When Things Don't Go as Planned

I love to plan; I plan what I'm going to wear the night before, where I'm going to go and what I will do most days, how I want my room to look, and even what I am going to do in the future. I will also plan out an event in my mind and how I want it to go.

I really didn't have any idea of what was going to happen when I got to Yakutat, but I knew that we were there to touch lives by sharing God's love, and for that I was truly excited. We got our daily schedule on Monday (May 18), where we would start each day with Holy Hour, then daily Mass, then be divided up into groups to go out and do our work projects. I was paired up with Justine and Janae and we went over to Mr. Gene Reily's house to help him out with work around the home. His wife passed away from cancer back in 2000 and he just hasn't had any motivation to clean his house. He has three children; two daughters and one son, whom is named Dene and lives with his father. It was such an honor to work with Gene and learn about his past; where he grew up, how he met Carol his wife, and different stories he had from living in Yakutat. We would all stay on our work sites until lunch time, then we would go back to St. Annes, eat lunch, have some relaxation time, then we were going to split in half where one gropu would run a VBS for the young kids, and the other half would go on a hike with the high schoolers. I love working with high schoolers, so I jumped at the chance to go on the hike. My group was getting excited to go on the hike and do trail maintance, where we would clip back branches, clear the path, and pick up trash so other people could enjoy hiking as well.

As 3pm rolled around and all the kids got out of school, the young kids began to show up for VBS, but there were no high schoolers in sight. We waited around for a little, then had to finally leave because it was getting late, and we waned to be back in time for dinner. We still cleaned the trail, but it wasn't as fun or rewarding as it would have been had there been high schoolers there.

Later that night, at 7pm, is when we would have our community get togethers, where we would go to one of the many local beaches, have a bonfire, play some sports, and then just sit and chat with the town. This night, we went to Sandy Beach, one of the beaches that is on the Bay instead of the Pacific ocean, so there aren't any waves. We got there, made a great fire, set up the volleyball and got some games going, but no one showed up.

Currently, for my job as a Red Shirt with GroupMission Trips, my crew doesn't start our own camp until next week, so in the mean time we are helping another crew set up and volunteer at their camp until it's time for us to go to our own. It's tough because while I am here and helping them do little jobs here and there to make the camp run smoothly, I keep feeling like I'm not doing very much, which kills me since I am a person who loves to always be active, always helping, and always doing, but here for the last two days, I'm not feeling myself, I'm not feeling like much help. Then on top of all that, I found out this morning that I have an eye infection in my right eye, so I can't really open mine up all the way. THEN.....on top of all of that while the school has Wifi, I can't access all my photos from my Alaska trip to post on here.....

I'm sorry if all this is coming across as complaining, but it really isn't me complaining. This is all something that just didn't go according to plan, whether in Alaska or at work. It's good to plan, in fact we should make plans to do things otherwise not much would get done, but the key is to be open to God's plan, because God has a plan for each and every one of us, and while we don't know what it is right now, or we may never know what it is, His plan is
better for us, because He truly knows us, and knows what we need, and when we need it. I didn't get to go on that hike with high schoolers, but I got to know people on my mission better. We didn't have people a lot of people come to our community event, but the three people who came ended up coming back many more times. I may not have much to do here at this camp, but this isn't about me, and I let that slip my mind for a while.

God has a beautiful plan for each and every one of us, each one unique. We need to embrace His plan, embrace that there will be moments where we can't plan out what will happen, or how things will happen, so we put our full faith and trust in God.

"Not my will but yours be done" Luke 22:42

Learning to be Fluid

What a crazy past two weeks! I have been out in Loveland, Colorado staying in Lucile Erwin Middle School where I was basically back in school again for job training. We spent all day in a classroom setting learning our different positions, going through driving school, and so on. Now we are finally starting up camp and I am back on the East Coast!!! We spent the last three days driving almost 2,000 miles to come to Lexington, North Carolina where we are helping another crew set up and run their first camp until next week when we will continue our journey down to Greenwood, South Carolina to begin our first camp. In those three days of traveling we have been through 8 different states: Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Let me tell you, our country is truly beautiful! If you ever get the chance to go and travel across the states, do it!! (But more on that later)

So Alaska (sorry folks I promise I'm getting all my stories up more now that I don't have to be in the classroom all day long). Sunday May 17th was our first full day and man did we really experience Alaska! We began the day with Holy Hour and Mass, which if you have the access and ability to do so, I highly recommend it, always begin your day by giving it to God. We also went down to the harbor to do a blessing of the fleet, which was amazing! Yakutat is very much a fishing village, where that is the main income for most people, so for Father Steve to go down and bless the boats was so cool. Then our group went on a hike through a part of the Tongass rainforest, with plenty of views of the mountains and the water. After the hike we went down to one of the many beaches in Yakutat called Graveyard beach. This beach is beautiful, and looks straight out to the mountains, espeically Mount St. Elias, the second largest mountain in the world, since it starts directly at sea level. Not only was the day beautiful with all the nature, but we had some great time to talk with each other as well. One of the things that Devon, our leader, told us was to "be fluid" on this trip, meaning that plans could change at any moment, things will come up, and we have to be able to be flexible and go with whatever changes. I'm not going to lie, I really do struggle with this because I am a very organized person who likes to have lists and schedules. Don't get me wrong, I do "go with the flow" from time to time, but I do like to have somewhat of a plan. It's the control that I like, something huge that keeps me from giving everything to God.

So we hung out at the beach for a while, then it was time go back to dinner at the church. We loaded up our two rental vans, and began to drive out down the sandy road to get back. As we were driving, our first van ended up getting really stuck in the sand. We got out to try and push, pull, anything to get out, but nothing was working, we were only going deeper and deeper into the sand, making it harder and harder to get out. With no cell service, well no technology at all since we were on a technology fast for the entire mission, and dinner waiting for us back at the church, you can probably tell that this was very much not planned at all. As a few of us were looking around the area to find big pieces of drift wood to use to get the van out of the sand, I thought back to what Devon had said eariler in the day to be fluid. Obviously we hadn't planned to get stuck, and we had planned to be back at a certain time, but instead of getting frustrated and start blamming people for things we could have done better, I took this as a time to not only enjoy outside, but also to get to know and talk to my group more. We had laughs, jokes, and worked as a team, till we finally got the van out of the sand and back on the road. I had only known these people for about 24 hours, and yet coming together to overcome that challenge, I felt like I had known them for a lifetime. If we hadn't gotten stuck, I may not have had those moments of bonding with my group. Praise God for vans stuck in the sand!

As I go into my job, planning, setting up, and running 3 different camps with almost 400 campers each, I have many different lists and things that need to get done, but I have to remember that I need to be fluid. Things are not going to go 100% right all the time, and instead of getting hung up on what went wrong, I need to remember why I am here, and I am here to serve my God who graciously gave me this opportunity to serve Him by serving others.

Be Fluid

Yakutat Harbor

Hiking along the coast

Graveyard Beach 

Moving the van 

Two Beginnings, One Encounter

So now that I'm as you could say, back on the grid, I have so much to update everyone on. I finished my two weeks in Alaska and now I'm onto about 9 weeks serving across the country with Group Mission Trips as a red shirt. So I figured the best way to catch everyone up on my adventures would be to go one day at a time for both experiences. We shall see how this works, but here goes nothing.

On May 16 I traveled for about a total of 12 hours, in 4 airports, and 4 time zones to get to Yakutat, Alaska. There I met 21 other people from FOCUS campuses all across the United States; Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Maine, California, Florida, and many states inbetween.
Yakutat is a small fishing village that has about 600 people in the summer months. They have a post office, school, police station, and a couple of stores, and that's about it. The parish is called Saint Annes and the priest who is stationed there is Father Steve Gallagher, a missionary priest who travels all through out southeast Alaska to serve the small villages in the Diosease of Juneau. Father Steve is such a blessing, and my first encounter with him was when he picked us up from the small airport and drove is around the village, telling us stories of how he used to be a cop, then proceeded to get pulled over for speeding!

Our first night we had Mass, dinner, and got to know our team. We had four FOCUS missionaries, 15 students, a full time missionary and his intern. My team is below:
FOCUS
Devon: Colorado
Dain: Texas
Sean: Texas
Matt: Colorado

Students
Melanie: Indiana
Shannon: Texas
Jeanette: Arizona
Justine: South Dakota
Magggie: Colorado
Emily: Colorado
Jannae: Texas
Maddie: Minnesota
Lelia: Maine
Michael: Florida
Ryan: Texas
Kelly: Arizona
Jaime: Colorado
Aaron: Maine
Alex: Michigan

Full time Missionaries
Craig: Mexico City
John (intern): Massachusetts

These people were in my life for two weeks and each and every person has brought me closer to Christ.

So day one for Alaska, keep looking for day two!!!

As for my training: I'm an Office Manager, or the mom of the workcamps. I help set up and run Jesus based service experiences for high schoolers across the country. It's a lot of work, but so much fun!!!

We'll that's it for me and the first day!

Peace and Blessings!

1 John 3:18

Drum Roll Please

Back in the continental United States! Being in Yakutat for the last two weeks was truly humbling and life changing. I'm so excited to share with you all my stories and photos! Photos are gradually being put on Facebook but stories to go with them will follow soon! Sorry for the lag in blog posts, there was not service and I was on a media fast and now I'm in Loveland, Colorado to jump into training for my job with Group Mission Trips for the summer. Speaking of which I got my destinations tonight for my camps this summer. ...drum roll please

June 29-July 4: Greenwood, South Carolina
July 12-18: Seth, West Virginia
July 26- Aug 1: Charolette, New York

I'll be posting my address for people to send me mail soon as well as my travel plans for all those who want to see me!

I'll be posting more now that I have Internet again, but this was mainly to share where I will be this summer. Please continue praying for me as I encounter Christ this summer through mission

Peace and Blessings