Grand Canyon, AZ

So, what do you want to do this weekend?
Well, I really want to go to the Grand Canyon.
Okay!
Wednesday evening, after only one middle school kid showed up for youth group, we pondered our weekend plans. The three of us (the fourth intern's family was visiting), decided to camp at the Grand Canyon. We booked a campsite, planned our route, figured out costs, and borrowed a couple tents. We worked hard Thursday and finished some tasks on Friday morning. We left at about 11:00am. It's an 8 hour drive. We drove to our convenient halfway location, The Four Corners. We had a quick lunch, took some photos of ourselves in four places at once, and continued our journey.

We arrived early Friday evening to our campsite. We set up our tents, had some dinner and walked over to the nearest canyon lookout point to see the sunset over the Grand Canyon.


We planned to wake up at 7 the next morning, pack up, eat breakfast, hike through the morning and head out. After a rough nights sleep we packed up and ate and headed over to the tourist shop. Upon our arrival and finding that the shop hadn't opened yet, another visitor kindly informed us that Arizona does not participate in Daylight Savings Time, and that it was only 7:30. We had woken up at 6am. So we looked around, then returned and bought some postcards and headed out to hike. We drove to a different lookout point, hopped the fence and hiked down some rocks that had what could have been trails.




After a quick snack, we hiked back up, and hit the road. It was a quick trip, but one of the most amazin things I've ever seen. I'd go back and hike longer in a heartbeat.

Montrose, CO

It's been two weeks now that we've been back from Mexico. I'm starting to learn my way around town, remember people's names, leave clothes on my bedroom floor, and get comfortable in Montrose for the summer. We've worked full weeks, learning about planning events, preparing lessons, hanging out with kids, budgeting (time and money) and getting to know each other. We've had youth group and sunday school and spoken in church. We've been to the drive-in, coffee trader, and sunset mesa. We've shopped, hung out, walked down town, and played frisbee, and it's all starting to settle in.

I ride my bike to work every day, as the church is only about a mile and a half from my house, and I can see the mountains most of the way there.

We work in what's friendly referred to as B.O.B, or the Building Out Back. It's the youth building, but is shared by a Christian school.

We generally work all morning until about 3 or 4 and are able to spend the afternoons and evenings hanging out with kids.

Michelle and Ty

Hanna and Liz

Emily and Thomas

We've accomplished a lot and learned a lot and I imagine it will continue this wat throughout the summer. I really love it here and I know that God has led me here for a reason.

Ouray, CO

After my first if many hiking adventures this summer, i can officially say that elevation sucks when you're from Michigan.

With two girls, Michelle and Roz, I drove up to Ouray. We found a parking spot and hiked about 1/4 mile down a dirt road where we found one of seven of the Cascade Falls.

After taking some pictures and getting wet, we hiked about a mile up a trail on the mountain.

We intended to hike to the upper falls, but after realizing that it was another two miles, and hearing the thunder we decided to hike back down. It was the pre-hike for the 14er (That's 14,000 ft elevation) that Michelle and I plan to do in August.

Leona Vicario, Quintanaroo, Mexico

Without having met any youth or even been to the church we're working for, the four interns were sent to Mexico with 21 other people. 16 youth and 5 adults. We met the kids at the church on Friday June 1 at 7pm and hung out with the kids until 2am when we left for the Denver airport, 5 hours away. We flew from Denver to Cancun on the 2nd of June. When we arrived in Cancun we were bussed to a village about an hour and a half away called Leona Vicario. It is there that the mission organization we worked with, YPM (Yucatan Penninsula Mission), is based.

There is a cinderblock house there with rooms for their volunteers to stay in. Most of us slept in hammocks all week.


They had originally planned on having us work on a local school that they are building but a couple of other projects presented themselves instead. There was some damage to the cement roof from Hurricane Willma, and some other projects on the base that needed work. We were split into two groups. One group, spent the entire week hand mixing concrete to pour on the roof. It was poured in a taper so that rain would drain to the edges of the roof and out pipes that were used as gutters. After the damaged cement was chipped off we poured the new cement. In case you were wondering it takes 4- 5gallon buckets of sifted sand, 2- 110lb bags of concrete powder, a half bag of very acidic Calcium powder, and an indeterminate amount of water to make one batch of concrete. One batch fills about 10 buckets, and covers way less area than you would think.


The other team worked on preparing and building a 2ft wall to divide the grounds into a gardening area and a space to make a small soccer feild and pathway for community members that stay there. In the evenings we ran a VBS program for the village kids. Most consisted of some games, a song, and a hygene lesson. They truly enjoyed our presence and some of them even cried on our last night.


We spent the last day on the beach, Puerto Morales, near Cancun relaxing and enjoying the sun. We returned to Denver on the 8th of June and drove back to Montrose the morning of the 9th.

(That's me and Michelle, she will be a senior in HS and I am staying with her family for the summer. )

Telluride, CO

Only two short days after I arrived in Montrose, the Youth Director drove myself and the three other interns up to a mountain village and prime tourist hot spot known as Telluride. We spent two days in a nice log cabin facing a stream on one side of a mountain. We had a crash course in what our summer as interns will look like and programming for events but most of our time was spent hanging out with eachother. We were able to ask each other questions and play games and really bond as a team before meeting the kids.


It was great to learn about everyone and I can tell already that our cohesiveness as a group will be huge in our work this summer. We spent the last afternoon in the actual town of Telluride touring the mountain village and taking lots of pictures.

We had a short lunch and returned to Montrose to rest before being thrust into Mexico with about 16 youth we had never met....