New Stuff :)

People at Piney :)


So these are the people I work with from left to right : Me, Stacey Miller-the girl I rode out here with :), Ciara Alley- my roommate I told you about earlier, and Bryan Green-super cool guy who goes to App and knows a bunch of my friends from high school

We have the most amazing time at work and I am so incredbly blessed to be able to spend everyday with these people.

Also, we are really starting to connect with the people we work with! Which is super exciting, they are actually initiating ways to hang out with us : ) I dont feel like I should give specific information about the people I work with, but in general there are 2 guys and 2 girls that are pretty close to us in age, plus 6 older (like late twenties/early thirties) people who are there too. We have had such an awesome time getting to know our co-workers, and trying to clearly show them the love of Christ through our actions. A huge part of what I am doing this summer is just reaching out and loving the people of Vail for Jesus, and I am daily reminded how priviledged I am to be offered such an opportunity. Please pray that our relationships will deepen even more, and we will eventually be able to bring our co-workers to church or other Crusade events to get them connected!


Getting OUT!
Our general theme for project this summer is GET OUT! and each week we have more specific ones to help direct us in out goals and activities that we do, or the stuff we are studying and reflecting on.
So far our weekly themes have been...

1. Get out of Isolation and into Community-this made us focus on getting to know everyone on project and the the city of Vail instead of just being comfortable with the people we already knew
2. Get out of Blindness and see with the eyes of Jesus-this week helped us change our perspective on people, and how we are apporaching evangelism on a daily basis... are we willing to be uncomfortable if it means leading someone to Christ?
3. Get out of Control-this week we really started focusing on the Holy Spirit, and its role in guiding the daily steps of our lives. "Spirit Filled Living" is a huge overarching theme that we are learning about here, and it is completely changing my perspective on my relationship with Jesus.
4. Get out of Self Obsession and into Self Sacrifice-By far the most convicting week for me so far has been this past week, pride has always been a huge stronghold in my life, and it truly affects the way I approach almost everything. How I respond to homeless/begging people was one thing that has really been heavy on my heart; instead of reaching out and trying to act as Christ would, I usually try to avoid rough looking people, not even considering what needs they may have. One aspect of what we talked about this week too is the Nature of God that lives within our core versus our Flesh which we combat daily in order to carry out God's will for our lives. The passages in Romans 5-7 that we went through where Paul is talking about the dual natures of himself and all humanity really hit home with me, and I see in myself a lot of the same struggles that he was describing in those verses.

So that is just a tid bit of what I am learning here, I hope to elaborate more on it later. I love you all and hope to talk to you soon!

Day-to-Day stuff

As I write this I am actually sitting in my house in North Carolina because I am home for my cousin, Christine's wedding! But, in the 12 hours I have been home so far, I have already been asked by 3 different people what I do at the Piney River Ranch so on any given day I could be....

• doing various maintenance tasks for the landscape around the cabins/lodge and cleaning the cabins, cottages, yert(pretty much a wigwam) or tee-pees before/after guests check in and out



• waitressing/serving in the restaurant that is connected to the lodge



• babysitting my manager's precious little 10 month old boy



• monitoring the lake/boat dock while people are canoing, kayaking or fishing



• spending the day grocery shopping for the restaurant and various weddings/parties we may be hosting that week



• setting up for an event that is being hosted at the ranch

So that's pretty much what I am doing on different days. They rotate us so we have variety from day to day which is really nice too.
But the coolest part of our job is definitely getting to know our awesome co-workers; we have been building relationships with them and are trying to invite them to church and other events we hold that they could come to. Please pray that these relationships will lead to spiritual conversations through which we can share the Gospel with them!


Mountain Biking!
This week I went on my first legit mountain biking experience, and it was so fun! Rob, Dennis, Andrew, Stacey and I all road up together... well kinda together, Rob is a machine and sped ahead a lot... and Stacey and I were struggling a bit... but we all made it up there :) Then we sped down the bumpiest, craziest looking downhill ever, I was cracking up the entire time and felt like my bike was on a jack hammer. Stacey and I screamed the whole way down, and I literally felt completely out of control at some points, but it was SO FUN! Hopefully my biking skills will be improving throughout the summer and I can give better updates...with less screaming...later

This is a picture of the sweet view at the top :)

Sunday continued...

Well climbing was an epic fail, only 2 people got on the rock face before it started pouring rain. So now I am back at Simba Run (the condo place we stay in). But I was going to write earlier about some stuff that has happened lately...
Tuesday night after work a bunch of kids from project played a huge game of capture the flag with some people that we met through the Vail Church, very fun :)
Thursday we had another lifeskills time that was focused on different types of roles people take on in groups and how we relate to each other with those. We were divided into our family tgroups and each assigned a role then told to put together a puzzle. I was "total excess" which pretty much told me to be as destructive and distracting as possible, which is totally opposite of my personality but was actually pretty fun. There were also "performers" who really wanted to get the puzzle done well, and "isolationists" that just stood there and did not interact/contribute to the group at all. It ended up that no groups completed the puzzle and then we all discussed these different roles and how we can learn from these extreme versions of them. It was pretty interesting to see the emotions that some people felt. Then we compared how these were different from "Grace and Truth" which is how we should all be treating each other, but often are crippled by sin when trying to do so. Very eye opening.
Yesterday the entire project had a 4 hour "Rescue Mission" through the mountains about 20 minutes away. I can't divulge all the details because the project director kind of likes to keep it a secret, but it was pretty much a series of real life scenarios to share your faith coupled with a scavenger hunt in teams. It was a very eye opening experience, and one that I will not forget.
Tonight we will have a guided reflection time to just spend some time with the Lord from like 7 to 10 pm, which I am pretty excited about. It is always a sweet time of fellowship and relaxation; great way to start the week :)

Another Sunday in Vail.... : )

Well today is another beautiful Sunday in Vail. I went to the early service this morning at church and then came back to tidy up the disaster of a condo that my roommates and myself have been living in this week.  I feel like I should tell you about my roommates since they are a huge part of my experience here...

• Jess Almeida will be a Senior next year at Penn State, she is completely adorable and really inspires me in her passion for the Lord.  She is always reading or studying the Word and I am just so blessed to have a role model for me this summer. She is working at Bubba Gump along with 11 other people from project which was such an answer to prayer :)
• Ciara Alley is going to be a Junior at Vanderbilt and works with me at Piney River Ranch! She is my late night snacking buddy (we both have an obsession with cereal), running partner, and is also a great advice giver about any and everything; which is great because I know I can always trust that her opinion is strongly grounded in the scripture.  She also has a ridiculously wide vocabulary and is always enlightening us with new words.  
• Jill Buechel is technically my roommate/bedmate but she prefers to sleep on the couch because the beds are extremely firm and the couch is ultra cushy haha.  She will be a Junior at the University of Wisconsin in Platteville(its very possible that I just spelled that wrong) and she is an extremely caring and compassionate person; probably one of the most eager people to learn more about God I have ever met.  She and Ciara run together a lot too; Jill actually ran cross country in college for a while.  

Here is a picture of us with some of the boys who made us dinner one night when all the guys were treating us girls! Our room had a delicious meal of baked ziti and salad :)

In order from left to right,

Boys: Stephen, Robbie, John, Matt. Girls: Jill, Ciara, Me, Jess

There is way more that I want to say but I am about to go rock climbing so I will have to update this again later!

So Far in Vail...

Hey everyone! So I am on day 10 in beautiful Vail, CO and have decided to start a blog to keep anyone updated who wants to know whats going on!

The main focus of our time is connecting with the community and our co-workers through Jesus Christ, but we also have some things we do every week as a project...

1. Sundays at The Vail Church



2. Monday night dinners and Bible Study with our Family Groups: a group of 10 students and 4 staff that meet and share about our lives and walk with Jesus to grow closer to Him together.



3. Wednesday dinners at The Vail Church with the congregation, then Project Touch-Point: when everyone from project comes together to share about our weeks and pray for each other, Wednesday night church service, then an open gym with people from the community at the church. (Wednesdays are awesome to invite people that we meet to church with us)



4. Thursday night Lifeskills: everyone goes somewhere in Vail together (our first one was a hike and an overlook of the city) and then learn to better interact with each other and the community through everyday life concepts (the first one was how to become a better listener)

So other that that stuff ^, here is the run down of what has happened so far:

• Left on Wednesday, May 27 and drove in the most amazing carpool of 9 people ever )pictured to the right outside the ESPN zone in Denver) from Winston-Salem to Nashville, Nashville to St. Louis, St. Louis to Kansas City, Kansas City to Denver, and Denver to Vail on Saturday, May 30 (thats about 28 hours of driving time we spread out over about 3.5 days)



• Once in Vail, after recovering from my amazement of the Rockies, it was pretty much game on for the job search, and that continued until that Friday when we all volunteered for the Teva Games (pretty much the Olympics of outdoorsy sports). I did a trail clean-up, directed for the half-marathon on Saturday, and then on Sunday taught Sunday school at the Vail Church. I also competed in the Mud-Run on Saturday along with about 15 other kids from project; it was a 3k race (like 2-ish miles) with a huge mud pit we had to make our way through... very fun :) In the picture I am not wearing pants, that is mud haha



• That weekend I also found out that I got a job at Piney River Ranch!! A beautiful ranch in the Rockies that has horseback riding, kayaking, canoing, hiking, biking, a restaurant, and a general store. My first day was yesterday, (Monday, June 8) and I am so excited to be working there along with a few other people here with Campus Crusade.

Well thats the brief overview, and I will give more details as I go...I'm new to this whole blogging thing so I'm sure it will improve as the summer goes on :) love you all!