In this city

Today was another long, but fulfilling work day.  Leigh and I traveled twice to Loveland and back to Denver throughout today to get the materials needed to set up camp.  We walked through our facility (Denver Lutheran High School) with the Assistant Principal to figure out what parts of the school to use for the appropriate aspects of our program.  I cut out of the walk through early to meet with Alice Goble, my contact at the two locations of the Habitat Outlet Store.  They have appliances and basically anything needed to fill a house donated to them and they organize it in their warehouse.  All of the money used to buy anything in the warehouse goes directly to Habitat for Humanity.  These two outlet stores are responsible for providing the greater Denver area with over 1.3 million dollars.  Alice was delightful, she was more than happy to have use there and truly understands the impact of her job and of our ministry in helping her.  I am exciting to continue building rapport with her and a solid relationship.  I am so privileged in that my job is to visit the sites daily and so while I can build great relationships with the campers by standing side by side with them while they serve, I also get to build long standing relationships with the owners of the facilities.

Tomorrow I get to visit two more sites and organize our lodging facility.  Everything was moved in for the most part and so it will be time to start making it into a camp atmosphere.   I really feel God stirring in my heart to get ready to make an impact.  He is carving a path ahead of me to connect with people and make room in their hearts for Him.  I know it's not even just for their benefit of a relationship with Him, but it's also for me to take my faith to a new level in living out what I believe.  

At training, during one of the morning devos, I was sitting on the floor and staring out at the window.  We were in a gym and so the window had horizontal bars creeping halfway up.  I stared at the rays that passed through onto the floor and saw the floor with patches of light and shadows.  Then I looked higher and followed the light coming in through the open part of the window without bars and how the light easily filled the floor and expanded out across it.  This window was me.  This window was me this summer.  God was telling me that this job will make me want to put up bars.  I will be tired, stressed and frustrated.  I will want to be angry and want to be selfish, but it is not the time for that.  I can not let Satan put a wedge into my summer.  I can not allow for bars to build up in me.  This is not a summer for shadows to be cast upon Denver.  This summer is for me to be open about God and to be open about who I am in God and for his light to shine openly and freely so that it can not be contained or downcast.   As these thoughts were flooding my brain and I was speaking with God to let me rely on him and live in love and compassion, he put a song in my head that I could not stop singing.

Lord let your light, light of your face shine on us

That we may be saved

That we may have life

To find our way in the darkest night

Let your light shine on us

Lord let your grace, grace from your hand, fall on us

That we may be saved

That we may have life

To find our way in the darkest night

Let your light shine on us

Lord let your love, love with no end, come over us

That we may be saved

That we may have life

To find our way in the darkest night

Let your light shine on us

All throughout yesterday and today, while meeting with these different leaders and facilities and seeing where an impact could be made, whether it be a direct impact of working with children in the projects, or the elderly in a home, or indirectly in packaging food or cleaning a warehouse, I was praying that God continue to move my heart to work for Him and His Kingdom and that he could not be denied by this community.  He placed a song on my heart this one is by Chris Tomlin.

You're the God of this City 
You're the King of these people 
You're the Lord of this nation 
You are 

You're the Light in this darkness 
You're the Hope to the hopeless 
You're the Peace to the restless 
You are 

For greater things have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 
Greater thing have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 

For greater things have yet to come 

There is no one like our God 
There is no one like our God 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 
Greater things have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done here

God is anxious and jealous for these hearts here and what an honor to be a part to soften them and focus them towards him.  I really feel this summer is a part of my preparation for lifelong ministry.

...then the master must take him before the judges.  He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl.  Then he will be his servant for life.   

Exodus 21:6

On a side note...this just popped into my mind... I do not find it coincidental, rather all of God's workings, that all of the partner organizations I am working with this summer are led by WOMEN!!  How encouraging is that?  I can be built up and learn from strong women working hard and also share my life with them.  I think it's great.  Not only a summer full of God's working, but daily fellowship and interaction with women in leadership. Praise God!

Great Day. God is always moving

Today was a work day for me.  I had appointments with three of partner organizations.  The ones I met with today were Food Share America, Sun Valley Youth Center and Church of the Rockies.  Food Share America is a great organization that provides groceries at half the price for families and people that can not otherwise afford food.  My main contact there, Rosalie, is a beautiful woman who showed me around the warehouse which contains large walk in freezers and stacks upon stacks of food.  Basically what my kids will be doing there is cleaning the warehouse, packing the boxes for the families and handing them out.  Food Share America strives to provide quality and affordable food across different states as well as build relationships within the communities.  Along the wall are paint marks of the hands that have come to volunteer.  I can't wait to see the hand prints of my campers on the wall and be reminded throughout the summer of the impact they are helping to make.

My second stop was at Crossroads Church of the Rockies, this is a church about two minutes from Denver Lutheran High School (the lodging facility of my camp).  There we will be helping prepare and serve lunch that is given to about 50 youth everyday.  My campers will also be helping run their VBS.

Not too far from the church is another one of our locations, in fact it is just down the block.  Sun Valley Youth Center is a nonprofit organization that is a program for children.  This project excites me the most so far because I believe it is in the most need.  The program is in our community of Sun Valley, right outside Denver.  It is unfortunately a very poor area and is home to the projects.  Almost all of the homes, except for eleven of them are owned by the government, which has led to a disrespect for the community property and and increase of the typical stereotypes of the projects.  The woman that runs the program is the only paid staff member and relies heavily on volunteers in making the program run.   I met with her the longest today and most of the "business talk" was over within 20 minutes, the rest of the hour and a half I spent talking to her about the area and her program.  She has a great vision for the children there.  She wants them to have the same experiences she did as a kid and focuses heavily on getting them to travel outside of Sun Valley.  She arranges numerous trips to museums, parks and other cities throughout Colorado on top of getting other organizations to come and include the children in their missions.  She has a wonderful heart for sharing the gospel in all that they do.  Although she seems a little hard at first, it is the type of reputation she needs to put up in that area, but she quickly softened and we laughed through much of our conversation.  I saw her interacting with some parents of the children and nothing but compassion shone through.  This woman truly cares for them beyond her job and beyond the lives of the children and into the family as a unit.  Please keep her in prayer, I do not know how she does what she does.  She mentioned that she can never completely count on a paycheck and her "vacation" as she called it, is labor day.  She is a hardworking woman with a huge heart and I am very excited to help be a part of connecting Jesus to the community of Sun Valley.

Another great step today was that for lunch, I decided that it to eat at the most "local looking" restaurant closest to our school.  My partner and I both had our red shirts on and I thought it would be smart to start making ourselves known and reach out to the community as soon as possible.  The community of Sun Valley is mostly hispanic and so the streets are lined with mexican restaurants.  We pulled into one on the corner of the street our school is on called Tacos y Salsa.  It looked a little run down, and it was, but the food was amazing.  We spoke with the woman behind the counter and laughed about how we most likely will be coming back everyday.  In talking to her a couple, Alex and Connie were eating at the table behind us and helped us order (everything was in spanish) and we got talking to them and told them why we were there.  They were so excited to hear that a christian non prof was working in the community.  It was a great feeling to be welcomed so warmly there and to take a little step to reach out.  I am antsy to continue eating there...not only because the food was completely ethnic and delicious (and really cheap too!) but because I believe it is a great building block to future connections and relationships that God is preparing for me to build.  This was not even my first full day in Sun Valley and already I have a small connection.  God is great and never stops working a plan.  

Stop! Denver Time

Second week of training was pretty intense.  I learned all of the specific details to the ins and outs of each day of my job.  I am also CPR and first aid certified, tech savvy, trained in meal preparation for large groups and accounting, learned about servant leadership, conflict management, finding partner organizations, understanding denominational differences, how to deal with serious issues, just to name a few.   I definitely feel prepared but not ready (as they keep telling us we will feel).  We know how each day should run, but there is no way we can be ready for how each day will run.  Project organizations can fall through, youth groups can show up with half or double the amount of campers they said they would, adults can give us trouble, someone could get sick, who knows! (so far the unknown is exciting...stress may be to come). 

The last day at Estes was sad.  Saying goodbye to friends from training was hard.  We all grew close after spending practically 24 hours a day for two weeks together.  Luckily we can all meet up for a final week in Loveland for exit interviews before we head home for the summer.  So as of last night, I am in DENVER!!  I LOVE it here, the city has a very relaxed vibe.  It's clean and feels safe and has a lot to offer.  I have only had a chance to explore a little so far today.  16th street mall is a mile long strip with everything from food, to shops and no cars passing through. (this was ok i got bored and it felt touristy after a while). BUT then i found Lamier Square on 15th which is really cool.  It has food and boutiques, but none are chain stores and so it feels like SOHO in NYC.  I passed a large park on the way and talked to a waiter about other places to go, it sounds like I have plenty more sections to visit.  

My camp starts this coming Sunday and I cannot wait to get started.  I really do not know what to expect until week one is over.  So this week, I have some free time to explore the city, but majority of my time will be spent getting in touch and meeting my contacts at my Partner organizations to prepare them for our campers as well as set up our camp.

Denver and Colorado as  whole has been great so far.  Although I must say that summer weather has not quite yet set in.   June 2nd brought snow and yesterday we had a torrential downpour and a tornado, followed by hail so much so that we had to pull off the road... it looked like it was the middle of winter!  All to say the experience so far has been great and I can not wait for the adventure God has planned for me and for the campers and the city of Denver!