A Month of Amazingness

Hey everyone!

It has been quite awhile since I have last posted and so much has happen. From hiking to fasting I have learned so much in such a short amount of time which proves to me that I am defiantly where I am suppose to be. In the past month I have passed my paramedic practical exams, but have no motivation to study for my written exam. I have hiked Sharp top mountain for sunset which was challenging for two reasons.One because it is all up hill literally all up hill!! Secondly, at the time I was fasting and on my second day, which made me rely more on God. Because lets be honest I am lazy and I don't push my self unless someone else is doing the same thing with me. So I had to put all my trust in the Lord to get me to the top of that mountain. And let me tell you part of the way up I was going to give up and turn around. But I pushed through and got to the top and I experienced Gods beauty in a new way! That same week as an intern class we all chose to fast electronics. It was interesting to see our community grow in a new way during our time. We had to be better face to face communicators rather then texters. It was hard to not just text someone to ask a question, but rather go and find that person on camp. I sure did get my exercise!

During this month I have had the opportunity to hike, mountain bike and camp. I have enjoyed the times hiking with some of the other interns and the conversations that we have, have made me think about things differently. The interns have introduced me to new foods and music which if you know me I am a picky eater, but there are some things that even I am surprised that I like! Also this month I was able to cheer on some interns as they ran a 5K in Jasper's Marble festival. Some of them have been trying to convince me to run and do a marathon or half marathon in the spring. I haven't fully committed to that yet, but I have committed to doing a triathlon relay. I would do the swim portion of the relay, which means I guess I better find a gym with a pool and start training!

Some of the best nights at camp are Wednesday night when we meet as an intern class and discuss our current book "Celebration of Discipline." The book talks about spiritual disciplines that as Christians which should try to use in our life such as prayer, meditation, fasting and much more. Each week we discuss a chapter and are given a challenge for the week. I really enjoy some of the conversations that we have during those nights. Pretty soon we are going to be meeting on another night once a month to talk about fundraising as a class we need to raise $55,800. Currently we have about half of that. If you would like to be a donor please email me at erinlp07@yahoo.com and I will explain how that process works. Part of this money will be going to a younglife camp in Nicaragua. In February we will be visiting the camp to help serve in any way we can help. If any of you have been to a younglife camp you know how amazing it is and there is a lot of work that goes into making camp that beautiful. We are hoping to prepare camp for the summer while we are there.

A new rotation is about to start. I will be in the kitchen for the next 3 months. I am passing the house keeping baton off to Dani! I am sure she will be much better then I am at it. I have figured out that I am not made for house keeping. I don't have a good eye for detail. But I am excited about the kitchen. I am not sure what position in the kitchen I will be, but it will be AM, PM or baker. Either way I am looking forward to learning the ropes of the kitchen and how to serve 600+ people each day 3x a day.

Next week is my last week in house keeping and Tyanna and Rachel are coming to visit. I can't wait to share the experience of camp with them. Plus 3 days off to hang out with them is much needed as we finished our busy season. Which reminds me that anyone is invited to come to sharp top for a few days for free and experience camp.
Keep it real y'all
Erin

Our hike from a trail head down the road from camp.

Living the good life!

It has been awhile since I last posted! A lot has happened! I had a weekend off and we went to a Atlanta braves game. My first ever major leauge baseball game and it was a ton of fun! Patrick(Colorado), Brandon(Michigan), Luke(Illinois), Thomas(year long from last year from Virgina), Octavia(Flordia) and I all went. It was a great time! The week was just like any other working and hanging out. During the week we had our usual intern time where we finished sharing our life stories. Also one night during the week we all listened to a Sermon online and had some great conversation which was probably the highlight of my week.

This past weekend we had a group of 1,000 people stay here!! Our camp only holds about 650 with mattresses on the floor. We used this camp called grandview salvation army camp and we had buses shuttle campers to and from the dorms at the grandview camp. The camp is literally just outside our driveway which is about 2 miles long and winedy! The buses have to go super slow and no one else is allowed on the drive way except one bus at a time! Camp went great for meal times they came in sessions. They had 3 sessions, 4 if you want to count work crew lunch as a session. The kitchen crew did a great job! It was a lot to cook all at once and tipically we ask to have 1 work crew person for every 10 people.  This work crew was incrdibly small they only had 1 person for every 22 people! But the kitchen crew handled it magnificently! Everyone was fed in a timely manner camp ran so smooth it was such a blessing from God and answered prayers! I had the day off the group was here and I ended up going to take my practical exam from national registry which I PASSED!! After my test I headed back to witness the amazing weekend of camp! The only down side to such a large group is the turnover. We had to clean the entire camp not just a few cabins, but we did it!! Now we get to do it all over again next weekend!! The second half of the group is coming this next weekend. I am defineatly living the good life here at camp! Recently my days off have been work a day, off a day ect. which is nice! I am hoping to post some more pictures soon!

First weekend off!

This week was long.... We had a group of crazy kids some of which had a soda and lotion fight in a cabin which we had to clean up and the entire week the camp had trash all over! On the bright side, the kids cleaned up the camp well and made out job easier at the end of the week. It was very much a high stress week, but luckily we get the weekend off to enjoy. All of the girls either went home or to visit some friends. One of the guys went home for the weekend and the other went to TN to go to a football game. So Patrick, Brandon, Luke and I are chilling at camp for the weekend. Last night we enjoyed the Pickens younglife tailgate and football game. After the first quarter we headed to Race Track a gas station that has awesome fountain drinks for those of us who actually drink them. I had a great time!! Last night I had about 12 hours of sleep which was magnificent!! Today I did a couple loads of laundry and met up with the guys to play some 2 on 2 sand volleyball, sadly it started to rain so we headed to the gym to play some bball. Currently we are watching the Michigan football game and we are planning to go to Anne's wedding shower and possibly go to the look out if it is clear to see if we can see Atlanta! I am looking forward to this coming week I feel like after a nice break that we will all have our minds set on the right thing and can be more efficient. I am working on how to add pictures. Here is one of camp!

Jason's Visit

Hey everyone! So it has been awhile. I have been keeping super busy! camp is still in peek season so we have campers almost everyday of the week and we turn over the camp at least 3 or 4 times a week. Cleaning is a lot of fun when your doing it with a bunch of amazing people! This weekend Jason (my brother) was here because hurricane Earl was coming and I am the closest relative. He arrived Thursday night and slept up at Cherokee with all the guy interns. The next day not much was planned at camp, just turnover, so he headed on up to see my family up in Chattanooga about a 2 hr drive. He stayed up there till the next morning when he came back to camp and helped me and Brandon with the laundry before lunch and he enjoyed free time and doing all the the rides such as the climbing wall, quantum leap etc. He also got to see club and enjoyed work crew lunches with me! On Saturday evening after work we headed to the Hornaday's house where I was dog sitting and we had a little get together to watch the LSU game! It was a great time and the dog was incredibly good and super cute!!  It was a fabulous weekend! Luckily next weekend all the interns are off! I am still not sure what I am doing, but whatever it is I am sure it will be fun!

CO (certified operator) training!

Hey everyone!
So I realized I haven't really told you a lot about where I am living! I am living in a house with 3 other girls the house is on camp property and called south fork! We have a living room 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms! It is an awesome place!! Any way this week has been amazing!! We had CO(Certified Operator) training, which means that I can set up, take down, run and rescue on any ropes activity ever made! It was very exciting week since I love to be up in the air! For 3 days we were tying knots, learning about ropes and back up systems and everything you could think of about high adventure!  We had 2 days of training and 1 day of testing all 9 of us interns past! It was a really hard test that you had to get and 85% on! We also had to do all the elements to show we know how to set up, take down and run everything! It was a very tiring 3 days, but a very good work out! I can't wait for this next week to see what God has in store. This weekend we have the whole southeastern regional staff of younglife here! So it should be a great weekend!

The Lake House

So this past week went great!! I got to Wrangle(run rides) and we did 2 turnovers(cleaning all of camp) last friday-sunday! I have had an awesome time so far working with these other 8 interns! This weekend we had the opportunity to go up north to a lake house that was offered to us by an awesome supporter of Sharp Top Cove!  We drove up Sunday night after turning over the camp! It was  a fun drive through the mountains and the house is hidden back down a long drive way! When we got there is was dark, but we decided that the dock was just too cool to jump off to wait for tomorrow! The dock was 2 levels! The first level was 15 feet! The second one had a rope swing to jump in the water with! We had a great time! We headed in the house after awhile to talk about the year and to play scene it! I thought I was pretty good at scene it, but Dan knew everything about every movie before I was born so his team dominated!! It was still a great time! The rest of the weekend we learned more of what our jobs are to look like and had some fun in the sun. Monday I decided to swim the river with one of the guy interns, Luke who is training for a triathlon we estimated that we swam about a half mile! In the evening we enjoyed sharing some life stories and playing more games and just hanging out! Tuesday morning we stripped our beds and cleaned them before we took off for home! Stay tuned because my next blog will have more info on where I am staying for the year!

1st day of work!

August 16th-

It was finally hear after 8 months of anticipation! Our first day of actual "work" at Sharp Top Cove! And by work I don't really mean work I mean fun! I never feel like I am working when I am at a younglife camp! At 8am all of camp staff had a morning devotional together then we all headed of to work. My first rotation is house keeping, which is really more house keeping/ropes! Brandon who will arrive on friday will be my partener on house keeping staff. We also have a newly hired supervisor named Lacy! She is really awesome! After devo I headed to the office to meet up with our guest services interns. Guest services are the interns that deal with the groups that rent out camp during the week or weekends they get them what ever they need and host during the time they are here. Guest services interns are Octavia, Mike and Patrick. So I met up with them for a little bit of ropes training to get us through the week until we have our CO training (certified operators) next week. We learned how to set up the wall and belay properly as well as how to operated the giant swing (a very large swing that drops you from 40 feet) and quantum leap (a very small pole you have to climb and jump off while trying to hit a bell) Then we headed to lunch with the rest of the staff and after the campers had some free time to ride the rides while we operated them. After free time we had dinner and after I headed into town with a previous summer intern named Casey who brought me to canton which is about 30 mins away from camp. To get to down town Jasper it takes about 15 mins. The camp is beautiful and completely secluded!  When we got back I was incredibly tired, but I found out I had tuesday off!!
More later

Movin to Georgia!!

August 15th-
That morning I left at around 5:40am to make my way to Georgia! The trip is suppose to be 12 hours, but I made it in 11hours!  Half way through my trip my AC stopped working and I had to roll down my windows. Toward the end of my trip the AC started working again! I only stopped 2 times for gas and the potty. I thought I was lost toward the end because the drive way to the camp was so long and curvy that I thought I must have made a wrong turn. But eventually I saw a sign that said welcome to Sharp Top! I pulled up to the girls house which is called south fork! I walked in and was greeted by four girls who helped me unload my car in about 2 mins! It was great! I started to unpack, but only got half way done before we headed up to camp for dinner. We got to the kitchen and found out that the bus of kids was delayed because it rear ended a car. So we all grabbed some food and got a bit of a camp tour and headed back to south fork to chill. Everyone seems so great! I am absolutely lovin it! I was super tried, but we didn't hit the hay till almost 12am the first day of work started at 8am the next day!