It's Good to Be Back!

Wow it has been a while since my last blog post! I've had so many encounters this summer, so many adventures, and so many stories, yet I've traveled so much that I have had very little time to really explain and let my summer sink in. Just to recap for all you who are new to my blog, at the end of May I spent two weeks working and serving in the remote fishing island of Yakutat, Alaska. During those two weeks my FOCUS mission team of 23 helped the community through home repair projects, vacation bible school for the kids, retreats for the teenagers, and various community events for all ages.After the two weeks in Alaska, I then went to Loveland, Colorado for two weeks were I had training for my job for the summer with Group Mission Trips. I was put on a team of four where we each had a different job in setting up, and running home repair, mission trip experience camps for high schoolers across the country. My position was an office manager, where I would communicate with the facility we were staying in for the camp week, set up the facility and keep it running for over 350 campers each week, and make sure everything was in order and running smoothly. After my two weeks of training in Colorado, my crew and I drove across the country in our Ford Focus and Penske truck to help set up a camp and run our three camps; we set up in North Carolina, and had our three camps in South Carolina, West Virginia, and New York. Each camp was a week long where the high schoolers would come from all over the country (sometimes from all over the world, where we had two groups come from Canada and Japan) and would work on home repair projects while focusing on an overall theme for the week. The theme this year was REFRAME, where the kids were reframing who Jesus is to them, who He is to our world today. They also reframed how they view their relationship with God, both positive and negative. Nine weeks later, after our very last camp in New York, my crew drove back to Colorado to unpack our equipment then turned around 48 hours later to fly home to Virginia. And then.....I slept.

This summer was crazy with travel and lack of sleep, but this summer, I was a missionary. I was able to share God's love, joy, and word with everyone whom I met; from the natives in Alaska, to high schoolers at camp, to my own mission team and crew members on mission and at work. Did that mean I talked strictly about Jesus the entire time? No, while I did have many stimulating and deep conversations about being Catholic, about Jesus, about putting our full trust in God, it wasn't always direct. Some days, it was all about being a presence in someone's life, some days it was about being joyful even when I was running on a couple hours of sleep but still putting the needs of others in front of mine, some days it meant explaining to someone why I go to Mass every Sunday and why I pray every day. Sometimes these encounters were defining moments of my summer, a moment that really stood out to me, but sometimes these encounters were so small I still don't realize that they happened, and I may never realize it.

It is good to be back, it is good to share my experiences with all my family and friends, it is good to take all my experiences and encounters from this summer and bring them back to my life here in Virginia. This summer will stay with me forever, but it can't stop at just a pretty and fun memory, I need to make it live on, I need to continue to pray for that encounter with God every single day, a prayer that we must all have each day. Life is crazy even as I returned; I went to New York with my boyfriend, I am finishing up my college career in Geography, I am involved in my Catholic Campus Ministry on my campus, I'm going on various adventures this semester with friends, I have a blog that I need to keep writing, I am seeking many different opportunities that have been presented to me over the past month, but I need to keep being a missionary, I need to keep sharing God's love!

I'm just a little missionary, and it's good to be back!