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!!!