were quite excited.
So excited, in fact, that they all wanted to try it out. Here’s Joel.
It got… awkward…
So they all went and played on a spider web while small children watched with envy in their eyes. JR., Peter and Benjamin. We’re not sure whose elbow that is.
We ended the day with a meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory (which was delicious and reasonably priced). Clarissa was set to get home from Honduras around Midnight, and several of our crew were there to greet her when she got back.
All in all, we feel very welcomed so far. Our new friends are awesome, and even though several of them are leaving for school in a few weeks, we know this is a great place to start. We are so excited to continue to get to know our new friends (and to introduce them to our old friends when you come to visit ::ahem::). For now, we’re just trying to figure out exactly what our place in this new community is, and how we can best contribute our gifts and strengths.
Stay tuned!
What You're Saying