day twenty two. POST NUMBA TWO.

WOW. Blogging is a little too fun for me to handle. I'm just having a blast. Somehow typing out stuff and putting it out there for other people to read feels so satisfying. Like someone out there is reading what I have to say, and it makes what I say feel meaningful. Not like any of it is horribly important, but it's still nice to have that idea that someone is listening.

So today was extremely strange. This summer, whether you're aware or not, I traveled to Poland with 14 other kids from my church and 2 fearless leaders. We went for 9 days to serve God and improve the lives of people there by painting, running camps, and making friends. We did a lot of other stuff too, but I feel like I probably blogged about that earlier. Go find said blog, then come back.

Anyways, Frank and Karen, our leaders, are good friends with some people who have a lot to do with the International Day of Peace. Well, apparently they were having some celebration of peace today and they wanted the Poland team to go. Here I am, thinking I'll be the cool kid who says "YUP I'M GOING" on the Facebook event, then everyone else will follow. Turns out no one else followed...so I was the only one who went. I was a bit concerned it would be awkward, but it was far from it.

We arrive at the venue, which was called the Banana Factory. It's a place for the community to come and enjoy art, theater, and the like. I've been told very little about this celebration that's going to proceed today, and I'm expecting to maybe talk for probably a minute about my trip. I get there and the lady running the whole thing starts calling me a panelist. Turns out I'm one of 3 kids who are sitting UP FRONT and giving speeches for the audience. The other two had some beautiful typed up works of art, and I've got nothing. Thank goodness Frank and Karen are amazing, and they had already planned out a fantastic PowerPoint. Needless to say, the two kids were tough acts to follow, but I did my best. We played the PowerPoint, Karen prompted me with some questions, and I tried to answer as honestly and naturally as I could. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I was mainly just caught off guard.

As if that wasn't enough stretching of the Heather for the day, I was then informed that the audience would be given time to ask the panelists questions. And of COURSE one was directed right at me. Again, I was fine, this was just the strangest situation that I've ever been in in my entire life. I am not used to public speaking, but somehow it worked out.

So the day was weird, the situation was strange, but it was good. I like Sundays.