Expectations vs Reality
We finally made it to Boston! The city of hard Bostonian accents, large parks, and six months of snow. At least, that was what I expected when I first landed in this landmark of American history. Instead, I found myself surrounded by typical American accents, many small parks, and stormy weather.
I came to Boston as a church plant intern (CPI), which means that I'll be spending my first year out of college helping to start Gracepoint Boston. I decided to come to Boston because I saw older brothers and sisters in Christ make sacrifices (such as time and energy) to start different church plants at many college campuses. Through the hard work and acts of love these older ones poured into college students like myself, many of us became Christian and grew in our understanding of God's love. Reading the book What Are You Going to Do With Your Life by JD Greear during my senior year of college also led me to start thinking about how I would want to live out my life after graduating. So when I heard the news of becoming a CPI, I decided to go for it.
I had several expectations of what this year would look like in Boston. Here are just a few!
EXPECTATION: Coming off the plane, I expected we would brainstorm and plan fun outreach events and meet new students on the campuses.
REALITY: Our red-eye flight landed at 9:00 AM on a Thursday. After breakfast with the Boston church team, we did not go onto campus but instead began unloading PODS (Portable On Demand Storage—I didn’t know what these were until a few days before moving here), full of all their home appliances, furniture, and frames. What this looked like was many people running back and forth from the PODS to the apartment complex, loading heavy boxes into the elevator and then unloading the apartments… all in the humid, rainy Boston weather.
Nnanna (back center) helping to unload PODS with other Gracepoint brothers in Boston.
Several mentors in our Medford-Somerville homegroup at the Boston Harbor city cruise / boat tour!
EXPECTATION: We would be touring the whole city as one large group, seeing the town's nightlife and trying out different restaurants, boba shops, dessert places.
REALITY: The first night here, it was raining nonstop. Still, we had to continue unloading PODS and loading the furniture into people's homes. Later that night, a few of us went on a Target run in the rain to get toiletries for our many apartments.
However, we did get to explore the city after settling in! We walked along the Freedom Trail to learn about the historical sites in our very own backyard and went on a boat tour around the city, among other outings. My favorite was visiting the nearby Plymouth and Cape Cod to experience more of the history, outdoors, and fantastic food that Massachusetts has to offer.
Church Plant Interns and church mentors posing together before lunch at Faneuil Hall!
EXPECTATION: That we would go shopping for many new clothes since Boston has four seasons (something we Californians are not used to)!
REALITY: A small team of us went shopping for over 90 chairs (you read that right) and for ingredients for dinner to feed 90 team members. We walked out of Costco pushing four shopping carts worth of food and four long orange carts worth of chairs, something I never would I have imagined myself doing.
“God was already showing me that a lot of what it takes to build up the church isn’t glamorous work, but rather, servant-like hard work that can at times go unnoticed. ”
Getting Korean food at Seoul Topokki
EXPECTATION: That we would try out a bunch of new restaurants in the area and spend the first couple of weeks exploring eateries with the rest of the team.
REALITY: We did have a lot of food!! We ate at many different restaurants around Boston and Cambridge, such as Spring Shabu Shabu for Japanese hotpot, Suya Joint for West African food, Boston Burger Company, an Ethiopian restaurant, and much more that would make this blog a lot longer!
With my housemates at an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston!
Checking out the Dewick-MacPhie Dining Commons at Tufts University
The past week as a CPI has opened my eyes to what it means to be on a church plant: hard work and fellowship alongside fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I also got to see the church in action behind the scenes, doing a lot of work that I didn’t get to witness during my undergrad years. I now have more appreciation for people in the church who faithfully bought and cooked dinner for us every Bible study and Sunday Service.
As I made my way to Boston, I felt God was already showing me that a lot of what it takes to build up the church isn’t glamorous work, rather servant-like hard work that can at times go unnoticed. My prayer is that as I see more and more of what it takes to build up the church, I will be willing to be the kind of servant who will do whatever I can to help out rather than shrink away because of the difficulty involved!
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