A Summer Blessing

Because I had such wonderful internship experiences while in seminary, it was a hope of mine to begin passing down this blessing to other students. In my current setting, I knew having a summer intern would not only be a huge help to me and the other pastors working overtime right now (as we are still without a permanent senior pastor), but that his or her presence would benefit the congregation at large.

After a year of planning and encouraging the church where I serve to get on board with my vision, I was able to hire Lindsay Pruitt to come to be with us for 10 weeks this summer. Lindsay is in her second year of seminary and is in the process of discerning what her ministry path will be when she's finished with school.

Lindsay has been exactly what I hoped to find in a summer intern. The bonus to the situation is that in my search to find an intern, I found someone who I already knew! Lindsay was in the youth group that I volunteered with while in college.

Since the end of May, Lindsay has worked hard, keep things organized (especially for all the youth summer trips), and been very open to trying new things. Her tasks have included sitting in on committee meetings of a variety of sorts, visiting seniors, helping me with funerals, teaching Bible studies and will even preach in two weeks. And, I've been proud of the congregation for openly receiving her. (You can see in the pic below that we are in serious conversation about what t-shirt to buy on the youth mission trip to Boston for her host family. You know you just can't buy the wrong one . . . ).

Her last day with us is August 10th and I'm already sad to see her go. Her joy has been a great encouragement to me. Lindsay always finds a way to bring laughter to any situation she's in. It has been fun to watch her mature and become more confident over the course of the past several weeks.

Thanks, Lindsay for being such a blessing to all of us this summer!

You Know You Are Tired When . . .

While on day five of camp, you think that you can actually get ready in 10 minutes before the scheduled meeting time in the morning.

When standing up to sing another song during the morning celebration is just too difficult.

When a youth who normally likes to stay up as late as possible says to you, "Can we make our last activity shorter so that we can just go to bed?"

When your youth actually ask to take naps during free time.

When you fall asleep the minute your head hits the pillow even though the light are on and there is plenty of noise to keep you awake.

When you begin to get more crabby at one another about things that are just too stupid to be picky about.

When the youth begin to tell you how many hours they are going to sleep in when they get home.

For all of these reasons and more, we are all glad tomorrow is our last day of camp. However, the kids have already told me they are sad to leave. They've made new friends in their small groups. They've enjoyed being away from their parents and spending tons of quality time with their friends. They've enjoyed watching their youth leader be really silly in the mornings (well, maybe). They have some great stories to tell about all the strange things they were asked to do during their service projects. They've had more fun here than many of them do on a daily basis around the house. And, hopefully they've also done some self-reflecting through their Bible studies and mission projects about how truly blessed they really are!

This is why we go to all the trouble of tiring ourselves out for camp week. The lasting effects are unmeasurable! The lack of sleep part is temporary.

Back at Camp Part II

I am writing today from a college near Boston where our youth are doing the camp thing for the week. They'll be in Bible study groups with close to 300 other kids from other churches and doing service projects in the community in the afternoon. At night, there will be interestingly planned worship services and other activities to keep them engaged. All along, the hope is that the kids learn more about how they can have a larger perspective on their world and engage their lives in meaningful service.

We arrived here safely yesterday afternoon and everyone seems pretty excited to be here. The youth are easily making friends from other churches.

One problem, though, NO air conditioning in the dorm rooms! Gotta love the northeast! It is day two and the adults and myself are already tired. (At least we'll burn some extra calories with all the sweat). We're hoping we make it back home in one piece on Saturday.

More later about all our adventures as I enjoy yet another week of camp :) Can you tell I'm having a busy summer?

Some Rest Between the Craziness

The Fourth of July was awesome time in our household! Seven of our friends joined Kevin and I on the beach for a weekend of rest, sun and lots of grilling out. It was a great break between children's camp and the youth camp that is upon me next week. I'll the pictures speak for themselves and return to a more meaty blog later on in the week.

We had a great time hanging out with our couple friends, Frank and Julie. Together, on the 4th of July, we watched a beautiful fireworks show by the ocean (which made Kev and I think a lot about the fireworks at our wedding). Frank and Kevin are a lot a like and so are Julie and I, we are are perfect hanging out friends.

This is a picture of the other part of the group also at the fireworks show. You can tell that there were smiles all around! The breeze off the ocean was so delightful that it didn't seem to matter what the temperature was outside.

Kate planned for us a trip up the sand dunes. I never knew how hard it was to climb sand dunes. We got to the top of the dunes and got a great view of the ocean. Sad, that it was dark and we soon had to leave the park!
These are the brave guys who braved a weekend with six women in the house. Lucky for them there were three bathrooms and tons of space for everyone.

I am blessed for any time I get to spent with our family of friends. Hooray for long weekends!

Back to Camp

Four years ago, I spent a summer on staff with a wonderful organization called Passporkids! It is a sister organization of the popular ecumenical youth camp called Passport that works specifically with 3rd-6th grade campers. I was the camp pastor and traveled around in a couple of cargo vans for 10 weeks providing camp for hundreds of kids from across the country. I preached a lot, sometimes even every night. I led recreation every morning. I helped to spiritually direct the summer experiences of the college-aged staff. I worked very hard and was exhausted beyond words at the end of the summer. Yet, it was such a wonderful confidence building experience for me that yes, indeed, I would be respected as a woman in the pastorate (I think every young woman needs an time like this in their early years).

Now I'm on the other side of the fence as a pastor on staff at a church bringing kids to camp. It has been a joy this week to watch the bright eyes of excitement from my church kids (see their faces in the picture above). It has been fun to watch the parents who are with me find out how wonderful of an organization Passport is for themselves.

But, best of all, I get to do more of the fun stuff this go around. I'm not the one always running around leading things. My job is just to hang out with the kids and make sure our group is doing alright. I love being on the other end of it. It feels like a great reward after all the hours I put in on the other side of the fence. Today is a day that I can celebrate the fact that it is a good to be a grown up! I now longer spend my summers at camp . . . only a week :)