I remember very clearly sitting on a hill at our training week in Denver thinking "what have I gotten myself into?" I'd been listening to people talk for days about what my summer was going to look like and all the daunting tasks we had to do. They were giving us piles and piles of paperwork and binders of information and saying "don't forget this" and "don't forget that". "
What did I sign up for?"
"What have I gotten myself into?"
I have been here for 8 weeks. I have 2 left. I know that when we leave here and I go back to Denver for our debrief I will be asking myself "What just happned?" "What was that?"
Everything here happens so fast. One minute you are in crisis mode. Taking kids to the hospital to get stitches and then dealing with conflict and then making dinner...battling high school students over lights out and then you crash into bed and wake up the next day to go full force again....forgetting that yesterday I was kneeling next to a 10 year old girl busting out my first aid skills and then taking her to the hospital.
When did that become an everyday kind of thing? When I joined Youthworks...that's when.
Bottom line: things break...like cars, fridges, dishwasher disposals, toilets.
adult leaders get angry.
staff get into conflict.
kids get hurt.
community members yell at you.
the school board spends a good chunk of their meeting discussing how clean you keep the school.
mice eat your food.
you don't sleep.
In any given day, 3-5 of these things could happen one after the other. And they are not little things. When Adult leaders get upset...it is a big deal. When staff are in conflict...you have to resolve it...when the school board is upset...you have to spend 2 hours cleaning.
Here is the point of this post: Stuff happens. you have to face it head-on...deal with it...let it go...and move on to the next thing. I don't have the luxury of time to process through every situation and how it impacted me and what I learned. I know I'm learning, I know I'm growing, but sometimes you take the kid to get stitches and then you go home to make a snack for 72 people and calm down the anger of an adult leader...and no one even knows that you spent an hour at the hospital comforting the kid and answering to the parents whose kid got hurt while in your program.
Never thought I'd say it...but it's all in a day's work. A very long 18 hour day's work. I love it. and right now...I'm really tired.
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Molly! I love you and just want you to know that you have been a good and faithful servant in every way with youthworks. I am also praying for your interview tomorrow. The Lord is faithful and proved to me these past 8 months time and time again how He provides perfectly. And exhausted as you maybe be day after day, there is never a better way to spend you days--feeling like you have spent every minute of your day and every last bit of energy in your body to serve and love people and glorify the Lord. I miss you dearly and can't wait to see your beautiful face. You are greatly loved.
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