Man, I am so excited. I
leave for Southwind in just 26 short days, and I am so incredibly pumped! What
a journey this will be.
Most of you know that I
have spent a month out of my last two summers at Southwind, and I’ve loved it. This
go around, I’ll be spending my WHOLE summer there!! I’ll be serving as the AM
Cook intern, and I think it will be very interesting. Anyone who knows me,
knows that I am not a morning person. I looooooveeee sleeping in and I love me
a good nap. Learning to wake up at 4:45 am is going to be an interesting
challenge, and I am excited to see how the Lord will grow me by doing something
I’m not particularly jazzed about. But what I AM jazzed about is getting to
serve God’s people in a place that has changed my life for the better, and with
some pretty amazing people alongside me.
My day to day life, from
what I know so far, will look a little like this..
I will arrive in the
kitchen at 5:30 a.m., where I will greet my summer staff folks. Our summer
staff are a group of college aged kids who are VOLUNTERRING a month of their
lives to come help serve. This is an amazing thing, and it is so cool to get to
witness all my soon to be new friends serving in a way that means giving up
their time, possible jobs back home, and time away from their loved ones to
serve FOR FREE. They are doing this because they know how powerful a week at
camp is for our middle school friends, and how life changing it actually can
be. I am already so proud of my new friends I haven’t met yet.
Anyways, we will meet at
5:30 a.m. and begin cookin’ up some delicious breakfast food for our campers. After
breakfast is made, served, and eaten, we will begin to either prepare for the
next day’s meal, help prepare lunch, and sometimes both. The work in the
kitchen is tiring. You are sweating A LOT, you’re on your feet for long amounts
of time, and you’re inside a kitchen. Which means you aren’t outside in that
beautiful Florida weather. It can be agonizing, at least for people like me who
can be selfish sometimes (most times). But we do it because the sad truth is,
most of our middle school campers will be eating at a table, family style, for
the first time. This means they will be gathered with 6 or so people, either
their friends or leaders, around a table, where they will eat a meal TOGETHER.
This is a treasure most of us take for granted. We don’t see how lucky we are
to be able to do this on a day to day basis, or at least more often than some
of these kids. They will be creating deeper relationships at these tables,
having conversations and laughing, not even realizing the long lasting effect
this can have. Having their bellies full and smiles on their faces is the
reason we will be willing to wake up so early. To know, that even just for a
moment, they got to be a family, will make the long work day so incredibly
worth it. It may sometimes be thankless work, but I must be reminded that
Christ did and does this on a daily basis. He serves and blesses us in so many
ways, and we don’t take the time to say thank you. I love you. I appreciate
you. I hope to become better at this during my internship.. After we leave the
kitchen, we will get some free time, and if it’s the same as summers before, we
get to help with the night activities!!! Nights were my favorite part of camp
all four years I got to go as a student. Bright, smiling, happy faces. I am
getting goose bumps just thinking of how God’s hand is in all of this.
I just wanted to share
with y’all some of what my time will look like so you could join me in prayer
of this next month before I leave. Please be praying for our summer staff, our
campers, my fellow interns, and the experiences headed our way. Pray that we
have servant’s hearts, even when we are tired and weary, even when we might not
want to be there anymore. Pray that we listen and move in whatever ways God
might be asking us to. Pray that we become more aware of the cross and not take
it for granted. Pray that we go into this with pure and humble intentions, or
that we learn to be humble about it along the way. That we keep our eyes
focused on God and have minimal distractions. Pray that we become a community
of people after God’s heart and His people.
This is a list of
summer/year long interns, and I’d love for you to be praying for us and our
jobs and everything in between…
·
Tanner
·
Lindsey
·
Brian
·
Sean
·
Zach
·
Colin
·
Haley
·
Shelby
·
Sarah
·
Riley
·
Nick
·
Caitlin
·
Martha
Thank you, friends. Be
Blessed!
