Week 1: RAMP in the Mile High City

I think I may or may not have had the worst possible flight ever from Detroit to Denver...see if you have any past experiences that can one-up this one....I'd love to hear them! After boarding, we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours while they fixed something on the plane (it seemed to be something new every time they went on the intercom). Then, the flight almost got cancelled because of high winds in Denver. Did I mention that there were two screaming babies, lots of passengers upset at with the noise, lots of BO because it was hot in the plane, and the that the guy next to me puked in a bag as we landed (with lots of windy turbulence)?

But, thankfully I made it there, minus one of my bags which had been left in Detroit. I then waited another hour in line to claim my bag and met up with my YouthWorks! pick up person ( a full three hours behind schedule- yikes!) And now, I think I can pretty much say that I've experienced everything that can go wrong on a flight...

Denver is an awesome city- the mountains tower over the downtown area that the city just looks so tiny in comparison! I actually didn't get a chance to go downtown at all because the church we were staying at was in Broomfield, which is a suburb.

RAMP is our one week long training session that stands for Regional Area Mission Preparation. We covered pretty much every thing you need to know for a YouthWorks! summer- cooking for 70 people, making connections in your community, where to shop, shopping and inventory lists a mile long, etc. We were up from 7am to about 11pm, nonstop. I also met the other team members for different sites across the West- it was great getting to know a whole new crowd of college aged students who love Jesus and are so excited to be serving this summer! So, I have a bunch of new contacts for future road trips!

I also had a lot of time to get to know my team members/summer family/automatic friends for the next ten weeks, and they are great and much crazier than what I expected! David and Stephen are the guys, and Heather is my girl buddy. We already have great inside jokes, and Stephen and David have definitely adopted me as their little sister because I get teased all the time by them. I wonder if Tom and Kevin (my brothers) sent them some tips beforehand because they are all a lot alike!

One of my favorite parts of the week was an evening trip to Lookout Mountain, which is a park with awesome mountain views unlike anything I've ever seen before! It was a nice day, but it had started to get a little stormy, so you could see these huge storm clouds in the sky, and every now and then they would flash lightning (don't worry, these were way farther off). I've never felt closer to touching a sunset before, and it was magnificent! It's awesome to think that these same mountains bow down before my God!

Psalm 19 (New International Version)

Psalm 19

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

³ There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

⁴ Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

⁵ which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.

(pictures to come)