Travel Travel Travel

We spent our last day in NY going to museums, eating out, getting dessert, and walking around Times Square. Nothing too exciting. We got to be d and woke up and packed EVERYTHING back in the car. It was again very packed. The four hour drive turned into six and I got Stacey and the girls to drop me off at a metro in DC so I could meet mom and mallory! We went to dinner and then crashed! Today we woke up and I got football tickets yay!! Then we wandered around the zoo. I had to head back to VA to get with my group because we had to get to work. The only bad part was by the time I got there they were done :( SO we have just been hanging out. We moved in! yay we are here for five weeks!! Finally some sort of permanency :) We ate dinner (steaks, potatoes, and asparagus) YUM! Then of course ice cream....Now time for a movie and bed! Nothing too exciting these past few days!!

DC Here we come!

Today was a day of sleeping late. Well not too late...I slept until 8:30. Then got ready and hit the town. Sarah, Sofia, and I went to Kleinfelds and took a tour. Of course I fell in love with a wedding dress...too bad it only cost about $2,500. Then we went to this really great burger joint. We headed up to Canal St. to Chinatown to get the last of our souvenirs. Then we headed back to the church to get ready for the cookout. I cleaned up a bit then we had another successful cookout! We then finished cleaning up and watched this really great skit by a youth group staying here with us. I'll try to upload it on here.....Then our group went out to look around the streets and we went to get slurpees and a movie. Today was a relaxing day with no drama Sorry there isn't much to tell!! We needed that! Now we are watching a movie and just hanging out. We have to wake up at about 5:30 tomorrow ugh! But on Sunday we will be headed to DC!

Last Work Day in NY!

Today we woke up and had to go to the grocery store to pick up breakfast for the group. We ate and got started on work projects. We did sanding and prayer table today until lunch. Then we got the group headed out to the city. The guy that we have bought pizzas from in the past gave us free philly cheese steak sandwiches for the homeless, so we went and got the sandwiches and delivered them. We then ate lunch and I took a quick nap before we headed out to the city. We left for the city and headed to a jungle gym. Well it was really just those rings where you do the monkey bar deal. I don’t really think I explained that well, but oh well I might try to post a picture of it at a later date. I was actually not too shabby at it and Mark was impressed haha! Then we walked over to Tom’s Restaurant, which is the restaurant on Seinfeld. I ordered a great milkshake and we had a lady waitress from Greece be really mean. We then went to this great Catholic Church. It was beautiful!!! We then got back on the subway to head to China town, but never quite made it because we accidentally missed our stop and then ended up running out of time so we just had to head back to the church. We ate Thai food. It was my first time and I really enjoyed it! As we were heading back we got a call from our group and one of the girls had hurt her foot and they needed to take her to the hospital. We figured we would not be having worship so we decided to head back to the church and just hang out until they made it back. We were almost to the church and we got another phone call from our group. They were headed back, a couple of them stayed behind to cool down. I don’t have the whole story, but because of the girl with the hurt foot one of the chaperones and a student got into a fight….So the chaperone and his wife stayed behind and everyone else came back to the church. When they got back to the church all the girls had been crying and very upset. A couple of us hung out and calmed down the girls and they ended up taking the girl to the hospital near by. They stayed at the hospital until 4:30 am. She only had a slight sprain of that ankle….Then they all went to Good Morning America…This concludes today and I will write and the conclusion of tomorrow! 

Today has been a day to remember!

I will spare most of the gory details of this day, but here is the gist. We woke up and made breakfast for the group. During breakfast we got a phone call from the office. There were some problems with the group staying with us here. They didn't appreciate some things that were completely out of our control, so our office talked to them and tried to help them out as much as possible (which wasn't much). Well we headed off for the soup kitchen and because of missing a subway we were about ten minutes late. This did not make the guys at the soup kitchen happy...Well we got our jobs and everything was fine. While serving one member from the group got very angry with the soup kitchen and embarrassed me very much. We left with much fan fare. The group when to get lunch and Stacey and the rest met me and we left the restaurant. I am sitting on the side of 32nd street i think and crying as Stacey is praying over me. I'm sure we were quite a site! haha! Well I was then feeling better so we walked a bit until the group had lunch and then we took them to Times Square. The rest of the day has been fine. We came back to the church and grabbed dinner for the group from a great pizzeria down the street. While we were there the owner offered to make us free philly cheese steak sandwhiches to feed the homeless tomorrow!! So we were pretty excited about that. We ate then had Worship a bit early. During my skit Jamey called haha It kind of interrupted because without thinking I stopped right in the middle and said who is that? Is it Jamey? Then I was like oh yeah I'm in the middle of a skit and kept going! When I finished up a few minutes later I ran outside to talk to him a bit. Worship then ended and I moved my car back to the street with the church. I don't know if I mentioned this in my last blog, but Bruce Willis is filming a movie here where we are. It is great! SOme of the youth saw him and took pictures haha! The rest of the night we have just been hanging out and resting. :) It has been a pretty good end to a hectic day. Only a few more then off to DC!! 

Wow What a full day!

Today was an incredibly awesome but full day! We woke up and ate a quick breakfast and packed sack lunches. We headed out and made our wonderful subway adventure with our new group. They were great at it! We met The Journey church and passed out granola bars on the street in Union Square. People were really sweet and I handed out about 5 boxes of bars! I had a great time!! Then we headed over to Verdi Park to eat lunch. We ate lunch then went to this frozen yogurt place called Pinkberry. It was so so so incredible! I put oreos and strawberries on top! Pinkberry is this really trendy and really cute yogurt places so we of course had to go. Anything dessert in NY we have to try! Then we passed out more granola bars. My group was finished rather early so they showed us to this great bakery where we could get awesome cookies. It was a bakery that was on Food Network and in a cookie contest against Bobby Flay (sp?) they won! I got a chocolate cookie with peanut butter on the inside (of course). I saved it for later since I had already had dessert. We headed over to Bryant park which is near Times Square. This was a bit more interesting then the other places. People were way more rude and would go from person to person just getting bars.....and they would ask for like four at a time...I had a taxi driver pull over on the side of the road with a passenger in the car and stopped the meter to get five bars!! At the other places we went people were nothing like that they were so super nice and grateful! Well, the group wanted to check out Central Park so we walked over there and got them dinner from a famous hot dog stand in the area. We had dinner in the park and then had worship! It was so fun and people would stop and watch us! I spoke tonight and it went well :) Then we headed back to the church. When we got back to the church we found out we had to move our car for the hundredth time for a filming of a movie!! The extras our staying in the church with us during the day :) It is a Bruce Willis (sp?) movie! We moved our car then went to Blockbuster to rent a movie. We rented Confessions of a Shopaholic because Beth our worship leader is in it!! YAY! We are watching that now and I am eating my wonderful cookie! Bed as soon as it is over. We have another full day tomorrow!!!

Pray Pray Pray!

Today was our first work day with our new group. We have a bit of a situation….We have another group similar to ours called AIM. Which means that we must work around each other for breakfast, dinner and all kinds of other things. For breakfast we must eat in the community room, which isn’t a huge deal, but not ideal. We are fine though and after breakfast we got started on missions around the church. I was in charge of the prayer table again for this group. It was different than last week because this group adults included were VERY nervous about praying and talking with people. They are Lutheran (which I have no clue what that means…..) but they told me that in their church no one prays out loud or tries to talk with people they don’t know. Well from a Baptist church this is so foreign to me!! I worked with them though and although they never prayed by themselves with people they did get to where they would talk to the people. They had a great time also! I was very happy with their progress I couldn’t even describe the change they made. We took a break for lunch then back out there for the afternoon! We quit for the day about 3:00 and Stacey and Sarah gave us freeze pops! I had a horrible headache all day because the night before Mark decided it would be funny to pull my feet out from under me. Well the result was I hit my head and had a headache from then until this afternoon about 9! So I took a nap for about an hour and a half before dinner. We ate dinner with AIM and then cleaned up before Worship. Worship was great! Sofia gave her talk and we had amazing praise. Then the praise team and our staff ate ice cream and socialized while the group had devotion time. We had a meeting with some of the adults from the group because they were having some issues with the kids with AIM, so we resolved those and then ate ice cream again with the youth group. Now it is lights out time for them and I’m also heading to bed soon to get some more sleep!! We will be having Worship tomorrow in Central Park YAY! Pray for me as always it is my time to speak!! 

Sunday brings in new campers!

Today we had to wake up pretty early for church. We traveled into Manhattan to go to The Journey church with Beth our worship leader. It was a great church and we had a lot of fun! They were talking about relationships and dating and such. It was funny because with us all being girls and everyone being single except me we talk about dating A LOT! It was great! Oh and I bet no one has ever sang Sweet Child of Mine in church have you?? Well we did this morning! haha Aimee if you are reading this I thought of you and how you find God in all kinds of songs! After church we went to lunch and a little shopping around town. I had an amazing waffle with all kinds of fruit! We came back to the church and I napped! I slept for about an hour then woke up to go to the grocery store. The new youth group got here and we hung out for a while. We went to this deli to grab supper then headed back to get worship together. We had a nice intimate worship because there are only nine people this week! It is going to be fun because we never have to split up this week!! After worship we gave them group time and then they headed straight to bed. They left Michigan at 2:00 am and they hadn't been to sleep since! None of the girls slept on the way here! So now we are watching a movie.....Bed will come soon!!

A day off!

Today was a sad day....We sent the campers on their way back home! We of course took tons of pictures then sent them on their way. We had to wake up at 6:45 to feed the first group and the second group ate at 8:30. Everyone was gone a bit after nine. I was able to talk to Jamey for awhile! Then Sarah, Sofia and I went and did laundry. We left about 11:30 and didn't get back until almost two. We spent twenty dollars on doing laundry!!! AH!! We then headed back to get ready and head into town. Another camp just like ours is staying with us this week. They are called AIM (adventures in missions). Stacy had to meet with their leader and it might be a tough week trying to figure everything out. We both have worship at eight so we will have to figure out where we are going to have it and all that. We headed to Manhattan and were going to stop by David's Bridal very quickly because Sarah is going to be a bridesmaid and she needed to be fitted for a dress. One problem...we realized as we got on the subway (with no cell service) we didn't know where we were going. We just decided to guess and get off at a busy shopping area. When we got off we  called Mark and got him to look it up on the net. He gave us the address and luckily we weren't too far off. So we head in the direction of 40th street. Well we get there and there is no David's Bridal so we ask around and found out it was actually 25th street!! So we walked all the way there and got her fitted. We then met Mark for dinner at a place called Elmo's that was suggested by a friend. It was great food! Then Mark had an idea of a Cafe to get dessert so we headed there and I must say he was right on with his suggestion! We had wonderful desserts and I got amazing coffee, fixed exactly like I like it! We headed back to the church and decided to get a movie. So here we are now watching a movie and then headed to bed! Not too much today, but tomorrow start another busy week! We have a very small grop coming in tomorrow. Nine people, five high school girls and two men and two women. Should be fun!! 

The last day of campers :(

Today we got to sleep in!! Yay! We slept until 9:00. Sarah and Sofia went to the Statue of Liberty with one of the youth groups. Stacey and I were supposed to go to Costco to get food for the cookout for the community, but when we got up the pastor had already gone. We were off the hook and had a free morning. We went with Mark to Barnes & Nobles to look around and get coffee. When we got to the Barnes & Nobles we discovered that it was located in a really cute part of town with lots of shops and restaurants. We walked around and shopped and ate Chinese. We got back to the church in time for Kidz Klub and hung around and helped out. Then the two other choirs that were helping out around the church and putting together the cookout with us showed up. There were 140 of us which is a lot in a small church, but we all started working on jobs and got the cookout pulled together!! At six people started showing up and we ate and had a great time. The two choirs put on concerts. One of the choirs was an a cappella group and they were great! After the concert we went to a diner and ate ice cream! We then came back and chilled with the youth groups. It was great fun! Right now I am sitting with my two favorite girls of the week!! Tonight is a sad night :( Thanks for all your prayers this week! Hopefully next week will be just as great!

Not Much happened....

Which was a great thing! We got breakfast for everyone then sent them on their way! Sarah went with one group to the mall and Stacy and Mark (the intern) went to the movies. The other group went to Central Park. It was just me and Sofia at the church. I rested up and talked to my mom for two hours! The whole afternoon was great and relaxing. One group arrived  back about 1:30 for Kidz Klub and I helped them out with that. Then the staff went to dinner and it was time for Worship. We had to quickly practice our skit with Mark because he was playing Jesus. Everything went great for the worship. I'm not sure if I have told ya'll, but we have a big worship night on Thursday where the kids all wash each other's feet. It was very meaningful for all the kids. Then Beth, Stacy, Sarah, Sofia, Mark, and I all ate banana pudding and chatted until 2! Well we all didn't make it that late but most of us did! Then I crashed after that!!

Some pictures....

Below some of the group helping out with Kidz Klub

The Kids praying with someone!!! They were so great!!
The Wall St. Bull!!
On the Staten Island Ferry. Quite possibly my favorite picture of this summer.
In Times Square!!

The last work day....and I'm not sure if we could have handled much more

Wow! I didn’t think that I could be so tired when I woke up this morning. Six was way too early!!! I got in the shower and got ready and was fixing breakfast by seven. We ate breakfast and my team got on the road as quick as possible! We rode the subway for about an hour and a nice lady helped us out! We sort of knew where we were going, but we got to talking about it all and the lady over heard us and she told us a faster way to get there. We arrived a bit early, but went ahead in and got settled with the volunteer coordinator. The people were so incredibly nice! They gave us free breakfast. It was wonderful doughnuts! Then we received our jobs. Brian (one of the chaperones for the youth group) and I didn’t have jobs because they wanted us to look over the kids while they were working, We did that and I got in a conversation with a guy named John, It was very interesting to say the least….We talked about his inventions and all his friends (He said he ate lunch regularly with a screen writer of Diary of a Mad Black Woman). They volunteer coordinator drug him away from me because they said he would talk to me forever if they let him. Then we ate lunch with Steve (the head volunteer coordinator) I was so happy. It was so great! Steve was so nice and I can’t wait to return back next week! Then we all gave out, but before we headed back to the church I took the kids to Times Square to look around. At this point we were all very tired and I was just shot. I caught a girl smoking and I didn’t even know what to do. I was too tired to even know the correct response. I called her youth pastor out there to deal with her. Then we headed back to the church. I got dinner ready with Stacy and we ate. Then we cleaned and I talked with my sister. We were all very very tired and I actually had a skit tonight about how tired I was. I think I’ve described the skit before on here…. We always laughed about the skit and everything, but tonight the skit was real life! I just didn’t know if I could make it much more. After worship Sarah and I had a good cry. Which sounds bad, but it was really only because we are so tired. We both actually had great days! Then to make us feel better some of the kids took us to the seven eleven and got slurpees! Haha they are so sweet! Now it is lights out and off to bed! Tomorrow we get to sleep in a bit later Yay!!

WOW...Today was a trying day

Okay so this morning I woke up and hurried to get ready. I started breakfast with Stacy (We made waffles!) After breakfast Sofia and Sarah had to hurry out the door with their group to make it to their worksite on time. They had about a two hour subway ride. The parents of the youth group had a meeting so we cleaned up dishes and hung out until they finished. I missed a call from Jamey in the process which left me very sad :( I then called my mom which made me miss home and I cried right as I was walking in to head up our first worksite of the day with my group. Bad start to my morning.....homesickness....Well I dried it up as quickly as possible. Stacy covered for me in the mean time. I then put on my happy face and got the kids working on cleaning the bathrooms and making lunches for the homeless. We headed out to feed the homeless and that was very interesting to say the least. The homeless are like a family. They all hang out together all day. We got to hear a bit of their stories and that was neat. We handed out lunches and talked for awhile and then everyone started to get cold and complain a little (which didn't help my nerves much) so we went back to the church. On the way to the church I got a call from Stacy. Okay side story for a second....When the churches arrived they had to park their buses at the Lowe's parking lot down the street because there is no parking  anywhere!! The pastor told us to park them there because he had a deal worked out with Lowe's and it was fine. Okay so now back to today...well Stacy called me and informed me that both of the vans had been towed. Churches have been parking there for seven years, but last night someone torched an ambulance and so Corporate got involved and towed everyone there.  Several of the adults had to travel with Stacy to get the vans, so that left me and two adults with about twenty kids at the church. I got them back to the church and had them fix everyone's lunch. There was a group at a prayer table, so i got them back at the church also to eat lunch. We all ate lunch and I gave a short devotional. Okay at this point I had twenty kids and no worksites planed for the afternoon. We had to work on Kidz Klub because the adults that help out with that were getting the vans. We let them have free time for a few minutes while we got things together, but I got a bit of attitude from the groups because they wanted longer free time. We had a lot to do, so I couldn't really do that. I also planed on them doing a bit of odd jobs around the church, but that didn't quite work out so the kids got a bit angry about that as well. All of it was out of my hands, but I was still the one in charge so of course I was to blame. By this time I was almost in tears because I just wasn't sure I could handle this. I began to pray as much as possible. We then got the kids started on Kidz Klub skits and crafts and such. While they worked on that I was trying to find a doctor's office because one girl had gotten a spider bite and it was turning purple. While I was trying to find a doctor in the area a camper made a remark that made an adult mad and when the camper was fussed at she stormed out. Her sister soon followed. This is the point when I walked in. So I tried to deal with that as best I could. At this point I texted Stacy to please come rescue me!! She was walking back to the church so I was extremely happy!! They got here and Kidz Klub started. I volunteered to go to the grocery store, so I could regain my sanity. The day was starting to look up now. I had to lead the Bible Study in Kidz Klub (yes everyone be proud I hung out with the kids!) I then started to make dinner for everyone. We ate dinner and then ice cream! The day was definitely looking better!! I then worked on my talk and we had to practice a skit. Worship was awesome and I was really happy with my talk. Beth brought us cupcakes from Cupcake Cafe. They were beautiful and tasted amazing! I hung out with the campers until lights out. Now it is blog time!! Tomorrow I'm headed out to a soup kitchen! I'm braving the city on my on while leading a group of kids! No one can really tell me how to get to the location either, so keep me in prayers! Thanks for all the ones so far! 

PS I say none of this to complain about my day. Only to fill you guys in! I hope you all understand! I love what I do, but I'm sure you all know sometimes we just have off days!!

Our first work day was quite a hit!

Today I woke up at about 7:15 got a quick shower and then started making breakfast for the campers. We had two ovens so we got one going and started cooking then started on the other one. Well...it was a lot hotter than the first, so we ended up burning a few french toast sticks, but not too many so it wasn't a big deal. We did set off the smoke alarm though so we had to take it a=off the wall and take the batteries out....Stacy had to go to the grocery store again, so she wasn't around to help us figure everything out. I'm proud to say nothing TOO major happened and we served breakfast on time! Then we split our groups up into three and had them doing little tasks. Sarah's group made sandwiches for everyone's lunch, Sofia's group put away the breakfast dishes, and my group cleaned the bathrooms. I'm pretty sure they were all a little upset when they found out what they had to do. I felt bad a bit for them, but someone has to do it!! It only took about fifteen minutes then we broke into different groups to start on our real jobs for the day! I was in charge of the prayer table today which was quite exciting! I did a devotional with my group then we hit the streets!! When we started everyone was a bit apprehensive so I started off the process and after a couple of people allowing us to pray with them a few just telling us prayer request and one very rude remark they were all very excited and stepped out on their on to ask and pray with others. I was so excited they all got comfortable and I wold say it is safe to say we prayed with over thirty people today!! We got relief about one to eat lunch so we ate lunch for about an hour then and free time for about an hour. We then set up kidz klub and as kids started coming in I ran to the grocery store for some things for tomorrow. (Yes I did run away from the kids....) Right as I was getting back from the grocery store it was time to start working on preparing dinner. We made dinner and served it at six then it was free time until worship at eight. Sofia's talked about prayer tonight and it was great! She was super nervous and even cried several times before worship, but when she finally got up there she did a wonderful job!! Everyone told her how great it was! I only hope tomorrow I can do as great of a job. Everyone remember to pray for me at eight eastern time!! I'm not nervous yet, but I am sure I will be tomorrow! Okay so I swear I have pictures, but I have to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow so I'm headed to bed! When I get a free moment (maybe not until this weekend....) I will post this week's pictures! I love you all! Remember to "Pray as you go!" 

Campers are FINALLY Here!

So today was a big day for us! We woke up this morning and went to prayer meeting at 9:30 then Sunday School at 10 The church service started at 11 at continued until 1. Very long morning and the church service was not quite what I was used to so it seemed like it took a lot longer, but good nevertheless. The Pastor is really sweet so it makes it all worthwhile! Oh something cool...They have a Russian service here that starts at 9:30 and it is so awesome! It is totally rocking! They sing great contemporary songs, but of course in Russian. The weird thing is when you walk in you would swear you where in a Asian church service, but then you listen for a second and realize they are not speaking an Asian language. They are basically a large number of Koreans and some other Asian background, but they are all from countries that were a part of the Soviet Union so they can all speak Russian. Anyway their service is awesome and it was so cool to listen to them rock out. I wished that I could speak Russian so I could join in! After church we went to a diner and had lunch with Mark the intern. Then we took some crazy fun pictures with camera timers. I will post them when I get them on my computer. We then had to get set up for the campers to arrive here at the church. After we felt set up we had to run to the store yet again to finish getting things for tomorrow!! Guess what! We forgot somethings, so Stacy has to get up tomorrow and while we are cooking breakfast she has to go yet again!!! AHH!! You would think we would have gotte our acts together, but there is always something...The crazy thing is I don't think if we actually remembered while we were there it would help because we pretty much max out on what we can carry each and every time! After the grocery trip we came back and by this time (because it took us a really really long time! The store was packed I guess New Yorkers do their grocery shopping on Sunday...)campers had arrived!  Finally finally! It was so exciting! We got them situated and talked with them a bit and then prepared for worship. We had a great worship service! I think everyone enjoyed us making fools of ourselves in our silly skits! It was great fun! Then after worship we hung out with the kids until lights out. WE had a group meeting to make sure we all knew our duties for tomorrow. Pray for my group we are setting up prayer tables on street corners and praying with people!! I'm really excited, but also a little nervous. I feel like I'm the example for this and I've never even done it before!! So pray for me and my group! Now it is blogging and soon bed 7:30 will be very very early tomorrow!! Love you all! Thanks for reading!

A New Church and only one more day until campers!

Today was bright and early with a move to a new church! We drove to the new church, but it wasn't bad at all because on Saturday there is not nearly as much traffic on the roads! What that does mean is that there is no parking!!! So we drove around for fifteen minutes and finally found a spot about two blocks away. We got a tour of the church from Pastor Charlie then settled in and got ready to shop for food!!! It took us two trips to the grocery store to get all we needed. Okay and when I say all we needed I mean it took us two trips and as we were unloading we remembered that we had forgotten about four items. Oh and the groceries we did get will only last us one day....I guess the natives here may know of a better way then we do, but it seems that going to the grocery store would be such a pain. I already hate it and we have only been twice!!! You can't buy enough because there is no way to get it home!! We even had a cart thing, but it didn't hold enough. After traveling to the grocery store we headed to the $.99 store. Okay this was quite an adventure. I thought it would be like a Dollar General, but not quite there was stuff everywhere. Just thrown haphazardly. Very frustrating, but we got what we needed and got out. Also, I guess this is my small town roots showing through, but I'm so sick of being rushed around in this city!!! I feel like I'm rushed onto the subway, off of the subway, around the grocery store, across the streets. Okay, you get it now. I know it is probably a lifestyle you get used to, but right now it is just tiring. So we made it back to the church and we all took showers and got ready. We met this guy that is staying here at the church also this summer. He is actually interning for the summer in the city as a personal trainer or something. He knew someone that went to church here or something and knew they has an available room so he rented it out to do his internship. I think his name is Mark and I think he is from Texas. As you can tell we didn't talk to him long.... We decided to go to the Staten Island ferry because someone told us that it had an awesome view of the Statue of Liberty. Which it did and I will post pictures, but it is late now and I haven't put them on my computer yet. Sorry! The ferry was also very very cold. I did not pack properly for this weather. It has been cold and rainy the entire time we have been here. Hopefully it will warm up before too long though...After the ferry we walked around Wallstreet and took pictures by the bull. It started to rain so we headed back to the subway. We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn near where we are staying. Then it was back to the church to practice skits for tomorrow! Campers come tomorrow at 4:00 so be praying for us!!! Now it is bedtime. We have a full week coming up!!! Love you all!

A Few Pictures from our New York Days....

Above is my wonderful dessert from Max Brenner!

In Times Square!! This is Sarah!

In our VERY packed car! Poor things had to ride in the bckseat :(

Today Today!!

Okay, so I had to go buy internet again today so lucky you guys I get to post blogs!! Someone has decided to hack into my email account for school while I have been away!!! So I’m trying to fix that issue so I can get football tickets in a couple of weeks J! Auburn decided to shut down my whole internet account!! I will of course have issues if I can’t get it back running before June 29 (the first day I get to order tickets)!!! Today we are working on camp stuff. I know I know we are finally doing our job!! We have to work on skits, talks and food things. Hopefully, I can continue to get internet periodically to post blogs. I will try my best! If not, well I guess you guys will have a lot to read once I get in DC!!! I love you thanks for all your prayers God definitely answered them!  

A Few Things I have learned in the past few days.....

New York is busy then I imagined…

There are a few people nice here in the city….

If you are in Manhattan expect NOTHING to be cheap….

Not everywhere in New York has internet….

Sometimes Mom always makes things better (even if I was still crying when we hung I felt tons better J thanks so much!!!)….

Everything looks better in the morning even when you think it is the end…..

Friends can text you the exact right things even if they have no idea what is going on (yes Hannah I’m pretty sure I never even texted you back, but that verse was the best. I showed to my whole team and we all felt encouraged!! I love you!)

Girl time and shopping makes all things look a little better J (although I pretty much already knew that!)

Sometimes hearing that special voice on the other end of the line when you didn’t expect it lets you know the day is going to awesome J

I now appreciate being from the south because it takes me fifteen minutes or less to get anywhere in town in stead of hours….

God will always provide ALWAYS……

Of Course God provides!!

We had a long day ahead because of all our anticipation for our meeting at 2! We got up and headed to McDonalds for Internet and breakfast and then came back to Beth’s to get ready and head into the city. Sarah, Sofia, and I went in to Manhattan and met Sarah’s friend for lunch while Stacy had a meeting with another housing facility. We ate a wonderful lunch shopped around and impatiently waited for a phone call. A bit after lunch and coffee Stacy finally called and of course God provided once again as He always does!! Okay so some background….after we found out our bad news we pretty much called everyone and asked for prayer. That was also the deal with my post asking for prayer, We were really not sure what God wanted in this situation. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to stay where we were and make things do or what, so we bathed the situation in prayer and of course shopped until Stacy could meet with the other housing. When she called it was the best thing ever! She called and told us the church was in a super nice part of town (the other church was in a very dirty and little sketchy part of town) and had super nice facilities. A wonderful kitchen and worship center. Pretty much everything we could ask for and more! So we all thanked God and waited a bit to more until we could move out of the other church. While we were waiting for Stacy to situate everything Sarah, Sofia and I headed to Chinatown to do what else but shop to celebrate! Haha As you can tell we have taken full advantage of the wonderful New York shopping areas. We then headed to the church and moved out (oh just in time because after staying one night in the church we were informed that a group from Pennsylvania was moving in the next night) As we put our last bag in my car the group began to knock on the church door. God always has perfect timing J We headed over to Beth’s to stay another couple of nights because we can’t move into the new church until Saturday morning. It took about an hour to get from the church to Beth’s driving, We ordered Chinese and went down the street to a bakery for what else DESSERT! We ate chatted and listened to music. A perfect end to a wonderful day! 

A Brighter Day :)

The new day brought better hope! We woke up and Stacy contacted some other housing areas and got a meeting for Thursday at 2. It sounds very promising, so we are praying that it will turn out!! The place also has worksites for us, which is great!!! Stacy’s best friend and also our worship leader for the camp lives in NY and so we made out way back to Manhattan and had a wonderful day looking around the city and visiting with Beth. We ate at a diner (much more reasonably priced..) then walked to some great stores! We went to Macy’s and it was very very very crowded. Also, in this city there is no store that you can go into without having to wait in line for a dressing room and to check out. Everything is crowded….all restaurants, all stores, and all streets! We stopped by the Rockefeller Center and met some very nice people from West Virginia. J We chatted a bit and Beth told them some good places to eat. PS Beth works at Klinefeld’s Bridal store (the one on Say Yes to the Dress) so look out for her!! Then we took the Subway to a restaurant called Max Brenner. Okay this place is Heaven on earth!!!! It is a chocolate restaurant!! They have regular food, but they are known for their chocolate, which is oh so heavenly!! I had an amazing chocolate and peanut butter cake!! After dessert for dinner (PS we have dessert A LOT. I’m pretty much going to gain crazy amounts of weight after this summer!) We went back to the church to grab an over night bag because we had a slumber party at Beth’s. We grabbed our bags as quickly as possible and headed back to the subway. Okay, so we are girls, which means we carry massive amounts of clothes for overnight stays. What this also means is that we looked a lot like hobos on the subway. Not to mention by the time we got on the subway it was after eight. To add to this look we rode the subway for 2 HOURS!! In our two hours we ran into a few sketchy people (of course we are a few southerners on a subway so sketchy to us is just the norm for New Yorkers haha) and some couples saying goodnight. We got on a bit after eight and after 2 hours and 4 subway changes we finally made it to Beth’s. Let me also say that we were going from one part of Brooklyn to another not into Manhattan or anything…. It was frustrating, but I must say we laughed quite a bit and just made a night of it. We got to Beth’s and she had us Brooklyn style pizza waiting. It was awesome after our adventure! We watched a movie chatted and then went to bed. 

Not the arrival we expected.....

We found the church with no problems, but when we got there we didn’t anticipate all that would happen next. We arrived there at were let in and given a tour by the pastor’s wife. The pastor was not available because he was sick. The pastor had recently had surgery and was given morphine for 8 weeks. The weekend before we arrived was the time he was to stop taking the morphine and he was going through terrible withdrawals. Then as the pastor’s wife showed us around she showed us where we would sleep. The Sanctuary. This is not what we expected… When TEAMeffort made reservations they went to NY to meet with the pastor and he showed them around the facilities where we would be staying. There are three floors to the church and the second and third floor contain rooms with bunk beds and bathrooms with showers. Very nice facility. Well at some point between March and the time we arrived they got into trouble for housing volunteers on the floors with no fire escape. They now have to do several construction projects on their church to reach fire code. They did not inform us of this before we arrived and this is not the best situation. We decided to go outside and try to unpack a little and figure something out. When we got back to our car there was a ticket for $115!!! PS you cannot park within fifteen feet of a fire hydrant on the street (we parked about ten feet away from it….) We talked to some of the TEAMeffort office staff and decided to start looking for better housing in the morning (it was after six so we couldn’t get a hold of anyone that day) We were all stressing a bit, so we decided to go into Manhattan and eat dinner and look around. Try to take our minds off the situation. We had a lot of fun and paid WAY too much for dinner then headed back to the church to sleep. 

The Long Travel Days.....

There isn’t much to say about the days we spent traveling. We drove A LOT! It was ten and a half hours from Brunswick, GA to Washington DC. Our trip went very very smoothly. The best part of the trip was when we past this placed in South Carolina that was called South of the Border. It was so funny. It was very brightly colored and we had so much fun just taking pictures! We got into VA and got stuck in traffic for about an hour! We traveled less than 10 miles in I hour!! There was a wreck, but not a bad one it was just around five thirty so there was still so much rush hour traffic it took longer….. We arrived in VA (which is about 20 min. outside of DC) and we spent the night there at the church where we will be holding the DC camp in July. It was great fun! The pastor had arranged a cookout for us at one of the church member’s houses. They had a pool and Jacuzzi, which was a much-needed relaxation time! The next day we were on the road by 9:30 in an effort to miss all traffic. We drove for about four hours from DC to Brooklyn, NY. The traffic wasn’t bad at all so we made very good time.

SORRY EVERYONE!!!!

Hey! Sorry I haven't posted I have no internet here! We are buying McDonalds internet right now....I would post, but everyone has to use this net and we only have it for a short while. I will post. I promise I promise! You just might have a lot to read at once! I will post ASAP!! Love you all so much! VERY IMPORTANT: Today we have a meeting at 2:00 with a new housing facility (I will explain why when I post later) Please Please Pray for us at this meeting. We need a better place to stay....I know that sound shady, but it isn't as bad as it sounds. I love you all and I will explain all later! Thanks for Reading!

Oh what a beach day it was.

We woke up and hung out around the camp and then decided since we were just hanging out we would head to Jekyll Island. We walked around the shops and checked out the beach, but the Golden Isles crew had a meeting at 1:00 so we headed back to town. Our group ran to Wal-mart (As you can see Wal-mart is a staple in our lives…) to help out the other group. We then returned back here just in time for a downpour. We decided it was a good day for a movie, so we headed out to see what was on. We ended up splitting into groups. My group watched My Life in Ruins (very very cute and funny chick-flick) while a couple of others watched Land of the Lost. I’m pretty sure everyone in the movie theatre was laughing at our group and not at the actual movie because we were being so loud. We of course were the typical group of girls who laughed at every even remotely funny part and cried aaaawwweee at all the sweet moments. After movies we went out to dinner at a very cute restaurant in downtown Brunswick. It was the 4^th of May named after the three owner’s birthdays J. We went shopping in downtown Brunswick then headed over to St. Simons Island to look around a little. Then back to the camp because we were all pretty beat…. Only two more nights in the Golden Isles then off to NY!

Finding worksites isn’t as easy as you think……

 

We woke up this morning on a mission! We had to find worksites for the youth groups coming in on Sunday. We went to meet with a guy at a local church who has made up his mind to help out his community and make it a safer place. He had a list of several blocks and streets that he had scoped out as needing repairs and yard work. We rode around the town and looked at several places that were job sites we could handle. We then ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant that was quite possibly the worst Chinese restaurant that I have ever been to. We haven’t seen a restaurant so far that has higher than a 80 health rating if you can fathom that…. We returned back to Morning Star to rest up and wait on Stacy, my camp director, to arrive here. She finally got here, after much waiting and anticipation! We then all headed out. Stacy and my group went to Wal-mart while the other group visited more worksites. We then came back and played this really awesome game called Banana-grams!! It is so fun and I’m pretty sure we are all addicted!! It is a game of speed scrabble where each person has there own board and points aren’t kept. It is just the first person to run out of letter tiles. So we played several hours of that then headed to town to get internet and run to Wal-mart again. Bed time came and it was the end of a busy day. 

A few pictures...

The picture below is the pavilion where the Dragonfly is and where everyone will eat this summer!

This is the Dragon Fly set up. We decorated it :) It is where the guys in Brunswick will sell merchandise and candy and drinks and such! This isn't a very good picture, but you get the drift...

This is the staff for NY and DC! We look "ghetto" because we were doing a skit! No worries we don't always look like this!! haha!

First Bomb threat ever...

Yes, that is what we woke up to this morning, a bomb threat....The first one the Morning Star campus has ever had. We had to evacuate the campus and the people who evacuated us were not to happy because we had no clue what to do and so we sort of just walked around trying to figure it out. Meanwhile someone came and started fussing that we were not in a secure place.... Well after about an hour we got to return to our facilities and we ate breakfast and got started working! We had to trailers to clean out. These trailers are where the campers will sleep and they had not been used in awhile so they had to have a full scrub down. They were so so dirty! It took us hours! Now they look great, well compared at least.... Then we hung out Sarah and I went to find somewhere she could get her haircut. It looks very cute now :) Then the bottom fell out and we got completely soaking wet!! We got in the shower because we were sooo cold! Then I cooked dinner for everyone :) Fettucini Alfredo!  Okay so it was really spaghetti noodles with alfredo sauce so I'm not sure if it counts, but I was working with what I had!! Then it was off to get internet of course haha! Tomorrow we are supposed to have internet at Morning Star. We will see how that goes.... 

Okay so I will tell you what the deal is with Morning Star because I'm not sure if I have explained it yet or not. Morning Star is where we and the youth groups will be staying. We don't necessarily do any work there we just rent out rooms. They might help out a bit around the campus some, but not much. They will work more in the community. Mornig Star is a safe place to live for kids, anywhere from small kids to high school age kids, that have an IQ below 70 (most around 50) that have at one point in their lives been sexually, mentally, or physically abused. The courts have found their parents unfit to keep the kids so this is a place they can go to live and to have school. 

Stacy, my camp director for NY and DC, comes in tomorrow around lunchtime so that will be grand! The sooner she gets here the sooner we get to head to NY!!!

PS. I hope this is a little better Mom and Jana!! 

I love you all!! Pray for me and my staff!!

My room for now!!

First Day on the site!

We got to sleep a little later than normal today J We got up and got dressed and ate a quick breakfast and David , the person that runs Morning Star, gave us a run down of the place and some rules. One of which was to watch out for the kids (and by kids I mean high school age kids) that can go missing around here. If we find ourselves alone with them to get out of the situation as fast as possible and contact someone to tell of the location. These kids are mentally challenged with IQs below 70 most ranging in the 50s and they were all sexually, mentally, or physically abused. It isn’t a huge issue we just have to be made aware for the safety of us and the campers. While on that same subject I will skip ahead to later in the afternoon, I actually witnessed a kid running away. Now they can go missing but most often a kid will be in the middle of doing something and will just take off running. These kids are very highly supervised and so when this happens there are probably at least two people running after them. At which time when they catch up with them will have to pull a police move and get them on the ground. I witnessed all of this happening this afternoon. (Don’t worry Mom I am perfectly safe! God is watching over me J plus many others!) Okay so after that side story let’s go back to the morning. We left to head to town because the Golden Isles crew had to meet up with the person who runs the Boys and Girls Club here is town. The person that runs the place just so happens to be the sister of a member of the Tampa TEAMeffort staff. So we all went to meet her and then my group of NY/DC staff left to look around town and get some internet. We then went back to where we are staying and started organizing the Dragonfly (where we sell all our merchandise and where everyone goes to hangout after chapel and before lights out). Lunchtime at Applebee’s. Okay another side note really quickly. We are in Brunswick, GA also known as “The Dirty Wick” Before we came we all thought this was just a joke, but upon staying here a couple of days we have discovered this not to be a joke at all but to be real life. As far as we have seen the whole town seems to be dirty. This Applebee’s was no exception the health rating was an 80 and the water tasted like toilet water a little bit. Very interesting to say the least. Okay but enough about that. After lunch we returned to Morning Star and finished organizing and cleaning the Dragonfly. I reorganized my car (which was a complete disaster!) so that we could fit all the things we will have to carry to NY. Hopefully it will all fir now…On the way here Sarah and I completely packed out all of my car and had to lay down the backseat even to fit everything, so in order to fit all of Sofia and Stacy’s things we had to do some reorganizing. We hung out some and then cooked dinner here on site, spaghetti tonight! Back to town to get some internet :) We are all pretty concerned with no net at the place haha We are going to watch a movie a bit later then bedtime for we have a busy day tomorrow!!

God is good all the time!

Today we all woke up and said sad sad goodbyes and then all departed on our ways. While riding along our six hour drive several things happened. First, we watched as a dog ran across the interstate and narrowly missed a couple of the people driving in my group, but was clipped by one of us (not me thankfully!) After it was clipped and hurt a semi obliterated it with limbs flying :( very very sad. Someone from our group then called their friend to tell of the story and found out another sad story. The carolina cost staff members have had a rough day. First while still in Gainesville one of the member's car's breaks went out. Two of the members stayed behind to fix it while the rest went on. While driving two different members cars air conditioning went out. Pulling over on the side of the road to try to repair the damage they we rear-ended. So finally about 6:00 they got back on the road with about five hours left in their trip. Please pray for them and the rest of their summer!! We arrived to our camp to find a good bit of work to do on our cabins. Sarah, the camp director for Golden Isles, then had to deal with a man who was not to keen on women to say the least.... We then headed out to grab a quick dinner, internet, and now we are about to travel to Walmart to get some supplies! Then hopefully sleep sleep!! 

PS If some of you didn't know I will clear up a bit! We are now in Brunswick, GA helping out another group set up their camp before traveling to NY sometime early next week. We will be headed to New York either this weekend or first thing next week! 

PSS I promise picture soon! Sorry guys I just haven't had a chance to get them uploaded to my computer! 

Wonderful but sad Monday!

Today was presentation after presentation which was very VERY long. After all presentations were done I spent a few minutes telling Jamey goodbye and good luck since he was leaving for China on Tuesday morning. Pray for him! He will be in China until mid August taking classes!! Then we had a wonderful wonderful closing service. The office staff organized a service that we will be organizing as the closing service for our campers this summer. This time we got to be the campers. It was magnificent. We had a deaf man that works with TEAMeffort's deaf mission camp give a talk and also the owner of the camp, Doug Jones, speak. We had amazing worship and then went down to the lakeside to preform the washing of each other's feet. It was so special. I can't describe in words how beautiful it was serving and growing closer to those around me and God. we then worshipped with singing and many many tears until late into the night. It was very cleansing and now I know that this summer will be an amazing summer! Then I had to spend the last of the night saying goodbyes to some of my favorite people here! It was a bit of an emotionally draining day, but it was so so worth it!!!