There's singing in the mail room, crowds of people crossing the street too slowly...

The campus is alive with the sound of students!


What a weekend! Aaron attended his orientation events, and I tagged along for a few of them, especially the ones that promised food...! Though I had already been at peace for the most part about uprooting ourselves from the familiar and our move to an unknown place, the speakers from yesterday (who included representatives from campus life to Dr. Williford, president of the university) further put my feelings about being here at ease. The constant, perhaps even overwhelming, theme--more than policy, achievement, or even academics--was community. Community, community, community.

I'm all about awesome, edifying community. My friends are what I remember about Grove City College, not how well I performed in certain classes. Similarly, no job would've made my experience in Pittsburgh very enjoyable. The people who surrounded me, on the other hand--they made my two years there incredible. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I totally got behind what was being said. And that was basically this: surrounding yourself with people you care about at Trinity will not only make your time here better; it will help you to survive it. 

Ah, but community-forming is a process for me. I remember writing in my journal when I first started at GCC about how I longed for people on campus to become familiar, you know, at least who I could say hi to on a regular basis at least. And perhaps after that, if I was lucky, I could find some people to regularly go to the cafeteria with, or talk to late at night just for fun at the student union. I'm shy, but eventually it happened--and later in my college years, surrounded by some of the best friends I've ever had in my life, I forgot what it felt like to be that unsure of future community attainment.


Here I am again! Some of those timid, uncertain feelings have returned. Large orientation events aren't really my scene, you know? But this time I am much more confident in the way God works to bring people together. I'm not expecting to be a part of any crew/posse/what have you tomorrow, the next day, the next week... But I am looking forward to being surrounded by great people, and being able to surround them. And it's nice to be living on a campus that understands just how important that really is.


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