For the past year, I was looking forward to the Brethren Volunteer Service 60th Anniversary celebration here at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, MD on the 26th through the 28th of September 2008. I liked the idea of having different BVSers coming together to share their experiences when they served or while they are serving, such as myself. I was expecting something like 150 people, but there were over 340 people showed up. 300 or so were here for the BVS reunion the other folks were here on some other business. Most importantly I loved the idea that that folks were here in MY “hood” (the place I am serving). The week before the event, I received an email from one my friends in my unit saying that her along with other friends in my unit and friends from the DC area were coming down for the weekend. That really got me excited because I had gone to DC twice and Elgin twice and it was cool of them to come see me in my neighborhood for a change. I loved it. I knew that this was going to be a good weekend.
One of the things I was thinking about was I wanted to be more involved with the setup or at least be someone productive this weekend because this was the place I was serving. I felt that on Friday morning I got the opportunity to do something cool and meaningful for one of the presentations that were to take place on Saturday morning. Kristen Flory, BVS Staff Europe coordinator wanted to scan 280 slides onto a CD. Francie asked me if I could do that for Kristin and I said “I would love to”. Now 280 slides to scan is a lot. It took just about the whole day to do it. After Kristin and I scanned all these slides to the computer, I went ahead and made sure they looked good my editing each picture in Photoshop. That took a little time too, but I loved doing it. I had gotten done with all the photos and then I burned them onto a CD for Kristin when it was 6:00pm. I was pretty tired. It was a success and I felt really good about doing for here. “Thanks for allowing me to help you out Kristin, if you read this blog or newsletter article.”
On Friday evening, I went to the gym to see who all was here. A lot of folks were already over there just chatting it up, visiting and eating ice cream because it was an ice cream social. I only stayed for a few minutes because I wanted to make an appearance, since Dan McFadden, BVS director, talked me into registering for this event and I want to make the most of it. After that I went back to my crib and chilled until the next day.
On Saturday, I got up around 9am and took a shower and prepared for the day. Most people were already up around 7am because they all went to breakfast. I wasn’t going to get up that early because it was still a weekend and I wanted to sleep in a little bit. They had a session 9am but I was planning on going to Kristin’s BVS Europe session at 10:30. When I got ready, put on my new BVS polo shirt I purchased, went outside to check it out, who did I see right off. Bekah, Rianna, Melani, and Thomas coming up my way. These were the friends I was talking about at the beginning of my article. I went over there, greeted them and welcomed them to my “hood”. We went up to the registration booth for them to get their information and name tags. After that, they all wanted to go to Kristin’s session, the place I was going to, so that worked out great. After the session, we all went to SERV to check out what they were selling; of course I just wanted to tag along. We left SERV and ran into Tom, another unit member and a good friend of mine. And from there, it was lunch time. We had lunch in the cafeteria. I have been here over a year and I have never seen it so packed with that many people. It was the biggest lunch line ever. The cafeteria holds approximately 200 people; we had 340 check in for lunch. Just imagine that. It was crazy. So after the craziest lunch ever, we all went to the 2:00pm session that Dan McFadden and Jim Lehman led. This session was about the past and current BVS units and the BVS history. This was a good session. I learned a lot. It was good to know about former BVS directors and Orientation Coordinators. We had a lot of people come as well. It was good to see that even folks that served so many years ago came and wanted to know more about BVS. From there Tom, Thomas, Bekah and I joined the storytelling session that included BVSers that served in the 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s. I say there was about 25-30 in that session. First we went around saying who we were, what unit we served, where we served and what we did. Then people started talking about some of the memories they had at orientation or their projects. It was good to learn about what others did and hear interesting stories that BVS usually provides. After the session we all chilled in 2nd floor Windsor building for a few minutes. Just talking and chatting and chillin out was probably one of the highlights of the weekend for me. From there Rianna, Melani, Bekah, and Thomas went down to the New Windsor Fire Hall for the banquet they were having. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to spend any more money than I already did. It was all sold out as well. Tom and I just stayed at the center and hung out for a while. Once the banquet was over, I went down to the dining room and chilled in there for while. They had a coffee house and people went up and performed songs, read poems, and said whatever was on their mind. It was a cool hour of just chillin. After that I went back to the crib and waited until the next day.
On Sunday, I got up and prepared for the Sunday Service in the gym. This was my first Sunday service here at the center. It was really nice. Jim Lehman was the worship leader. His wife was the music director, and Stan Noffsinger, General Secretary of the Church of the Brethren, was the speaker. The service was inspiring. They also had a consecration of Unit 282, which is here in New Windsor for orientation as I speak. The consecration was real cool. I hope they never forget that. From there, we had a great lunch. At lunch I ran into the Bowman’s who are the family members of my good friends the Stanford’s in California. It was great to see them before they left the center. That was it for the BVS 60th Anniversary reunion celebration. It was a great weekend. The biggest “thank you” goes to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who because of HIM we had a great time honoring HIM.
BVSer; Unit 275
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