Intense.
Working here feels rather like hitching a ride on a runaway train. Awesome and scary! Spontaneity is a regular occurrence at Lamplighter, and there's a sense of wondering when the train is going to jump off the tracks....or am I going to get thrown?
I like that word picture because it's dramatic. I don't mean to sound like I'm literally hanging on for dear life, but let me just say this isn't a normal place. I mean that in a good way. But some days I have felt like I'm inwardly hanging on for dear life....just trying to sort out the multitude of information coming at me and get some sense of my place here.
It's too soon to tell if I love working at Lamplighter. There are some things I love, let's put it that way. I always need an adjustment period in a new place, however, I'm not sure Lamplighter Ministries is the kind of place you can ever truly adjust to! I'm not sure how to even explain this. Lamplighter is a small organization with enormous dreams and expectations. The small group of staff and interns clustered at the headquarters is like Gideon's band of 300 men against a vast army of Midianites! To the human mind, it seems impossible to try to accomplish all that Lamplighter has in the works, and to do it to the highest degree of excellence, with such a small number of people. Yet God has moved in miraculous ways over and over again on behalf of this small band. It's exciting to be part of a group that has seen God come through in dramatic ways. When my time here is finished, I want to be able to leave with stories that strengthen my faith and dependence on God and make His glory evident to everyone I tell.
Our schedule here doesn't allow for a lot of extracurricular time, so if I don't make myself sit down and write something every so often, it's not going to happen! So rather than continue with my deep thinking which doesn't tell my readers a whole lot, let me tell you about some of the adventures of the past two weeks.
The very day I arrived in Mount Morris, I got to ride along on an errand to Rochester and experience an epic build-your-own pizza place....I'm no longer certain that authentic Chicago deep dish is the best pizza I ever had!
My first official day of work as an intern, I saw a nineteenth-century pipe organ dismantled to make space for a recording studio on the Lamplighter campus! This gorgeous organ was built into the old church building that Lamplighter purchased and now uses as a book bindery and warehouse, among other things. The organ no longer played and would have cost a pretty penny to repair. A recording studio is high on the list of dreams for this ministry, as they have produced 18 dramatic radio theatre albums that air on 1800 radio stations in 29 countries! The team is gearing up to go to London at the end of February and record two new dramas. So you can imagine how wonderful it would be to have a studio on campus where they can continue to record these life-changing stories....and think of the excitement of having world-class actors visiting the little village of Mount Morris! In just two weeks, the transformation from organ to recording studio is almost finished; now we are awaiting funds to begin designing the acoustics and install equipment.
Over the past week in particular, I have been hard at work editing and updating the website for the 2016 Lamplighter Guild....a fun though oftentimes frustrating project. I'm learning just how much work goes into managing a website....there are so many details to keep track of and it's easy to miss little things if you are not giving your full attention. I really am enjoying the work on Guild details, since the Guild had a major impact on my life, and that is what brought me here to Lamplighter!
I've also spent a little time in the bindery, learning the process of making books by hand (with a little help from machines). Printing, cutting, cover-making, separating out the individual book blocks, gluing spines, more cutting, head-banding, cover-stamping, and gluing the finished cover on the book...it's given me a much greater appreciation for the aesthetic quality of Lamplighter books!
Everyone has been involved in a lot of clean up....as you can imagine, tearing out the guts of a huge pipe organ and building the insides of the studio room makes for a great mess! We spent hours organizing over 700 pipes of various size and shape, plus other sundry organ pieces, into storage. Plus wiping century-old dirt off wood pieces. Plus cleaning up the sawdust that floated all over everything in the former church sanctuary.
The other interns and I have gotten crash courses in various computer programs, taken jaunts around the town with Mark Hamby, our boss, for various business related purposes, learned the basics of how to find out who owns property, visited the best coffee shop in New York, took a moonlit tour through the woods, done "fake" work for a catalog photo shoot, etc, etc, etc!
Somewhere in the midst of all this I've had a few chances to ramble in the woods and hike in nearby Letchworth State Park. This coming weekend, we are having a staff training/retreat at the park, so we will hopefully get to see a lot more of this gorgeous area they call the Grand Canyon of the East. Waterfalls, here I come! You won't catch me complaining about this unusually warm winter....but it would be fun to have enough snow to go tubing in the park, just for one day!
There is so much more that has been packed into the last two and a half weeks, but I hope this will give you somewhat of a picture of what I'm doing so far. I will try to make time to write on the weekends when it is not late at night and my brain is not dead! Thanks for coming along with me on this wild ride....it is never boring here at Lamplighter!
Everyone has been involved in a lot of clean up....as you can imagine, tearing out the guts of a huge pipe organ and building the insides of the studio room makes for a great mess! We spent hours organizing over 700 pipes of various size and shape, plus other sundry organ pieces, into storage. Plus wiping century-old dirt off wood pieces. Plus cleaning up the sawdust that floated all over everything in the former church sanctuary.
The other interns and I have gotten crash courses in various computer programs, taken jaunts around the town with Mark Hamby, our boss, for various business related purposes, learned the basics of how to find out who owns property, visited the best coffee shop in New York, took a moonlit tour through the woods, done "fake" work for a catalog photo shoot, etc, etc, etc!
Somewhere in the midst of all this I've had a few chances to ramble in the woods and hike in nearby Letchworth State Park. This coming weekend, we are having a staff training/retreat at the park, so we will hopefully get to see a lot more of this gorgeous area they call the Grand Canyon of the East. Waterfalls, here I come! You won't catch me complaining about this unusually warm winter....but it would be fun to have enough snow to go tubing in the park, just for one day!
There is so much more that has been packed into the last two and a half weeks, but I hope this will give you somewhat of a picture of what I'm doing so far. I will try to make time to write on the weekends when it is not late at night and my brain is not dead! Thanks for coming along with me on this wild ride....it is never boring here at Lamplighter!
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