This was the week of lots of driving, lots of Mennonite connections, and finally having to say good-bye to a couple of housemates.
We left Tucson at 7:15 am on Sunday, June 2nd in a mini-bus that we rented from another faith-based organization in Agua Prieta, Mexico/Douglas, Arizona. David Bonilla drove the entire 18 hours there and back in an incredible feat of driving stamina!
We stopped at Michaela's house on Monday for lunch and to switch over the MVSers to her Prius for the final stretch to Kansas City, MO. We arrived at her brother and sister-in-law's house, had a quick meal, and then headed to the convention center to check-in and join the first night of worship at MennoCon23.
The next morning we presented our seminar to a room full of people. It was a wonderful way to share our story and answer questions from people about our year. We also helped out at the Mennonite Mission Network booth on Tuesday and Thursday evening, but that was the extent of our MennoCon duties. We took advantage of our time in Kansas City attending seminars and worship, reflecting as a unit, and checking out Michaela's Alma mater (William Jewell College) and other favorite KC spots. On Friday, while Andrea and Jessie were at the youth and young adult climate summit in the morning and Andrea and Michaela were at the Taylor Swift concert in the evening, I hung out at her brother and sister-in-law's, accidentally doing an hour of Duo Lingo, watching two movies, and taking a nap/reading.
Andrea and I left Kansas City on Saturday morning while Michaela and Jessie stayed with their families. We finally had to say good-bye (although our group chat was quite active today as we recounted our various travels).
These were all the logistics of our week. The emotional and reflective parts are a bit harder to convey. But I'll try to distill a few.
It felt really good to be in the convention space again and brought back a lot of fun memories attending the 2017 and 2019 conventions as a youth. But, it was good in a different way as I was now one of the adults helping run a fun booth and hand out swag while trying to plant a little seed about doing a year of voluntary service. I guess we'll see how good a salesman I am in the coming years.
I appreciated catching up with some folks I hadn't seen for a while but it was always a little hard to explain that I was still going back to Tucson for one last week. Thanks, to my brother, Lincoln, for taking my very heavy suitcase and bass guitar back on the train to Goshen with him. There were only a couple of moments where I wanted to join in and take it back myself.
Wednesday afternoon we did a round-table interview for MMN to use with other MVS groups as training and exiting material. It was a really good time for us as a unit to reflect on our year together in a more explicit way than we had in the past. We talked about how we built community together, things we felt during the first week, and what were some joys and challenges that we had. As readers of my blog, I think you've seen some of that already in these posts but when those interviews come out, and if they're posted publicly, I'll include them somewhere on my socials.
Here's to a good last week with some very hot weather! (But it's a dry heat. Mostly.)
More pictures in the Google photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/rFXtPMJf9GjWMsFd9
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