So my day started at 5:30 when I woke up with Jacob. Daniel and his wife Lauren came and picked us up and took us to the church we go to. There we spent our time unloading a semi full of food for a ministry. It is called Angel Food Ministries. Then we were served breakfast after the loading was done, and we sat around and talked until around 9, intermittently helping people carry boxes of food out to their car as they came and picked it up.
We were dropped back off and I went back to my room. Jacob went to the Tech building to do some wood turning. I on the other hand, went in and out of sleep. I had only gotten 4 hours that night.
I awoke at 12:30 to Jacob coming in and I realized I had slept too late. I hurriedly packed and got changed to go caving. I was able to run to food service and grab some lunch and then join our group. The Inter-varsity Christian group was sponsoring it mostly, but a few other people joined us.
We arrived at the cave, but one of the leaders discovered that the big front entrance wasn't very accessible because the creek that flowed into it was pretty high. So we walked down the railroad tracks to the smaller entrance on the other side of the mountain. Basically, we had a blast crawling around and I even got to explore a few new areas that I hadn't been into the last time I was in the cave. And since the water was backed up we were soon stopped in a place and couldn't proceed. Thus we doubled back the way we came.
There was a point, however, when we congregated in a large open cavern and we all turned out our lights and sang Amazing Grace. It sounded real nice echoing underneath the Earth.
Anyway, after we finally made it out and we really discovered how dirty we were we went back to the van and cars. However I went with a couple guys real quick to check out the front entrance of the cave.
We got back in one piece and made it to food service in time. Then I went back to my room, cleaned up, and decided I would go contra dancing. I was also able to get my friend Ivan to go with me. So I had about half an hour and then we went down to some of the lessons they had before the actual dance started.
I have one word for the dancing. AMAZING! I began to get the hang of the dancing. I had a blast, especially with a few of them. And as a guy I will admit that it was very fun to dance with a bunch of pretty girls. And I asked a few to dance as well. It certainly cut my fear of girls in half and I had a very fun evening. A few of the people that went caving were there. However, there were a few dances that my partner and I couldn't get the hang of so we dropped out, but over all it was a very fun time.
The contra dancing is basically several lines of people and you have your partner. Different dances require you do do swings, spins, and swinging your partner around and around and you move up and down the line systematically dancing with everyone as you go. It's very fun!
So to sum up my long day, it was truly amazing! I have decided I really like the Inter-varsity group as they are the "friendly Christians" I have discovered here on campus. I even had a good conversation with one on the way back. I've made some brand new friends and I know how to have a good time and get out of my comfort zone because of caving and the dance!
But anyway, I am off to crash in bed. For those of you that read this, I will tell you that I will upload all the caving photos to my Picasa web album. I could only stick a few select ones on this blog. It was very hard to chose which ones.
