Good grief. I knew camp would be busy but whew!
With that being said, I LOVE IT.
Training week consisted of a lot of meetings and a lot of information. My favorite information, however, was about my team. We each got to share about ourselves. I don't mean surface information like name, hometown, college, major, etc. I mean about our lives. About our families. About our hurt and pains. About the Lord's work in our lives. So many stories.
The things that my teammates have gone through and experienced is mind blowing. It's cool to think about how all of those totally different things have made us who we are and that the Lord has now brought us here together for a short season to further His kingdom.
Leading into camp, each person on our team talked about what we expect from this summer. We wrote them all on the board. Ultimately, however, our aim this summer is to make disciples who make disciples, to the glory of God.
Training week was fun. I got to meet other people on other teams and started to learn about the people on mine. Information from the mouth is valuable but only takes you so far. When you start living life with someone, that's why you truly learn them.
So some highlights from training week:
My team rocks.
One reason for this is that we won staff rec during training week. It was so much fun and now we have bragging rights for the next year.
One night during training week we all ate dinner by the "lake" (pond) in Shocco.
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| This is apparently how Kenyans take selfies |
These are the people I will be working the closest with this summer. The other two mission site coordinators, Peter (left) and Melanie, and our missions director, Connor (right).
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| Hanging up the missions banner |
I am thankful for the church God placed me in growing up. I am amazed at His grace in allowing all of us to have the great opportunity to work for Student Life this summer. I'm thankful for these sweet friends and can't wait to hear about the ways the Lord moved in and through their teams.
And here they are. The 22 people that I will be with 24/7 for the next two and a half months.
#Green14
After what seemed like a year, training week ended, we sent the other teams off, and Green Team 2014 started the first camp of many this summer in the one and only Shocco Springs.
And so it began.
Apartment complexes. Nursing homes. Boys and Girls clubs. Soup kitchens.
Piggy back rides. Singing songs. Painting fences. Serving food. Raking leaves.
Mission Sites.
These are just a few of the many of places that I will go and of the hundreds of things that I will do.
I get to love on little kids. I get to comfort the elderly. I get to do manual labor until I can't any more. I get to have intentional conversations with students.
All for the sake of the gospel.
Every once and a while other team members will get to go to sites with us and it's such a blessing. They are always so willing to jump in and work hard.
I have also had the extreme privilege of getting to spend time with this girl:
This is Mechay. I student staffed with her in 2010. She was older and cooler, and I was a student staffer for one week, but in that one week she showed me the love of Christ and became a real friend. She's dating my missions director so I've been blessed by getting to see her several times so far.
She also got to go to a missions site with us! We did some serious color coordinating.
Another aspect of my job is getting on stage and getting students excited to go serve out on their missions sites. While I'm not the biggest fan of stage time, I thoroughly enjoy painting my face.
Let me hear you Purple Craze!
Team bonding.
We don't get to do it often, but when we do it's wonderful.
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| Girls night! |
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| Pazookie |
My team just finished up our 5th camp at Myrtle Beach. We've had a little bit of extra time to enjoy the beach, which has been awesome.
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| Post-run selfie |
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| What's a day at the beach without spikeball? |
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| Burying the Kenyan |
So there is the past month of my life in a nut shell.
To be totally honest, most days I am physically exhausted. But the Lord is gracious to sustain.
And spiritually, I am so full.
The camp theme this year is "Who do you say I am?," a question Jesus asks His disciples.
I just really love this theme. It's so easy to be intentional with students about the gospel. The question is so important. Who we say Jesus is defines who we are, regardless of how we answer.
It's been awesome to hear the gospel preached again and again, week after week. To hear the hearts of students and what they think about the bold truth being spoken into their lives.
It's also been refreshing to learn and grow myself.
I know Who Jesus is. I've been told my whole life. But it's good to be reminded. To be retaught. Now the challenge for me is to live a life worthy of all of Who He is.
And what a challenge it is.
Constantly being with people who are way different than me is revealing sin in my life in a bold and glaring way. The disgusting thing is that in my pride I often times don't even see it as sin.
My prayer for myself is that I would be humble, that I would work hard, and that I would love and serve my team well.
Today we arrived at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. Camp #6, here I come!
