Time is flying by...

Wow, have things ever been busy down here! I have a job at Chick-Fil-A and I have to wake up at 3:55 in the morning in order to get there on time at 5 AM. I have all the early shifts which is not really my preference, but God is teaching me things.

When I first got my job, I was picturing myself working on the cash registers or helping out in the front rather than doing stuff in the back, but just the opposite happened. I spend most of my time filleting raw chicken and then breading it followed by putting it down in the fryers. It gets old pretty quickly and I just didn't want to do it any longer. I had a pretty negative attitude about it always working early in the morning and never getting enough sleep. I really wanted to quit at one point, but we are not allowed to quit our jobs on project.

Then on Sunday evening when we have one of our two project group meetings for the week, God really broke me down. I prayed that he would because I felt like I just wasn't having the relationship with Him that I wanted and felt somewhat distant as I got caught up in all the activities and didn't take the time to have some quiet time with Him to recharge. That Sunday night though, one of the girls from project came up to share something with everyone. She had severely fractured her ankle skim boarding and was taken to the hospital. She then found out that she was going to have to have surgery. She came and told us all the news and that she was going to have to go home and leave project early. I felt so bad for her as I knew how awesome it was to be at project and she started crying a bit.

Imagine meeting a new family, new brothers and sisters in Christ to grow together with where you have the whole summer. Well, that is what Summer Project is and she was expecting that to happen. Then when this happened, through her tears, she was able to tell us that she knew God has a plan in it. She told us that it broke her heart to have to leave us all because we've all become so close of friends.

Then it got me thinking... what am I doing complaining about my job all the time. I just went to work, got back and was really crabby. All I would do was complain and try to make people feel sorry for me. Was that glorifying to God? Of course not. I have this awesome privilege to be on Summer Project in the first place, and secondly, I actually have a job where I can make money which is not always and easy thing to find. There are about 5 people on project right now who do not have jobs and they are having a hard time finding them. They've been working every day looking for jobs actively and there just don't seem to be any or people are just not getting back to them soon enough.

Through all this, God is just showing me to be content. In Michigan, I couldn't just go to the ocean beach a block away and swim in the nice warm water in the nice hot weather. I absolutely LOVE the weather down here. It's upper 80s pretty much every day and gets down to mid to upper 70s at night. I have not yet worn a jacket while I've been down here and there are very few bugs down here. You can just sit out at night in our yard and hang out with people and enjoy the nice breeze. I have so much to be thankful for. Tomorrow I am going to do some sharing of the Gospel out on the beach with my friend Matt Bahr, and I'm really excited for it. Today is "Killing the Giants" week and the theme is: "If you had one week of your life to dedicate to sharing the gospel, what would it look like?" We are all challenged to initiate conversations as much as possible this week with the intention of sharing the gospel. The beach has SO many people on it and there are so many opportunities as it is a vacation spot and people are coming just for like a week at a time. We have really loud neighbors that like to party and rather than being frustrated by it, God has just worked on the hearts of people on this project and every night there are a lot of people going and sharing the gospel with them.

The environment down here is just so amazing and I am so greatly blessed with this opportunity. Thank you so much for your prayers all who are praying and thank you for your financial contributions to all that gave as it would not have been possible for me to get down here without God working in your heart to give!

I need to get to bed. I have the next two days off of work which I'm really excited about which is the only reason I am up until 12:44 AM. Thanks again for your prayers

First few days down.

Well I finally have a little bit of time to write a little bit. Since I got down here, I've met tons of people, although I find it very difficult to remember all the names. There are 92 students on Project and I knew none of them before I carpooled from the Twin Cities area down here. I've already swam in the ocean two times at night with the full moon and it was warm and the air was still warm. I haven't worn a jacket yet and if anybody knows me... that must mean it's decently warm. It's been in the 80's so far and gets into the upper 60's at night.

I have moved into my apartment I'll be staying at and I have 3 awesome roommates. I just swam in the ocean and hung out on the beach a bit today as well. Yesterday was day 1 of 2 for job hunting which explains why I had the free time to hit the beach today. I got a job at Chick-Fil-A yesterday. The managers came to our project site and explained everything among some other employers from McDonalds. There were more project options as well as places that people have worked in the past.

I told myself I wasn't going to work fast food again, but Chick-Fil-A is different in quite a few ways than the other places and about 12ish other project students are also working there. We applied, got accepted, went through orientation, and ordered uniforms yesterday and we're entered into the system. It was so convenient for the job to just come to us. Some people are still looking for jobs now including one of them being one of my roommates.

We've been having various project orientation type things going on this week so far and it's been great getting to know everyone and seeing God work in unique ways. I've done one outreach so far, but am soon to do more. At night, we've been singing praise songs on the beach together and it's just a great place to focus on God with all of my new friends.

Please be praying for boldness for everyone on project and for open hearts for the people that we will be sharing with that we would be led by the Holy Spirit and that God would use us in really incredible ways in the lives of those at our work places and on the beach!

Until later,
Nate