Prepped and Ready to Serve!

Staff training is over and I am home for a few days! I learned so much in just a little over a week. For the first 5 days or so all of the 5 camps and staffs were all training together. Then the camp directors stayed up late one night in order to decide where everyone goes. We have about 35 or so people on staff. As I said in my last blog post I was placed at West Wilkes Middle school. I am really excited about this opportunity to share God’s love up in the mountain area. For those of you that know North Carolina, the counties my camp works in are Ashe, Wilkes, Surry, and Alleghany. Our staff consists of 1 camp director, 1 lead field coordinator, 2 field coordinators, 1 lead program coordinator, and 2 program coordinators (me being one of those). So during what we call Pre pre-camp our staff went to our own camps and visited families who we might be able to work for with the campers. We don’t just go to any random person’s house that looks like they might need some help. We have contacts from people like social services, or mobile meals who give us names people. Then we go to those families and tell them about Carolina Cross Connection with the name of the contact so that they know that we are not trying to scam them and are really who we say we are.
During one of the days we were doing first visits I met this woman named Ruth. She was definitely what I would consider poverty level living with her small rundown trailer with trash all over the place. So we approached her and told her about who we are and asked her if she needed any help. What she said surprised me. This eighty some year old woman whose home was the worst I had seen all day told me that she was capable of taking care of things and that she doesn’t want to take us away from someone who really needs the help, and she will let me know if she will in the future or of anyone else. I was just shocked and in awe of Ruth since she seemed to be the one who needed the most help. It reminds me of how blessed I am in my circumstances and how God provides for my needs.
The counties are divided up among the staff, so I am going to be in charge of Ashe county. This being the top left corner of NC, I ended up driving to Tennessee and Virgina as I was driving to houses located very near the borders. J Most of my days will be spent visiting contacts and doing first visits. During camp weeks, the first one coming up this Sunday, we will organize the campers into major groups splitting up the churches, best friends, boy friend/girl friends, ect so that we can avoid cliques and focus on forming the Christian community we are striving for. Then a field and a program will be in charge of one major group and they will be with that group for the whole week. We will be scheduling and going to the work sites for the campers as well as give them worship and community in the evenings. Each smaller group of 6-7 campers that was divided among the major group will work at about 4 families houses throughout the week ranging from painting and yardwork to building porches and wheelchair ramps.
There is a lot of work to be done before the campers arrive such as more first visits, visiting contacts to get new names of families, scheduling the projects by visiting the families a second time, delivering any needed lumber, and preparing for the skits, worship, and activities for that week. During the days the campers are here, while they are at the work sites, I will be visiting them and helping as well as visiting new families. I am really excited about this opportunity and following God’s leading to work at this camp. It is so much more than what I would consider a normal camp and it is exciting to be able to minister to my ‘neighbors’ here in North Carolina. I will do my best to update the blog as much as possible!