Yesterday morning Mandy, Erica and I went to the library with our COE (Certificates of Enrollment) and Passports to attempt to get a Unikey which would allow us to get on the internet and do pretty much everything we need to on this campus. We had gone in two days ago but they had initially said that they couldn’t help us without a student ID of which we has on our COE and in my case which was in my email inbox, which I could not get because I did not have internet. Such a frustrating conundrum! Anywho today we were finally able to get our id numbers, usernames & passwords so we got on the computers in the library instantly for free! It was SUCH a nice discovery! I was finally able to print out my resume (here no one fills out applications they just hand in résumé’s and hope to be called!). Erika & Mandy decided to go back down to Broadway & I headed to King St. (which is closer to our dorm so I wanted to start handing in apps there). I walked about 4 blocks down, with a ton of people turning me downs. Apparently it’s not a good time for AU’s economy either because a lot of places were in the process of firing, not hiring… L but I was able to find a restaurant, a tea store & a café to take my resume. I was able to talk to the assistant manager at T2 (a tea shop) and she seemed really interested in hiring me… I hope I get to work there. It seems like a really cool place, filled with the scent of tea, which I LOVE so it would be absolutely perfect! It was nice to have some alone time just to walk around.
As I was walking around looking for a job I stopped into a couple of bookstores looking for a Bible (because I had forgot mine at home, literally just sitting on my bed). For some odd reason I felt really odd asking if a place sold Bibles so for the first three places I decided to search the entire place myself instead of asking. I finally got to the fourth store and was hot and tired of searching so I did a little looking but just asked the clerk if they sold Bibles. She gave me a strange look and said, “I haven’t a clue if we have Bibles” So she took me to the mystical & religious section & looked around with me. No luck. I then proceeded to ask her where I could find one because I’ve been to three different stores. I was beginning to wonder if they only sold Bibles at Churches or on Religious grounds or something like that. She told me that she had no idea where I could buy a Bible and proceeded to explain that this wasn’t a really religious area & no one had ever asked her about Bibles before. I felt as if someone had just put a sword through my heart. The minute she said that the slight demonic presence I had felt upon arriving in this area had just multiplied 10 fold and I knew I needed to get out of that Bookstore. When a store has 8 shelves of Science Mysticism and no Bibles, that’s when you know something’s wrong. I walked rather quickly down the street realizing that my heart was pounding so fast it was about to explode. What if I never found a Bible? It’s been one week and I feel like I’m going insane with out it, what is 5 months going to do to me? How am I going to be empowered to have an impact on this place if I cannot read God’s heart? As all these thoughts were speeding through my head I came to an intersection, the green light went on for the heard of walkers so I proceeded with the group, in the distance I could see yet another book store. I figured I’d give it one last try.
I entered Elizabeth’s Bookshop with low expectations but since this store was a bit larger it gave me a glimpse of hope. I began searching the store instead of asking this time in an attempt to procrastinate my devastation upon the reality that they most likely didn’t own any. I came across the Religious section and to my surprise there were three Bibles! One was a Catholic Study Bible, then next was another Catholic version of the bible and the last was the New Testament Good News Bible. I picked it up thinking, although it didn’t have the Old Testament, some Bible is better than no Bible! I opened it to make sure there wasn’t anything strange about it and the first thing my eyes came across was the Paul’s final words at the end of 1st Corinthians, “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be brave, be strong. Do all your work in Love.”
Instant tears down my face. Luckily I was in the back of the bookshop so no one was able to see me. It was exactly what I had needed to hear, the exact comfort my heart needed to feel. What an awesome God. I knew I needed to get it. I was completely broke, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to move forward without it. So I bought it. The most expensive New Testament I’ve every gotten, $13. That’s how much I paid for the NT, the same NT that American churches condense into pocket-sized books and throw around like candy. But it was worth every penny. Praise God.
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