Shield of Kindness

The new August interns of 2008 made Gauntlet history this past week; it rained for four days straight. Now some people might think: “Well, because it’s raining they might limit or postpone some of the activities.” No - not at all. We still had to wake up at 5am and run in the rain, had to walk in the rain to class and worship, and had to walk in the rain to job testing – well some of us had to walk in the rain for that; I was one of the lucky few who had the pleasure of that.

Right after worship one morning, they called out a long list of people’s names to come to the front. After everyone had left, except for the names on the list, we found out that we had to do some job testing. At HA you have a working internship; some of the jobs you can do is be a caller (Acquire the Fire, BattleCry, Honor Academy & Global Expeditions), kitchen crew (help prepare, serve & clean the kitchen), facilities (clean and maintain the grounds), IT (maintain computers and networks), CCM (Center of Creative Media – help create the media that all Teen Mania uses), and some other job (secretary, assistant, etc.). Now in some of these jobs you need special skills, so before they place you in that ministry they test your skills to see if you will be able to hold your ground. I was lucky enough to be called into the CCM group.

So here we are walking towards the CCM building which is about half a mile off to the side of the HA main campus. At first it was bright and sunny, the birds were chirping and we were loving life. Out of no where it starts to sprinkle, we’re thinking: “Its okay, only a few drops of rain won’t hurt us.” As soon as we turn the corner to walk up the slight incline of the hill to hit the CCM driveway it starts to pour down like there’s no tomorrow. There’s a group of about 15 of us, some of us pulled out umbrella’s, some ran for their lives up the hill and others tagged along in the back – I was one of the tag alongs’.

Here we are walking up this hill, in the next Noah’s flood, as cars are zooming up and down this road. We’re trying to walk to the side so we don’t get in their way or hit. So, we’re still walking when this car slows down, honks and opens the door, the driver calls me over hands me an umbrella, closes the car door and drives away. I look at this umbrella open it and run back to the group of people I was walking with to help shield them from the rain; and then I begin to laugh. I have no clue who that guy was that handed me this umbrella.

We finish our nice little walk in the flood as we reach the CCM building and enter it; they break us into groups as they tell us which tests we will perform. We’re taken into different rooms and are talked to about CCM and what we will do if we are placed there. We take our tests and then are let go. I walk back down the hill with the umbrella in hand as I continue to laugh.

“Some random guy in a car, slowed down, opened the door, handed me this umbrella, closed the door and then drove away;” I told my roommates as I entered the dorm. They stared at me and laughed.

The things that happen at the HA.