By Roving Reporter Marcia Mengel
Recently, I chatted with Nicole M., one of our new PB UMC-ers. We had a lot of fun. Nicole told me she moved to San Diego last November. “I was driving around Pacific Beach looking for a place to live near the beach, and I saw a bunch of people in a courtyard. This was a very inviting environment, and I did a little research. I found out it was Pacific Beach United Methodist Church, and I decided to start attending.” She is now in the process of becoming a member.
She told me she has been a school teacher for 14 years. She used to teach high school. “This is my first year teaching middle school science. The school is in Salton Sea, a dead and very poisonous sea north of here. We at the middle school will be studying the sea. I can’t wait for my students to get involved in that.” She loves the middle school, but is trying to get a job closer to home, because Salton Sea is too far away to drive to everyday. As a consequence, she has living quarters there where she spends week days and nights. She is home in San Diego on the weekends.
She joined the Projectionist team in March. “We are a team. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. Before the service, we give each other a fist pump and whisper ‘GO TEAM.’ I give everyone a high 5 when we are done.” When I asked her how difficult the job is, she told me, “I have to push the space bar to get things moving. It sounds easy, but the changes are made when you release the button, not when you push it. I just had to learn to do that.”
When I asked Nicole if she had anything else she’d like to share with us, she told me, “I could not have been more pleased after attending my first service. So much wonderful music! So many different beauti- ful faces! The energy around the entire sanctuary was so peaceful and inviting, yet invigorating and cleansing! I felt alive and connected to this living, breathing congregation that seemed driven to do GOOD wherever they could! That service was infectious, and I was infected with the spirit to reach out and do more in and outside of the church when I attended services.”
I talked to several people who, like me, met Nicole not long after she started attending PB UMC. We all find her enthusiasm inspirational.
