A few of us drove caravan-style from Alabama to Mississippi, stopping once at a little Texaco for Twizzlers and a stretch. Once at Institute, the well-oiled TFA check-in process had me in and out of check-in within thirty minutes, and a whole troop of boy scouts were assisting everyone in unpacking our cars and taking things up to our rooms. It was the easiest arrival to "camp" ever (because until we start teaching kids, it really does feel like camp for big kids).
After unpacking a bit, I wandered with a few over to the quad for a large barbeque TFA hosted for us. We decided to sit with new people, to get to know others besides the kids in our corps, so we sat with some Mississippi Delta corps members. We asked them the size of their region... they are HUGE! The official number in our booklet puts the corps at 520!!! Considering BamaCorps is a fifty-four man outfit (as are some of the other corps, including the Appalachian Corps and Indianapolis Corps), that's almost more than half the people here at Institute.
Makes me glad, once again, that I was assigned to Alabama and not the Delta. Another one of the many things I'm glad I haven't gotten lately.
It remind me of that Garth Brooks song, "Unanswered Prayers."
"Sometime I thank God for unanswered prayers. / Remember when you're talking to the Man upstairs. / And just because he doesn't answer / doesn't mean he don't care. / Cuz some of God's greatest gifts / are unanswered prayers."
That's my life right now. Because despite the large gaping unknown of Institute in front of me, I have never been more content and full of purpose. This is where I'm supposed to be.
Tomorrow we split up and board the busses to head out to the school sites where we'll be teaching this summer. My school is pretty close (maybe a ten or twenty minute drive), which is lucky. Some people have an hour bus ride there and back, since everything is so spread out in the Delta.
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