Behind the Scenes

written by Graham Monroe

For each fellow and each leader, there are certain unspoken things that knit our community together in an encouraging and renewing way. I want to take a moment to go over each person that has a major roll in the Fellows Program and tell you some fun stories that will give you a better look into the life of a Fellow from my personal experience. 

Tripp Graziano, Director of the Fellows Program here in Greensboro is known for his lively personality and ability to make things happen. What you may not know about Tripp is that he is an early riser and a night owl. The man doesn’t seem to need much sleep as he values time with the Lord in the morning and time with others at night. 

Our Assistant Director Sarah Reid has an incredible servant heart, and with that comes many things that are unseen. Sarah has always been incredibly quick to encourage. Last week there was a large gathering for the youth group at Redeemer that Sarah and I were at and during that time I told her how nervous I was. The next day Sarah texted me the most encouraging words about how I was apparently a “natural” at hanging out with those kids, truly kind words that no one would have ever known about! 

The pastor of our church, Alan Hawkins, is a humble and caring man, so he is going to do many acts of kindness that no one will ever even know about, BUT I know about some of them. Alan not only makes time to teach our church history lessons on Wednesdays, not only does he lead our church every Sunday, but what people don’t see is when Alan opens his house to people like me and my friend Brian who have theological questions that we can trust him to answer. Alan is our pastor who opened his house to us and spent time just talking with us when he could be spending time with his family. I have not found that in any other church and trust me I have tried in many churches. 

Does Elijah Lovejoy get enough credit here? If we are talking about the unseen work that goes into the Fellows Program Elijah must be mentioned. Elijah is also a pastor at Redeemer who teaches our apologetic classes on Wednesdays. What people don’t see is Elijah giving jobs to the youth in our community, leading people in a healing ministry, and my personal favorite that most don’t see is Elijah's ability to hear from the Lord during a conversation with him. If you have ever sat down and had a conversation with this man, you understand what I mean. 

Now there are a lot of people that do a lot of things behind the scenes, but the Meriwethers must get credit for the “BEHIND THE SCENES” award. I am going to be honest, Jessie Meriwether has so many duties I just text her if anything goes wrong. Jessie helps with finances, scheduling events, hosting parties, hosting morning prayer, building the church website, building the Fellows website, she is the queen of everything that no one sees. Credit must also be given to the king of behind the scenes, Chris Meriwether. Let me explain what the Meriwethers did just this past week: they hosted a first year fellow to live with them, they hosted a current fellow to live with them, they hosted morning prayer on Monday where they made breakfast and delicious coffee, they let me come over to play N64 two days this week and to top it all off they hosted a movie night where there was a small army crammed into one living room. 

My hope is that those who are in life and feel as though they are just barely making it, you should know that you will be honored in heaven one day. The moments you may think don’t matter, the moments where you may think no one is looking, in those moments God is watching intently so that He can honor you for them later.

Living Together

written by Sarah Moubray

Over the last three and a half months that we have been in the Fellows program, we have met a countless number of people. From our church family at Redeemer, to our coworkers at our jobs, to the people we meet volunteering, to our business speakers each week, to our friends at soccer Sundays, the list could go on and on. But in the midst of all of the people that require me to still think really hard about names and faces, there are three people that I see everyday who require absolutely nothing of me but to just be myself. This year I get the incredible opportunity to live with Chris and Jessie Meriwether and Andrea Cuevas. Living with them has been one of the highlights of my entire year so far. When I’m upset or frustrated, they listen. When I’m hyper and weird, they play with me. When I’m being lazy and all I want to do on Sundays after church is eat and watch Netflix, they do that with me too.

Two of my favorite times with them this year both happened last week. On Tuesday, Jessie and Chris found out that they are expecting a little baby BOY! Andrea and I then screamed for about an hour and brainstormed all the cute little things we could get for a baby boy. We got to celebrate Little M and his soon-to-be parents that night and feeling like I’m going to have a little brother soon is something I’ll never forget (#onlychildproblems). The very next day, we had our weekly family dinner together and then set out to decorate our home for Christmas. We found the perfect chubby Christmas tree and spent the evening adding all of our ornaments to it and telling the story behind each ornament we chose to add to the tree. It was a wonderful family tradition that I’m so thankful to be a part of. These people have truly made Greensboro feel like home. The Lord knew I needed to live with people who are only a few years older than me. He knew I needed to live with people who had already been Fellows and experienced some of these same things that I’m experiencing. Christ knew that I needed to live with people who were going to walk beside me this year in all of the peaks and all of the valleys, laughing, fighting, and being weird with me the whole time. I couldn’t be more thankful for the people God hand picked for me to live with this year. Chris, Jessie, and Andrea, I love y’all more than I love Cheerwine, soup, cookout, and Gilmore Girls... which is a whole heck of a lot.