A Poop Story

Before today, I had worked the lobby at McDonald's once. You know, the person who sweeps, wipes down tables, and keeps the restaurant pretty. But I did not enjoy it one bit. I'm a cashier, not a lobby attendant, so I feel out of my element. Well...today I worked the lobby for the second time since I began working at McDonald's. And my experience was quite different. I would actually describe it as really good. When you begin to read the rest of this post, you might think I'm being sarcastic, but I promise I'm not. Bear with me.

I came into work at 11, and right away they told me that I would be on lobby duty for the day. For a split second I wasn't pleased, but I quickly reminded myself that I am not working this job to please myself or to please my employers. I am working this job for God's glory. So that was my attitude for the day: I am working for God.

About a half hour into my shift, I end my first round of cleaning by checking the bathroom. It was relatively early in the day, so I wasn't expecting much of a mess. Mirrors and sinks? Look good. Urinal? Fairly clean. First stall? Not bad at all. Second stall? My heart just about dropped to my feet. The handle was broken, and there was poop in the toilet. But I'm not talking just a little log and a bit of toilet paper. I swear three people pooped in the toilet and filled it with toilet paper. It was as gross as the image that is in your head right now. Trust me. But as my eyes catch their first glance of this catastrophe, my first question was why. Why did these people poop when there was already poop in the toilet? Why were they so stupid? Then I think to myself: maybe if I ignore it, I will get off at five before anyone notices. So I just ignored it. (By the way, that's five and a half hours of nobody noticing a massive amount of poop)

That was around 11:30. We had a lunch rush that began soon after my bathroom check that lasted until 1:30. I was busy enough wiping down tables that I wouldn't have even been allowed to leave the floor to clean bathrooms. So far so good. 

As things began to die down around 2, I was sweeping when a lady came over to me. She seemed relatively innocent. She was probably asking where the ketchup was, or maybe one of the soda machines was out of ice. "I threw up a little bit over there." Oh. Wow. Ok. Wasn't expecting that. I go and grab the mop, and thankfully when I return she had wiped up most of the damage. But the smell remained. You know the smell. Relive it with me. Once the wall of vomit odor passed me, I mopped up the rest of the mess, and it ended up being a fairly harmless experience. 

But then an old friend came knocking. You guessed it, the poop sitting in stall #2.

Someone finally complained about the bathroom, so it was time to work up the courage to clean it. I walked over to my manager, Christine, and said, "There's a....uh....mess in the men's room, and I have no idea how to go about cleaning it. Oh, and the handle for the toilet is broken." I thought maybe throwing in the broken handle would prompt her to call a plumber and spare me the cleaning duty.

"You're gonna have to put on some gloves and scoop it out into a bag. Sorry"

The moment had arrived. The words I was dreading the whole day finally were spoken. For a moment I considered the possibility of running away. They probably couldn't catch me, right? I laughed in disbelief. I was going to have poop and toilet water all over my hands. Well...all over my gloves. But still it was gross. 

I arm myself for battle and confidently strut into the bathroom. I walk over to the toilet, and before I could think too much, hold my breath and start scooping. It was nasty. I'll spare you the details. But I remained sane because I couldn't smell it. So I just imagined that I was scooping Play-Doh or mud. But about halfway through I made the mistake of breathing. The smell hit me like a ton of bricks and, the fact that I was not actually scooping Play-Doh or mud became reality. I did everything in my power to keep myself from making the mess twice as bad (if you know what I mean). As I composed myself, I finally finished the job. 

I deposited the excrements in the dumpster and returned to a pool of brown water. I put on a new pair of gloves, and did my best plumber impersonation. I took a look at the handle and after a couple of minutes of finagling, I was able to fix it. It was as good as new. So I flushed the rest down, threw my gloves in the trash, washed my hands 35 times, and proudly told my manager that I had not only saved our customers from having one toilet to poop in but had also fixed the handle. 

I had two jobs that I would never have asked to do, but I had one of the best days at work. 

This past week, I've been really convicted about how selfish I am. My thoughts revolve around me. My desires revolve around me. My actions revolve around me. The last time I worked in the lobby, God really used it to begin the process of seeing my selfishness for what it really is. The whole time I was complaining to myself about how much I hated the job and how much I would rather do other things. 

It was so pivotal to remind myself at the beginning of my shift that I am working for the glory of God. My whole attitude was different. I was joyful. I was singing along to the radio. I wasn't complaining to myself. Sure, it wasn't fun to clean poop or vomit, but as I was doing it, I couldn't help but laugh and be happy. It was strange. 

This life is not about myself. Summer Project is not about myself. My time at school is not about myself. My job is not about myself. It is all about giving glory to a God who has shown us the greatest love we will ever know. Let us do everything for Him.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

1 Corinthians 10:31

My Project Role!

For those of you who don't know, during each year at Ocean City Summer Project the staff who are leading it leave halfway through the summer and hand the reins over to the students. The students take over every single position that the staff had and have complete control over what direction we take the summer. This is a really exciting opportunity, but at the same time really sad that we have to say goodbye to the staff so early.

With that being said, this is the staff's last week here and they assigned us our jobs this past week. My role for the summer will be Project Director of the Servant Team. I am on the Student Leadership team with 3 other men and 4 women. Now to many of you, these titles mean absolutely nothing, so I will do my best to describe the role. The Student Leadership team is composed of the students who will be planning the entirety of the rest of project. We are in the process right now of planning the last five weeks of project in only a week. As PD of the Servant Team, my role is to oversee a lot of the different committee directors (other students) and to serve them and lead them to the best of my ability. Thankfully, there is a female counterpart to my role who is one of my good friends from Northwestern, Priscilla Liu. I'm really excited to be working with her.

I need a lot of prayer. I am feeling really overwhelmed right now with the responsibility placed on me in trying to lead so many people when I don't even see myself as more mature spiritually. Specifically for this week, I am overwhelmed with how much we have to get done in planning the rest of project. I'm feeling more and more inadequate as I learn more about what I do. I am even experiencing a good amount of worry and anxiety knowing that the decisions we make will have an immense impact on how project finishes. On top of that, I'm struggling with the fact that some people are upset with their roles and some people may be upset I was chosen for the leadership team. Please pray that I would find my sufficiency in Christ and that I would boast in my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. Please pray for creativity and vision as the Student Leadership Team plans the rest of summer. Please pray that all the students on project would remain united in Christ and not be divided by our roles. Pray that I will not worry or have anxiety, that I would rest in the peace and comfort of Christ. Pray that my desires would not be to satisfy the perishable needs of man but to serve the Creator of the Universe.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate your prayers.

An Overdue Update

Wow. So much has happened in these past few weeks, and I have had no time to sit down and write an update. But it has all been good. I apologize, though, so I will try my best to keep you up to date on what has happened.

So I talked briefly about Killing the Giants week in my last post, and that week has come and gone. We all set number goals for how many people we wanted to trust God with that we would have conversations for the week. This number was one of the "giants" that we were trying to kill. A giant basically being something that is hard to overcome, but that we wanted trust God's ability to overcome it. In trying not to be obsessed with numbers though, I set another giant of going out sharing every day of the week. It was so incredibly stretching, but I was able to kill that giant! But praise God because it was so tiring and would have been nearly impossible to do out of my own effort. As a group, we initiated over 5100 conversations during the week and had over 90 people indicate that they wanted to put their faith in Christ. Pretty awesome stuff.

We went from being very outward focused during Killing the Giants week to being very inward focused for this past week: All For One week. This was basically a week in challenging our view of what it means to live in Biblical community and stretch us to desire true Biblical fellowship. We faced many challenges throughout the week that we had to come together as a team to overcome. For example, one morning we were only allowed to have one person use an alarm clock to wake up. This person would then have to wake up the next person that needed to wake up, who would then wake up the next person, and so on and so forth. This was on a weekday, which meant most people really needed to wake up for work, and living in a house with 35 guys did not leave us with the easiest task. But we really trusted each other, did some planning the night before, and in the end we were successful in getting everyone up on time. Another amazing time during the week was Men's Conference, which was on Wednesday night. I can't go into too many details about it, but it was physically exhausting, relationally challenging, and spiritually stretching. The guys really came together to pull through the evening as one, and it was a powerful display of our community.

The week culminated in a student vs. staff softball game yesterday, which was a blast. The students lost (and apparently they have lost like 14 years in a row), but it was a lot of fun after a week of growing as a community. There are 105 students (or something like that), so everyone batted once and got to play the field once or twice. But the game was so much bigger than winning or losing, so I was totally satisfied after the game, despite losing.

As probably all of you know, I have also been working at McDonald's these past few weeks as a cashier. Overall, it has been a good experience. I had a hard time finally settling with working at the golden arches, but after choosing it, I felt really at peace in my decision. Working there has been fun at times and stressful at times. There are a good number of other Cru people that work there, so that has been really cool. However, one thing that I've really struggled with is ministry in the workplace. Pretty much everyday we are really busy, and there is not much time to talk to anyone about anything, nonetheless spiritual things. This has been hard on me because my biggest fear in taking the job at McDonald's was that ministry would be more difficult.

Also, I mentioned in my last update that I was going to be leading worship. I actually have had the opportunity to do it twice already, and I absolutely love it. I have really seen my passion for singing grow this past year, and it is so cool to be able to use the gift that God has given me to worship Him. It is definitely a time commitment, but it is totally worth it.

Please pray:
- That everyone here would continue to strive for more Biblical community, and that we wouldn't settle for just pretty good
- For opportunities to talk about spiritual things at work, and specifically opportunities to share the gospel
- For this coming week: World Vision Week. That God would continue to grow my heart for the world and for people who don't know Him
- That God would continue to shape my heart, reveal my sin to me, and sanctify me. That I would continually be pointed to the cross.

Enjoy some pictures from my week!

I had a cool chance to go to a Philadelphia Phillies game with my "adopted" dad! It was...a bit awkward...but I had a good time!

A couple of friends and I after the Student vs. Staff Softball game!

If you have any questions about how I am doing or specific questions about what we are doing, I would love to answer them! Post a comment, email me, or Facebook me.