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.