What I have been doing since graduating:

I have been working as youth intern at my church! It was a job without any description beyond what I could recall previous interns having done, but I had a very strong desire for the job, regardless of unknowns--it was something God was putting in my heart. I sent a few emails in early May and, at long last, heard back in late May: I was hired!

Since then, I have been learning all kinds of things about what it means to be a leader involved in youth ministry. I make phone calls & reservations, write emails, buy hot dogs & hamburgers, stay up all night (ALL NIGHT!) with two middle schoolers while the rest of the kids crash on couches and the floor. I write facebook messages, make more and more facebook friends; I hang out with kids and talk, but more often I listen, listen, listen. I encounter persons from ages 9 to 12 to 16 who think I am 17 years old, and then I laugh--especially because the 9 and 12 year olds still think that's old:).

I read the Bible and I pray, pray, pray. A dear woman in our church, out of her amazing heart for our youth, comes each week and asks each student if they would like to fill out a prayer request for that week. She then takes the entirety of our youth group time to pray, pray, pray, and then she makes copies for another leader and myself so that we all may pray for these precious students, their highs, their lows, their struggles, their victories, their hearts' desires, week after week after week.

I teach Sunday school, trying to learn to be a better organizer-of-thoughts, a clearer speaker. I teach youth group and try for the same. And besides all these things, there are more hopes and dreams on my heart, just waiting for the opportunity to be introduced and fulfilled in the lives of these kids. The resounding question: How do I help them care? I can have all the service projects and spiritual growth and bonding events and activities in the world planned outside of youth group and Sunday school, but in this day and age of "Too Busy-ness," who will come? Who will care? Over and over I ask God, "How can I reach these kids?" We have to work to figure out how to make the most of the time we have with these young people of whom I was so recently one.

My heart desires to continue in this vein, whether there is money in it or not. I am hoping that my church will want to keep me on in an employed capacity, having seen me work and relate with these students throughout the summer, but even if they do not, I will stay until God directs me elsewhere. It takes time to build trust and relationships, and I don't want to throw those away--neither the time nor the relationships invested in this summer.

For me, you can pray for God's direction in my life. Somehow God will provide the means to repay my school loan, I know it, but I'd love it if that plan involved more-permanent employment with my church. It could also involve another part-time job, for unless they have very direct leading from God, I do not think I would be hired in a full-time capacity. Pray for me to grow continually closer to God as I seek his will for my life; pray for total surrender and complete obedience and submission as God asks me to be a fool for Christ--as he so often does in the littlest of ways.

~Soli Deo gloria, or To God alone be the glory.