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!!!

Fun Day :)

Today we woke up rather early for church. We had to put all the Sunday School classrooms back in order which was rather difficult. We just had pictures to look at and we had to use those to put the class exactly as it was before we came. We had to put all of our stuff in storage closets which was quite interesting. Then breakfast. We went to church at nine thirty and after that took staff pictures. We had lunch then a bit of free time in which I took a glorious nap!! A quick scavenger hunt in which my team came in next to last place :( Another resting time and then we went roller skating for a couple of hours. Shelby showed up which was exciting!! She met her lovely staff and everything was great. Pizza for dinner. To wrapped up the night with a camp meeting for about an hour and now Syd and I have gotten away for a bit to get on the computer. I'm skyping with Jamey so that is a bit exciting :) It is the first time I have "seen" him since I left. Well everything is going well. Not much going on today here Sorry!! Tomorrow may be a bit busier! Love you all! 

Oh So BUSY

Today has by far been the busiest of days for us. We had breakfast at 7:30 this morning and by eight thirty we were headed out on the town. We were all split into four groups and rotated to different stations learning about worksites and such. We did have one fun station which is when we went out on the Lake Lanier and swam and cruised around on a boat. That was my groups first stop of the morning then it was to the next station which was a station in a hispanic trailer park that TEAMeffort had done some work in before. They were explaining to us things like how to build a deck or wheelchair ramp. They would show us one then explain the different aspects. Next was lunchtime back at the church. We then had a scavenger hunt at Lowe's which taught us about all the tools we would need and where to find them so our trips to Lowe's could be as easy as possible. (although I don't think my group will do too much construction, most every other camp will so it was needed and I learned SO much) While I was in Lowe's someone did not return a cart to the proper place but it found a place all on its on. Guess where! Well is you guessed into the side of my car you would be quite right. I escaped with a large scratch. To soften the blow though TEAMeffort had bought us all ice cream at Chick-fil-a so it wasn't so bad since I got to drown my sorrows in ice cream. Then off to a house of a sweet older man by the name of Rufus. He was the cutest! We did some work around his house so that we might be able to learn to use different tools and such. Finally back to the church for dinner and more camp meetings. PS I was cast as a main character in one skit in which I will pretend to be very self-centered (although I might not be pretending...) and be very tired from working all day and I want God to bring a glass of water to me from across the room. While I am crying out to God to bring me the glass of water (okay and by crying out I mean laying face down on the floor screaming) my friend comes in and tells me not to be selfish and to use the hands and feet God gave me to get my glass of water. Well after one more try to get God to just bring the water to me I give in and thank God for my blessing :) I get really nervous but I've done it a couple of times so I think I will be okay! Okay so now I am writing my blog outside of a cute little coffee shop in downtown Gainseville! Soon back to the church for bed!!  Love you all!! Please continue to keep me in your prayers!

Friday Friday

Today was a meeting meeting day! We had breakfast then off to meetings with our camp team! We went over skits and such then each one of our staff members had to go to meeting about different aspects of the camp we would be taking care of. THEN WE TIE-DYED!! It was so exciting haha (PS my t-shirt turned out really really great) Then lunch then more group meetings. My camp had dinner duty so we had to set up everything for our dinner, but as soon as we were finished my team headed out to pick up our director from the airport! It was so exciting because we had never met. SO we drove to Atlanta and tried to go to Moe's for dinner. This of course we a failure we drove through really sketchy parts of town then finally got to some better areas of Atlanta but then couldn't find the Moe's so we went to Taco Bell instead. Of course thought while sitting in the Taco Bell drive through (because we rode around so long we ran out of time to actually go inside to eat..) we saw the Moe's....This was very sad but nothing could break our spirits because we were so EXCITED to meet Stacy for the first time. We couldn't really figure out the Atlanta airport or where to park so we just parked at the first place we could and got out to meet her at baggage claim. After all was squared away we headed back to Gainseville to the church. Then after hanging out with everyone. (until 2 am might I add) sleep was in order! Although not regretting one minute of no sleep because we sat around playing guitar and singing worship songs to God! It  was so great to be surrounded by my brothers and sisters of Christ and lifting up praise to Jesus! I really am having such a fantastic time!!! I do miss you all though and love you all so much!!