awkward & awesome (intern edition)

by Eliza Noel - Sunday, August 08, 2021

“Eliza, if you join the internship I’ll be so happy that I'll cry.” Those were the words from a girl named Emilie I’d barely met two months before. I already felt like I’d known her forever. I just knew we were kindred spirits.

repping my church while camping

I’d been attending The Well for over a year and had considered applying for their internship, but wasn’t sure it was right for me. I didn’t know if I wanted to move out of my family’s house and have a forty-minute commute to work. I began praying about it, discussing it with my parents, applying, and being accepted! Internship responsibilities included hosting events (mainly something called Friday Night Hangs), welcoming newcomers to church, and meeting people for coffee. I love hospitality and meeting new people. There were definitely hard times, but for the most part, I felt like I was thriving!

my housemates & I dressed up for our Friday Night Luau

I learned so much through living with several other girls. It was neat seeing our differences, but also how we shared the common goal of following Jesus and serving others. Sometimes shopping for my own groceries, meal prepping, and cleaning made me feel like I was ‘playing house’. I hadn’t expected to ‘move out’ before getting married, but it was a good experience.

my littlest brother and I on one of my visits home

Living away from my family made me appreciate them more. I called my mom often (sometimes three times in one day), would meet my dad for coffee, and often stopped by my family’s house before work because it was fun to see how surprised my littlest siblings would be. I’m happy to be back home with my family again, but I thought it’d be fun to share some highlights from my seven months in the internship.

a 'family' photo- The Well college ministry interns 2020-2021

Awesome:

I'm awful at Risk, Clue is more my game.

-Game nights! They were super fun, but often left me barely sleeping because of a 6 a.m. Biblical studies class the next day.

-Conversations with other young adults from church about honoring God in seasons of singleness and also about what God-honoring relationships look like. It was neat to have mature and open conversations as well as compare personal opinions and values.

this was taken at another one of our stargazing spots

-Late-night spontaneous road trips! Kate was usually the instigator. Those adventures happened on several occasions and were always fun. During the winter we’d go to the lake to stargaze, and more recently we swam in it at midnight.

-A formal dinner for the interns, a few leaders, and the events team. It was so fun to have a reason to dress up!

-Sister sleepovers! One night we watched The Princess Diaries.

a few interns and a sister

-Making dinner for friends. It always felt weird cooking for just me so I enjoyed the times I got to cook for others too.

a friend caught this sweet moment at my family's house on camera

-Dinner with friends at my family's house. I loved introducing them to all my siblings and showing them how cute my small town is. There was one night several of us crammed into the treehouse to play games and sing camp songs.

-At the end of an emotional day three guys from our church showing up at our door and asking if we wanted to take a walk to get ice cream. That was so kind of them and such a fun memory. Us girls love our big brothers-in-Christ so much!

Cayucos

-Getting baptized at the beach and a handful of my friends coming to it.

-Bringing friends to my gym. We made several videos of all of us going up the warped wall.

somebody creatively crossed the slackline

my siblings came to one of the park days

-PARK DAYS. Oh my goodness, these were so incredibly fun. Back in February Emilie had the idea to take her slackline to the park and invite friends to join us there. This became something we did semi consistently until it got too hot. It’d be a group of about fifteen young adults riding longboards, falling off the slackline and throwing a frisbee at the park.

-Walks to the nearby university campus. They happened fairly often. My favorite one included climbing a tree, playing follow the leader, re-enacting a scene from Sound of Music, and sitting in a garden discussing our life plans and dreams.

-Hanging out on Tuesday nights with my teenage sister. One night we bought an ice cream to share and sat in the back of our brother’s truck.

-A spring break trip to Zion National Park. One of my favorite parts was laying on the ground, looking at the stars, and singing worship songs.

80's hangs

-Friday Night Hangs with costume themes.

-Having the boys over to watch Sound of Music. They loved it!

isn't this wall cute?

-My roommate, Claire, taking a group of us to the Swedish Festival in Kingsburg. That was such a fun experience! I loved the small-town feeling as well as seeing where she grew up.

his sash says, "half-birthday queen"

-Half-birthdays! We made a big deal of a few of them. Us girls even threw a surprise half-birthday/graduation party for one of the boys since he’ll be living in a different state on his actual birthday.

this was taken at our final Friday Night Hangs

-New people at Friday Night Hangs. One night we had 29 of them!

Tabletop Mountain

-Hikes. It was so natural to look at everything around us and discuss how neat it was that God created it all! I loved that.

-A little walk that turned into swimming in a river, climbing a giant tree, and getting a yummy lunch.

-Inviting myself over to a family’s house for an afternoon and them inviting me to stay for dinner. It felt so good to be around children and be 'part of a family’ once again.

Pismo

-One of the boys getting a new car. He took Emilie and me for a drive and was playing a country radio station. That’s when I decided I wanted to ride in his car on our beach trip.

-A bunch of my church friends coming up to where I work for a movie night. That was so fun!

Sedona

-A weekend road trip to Arizona. I always love seeing new parts of the country!

-Getting a tour of Bass Lake and Oakhurst. We met up with some other people from church for lunch.

-Staying up late, chatting, and all sleeping in the living room the final night all of us girls were together. We went through some conversation starter questions together. One was, "What song makes you think of me?" Lorah and I responded with the exact same song for each other!

-Cleaning house together and taking goofy polaroids.

-Surprise visitors at the house. One ended up staying and chatting for almost an hour. I loved the environment of living in a house where people could just do that.

-Baking a cake and Claire decorating it for Emilie's birthday.

I may have forced them to listen to VeggieTales

- A full car.

-Coming home from work to a full house.

-Late nights at In-n-out. It's open until 2 a.m so it was our go-to hangout.

-Afterhours. That's what we call it when we all go get dinner together after church.

-My Foundations group. I went through a ten-week study on the foundations of Christianity with these sweet girls.

-Mornings with Emilie. I especially enjoyed starting the day riding to our Biblical Studies class together.

Awkward:

-Having a rough day and dealing with it by blasting a VeggieTales soundtrack and driving around a roundabout several times. 10/10 recommend.

-Kate and I smashing grapefruits with a baseball bat while blasting happy music because we were frustrated. It was a very bonding experience.

-“You better get used to this because someday your husband’s gonna watch you make dinner. Wow, you’re a messy eater.” Thanks, friend.

-"Hey Mom, can I invite a few friends over for dinner?" "Oops, there's 32 of us coming..." My mom is literally the best! She made iced tea, dinner and dessert for all of them.

-Bringing my stuffed animal seal to an intern meeting. Everyone took turns holding him then my friend asked if he could take him with him to go get burritos. I responded, “David doesn’t go anywhere without Mommy.”

-Playing hide and go seek in a giant house on our retreat. Even our college pastor was playing and sneaking around in the dark trying to scare us.

this costume was the most popular thing we found in the bag

-A coworker sending me home with hand-me-downs and all six of us girls promptly putting on a fashion show.

-"I tried to go straight to Fresno, but my car wanted to go see my family.” -an entry in my journal

-Emilie and I dancing goofily on the beach and eventually getting an older lady to join us.

it was pretty even with all the fire damage

- ‘squatching’ on a camping trip. You also believe Sasquatch is real, right?

I hope this was somewhat entertaining. I enjoyed organizing all the pictures and memories. What are some awesome and awkward moments from your life lately?

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