I'm so very sorry it's taken me so long to update - things have been kind of hectic and the only internet here at the hotel has been in their business center, but their wireless just started working so I thought I'd hop on and update y'all!
The caravan left Monday morning around 9 and I went with Caitlin and Jennifer which was a blast! We caravaned with two other cars so it was a fun day. We drove until 7 when we stopped in Memphis to stay the night at a HUGE church there. It was so very generous of the church to let us use their building for the night and even give us breakfast in the morning! We left the church at 6:30am on Tuesday and drove drove drove until we hit rain in Mobile. Then around 3pm we got to Gulf Shores! While driving we did a lot of sleeping...
It wasn't raining there so we dropped by the beach to see the gulf before we could check in to the hotel and before any oil could taint it! We definitely looked like crazy people who'd never seen water before... guess that's what happens when you get a bunch of people around water when they're from landlocked states.
I met my DGroup! Sarah K, who I already knew, Nicole W who is incredible, and Sarah S who is our leader and who is just amazing. I'm so blessed to be around such incredible women with such big hearts for God and people. It's been so fun getting to know them. PS We have LOTS of DGroup pictures because we decided to take one every day of Kaleo - intense, but fun!)
That night we had a luau thrown for us by the hotel (these people are SO generous!) so we could socialize and kick off the summer!
Nicole, Sarah S, Me, and Sarah K at the Luau!
Wednesday we got all settled in and had a meeting to go through expectations and more of what the summer will look like. THEN, that afternoon we got settled in before heading to dinner at LuLu's with the rest of the project! It was such a great time :)
MTad and myself at LuLu's!
Our schedule is something like this:
Monday nights - Inductive Bible Study Training
Tuesday nights - DGroup Bible Study and World Prayer
Wednesday nights - Free! Probably going to be used for one-to-ones with my AMAZING DGroup leader SNELLS!
Thursday nights - Stumo large group meeting!
Friday nights - group dates! such a blast!
Saturday mornings - evangelism training and beach evangelism
Sunday mornings - church
So Thursday we went job hunting for those of us without jobs, which, sadly, includes myself. Big O's still isn't letting our staff know if they're still going to hire any of us, so I've been on the hunt for something else. This oil spill is really affecting businesses here and a lot of places aren't hiring at all. The ones that are need people on nights and weekends... which I can't work. Boo. Still perservering through that. Good news is that I'm one of the very very few who doesn't have a job! God worked in amazing ways and almost all 150 of us have jobs. INCREDIBLE!
And then Thursday night was our first stumo night where we learned about some practical steps to get the most we can out of Kaleo!
The girls from our carpool at Stumo night! Myself, Caitlin, Jennifer
Friday - more job hunting. THEN, we had our first group date! Each DGroup was given a specific theme and then we all went to the beach and found the guys group with our same theme and hung out with them for the night! We were hippies - how fun :). The guys were so fun to hang out with and even got us drinks at sonic afterwards :)
Steph and I! Her group went as runners!
Me and Caitlin!! Her group's theme was "monochromatic"
Jordan and I - He's Zack from Saved by the Bell... that's what the Staff's theme was :)
Our groovy group!
Saturday was our first day of evangelism here. We spent the morning looking at God's role in evangelism and our personal responsibilities in evangelism and went over the illustration we share on the beach. Then Nicole W (Nic-Dubs) and I went to the beach and got to share the gospel with three groups of women! Some were believers, but they definitely seemed encouraged by the fact that we were boldly sharing God's word! AND two teenage girls accepted Christ - so great :)
Sunday was church which was really good. The pastor had a really good message about choosing to stand for Christ. Wonderful. And the people there were so welcoming and kind to us!
Sunday night we made puppy chow to thank the guys group we went on the group date with and made some chicken for monday dinner. Boy was that an experience... cooking is definitely going to be an area of growth for a lot of us this summer!
Monday - job searching. Then we had the dinner we so wonderfully prepared - chicken quesadillas! They were so good and that recipe is a definite keeper! Easy to make and relatively inexpensive. After that was inductive training which was soooo great. I'm basically in love with the inductive method and it was so great to go over.
Tuesday/today - job searching, following up my applications, a 30 second interview before being told my hours don't work for them, applied at over 20 places by this point, feeling discouraged... then some hope! I called Coldstone to make sure they got my online application and VOILA - interview scheduled for tomorrow. Then at world prayer tonight some guys came up and said that their manager is hiring two more full time employees and that I should go in to apply tomorrow. One other place is really excited about the prospect of hiring... so things are looking good! Tonight we made Mac&Cheese with hotdogs for dinner (and don't laugh, we're proud of our meals!!!) and Betsy B came over to eat with us and brought an amazing dessert! She's so fun to be around and she's such a wealth of wisdom. After that was our first DGroup and World Prayer night. I enjoyed tonight so much and I feel like I've already begun to learn a lot. We're going through 2 Timothy for our bible study and reading through The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer as a book study. I can't wait to see how God grows me through this!
Prayer praises:
-That God is who He is and that He sent His son so that we could be in a relationship with Him
-That God's word is perfect and eternal and is transformative in nature, and that we have the opportunity to intensely study it here at Kaleo
-That 150 students have the opportunity to attend Kaleo and grow in their walks with God
-That almost all of the students have jobs!
-That my DGroup is so amazing and that we've bonded SO quickly!
Prayer requests:
-That myself and the others looking for jobs would find one full-time job or two part-time jobs in an environment that's understanding of our hours
-That the oil spill wouldn't affect anyone's employment status
-That we learn more from God and each other every single day!
Thank you all so much!
Sorry for the NOVEL, I'll update more frequently so I can avoid such a lengthy post! :)
~Kelsey
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