A few days ago (from when this blog was published) grade 9 students from all around Canada got to take a break from school to get the opportunity learn about what their parents do all day. This year, it was my turn. I started off by asking my Dad if I could spend the day with him. He is the head dentist at the Park and Tilford Dental Clinic, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to take a day to learn about his field of expertise. As the day came nearer I started to realize how much I already knew about his work, as I visit him lots, and I can’t really be in the room when he operates on his patients. So that idea went down the drain. I didn’t really want to go with my Mom either. My mom works at my old school, Lions Gate Christian Academy as an EA (educational assistant). It would be really awkward seeing all my old classmates again and I would just end up sitting around all day while my mom worked with special needs students. So I was without anyone to really go with.
Then out of the blue, my great friend Andrew invited me to go with him. His Mom, or in this case, sister works at the Hillside Church as a Worship Intern. I started my day by going to Andrew’s house. I got there at 8:30 and we had to leave by 9:30, so we had one hour to play Skyrim together. When we arrived at the church it was very quiet. It was Wednesday, so I didn’t really expect many people to be there. First, we set up the music stage for the for an event that was happening later that day.
This was mostly just plugging things in, wiring, and setting up the sound systems. Next, we listened to the songs that would be played later, and we came up with a few chords that could be played in the background.
The setup looked a little like this, but bigger.
After the musical part of the day, Andrew and I started working on the cleaning and maintaining the church. After some boring (ish) cleaning we started to build a coat hanger. The church’s existing one was in very bad condition, so it was our job to fix that. The building process was pretty easy, but the instruction manual was ripped up, so we both got quite frustrated.
For the next hour or so Andrew and I did a very tedious job. A job no-one really likes to do… Rearranging bookcases. Basically, we had to open each one of the hundreds of books and stick a label that stated what type of book it was. Example: Bible New Testament, Novels, Biography. Then we had to put the books back in the correct shelves that had the corresponding label stuck to it. Fun….
After this, the pastor and the co-pastor of the church sat down with us, and we asked them a few questions. The video below shows the two q/a’s (question/answer) that I found the most interesting.
Overall I really enjoyed spending the day at the church. I learned about their beliefs, and about what really happens around in a church when it’s not Sunday morning. I would totally recommend any grade 9 student to take this opportunity because I learned a lot, and it was nice to get out of school. I was surprised to see how few staff members there were working at the church, and I can believe how much work they must have to do to maintain, plan, and organize events. Personally, I don’t think I will take a job in this field. I always found Sunday church to be very boring and the amount of work and planning needed to run a church is worth way more than their paid. I am grateful for the opportunity, though.
Thank you for reading my blog. I hope this influenced you to take an opportunity like this when it’s given.
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