Breaking down and building up

Well, 3 weeks of programming have gone by, and we now only have 5 weeks remaining until we pack up and head back home. Time has both flown by and dragged on, the way it normally does during summers such as this.

As much as I would like to, there is no way I can put into this blog everything that I have learned in the past 6 weeks. I'll try to hit the major things and then tell you more about a typical week here on site.

As I wrote in a Facebook status a couple days ago, one of the greatest things about the summer jobs I've had is the lifeskills I learn along with the requirements of the job. I learned how to clean a carpet, how to work with outdoor plumbing (this by no means makes me an expert, but I can rig something up with the right tools...), and I'm currently re-learning/honing my driving a stick shift skills. I'm sure there will be more of these skills to come throughout the summer.

On a mental level, I am learning patience. God continually shows me that my timing is not always His timing, and when I let Him take control, it always ends up better. :) It's just a matter of me letting go of that control and allowing myself to be dependent on him. I'm learning grace, both how to give and receive it better. My job this summer is to love, facilitate, and grow, and having ample amounts of grace is necessary in that process.

Those are just some thoughts here and there; there's plenty more, but I'll save those for face-to-face conversations. Now, I'll tell you more about a typical YouthWorks week, and hopefully I will soon upload pics of where I've been living! So, to begin, the groups arrive on Sunday night. We do dinner, orientations, and evening worship that night. Monday morning begins the work week, and each day follows this schedule. We split our participants into 8 crews and send them off to different ministry sites for the morning. These sites include places like Catholic Charities, a food pantry-like organization; Brighton, a nursing home; and the Rescue Mission, a place where donations are accepted, sorted, and then gradually added to a LARGE thrift store. Then, after showers and dinner, we have an evening activity. Monday night we go to Bellmont Park/Mission Beach, a carnival/boardwalk area where everyone just gets to chill for a little while and enjoy the typical SoCal area. Tuesday night is our City Prayer walk, when staff leads the participants around 4 areas of downtown, allowing them to see some of the poverty that exists in the city and to hand out hygiene packs that each crew brings. Wednesday night we go to Central Beach on Coronado Island, where we eat dinner, swim, play on the beach, and then have evening worship on the beach around a bonfire. It's a rough life, I know... ;) Finally, on Thursday night, we have a community cookout where anyone we've met or worked with or just wanted invite can join us and enjoy some food. Friday morning, the groups pack, clean, and do other last minute things before leaving at 9 am. After they leave, we finish paperwork and prepare for our major shopping trip. I'll post a picture above of the first week's trip and our final purchases. After that, it's a lay-low weekend for the most part, with some laundry, fun combos of leftovers, and chill time all included. Sunday morning we go to church here at New Life, and then prepare for the students' arrival later that afternoon.

Alright, my eyes are getting droopy. That's another thing, this job is really... growing me up. I go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and have major responsibilities all day. I am getting to the point where I don't feel bad about going to bed this early when I think about the amount of things accomplished in a day.

Love you all, thanks for your prayers and support. I'll attach some pics and put some more up later.

Pictures!

Chillin in the laundromat, eating our ice cream and waiting for our clothes...
Real live white go-go boots. One of many reasons why Cali is so cool. :)
Beach feet. Love it.
YouthWorks San Diego Staff 2010! Matt, Nicole, Alecia, and Stuart
Incredible.
Me, our Area Director, Heather, and Nilcole

Prep week

After 2 days on the road, lots of laughs, and some amazing landscape, we arrived to our church on Sunday evening. It is beautiful here, and it always smells good. :) There are flowers everywhere, and today I brushed my teeth outside next to a palm tree. It's just a different kind world out here, and I am not complaining at all.

The church community has been so loving and welcoming towards all of us. They love having YouthWorks here and do what they can to accommodate us. We were recommended a little mexican restaurant for Sunday night dinner, so we tried to find it. However, on our way, we spotted the ocean and immediately tried to get to it asap. We ended up on Coronado Island, right next to the famous Hotel del Coronado. Running towards the ocean was one of the best feelings, especially after 2 days in the car.

On Monday, after getting our things out of storage and beginning to set up the site, we were invited to a Memorial Day picnic with the church where we got to meet a lot of the members and just enjoy a gorgeous day with some great people and delicious food. The rest of the week has been a lot of setting up, calling community contacts, meeting with them, finding directions for all of our activities, and visiting each of these activity areas. Unfortunately, this means we had to go to the beach 3 times. Hate when that happens. :)

Tonight, after a stressful day of dealing with finances and faxes, we are just relaxing with some of the local kids who go the church. Natalie, Junior, Nena, and Paloma come to see us almost daily and brighten our days with their smiles, laughter, and helping us re-learn Spanish.

I'm writing the rest of this from a Saturday afternoon standpoint, after getting distracted by the rousing game of uno and going to do laundry. That's right, we're that cool, we do laundry and eat ice cream right from the tub while we wait for the clothes to dry. It's little things like that that I'll remember most, I think. It seemed slightly ridiculous as it happened last night, but I already look back on it with a smile. We also found a great little bakery, Panchitas, right around the corner from the laundromat. It's little places like this that make me so excited about living in a city. For me, the zoo and other touristy attractions are great, but I want to know about the little bakery that has the best pan ducle and the little taco shop that looks a little sketchy but has the BEST tacos ever. :)

Today has been more brainstorming for how the weeks will run, mailing our weekly forms to the main office (waiting in line at the Post Office has to be one of the most awkward parts of my week, no one talks to anyone and you just have to find your own direction to stare at until it's your turn. Definitely different from Kendallville...), more office work, and then the beach again this afternoon! I'll be sure to take more pictures!

It's great to see how God is moving in each of us individually and as a staff so far. We all already feel like we've been together and here for a summer, and we have yet to know each other for longer than 2 weeks. I know the bonds we've formed now are going to help us through some of the long weeks when programming starts, so I pray that these relationships continue to grow.

And I'm now finishing this Monday evening. The past 2 days have been incredibly productive, making final contacts, finalizing directions and summaries of organizations, figuring out logistics, and praying and trusting hard that God will get us through the first week next week with no major mishaps! We could use your prayer in this right now; we're dealing with some program overlap and activity adjustments that was unforeseen until a few days ago. We know God is greater than any of that and will find a way to make it happen!

We have a PO Box set up now, so if you want to send some regular mail my way, I'd be happy to receive it! The address is YW: Alecia Carmicheal, PO Box 620130, San Diego, CA, 92162-0130-30.

The following are some pictures of the trip out here and of some of our community. For the full album, check out the album "You Stay Classy, San Diego" on Facebook.

Now my uploader is being dumb. Maybe it will let me post more later and I can just upload some pics. Or, better yet, just check out this link, it'll take you right to the Facebook album if all works correctly. If it doesn't, leave a comment and I'll try to fix it.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051961&id=56202899&l=ddefb5ad16

Premise for the summer

I realized earlier as I was sending this link out to people that some, if not most, of you won't know much about YouthWorks and what I'll actually be doing this summer. I'm going to remedy that by trying to fill you in on what we are about and why we do what we do.

YouthWorks is a youth organization that hosts week-long summer missions trips for middle and high school youth. There are over 70 sites active from June-August, from larger places like San Diego, Denver, Chicago, NYC, and Atlanta; to smaller towns like Kokomo, Indiana; to American Indian reservations like Yakama in Washington and Lakota in South Dakota. Each site has a purpose of joining the ministries existing in the community and acting as a liason between the participants and the ministries around the site.

My role in all this will be as Site Director, overseeing the general management of the site, working closely with the adult leaders of each group, hanging out with the youth, maintaining community contacts, and loving and supporting my amazing staff! I'm working with 2 other guys and another girl, and the 4 of us are going to rock San Diego. I absolutely cannot wait to work, grow, and live with each of these individuals. It's a total God thing that the 4 of us were brought together for this summer. :)

Right now, my staff and I, along with 16 other ministry sites in the western region, are in the midst of training in Denver. We will leave on Saturday morning and take 2 days to drive to San Diego. We found out that we'll be driving through the mountains, around Las Vegas, and around LA on our way to our destination, and all of us are so excited to get to see so much of God's amazing landscape as we make our way to what we here is an incredible place to spend a summer! Luckily, we all enjoy driving, road trips, and the fun/random things that happen along the way, so it should be great!

Yesterday, after a loooong day of training, we all (about 100 seasonal and permanent staff) went off site and drove to the top of Look-Out Mountain, about 40 minutes outside Denver. We got there just as the sun was beginning to set, and it was just a good chance to laugh, talk, take pictures, and enjoy each other's company outside the realm of training. As the sun began to set, we started to worship, and thus began one of the most incredible worship services of which I have had the blessing to be a part. The sunset over the mountains, the thunder in the distance, and the simple sound of voices and guitar raised in heartfelt praise made for an absolutely incredible night. I don't really have the words to continue to tell you about it, except to say that God moved in awesome ways last night, and it was amazing.

The following are a few quotes that I've jotted down in the last month that help give more understanding to the heart of YouthWorks. They've helped me come to greater understanding of this ministry I get to be a part of, and I hope they do the same for you.

Love you all, thanks for your support! Pictures will come as soon as I get them uploaded on my laptop.

First and foremost, we are called to love.

Bringing together youth ministry and missions

Life-changing, Christ-centered youth mission opportunities

Set your minds on things above. Put to death your worldly impurities. Put on the new self, renewed in the Creator. As God's chosen people, bear witness and forgive one another. Put on love, which binds all good together in perfect unity.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours.

Realize the beauty of the Church,

Realize the brokenness of the Church.

For one week, we try to get our arms around the church and say "What do you think? Can we all love the Church and be it together for a week?"

We are called to lead in the church by serving it and others.

Beginning the journey

It's funny to me that almost any journey begins with an end. For me, this journey begins with the end of undergrad work at Anderson University. AU was my home away from home for 4 years; it's the place where lessons were learned, friends became family, and where I began to discover who I want to be. I will always cherish that place, and even more than the place, I will always cherish the relationships that were made. To all of you, my friends who became family: you will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for being a part of making me who I am today.

Now, after two weeks at home and two weeks of unpacking, sorting, repacking, resorting, and choosing what constitutes as a necessity (packing for trips has never been one of my strong suits; my motto has always been "If you think you might need, bring it" which doesn't work out well when space is limited...), I am about as ready as I'll ever be. Tonight we leave for Denver, where I will have training from Monday, 5/24 to Saturday, 5/30. On Sunday, my staff and I will begin the two-day road trip to San Diego! I've never driven in the west, and I love road trip conversations, so I can honestly tell you that right now two days in a car doesn't sound too bad. Talk to me about half way through day two, and I'm sure my answer will be different. But I'll deal with that when the time comes.

If you are reading this blog, you were told about it for a reason. I have been incredibly blessed in my life to have so many amazing people who have supported, encouraged, taught, blessed, prayed for, shown grace to, and loved me along the way. Right now, I ask that of you still. I am so excited about what God is doing in San Diego and how He is going to use YouthWorks this summer. Your prayers, love, and support have been so important, and I would appreciate so much for you to continue to send those things our way!

I'll try to update this weekly so I can keep you informed about what God is doing and what He is teaching.

Here's to new beginnings!