November.

It is November. How can it already be November? I truly believe that once you have worked at Project Transformation, you always measure time by how long ago Project Transformation was, and how long from now it may be...3 months and 4 days ago...6 months and 2 weeks from now...

November is an interesting month. For me, it has always been when everything falls apart, and then when everything comes back together. In college, this has always been the month that brings endless assignments, deadlines, projects, and so on, all due before Thanksgiving break. Procrastination finally catches up from the rest of the semester, and piles on the workload, keeps piling it on! Then work and school, work and school, oh, and don't forget to find a spring internship. Not just any internship, but an internship that matters. As if that's not stressful enough, an unpaid internship, on top of a paid job and classes. It's all really too much for one person, isn't it?

But then....after Thanksgiving....everything comes to a halt. Nothing is due until finals week, and the only thing that's left is waiting.

Waiting, waiting waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come....

Okay, but this is really what it feels like to me. I realize it's all pretty standard, but the 16th year of school gets kind of monotonous! I wish that I wasn't just "waiting" because once it's over, it's over. Maybe I will be sad, maybe I will be happy, but either way, the end is near and I will never be going back to college. And you can't make me.

(disclaimer - not that I didn't like it, etc, waste my money, etc, jumping the gun on life, etc, I get it I'm very fortunate, it's just time!!)

We Will Be Joy

I will sing a song to you, and you will shake the ground for me


There is no one like God who shakes the ground before us. He is brave, and kind, and wondrous, and careful. He is everything we are, and everything we're not. He is the part of us that we can't be by ourselves. 

There is a verse that Project Transformation presented to interns during training week, a verse to "live by" throughout the summer: 

May the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together–spirit, soul, and body. Thessalonians 5:23 

This summer, I am finding pieces of myself here and there - not to say I am falling apart, but rather, I am all over the place. I am excited to get to site every day, but also tired by the time we return...I am confident in all I do, but unsure of plenty too...I love the new group of interns, but miss the old, familiar faces of last summer...I'm at peace in Dallas, but I'm homesick at the same time. At PT, there is always SO much going on - at site with the kids, before they get there, while they're there, after they leave, back at campus there's dinner, and events, and of course late night preparation for the next day, and late night talks and games with new friends. With my time here, I've realized how hard it is to set your sights on a goal, and leave your sights on that one, solitary goal until it's complete. My goal at the beginning of the summer was simple - to be more vulnerable. To what? Nothing in particular, just generally more vulnerable. Well, that's easy enough.

Maybe not, because I have yet to meet my goal. Along the way, though, I have developed countless more goals, including the whole "being whole" thing : ). I have come to find out that sometimes it is just as important to be always trying to reach my goals as it is to succeeding and moving on from them. I am a better person attempting to better myself, and if I had no goals to work up to, I wouldn't have that. Maybe who I am is not "vulnerable," and it's important to know that you can't be everything. That is part of how God makes us whole - we don't have to be what we aren't because he can step in and be that for us. Even when I think I can't be vulnerable - God is there and he tells me I can do it through him. He shakes the very ground before me and makes it possible. 

The interns here are very much working together through God. He takes parts of each of us, and shows us how we can be whole with one another. He lets us know that it's okay we can't be everything - we can't be Superman - but together, we can complete one another and accomplish all that needs to be done in a beautiful way. We can return the blessing and shake the ground for him.

Family Fun Night

It has been a busy couple of weeks here in Dallas with day camp kicking off. St. Mark's United Methodist Church is a wonderful place to be. Our first two weeks were awesome - Welcome to the Jungle & Superhero week! I am by far most excited about next week, though. We have the incredible opportunity to host a Family Fun Night where all of the kids can bring their whole family to the church for a free night of dinner and games! The kids will be diving into the Caribbean for Pirate Week with lots of activities to help them learn about the tropics that will lead up to our Family Fun Night: X "Marks" the Spot!

Why is Family Fun Night so near and dear to my heart? Growing up, my parents spent a lot of time with my brother and me. We ate dinner together every night, went on vacation together, and even had Family Game Nights. I know that not all of our kids at camp have the same experience with their parents - whether it's because their lives are busier, or just more stressful, it can be hard to incorporate family time when there is so much going on under the surface. 

Family time at Grandma's house, it seemed like this was every week

Family Fun Night with Project Transformation is a really great time for the parents and siblings to hang out with their family and have some stress-free fun! They will get to see what their kids have been doing at camp, and even get their feet wet with some of the activities that their kids have been doing, too.

So Arrrrrrrrrrrrr we ready to set sail?! 

AY AY CAPTAIN!

Training Week!

Hannah (a great friend & teammate from last year) & me at the North Texas Annual Conference

             Despite the name, intern training week at Project Transformation is full of fun and surprises! Yesterday concluded our week of preparation through sessions, team meetings, and (oh yeah) high ropes courses! The week is unique to the rest of the summer, as it is the most time we will spend "together" with the other 90 interns rather than apart in our separate teams at our sites. It's also a time that we have the opportunity to get to know the full-time staff of Project Transformation. It truly is a welcoming week into the rest of our summer.

I am full of spirit coming into the first week of camp with our kids. This year, I'm on a whole new team at a whole new site church! The St. Mark's team is a goofy bunch of interns, and we are loving it.

Lindsay is the sweet one, Rachel is the extroverted "introvert," LaShanta is the talent, Phil is the friendliest, Timmy is our comic relief, Amanda is the baby (our only team member not born in 1991!), Cole is the meanie pants, Crystal LOVES Dr. Pepper, Hannah has California swag, and Tess is the ever-happy teammate. Needless to say, we're already getting to know and love each other, even in this short past week.

About our site - we have 80 elementary kids and about 40 middle-schoolers at camp this summer, and the help of 4 high school volunteers. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to post pictures of the children online. However, PLEASE feel free to email or text me and I will happily send you pictures (in a text, email, or snail mail!)

How do the kids get selected to come to PT? Well, all kids in the program qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. From there, we have a waiting list of other children who usually have some kind of financial need. The families pay $5 to register their children. PT programming finances come from donation. (P.S. - if you're interested in donating - click this "Donate Now" button!)

Thanks for reading! I'll keep ya updated about our first week at site!

Shelley

St. Mark's SHARKS!

"Returner"

               Summer is finally here, and I’m happy to share that I will be returning to Dallas, Texas, to serve as an intern with Project Transformation again. My experience last year was absolutely incredible and shaped my character immensely. I learned a lot about myself, but also realized how much hurt there is in Dallas, and cities like it. The children we see every day are high-spirited youth with amazing life goals, even at the tender age of six. However, working at a day care throughout the year in Bowling Green, Ohio, with children of the same ages as those at Project Transformation, allowed me to acknowledge the real differences in child literacy that exists across the country.

During the summer at PT, children are given the opportunity to enrich their reading skills daily, and are exceedingly grateful for it. One child at my own site last summer could not read in the fall, and through participating in Project Transformation’s after-school program was able to read books by summer. The children learn to love reading, and are excited to read with our volunteers. Through PT’s reading program, 97% of children who participate will maintain or improve their reading ability!

                Throughout my internship last summer, I learned that these children need positive adult influences in their lives more than anything. As interns, we try to be role models to these children more than their “friends.” They look up to us, and know that we are doing something positive by working with Project Transformation. They know that we are all attending college, and want to follow in our footsteps and do the same. Some PT kids even talk about working for the program once they get to college, too. Last summer was the first time that a child who participated in PT became an intern with the program!

As Project Transformation is funded by donations, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to the program. Online donations can be made at www.projecttransformation.org, and check donations can be mailed to Project Transformation at 547 E. Jefferson Blvd, Dallas, TX 75203. If you do decide to donate, please include my name for reference. (You will receive a receipt and tax deduction for either method.) All donations sustain the summer program that I am involved in! Prayers for the program throughout the summer would be greatly appreciated!

More to come -

Shelley   : )

Missing Texas

I feel terrible for not posting the last two weeks of my internship - but I can assure you it was an intense two weeks. We wrapped up our site at Pleasant Mound and headed to our respective last weeks - some interns went to "Urban Camp" with the youth, while some stayed behind and ran "Adventure Week" with the youngins' from Oakcliff - one of PT's 9 sites. I was with the Adventure Week group. We had the opportunity to go on two field trips with the kids - a news station and the symphony. For the rest of the week, we spent our time presenting themed days to the kids, and tried our best to give them a great last week of camp. My favorite part was "Cupcake Wars" when the kids helped make cupcakes, and designed their own cupcake, similar to the Food Network show. For many of the interns at Adventure Week, it was very difficult to be around a different church site and different elementary kids, as well as a different team. Luckily, a couple of friends and I were able to meet with the group from Urban Camp and have a goodbye lunch with them before we left for home.

So, why am I deciding to catch up on my blog months later? I miss Texas. There are so many things I miss about this summer that I would give anything to be back right now. One of the interns said this - and I can't emphasize the truth in this one thought:

"The world should be more like PT."

The world really should be more like Project Transformation and the people in it. It's hard to be away from Project Transformation. It's hard to be away from our teams, our co-interns, the SMU campus, the church, and of course, the kids. The hardest thing about being away from PT, though, is not being surrounded by such good people every single day. It's hard to be in reality - that the world is not like PT. I had no idea how much it meant to be surrounded by such great faith throughout the summer until recently. Now that I'm back to school, I find it much harder to focus on the things that were important to me this summer. Somehow, I'm just realizing this - and I don't like it! I have decided that what I need is to make my life more like PT.

Pleasant Mound - just missing Josh! Man we're good looking.

Just Hanging Out!

At PT, some of the families of our kids at site so kindly invite us over for what we call “home visits.” Really, it’s a proper way of saying “one on one hang-out time” with our favorite kids! Last week, I had the opportunity of visiting the home of two kids in the program. Christina is in the elementary program with me and 6 other elementary interns, and Victor is in the youth program with our other 4 youth interns. Their older sister, Valerie, is a high school volunteer with the program. 

Side note on the high school volunteers:

The high school volunteers take part in the LITE Program of Project Transformation. These students have usually participated in PT as kids themselves, and are spending their summer volunteering to help us run our day camp! At P.Mound, our “Lites,” as we call them, are AMAZINGLY helpful to us. They work hard on a daily basis setting up site, helping us with things like arts & crafts, recreation, and bible lesson, serving lunch, and then helping cleaning up site, all with enthusiasm and optimism! They have a weekly meeting with other Lites from all of our sites discussing ways to plan their future, like college and finances. Most of the Lites at P.Mound have expressed an interest in becoming an PT intern once they are old enough to do so, and we cannot wait to see it happen! Without our Lites, our summer would have been much more difficult – SHOUT OUT TO OUR AWESOME LITES!!

 

So, Valerie is one of the most helpful Lites at Pleasant Mound. My favorite part about visiting Christina, Victor, and Valerie’s home was being able to hear about their culture firsthand. Most of our kids at P.Mound are Mexican – many speak Spanish, translate for their parents, take trips to visit their families in Mexico, and are very proud of their heritage. Valerie, having just turned 15 last year, had pictures and pride of her Quinceanera all over the house. She wore a big, BEAUTIFUL, bright yellow dress, and had a doll that matched to commemorate the celebration, along with matching decorative pillows and a matching photo album. She is the very first person I’ve met to celebrate their Quinceanera!

Ariel, Hannah, Antoine, and me being showed around at a home visit

!

My very first home visit this summer was with Oscar, Ricky, and Cynthia, all in the elementary program at P.Mound. The four of us interns who went didn’t really know what to expect walking in, but boy did we enjoy ourselves! It took about 3 minutes for the energetic kids to show us around their home, but for the next 2 hours straight, we played lots and LOTS of games with them. They went back and forth between playing different games they had learned at camp and singing a few songs they had learned, as well. We played Uno, we played Down By The Banks, we played football, we played Duck, Duck, Goose!, we played Ninja, we played name games, we played every game that we play almost daily at camp, but these kids really enjoy them (something we didn’t realize until we visited!). After this visit, the kids were much more outgoing at camp and had even more energy for being there!

The lady interns at Jose, Jocelyn, and Omar's!

Jose (elementary), Jocelyn (youth), and Omar (Lite) were another family that I had the pleasure of visiting this summer. Omar invited the other Lites over, too, so we had the opportunity to hang out with our new high school friends for the first time away from site!! We had so fun hanging out with them, swimming, jumping on the trampoline, enjoying a wonderfully home-cooked meal, and of course, planking random objects. Another great thing about home visits is that we can finally connect different kids in the program as family members. There’s about 70 kids at P.Mound, and the elementary interns never really have the chance to get to know the youth, so when we meet youth for the first time at a home visit, it’s a great opportunity to be able to get to know them! And, more kids are related at site than I thought on the first day of camp!

Before I was a professional Planker. Arms belong at your sides, people!

  

Tomorrow will be the last home visit of the summer, and next week will be the last week of day camp. The closer the end is approaching, the more I wonder about what my life will be like without these kids smiling at me on a daily basis. They have made my mind clearer, my laughter louder, my joys greater, my hands dirtier, my faith stronger, and my heart lighter. For now, I know that there are five more days that I get to spend with "my" kids. As for that fifth day, well…I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it : ].