Hello Hello!

Hey, it's me again! It sure has been awhile since I checked in with you guys! Things in Chicago finished up so amazing well! I think it has been one of my most favorite workcamps so far! The youth and advisors that were there are just so amazing and I feel oh so very blessed to have gotten the chance to know each and every one of them! Just to clue you all in on the amazingness here are a few highlights from the week:

- -Hand Hugs!
- runnin' the Sharon Shuttle to showers and volleyball
- sand volleyball and sumo wrestling
- standing like a flamingo and being made fun of for it!
- playing Addiction and Palace and Rage and Apples to Apples
- lying on the floor with my legs and feet resting on the wall
- going to the DuPage County Fair
- walking taco's, one of the most amazing meal ideas EVER!
- being serenaded to while driving the Sharon Shuttle
- amazing singing
- laughing to the point that I couldn't breathe with tears rolling down my cheeks
- rockin' out to the YMCA song at the Northern Illinois Food Bank with my youth
- hammocks!
- loosing my keys or my cell phone twenty million times a day
- taking more than 400 pictures during the week
- hitting my head REALLY hard on an open back door of a car
- playing the hand game and making it to ten!! (no worries, if you're interested, Ill teach you!)
- watching my youth read and do math with the youth from the resource center
- rockin' the van at EVERY red light...total chaos!
- the Shedd Aquarium (on a Saturday = bad idea)
- having a hand washing service the last night we were together
- making 38 new totally awesome friends
- saying goodbye to everyone at least twice!

...that only gives you a glimpse of all the things we did during the week and is only a few of the many memories that I will take away from the week. I was so sad to leave that group that I cried during our circle time Saturday night and then again on Sunday once I dropped off the last group where they needed to be. It was so strange not having three dozen people around me all the time and I didn't quite know what to do with myself!

The youth that I met are so talented and caring and compassionate and on fire for life that it was such a gift for me to be around them for a week. If I could I would have kept them all! As tired as I apparently was, when I was with the group I felt like I could just keep going and going just like the Energizer bunny! Then when I was said and done I realized just how tired I really was.

On Monday I traveled to my next workcamp in Baltimore, MD which is where I am now. I got here Monday and the youth arrived Tuesday afternoon. People are always asking me how I am able to do this job and to always keep on going and going day after day, week after week and I tell them that it's not so bad. From time to time I have a low morning or afternoon where I have no energy to speak of and then I take some time to rest and rejuvenate myself. I also have realized that I get a ton of my energy from the youth that I work with each and every day.

For example, this week, I was totally out of it Monday evening and Tuesday morning, but as soon as Tuesday afternoon came around I came out of the trance-like state that I was in and started acting like my usual outgoing self. The junior highers came and voila, I was cured! I was good for the rest of the evening and then for all day Wednesday and then Thursday rolled around and I realized that I needed to take some time to catch up and rest. So after working the morning with part of the group I came back and fell asleep for the afternoon. Apparently this was a pretty amazing feat considering that the youth were apparently really REALLY loud while I was sleeping, but truth be told, I didn't hear an honest thing! I know that Leanna came in at one point and talked to me and I'm pretty sure that I fell asleep again before she was done...whoops!

My good friend Leanne is here working along side me this week and I am oh so very glad for that. She is such a natural with youth and has such an awesome energy about her that works really well for junior high aged kids. She's kept me sane and keeps me smiling as we figure out what the next step is. Honestly she did so much of the behind the scenes work for this particular workcamp that I feel confident to say that it would be okay if I wasn't even here! But I'm really glad that I am because these youth are really awesome.

I know that I've lucked out with the youth that I've had the opportunity to work with and get to know this summer and it's neat to think that one day they will be doing really amazing things with their lives and I can tell people, 'you know I remember him/her when they were at my workcamp in 2008' and that is such an awesome thing! Leanne was actually the one to point that out to me and it's so incredibly true! I feel so privledged to have these many opportunities to work with these guys and every now and then I always have to remind myself that I made a difference in their lives too. It definitely goes both ways and it's amazing.

Oy vey

I'll have to agree with Dana on this one...the best part about today was when our good friend Alex stopped by the church to surprise us. It was a much needed pick-me-up to say the least. We were in the middle of devotions when one of the advisors got up and left the room and then he came back and got Dana and I was expecting the worst when she motioned to me to come out as well, but when I left our circle there was Alex and I was totally overjoyed and so incredibly happy. We were able to chat for a little bit and catch up awhile. It was so good to simply see him and see how happy he is.

Things are going well here for us in Chicago, but it's very overwhelming at times and I'll go from being really energetic to having no energy whatsoever. Today was the first day that I looked noticeably tired to the group and I know this because they told me so. I haven't been able to do a whole lot of direct work this week with the various projects that the youth have been doing and I understand that sometimes they have to wonder what it is that I do all day and sometimes I even wonder what it is that I do all day.

It's very draining to always know what exactly is going on and trying to stay on top of things in order to keep things running. And people are always coming to me with questions and sometimes I don't know the answers and that can be frustrating but then I work to find the answers and I work to keep things running smoothly. This is one of the first weeks where I haven't felt like I've known what is going on all the time. Since there are three of us working together to keep things going I don't always know everything and we're each working on various projects. Then when people come and tell me something I get caught off guard because I never knew about it to begin with.

As of right now I am extremely tired from spending the entire day out in the sun at the county fair and that is bringing out some more of the frustrations from the day and the week. But all in all this week has simply been amazing and I am feeling extremely blessed and lucky to be here with this group. I told everyone last night that this week was awesome and that I had another workcamp which was very hard for me and in my enjoyment of this week I had totally forgotten about the frustrating week. And that is a good and a bad thing. I think it's great that I've been able to continue on and move forwards in my summer but I also don't want to forget the lessons that I learned that week.

As I'm sitting here in my line of vision is the quote "God grant be the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." So here I sit struggling to let go of the difficulties of the week and to work to make the rest of the week an amazing experience not only for the youth and advisors I'm here to serve, but also to myself and to Dana.

Speaking of Dana, it's been so great having her here with me. She has a great gift with youth and with people of all ages really whether she knows it or not. I wouldn't want to have any other person here working with me this week!

Well since I'm about to collapse I think it's about time for me to go. It's funny, now that I've started this blog I have to keep reminding myself to keep updating it so that all ya'll can know what's going on! So I'll keep trying!

On We Go

So much has happened in these past few weeks. I had my second week in Neon, KY and boy what a week it was. I had a much smaller group of senior high and young adults and a couple of older adults thrown in. It was definitely a learning experience and one that I haven't quite figured out yet what all I have learned from it! It's going to take awhile to process, but it will come in time. It was an extremely frustrating and trying week, but oddly enough now that it's over, I don't have a whole lot to say about it. I really enjoyed the people that I worked with but there was something about the week that was just totally off. Hmmm, strange...

Anyways, after two weeks in good ol' Neon, I left for Annual Conference in Richmond, VA. I had to drive three hours west in order to come back east...now that really is strange! But that's what happened and after a long day of traveling I made it to conference and it was so fabulous to be there! I went to my first conference three years ago and now I'm totally hooked! It was great to reconnect with friends and family and take the time to reflect on the past month of workcamps and have a brief break before the next wave of workcamps begin! I had no specific jobs to do during the days and so I was able to do what I love best...talk and hang out with the youth! I hung out with youth I already knew and I met some new ones! Gotta love em!

So after some relatively free days in Richmond hanging out with friends and family I headed home to spend a few days at home in Bridgewater. For the most part I had nothing specifically planned other than a brunch with Anne and her bridal party and a family reunion but those of you who know me well know that while I try to not plan my time in it's entirety it never works. So I was running all over the place try to hang out with my best friends and others who still live in and around Bridgewater. One totally awesome thing was that I got to spend a lot of time with my good friend Lisa both at conference and at home. We hung out at the Bridgewater lawn party most evenings and ate a ton of food and did a lot of people watching and more catching up. As silly as it sounds I was pretty excited to find out that the lawn party was going on at the same time that I would be home. It's fun to go and see people, some you want to see and others that you hoped you would never see again!

Needles to say I had a good time at home and then it was time to head back out here to Illinois to regroup and prepare myself for my next workcamp. Over the years I have turned flying into a fine art. Most of the time I am able to fall asleep before the plane takes off, wake up when the beverage service comes through and then fall asleep again, waking up only when the plane lands. It's an amazing thing and this trip was no different! It sure does make the plane ride go by much faster!

It's hard to believe that half the summer is over, but I'm moving forward and things look really good for this week in Chicago, so more to come!

Last On the Hill

Well, this is the quietest it has been on the Hill here in Neon for a week but only because I'm the only one here! Everyone left this morning and it was a bitter sweet time. I was looking forward to the end of the week so that I would have some time to rest, but at the same time it's hard to say good bye to these awesome youth that I've been blessed to know. They never cease to amaze me and bring be great joy and this is why I absolutely love my job. There was one young man who was always quick to answer and who seemed a bit rough around the edges, but this morning I received the most amazing hug from him. I truly feel touched and blessed by having the opportunity to spend the week with this guy and to watch him interact with the other youth and knowing that there is so much more to him than the 'mean guy' face that he puts on. He always gave me a hard time whenever I would ask him to do something, but then he would do it and he would do it well. Amazing young man... I could go on and on about each of these youth, but that would take a long time! All I know is that it is so great to be able to look back at the lists that I've been using for the past six months and realize that I now know all of those people personally!

This week Steve and I had the group write affirmations for each other and all in all I think that went over really really well. Some people saw it as a chore but others used it as more of a reason to get to know others in the group better so that they could write more personalized comments to one another. I got a lot of affirmation and encouragement in my bag and many memories were written down. I think we can all use a bit of affirmation in our lives, it is always so encouraging and uplifting and it's what makes us tick: to know that someone cares and is paying attention and that they believe in you. I believe in all these youth and I know that each one of them has such great potential and my life has purpose because of them.

It is quiet on the Hill but everwhere I go there's a memory of some kind. There is the crazy four square court where we played using rules I haven't used since elementary school, there's the ping pong table where we played a crazy version of ping pong but it got more than two people involved, there's the gravel area where we had devotions each morning and a water balloon fight one afternoon, there's the corner couch that I think at one point at at least ten people sitting on it, there's the ball field where we played a massive game of kickball and then soccer, there's the mural that some of my group painted so we could leave our physical mark here, there's the curbs in Neon that look amazing and bright with their new coat of paint, there's the dryer that was prayed for so that laundry could be done and then we realized it wasn't plugged in (hehehe), there's the hillside that we all crawled over trying to cut down brush, and the list goes on and on. Each week this place is lived and and loved. It's a bit rusty around the edges, but it sure does become home pretty fast!

I'll say it again and again, this is such a great place to be. The people friendly and welcoming and helpful and they always tell you to come back and see em when you're next in town. I'm happy that I get to stay and work with these people for another week. It's gonna be a totally different experience, but it's gonna be a great one!

Beautiful Country

Well here I am in the beautiful state of Kentucky at my next workcamp. All I have to say (but not really) is that it is sooooo amazing to be back in the mountains! Everything here is so green and absolutely gorgeous. I've been here since Saturday and all my kids got here on Sunday. It's kinda cool because the majority of the group is from the Bridgewater area! There's also a group from Indiana and then one really cool kid from Pennsylvania. Most people round these parts have amazing accents and I could sit and listen to them talk for hours on end. We're working with HOMES, Inc (Housing Oriented Ministry Established for Service) and they work to obtain land and then build homes that people around here can afford due to the many grants they receive and through the volunteers that come in and help. It is a great program and although they are struggling financially, they are doing what they can to help the surrounding communities.

All in all it's a great group, lots of energy and willingness to serve others. It isn't always easy though, sometimes I feel as though I'm pulling teeth to get them to volunteer to do something. It's hard though because they were coming with the expectation of doing demolition work and building but so far no one has done much of that, or they have done it indirectly. So far we've been pulling nails out of boards so they can be sold and reused, cut and burned brush and debris, painted road curbs and worked to hang sheetrock (drywall) for a local community center that will (hopefully) be opened next month.

The community center that we're working at is such a great project because of what that center will mean to the community when it's done. We are in the heart of Appalachia and there are two jobs here: mining and logging. These 'towns' that we're working in are coal towns and most of the houses used to belong to the local company and everyone got their goods at the company store. So the community center that is being finished was built on the foundation from the company store that used to be in McRoberts. The area has a high drug rate even among adults and the elderly. The center will offer a place for youth to go and hang out in a safe space rather than being out in the hollows getting into trouble. They have plans for a pool table, a ping-pong table, big screen TV and lounge space and then a room for computers that will have Internet access and a crafting room. It is really exciting and I know that a lot of people are really excited for it to be up and running.

It really is such an interesting area in so many ways. And many people around here have similar stories. There are two predominate ones. First, there are the people who were born here and never leave, they choose to work the mines or do whatever work they can. Or, some people, after they go to school, realize they need to leave in order to find a job so they leave for 30 or 40 years, but then they come back. It is amazing how many people decide to come back to this area. And honestly, I can see why. As I said earlier it's beautiful country here. Yeah there's a lot of 'stuff' to deal with, but the people love it here. It's what they know. I know that I absolutely love coming here, it really is a great place to be. The people take the time to slow down and relax and enjoy life. It isn't easy, but then again what is?