Summer 2011

Hello everyone!
As many of you know, I am going to be working at YouthWorks this summer as Program Staff. In a nutshell, YouthWorks is a Christian organization that arranges week-long mission trips for junior high and high school students. In the past, the youth groups from St.James/Living Faith have gone on a mission trip through YouthWorks every summer. If you do not know much about YouthWorks, putz around their website a bit and check out all of their different ministries: http://youthworks.com/

Each week, a group of 50-75 junior high/senior high students and their adult leaders from different Christian denominations will be coming from various parts of the country to work with local children, repair/paint homes, visit the elderly of the community, and learn about the culture of the site. The students will arrive Sunday afternoon and leave the site Friday morning, which leaves the rest of Friday to gather up lose ends of the week and run errands for the next week; Saturday is a day of rest; and Sunday we begin the preparations for the next group to arrive. There are four members on a typical YouthWorks Staff: The site director who oversees the team and the overall flow of the site; Work Projects Staff who facilitates the work being done on resident's homes; Kids Club Staff who guides the students in working with the children of the town; and Program Staff (me) who works to build relationships between the organization/participants of YouthWorks and the community. I also will be leading Club (the evening worship) and giving the talks to the students. I have the unique pleasure of being able to teeter between the Kids Club and the Works Projects sites during the week, which will be wonderful, as I will get to experience all aspects of the YouthWorks ministry. My main objective, however, will encouraging connections between the incoming students and the community.

YW has 75+ sites around the country, but I have been selected to work in Martin, South Dakota. Martin is a small town in Southwest South Dakota located between the Pine Ridge and Rosebud American Indian reservations. The racial makeup of the city is primarily white (54 percent) and Native American (38 percent). While the Native Americans in Martin live off the reservation, they still retain important connections with the reservation community. The city’s position between two reservations has produced racial tensions between Martin residents and the Indian tribes, but the people of these communities are now making efforts to be more sensitive to one another. The area also is home to many low-income families; nearly 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. What I have gathered from speaking with my site director is that the people of the town are nice enough, but the immense amount of poverty and the racial tensions have made this place a difficult site, one that YouthWorks has been called to reach very specific goals in their ministries. After a week of training in Denver, Colorado (from May 23-27), Martin will be my home until August. I will be staying at a local church there and--you guessed it--sleeping on an air mattress and living out of a suitcase for 10 weeks. Oh yeah!

Pastor Bob of Living Faith Anglican encouraged me to put together a personal prayer team for the summer, and because he is a smart man, I thought I would go with it. To anyone reading this...I would greatly appreciate it if you could remember me and my team in your thoughts and prayers this summer. I hear that we may have internet on the weekends, and if that is the case, you will probably receive blog posts of updates and prayer requests from me. If not, there will definitely be text message updates instead! Some prayer requests to start us off...

Please pray for:

~Good team dynamics that our relationships may be strong and Christ-centered
~Each member of the team, that our nerves may be calmed in the days leading up to training
~Safe travels to Denver and then to South Dakota
~Each member of the team that we may learn the skills needed for our specific job and that we rely on God's strength to accomplish our tasks
~Good relations between the people of Martin and the YouthWorks organization/participants
~The incoming students and leaders, that God will work in them and through them.
~The talks that I will be giving each night to the students; may they be the words of God and not mine, and that they reach the students in a new, tangible way.
~The health and strength of each of the team members leading up to and during the summer (Especially me, as I have not been feeling the greatest these past few days)

Thank you to all for your prayers this summer! I would greatly appreciate it if I could receive emails or Facebook posts of encouragement from you as well; those would keep me positive and focused on the work God has set out for me to do. It doesn't have to be much, just a little line to let me know you are thinking about me and praying for me. I wish you all the most blessed of summers and I look forward to feeling your prayers this summer!

For Him,
Allison

P.S. I am terribly sorry to those of you I promised I would see before I took off. This week has literally flown by as I have been trying to get things in order for the summer! We will see each other soon and be connected in Christ until then :) And to all of you at Camp Lutherwood--I am so sorry I am not returning. I miss you all so much! I know that God will continue to perform amazing camp miracles through you! Please sing "I Just Want to be a Sheep" at the top of your lungs for me! <3