My Adventures!

It has happened I heard my first Boomer Sooner Chant. Probs just gonna have to get used to it.

Today me and Saundra drove to Tulsa, the first leg of our journey. We drove through some rain but we made it safe and sound.

Then we signed some stuff. Basically I can’t put pictures of my campers on here or Facebook or the Internet. It’s fine.

Then we learned a little bit about the demographic of the children we would be working with. Most of them will come from low income housing. Most of them will qualify for free lunches. But All of them are gonna be awesome.

There are people here from Moore. One of the girl’s grandparents lost everything. But hearing we have a site in Moore is so encouraging. There is gonna be a team working with children from the area. It’s such a wonderful opportunity.

All and all it’s going fantastically. Full day of training tomorrow. Huzzah!

I leave tomorrow! At 7:15 Saundra and I will start the journey to Tulsa for training. (For those of you who don’t know Saundra is a girl from my school and we are driving down together.)

I have stocked up on twizzlers and granola bars. I have studied the route to Tulsa. I have cleaned out my car. And in true Janessa style I have not finished packing. It’s fine there is still time.

While I won’t be living in the area affected by the tornados, there are going to be interns in the OKC area. Part of the program is that on Friday’s we do a service project. I’m sure the OKC interns will assist with clean up. I plan on spending some weekends driving to help with clean up in Moore. Definitely will be thinking about those affected while we drive down.

This time next week I will be in training for the summer! Specifically meeting the team I will be working with the rest of the summer. The only person I know is Saundra, we have no idea who we will be working with. 

Yesterday I had lunch with my pastor and he was asking me questions about what i’m doing this summer. It was then that I realized I don’t know much about what we are going to be doing. I know I’m working at a literacy day camp. I know I’m planning the afternoon activities. 

Things I don’t know: Where I’m staying. What the rest of the day looks like. How many kids we will be working with. Will most of the kids be hispanic or Native American. 

Basically what I’m getting at……there are a lot of unknowns about this summer.

If you know me at all, you probably know I’m a planner. If I say I’m going to be somewhere at one, I will be there at one. I already know how I’m going to pick up Saundra, and that is next week. My study times? Planned. I just really like having all the details worked out. That is not the case this summer. 

God said go. So I’m going. 

When God called Samuel, eventually Samuel’s response was “Here I am Lord.” This has been something I struggle with. When God calls me I kind of beat around the bush. Even with this internship, I knew it was where God wanted me, but it didn’t stop me from getting my heart set on my church’s youth internship. It was causing so much turmoil in my spirit. Ask any of my friends or my dad I could not figure out which one I wanted to do.

But I knew. I knew where I was supposed to be. I knew I was supposed to go. I just didn’t want to accept it. 

Flat out saying, “Here I am Lord,” is hard. Especially when we have no idea where we are going or what we will be doing. It comes back to that whole trusting in the Lord thing. Which can be equally as hard.

But we have a promise that God has plans to prosper us, plans to give us hope and a future. 

There is only 19 days left before I leave for Oklahoma! 

In case you don’t know what I’m doing with my summer I’m interning with Project Transformation. It is a literacy day camp for underserved children. Basically it’s like a summer long VBS and summer school all rolled into one. And I’m the afternoon activities coordinator, meaning I get to plan lots of fun activities each after noon. 

Needless to say I’m so excited!

However, ask any of my friends or family I was so broken up about what internship to take this summer. I was also going to apply for the youth internship at my church. Which is something I have planned on doing for a long time. I was wrestling with the choice for about a month. But after some prayer I obviously went with Oklahoma.

With the youth internship I would be doing what I have done most summers: camp, mission trip, and hanging out with my youth friends. But this summer it’s something totally different!

A whole new world, so to speak. 

I’m not sure if I will have internet this summer, but if I do I plan on providing some weekly updates, maybe daily who knows, about what I’m doing and what God is teaching me. So yeah, stay tuned in for that. 

But I kept my same link.

Basically instead of having a random assortment of hodge podge things I wanted a place where I can write my thoughts and such. Post things about Jesus mostly, plus things that I do over the summer and with GAL and yeah.

this is my new blog.

Hopefully you enjoy.