About a week ago we had a planning day for everyone who is going to be helping with CYIA (Christian Youth In Action) this summer. It was an all day meeting and it took me an hour to drive there and an hour to drive back. Surprisingly the drive there wasn’t that bad but the drive back was quite stressful and I nearly sideswiped someone on the highway. This is precisely the reason why I’m looking for a place to stay for the first three weeks of my internship. After those initial weeks some friends of mine have graciously agreed to let me stay with them for the remainder of the summer. But that isn’t actually what I wanted to talk about so let’s move on.
We started the meeting with coffee, which in my opinion is always a good way to start a meeting. Of the eight other people that came to the meeting I knew three, which meant I got to meet five new people that I’ll be working with this summer. I think I’ve met all but one of the leaders now.
I was very impressed with the other leaders, their focus, their hearts and their attitudes toward the whole thing were exemplary. I’m excited to get to work with all of them!
I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Andrew (the Director) as he is the only male leader in the whole group. He’s a brave man to take on all that responsibility and work with a bunch of women (myself included) on top of that. I’ll be the first to tell you that working with us women is not always easy, but I’m guessing he’s used to it by now.
At the meeting I was pleasantly surprised to find that my input was accepted and even welcomed by the others and several things I suggested they decided to do. I felt like I was a valuable member of the team.
Even though I’m the newbie and have the least experience out of all the leaders, they still respected me and gave me several leadership responsibilities. I’ll be helping demo a club for the teens during training camp, co-teaching a class on High-Octane Games and even solo teaching a class on Working and Living in Community, which I’m really excited about as relationships and communication are topics that I am passionate about!
In addition to the teaching I will be a co-leader/evaluator of one of the groups at training and a co-counselor in the dorms. Plus I’ll be helping with music (singing) and planning activities. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m super excited! But I’m also super nervous. I’ve never had this much responsibility in my life and I’m scared to death that I’m gonna blow it!
So if you are reading this and want to help or support me, please pray for me! This is an awesome opportunity and I want to give it my all but I know that there’s no way I can do this of my own strength. I need God’s help. I need people to intercede for me. You have no idea how grateful I am to those who take the time to pray on my behalf!
Well there’s a little snippet for you all who are curious what I’m up to or wanting to keep up on this adventure I’m on.
My first day of work is now less than a week and a half away! I start on Monday the 19th of May.
Thank you for all your support! More updates still to come.
God bless!
Excellentiam 