I was excited to make this post because it will be something brand new, that's never been on the blog before. There was a half marathon in town today, part of which ran through campus, and The Well (aka me, Drew, and Seth) ran one of the water stations. We stood in the road and held out little cups with water and Gatorade, and the runners would grab them as they ran by. I learned that the best way to hold it is by the rim, which makes it easier for the runners to grab. Seth, who runs lots of races, gave us lots of tips as how to be the most effective water giver-outers. Also, since the runners usually drink while they run, they just throw the cups on the ground when they're done with it. So another part of our job was to go back and pick up all the cups, which is what I was getting ready to do after I took my picture.
We also witnessed lots of ridiculous things...
Unfortunately, the roads weren't marked and blocked well, and so lots of people kept trying to drive where the race was taking place, and we'd have to tell them they couldn't come that way. This one guy was trying to come through and we told him he couldn't. He whipped around and made a u-turn and started coming back, and for a brief moment we thought he was going to drive through anyways. But he slowed down a bit and said, "The d@#! roads are closed," and then another lady working with us said, "I'm sorry, it's not our fault," and he yelled back "Yea it is!" and peeled out.
Towards the end of the race, when the runners were coming through really sporadically, we'd let cars through. This one girl drove through and stopped in front of Seth who was holding two cups of water and asked if she could have one. Really? Who does that?
We also saw cars trying to pass cop cars that were blocking traffic. When I see cop cars driving very slowly with their lights on, my first instinct isn't to drive around them. Especially on a somewhat narrow road where a race is going on.
I also had a lady tell me, as she's running toward me, that she wanted the yellow Gatorade, so if she spilled it it would blend in with her shirt, which was yellow. I know I can be prissy, but I don't think that would be my first concern if I was running a race!
These pictures are from Wednesday, so obviously I'm a little late getting them up. This is me sitting in one of the back entrances of the auditorium during James' message. We're two weeks in to a new series called Pulse, and it's about prayer. If you look at the picture below, you'll see the signs on the left and right of the screen that have heart rate on them. Well, they're made out of Post It Notes, hundreds and hundreds of Post It Notes! We had them assembled and hanging up at the beginning of the service last week. Then in the middle you'll see a heart. We had just the yellow and blue part of that made ahead of time, and it was laying on the floor in front of the stage. All of the students had received a blank pink Post It when they entered the auditorium, and at the end of the message James told them to write a prayer on it and then come forward and place it in the heart. So this week we had the completed project hanging up too. At the top of the picture you'll notice a colorful swirl, that was this weeks project. We had everything marked out ahead of time and the blank swirl was sitting up on the corner of the stage. At the end of the message the students were again told to write a prayer on the Post It they received when they came in that night, and then they were supposed to get up and put it in one of the many buckets that our student volunteers were holding around the room. As they were all doing this, me and one other girl were (very quickly) walking around taking the Post Its out of those buckets and taking them to the stage where a group was assembling the swirl. We had to move fast because we had just three songs to get the whole thing assembled and then we were going to hoist the thing up while the students were praying in small groups. For a while I didn't think they were going to get it down in time, but they did and the final effect was awesome!
