Sunday, July 25, 2010

My thr3e weeks: Summit (Part 1)

How do you sum up three weeks of awesomeness? You cannot do it in one post, I can tell you that much. So I will be doing a few posts on my last 3 weeks. Some of the content will be taken directly from my journal, so bear with me.
July 4th, Day 1: (Diary entry 1) "Chattanooga, T.N. here I come... Christine's alarm went off at 5:15 this morning. Dad greeted me with a "Happy Birthday!" and an omelet at my bedroom door. I donned my red, white, and blue star-spangled shirt, Dad grabbed my 48 lb. suitcase, Mom grabbed my really heavy carry-on, I gave Christine a hug and we were off. We made it to the airport by 7:00 am and I was through customs and at my gate waiting at 7:30. The flight was uneventful which is good. The only thing that happened worth some notice, was, as I sat down in my seat in the very back of the plane, I looked down and I had egg and cheese clinging to my shirt, breakfast left-overs. I quickly wiped them from my shirt and thought, "is this as embarrassing as egg on my face?""
~~~ Making it to the college campus late afternoon on Sunday, I then settled into the dorm room
met my room mate, ate dinner, and then I headed to orientation. Looking at the schedule I knew the two weeks were going to be exhausting. This is what the first full day looked like:
  • (Diary entry 2:) ~ "5:40 - get up, get stuff out and be ready to take your shower at six. Read your Bible, take a 12 minute shower. Get ready to go to breakfast.
  • 7:00 - Walk down to breakfast in cafeteria
  • 7:15 - eat breakfast.
  • 8:05 - Classes start. Ben W---'s does a couple sessions with a couple of breaks.
  • 10:20 - Scott K---- does a couple of sessions
  • 12:00 - lunch
  • 1:00 - Another session with Ben W.
  • 2:00-5:00 - free time to join in with the group activity or whatever you want to do.
  • 6:00 - Optional-open forum with Scott K. I go play pool with a girl in my small group.
  • 7:00 - Worship with Josh B---'s then last session for today.
  • 9:00 - Get out of session, and walk to dorm to take your contacts out, that are starting to bother you after wearing them since six-something. Write in journal.
  • 9:45 - small group meeting, which goes to 10:30
  • 11:00 - Lights out."
Pretty much this is what everyday looked like, just different speakers and different topics. Over 72 hours of teaching and many different topics were covered. It was a truly awesome challenging time.
~~~

On Saturday after being at Summit for almost a week, Kami (my room mate) and I decided to join in a hike through Pocket. It was a beautiful day for a walk/run in the heart of Tennessee. I think it was a six mile hike, and it was extremely warm for this northerner. It was fun though... and Kami and I realized we were dressed alike which was pretty funny.
The two weeks went by very quickly... and before we knew it we were sitting in the last sessions... Friday night they had a graduation ceremony which we got to dress up for, which was cool. Kami and I were reunited with our families, and we both stayed in the same hotel Friday night.

This was my small group... we would meet every night and discuss the stuff that we were learning. Jessica (the one standing next to me) was the small group leader, and she would direct stuff and ask questions. We had fun together, they were a cool bunch of girls. It is weird to think that our paths might never cross again, after spending two weeks together I feel like we should live closer... it is kind of a strange feeling, knowing that they live a long way away, and I might not see them on this earth again. I am thankful for the time we had together though.

Well, that just about sums up my time at Summit... there is a lot more I could write about worldviews, and post-modernism... but I think that is better in person, and it would take forever to talk about even half of what was taught there. So this will be my last post on Summit, but family vacation (part 2) is coming shortly...

2 comments:

Abbey said...

Welcome Home Elise!!! It looks and sounds like you had an awesome time!! Can't wait to hear more!
BTW... I love your polka-dot dress!!

Joanna said...

sounds like you had a wonderful time and I hope that the things you learned with stick with you for your whole life and that you will be able to hand them on to others. I still think that the next time you go away for three weeks though it should be somewhere around Columbus OH :)