East Ward Bound!!

After a wonderful camp in Clendenin, West Virginia JCrew headed to York, PA to spend the night with the great Week of Hope girls there, Michelle and Victoria. It was great to see some other Summer Staffers. We stayed the night there and enjoyed their company. Then the next day we headed to have lunch with Melissa's aunt, uncle, and two cousins. It was cool to meet some of Melissa's family and to meet some of the people that would be at our next camp. They were all campers in New Haven, CT.

When we had finished with our lunch we got to go to Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love. We were all excited to see this city. But none of us were as excited as Emilie. Nor could I even begin to explain her excitement. She is kind of a history nerd and it made her day. It would be like me getting to go to Harry Potter World in Universal Studies. (that is how she was acting). So we spent the evening walking around and sight seeing in one of our nations most historical cities. We did all of the touristy things to do there. We saw the Liberty Bell, Liberty Hall, that one park and many more things. It was very cool seeing some of the places form the movie National Treasure, (what a movie). After all of the sight seeing we walked to South Philadelphia to get us some Philly Cheese Steaks from Philadelphia. That was the only thing I really wanted to do while there. ;) We went to Geno's. I guess it is some famous place that everyone famous goes to and it is all over the food channel or travel network. I don't know. But the cheese steaks were great. They used cheese wiz instead of shredded cheese or sliced. It was soooooo goood!!! And while sitting there eating we are pretty sure we saw the playgound that Will Smith played on before he was sent to his aunt and unlce's house in Bel Air. lol.

After a splendid day in Philadelphia, we got back in our vehicles and we drove to Rockaway New Jersey. This was home for two nights. Finally we could stop in one place for a minute. We got there very late so the first thing we did we sleep. We woke very early the next morning all filled with excitement to go to New York City for the day.

Country Roads Take Me Home

I am not really sure where the time has gone. I had no time to post in the middle of the summer. My last two camps flew by like nothing else. I always have thought that the summer goes by fast. But when you are travel half way across the country and back it goes by even faster.

Here is a summary of the first half  of the month of July for me.






After leaving Nashville, we had the opportunity to stay with the Duzanes. This was awesome cause it was like being with family for a couple of days. We joined them for church and just had a blast for three days by the pool. Emilie and Melissa met up with us Sunday night and stayed there for another day. Monday morning  July 2nd, we started to head to West Virginia. Our first stop along the way was in Louisville, Kentucky. My old Kentucky Home!! :) This was fantastic to stop there half way through the summer and get the felling of home. I got to see most of my friends and show JCrew around where I live most of the year. I even took them to Shenanigans.

The wonderful backyard at the Duzane's. We were living the life of luxury here.
 Sitting pool side all day soaking up the rays. That was the life. I can't wait to return to Duzacres. 

The next day we left Louisville, to make our last day of driving to West Virginia. When we got there most of the state was out of power. We got our hotel room and prepared for the upcoming week of camp. During this set-up week we really spent a lot of time together in the evenings watching movies on the wall with Melissa's VPU. This was really cool, like our own home theater. And on that Friday (JULY 6th) my crew surprised me with a cake, that I was in no way expecting. It was so awesome of them. I know I joke about my birthday being the most important day of everyone's year, but this year I knew that I am here to serve and to give up something. But the cake really made me feel like I was with family. Which the three of them were starting to become at that point in time.

Mean Girls in the hotel room.
"And none for Gretchen Wieners!"

My lovely birthday cake from my crew!! :) And my "It's My Birthday" Pin!! 

Look at how good we all look!! :) 

After set up week we had begun our second Group Workcamp for the summer in Clendenin, WV. This is in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains which already holds a special place in my heart for other reasons. It was great to be there to serve. We had a lot of ups and downs during this camp. Almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. For instance, Sunday while I was crew assigning, a storm had rolled in. I had just finished with everything and was just about to hit print and get to actually enjoy a meal on a Sunday evening, but behold the power went out from the storm and I was unable to print. :( So we hauled my printer and all its cords out to the parking lot. We hooked it up to a gas generator from someones truck and printed out as much as we could for the week right then and there. Since the power was out not only did this affect my crew assigning, it caused all of the cold and frozen food to start to warm up. This was all stuff that was not covered in training, because how do you train on this. This was the point when I knew that God had put me in the right position. We made it all work and lost very little food, we got crews assigned and we got everything that needed to be printed printed.

After Sunday's fiasco the camp went down hill from there with little to no problems. This camp was filled with great campers and adults that were really flexible with all of the issues that were going on in the state. Another example was that we were under a boil water alert. So we had to buy water bottles and use them instead of the five gallon water jugs. And since the state had lost power the week and weekend before camp, we were not able to have any ice for the coolers and water jugs. So we bought out three local grocery stores of the ice packs. But with such flexible campers the week went smoothly even with the hiccups. It was a great camp.

Every ice pack in the cities of Clendenin and Elk View West Virginia.
I seriously bought out the only three grocery stores in a fifteen mile radius for our campers lunches.

We also had an awesome MC at this camp. Her name was Cathy. She made the camp what it was. With her sense of humor, I was able to surpass all of the difficult times. She could always make us laugh. From telling stories about some of her "friends" back home to the alleged Crew 10 and our check in shenanigans we would get ourselves into and our favorite "Mountain Mama" Helen. Cathy was the definition of a hoot and a holler.

The camp ended on such a high. It was great. I was able to participate in the "Ragman" skit on Thursday night. Which is a skit that exemplifies the death of Jesus and shows us how he took all of our burdens so that we may be "made new." This camp was one of the first where I started to think about where I was in my life and where I am going. Nothing much came from this thinking but it was a great start to realizing what I need to be doing with my life.

Seeing this makes my feel so good. I see that not only is God working in my life this summer,
but God is working in the lives of so many others. Not only the Summer Staff, but the campers, their residents,
they friends and families back home, and so many more that will be touched by stories of how God
making everything new in our lives.

In the immortal words of John Denver,

"Country roads take me home, to the place where I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Mamma. Take me home. Country Roads."