The early bird catches the worm....

Or in this case, the first participants.

My team and I spent Friday traveling from Lynn to Philadelphia for something YouthWorks likes to call "Early Bird Week".  Our Area Director is here to work with us as we join forces to go through a week of actually having participants on site.  It's basically on-the-job training.  It's exciting and nerve-wracking all at once.

But I guess I should catch you up a bit...

After a long week of training, we set out for Lynn on May 28th.  The weather was gorgeous when we arrived, and I got some glimpses of the coast as we drove in.  I'm so excited to get to spend this summer living literally 10 minutes from the beach!  The city of Lynn isn't too much bigger than Harrisburg, so it's definitely not intimidating.  I've learned my way around pretty quickly and now know how to get to the YMCA to shower and to the laundromat so I should be good... haha.

We've spent the last two weeks working hard to prepare for the summer.  Many long hours have resulted in some pretty awesome Clubs (the evening large group time), plans to keep the kitchen organized, and a reality TV theme that includes a Real World-esque video introducing our staff to the participants.  My staff is awesome!  They're all hard workers, creative, and willing to have fun while getting stuff done.  I'm so grateful to God and YouthWorks for putting together such an incredible team.  I'm looking forward to a great summer.  This is such a great opportunity to grow in so many ways... and to enjoy Dunkin' Donuts on a regular basis (they are all over the place up here!).

The church and community in Lynn are incredible.  The church itself is old and beautiful.  The sanctuary has stunning stained glass and a gorgeous pipe organ that gets played every Sunday.  The congregation is diverse with people from the Caribbean, Africa, and other places around the world.  The kids of the neighborhood have grown up with Kids Club and can't wait for it to get started (as evidenced by the fact that they show up on our doorstep almost every day asking for Meredith).  Everyone we talk to tells us how much the community appreciates having YouthWorks present every summer.  We've apparently had 10 years of great relationship-building that have gone before us, and I'm excited to add our names to the list of people who have been God's hands and feet in Lynn.

So we've got this week in Philly, and then we head back to Lynn for our first week of participants.  I can't wait to get things started for realsies!