Sunday. My third Sunday on the Rez... I don't know where I'm going with that. It just seems like a significant benchmark for some reason.
This Sunday was a pretty typical Sunday. I woke up around 9am to get ready to go out to Pastor Utecht's church in Rosebud. I thought I was going to go with Daniel, Sean, and Stephen, but when I woke up Daniel and Sean had already left with Jonny and Greg, who had gone out to a church service in Spring Creek. Well then.
It actually worked out okay though. Earlier this week, I had thought about switchin' things up and going to Pastor Utecht's church in Parmalee-- he had said it was his favorite service to pastor-- and since Laura decided to go with Stephen to Rosebud, I had the opportunity to actually go to Parm church, as they call it.
Parm church is a night service though, so I had a lot of time before that service started. Since I still hadn't caught up on my blogs, I spent a good majority of my morning working through those. By lunch, I was just about finished before Stephen called me to have me drop off a box of t-shirts with another church group that was coming out to the rez through Lakota Journey.
After I had met up with that group, I came back to finish up my blog/ eat lunch. I started thinking about the fact that my car needed an oil change, and that I should probably do it today since I'm going to start up with the employment training office again this coming week. Cars. Not always the most enjoyable possession.
Greg said I could use his garage, so that was a blessing, for sure. I still needed the oil and filter though, and NAPA was closed for the day. Looks like I'm going down to Valentine. Greg told me that Bomgaars was the best place to go-- some stuff is half the price there as it is here.
But before I could leave, the interns had to have a team meeting. We talked about a lot of stuff, mostly pertaining to the upcoming week, and how everything was going to work now that LJ was over and we had the rest of the summer to devote our time to our volunteer sites. We had some pretty lengthy discussions and were able to grow from those, I think, so it was a good meeting overall.
Now, Valentine. It's a half hour drive to Valentine, so I wasn't terribly excited to drive all the way down there. Though, sometimes it is nice to drive by yourself and just think. But I guess I wasn't really in the mood to think, because I found a Muse cd in the car and pretty much just rocked out from Mission to Valentine. Pretty great.
Once I got to Bomgaars, it took me a while to find what I was look for and check out, but I was back on the road in about half an hour. On the way back up to Mission I called Eric to let him know that I would be back in the office tomorrow, and he told me that it was a holiday so I didn't have to come in. I didn't even realize Indian Days was an official holiday, but that's pretty cool.
I debated changing my oil tomorrow since I have the day off, but Emily needed my car to go to Parmalee to hang out with the kids there, so I definitely had to get it done today. But it was already getting kind of late in the afternoon, and I kind of wanted to eat dinner before I went to Parm church, so I decided I should just do it after church. Greg concurred.
Church was pretty sweet! Very different from Rosebud. There are typically more white people in a Rosebud service than there were in the Parm service, so that was one difference. I think I liked it better that way though, because I'm out here to meet people the people of the Rosebud Reservation, and most white people are ranchers outside of the reservation. The building was very different too. More of a homey feel instead of a official Lutheran service feel. Utecht was even in a t-shirt and jeans instead of the traditional pastor's robes.
After church, we had to stop back by the house to pick up my car, and bring it out to Greg's, so by the time we got out there, it was at least 9pm. I don't even know how long it took me to change my oil. I've done it a million times before, but Greg and I ended up sharing some tools-- like the oil pan and jack-- so that made it take a little longer.
It was a pretty good time though, especially after we finished up the work on our vehicles. When we had finished, we just sat outside and had a pretty solid heart to heart as we used to call them. We talked about all sorts of things like trials and tribulation, God's plan, the essence of following His call, maturity, being a man of God, relationships, and a plethora of other topics.
We finished up with a time of prayer just to worship God and thank Him for all He was doing out on the Reservation. Absolutely incredible. It was pretty crazy to look at the clock by the time we were done, because it was almost 2am. But nothing good happens after 2am, as they say, so we headed back into town.
On the way back, I narrowly escaped being pulled over by some cops looking to bust somebody for drugs. I live right off of a rather winding road, and I followed all the traffic laws on the way back to my house, so the cop didn't have a reason to pull me over, but he was definitely following me intentionally. That was exciting.
Now it's bed time. Indian Days is happening tomorrow so I have no idea what I'll be up to! Thanks for reading. Talk to you again soon.
Until Tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Muse can make a drive down to Nebraska much more enjoyable.
2. Cops pull so many people over in Mission at night, and usually it's an attempt to bust druggies.
3. Titus 2
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