I shared this with the staff on Saturday evening, but I was more than a little scared coming into staff training. Of the 40 people that are on staff at CCC this summer, there are two people (myself and someone else) who have never been on staff or even a CCC camper. Not only did this mean that I had a very steep learning curve, but it also meant that I didn't know a single person. I was worried that I would have trouble getting to know people or establishing myself in pre-existing groups or even just fitting in. I was worried that I would be too Jesus-y or not Jesus-y enough. Within just a few minutes of arriving at Camp Loy White, all of these worries were put to rest. I'm sure that somewhere up in heaven, God was having a nice little chuckle at why I was even scared in the first place, because I felt at home with the staff right away. Every single person was honest, genuine, and welcoming, and I knew that I was silly for worrying about anything to begin with.
At training, we had worship every evening as the last thing to finish out our day. By the time worship rolled around, we were all exhausted and ready to just go to bed, but each worship turned out to be just what I needed at that point in time. The theme for our worships was "expect": expect to be amazed, expect to fail, expect to matter, expect His will to be done, expect trials and expect joy, and expect GOD. The worship that focused on expecting God's will to be done was one that really spoke to me the most. When we walked in we were handed a sheet of paper with "my plans" written across the top, and the rest of the paper was blank lines. As soon as I was handed that sheet of paper, my mind started to race and to fill with plans that I have for myself: to be the hands and feet of God this summer, to go back to Haiti, to graduate from Carolina, to teach somewhere outside the US, to teach middle school math, to get married and raise a family...the list went on. We didn't write anything on our sheets just yet, but my brain was moving a zillion miles a minute nonetheless. As worship progressed, we were encouraged to think about what all if would mean to offer that future t(hat we have a tendency to plan out every last detail of) and completely surrender it to God. To leave ourselves completely up to His will--and to leave the sheet of paper for our plans completely and totally blank.
So I did it. I walked up to the altar and left it completely blank except for signing my name at the very bottom edge of the paper and then I placed inside our altar, the top of which read "expect His will to be done". At first it was scary. But then, I thought about all of the things that God has done in my life that I didn't have planned for myself. And then it was exciting.
Yall, I am still so so so excited for this summer, and probably even more so than I was when I left for training 12 days ago. I'm expecting to be amazed, I'm expecting to fail but to be lifted up and supported by my fellow staff members when I do, I'm expecting to matter and to make others know that they matter, I'm expecting trials and for joy to come from them, and I'm expecting His will to be done. I'm expecting God.
If you'd like to write me at camp, I would love that! My address is:
Carolina Cross Connection
Alecia Johnson
Joshua Youth Camp
29387 Pennington Road
Albemarle, NC 28001
Please continue to pray for our staff at JYC as well as the other CCC staffs, our campers, the people we will work with and for this summer, and for the people we will reach in ways we don't expect and without realizing it.
my lovely staff family for the summer!
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