Summer Intern
Our church Mt. Zion Community Church has gotten an intern for eleven weeks this summer. We have provided an opening for a person from Ambassador Bible College of Latimore, North Carolina to spend the summer learing abouth the ins and outs of the function of a church and its pastor. These men are studying to become missionaries, chrch planters, or pastors.
The young man we are hosting this summer is Stephen Andrews. When I firs met him, he reminded me of Abe Lincoln. He had a serious almost somber face with a similar beard, but his was a lighter sandy color. I was told by others who worked more closely with him that he was a very friendly fellow and decided to find out for myself, so I invited him to lunch Sunday afternoon after chuech and Sunday school. Of course we ate at a local restaurant. I have cooked for myself for almost 20 years and haven’t died or wasted away, but I am not a gourmand.
As we sat and talked waiting for the food to arrive, I found that he did smile and had a very pleasant personality. I found out that he was from a rural setting in the state of Maine and that he’d worked construction before going to college. I shared that I’d visited Mount Katahdan many years ago, probably before he was born.
This past Tuesday my daughter Anna Prinkey asked me to drop off some paint. She was at church making props for our up-coming vacation Bible school. The theme this year is at the farm, so many of the props reflect barns, animals, and windmills. I found her in the church workshop with my niece Hannah Yoder. They were converting the game warden’s lodge from last year into a barn.
Stephen and our Pastor were also making props. They were constructing cows to look out of the baptistry. Not the entire cow, but head and shoulders to look out above the half wall. I helped them with the design of these papier mache creatures. I noticed that the water abd juice jugs had the general shape of a cow’s muzzle. We decided it would weigh less and eliminate some work to turn these plastic jugs into the shapes needed for our cows.
Stephen’s carpentry skills came in handy as we made support for our herd of cattle, if you can call two “cows” a herd. Between my corny jokes and my daughter’s puns, Stephen and our Pastor laughed as we got to know each other better.