Feeling Off...

I have now officially been finished with my internship at Grace Adventures for two months today. I knew coming back would be difficult and feel weird and off, but what I didn't count on was feeling this way for two months and counting. I know that I am where I am now for a reason, and that reason could very well be to prepare me for the future. However, I believe that I found my sweet spot during my time at Grace, and am currently living very much outside of that spot. Simply put, I'm not in my sweet spot, and that's bound to feel off.

By no means am I sitting around the house with nothing to do. Today is the first day in about two weeks where I haven't had to be somewhere for some part of the day. I like being busy, however, I have recently learned that there are different kinds of busy. One is the kind of busy that I experienced during my time at Grace. Depending on what was going on, I worked anywhere from 7:30-8:30am until 5:30-10:30pm. Sometimes running from one location to another, running this or that activity, cleaning, recruiting volunteer staff, getting ready for groups, etc. On my days off I fell into somewhat of a routine...get some extra sleep, then work on schoolwork that had to get done. A week's worth of school in about two days. Any Sunday morning or Wednesday night that I wasn't working, I went to church with the family I lived with. Some evenings when we didn't have to work we'd play disc golf or go to the dunes or beach or just play with the kids. That was my life. And it was busy! My priorities were very clear: work, then school, church, and family time.

Now I live back with my biological family (as opposed to my camp family) and I am almost as busy as I was at camp, but it's a very different busy. I like to call it a busy buzz. Running from here to there, this activity to that activity. Balancing youth group with jazz band with preschool department with jr. high with work with volunteering back at camp with getting ready to start college classes next semester with Christmas with everything else! My priorities aren't as obvious and clear, I have to make more distinct choices about them.

Other than the obvious differences in what I am doing, there is another significant difference. At camp, even what I hated it, I loved it. Sure, there were jobs I didn't like, days I didn't want to be with people, and things I just plain didn't like, but overall, I loved it all. I was challenged, and it was hard, but it was good. It was my sweet spot. Where I fit, what I want to do with my life, yeah, that was it! Now I am here and learning and busy and being challenged in different ways, and trying to apply what I have learned, and it's good, but I feel off. This isn't the perfect fit. This is temporary. I won't be in this place forever, and I don't want to be. I found what works and it will be wonderful to be back in that place when (and where) I am supposed to be.

Sleeplessness and College Visits

Most people, normal people, sleep well at home (generally speaking) and often struggle to sleep well when away from home. Especially at camp. They say that camp beds are uncomfortable and terrible to sleep on. I beg to differ. In fact, I will claim the exact opposite. I have been back from camp for 15 days now and haven’t slept well once. That’s right. Not once. I slept decent when I visited Cornerstone University (more on that shortly), but not great. It’s definitely been too long since I’ve slept well. In fact, I worked on schoolwork and other (quiet) productive things for nearly 4 hours in the middle of the night last night and didn’t nap today. It’s turning into quite the challenge.

Back to Cornerstone University. As it turns out, Cornerstone University is directly on my way from Grace Adventures to home. This provided me with the perfect opportunity to break up my trip, save gas, and do a campus visit. I LOVED it! I stayed with my friend Ashley and we had a LOT of fun! I was able to experience Evensong on Sunday night, have some meetings with faculty members, ask questions, sit in on some classes…one of which left me extremely disappointed that I would not be around for the next class! I gathered some important information, heard some very encouraging things, and was able to see quite a few friends. I was also surprised at how many people remembered me from the high ropes course during Leadership Journey! All in all, it was a great experience!

This week I get to visit Spring Arbor University (and more friends!) before heading back to Grace! It should be nothing short of UH-mazing!

Looking Back

As my time here at camp draws to a close, I have heard two questions many times. One being “are you excited to go home?” and other variations of the same question. The other being “What have you learned during your time here?” and other variations of the same question.

In response to the first, I am excited for the many opportunities that I will have upon returning home. These opportunities take on many forms…some are simply exciting events like youth group, and the opportunity to see friends again. Others fall into the category of challenges to work through, such as transitioning to not working all the time, being in a smaller house with kids who are 10 years older than the ones I’ve been living with, etc. However, I am not by any means excited to leave this place. I am excited about where I am going, but I don’t want to leave…that is an interesting predicament!

I have learned so much in my time here at Grace! I am not sure I can effectively communicate everything I’ve learned here, but I’ll try. From the work side of things, I have learned how much work really does go into meeting the needs of the groups that come in. Groups take advantage of living in a clean facility, but it really does take a lot of work for the buildings to even look presentable! Everything take time to set up and take down, and all kinds of effort! That is something I had not seen before, however, I loved it!

From the non-work side of things, it was amazing to live in so much of a community! The camp staff form a community, or camp family. Many times the interns were all invited over to a staff member’s house for dinner, or we’d go play disc golf after work, see each other at church, hang out and do Tae Bo, throw birthday and goodbye parties, and a baby shower even! And these are the people I’ve been working with…how many other people get to live in such a close community with the people they work with?

From the home side of things, I saw two parents doing their best to raise godly children. When I realized the 4 and 2 year olds had Psalm 23 memorized, I felt the need to do so as well! Their dad reads the Bible to all 3 kids each night before they go to bed, they learn verses together, and he makes SURE to spend time with the kids even when he’s exhausted or doesn’t want to. He sees it as part of his job…not for Grace Adventures, but for God. I saw a lot of disciplining as well. So many times I saw them put their kids in a room away from everyone else, tell the kid they would talk when she had control of her emotions, then mom or dad would walk away until she stopped crying. They always made sure the kids understood why they were in trouble, and when they apologized, they did it specifically: “I’m sorry Gina for when I hit you, please forgive me?” or whatever the situation called for. Sometimes I could tell their dad was very upset, but he was able to control his tone of voice and not erupt in anger. That spoke volumes to me! All of it did!

It was an incredible experience for me to live apart from my family for awhile, to see how another family works and interacts, to explore who I am and what I’m really about, as opposed to what I say I’m about because that’s what I’ve been told. I was able to ask questions, lots of questions. I was also able to be the new kid in youth group. What a powerful experience! I feel so much better equipped now to return to my youth group and impact the people there!

All in all, my time here has been amazing and incredible and there really aren’t words to express how great this experience has been for me.

The time in between

If you ever come to Grace in the summer, when you look out across the waterfront, you see lawn chairs on the sand, a box of sand toys, buoys marking off the swim area, a water volleyball net, a basketball hoop (in the water), a raft, water tramp, 2 life guard chairs, a blob, and docks where all the boats sit.

If you ever come to Grace in the winter, when you look out across the waterfront, you see water or ice. The beach is empty, and the blob tower is all that is left in the water.

What happens in between?

“In between” was yesterday. Waterfront removal day. Jason put on a wetsuit, Ben had on waders up to his chest, Nick, Steph, and I all just had on t-shirts and shorts. Ben and Jason took EVERYTHING out of the water. Nick, Steph, and I had to take the bladder out of the blob shell/deflate the blob. This consisted of us rolling around on the blob and pulling and tugging where we could. Good times…although we got awful wet. The bladder (which holds all the air in the blob) was slimy and gross when I landed on it. Then we scrubbed and mopped. On hands and knees, Cinderella references were made as I scrubbed the algae off of the bottom of the blob. We set up a huge box fan to air out the blob, and later Ben and I crawled inside to mop the inside.

We sorted through the sand toys, pitching the broken ones, pulled slide out of the water and SCRUBBED the bottom. It’s a wonder no one lost their breakfast on that one…the bottom was COVERED with a thick layer of algae that smelled bad and got EVERYWHERE. It took all 5 of us to deflate the water tramp ring, which we decided could make and excellent water gaga pit!

So, the time in between consists of getting wet and dirty sometime in October, having maintenance come help pull docks and the raft out of the water with their machines, and an entire day of work. I appreciate the waterfront a whole lot more now that I know how much work goes into setting it up.

Timing: Firefighter Style!

Scene: Wednesday morning. The soon-to-be arriving group is running late. The Grace Adventures staff has completed all tasks that need to get done in preparation for the group’s arrival. Kari and Nick are sitting at computers on one side of the program office, and Michelle is at Program Director Ben’s computer, all three working on various tasks.

Ben (as heard over Nick’s Nextel): Cheri has just informed me that the cabins have not been unlocked yet. If you would, send Michelle to go unlock Cabins 1-5 and 7-11.

I drop what I’m doing and head out to unlock cabins. Upon entering Cabin 1, I find a doubled up mattress, waterbottle, Mt. Dew can, dirty socks, and a terribly dirty floor. While trying to figure out who to call, in walk 2 faculty members of the group about to arrive…and Ben.

Me (eyes wide with concern and an urgent voice): Ben, this cabin is not clean.

As the faculty members leave, Ben pulls out his Nextel and beeps someone to inform them Cabin 1 is not clean. We quickly check cabins 1-5 and discover that none of them are clean. I rush off to check and unlock Cabins 7-11.

Ben (into Nextel): Stephanie, grab everyone, we’ve got to get these cabins clean.

At this point it is noon. The group is expected to arrive at 12:30. Generally, cleaning 5 cabins can take an hour or two. This is an issue. Kari, Nick, Jason, Becky, Ben, and I clean…firefighter style (that is, as fast as we can while still being thorough).

Stephanie (as we finish): Did anyone time that? Did anyone time that?

Me: Around 27 minutes!

The buses pull in about 5 minutes after we finish.

Rewind. It is Labor Day weekend, Sunday. Every week all summer, roughly 850 folding chairs have been painstakingly set up and torn down. This is the LAST day of the year they will be torn down…it’s a big day!

The timer is set and everyone rushes off to work. Putting the last chairs in the closet, grabbing the strays, closing the door and sitting down on the gym floor the watch stops at 19 minutes and 36 seconds. Go Team!

Yeah that’s right, we have fun while we work, here at Grace Adventures!

Success! in higher ground

As mentioned in the last post, this past week we had Cornerstone University Leadership Journey going on here at camp, and my dad was here working with a group of students. During some of my down time I had the opportunity to hang out with and get to know them a little bit. Because I had gotten to know them a little bit, it was very exciting to work with them at the high ropes course on Wednesday because I knew most of their names and knew a little bit about them. We had some sweet things happen during their high ropes experience.

The first was a girl in my dad’s group who is deaf, but has a cochlear implant and thus is able to hear some things, but lipreads as well. I was blessed to be able to work with her during her entire higher ground experience in that I belayed her into the course, transferred her to each of her elements, and belayed her back down to the ground. Her path was not extremely elaborate, it was not the most physically difficult, and from the ground, it didn’t look like she struggled a whole lot on her elements. However, each time she made it to a platform after the completion of an element, she got this big, huge grin on her face! It was like she was so proud that she actually did it! That was VERY awesome for me to see.

Another girl did not feel comfortable going into the course due to some physical disabilities, but as the time block drew to a close, she decided to give it a shot. We helped her into the equipment and I got to belay her as she climbed up four rungs on the ladder. To many people, that may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but it was a huge deal for her and everyone was so proud of her! What a great day!

So many awesome things happened throughout the week! I was able to spend some down building relationships with some Cornerstone students and having very encouraging conversations with some of them, which was very exciting for me. It was a long and tiring week, but a good one, and I find myself missing those people that I spent time with now that they are gone.

Changing Beautifully.

Last night I had the opportunity to go with the Cornerstone University Leadership Journey group to the Silver Lake Sand Dunes where they would have some time to run around before going through a prayer walk and then coming together for some worship. We headed out after dinner, walking the mile or so to the dunes. When we got to the top we pretty much dropped our stuff and ran off to go climb dunes and run down them, just having fun.

Based on the last time I had been exploring in the dunes, I thought I knew where the farthest dune was at. I knew the dunes changed some, I could see that, but it looked pretty similar to the way I’ve always known the dunes to be. As I approached the top of the dune I thought to be the farthest, I could see not one, but two more dunes past the one I was standing on. I decided to head out there and check out the view.

I reached the top of the farthest dune not long after a SCUF (Student Cornerstone University Facilitator). She looked around for a minute, then held out her arms and just let the wind take her, spinning, until she sort of fell onto the sand, where she just layed. It didn’t look like she wanted to talk a whole lot, so I decided to take that time to do something I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to do since arriving at Grace; stop. Just stop. Stop. Look. Listen. Think. Pray. I looked around, sat down, and just marveled. I started thinking in terms of Leadership Journey and how various things that I saw from atop that sand dune related back to the things the students were learning and that I had learned in past years. Something struck me. Hard. The beauty. The beauty of the water. The beauty of the surrounding trees. The beauty of the sun as it began to think about setting. The beauty of the sand. The beauty of the sand. The sand. That HUGE hill I was sitting on top of, that I was pretty sure had been just lake, not a dune, not long before. The sand that changes constantly as the wind blows it.

Pause. I am not a huge fan of change. If you know me, you know how true that statement is. I know that change is necessary, and can be a good thing, but that doesn’t always make it easy. Change is (often) good. Change is necessary for growth. But can change be beautiful?

Back to the story. I am sitting on this huge, tall dune, a couple yards from this SCUF who is still sprawled out on the sand, eyes closed, probably praying. I continue to look around at the sand. The ever-changing sand and how beautiful it is. How beautiful it ALWAYS is. After awhile, we headed back toward the rest of the group as they began the prayer walk. I decided to head to another, closer, dune to watch the sunset, this time, alone. I reached the top and just looked around, took some pictures, and looked at the sun as it began to set over Lake Michigan. As I sat and watched, I thought back to the changing sand and the beauty of it all. But then, the SUNSET! So beautiful and glorious! And ever-changing. I continued to take pictures of the sunset for awhile because it kept changing! And in fact, it became more and more beautiful (in my mind anyway) as time went on.

So I just kept thinking. What if the sand and the sunset are like the lives of Christ Followers. Beautiful, wonderful, but continually changing as we follow the path that God has laid out for us. He refines us, challenging us, giving us trials and hard times and good, sweet times as well as He shapes us. Much like the wind shapes the dunes, and while you may not be able to tell that the dunes are changing while you visit, if you come back in a year, you can tell changes have been made. And when we are changed and renewed to become more like Christ, are we not becoming more and more beautiful as those changes take place?

Working the Ropes

So, I’d say it’s about time for an update. I have now been at camp for 5 whole days! Things have been pretty crazy around here…but I love it! I’ve worked in the camp store, on the waterfront, gotten a little sunburnt, in the nursery Sunday morning, cleaned, worked the zip line, and the ropes course.

My absolute favorite is the ropes course. This week we have a group of college students (mostly starting freshmen) from Cornerstone University. Today some of them did the high ropes course, and it is always so cool to me to see the kids who get up there and just fly through the course…doing elements as many different ways as they can think of, meeting their goals and being challenged. But what’s even MORE awesome is the kids who get up there and freak out or start crying or get exhausted or whatever AND THEY STILL MAKE IT AND ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS!!!!! Such awesome growth! I LOVE seeing that growth happen and those kids get challenged and have the opportunity to challenge them and encourage them and I just think it’s SO cool!

Well, sorry this is so short…but dinner calls. Hopefully more updates will follow in the near future!

Peace out!

Upside-Down

On the last day of BigStuf, they showed a SWEET video that I have been waiting to see online. I finally found it! Check it out:

Mighty to Save

Everyone needs compassion
A love that’s never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations

My Savior
He can move the mountains
My God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender

Shine your light and let the whole world see
We’re singing for the glory of the risen King…Jesus

This is my favorite song, as I mentioned in a previous post. If you haven’t ever heard it, you should watch the video in that previous post. Anyway, this song has become my favorite only recently. We sang it once or twice at Leadership Trek Quest this summer (my week of training to work at camp) and I thought it sounded familiar, but only vaguely.

The next time I heard the song was almost a month later at BigStuf, in Panama City Beach, Florida. I was walking around in the camp store and through the door I could hear the band practicing in the big room. They were practicing Mighty to Save. It was instantly stuck in my head…and stayed there for about a week. The only problem was that for a couple of days I could only remember a couple of lines, and therefore sang the same lines out loud over and over and over again. Throughout the week at BigStuf, I heard the song more, and gradually remembered a couple more lines, but the song remained stuck in my head. The funny thing was, it didn’t bother me at all that it was stuck in my head.

Then amazing things started to happen. The Daraja children’s choir of Africa sang Mighty to Save as their last song with us! What a way to end that time together! But here’s the thing, these are kids who have come from not-so-hot situations in Kenya…many of them orphans: everyone needs compassion, love that’s never failing, let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness, the kindness of a Savior, the hope of nations. If that doesn’t describe these kids, I don’t know what does. But get this, these are kids who are NOT touring America for the people they perform for…they’re performing first and foremost for God. KIDS! You should hear their “favorite Scriptures”! Some of them recited entire passages off the tops of their heads in front of nearly 1500 people! My Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to Save, He is mighty to save. Forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave. That also describes these kids perfectly! They’ve been saved by the might of their Savior! He has done BIG things in their lives…even simply getting them to America…orphans have no birth certificates, and therefore, no passports, yet here they are, in the United States! That’s God. Shine your light and let the whole world see, we’re singing for the glory of the King, Jesus. This is exactly what this kids are doing; shining the light of their Savior, and singing for the glory of their King, Jesus Christ!

So that was Mighty to Save at BigStuf. The very next week I was at Grace Adventures as a CIT. The week was very challenging and even frustrating at times. HOWEVER (and this is the big part), as I blogged about before, the only three girls in my cabin who had not yet received Christ prior to camp, did so during the week! As I talked with Kali, the counselor I was paired up with, we both agreed that something was happening that neither of us could see, that the Holy Spirit was working. After a week like that (although an amazing experience) there was no way those girls’ decisions to accept Jesus as their Savior had anything to do with us! Mighty to save, my God is mighty to save!

So take me as you find me, all my fears and failures. Fill my life again. I give my life to follow everything I believe in, now I surrender. This becomes my prayer now. My Savior, He can move the mountains, my God is mighty to save. My Jesus can do anything. Anything! My Jesus can save girls. My Jesus can enable orphans to tour America in a choir. My Jesus can lead me to college. My Jesus can find a way for non-existent finances to come together for college. My Jesus can do absolutely anything. And He will. He will help me and lead me and give me peace and take care of me.

Everyone needs compassion. Love that’s never failing. Let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness, the kindness of a Savior, the hope of nations. It’s so true! We all need compassion, never failing love, mercy, forgiveness, the kindness only a Savior can give. My Savior, my Sweet Savior Jesus, my God, is mighty to save.

Spiders, Missing Shoes, Little Kids, and Jesus

This past week I was at Grace Adventures as a CIT (counselor in training a.k.a. assistant counselor). I was paired up with a counselor and we had 10 girls age 9-11. It was a very challenging week and I definitely think my attitude could have been better throughout the week, but I just wanted to share some of the highlights of my week.

One night, while sitting outside the cabin talking to one of the counselors, we noticed two daddy long leg spiders on the porch railing and decided it would be very funny if they started to brawl. They moved closer and closer together and, sure enough, they started to fight! No kidding! Suddenly, one of the spiders moves under the railing and does this sneak attack on the other spider. They fought until one of the spiders fell off the railing and under the porch, where we decided it died. It was great, and very funny!

Another day, Steph was doing a cabin activity with Cabin 12 on the athletic field. They were playing with a parachute and all had their shoes off. As we passed by, we decided it would be very funny to take Steph’s shoes and see what her reaction would be. We successfully got the shoes into my backpack and continued on to the other side of the athletic field to play a game. When Cabin 12 was finished, they came over and Steph asked us if we had seen her Detroit Tigers Crocs. Kali (the counselor) and I had to look away because we were laughing so hard, while my girls told Steph they were in a tree somewhere. In utter disbelief and confusion, Steph took Cabin 12 to chapel and went to get different shoes. Much to her surprise, her shoes magically appeared as props in the skit at chapel that day!

On Friday I was able to get a tour of the house I will be living in during my internship…by the 3 and 4 year old girls that live there. It was great! They are very cute and I was impressed with the tour they gave me. Of course, when we were done they wanted me to move in NOW, and I don’t think they understood that it would be a couple of weeks. Oh well.

These are some great highlights of the week, but there is something even better that happened in Cabin 11. While doing one-on-ones with Kali (technically making them two-on-ones), we learned that one of our campers had accepted Jesus during her morning devotions AND I had the opportunity to lead two other girls to Jesus during their one-on-ones! It was SO EXCITING!!!! I’ve never had an opportunity like that before, and it was amazing! Jesus is amazing! So many things could have gone so much better throughout the week, but what does that really matter when all three of the girls in the cabin who have never asked Jesus into their hearts and lives decide to make that decision at some point in the week?? It doesn’t.

Back from BigStuf 2008

Yesterday at about 12:30 pm we arrived back at the church from BigStuf. The exciting part of that statement? We were supposed to arrive around 6:30 or 7 am. What happened? Well, roughly a half hour after we left BigStuf, the air conditioning broke. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal until the bus started to get hot. Really hot. We finally stopped for a really long lunch, and ended up killing time in Office Depot while we waited for the bus to get fixed. When it didn’t, we went to Walmart to get water, ice, and coolers, and later, Propel packets, snacks, washcloths, and a thermometer. I was more dehydrated than I have ever been in my life! It was miserable. The bus, we soon found out, was 98 degrees! The other bus couldn’t meet up with us until Cincinnati, Ohio. We were on that bus for 10 hours. I will never forget that bus ride! And, I now appreciate air conditioning a whole lot more!

Anyway, as for BigStuf itself, it was AMAZINGLY INCREDIBLE! Actually, I’m not sure there are words to adequately describe BigStuf. But I’ll try. When we arrived, we were greeted by a couple of interns who welcomed us and gave us some instructions. After we were settled and had dinner, I was able to meet up with a friend of mine from BigStuf two years ago and just visit for a little while! So fun!

Stuart Hall spoke at the first session, talking about the theme, Broadcast, which is this idea that just like TV, radio, and other media, every person broadcasts something, and that something is our heart’s deepest desire. When that desire changes, so does our whole life, and therefore, our broadcast. There was more to it, but that’s the basics. After the session, Danielle and I and some other people from our youth group were checking out the camp store when some of the interns were asking us where we were from. They were surprised to hear we came all the way from Michigan, which sparked more conversation. One of the interns, Courtney, stuck out her hand and, with a smile on her face, asked my name. There was something special about that smile though. It was more than the typical first-night-really-excited-for-BigStuf smile. It was more of a Jesus-is-my-Sweet-Savior-and-I-love-Him-with-my-whole-heart smile. I don’t know if you’ve ever met someone like that, but if you have, you probably know that that is someone you immediately want to get to know better. I was able to talk to her and get to know her more throughout the week, and she just shows the love of Jesus in everything she says and does–even when she’s in the middle of a heated championship volleyball game or just goofing around with other interns to entertain BigStuf campers! That is the kind of broadcast I want to have.

The band and speakers were excellent, as usual. The worship time was amazing, the beach devotions were awesome, and our youth group really united at BigStuf. We also saw and illusionist and heard some of the interns talk about their experiences in Kenya. We met a guy named Ben who was sponsored through Compassion when he was a boy and how it changed his life. Now he is a senior in college and will be heading back to the school he attended as a boy to teach physics and math! And we met Jack, a guy also from Kenya who lost his right hand and left arm, leaving him completely helpless until a couple of guys decided to provide funds for Jack to get an artificial hand! And my favorite part was meeting the Daraja Children’s Choir of Africa, who came to America to perform for God in front of us! Not only did they perform, but they shared their favorite Scriptures (some whole passages!) and LED us in worship! It was UH-MAZING! Check this out:

This is my new favorite All-time favorite song. I was in the camp store Monday afternoon (Day 2) and I could hear the band practicing this song. It has been stuck inside my head ever since then, and have yet to grow tired of it! I love it!

So much more happened this week than I could ever describe to you, but those are (in my mind) some of the highlights from the week. Up next is another week of CITing at Grace Adventures, which I am very excited about! Of course this means another week of no internet access, but that is okay.

Peace out!

Last Sunday, just after noon (right in the middle of church) I received a phone call. No worries, I was anticipating the call and had my phone on vibrate. I still find it funny that it was during church though. Anyway, the call was from Ben at Grace Adventures. When I returned his call as soon as church let out, he offered me the PACE position I had applied for. Basically, I got the internship I wanted and will be spending 10 weeks this fall at camp! This will essentially be an opportunity for me to “try on” camp ministry and see if it’s REALLY what I want to do with the rest of my life, and hopefully discover (as my mom put it) my “sweet spot” in camp ministry. I am WAY excited for this!

However, before I head off to the internship, there are some other exciting things happening. The first of which, is BigStuf. I leave with my youth group tomorrow on a bus headed to Florida where 1500 or so other teens will gather in a hotel on the beach for a week of worshiping, praising, and learning about our wonderful Creator. Not long after returning from BigStuf, I head back to camp as a CIT (Counselor-In-Training). I have already served one week at camp as a CIT and cannot wait to be back for a second! I’ve met some great new friends at camp already this summer and can’t wait to get back and see them, as well as have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the campers I will meet!

So far my summer has been excellent, and there is so much more to come! God is so good!

Happy 4th of July!

Peace out!