Trust in your neighbor

While I am here I'm required to go to 5 church services; 3 on the hill, and 2 off the hill. Then of course I can go to other churches after that. So on Sunday three of us girls ventured out to head to church! Originally I was going to go with other people to a church that's by the Marine Barracks, but I over slept. Go figure right? So my one roommate Chaunte and one of the other girls in our apartment building invited me to go with them. Unfortunately, the three of us girls just so happened to be ones that "followed" our groups around during our scavenger hunt, rather than "lead". So we have no idea how to get around since we haven't figured it out ourselves. So we set out  to go find this little church in Arlington Virginia. Luckily we found our way to Union Station, however when we got down in the metro we had no idea what train to take where. Now, I would have at least thought they would have figured out what train we were supposed to take where, haha but they didn't. Then I was just the tag along so I didn't know anything about where we were going.

 So there was this little elderly lady that was sitting on the bench waiting for her train to come so we decided to ask her where we should go. This little elderly lady jumped on up and went over to the sign to show us what to take and where to get off. She was so sweet and more than willing to help! Then she asked us where we were going, and obviously we said we were going to church. So this lady gets this HUGE smile on her face and goes, "well that's where I'm headed"! She said what church she goes to and how much she loves it there, and then said that we should go there sometime. The three of us girls looked at each other and kind of just decided, well, lets go with her now! This lady was SO thrilled, and had the biggest smile on her face, and I'm pretty sure she even clapped her hands! So on the Metro we road with Gladice!

Gladice has been living here in DC since 1984. I couldn't tell you how old she is though because she is a black woman, and black woman never age :P She had this little hat on, and was really short and just adorable. She talked and talked and talked on the metro and you could tell she was so excited that we were going to church with her. She even called her friends to tell them we were going with her. So after a 15-20 minute metro ride we arrived at the Silver Springs station and were on our way to a United Methodist Church in Maryland. It was about a 15 minute walk in the bitter cold, in which we ended up finding out later that Gladice took us the long way (she must have thought we wanted to see everything along that long walk) instead of the short cut we took on the way back. We arrived at the church, and went to go "powder our noses" in the "ladies room" as Gladice put it. 

The service was great, although the sermon was given by a missionary so unfortunately I didn't get to hear the pastor preach. The pastor at this church is a woman, and I've never had a woman pastor so I'm very excited about that! There were three baptisms; a baby, a 4 year old boy and a 6 year old girl, all of which are siblings. It was the most precious thing I'd seen in a long time...I honestly think I had more tears in my eyes than their own mother :P Then towards the end of the service they were doing prayer requests, and since it's a bigger church they use a micro phone, that way everyone can be heard. So Gladice stands up next to me so she can get the microphone and goes, "I just wanted to pray for these three girls along side of me today. They are interns here, and I found them in the metro station and dragged them to church with me!" Everyone was laughing at her "found them and drug them here comment", and then they all started clapping for us three girls. It was amazing. Now, DC gets a lot of interns so I know we weren't the first interns to have entered that church, however so many people came up to us after the service and were talking to us and asking us where we are interning, and just really made us all feel welcome. 

After church we found out how spunky Gladice was as she joked around with us, and taught us how to properly j-walk. She gave us her business card on our metro ride back, and then proceeded to tell us how special we were because we were getting her actual "home" phone #. Of course we still have 4 other churches we have to visit (I'm planning on going to a african american church and a hip hop church!!) but the United Methodist Church will definitely be an option for our home church while we are here. We also found out that Gladice doesn't live to far from where we live, only  about 5 blocks, so the three of us are planning on calling her up and going to lunch with her! 

While living here in DC you of course always have to use good judgment and keep your head up. You have to be very cautious and aware of your surroundings. However, this doesn't mean that every single person here is bad and you can't talk to them.  So by meeting Gladice today, it just taught me about the kindness in strangers that you can rely on. You don't want to be too comfortable walking around the city (you don't want to let your guard down), but you do definitely want to have a healthy respect for it. Because really what it comes down to is that I am living in the district, in an area where people have lived there whole lives and the politicians and interns that come and go here are stepping into their territory. There is SO much more to DC than just politics, it's a city filled with many stories :)