Hello from North Carolina!

Yep, we've taken a break from Newport and headed to Taylorsville, NC to hangout with one of our sister sites for the night and then tomorrow we're going to see the final installment of the fabulous Harry Potter series! So excited! Anyways, it's great to be around fellow YW staff and swap stories and realize that we're all going through the same stuff.

This past week was a little rough. Part of it was because the kids were very young- almost all of them were going into 7th, 8th and 9th grade and only a handful were Juniors and Seniors or just graduated. It's so hard to help 12 and 13 year olds understand what service without complaining is.

Most of the problem this week, though, was that I was (am?) burned out. It's getting to the point in the summer where I feel like I'm repeating the same things over and over- I mean, I am repeating things over and over- I was (am?) just a little tired of it all. Thankfully, my site director and area director were able to give some encouragement and vision punch us. We were reminded that weeks 6,7,8, and 9 need to be as energetic as weeks 1 and 2. Man, that's hard. But I know that with God all things are possible.

Also this week, three people went home early. One woman had anxiety real bad and her son was very obstinate and after discussion realized it would be better to go back home. They left on Tuesday. The third was a youth, Jared, with whom I really had some good conversations, but who knew how to push the right buttons too far. I only saw him lose his temper once during 4-square, but apparently there was a lot more happening during the week. He ended up taking a flight home Thursday morning.

Half way through the week, Jess, our AD, read us an article about how much the church is missing the point of serving our communities. We try so hard to make church hip and use the best technology and cater to the cool crowd, yet we tend to shut out those who need church the most- those who are not hip and cool. And she related it to how we run our YW sites. This week we had two youth who were very difficult to handle leave and many more difficult ones stay. They are the reason we are here- not exclusively for the cool and hip youth, but to love and serve those who are a handful. It really convicted me because my attitude this week towards these youngins was really sour. I owned up to it, but my fellow staff members and even the adult leaders noticed that I was dragging and annoyed some of the time. I realized that it's not acceptable to excuse myself because this was week 6 and we've been going full steam for 8 weeks and it's not acceptable to blame the youth, my staff or adult leaders or any other circumstance. Like I said, the youth at the end of the summer deserve the same energy and love from us as the youth at the beginning of the summer.

Other highlights from this week:
- It was HOT this week and the air conditioning stopped working in some of the rooms.

- Thursday afternoon for Kid's Club we took the kids to the park down the road and Brooke and I got burnt real bad. I can't wait for the skin to start peeling off in a week or two...

- Thursday night was the most emotionally difficult club for me yet. Before we even finished worship, the kids were sobbing. Then one of them, Jon- with whom I had a great conversation with earlier that day, came up to me and thanked me for all I've done that week. And then he told me that he realized that Jesus really is just waiting for him with his arms wide open. I did not know how to respond so I fumbled my way through a "you're welcome. I'm glad you came this week." But it just added to the conviction from earlier this week that I am here to serve Christ by serving these youth.

Prayer requests:
-Energy, attitude and resistance to burnout. I still feel pretty whipped and I'm still ready to go home, but I know I'm here for three more weeks and I need God to shore me up a lot.

- The next three weeks we have 73, 75 and 68 participants coming and it has the potential to be good... or terrible. I'm a little scared. lol.

- Decisions about grad school, work, living situations, etc. for the fall.

Thanks so much everyone!

~Sarah

LABC
Attn: Sarah Scott
234 Lincoln Ave
Newport, TN 37821