LTSP Wrap Up

Project ends in two days. The three main directors have come back to close up camp. We have spent all day cleaning up camp. Our cabins are empty. The family room is bare. Basketball hoop taken down. The kitchen is closed…. It is raining and grey here, which fits the mood. Nobody likes the idea of leaving.
We all had our last day of work on saturday. Which I was pretty pumped for, not going to lie. I didn't make super strong connections at work, or at least I thought I hadn't…. Until my superior had tears in her eyes as we walked out of the store! And my other co-worker who is high school aged and accepted christ with us while we were here got emotional too. We really did make an impact there in the little k-mart…. I'm sad I can't continue to see the transformation God is doing in these people's lives! That's where I have to trust that we planted a seed God will grow.
It rained yesterday during our last beach sharing time. Which put a damper on things. But we stuck it out under some covered picnic tables and played card games and still made the best out of the day. Though I didn't pack warm clothes (cause we were at the BEACH) and I was freezing in my swim suite and light jacket by the time I got back to camp! I didn't warm up for hours.
It's weird to think we are leaving. It really hasn't hit me. After 2 months of living so closely with all these people it feels normal. To think we won't have the crazy adventures every night like we have been is saddening. Everything from hiking a mountain at 2 am, swing dancing parties in the middle of the woods under the moonlight, coffee dates at Starbucks, movie nights, mini golf, girls night eating every piece of junk food in sight, thrift shopping for ugly prom dresses, shaving cream fights, girls vs. boys prank wars (we girls definitely won), going out to the docks late at night to look at the moon, spontaneous ice cream runs, and those are just the little things we got to do when we didn't have things planned to do!
Going to miss the morning devotionals, the monday night life group talks where we can be vulnerable and open about things in our lives, the tuesday night worship night, the thursday night teaching nights, and the training we received in seminars on friday nights, the bible studies on sundays after church, the intentional sharing on the beaches sunday afternoon, leadership meetings where we helped each other learn to lead our life groups and support each other in our common positions.
This community is some this so special it's hard to describe in words. Which makes how much I'm going to miss it even harder to describe. Just the way we lift each other up, are willing to share in the hardships of life, and find commonality in our love for Jesus Christ is something special. When one person is down we are quick to come alongside them and pray for them, offer support in any way we can. I can't think of any other group of people who quite do life like we do here on summer project. God is truly at work here at LTSP. He has done transformational work in our lives. Even throughout the little adventures we are able to see how God is using us to influence those around us. We've had people come up to us out of the blue and ask us what it is about us…. They see that there is something different about us. And every time we say it is Jesus. He is the common thread that bonds us together is such a visibly transformational way. It's amazing.
God is amazing. And I've learned more than anything to trust in God and his timing. That even when I don't understand why I'm doing something he does… And I can rest my hope in him. After this trip I have all the reason in the world to trust in him for everything.

LTSP I think it's time for an update...

I have been so bad about updating you all! I have just not had any spare time to sit down and write! Our schedules here are extremely packed. All with good things! But leaves us to chose between sleep or update social media most nights. And to be honest I chose sleep every night! haha
But this afternoon is a rare occasion where I got off in the afternoon and everyone is out either working or tubing on a river, so I have nobody to meet with, I'm all caught up on my reading, and there is nothing in town I need to go do! So I get to sit outside and write! Yay!
The easiest way to go about updating you I think is to bullet the highlights of the past few weeks since project was turned over to us! So here we go!

-Leading life group has been an awesome growing experience. I am forced to go in depth in my studies and it has been really good for me to learn how to do that without someone kinda telling me to. I also learn something from my life group girls every day! They are such an awesome support system. I also have a whole new support system of other life group leader girls who help me lead my girls, and we have become close as well, which is awesome!
-The power went out last sunday in all of Lake Tahoe, so we had to scramble to get sandwich fixings and do our meetings by headlamp light. In a lot of ways that was a stressful situation and could have ended poorly. But the whole camp was just so graceful about how we handled that unexpected thing. Our student directors were awesome and lead with authority and all of us went along with them. It was kinda fun for a while to disconnect from the world and only have the camp to turn to for entertainment!
-Timothy Keller is quickly becoming my favorite author. I highly recommend his books. I am currently finishing up his book Jesus The King and currently starting The Meaning Of Marriage.
-My free time is very very limited, I get one full day off which I usually use to meet with 2 of my life group girls to just talk and see how they are doing. But I find time to read during our morning devo time and sometimes in an awkward time gap before dinner. But nights that we don't have certain activities I usually spend running errands, doing laundry, showering, and just trying to catch up on the daily chores life seems to demand. I have my moments where I want nothing more to be 7 again and have my biggest problem be which lollipop to pick out at the check stand! Being a grown up is hard!
-We had a "$5 Prom" where we all went to thrift stores and bought ugly cheap clothes and wore it to a dance we had on saturday night. It was really fun to dress ugly and dance goofy with everyone. Just have a night to hang out and goof around. We got lot's of looks as we went out to eat before the dance. :)
-Church is going ok, the community loves having us here and that is super nice, but the lay out and structure of the service is not what I am used to, which is hard to deal with sometimes.
-Work is long and as I have already conveyed, is not my favorite activity on project. I have yet to really get to know any of my co-workers really well, which is kinda what they encourage us to do. Prayers for my work relations would be greatly appreciated!
-Sharing on the beaches has been a challenge the last two weeks, cause last sunday a giant storm came throughout (that knocked out the power) so nobody was out on the beaches or in town to really talk to. Nobody seemed to be in the mood either. And this last sunday, I went sharing with someone who wasn't really confident in his sharing, so I was forced to step up and really lead the conversations we had, which I had never done before. I was super nervous, and probably didn't do it perfectly, but I am able to reflect back on the 3 conversations I had and learn where I could have done better, and hope and pray that we planted a seed with the folks that we talked to. Sharing is one of the most challenging parts of project by far!
-I've had some of the best ice cream ever while I've been here. There are a handful of authentic home made ice-cream shops around town that we have made our goal to try! I think we have hit them all once by now… Time for round two!
-We've had lots of visitors on camp. Everything from parents, siblings, past summer project goers, to complete strangers stopping in to see what we are all about. As well as two of my very best friends visiting one evening to see me! ;)

Over all, I am beginning to see the effects of project really hit home in my life. I have been convicted of a lot of things in my life, have more of a heart for the unbelievers in this world, and feel a million times more prepared to go back to school and join up with my Cru ministry there! I can tell it will be a hard transition back into "real life" after this. Living for such a long time in such a solid christian community has been so good and I'm already beginning to miss it… and it's not even over!

LTSP Project Turn Over

Recently things have been going routinely smooth. I'm getting used to the schedule and have been able to share more with people on the beach and around the community. I am even getting into spiritual conversations while shopping for clothes! I have been meeting with my life group and hanging out with them. I have been meeting with the staff women that decibel me back at school, and meeting with the other kids on project from my school to talk about what we want to take back with us to campus in the fall.
But last night the whole dynamic changed in the most spirit-filled and emotional way.
Yesterday everyone on project went to a private beach and hung out for the day, and in the evening we had a ceremony to turn the project over to us students. (For those of you that don't know the nature of this summer project, halfway through our time here at Tahoe the staff and directors of the camp leave. They completely leave the project and hand everything over to us students to run on top of doing all the things we've been doing.) So yesterday we all hung out at the beach, jumped off the docs, soaked up the sun, and hung out with our life groups one last time before our leaders left. It was a fun summer afternoon, but also was heavy with the burden of knowing the staff was about to leave us, and we did not know who they were going to appoint as leaders until the ceremony.
We had a Baha Fresh catered dinner, and then got to have worship and hear from our staff one last time. The sun was setting across the lake behind us as the worship team sang my favorite worship song, and it was just one of the most peaceful things I have ever experienced. Going from there, they announced the 5 students who would be taking over the director positions, and I have to say I have full confidence in all the students they chose. It is a very well thought out group, and I'm excited to be lead by them. After that, they announced the new life group leaders, basically one student from each group who will take over the morning devos and monday night meetings. I am humbled and honored that I got chosen to be my life group leader. It is a huge responsibility, to help lead and disciple my fellow sisters in christ for the remainder of the project. I'm praying God will use me in the way he wants me in the position he has placed me in. Then after we were announced the organizing committees were announced. We then entered into a washing of the feet ceremony, to usher us new elders in. I've never washed someones feet before, but I understood it was very biblical, and it in a weird way humbled us all and brought us closer together. After that, they made a prayer circle around us and all took turns praying for us. As we finished up our time of prayer, we all looked up from the circle and the staff was gone. They had gone into prayer with us, but snuck out as we were praying. It was a cereal moment for all of us. Just like that we were on our own and the project was ours. It was an emotional and powerful thing. Reminded me a lot of the feeling I had when my parents left my dorm room and for the first time I was left alone to be in charge of it all. But the difference was after staff left I still was surrounded by this awesome community, and we all rallied around each other and sang more worship songs until it was time to go back to camp. Today has been our first real test of how camp will function with us in charge. Tonight will be my first time leading my life group, which have to go prepare for now.

Pray for all of us on project leadership and for the staff as they go home!

LTSP Altitude vs. Attitude

I want to preface this story by sharing with you the fact that I started writing this post when I was all done for the day on sunday, but was so tired, my body just shut down and I fell asleep mid-sentance. So I'm finishing it and posting it now…. You'll understand why as you read on….

On sunday I and 23 other kids on project voluntarily woke up at 2 am, and drove to a trailhead with our packs on our backs and headlamps on our head to hike up a mountain with the goal of catching the sunrise over the lake. A simple sunrise hike was what I anticipated. To be honest, I only got 2 hours of sleep before embarking on such a hike, but was in such good spirits going into the hike my tiredness just naturally dissipated! We all set out up the trail and the "hike" quickly became more of a "climb". We were gaining altitude very rapidly, and climbing up this steep trail for hours, my body did not agree with what I was doing. About an hour into it I got incredibly altitude sick, with every step my body threatened to up-chuck my breakfast. Which it eventually did on multiple occasions. Because of that I fell behind the pack a little and some other people fell back with me. We simply had to go slower cause I was sick and some kids were having breathing problems. We tried to keep our spirits up as the hike got harder and steeper… Many jokes were made about our sickness. Which helped, but it still was a hard hike. Multiple times as I looked up at the practically vertical sheet of rock and rubble in front of me I wanted to just stop, stay where I was, and convince myself that wherever that was had to "do" cause I wasn't going to make it. I thought that so many times in the 3 hours we climbed, reduced myself to tears at one point. But a bigger part of me wanted to defeat this monster I was climbing, and would not accept defeat. I had supportive friends as well who kept encouraging me and telling me to keep coming. Even the last half hour of shaky boulder climbing on our hands and feet while I was throwing up was not enough to deter me from making it to the top. Against my body's natural will I climbed the mountain in time to see the sunrise with the rest of the group. And I can say it was one of the most breath taking sites I've ever seen. I could have sat up there all day and marveled at God's amazing creation. Except my stomach couldn't hold itself down so I was among the first to start the treck down…. Which was equally challenging, for different reasons. We were now climbing down a mountain face on our hands and knees, battering our feet, ankle joints, and knee joints, while sometimes even taking on a new form of surfing by sliding down the rubble on our sides! Spending a few solid hours in the early morning light hiking back down what we hiked up was cool because we could actually see our surroundings! It was no longer a pitch black world we were mindlessly stumbling through, it was a forest fresh with new sun light of the day and gorgeous views of the lake and wildlife.
Overall this hike was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm beyond proud I made it through, despite my sickness. I bonded with the people I hiked with, as you naturally do with the people you experience something extraordinary with, or something hard with. But I probably won't do it again :) It was definitely a sweet misery. And it EXHAUSTED me!

After we got back from the hike we had to go to church and try our hardest to keep our eyes open and our heads up… and after that we had to go out in groups a share our faith on the beaches for hours. Needless to say I was one of many walking zombies, I couldn't tell you what my pastor said at church to save my life…. And sharing was hard to focus on. I was just drained, which is understandable. I laid down when my day was all over and don't even remember my head hitting the pillow.

I think God showed me how much strength he gave me, strength I didn't even know I had, and that when I draw closer to him I gain more strength. There is no way I could have hiked a mountain before 9 am and completed all my daily tasks without lean in on him and resting in him.
Here is a picture of the view I worked so hard to see:

LTSP God Is At Work People!

Hi friends,
I am happy to report to you all that I am feeling much better, and even though my appetite is about as existent as Amelia Earhart and her plane... I'm able to be up and about for the most part. I went back to work and was able to do the normal nightly activities. A lot of it was dressing to the occasion and getting up for it, hoping my body would rise to the occasion. I am also fortunate enough to have a sweet as can be boyfriend and very caring best friend here to care for me and make sure I felt better.

We have been embedding ourselves here in the community pretty well now. Been able to give people directions to places, and finally know my way around about half of K-Mart! I'm getting to know the members of the church I am attending. Getting to know the girls in my life group even better, they have been such a blessing to me and it's crazy how close we have been able to get in such a short amount of time. We have also had multiple opportunities to volunteer within the community, where we can not only fill a need here in Tahoe, but while we are doing that we can have really cool and easy spiritual conversations with people. Like yesterday we got to volunteer at the countries largest paddle board competition down at the lake. It was absolute chaos, but in the best way. There were tons of beach goers and boarders there to compete and have a good time. God used us in so many ways and brought about such positivity to the whole event. I'm continuously amazed how present God is in all this. He really does lead us to talk to people who we can just tell he's put in our path for a reason, whether it's just to make them think or whether it's to really rock their world with the good news. Though not every conversation is a success, and not everyone gets into a conversation, sometimes we just end up serving and showing God's message through our actions, every experience brings us closer to God and teaches us something.

Also looking forward to having the Taste of Tahoe kids joining us for the holiday weekend. These are kids like us who wanted to come on project but for one reason or another couldn't commit, so they just are coming for a small "taste."

Would love continued prayer for patience at work (especially with the 4th of July coming up), and for the other kids on this project that are starting to get sick, that they would have a quick turn around, and for the taste of Tahoe kids coming in on wednesday.

LTSP Problem Child

Sometimes it's hard for me to be appreciative of all that God is doing for me in my life. I have this amazing opportunity to be in awesome christian community in a beautiful place in the world that has such a need for Jesus. Who wouldn't be excited right!?
Well, today I full on got the flu, it came in like a crashing wave at 4 am. in all of it's wrath . And continued throughout out the day. I have been held up in my cabin ever since and been told not to come to the group activities. I don't want to expose all the other kids to my illness. I finally just had to leave work early for fear of throwing up at the cash register… which I feel especially bad about because I was honestly kind of glad to get off the cash register. I'm not really enjoying working at Kmart, there are more problems than there are people who know how to solve them, leaving angry and impatient customers storming up to the register where little old me has no idea how to help them being so new. There is just a lot of confusion and unorganized leadership, which is hard to deal with sometimes. I'm learning you have to have tough skin to work in customer service, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Finding it hard to appreciate where I am and all these great people I'm with at the moment. Cause honestly, all I want is my own bed and my mom.
It's becoming a running joke that I am the "problem child" at work cause things seem to go wrong and my cash register can't work for longer than three transactions. And now I'm the sicky of the camp and am staying away from group activities.
Really trying to lean on the Lord and find the good in my days. I know this wave of sickness and frustration at work will pass.
Prayers for healing and patience is greatly appreciated.

LTSP Just Me, Jesus, and Kmart….

About all I have time for these days is all the devotionals and sharing stuff I am doing with my bible study group in the mornings, my 8 hour shift at K-mart,  and leaving just enough time for me to scrape up some personal time to you know… eat, sleep, and clean myself… All very important details that can be easily lost in a packed schedule. Don't even ask the last time I've done laundry… It's worse than college here as far as that goes!

We are finally settling into a routine here, Waking up at 5:30 am to go to devotionals before reporting to work at 7 am. Work has been chaotic to say the least, and I'm learning so much about the ins-and-outs of a department store! Definitely earning an appreciation for department store employees around the country. Didn't know how much of an army it took to run a store! I've been specializing in the "personal care" section of the store. And would now consider shelving deodorants a personal skill that I would be proud to put on a resume! :) It's much harder than it looks people!
Anyways, there are about 8 of us Cru kids working there and we are all being trained to do everything from cash register to storage room stuff. Keeps me busy all day, thats for sure. I'm looking forward to getting to know my co-workers better and gain some good relationships while I am here!

I have had some amazing adventures out to Emerald Bay, and to Heavenly shopping village, with my new friends here. There are tons of good places to get authentic ice cream here. So I have made it a personal goal to try each place once! Though this is kind of a vacation, obviously a beautiful place to be, it is also work. I have a purpose to my day, and that is ultimately to share the love of Jesus in any way I can with those around me. And that is such an honor, that is what keeps me from going insane at 5:30 when my alarm goes off, or at 3:30 in the afternoon when my legs are aching and I just want to go home and lay down. It is hard work here, but it's nothing I can't handle through Him, and I am gladly doing it for Him.