The Youth Come Today!

So finally, a short breather to write things down on this. Two weeks ago I headed to Birmingham, AL for RAMP (orientation, basically) and I was there for 5 days learning everything I need to know for this summer and getting to know some awesome people- specifically the people on my team: Erik, Brooke and Daniel, and our area director, Jess.

A week ago we arrived in Newport and started getting things ready for this week- setting up projects, meeting community members, preparing the site, etc. It's been pretty intense and there were quite a few late nights and reaaaaaaal early mornings. Thankfully, we all kept our cool and were able to stay friends. lol. Early mornings are none of our strengths.

Friday afternoon the other site teams in my area came over to help us prepare for Early Bird (a sort of 'practice run' for the week- complete with real live participants). There are 3 other sites in my area- Blue Ridge, NC; Eastern Shore, VA and us- Newport, TN- there were 13 of us, so things got done rather quickly and we were able to spend some time at the lake last night!

Tennessee is incredibly HOT and Newport is in a valley so there really isn't much relief from the heat. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL here, though, despite the weather. The whole town is surrounded by the Smokys- as in we can see them from our host church's parking lot! And last week, Erik, Jess and I went to the Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park to "test out" the hike we'll be taking the kids on later in the week... tomorrow actually. It is just beautiful- there are a TON of streams to stop and play in and, although we won't be taking the kids to this- there is a gorgeous waterfall with the best water I've ever tasted. It was sooooooo clear and cold and everything water should taste like. lol. We won't be taking the kids there b/c it's a 4.5 mile hike round trip and it's pretty treacherous- I tripped like 5 times.

Oh! Our area director just told us one of our groups is 10 minutes out- so I gotta go get ready to welcome them! Hopefully next weekend we won't be quite so busy b/c we already have things set up, so another post can be expected.

~Sarah