Four Miles and a Prayer for Pastor Hopkins

I am very excited to announce that finals are over! My last one was yesterday afternoon, and I think they all went pretty well (fingers crossed).

This is how I walked to the T after my finals

I've known Pastor Hopkins my entire life. He was the pastor at my dad's old church, and they have stayed close. I hadn't seen him in years until last November. My friend was in the Philadelphia area, and my parents and I went out with her in Glenside. We were having a great time, when my dad got a phone call from Pastor Hopkins. And then it got better! He came out and joined us!

This was right around the time that I was making my final decisions about where to go to school. Pastor Hopkins actually knew someone who was working at the CDC! He gave me her contact information, and we got in touch, and she has been a great resource. This man has connections all over the place - probably because he's such a great guy that everyone wants to stay in contact with him :)

So in my infinite wisdom, I started studying for my epi final at about 9pm on Tuesday. And the test was at 2:30 on Wednesday. I don't recommend this. I was up until about 1:30am and then my brain no longer wanted to take in information.

It got to the point where I wasn't actually reading. I was just staring at words.

Now for your average student, that isn't too late.  But I still had to get up at 5:30am to run. So needless to say, I was VERY tired when I ran Pastor Hopkins's 4 miles. On the way to meet my team, I listened to his song request "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," by Martin Luther. Not my typical running music, but a good way to start what I knew would be a long day!

The rest of my miles were with my team. As I was running, I told one of the girls about my running/blogging/fundraising project. She asked who I was running for, and I told her about Pastor Hopkins! So despite being tired and the gross muggy weather, I had a great time running and talking about him.

In addition to his song request, he asked that I stop in a Lutheran church while I'm in Tanzania. There is a huge Lutheran presence in Tanzania, so this shouldn't be hard. I even found one in Arusha already!

I don't think it still looks like this though...

So thank you Pastor Hopkins, for the donation, the connections, and for always being there for my family! I'll be sure to say an extra prayer for you in the church in Tanzania!

Natalie