Off to orientation

Tomorrow I will be heading up to Jackson County, KY to attend a 4 day orientation. We will be staying at CAP’s Camp AJ. This is where they hold many of their teen retreats and all of their summer camps. I have only been to Camp AJ once and that was when I came down to interview, so I am definitely excited to get back up there. There will be plenty of hiking, swimming, kayaking, etc. – it should be a good time.

Then when I return to McCreary after orientation, I will be heading down to Knoxville, TN for the weekend, so my blog writing will be light for the next several days. But I will have lots to report and many pictures to share when I get back from this little week long adventure.

God bless!

New favorite – Bluegrass music!

Feet stompin’, hands clappin’, bodies shaking, people singing and praising the Lord – it was all part of my evening last night as I attended my first ever Bluegrass festival in Whitley City. The festival runs from Thursday till Saturday and my friends and I decided to attend Friday night, which was Gospel Bluegrass night. Boy was I in for a treat!! There were 7 different bands: Jeff Bryant, Marcus Neal, Kathy Joy Bell, Mavis (Neal) Hughes, Soul Pickers (my favorite), The Cupps, and Bluegrass 101.

All of the bands were fantastic, but my favorite were the Soul Pickers. Never would I have thought, I would have liked Bluegrass music, but surprisingly, I do! I was dancing and singing along with everyone else. The people here in Kentucky sure do enjoy their music. This will definitely not be my last Bluegrass festival!

Here are some pictures from the evening:

My favorite band of the evening - Soul Pickers

Allen and I at the Bluegrass festival

The stage!

The entrance to the festival

My first snake!

Well, it finally happened – I saw my first snake here in Kentucky. I was attending Family Fun Night at the school and we were in the gym getting ready to eat and I saw it, crawling under the gym mat. It made me jump a bit (okay – I jumped a lot!) and then I promptly yelled at my friend to come and get it. One of the teachers came over instead, picked up the mat, then the snake and threw it outside.

I knew there were snakes in KY, but I was praying I would never ever see one, no such luck. Now it wasn’t a big snake, but it was still a snake. And I don’t care how big or small it is, they are still icky! I am hoping though that this is the last snake I encounter while I am here, but I have a feeling it won’t be .

A little camping adventure

Well, I survived my first camping adventure at Natural Bridge Park here in Kentucky. For my first trip, I think it went extremely well. We had great weather, although it was a little warm at night, a great camping spot, and beautiful scenery!

The trip actually started a little rough, when the guys told us girls that the nearest bathroom would be over 20 minutes away. Many of us were not too pleased to hear that, myself included. I don’t need first class facilities, but a bathroom close by would be nice. As it turned out though, there was actually a bathroom within a five minute walk. So, it all worked out!

When we got to the camp site, we promptly set up our tents, since it was getting dark. Here is a pic of me at my tent.

After we set up camp, we built a campfire and had some smores and good conversation. Then it was off to bed for me and surprisingly, I had a great night of sleep.

The next day, we got up and decided to head over to the actual Natural Bridge. We had to hike about a mile to get there – not too bad. Below is a pic:

It was absolutely beautiful at this park, definitely a place I will be returning to at some point.

Overall, my first camping experience was a good one and something I will hopefully have the opportunity to do again. But this time, I will make sure that there is a nice clean bathroom around. (Just kidding).

God bless!

Here are a few more pics from the trip:

Off to a little camping adventure

This weekend, I am going to experience camping for the first time! I will be camping at Natural Bridge here in Kentucky. I have never been there, but I have heard it is beautiful, so I am very excited about that.

I’ll have the full scoop on how the trip went along with pictures next week.

And again, please pray for all those that are in the path of Hurricane Ike.

God bless!

Disaster Relief comes to an end..

As promised, here are some pics from my time up in Louisville helping out the victims of Hurricane Gustav.

Here is a picture of CAP’s shower truck

And here are the showers…nothing too special about them, but I still think it’s cool that we can have ten showers in one truck. These are the girl showers, the guys are behind me.

And if you look all the way towards the back, you can see our washer and dryer. I believe CAP did over 150 loads of laundry in like 4 days!!

And finally, here is a picture of ME! Yep, there I am in my bright yellow vest standing in the showers. Fun times.

God bless you all.

Up next…some pictures of my new home!

An unusual Saturday…

Cleaning showers, washing towels, chatting with hurricane victims – it’s all part of volunteer work with CAP! Today, I spent eight hours with some of the evacuees from Hurricane Gustav up in Louisville, KY. What an experience! While today was one of the slower days, since they were sending a lot of the people home, I was still able to experience life up here in the shelter a bit. And I have to say the Red Cross has done an amazing job of keeping all of these people comfortable while they are away from their homes.

Today, I was basically in charge of cleaning out CAP’s trailer showers and washing towels the entire day. About 1500 evacuees have been staying up in Louisville since last Sunday and CAP came in then and brought up some trailer showers for them. Our trailers hold ten showers – 5 for men and 5 for women – it is pretty awesome.  While cleaning the showers and doing laundry was a lot of work, it was also very rewarding because I got to chat with many of the evacuees and hear their stories. One thing I am learning about the south, is that people love to share their stories with you! One guy sat with me for over an hour telling me his entire life story – it was a good time!

Tomorrow, I will be going back from 7 to 3 to continue cleaning and washing and I am sure to hear even more stories. Hopefully tomorrow the rest of the evacuees will be sent home – they sent over 1,000 home today and I am really praying that the rest of the people get to go home very soon.

Oh and I know I said I would post some pics, but the last few days have been crazy and at my new home, internet access has been a bit sketchy and slow – but I hope to post some new pics within the next few days.

God bless!

Parkers Lake, KY – my new home

Well, I made it to my new home in Parkers Lake, KY today. It is definitely in a beautiful part of the state – we are like ten minutes from Cumberland Falls – it is amazing! Tomorrow, I am going to meet some people from the community around here and some more CAP employees. I am really looking forward to that.

And it is official, tomorrow night, I am headed up to Louisville, KY to help with the diaster relief team up there. I have a shift starting at 11 pm going till 7 am and then another shift from 3 pm till 11 pm and then a final shift on Sunday from 7 am till 3 pm. It is going to be a long weekend, but a very rewarding one!

I will fill you all in on how it goes on Sunday night or Monday. And I might even have pictures too.

God bless!

My first day on the job

Today was my first day of training for the Outreach/Family Advocacy program and boy were my eyes opened to all the work that CAP does down here and the extreme poverty in this area. Many people had warned me about it and I thought I was prepared for what I was going to experience, but I was so very wrong. I can’t believe that here in the United States, the land of opportunity, the land of prosperity, that there are people living in sub-standard conditions and barely enough money to feed, cloth, pay utility bills, etc.

I know I saw some of this in Chicago, but for some reason it was easier for me to be blind to it all. But I won’t be able to do that here; which I guess in some sense is a good thing. And for me this is exactly what the Lord is calling me to – to be His hands and feet and to serve the poor. I just never imagined it being this difficult!

And as promised, here is a picture of the volunteer house that I have been living in the past two days. Tomorrow, I head out to my permanent house in McCreary County. (Yes, that would be the trailer)

Oh and I just found out that I will possibly be helping with the Disaster Relief team up in Louisville, KY. CAP is providing shower vans and helping to wash clothes for some of the victim’s from Hurricane Gustav. If I actually get to go, I will make sure to fill you all in on that little adventure.

God bless!

I have arrived in Kentucky!

After 7 hours in my little Saturn Ion, I have finally made it to Mount Vernon, Kentucky. I had a wonderful drive down today – the weather was perfect, very little construction, and barely any traffic. I couldn’t have asked for a better travel day. I arrived in Kentucky at about 6 pm (EST). I then was greeted by 3 volunteers and had a lovely dinner with them.

After dinner a few of the volunteers had to run to the Dollar Store and asked me to come along. This gave me a good opportunity to get to know a few of them better. I discovered that one of them lives in West Dundee, IL, which is not too far from my home town. We reminisced about IL suburbs and Chicago deep dish pizza!

After we got back from the little shopping adventure, I went on a short little walk and I realized that I am definitely not used to the altitude here. I climbed a hill and was huffing and puffing, like I had just ran a 5k. I will need to work on that! Then after the walk, I chatted with a few more volunteers and then headed off to my bedroom for the evening to check emails and catch up on a few things.

So, for my first evening here at CAP, things are going alright. I still miss all my friends back in Chicago and I am very nervous about performing well at my job, but I know God will give me the strength to get through each day. And I also know that as each day passes, I will grow more and more comfortable with living in Kentucky and volunteering.

Tomorrow, I will try to post a few of the pictures that I took on my drive down to KY.