Week Ten

LAST WEEK!!!

Sunday

11-1 Church
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-3:30 Work Projects
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/ get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Inventory Work/ Random Site work (cleaning refrigerators and such)
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
6:30-8:30 Coordinate Evening Activity/ Make/ Give out Snack
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45-Staff Meeting

9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students
12:30-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews
8-9 Send off students
9-5 Clean/Pack up site
5-11 Pow Wow!!!!

Saturday
10-12 Clean vehicles/bathrooms

Total: 77 hours
(Running Total: 637 hours)

Personal Reflection
My summer is over! Weird. It has been one incredible ride. I’ve been a little disappointed lately in feeling like I wasn’t able to do much here. I guess it’s a struggle with what Short Term Missions should really be and how I feel about how YouthWorks does it. They are not concerned with how the community is changed but rather how the youth are changed and much of my job is making sure that they have an emotional experience and that is hard for me because I’m not under the belief that emotional highs are what changes us. I think challenges change us and I am not all that sure how the youth were challenged as much as they were spoon fed this summer. And some of them needed to be, but then is they’re place on a STM trip? I’m not sure and it’s a battle for me, if you have thoughts I’d love them. Youthworks is MUCH business and a small percentage effective ministry. *steps down from soap box

This week was a semi-tough week. I worked with another site staff and we had a good time. I really got to connect with students more this week and I loved that. We did have some difficult/disrespectful students this week. I still feel like God blessed it. It is hard saying goodbye to children I have connected with all summer at our kids club. Ionna, Kionna, Linda, Shiota, Jodee, Neve, Taneesha, Donovan, Jonathan, Samantha, PJ, Charles, Porscha, Luke, Stephany, Alanie, Martina,…yeah I could go on forever. I love them all dearly. Then there’s an even longer list of Lakota friends I have gained. I cannot wait to see them again. I plan on leading a team back here in May and I’m so pumped to do it! To close everything off we got to go to a Pow Wow with Sherri, one amazing/helpful Lakota woman who helped SO much. It was so amazing. This whole time I’ve been here recognizing the hopelessness, but seeing that really helped me to see the beauty in their culture. Maybe it is the fact that their culture is so strong and the US culture is so weak that soldiers became so fierce toward it. It’s nearly impossible to describe but they dress in their traditional dress and have a grand entry where each of them come in dancing old men and women down to toddlers. I had tears it was so incredible (p.s. I’m not a huge crier). I was so glad to see people I knew expressing their culture. I never wanted to leave. Amazing. Thank you Lord for an overwhelming experience this summer.



Spiritual Reflection

I am having a struggle understanding all of why God brought me here, but I feel Him revealing it piece by piece and I’ve come to the understanding that I may not realize for months or years why I was really brought here. I hope that in some way I was used this summer to draw someone closer to Him. At the core, I think that’s all I really desire.

Week Nine

*I finally got to internet again!!

Sunday

11-1 Church
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-3:30 Work Projects
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/ get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Inventory Work/ Random Site work (cleaning refrigerators and such)
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
6:30-8:30 Coordinate Evening Activity/ Make/ Give out Snack
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45-Staff Meeting

9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students
12:30-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews/ Fax papers
8-9 Youth Enterprise work (selling T-Shirts)
9-10 Set up B-fast/ Lead send off prayer and final words
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30
- SHOPPING TRIP (drive to Rapid City/shop at Sam’s/shop at Wal-Mart/pack it all in/ drive back/ put away and organize $1,100 worth of food/merchandise)

Total: 70 hours
(Running Total: 560 hours)

Personal Reflection

With the many blessings of the last group, came many frustrations with this group. I’d just like to say that I don’t have anything against suburban Chicago kids, in fact, some of my good friends are from suburban Chicago. Some of our best groups have been from there. But if I heard one more complaint about how their maid should be here doing the painting or making their dinner, I think I may have just self-combusted. Two things that have been hard for me to grasp this summer are blatant disrespect and not knowing how to do basic jobs. This week I would tell students to do things and they would get in my face and just say “No.” then walk away. Many of them had no idea how to sweep, mop, wash a dish, tear lettuce, cut a tomato, stir pasta, clean a toilet…the list goes on and on. Am I alone in that my mom actually made me do things around the house?
Also, people tend to forget this is a mission trip, and honestly they are here for four days…what’s four days anyway? It’s not even a week and hardly enough time to really get uncomfortable. Our adult leaders were outrageous in their evaluations. We had a whole church group, the only ALs to complain about this, write their entire thing about how we should feel ashamed that we made them eat meals with paint and grime on them because they felt like they were being treated like dirt. They got to shower every day, but as we don’t allow them to shower with students for liability reasons they shower at night or in the morning. One actually wrote “SHAME ON YOU!!” Does it make me angry? Kind of. Does it make me sad. Mostly. Where along the line did the church begin this lie that it’s all about the warm fuzzies and making everyone comfortable? I know it didn’t start with Jesus. He was loving and blunt. I never recall him sitting with a group of people just to feed them some compliments and arrange their comfort. He gave them what they needed, first that came as his wisdom through words and second it came in his life on a cross. In light of that need fulfilled, who are we to whine about not getting a shower at the time of day that we want it?
So there’s the frustration of the week. But I realize that many of these kids, while they have money, probably have a lack of love. If mom and dad are making the money, who’s showing them love? So my job was to show them that iPods and Italian cruises aren’t the kind of love Jesus was talking about. He meant a love that was genuine and could break down walls of hurt. What an amazing opportunity it was to show that kind of love this week.

Spiritual Reflection

I want to be genuine. In this job it’s so easy to fall into just doing the things I know need to be done and not just loving people. I don’t want to love others because I’m getting paid for it. It’s a strong fear of mine as a I head into vocational ministry. I want to love others because the love of God is so strong a force in me I cannot help but do anything else. I want to be like Christ throughout all of my lifestyle. I yearn for it.

Week Eight

Sunday

11-1 Church
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-3:30 Work Projects
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/ get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Inventory Work/ Random Site work (cleaning refrigerators and such)
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
6:30-8:30 Coordinate Evening Activity/ Make/ Give out Snack
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45-Staff Meeting

9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students
12:30-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews/ Fax papers
8-9 Youth Enterprise work (selling T-Shirts)
9-10 Set up B-fast/ Lead send off prayer and final words
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30
- SHOPPING TRIP (drive to Rapid City/shop at Sam’s/shop at Wal-Mart/pack it all in/ drive back/ put away and organize $1,100 worth of food/merchandise)

Total: 70 hours
(Running Total: 490 hours)

Personal Reflection

This week was rather rough. We had to send two people home due to family deaths. First came Roger, who lost his brother to Luekemia/heart disease. He was an older man though and while it was hard to see that happen for him he did get to say goodbyes before he left. However, the second death was not quite as laid out. A fourteen year-old girl on the trip got a phone call on Wednesday afternoon while she was at her work project that her mother had passed away due to a heart attack. What a blow to the heart… I can’t stand the idea of losing my mom now, let alone when I’m fourteen. This girl, Erin, will totally have to step up as she has an older sister with Down’s Syndrome and a much younger sister. This girl reacted amazing though. Her youth group is really her family so she decided to stay until the next morning and fly out then. She wanted us to keep everything the same so she went to our Buffalo Feed and then came back and even laughed throughout club. My first reaction was to take all the hilarity out of that club, but then I realized, this may be the last time for a very long time that she’ll be able to block out life for a while and just laugh and if she’s numb enough to it right now to do that, then okay, laugh. God really showed Himself to me this week through these groups. They were like family and so supportive.

Spiritual Reflection

This week there was a student named Max who has only been a Christian for three years. Almost directly after becoming a Christian the fire within him was so fueled that he stepped up in FCA and grew their group of 6 to a group of almost sixty. His passion for God and to communicate His love really hit me. The line from Create in Me a Clean Heart sounded in my heart and mind, “…restore unto me the joy of my salvation.” Oh, Lord that I could have an inextinguishable fire for you!

Week Seven

Sunday

11-1 Church
-Speaking/promotional work
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-12:30 Work Projects
12:30-2 Kids Club
2-3:30 Pass out popsicles
4-6 Dinner
6-8:30 Figure out Rainy Day Actitivity (phase 10, uno, extreme spoons, Mafia…)
8:30-9:30- Club Time
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students/Read Bedtime story ☺

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Make Lists/Organize Community Cook-Out/Inventory
3:30-5 Organize/Take students to feed Buffalo
5-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
7:30-8:30 Hang out with students/Get ready for club
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students

Friday
6-8 Lead Clean-Up crews/Set out Breakfast
8-9 Breakfast/final organizing/Hang with students
9-10 Lead send off prayer and final words/Take Pictures
(NAP!!!! ☺)

Saturday
2-12 Shopping Trip

Total: 66 hours
(Running Total: 420 hours)

Personal Reflection

It was so wonderful to be back doing my job again this week! It was good for us to get away for a week so we could really see how much we enjoy our work! I probably have the best summer job ever. It’s so much hard work at times, but the results are amazingly rewarding. The adults we had this week were great and I enjoyed working with them.
I just love meeting all of these people. It is hard to connect so deeply with people and know that they are leaving at the end of the week, but at the same time, just having met many of them has helped to change and impact my life. Throughout this summer God has allowed me to come in contact with some really incredible people and I am so thankful to have met them.
I have learned to embrace things I disagree with and find out what really does make me angry. I know behind those things lie my passions. I’m passionate about people having a real and vital relationship with Christ. I’m passionate about people learning from other cultures. I’m passionate about people loving the lowly. I’m passionate about people being respectful of others when it comes to going into their neighborhoods and lives. Thank you Lord for giving me passion that doesn’t extinguish.


Spiritual Reflection

This week I really felt I had the opportunity to give more one on one help with some students and even some college students who came as adult leaders (yeah they were younger than me and really shouldn’t have been here…whatever). I say this carefully and not in any manner as to glorify myself, but I don’t realize how far God has brought me until I have to start answering questions about my faith. I really wonder why He has blessed me so much in my walk with Him so keep it strong and give me the passions He has. People ask me how I have fallen in love with Him and sometimes I don’t always have an answer. I feel like every reason I’ve drawn closer to Him has had very little to do with me and SOOO much to do with Him. He put people like Joy Cash and James Matchette in my life to mentor me. He carried my through my deepest struggles. He blessed me with supportive parents. Granted it was up to me to stay open, but I feel like I am such a small percentage of the equation. So how did I get to where I am…I suppose I let Him love me and since then I’ve never stopped being overwhelmed.

Week Six

Sunday

3:00-4:00 Hang out w/ Students
4:00-6:30 Make dinner
9:00-11:00 Hang out w/ Students

Monday

7:00-9:00 Hang out w/ Students
11:00-2:00 Run errands/Clean up site
3:00-5:00 Hike w/ students
9:00-11:00 Hang out w/ Students

Tuesday

7:00-9:00 Hang out w/ Students
9:30-3:00 Move paint/drive it to another site
5:30-8:30 & 9:30-11 Hang out w/ Students

Wednesday

7:00-9:00 Hang out w/ Students
9:00-1:00 Mix Paint
1:30-5 Inventory
5:00-6 Prep Cook-out
6-8:30 & 9:30-11 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday

6:30-7 Breakfast prep/ clean up
7:00-9:00 Hang out w/ Students
12:00-3:00 Inventory work/ fax
4:00-6:00 Dinner prep/help
8:00-10:00 Help staff/ chill w/ students
10:00-11:30 Help lead in random amazing worship session
11:30-12:00 Clean up sewage back up in bathrooms ☺

Friday

6:00-9:00 Help other staff/ Get students out
10:00-12:00 Clean our site’s kitchen
12:00-11:30 Grocery trip/ shop/ put away

Total: 68.5 hours
(Running Total: 422.5 hours)


Personal Reflection
It was a much lighter week this week! Praise Jesus! We didn’t have any participants this week and Youthworks doesn’t really give paid vacations so I went and worked at another site that it about 20 miles down the road. My area director gave each of us some time of rest because of the highly frustrating week before. It was so nice to have the option of napping when we needed to, and trust me, I did. I had so missed the naps my body craved. I know it will help for this next week. Because we weren’t the main staff I had time to just hang out with students and really connect with them. I also had the time to run random errands and get some work done that we normally wouldn’t have time to do. It was a great refreshing week! I also got a lot of reading done. I am really enjoying Brennan Manning. I highly recommend him. It’s exciting that I feel like I’m getting SO much experience this summer and learning so much from the internship side of it as well. I know it’s nice to have it look like I’m doing so much logistically, but I’m always trying to keep in check that I am allowing God to do a lot eternally. If you who read this could also keep our work projects staff, Eric, in your prayers he has been struggling with some sickness and we need him better! Not only so that he doesn’t feel like trash, but also so that some of the stress is off my site director and I to take over his job.


Spiritual Reflection

I have been asking a lot of questions while out here and learning so much. I’m struggling with the idea of justice right now. The fact that I think Mt. Rushmore is one of the most arrogant things our country could do and that the US has pretty much ruined the Lakota and set them in the heart of the cycle of poverty. It’s all so unfair and I get so frustrated. Lord, open doors for me to show your love. Open the hearts that need to be here to serve, even if it is my own.

Week Five

Sunday

11-1 Church
-Speaking/promotional work
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-12:30 Work Projects
12:30-2 Kids Club
2-3:30 Pass out popsicles
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students/Read Bedtime story ☺

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Make Lists/Organize Community Cook-Out
3:30-5 Organize/Take students to feed Buffalo
5-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
7:30-8:30 Hang out with students/Get ready for club
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students

Friday
6-8 Lead Clean-Up crews/Set out Breakfast
8-9 Breakfast/final organizing/Hang with students
9-10 Lead send off prayer and final words/Take Pictures
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30 FREE NIGHT!!!!! (Hang out with other staffs, go to Mt. Rushmore and see some IWU peeps…Joel LeMaire & Sara Dekker!)

Saturday
11-5 Shopping Trip
6-10 Cookout with community members and Mission Works Staff

Total: 72 hours
(Running Total: 354 hours)

Personal Reflection

This was such a challenging week. Last week our evaluations were basically out of this world amazing and this week I just felt I was doing awful on everything all week and our evaluations pretty much confirmed it. I don’t understand what went wrong this week, but I know it did. We had three groups that were unbelievably disrespectful and broke nearly every rule and even came up with issues we have yet to deal with. I don’t mean that it happened a couple times, but it was more that every time that one of our staff walked out of a room we would see the students AND adult leaders slapping us in the face with their actions. Setting off fireworks in sleeping rooms, ALs yelling in our face, students sleeping/watching movies at worksites, ALs going out drinking, blatantly going against what we said…just a few of the things we experienced this week. I could tell story after story but the punch line is FRUSTRATION.
And so the whole week our staff was just overwhelmed with the way everything was going. Even one of our alumni staffs said that it was the worst week of Youthworks he’s ever experienced. But then came our final night (it’s always those Thursday’s that get me) and we had a footwashing service. I do a form of creative worship giving them different stations to go to. One they play with clay, another is drawings, then a cross at the back for writing prayers, rocks to represent their burdens that they drop in to a bucket of water and finally a place at the back where a male staff of ours and I kneel and pray for their requests with them. Request after request just broke my heart. It was like no other week. One girl who had just miscarried a child two weeks before coming on the trip, one AL who had a wife and mother both losing their clarity of mind to Alzheimer’s, one girl dealing with a father who is slipping away due to MS, another girl who just had her legs amputated, people loosing jobs, one man who lost his father while on the trip…so many deep requests.
Then it was like I hit a brick wall. “Cami, don’t you see now why they acted the way they did?? They were crying out for MY love. They don’t know My comfort, My care, My compassion. You are My vessel.” So again, I’ve forgotten that my job description will forever boil down to this: Love others. The details of that may change but the basic truth never does. How is it that I keep forgetting? I’m still fallible and I still need Him. I’m grateful that He continues to love me enough to remind me.

Spiritual Reflection

I suppose the last two paragraphs sort of overlap between the two headings, personal/spiritual. I just realize that I have so much to learn. I’m not necessarily in a state of feeling that I’ve failed God, but rather that I am still continuing to learn. I continually need to be humbled. Right now I am reading Brennan Manning’s Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus right now and I am learning a lot. One passage of it speaks about how we as a Church have begun taking the little things we do and pretending that they really live up to all God has called us to. I know that I often want to just feel good about what little steps I’m making for Him, but His calling over my life is HUGE and I can always be taking bigger and bigger steps for Him. I don’t ever want to get to a point where living a Christian life has to be boring and that I’ve “figured Him out” enough to not just stand in awe of Him. I never want to give into the lie that growing in age means that should happen.



Lord, keep this love alive. Amen.






P.S.-Forgive the 700 word posts...It's kind of my journaling, I don't get much time to write or talk to people. :)

Week Four

Sunday

11-1 Church
-Speaking/promotional work
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-3:30 Work Projects
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/ get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Inventory Work/ Random Site work (cleaning refrigerators and such)
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
6:30-8:30 Coordinate Evening Activity/ Make/ Give out Snack
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45-Staff Meeting

9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Host Museum Tour/ Kids Club/ phone calls
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Footwashing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-12:30 Hang out with students
12:30-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews/ Fax papers
8-9 Youth Enterprise work (selling T-Shirts)
9-10 Set up B-fast/ Lead send off prayer and final words
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30
- SHOPPING TRIP

Total: 70 hours
(Running Total: 282 hours)

Personal Reflection

Wow, what an incredible week. I don’t think we had a single adult leader that wasn’t entirely supportive of everything we were doing, and we had a whopping 16 of them this week…crazy. It was a bit of an exciting week, but everything handled really well and I’m glad our team had the chance to experience it all and deal with it so early in the summer. By exciting I mean that this week on the way back from Wounded Knee I was in one of 7 fifteen passenger vans filled with almost 70 people. In really strange circumstances I ended up being the only staff member still with the group as I received a call from my site director saying that in Rushville (where the school is that we stay at and were driving back to) there were about 90 mile an hour winds, golf ball sized hail, and she could see clouds swirling and turning green above her. We were about 20 miles from there so I had all the vans pull over on the side of the highway while I frantically prayed for God’s wisdom and began informing each van what was going on. They began hearing things on the radio and got worried. Well…we ended up going to the small basement of a community member I had met early on and stayed there until radio was saying it would be safe again. Meanwhile, a tornado did go through the town that our housing is in and caused a fire…which meant they shut the power off for the city…which meant that we had no way of cooking dinner for the 70 hungry people I had transported back at about 7 pm. Well, we figured some stuff out and had tacos, squeegeed a lot of water, covered broken windows, dried out wet belongings and just as I had planned out one of the best powerless and flashlight driven clubs you’ve ever seen…the power came back on. ☺ Yay! It was really one of our most fun evenings, I had a great time and the students and adults reacted SO well. I really will miss this group.

Spiritual Reflection

I can’t believe how every second of my time is consumed with Youthworks! I can hardly even take advantage of the hour and a half that they give me each week to do absolutely nothing YW. I am really falling in love with my job though. Amazing that God called me to an occupation where my main focus is loving people. I love it! I have been learning so much in my devo time just about God’s protection and guidance over me. Even as adults want to praise me for the work I’ve done I cannot deny that He is truly my motor. All glory and honor to Him! 1 Peter 4:10-11

Week Three

Sunday

11-1 Church
-Speaking/promotional work
2-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-3:30 Work Projects
4-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Lead with Club (night service- lead worship, speak, coordinate)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30- Spend time with students/ get them to bed

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Lead students to museum
12:00-3:30- Help with Kids Club
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
8:30-9:15- Lead Club
9:15-9:45- Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-3:30 Inventory Work/ Random Site work (cleaning refrigerators and such)
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
6:30-8:30 Coordinate Evening Activity/ Make/ Give out Snack
8:30-9:15 Lead Club
9:15-9:45-Staff Meeting
9:45-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-3:30 Inventory (yes…it’s the bane of my existence ☺)
3:30-6:30 Hang out with students
6:30-7:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
8:30-9:15 Lead Foot washing Service
9:15-9:45 Staff Meeting
9:45-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews
8-9 Youth Enterprise work (selling T-Shirts)
9-10 Set up B-fast/ Lead send off prayer and final words
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30- SHOPPING TRIP
(drive to Rapid City/shop at Sam’s/shop at Wal-Mart/pack it all in/ drive back/ put away and organize $1,100 worth of food/merchandise)

Total: 70 hours
(Running Total: 212 hours)

Personal reflection

There were some bumps in the road for sure this week. Two of our groups were really awesome and so cooperative. However, there was a third group that really was a struggle to get along with throughout the week. One adult leader, Paula, came as the pastor of a church. She was entirely difficult the whole week. She complained about nearly everything and rarely took much of a step to serve. What I learned from that though is that adult leaders really will set the tone for the way a group acts and reacts. It’s definitely a principle I can see applied throughout life. If only I can be a worthy reflection of my Leader.
One of the leaders this week wrote me a letter that really just spoke to every insecurity I hold about what I’m doing this summer. I have to speak every week and I have never felt comfortable as a speaker. He just told me all the ways his students have told him that they were affected by my talks each night. It was just so encouraging. Not that I have all of the sudden become some phenomenal speaker, but that God has chosen to use that aspect of me even when I don’t feel confident in it. He’s so incredible.

Spiritual Reflection

How incredible it is to me that we can truly never stop growing and learning in Him. Just when I feel like I’ve got the hang of life and the way He wants me to live it He opens up new areas for me to grow in. It’s a tough walk, but how amazingly rewarding!! I love that He puts me in positions I don’t understand and then affirms me the entire time. I do not understand His love for me and I hope I never do. I love this feeling of being overwhelmed by Him.


SORRY THAT THESE TWO POSTS ARE ON THE SAME DAY!! OUR INTERNET RANDOMLY DOESN’T WORK ON WEEKENDS AND I HAVE NO TIME IN THE WEEK. I WROTE THEM ON THE RIGHT WEEK, THEY JUST WEREN’T POSTED!

Week Two

Time Spent:
Sunday

11-1 Church
-Speaking/promotional work
3-5 Prepare for Groups
5-7 Prepare Dinner/ Mingle with groups
7-8 Leader Orientation
8:30-9:30 Prepare Club/Participate
9:30 Staff Meeting
10:30-11:30 Hang out with Youth/ get them to bed

Monday

7:30-8 Devotional Time w/ Students
9-11:30 Talk with Evening Activity Contacts
12:30-1:30 Go with Adult Leaders to pick up children
1:30-3:30 Help with Kids Club
5-6 Prepare for Hike (prepare water coolers, make snack, organize First Aid kits…)
7-9 Lead Hike/ Help with Club (night service)
10-10:30 Staff Meeting

Tuesday

9:30-11:30- Trash pick up in park
1-3 Work with Area Director on talks
3:30-5:30 Give out snack/ take students to Wounded Knee/ speak
5:30-6:30 Hang out with Students (playing games, mixers, talking)
9:00-11:30 Hang out with Students

Wednesday

9:00-11:30- paint/ garden/ pick up trash at community home
12:30- 4 Inventory Work
4-6:30 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
7-8 Coordinate Evening Activity
8-9 Make/ Give out Snack
9-11:30 Hang out w/ Students

Thursday
9-10 Meet w/ evening activity contact
10-11:30 Paint House w/ students
1-3 Inventory
3-6 Prepare snack/ drive to/ do evening activity
6:30-8 Dinner Prep/ Make/ Clean-up
9-9:30 Staff Meeting
9:30-1:30am- Inventory

Friday
7-8 Lead Clean-Up crews
8-9 Youth Enterprise work (selling T-Shirts)
9-10 Set up B-fast/ Lead send off prayer and final words
(NAP!!!! ☺)
12-11:30
- SHOPPING TRIP (drive to Rapid City/shop at Sam’s/shop at Wal-Mart/pack it all in/ fix flat tire/ drive back/ put away and organize $1,100 worth of food/merchandise)

Total: 70 hours
(Running Total: 142 hours)

Personal Reflection

So there’s SO much to stay busy with! I have no free time throughout my week and I’m getting about 6 hours of sleep a night, but having a great time and the Lord is keeping me refreshed! After a tough weekend with conflicts with my Site Director and thinking I wanted to quit my job and come home, God brought some really awesome confirmation for why I’m here. He has place some really incredible support in my life and I had several friends back home find out that I was struggling and then gathered just to pray for me, they are so awesome! I also probably have the most supportive parents in the world who stood beside what I was feeling and while they would have loved me even if I came home, encouraged that God wouldn’t just send me out here for nothing. I couldn’t have felt more blessed.
I didn’t do my entire list of responsibilities this week because I was shadowing another Program Staff person. Basically I prepared more things, hung out with teenagers, did inventory for 50 people to eat three times a day, and ran evening activities. This next week I’ll do all of that and then run club as well, which is our evening service time. It’s a lot of work but it’s rewarding and well worth it! ☺

Spiritual Reflection

Prep week was a long spiritual battle, but I really felt like God was using this week to lift my spirits and remind me what my purpose is. I am to be a servant and everything that comes along with that. My job is to serve my leaders, my staff, the youth, the adult leaders, community members, and anyone else within reach. I am to serve, not to speak loud, bark complaints or demand my comfort. My job, no matter where I am or whom I am with, is to serve. Sound repetitive? Probably. But that’s what’s been going through my head every step of this week. That’s where I’m at.

Week One

Time Spent
Week One- May 27-June 3
Saturday through Saturday 8am -10pm
(one hour break for each breakfast, lunch dinner)
Worked on many random tasks…
-Making signs
-Writing sermons
-Planning worship services
-Shopping, shopping, more shopping for supplies
-Cleaning
-Washing dishes
-Vacuuming
-Traveling to meet with contacts
-Moving boxes
-Decorating Club room
-Moving furniture
-Mixing Paint
-Organizing bunches of stuff
-Inventory to buy $1,600 worth of food and stuff
-LONG shopping trip
-Anything else that needed to be done ☺

Total: 72 hours


Personal Reflection

This week was a struggle because I felt so frustrated with my Site Director. My Area Director and I talked and then we sat down with her and discussed some things. She’s not all that spiritually deep and it’s a struggle when my role is to be the spiritual leader of the youth to have her over me. It’s a weird situation to explain, but I really wanted things to be sorted out in a good way and she never took it that way and spent a lot of time in defensive yelling. So after a night of crying and praying and one hour of sleep I let it all over to God. I’ve never felt so free. He’ll give me strength and I’ll deal with it all in His peace.
I did a lot of random tasks and sometimes several at once. I took my first shopping trip up to Rapid City, which is two hours away, and spent a lot of money on 5 flats filled with groceries. Who knew it could take so much food to fill a site and feed 30ish people three meals a day?! I’m learning a lot about working with large groups. Our first Early Bird week has started where two more staffs of four people each and our Area Director will join us and we’ll all run the site together. Four of them, alumni mostly, will serve as people for us to watch and learn from this week. I still have some of my responsibilities though. I’m excited to get acquainted with the other staff, they are already such a blessing! ☺

Spiritual Reflection

I have been asking God a lot of questions this week. I won’t lie, I’ve definitely looked up avenues home. Plane tickets, car rentals, directions, hotels along the way. And then I stepped back and said WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I’ve never quit anything, especially something I know that God laid on my heart so strongly. How could I leave this opportunity? Am I leaving because it’s challenging? Who ever said it would be easy? I’m called to a rough path. But he never called me to go alone. How incredible! This is not my journey. I’m His servant. I was thinking, if I were to be working at a factory this summer I would be working for the factory owners so that it would run they way they wanted and never would I begin to call it my factory. Why is it that I continue to think that this journey belongs to me? The only answer I can find…I must continually surrender. A speaker named Terry Bley once said, “A surrendered life equals and empowered life, and an empowered life expects miracles.”