Staff
A Typical Day
by Stacy Ciha
One of our most common phrases around Two Rivers is that there is no such thing as a typical day.
Why is that?
First, we desire to live by the Spirit rather than the flesh. When you are willing to follow the Lord’s leading (although we are not perfect in doing that of course!), He will connect you to the people or places He needs you that moment, that day. It could be the other way around too. Perhaps there is someplace or person that you need to be connected with as well. These may never be the same or they could be. This keeps life interesting! We often have people stopping at our center and house of prayer that we’ve never met before, we’ve even had people just stopping by as they drive through Cairo etc.
Secondly, We work with people. When you work with people, there is no typical day. There is always something changing. God is constant, we are not. This is especially true with children, whom happen to be the majority of the people we work with.
But, you say, STACY , you’re not answering my question, what do most of your days look like?
A Basic Typical Schedule is this:
1.Meet as a community (as a staff) to worship/pray TOGETHER.
2.Meet with God in the prayer room for my own time before Him, listening, studing His Word and interceding for the people/places I’m involved with etc.
3. Go out into the community.
Here are some of the main things that I spend time doing right now…
~ We spend four of our mornings in worship and prayer together as a community. We pray for the town, for specific circumstances, for understanding, for a deeper relationship with our Father to name some things we commonly pray for. We focus on specific passages in scripture. We praise our Father. We share what God has been teaching us. We do Bible Study together. We listen to a teaching. This keeps us close to our Father and each other.
~ I spend my individual time with the Lord in the prayer room. This is when I study what I’ve been studying on my own, read, pray, praise, whatever I feel led on a particular day.
~ I volunteer in two of the schools in Cairo. One afternoon I help out in a first grade classroom. I help out in a fifth grade classroom two other times during a week. I am there to encourage teachers, to pray for the schools, teachers and students and to help students academically as well as personally and spiritually. God has given us great freedom in sharing Him in the schools. Within the schools it is a lot about relationships and intercession in those places. These are children that God really wants to use now and in the future.
~ I mentor and disciple one child as well as work with their family. This is my real heart, dicipleship. I disciple that encourage many children in little ways, but right now I really focus on one. I will begin with another one soon.
~ I am doing a bible study with a single mother. I am also involved with her children.
~ I help in a older children’s bible study that another teamate leads.
~ I work with along with other teamates in a children’s ministry once a week in one of the housing projects in town.
~ I volunteer once a week in a soup kitchen nuns in town run.
~ I spend time once a week visiting with friends in the nursing home in town.
~There are other office type things that I do such as being in contact with other local ministries, writing, preparing bible studies etc. Then there are the random conversations and minstry with people that stop by the center or as I go and meet people where they live etc.
A Day in the Life of a Two Rivers Staff
by Heather Amundsen
Without exception, a day for each of us consists of so much more than what we do. It is made up of the longings and pains of our heart, the mental plans we have made for the future, and the heartstrings that still pull on us from the past. And too, there is also this living man named Christ Jesus that is the filter through which I desire to experience and know my reality, even in the midst of sitting at a desk in the office and even in the midst of talking about who does the dishes. This man Jesus is my steadfast hope and life-breathe. And so, with this internal context laid before us, I welcome you to walk with me through a day in my life as a Two Rivers Staff member.
6:00 Alarm sounds. Sometimes I get up at this time, sometimes I don’t. When I do get up and read God’s word, I never regret it and am so glad I did but somehow by that night or the next morning the cry of my flesh has turned up the volume louder than the whisper of my Lord. This little tug of war is a little glimpse of how I often begin my day. Our house it pretty quiet in the mornings. I live with three other night owls by nature.
8:15 The first guitar strum sounds. Our praise and worship time is scheduled to begin at 8:00. I don’t know if it ever has. I don’t mind that it hasn’t. We occasionally greet each other, occasionally we just finished seeing each other at 11:00 the night before and there’s been no random happenstance that’s occurred since. Before this year I often wondered what the Israelites were doing as individuals when they traveled and lived in groups before God. What were they doing on a random afternoon in the desert year eight out of 40? What were the people thinking as individuals listening to Jesus talk about the kingdom of God he knows so well. I have a better understanding of what they were doing now. They were being people just like me and you. They each had different personalities that operated differently. They were gathered thinking of the last conversation they had, or that they should’ve put another layer on this morning. But they still come together before the Lord and hear what applies to each of their hearts and the truth that sets each of us free from the lies that plague and destroy our identity and our communication with God. And the most ponder-worthy part about it is that he created it that way. And so with each of us in the same place, but different, an attempt at worship begins.
10:08 a.m. Check my desk. Kingdom Fuel business cards are in! They look sweet.
10:17 a.m. Back to Prayer Room. Prayer room time is commonly a conversation table, an extended worship set, a classroom, or a library all in one. It looks different for each of us, but for me it often starts with writing with God. I must make a linear progression of the jumble that’s in my heart and mind in order to even clearly express it and then I see where it leads!
1:00 p.m. Pray in City Council Chambers. A couple of us sit in the chairs, listen, pray, declare scripture, listen, pray, leave.
1:32 p.m. Phone call with Regional Education Office. A woman saw a sentence in one of our ministry’s newspaper articles about tutoring and schedules a meeting to come down and check out what we’re doing here. Write it down. 15 minutes. My days are broken up into 15 minute increments. I work for Americorps and am committed to 1,700 this year. It that ends Nov. 18th.
1:46 p.m. An adult woman comes in early to use our computer lab that opens at 2:00. She’s actually the mother of one of the dancers we had in a class last fall and we chat for a while. Later, another adult that has taken our Intro to Computers class and our Intro to the Internet class is, for the first time, researching on web pages without help. Four weeks ago, he didn’t know how to use a mouse. A regular high schooler brought in a friend today but he wouldn’t sit down and didn’t stay. I hope he is eventually able to relax here.
2:50 p.m. Tribe of Judah. Fifteen 3rd – 5th graders walk from Bennett middle school two blocks down. I’m in charge of snacks and worship. They have a zebra cake or oatmeal pie with some fruit punch Kool-Aid and tell me about Jersey day at school. One of the young boys prayed for the first time today. Some of the kids have disorders or imbalances and act up a lot but in general, the kids just act like kids and we try to teach them from God’s word. In the midst of that, students pray for one another and for this community. Afterwards we bring them to the computer lab for a half an hour.
4:00 p.m. Daystar Nursing Home. The social awkwardness that sometimes happens with these older individuals isn’t as daunting, but rather can bring a smile, when you experience it with someone else. I go with my co-worker Stacy Ciha. The building is located one block down. Sometimes we walk there. Sometimes drive. Yeah, I shake my head at that too. I first started helping out at Daystar by calling BINGO. I had to call as loud as I could and people still had a hard time listening to my accent. Especially N22 and G43. We usually get to eat their afternoon snack with them. I forget about lunch sometimes. We visit Eva every week we go. She is 103. We read her bible to her since she can’t see well anymore.
5:32 p.m. City Council Meeting. This is the first time there has been a quorum (at least four of the six alderman) in 2 months. No article of business has been passed in that time, except once when they came in on their own time to approve a Christmas parade. In the meantime $100,000 sits for our taking to use on repairing the streets that are falling in on themselves. After the opening prayer in which a woman asked that we not shame God, two men from the USDA say they need audits for 2 of the 5 monies we have from them before any more will be released and if we don’t decide how to spend the remaining amount of one, the money will be taken back. They vote right there on a building to spend it on. Mountains moved. And the second guest was asking for the city’s backing on the purchasing of Daystar because Community Health was called in by it’s board and will otherwise be shut down. It is one of three major employers in this community. The council heartily gives their consent. After that, personal accusation, name calling, insults, and petty festering ensue. The councilmen walk out and the meeting is over by 6:04 p.m.
6:43 p.m. Mom calls. She reads me some bank mail from Minneapolis and checks in on some school loan info. I appreciate her.
6:58 p.m. Back to the center. Greg has already arrived. Friday’s we have Uprising It’s actually a worship and a prayer meeting with an open mic for testimonies or whatever any of us have been learning from the word. Greg is a middle-aged man from this community that has found few to trust in this life and therefore shares company with few. He has been our most dependable visitor and hangs out with us on the weekends sometimes.
9:05 p.m. Working in the office on some last minute things. I get updated by another staff member on some information I missed while in the lab about work this Saturday. We’ll be handing out food baskets at a festival in a near-by college town.
10:00 p.m. Wrap things up at the office with two other staff members still here.
11:18 p.m. After eating dinner, read and think a bit while resting in bed and then take one light bulb out of the string of lights that hang by my bed and the lights go out.
