Kentucky. Kansas. Texas.

In the last three weeks we've gone from Kentucky, to Kansas to Texas. So, we made it through. It seems I have so many things to catch up in the blogging world. Mostly because everything happened at once. These last three weeks have been insane! Tuesday, May 21, we moved from one house to another in Wilmore. As soon as we packed and unpacked, we re-packed so we could leave that Friday to go to Kansas and see Kyle's family. We spent some quality time with his parents and brother's family and then we left on Sunday to head to Dallas for yet another summer with Project Transformation. We  arrived Sunday evening and began leadership training during the last week of May. On June 1, the 101 interns arrived at SMU for check-in. Since last Saturday, we've hardly been able to breathe! It's a good thing, though. We've really enjoyed getting to know the new interns and seeing old friends. Interns trained this entire week and will train for a couple of days next week. Then, we send them off to their sites on Wednesday, June 12!

This summer, my official title with PT is "House Pastor" and Kyle's is "LITE Coordinator." In the past, we've both served as interns and have worked with elementary/youth students in the program. However, this summer is shaping up to be a little bit different. As a LITE Coordinator, Kyle will be working with youth who are too old for the program (10th-12th graders). He will be helping them accrue volunteer hours through PT and will create special programming for them during the weekday afternoons. Through programming, he will assist them in college prep, guide them through spiritual formation and teach them about social justice. He's excited to work with the LITES at Walnut Hill. I am excited he is at Walnut Hill -- my old stomping grounds.

As for me...the job of a house pastor is difficult to describe. On the surface level I am in charge of helping to plan worship, plan community events, take care of dinner volunteers and be a listening ear and mentor for interns. On the flip side (and there is a flip side, trust me) this job is about MUCH more than that. I am also a....motherly type figure, question-answer-er extraordinaire, disciplinarian, liaison, room un-locker (which also makes me a keeper of the keys), etc. At the same time, I am also still a student and a wife. Thankfully, God seems to be giving me grace to complete and be all of those things in this season of my life. It's a lot of fun. It's really draining. It's really life-giving. I'm looking forward to the summer ahead. I will be blogging more this summer, Lord willing. I think that will be my June resolution. We have a lot of great things coming up in June and I have a lot of good thoughts, too, that I want to share. So, look for more blogs this month as a part of my happiness project. I love to write and there are so many good opportunities to write and things to write about, I must seize them!

PT Time

Howdy!! *I am in Texas, so I felt that that would be appropriate.* As many of you know, I am working down in Dallas this summer with an urban ministry called Project Transformation. I arrived in Dallas at the end of May, so this is my second week here. Currently, there are approximately 99 interns living here with me on the SMU campus in the fraternity houses. It's been great so far! Last week we all went through training, and oh my was that a long week. But, I am happy to report that I am CPR and First Aid certified. I know, I know, I should just probably hit up med school next. Anyway, I made it through training and then had the opportunity to relax this weekend, go out to eat, hit up an art museum and go to the North Texas annual conference. It was a good time!

Yesterday was my teams first day at our site. We work at a church called Walnut Hill. All together, there are around 70 elementary students and 30 youth. I work with the elementary students. I had the opportunity to meet them for the first time yesterday and I just got back from site today, about an hour ago. I feel like I've already known these kids for years! Most of them strive to be your instant best friend for life. It's quite entertaining. 100% of the children we work with are Hispanic so they Looooooooooooooooveeeee soccer. During team planning last week, my team held that in consideration and decided that our first theme would be "World Cup Week." It's been really fun so far, and the kids love it! We decided to break down our week and learn about a country that is popular in the world cup games each day. Yesterday we learned about South Africa (since that is where the world cup is being hosted currently). Today we learned about Italy (they won the world cup last time); tomorrow we are learning about Brazil, and Thursday we are learning about Japan! The kids are really enjoying the cultural diversity. During our afternoon enrichment today, I taught the kids an authentic italian song called "El Grillo." They looooooved it and really enjoyed singing. It was a lot of fun.

Those are some of the fun things going on in my life at the moment. I would covet your prayers for a safe summer and also for my kids! They are so bright and joyful and it's my privilege to be able to teach them this summer! They are learning about so many wonderful things, and PT is a true blessing in their lives. Here's to summer 2010!

Molly's Travels + Desperation Photos

These are some pictures from the Desperation Conference that we went to last weekend. Most of these are just pictures of our group! Seven girls and one boy--Russell Harp, you're a brave one, sir! Kudos to Emily Hubbard--the amazing photographer, and all around amazing girl! Anyways, most pictures are pretty self-explanatory. There are some of worship towards the bottom and also there is one of our candle lighting ceremony. That was the last night of the conference and we had a candle-lighting ceremony to symbolize the conference's theme "Light Up The World." It was pretty powerful--that all happened after our group took up a $16,000 love offering to build an orphanage in Uganda. God really showed his grace through his people that night. Pretty awesome stuff!
This past weekend was a fun time. I went to Dallas with my friend, Lauren to visit another of ours, Kyle, who is doing Project Transformation--an urban ministry in the Dallas area. We all had great fun spending time with one another again, summer is long when you're in college! You don't realize how close you've become with the people there until you have to leave them for 3 months! We went to a waterpark, a Ranger's game, and celebrated the 4th in the Dallas heat. And, of course, I didn't walk away as pale, I have a lovely sunburn from the Texas sun even after applying and re-applying sunscreen. But, then again, I guess it wouldn't have been an authentic experience without it...Kyle IS always complaining about that sun.
This week I'm headed to Joplin, MO to take on the camp missionary position at a children's camp. Should be a great time. Prayers for strength and safe travel would be much appreciated. I'll keep you posted.....with that all said....enjoy these Desperation photos!