For Labor Day weekend a few of my fellow single ladies and I head out to our church’s most recent church plant to help them out.
It may sound that we’ve got servant’s hearts, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the church plant’s location didn’t have a bit of a natural draw.
It is Myrtle Beach, after all.
Though the thought of heading to a popular tourist destination for the last unofficial weekend of summer was a bit cringe-worthy, I was so glad I went. I haven’t laughed that hard for a while…it felt good. It was great to help out…even in a couple of very small ways.
A few high (and low) lights:
- The gas station we stopped at in South Carolina smelled like Turkey to me, for some unexplainable reason. It also was stocked almost exclusively with beer and dog food. I wonder where you can buy ammo, or maybe we just missed that.
- I may be a swimmer, but this weekend was the first time I’ve laid out or swam outside in 2 years. It’s weird to have tan lines again…at least lines that aren’t a farmer’s tan.
- Since 5 of the 6 of us were playing Game On!, our first stop when arriving in Myrtle Beach was the Walmart to buy healthy groceries. We didn’t even make it in the front door before we were confronted with a heated argument and a fire in the trashcan. Welcome to South Carolina, right?
- It’s amazing how many bathroom breaks you have to take when traveling with 5 people aiming to drink 100 ounces of water a day.
- I had the privilege of chasing a 2-year-old around in the waves. While I was happy to do it, I was incredibly nervous I’d lose him to a wave. I was thankful that while he hadn’t had perfect obedience to that point, he did when it really counted. How do parents do it?
- My roommate stepped on a nail sticking up from the wooden sidewalk that led to the beach. Just thankful she was wearing flip flops, or it could have gone in much deeper!
- And that was only the nail in the coffin of her day…earlier that day she was greeted to her car, stripped of her GPS and several other personal (though not monetarily valuable) items. She was a good sport, in spite of it all. Things ARE just things.
One guy decided he’d just go pick up a big piece of concrete and haul it the 50 feet to our vehicle. From the way he was straining, it had to weigh 80 pounds!
Çay is Turkish tea, something that you drink all the time in Turkey. It’s served in little glasses like these (they might have a pattern of some sort, but often are just plain glass) and with a couple of sugar cubes. Most meals end with it, of course you drink it during tea time, and you will be offered it anytime you visit someone’s shop or home. There’s really nothing special about the tea other than the way it’s made, but it’s incredibly Turkish.
This is a drink that Turks drink with a lot of meals. It’s cold, and is basically watered-down, salty yogurt. It’s not pleasant to Western taste buds, but I can tolerate it, if not enjoy it.
Turkish breakfast is much heavier than what we’re used to. Often has meats of unknown origin (hey, if something looks like it’s pork and you know it’s not, you have no idea what to think), hard-boiled eggs, cheeses, and breads. Oh, and the traditional veggies of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions.