Music on the Porch

The church at which I work - Pittsburgh Mennonite Church - has an annual retreat which I attended this weekend. It was a combination of lots of food, music, games, camp fires, workshops, old men snoring obnoxiously, and most importantly meeting lots of new people and building relationships. Oh, and there were handfuls of young children running around which made me seriously question whether I ever want to have youngsters of my own. Engaging in all the activities at the retreat was somewhat exhausting, but I'm pleased to have been able to fellowship with my new church congregation and get to know some of them better.

I arrived home from the retreat this afternoon around 2 pm ready to take a nap (I'm usually pretty religious about Sunday afternoon naps) but quickly became engaged in a number of activities. I folded laundry, put together a compost receptacle, chopped and raked weeds in the backyard, stopped up a pesky groundhog hole, and grocery shopped. Anyone who knows me would understand the deep satisfaction I felt after  accomplishing such a list of tasks (and if you didn't already know that about me, then you do now!).

The culmination of my weekend occurred this evening on our front porch where my housemate, Joey, and I played music for a while. We started out playing alone, but after our second song we heard shouting and applause from our neighbors who had, unbeknownst to us, been listening. It was cool to exchange a few words with some of them. Everyone seems really nice and I hope we can spend some more time with our neighbors in the future. It's an interesting dynamic being four young white kids living in the midst of a black community, but it's good. People are cool. People have lots of stories. People are different than you. People teach one another, challenge one another, help one another, and love one another. I continue to have these neat experiences that make me excited for the next ten months and draw me closer to falling in love with this city, embracing all of its potential and opportunity.