Prayer

As I was thinking of more things to share my mom reminded me of several different things.  One of the biggest blessings for me this summer was my mom and dad.  They were so supportive and encouraging even though I’m sure they were a little worried at times.  The hardest and yet most encouraging week was when my wonderful mother texted our friends and family and asked them to pray for me.  I got so many encouraging texts throughout the whole day.  Every time my phone would go off it was a perfect reminder that I was being thought of and that somewhere someone was saying a sweet prayer on my behalf.

I don’t know that I ever truly understood what it meant to be prayed for until that week.  It was like I could literally feel the prayers that people were saying for me and at the same time I noticed a difference in others around me as well as myself.  Prayer has a completely different meaning for me now.  I can say with complete confidence that I serve a God who hears me and answers me.  It may not always be in the way I expect or how I want Him to answer, but he does answer.

I challenge you next time you go to pray, think about if you really believe that God hears you or if you are just praying because that’s what you were taught.  While I believe that all prayer is valuable I know that for me it was just a motion, just something I knew I was supposed to do.  But now, now I know that I’m having a conversation with my heavenly father. 

ups and downs

Despite several ups and downs I had this summer, I can honestly say that the kids were awesome to work with. I learned so much about who I am as a Christian and exactly where I turn when things get rough.

One thing that I have brought back with me in my spiritual life is to pray over the places that I am each day. Before, as well as during camp, Sara encouraged the interns to pray over the neighborhood and the churches each morning. I really enjoyed feeling like maybe the stranger that walked by me would have a better day just because I prayed for them.

One week during service we focused on prayer and praying for others around us. We had a volunteer help us one day, and he had the kids sit down and draw a person. After all of the kids had drawn their pictures, we went outside, and if we saw anyone wearing the same color shirt as what the child had drawn, we would walk up to the person and ask if they had anything that they wanted us to pray for.  It was fun watching the kids' excitement as they would find their person or their friend's person. It was so overwhelming watching the responses that we got from the people that we prayed for. Most of them had tears in their eyes as our kids said precious prayers for their neighbors.

I was already a big fan of prayer, but even for me, learning a new way to pray with the kids was a very cool experience! So the next time you are saying your daily prayer, ask God to show you someone who needs a prayer said for them or pray over the places you go everyday.  

Lessons

One of my favorite memories of this summer happened the first week I was in the Bronx. I had the idea for the kids to have a lemonade stand. A church group from Philadelphia was in town to volunteer with us and they helped set up a table in front of the Beekman Church. They helped the kids in each color group divide into two teams for the day. One team would stay at the table to help serve the lemonade. Meanwhile the other half of the color group would go up the block to ask people if they wanted any lemonade and tell them about what we would do with the money we raised. 

We raised funds to help an organization in Kenya called One Home Many Hopes (OHMH). OHMH is a home for girls and many of the girls that live there have come from the street or brothels. They provide not only a safe place for the girls to live but an education as well. Currently they are building a facility to have the space to take in more girls. 

The kids enjoyed participating in this project more than I could have imagined! They had so much fun asking friends and neighbors if they wanted any lemonade and getting to tell them who they were helping. Watching their faces light up every time someone would donate (no matter how much money they gave) was amazing. 

One little girl put it very well "we don't have a lot but we have more than they do and we should help because we have enough." Tears immediately came to my eyes as I listened to this precious child of God say exactly what we were trying to get them to understand. 

Throughout the day of our lemonade stand, the response from the neighborhood was overwhelming. People came just to donate, not even wanting lemonade. They just simply wanted to help someone worse off than they were. 

At one point while my orange group was working the lemonade stand a little boy walked up to me with a bag filled to the brim with change. He said "my family and I heard about what you guys are doing and we just wanted to say that we really appreciate it. It's not a lot but we got as much change as we could find and we want you to have it." Before I could even say "thank you" or ask if he wanted any lemonade, he quietly slipped away and went back to his home. 

We found out midday, that in the state of New York you have to have a license to sell anything on the street. As you can probably guess, we did not have one. We were so blessed the police came by and did not say anything to us. They let us stay. 

As I was planning this service project I didn't begin to imagine the support we would receive from the community. I really learned that the old saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" is true. I should not judge people by their neighborhood. I got to see people pull together to help others. 

Final

The end of my summer wrapped up pretty well. Although I did not make it to any Broadway shows, I did have one of the most educational summers of my life. I learned so much this summer about myself. This helped me to better understand what I may want to do once I graduate as well as just how hard it will be.

Two of the hardest lessons I learned were that I cannot always help and no matter how much you love someone sometimes bad things will still happen. A boy we will call “M” was moved to my group due to his behavior in his previous color group. He was definitely known to all of the leaders as one of the hardest kids to teach. I like to think of my relationship with him as one of my biggest accomplishments this summer.

Disciplining M was so much harder than disciplining other kids because his emotions can vary greatly in a split second. Each time I tried to “help” him not hurt another child he would yell,“don’t touch me you %*$#@.” This happened about three times a day when I started working with him. Other times he would kick the shins or punch the cheek of anyone near him. And there was absolutely no means for calming him down when he didn’t want to listen. I like to describe his anger tantrums as him “hulking out.” He would literally look like the Hulk right before he turns all green and muscular.

Thankfully our time together started to show him improving drastically. By the last few weeks of camp his tantrums started happening less frequently. He would come sit by me when he was angry, look at me and say,“Sara Kate, I’m going to sit here until I’m not angry anymore.” After a few minutes he would make a joke and give me the best smile in the world before getting up to go play. I was so proud! He even started apologizing on his own when he would punch me or call me names.

I also got to hangout with him at night. He would show up and knock on the intern door and ask for me. Then we would just sit out on the stoop and talk while he played temple run on my phone.  Somewhere in between getting hit and getting hugged, I discovered that maybe what I want to do with my life is work with kids like M who just need someone to love them no matter what.

I tried to tell him often, “M, I still love you no matter what you say or do.” The first few times he looked at me like I was crazy but eventually he began to smile as if to say, “I know, I know.” He started holding my hand anywhere we went and began to show more trust.

I already knew that M gets abused at home but I just found out that his family is getting kicked out of their apartment too. This means they will go live in a shelter and M and his brother will get put back into foster care. All of this breaks my heart. This is the point in the summer where I learned I cannot fix everything. I would adopt him myself if I could but I know that is not realistic. Honestly, I can hardly do anything for him, but I can pray for him.

This summer seemed to teach me more than any classroom time could for the tough reality of loving and helping kids who need me. I can’t take them all home. I can’t fix all of their situations by snapping my fingers. I can’t do a lot of things, but I can be present in their lives. I can work with them. I can teach them that they are meant for so much more than what they think they deserve.

Stay tuned for more short stories from my summer! 

Strength

I know it's been a while since i've posted a blog but i've been so busy and overwhelmed it's crazy!

This has been one of the hardest summers of my life. In the last week I have faced more struggles and challenges than I ever have before. I'm seeing a new picture of myself as well as the world around me. Life is so unfair.

I've been so blessed by my family and friends this week. I've been reminded how much I'm loved and prayed for, and trust me I couldn't have made it this far without all of the reminders.

This past Christmas the girls in my extended Luttrell family all got together and shared how we could pray for one another. We each chose one word that summed up how we wanted to grow through the next year, and how the rest of the family could pray for us. I shared the word "strength." As my grandmother told me today, "I didn't realize how true that would be for you."

To be completely honest, I'm at a place right now where I  feel like I have absolutely no strength left in me. As my wonderful mother reminded me I'm at a place where I now have to let God give His strength to replace what I've already used of my own. Leaning on God has taken on a whole new meaning. He is a solid rock.

I'm praying for the ability to see one good thing in everyday here. Today I saw a child, who usually gets into fights and hits me and other kids in the group, have one of the best days of the summer. He was so good all day and was so into everything we did. It was amazing.

Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts our way! We need them more than you know.

Camp Day 2

Day 2 of camp was better than the first day!

The kids and I got to know each other better and learning our routine really helped.

We also had AMAZING volunteers helping us in our groups,

as well as teaching at the different stations.

Here are a few pictures from our day. 

The pictures above are of my kids during reading.

I was really surprised they enjoy it as much as they do. 

This is me with V.

She live next door and hangs out with us a lot.

The kid being silly in the back is C.

He acts tough when the other kids are around,

but before they all get to camp he sits next to me and just hugs me for a long time. 

This is G.

She is awesome!

Se is one of the sweetest kids in my group. 

I call this picture camp love.

This was on the way to learning station one afternoon.

They were both trying to get her attention.

This is from left to right: D, D, and C.

(sorry for all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary for privacy.)

D. loved playing in the park for games.

This was right after he threw a frisbee.

He also lives right next to me so I get to see him a lot. 

From left to right this is D, B, and Y.

I was so proud of them for sitting with Y while we were at the park,

since he couldn't really do anything there.

These kids really enjoyed playing soccer.

Camp Day 1

It's been awhile since I've had time to sit down and write about my crazy adventures here. But I finally found some down time so here we go...

Day 1 of Camp:
Monday was our first day of Camp! It went pretty well for the most part. I am in charge of the orange group (obviously) and we currently have 12 kids in our group. I know I'm biased but I have a pretty fantastic group. We have a few things here and there that we have to work on, but mostly I just get to be the kids friend not disciplinarian, which i'm so thankful for! Below are pictures of my awesome kids on the first day of camp.

These are two of the kids in my group.

The kid on the left is here with the mission team for this week.

I'm really sad that he will be leaving after this week, he has been so helpful. 

This is V.

She lives next door to us so we get to see her all the time.

I was so excited when i found out that she was going to be in my group! 

This is the orange group at service.

They were learning about a organization called One Home Many Hopes.

It is an orphanage for girls in Africa.

I was so proud of them they all sat still and listened!

As part of my job here, I am in charge of planning all of the service activities,

so i was really excited they got so into writing letters to the the girls at this orphanage.

This is Y.

His family owns part of the church that we are using.

He is such a delight to have and he is so smart!

He surprises me all the time with the facts that he knows and he is really good at math.

The last thing we do during the day is games.

The kids have loved learning new games.

On the first day we played dodgeball.

By the end of the game the aggression they had towards each other was gone.

It was awesome!