First Full Day

WOW MAN! Our 1st full day of programing has finished. The students are in bed, the lights are out, the kitchen is prepped for breakfast, and I am off to bed after finishing this. Today was full of its challenges. BUT, the Lord is good and for every frustration He has given even more peace and blessing. Here are 3 of the challenges and the blessings.

1.) Today is Monday and I haven't showered since Friday afternoon. (I did wash my hair in the sink before church though). I feel gross and my skin is sticky from spilling lemonade over myself. The place that was set up for the YW staff to shower has not been cooperating with us and wants to charge us a crazy amount to let us shower for like 5 minutes. However (PRAISE THE LORD) as of tomorrow we have staff showers! At 1:00 tomorrow afternoon I will be clean. You can't imagine how beautiful a shower sounds after days of hard work and humidity! I can't help but see the blessing though this. I will go 4 days without a full shower... but I have more than enough food, a place to live, wonderful people around me, and seriously... it's 4 days. I am working with people at the service sites who are without a house and the luxuries I take for granted. My unclean self has taught me about about how much the Lord has given me.

2.) I am itchy. I stopped by one of the service sites (Parks and People) to see how they were doing. Their afternoons task was to help trim back bushed in a park. (Cool stories about what this service site does to come in later entries). We were working a lot with poised Ivy and thorny bushes. I was wearing ungloved hands and shorts. Poor life choice. I don't think it is poison ivy, but my legs mush have touched something that my skin doesn't like. So I itch. BUT the grand part is that we have anti-itch cream! AND beyond that there is HUGE blessing in even being able to serve beside the students. It is so fun to get to know them, observe the hard work they do, and see their enthusiasm for being the hands and feet of Christ. The groups this week (they are both from Texas) are really great! They are setting the standard for the rest of the summer high!

3.) I apparently can't drive in parking lots. As I was trying to navigate the YW minivan through the gates of our parking lot and not hit the 2 other 11 passenger vans with students in them I turned too sharp and hit a parked car's bumper with my back wheel. It gets better. I hit the other car so perfectly that the corner of the other car's bumper was stuck in my wheel socket thing (whatever you wanna call it... the hole where your wheel goes). Because of that we had to get 7 of the high school guys to lift up the van and get it unstuck . Nothing like having 30+ people watch you make an idiot out of yourself. The good news is that the van has no damage to it and the jeep only has 2 very minor scratches. Plus, the owner of the jeep doesn't have insurance which makes YW's job a lot easier. Let's just say it could have been a lot worse.

SO, that was my 1st full day of YouthWorks! I am looking forward to seeing what else the Lord has in store for the summer.

FInal note: This morning in my devotional I asked the Lord to speak His truth to me though Scripture. One part of a verse that really stood out to me was Judges 6:24 "...The Lord Is Peace..." It was so cool to see the Lord answer my prayer. He spoke these 4 words to me all day. Through it I am able to just be. I have nothing to fear and only blessing to count.

I am the daughter of the King and I am full of peace.

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