A slice of heaven

Some people claim heaven has lots of bright lights and clouds.

I would to venture to say that for the past 4 weeks, I've got to experience a bit of heaven on earth.

Every morning, my alarm sounds at a not so heavenly 6:15. I roll out of bed and often waltz to my Holy Hour. I get to spend my early mornings sitting in front of Love itself. Camp has taught me a lot already. Here are a few highlights I think you'll enjoy from the past few weeks.

Training Week

Service Crew had the job of finishing camp set up after our official "Work Week" was complete. It feels like an eternity ago, but we did a lot of decorating and final cleanings. Fr. John Ignatius from the Servants of Christ Jesus was with us for the week! He led all the summer missionaries in some formation. We talked a lot about the Holy Spirit and really gained a better understanding of our mission for the summer.

The night before camp started, the summer missionaries climbed to the top of glassy mountain which overlooks Covecrest. From there, we prayed over our beautiful little camp, for the campers, the chaperons, the priests, the summer missionaries, our host and musicians. I got to help lead praise and worship for the community with my good friend, Thomas, ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN. 

I've really been blessed in the past couple weeks with the opportunity to lead my brothers and sisters in song both during mass and before sessions. And to think, last year I didn't even know how to play guitar very well.

Usually the last day before camp starts is something called "Desert Day" where as a community we enter into silence for the entirety of a day, but since there were a lot of things at camp that needed to be completed, the service crew was not able to take part in Desert Day. Instead, we worked hard all day and concluded our day with lots of DESSERTS! We may not have had a Desert Day, but we had Dessert Day, which was pretty awesome.

Week 1: Campers are here!

Oh the joy of having campers at camp! Week 1 was super awesome. Every Monday morning, the men of camp circle up and participate in what I like to call, "Man-chant Monday." These awesome men of God gather right after mass and make lots of noise. Check out the video here: http://instagram.com/p/oviVQaAIAo/

Joel Stepanick was our host and our musician was Emily Wilson, both awesome Life Teen peeps who really have a heart for youth ministry.

It was wonderful to finally have teens in the Outpost, buying things, talking with us! (US referes to my beautiful partner in crime, Anna. She loves Jesus, Bacon, and Naps. in that order.)

Although I don't have a day off during the week, I do get some free time on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This leaves plenty of time for runs to town, specifically ChickFilA. Us northerners are most certainly deprived creatures. ChickFilA should be everywhere. Just another reason why I love the south.

My favorite Puertorican priest, Fr. Jose (Don't worry Fr. Juan, you're still my favorite Colombian priest;)) was here this week too! On Friday evening, Fr Jose bought about 50 boxes of ChickFilA nuggets for the summer missionaries and threw us a dance party in Mike's Place. After all the campers left, our weekend was spent relaxing on the lake and taking some deep breaths after a crazy week!

Week 2: SO MUCH JOY

A new Monday morning brought new priests, new musicians, and of course, MORE CAMPERS! This week we had the pleasure of meeting Brennen Cull our host and Anthony Muhs our musician! Anthony is from New York so it was great to have another Northeastern up here. A highlight of the week was DEFINITELY mass with the Bishop of Haiti. Bishop Dumas was ORDAINED by the one and only St. John Paul II. That right, you read it correctly. ORDAINED by John Paul II. 

I felt so blessed to get to be at mass with him! Another joyful moment was getting a care package from home. 

(PS I love care packages and letters.

Life Teen Covecrest

Aimee St. Germain

25 Falls Drive

Tiger, GA 30576)

The summer missionaries all had a blast at the Tiger Drive-In movie theater this past Saturday. It was great to get some community time and really just enjoy each other's company. 

This past Sunday was Father's Day. It was definitely a challenge to not be home with family, but my prayers were with all the father figures in my life, especially the one and only Guy St. Germain, (maaa daddddy) 

Some other random pieces of excitement:

• According to my roommates, I sleep talk. A lot.
• This week we have Jackie Francois Angel, Bobby Angel, and Fr. Mike Schmitz with us! AHHH! and Hailee Palony, my good friend from last summer is visiting with her fiance Michael THIS FRIDAY!
• Since being here, I have become accustomed to being called ma'am and have been referring to groups of individuals as "y'all"

Please keep us all in your prayers! I promise I'll update weekly ;)

Be assured of my prayers!

Week One: JOY

Hi from Tiger, Georgia!!

What a whirlwind week this has been! I’m enjoying my fifth evening here at camp. And how overwhelmingly joyful these past days have been. The first of my 13 weeks here, this week has been our “Work Week”. Both the Service Crew (that’s what I’m a part of!) and the first session Summer Staff (that’s the program I worked with last year) have been working hard to prep camp for the summer. Whether its building the environment for the main room, setting up the huge tent, or prepping the Art Barn and Outpost for camp, everyone has been working hard and getting to know each other.

My week started out as beautifully as possible. I had an (extremely) early flight out of Manchester. But honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to get out of bed at 3:45am. One fruit smoothie and a layover in Chicago later, I touched down in Atlanta! Even getting off the plane was exciting! I walked past the very terminal I left Georgia from last year (weird that I remember it, I know). 

All I could think about was what an incredible academic year I’ve had. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined all the miracles, big and small, that God has worked over the past months. My luggage took forever to surface, but thankfully I was able to find everything intact and made my way over to the Atrium. So many new summer staff faces were around, and I quickly found myself diving into conversation with staff from both Covecrest (the camp I’m at for the summer ) and Hidden Lake (Life Teen’s other camp in Georgia). I was happily reunited with a few familiar faces, to name a few: Nora, KP, Grant, Kyle, Kayla, Asaph, and Nate (AKA Dad) were all at the airport! (See some moments captured below, I worked with them last summer!) 

As other summer missionaries’ flights began to arrive, our numbers grew and soon we filled most of the Atlanta airport atrium. While we waited to for everyone, we saw a priest walking through the airport. Assuming he was with us, we made violent hand gestures to get him to join us. We couldn’t understand why he looked confused. “Do I know you?” he said. “Are you with the Summer Missionaries?” we all replied. “Umm, no, I am just heading home from a wedding.”

Come to find out, this priest just happened to be walking through the airport the same time a group of young catholic college students were gathered in the atrium. We apologized for bothering him but since he was already over with us, we asked for a blessing. #catholicprobs. Thankfully he obliged and stayed around to chat for a bit. We learned that he was from Minnesota (it’s a cool state, I’ve heard) and he said he’d be praying for us all summer! How cool is that.

We finally got to camp later in the evening after the 2 hour drive from the airport and just in time for a late dinner. It was great to finally be back in this beautiful place I call home. I think I had relived that drive up to Covecrest hundreds of times over the past year, and finally it was real life. I felt like the joy was shooting from my face.

The next few days brought some hard work, great community time, and lots of laughter. The rhythm of prayer here is really inspiring. Each morning we start with a Holy Hour followed by community Morning prayer. We eat breakfast, work for a few hours, have lunch, work some more and have mass, dinner, and a session in the evening followed by Night Prayer. I have really enjoyed getting to know the other wonderful young adults who have also given up part or all of this summer with the same mission: bringing teens closer to Christ. (below is my view from morning prayer each day)

 One of my proud accomplishments this week involved the set-up of a very large tent. Yep. I helped build that. This tent is used daily for mass with the teens and their parishes.

In addition to the tent, I have been working a lot in the Outpost (my second home for the summer, the camp store). Anna , a new friend of mine from Kansas, and I will be in charge of running the Outpost! It has been great to get to know her over the past couple days as we’ve been inventorying, sweeping, cleaning, and setting up the store for a wonderful summer. 

My living accommodations are just incredible. I am sharing a house with 9 other women for the remainder of these 13 weeks. We have a kitchen, a living room and bedrooms that we share. What a blessing.

I am sure I am missing stuff, but I will be updating a couple times a week. Send any prayer requests my way, and know that I think and pray for you often!

Love from Georgia,

-Aimee

PS. Newman Club friends... 

look what I found in my desk.

Camp starts TOMORROW

Tomorrow morning I leave for Tiger, GA where I will begin my beautiful 3-month-long journey and mission with Life Teen.

If you feel like sending me fan mail, cookies, or other assorted care packages and love notes, my mailing address is as follows:

Life Teen Covecrest

Aimee St. Germain

25 Falls Drive

Tiger, GA 30576

Also, I will have very limited phone and internet access for the next three months, so please be patient if I'm not responding! I will be updating my blog as often as possible so feel free to check back for updates.

As always, know that I'll be praying for you! Thank you to all of you who donated, I was fully fundraised about two weeks ago! Praise God.

15 Reason I'm Excited for Camp

15. Chick-fil-a

14. Chacos

13. Red Georgia Dirt

12. Happy Birthday to the tune of "Come Thou Font"

11. Hosts and musicians

10. AWESOME PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS

9. Campers

8. The Mud Pit (jk)

7. High Ropes

6. The Water Fall

5. Dance Parties

4. St. Stephen's Chapel

3. COMMUNITY

2. Early Morning Holy Hour

1. Watching lives and heart's changed by encounters with Christ!

So you want to be a missionary....

1032 Miles away from home.
44 days out of my summer.
Hundreds of teens to meet and serve.

In 2 months and 3 days, I will board a plane to Atlanta, GA. For seven weeks with summer, I will be working with a Catholic youth ministry organization, Life Teen, as a summer missionary in Tiger, Georgia. Covecrest will be my home for what promises to be an AWESOME summer.

I'm inviting you to join my on this journey, and there are a couple different ways you can do this. I'll be updating this blog as I prep for my mission and as much as I can while I am serving. Please keep my in your prayers as I begin this journey. Another is to check out my fundraising page ->

http://donate.lifeteen.com/fundraise?fcid=243710

"Man does not live on bread alone," but I still do need to eat ;)

Please share this with your friends!!

I'll be updating to tell you a little bit more about how I took the step to make this a part of my summer. How I chose to spend my summer being "Fearless" :)

Peace,
-Aimee