Do you think you know someone? Like everything possible. No stone left untold between you. I mean really you and this person are practically joined at the hip. There is nothing possible you couldn't know about them. Go spend 14 - 24 hours in a van with them, on multiple occasions, then go back to you pre-trip self and correct that misconception. Cause now you really do. Or so you think. We might cover this new misconception later.
But that was us. All eight of us interns. We had done pretty much everything imaginable already. We had been in tipped canoes. We had painted for hours and hours together, cut paper snowflakes, attempted to create our own Drime (that shall never be heard of/preformed again). We had done bottle drives, worked in a kitchen, decorated the church Regency room for a luncheon, worked the Christmas banquet.
MOST importantly we had survived PC driving the church van (affectionately named Marge).
Obviously there wasn't anything else we could learn about each other. We knew it ALL. No really - we did.
Then we went to the Jesus Culture Conference in Redding California. From our town that's a 12 hour drive (provided you don't stop to eat, stretch, and/or go to the bathroom. EVER) It's more like 14 hours included the previously excluded list. And in Marge was us eight, PC, and two other friends of ours. In case your bad at math that's eleven people. In an eleven seater van. By the time you reach home that's 24h+ in a van with the same eleven people. And there is no break from them when you're not in the van.
Suddenly you know who snores. Who has the best taste of music. Who smells bad. Who has to go to the bathroom every half hour vs. bladders of steel. Who makes the best pillow and who has a bony shoulder. Now you know how they act when they are truly sleep deprived. And have you ever noticed that being stuck in the same vehicular magnifies everything? So what used to not make someone tick suddenly really makes them tock. And what annoyed them now infuriates them?
We survived though. And made it back with many stories to tell and inside jokes to last for a life time. That was the beginning of February. At the beginning of March was the LA trip.
See every year so far the Interns do two missions trip. A 'small' one to either LA or to NHOP (National House of Prayer) in Ottawa. And then a 'big' one which is usually an overseas or Mexico trip.
So it had been a month and our tailbones were still protesting the idea as we dutifully loaded up Marge and piled back on in. This time there was ten of us (one free seat!!!!) Fourteen more hours to Redding. Stay for the night. Go to church there, go shopping, go to church again, go to bed. Another eight to nine-ish hours to Los Angeles the following day.
While in LA we stayed and helped out at the Dream Center. Basically what they do is they find a need, and then find a way to fill that need. Which involved a lot of things, but my favourite out-reach we did was the Food Truck. Which basically was loading up a delivery truck with food, driving out to a set location (same location on the same day of the week at the same time) put food in grocery bags and hand out the food.
After ten or so days we once again loaded up Marge and piled on in. This time to go home again. By the time we reached the wee hours of the night/morning we had gone from having fun, to laughing at everything and anything because we were so tired, to staring ahead blankly trying to sleep, to normal because we were so tired. By the time we had reached normal most people had slept. I think Me Eva and Jay started talking on childhood memories and things we liked. Eva dropped out once the topic changed to books (she's more of a movie girl) and stayed there for a good while. Once books were exhausted out (and us as well) we attempted to sleep. Which was uncomfortable to say the least.
By the time we got home I'm sure none of us ever wanted to see Marge again. I know I didn't. During these trips though I did learn a few things. Like how to get along with people - simply because I had no choice. My MP3 wouldn't last the entire trip so I couldn't just listen to it all the time. Reading the entire way was out (vans full of people are loud just so you know). And the fact of the matter is - people are just fun to talk to.
I also discovered I missed everyone the next morning, which was surprising. I expected I wouldn't want to see them for a long time. Instead I was going through a people withdrawal.
So all told we clocked a good 74 or more hours in Marge. And do you think we know everything about each other now? Oh absolutely.
NOT.
Hollie.
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