I am now 7 week into my 14-week internship with Team Expansion. It is crazy to think that I am already half-way through my time here. I have learned a lot over the past 7 weeks and have a lot more to learn.
My time here has been exciting, exhausting, humbling, and insightful. Every week, I have spent 40 or more hours a week in the office. At the end of may I had two very busy weeks. One week I was in charge of feeding 25 trainees and facilitators breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for 5 days. One church was nice enough to donate a few of the meals, but I still had a lot of work to do that week. My incredible mom came the weekend before and helped me buy all of the food and we prepared some of it. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen alone cooking and cleaning that week. By Friday, I was tired but the Lord is good and kept me strong. After that 65-hour work week I went straight into my Pathways internship training. I pulled a 15-hour shift that Friday to clean up from cooking all week and to prepare for the 17 summer interns coming in the next morning. It took hours to finalize the schedules and prepare the training books. I was tired by the end of the night, but I still had a good amount of energy. I am blessed to be able to do the work I'm doing. After enjoying a picnic and worship with the other interns and our parents, we went straight into training classes on Saturday night. The whole next week was full of 15-hour days that included training and bonding time. I learned so much that week. We are blessed with wonderful trainers here! Many of the classes were taught by people who have worked in missions 20+ years both stateside and overseas. I got more excited about missions with each class. I also had a great time bonding with the other interns. We shared our struggles and our doubts as well as our strengths and excitement. It was a really great week.
Since then, I've had more company in the office. We now have two new interns here for the next 7 weeks. Over the last few weeks I've been working on preparing for a huge training event that we have in August. The work feels really daunting some days, but the Lord is bringing me through it. I am learning so much through this job.
The Lord is teaching me a lot about my personal passions and strengths as well as my struggles and doubts. I have had some days where I have felt exhausted, lonely, and hopeless but I've also had wonderful days. This is hard work, but God is good and so much bigger than the enemy attacking us.
My time here has been blessed. I still meet with my great small group once a week. It is great to be able to form friendships there. And this past week I've gotten to meet new people from all around the world. Saturday evening I went to a peace feast a friend from my small group invited me to. We went to the Baha'i center to learn about the Baha'i faith, to share Christian beliefs, to eat dinner together, and to create peace between Christians and Bahai's. It was a very interesting night. I am now more grounded in my faith than I have ever been before. And tonight I get to go to a Turkish coffee hour with some of the same people. :)
This past Sunday night was incredible. I spent the evening in the city playing with refugee kids. The friend from my small group who invited me to the peace feast also meets with a Burmese family and plays outside with refugee kids every Sunday evening. I got to spend the night painting nails with a little girl from Russia, hold a sweet Burmese baby girl, toss a hula hoop with boys from Somalia, and play with so many other refugee kids. By the end of the night, about 25 refugee kids were playing with my friends and I. I had an incredible time and plan to go back every week this summer.
I have also enjoyed getting to know missionaries who are coming in and out of the office. I am seeing ways that I can serve in the future and it is very exciting. The Lord is currently opening doors for me to begin the process to go overseas as early as next summer. I am excited for this opportunity. I'm sure I'll be writing more about it in the future.
My time here has been exciting, exhausting, humbling, and insightful. Every week, I have spent 40 or more hours a week in the office. At the end of may I had two very busy weeks. One week I was in charge of feeding 25 trainees and facilitators breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for 5 days. One church was nice enough to donate a few of the meals, but I still had a lot of work to do that week. My incredible mom came the weekend before and helped me buy all of the food and we prepared some of it. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen alone cooking and cleaning that week. By Friday, I was tired but the Lord is good and kept me strong. After that 65-hour work week I went straight into my Pathways internship training. I pulled a 15-hour shift that Friday to clean up from cooking all week and to prepare for the 17 summer interns coming in the next morning. It took hours to finalize the schedules and prepare the training books. I was tired by the end of the night, but I still had a good amount of energy. I am blessed to be able to do the work I'm doing. After enjoying a picnic and worship with the other interns and our parents, we went straight into training classes on Saturday night. The whole next week was full of 15-hour days that included training and bonding time. I learned so much that week. We are blessed with wonderful trainers here! Many of the classes were taught by people who have worked in missions 20+ years both stateside and overseas. I got more excited about missions with each class. I also had a great time bonding with the other interns. We shared our struggles and our doubts as well as our strengths and excitement. It was a really great week.
Since then, I've had more company in the office. We now have two new interns here for the next 7 weeks. Over the last few weeks I've been working on preparing for a huge training event that we have in August. The work feels really daunting some days, but the Lord is bringing me through it. I am learning so much through this job.
The Lord is teaching me a lot about my personal passions and strengths as well as my struggles and doubts. I have had some days where I have felt exhausted, lonely, and hopeless but I've also had wonderful days. This is hard work, but God is good and so much bigger than the enemy attacking us.
My time here has been blessed. I still meet with my great small group once a week. It is great to be able to form friendships there. And this past week I've gotten to meet new people from all around the world. Saturday evening I went to a peace feast a friend from my small group invited me to. We went to the Baha'i center to learn about the Baha'i faith, to share Christian beliefs, to eat dinner together, and to create peace between Christians and Bahai's. It was a very interesting night. I am now more grounded in my faith than I have ever been before. And tonight I get to go to a Turkish coffee hour with some of the same people. :)
This past Sunday night was incredible. I spent the evening in the city playing with refugee kids. The friend from my small group who invited me to the peace feast also meets with a Burmese family and plays outside with refugee kids every Sunday evening. I got to spend the night painting nails with a little girl from Russia, hold a sweet Burmese baby girl, toss a hula hoop with boys from Somalia, and play with so many other refugee kids. By the end of the night, about 25 refugee kids were playing with my friends and I. I had an incredible time and plan to go back every week this summer.
I have also enjoyed getting to know missionaries who are coming in and out of the office. I am seeing ways that I can serve in the future and it is very exciting. The Lord is currently opening doors for me to begin the process to go overseas as early as next summer. I am excited for this opportunity. I'm sure I'll be writing more about it in the future.
