The First Few Days

Well, after about 8 hours of flights/layovers on thursday I arrived in Nashville Airport to be greeted by three fellow staffers. It was a great intro into the city. We then spent the first hour or so unloading everyone's cars at the dorms as they pulled in. We followed that up by playing a game that really got us to know one another's names very quickly and get real comfortable with one another. After this we had dinner together then had our first little training session followed by a "speed dating" game where I learned a lot about my fellow staffers.

Yesterday(Friday) morning we woke and embarked on an especially long day where we received the quiet time books we will be using this summer as a staff. The passage yesterday came from Romans 12 where Paul calls us to present our body as living sacrifices. The devotion really hit home the point that we are to let God's Word transform us from the inside out rather than letting the world transform us from the outside. We then heard from our staff coordinator a couple of times before going to lunch and retreating back to the staff office to do some work with our track groups. We spent our evening talking about our ministry sites as well as doing an intro with our bible study we will be teaching this summer. There we learned about the different age groups we will be teaching and what their learning styles are like. We ended our first full day together by having worship together by just singing a few songs and journaling, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my year.

Today was much of the same. A lot of time spent in the office listening to our coordinator and leadership staff. We did however play rec games where we had a lot of fun playing together and even had some bonding time during one particular game where you had to walk around and when the rec leader called a number you had to get in a group of that many people. Towards the end of the game she yelled 3 and there were four people left. One staffer created a great strategy by tackling another(much smaller) staffer figuring some one else would join, but instead we all just got a good laugh.

This is going to be a very exhausting 12 days and I need your prayers to get me through it. Feel free to send email or facebook encouragement, it would be much appreciated!