I am sitting in a Caribou Coffee place, typing feverishly because my 20 minutes of internet for the week needs to be efficient. I am in a whirlwind. Let's do bulletpoints. That makes the list-making part of me happy.
-8am last Sunday morning. Left Taylor. Spent a restful day in Chicago, lounging around, eating steak and watching Star Wars. :-)
-6:30 am Monday morning. Leave for Midway airport and fly to Minneapolis. Praise of my life. My suitcase, yes only one for the summer--thank you Lisa and that included an air mattress--was 12 lbs. too heavy. The guy at the counter let me know that it would be a $90 charge. Zoiks! He assisted another man and when I was about to begrudgingly hand over my card, he said, Just go. Go. Down the stairs to your gate. Have a great flight! He didn't charge me! Made my day.
-6:30 am Monday morning. Leave for Midway airport and fly to Minneapolis. Praise of my life. My suitcase, yes only one for the summer--thank you Lisa and that included an air mattress--was 12 lbs. too heavy. The guy at the counter let me know that it would be a $90 charge. Zoiks! He assisted another man and when I was about to begrudgingly hand over my card, he said, Just go. Go. Down the stairs to your gate. Have a great flight! He didn't charge me! Made my day.
-Jumped right into training. 120 staff trained, including the fabulous Melesa and Adam, who convinced everyone at training that he still had his Albanian accent from when he lived there. They were seriously distrustful and disappointed when they found out it was fake. I couldn't handle it.
-Training was intense. I actually turned my phone off for the first time since September because we were doing stuff and hanging with our staff from 7am until 11pm bedtime.
-My team is incredible. From left to right, it's John, Eric and Kara. I'll talk more about them later. And yes, that is our hooptie Youthworks van.
-I was dragging the first few days...I wasn't sleeping well and I am a girl who needs her sleep majorly. By Wednesday I felt more like myself.
-Drove to Duluth this morning. Toured the church. It's monstrous. The city is beautiful. It's right on the lake. We're within walking distance. The church is right downtown in one of the worst parts of the city...ya. But all the more work that God can do! In our walk downtown, we witnessed a fight, some guy tried to sell a guy on our team drugs, and the guy who got beat up who was under the influence meandered past the church as we were unloading. Don't worry Mom, the church is locked at all times, we bought a deadbolt for Kara and my bedroom door, and the boys are sleeping by the stairs on the way up to our room. It'll be ok.
Kara was sitting on the floor in our room, which isn't quite what we expected and teary-eyed said, Can you come over here and just pray? It was a great moment. This will definitely be a summer where trusting God through praying will be HUGE.
This week we're at the site doing prep. Putting up signs, stocking the food, and preparing what is called Club time, which is the fun time at the end of the day. I'll give you more logistics of what exactly I'll be doing at a later date.
It has been incredible overwhelming this week. I've never felt so uncomfortable and so on the verge of making so many mistakes in my life. It's really daunting...We'll have about 1,000 youth cycle through our site this summer. It's a lot of pressure, but when I think about it, it has helped me to trust God so much more and rely on Him instead of myself already. I think that's my biggest prayer.
Internet will be about once a week during the weekends, so check back at the end of every weekend and I'll have updates.
Pray:
-For the people we'll serve.
-The participants coming.
-Team unity.
-Safety.
-Peace of mind and peace in general.
I appreciate you all so much and am so grateful for you. I feel supported even though you're all so far away and out of contact. Keep praying.
Much love,
KGirl
