the God of giant vegetables

Tuesday, Oct. 02, 2007 | 9:03 PM

so... about youth group on sunday...

i walked in and walked back to the room with the bench like thingies, where the band was practicing. tim, nick, mark and the drummer guy, named patrick, were practicing, and melissa was up there with them. joel and ben and a friend of nick's were by the computer. ben was typing in lyrics.

i sat down, and kinda waited. melissa went to the computer and finished typing the lyrics into the powerpoint. then she asked me if i'd brought the picture that she'd requested in an email. she wanted a picture of mine to be in the background of the powerpoint. i gave her three choices, and i'd faded them so that they were less contrasty, so words would show up better on them. this was the one she chose:

after we were done setting that up, she went and told everyone that it was time to get started. the band consisted of tim, nick, mark, patrick and melissa. melissa sang, and her bother mark did also while playing the guitar. everyone stood up in front, while i sat in the back with the computer. i clicked the powerpoint along from one slide to the other. i really liked being way back there, behind everyone else and by myself.

i recorded the band. i like when she stopped and talked about my picture (about 4 minutes in) and then when joel started talking about a giant zucchini and said "God is the God of giant vegetables" (about 6 minutes in.) it might be hard to hear though.

by the way, i just found out that a zucchini is actually "the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower." does that sound yummy or what?

melissa and joel are gonna be running youth group a lot more this year, while jordan will do less. so after they were done singing and stuff, joel talked for a bit. he talked about us being brothers and sisters in God's family. after that, melissa was going to go make bread with this plant's swollen ovary, while the others played a game. as she walked to the kitchen, she asked me, "do you want to help me make zucchini bread?"

"um... no."

"do you want to keep me company?"

"ok."

so i went with her into the kitchen. it was the first time that i'd really walked in there in a long time. as she began unpacking the ingredients that she'd brought with her, she realized that she hadn't brought baking powder. she searched the cupboards, but there was none. she called someone who lived close to the church, but there was no answer. then she asked me if there was any at my house.

"i can call my dad and ask," i said, "but he might not be home."

so i called him, and of course, he was at work... and i didn't have my key with me. so, that plan was off, and i went to sit on the steps... for a long time. i became quite bored, and depressing thoughts entered my head. at one point, dave came over to say hi to bubble. he sat down and talked about his dog for several minutes, and asked me a few questions about mine. he seems to really like dogs. after talking for a while, he left me alone again.

eventually, everyone left except for joel and meilssa. while melissa was doing something in the office, joel came over and sat by me. he petted bubble a whole bunch, as he asked me, "how are you sarah?"

i shrugged.

"anything new and exciting?"

"um... i don't know."

"anything old and not exciting?"

"i don't know."

"is there anything that i can pray about for you?"

"um... i don't know."

"can i ask you to pray about something for me?"

"sure."

so he told me some things, and then again tried to get me to tell him something. there were many things i could have said, and wanted to say, but as i thought them over in my mind, it all just sounded stupid. finally i said, "anything i say will sound stupid."

"honestly, that sounded stupid," he said. then he continued on and it went something like, "i don't talk to you to hear stupid things. i don't look for stupid things in what you say. i don't think prayer requests are ever stupid, so i wouldn't think anything you would say would be stupid."

"you just did."

"yeah... except for that. that was pretty hypocritical."

as he continued petting bubble, he still continued to try to get me to give him one thing. in my mind i still continued to try to say something. i could tell that i wasn't going to, but didn't want my opportunity to just end, so i said, "you can try again next week."

"ok, then i will try again next week."

i hope he actually does.

it was around this time that melissa came out. they then drove me home.

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