The life of an unpaid intern...

I left stranded (see last post) a little bit early to drive the 6 hours back here to Denver for the beginning of my internship with Open Door Ministries. The first thing we did when we got here was to learn a dance number for a person's going away party... cool. The next morning as interns we had to set up for the 5K fundraiser. I just spend a week in the wilderness and then I have to get up at 5AM to set up tents and ring cow bells? ...cool. Let me explain to you what I do on a day to day basis. Two other intern and I are the Urban Missions Interns. So basically we have groups come in and stay with us as we teach them about the city. We teach them about homelessness and encourage them to go and love on them in the downtown streets of Denver. We teach about gentrification and the affects it has. We lead them on a prayer walk and help to open their eyes to the darkness that happens on Colfax. That at night street corners become territory and motels and always rent by the hour. They even get a few lessons on humility. That's what we do now let me tell you about my life. I live with 7 others girls in a house with 2 bathrooms. I love it buts its not always easy. As an unpaid intern we do anything and everything with a humble heart. All for the glory of the Lord. Last weeks we weeded along side our group we had in for 3 days in a row. Now this is not typical for a missions trip, and at first I was appalled that what we were doing. Then I learned it had a purpose to further the Kingdom. Now let me tell you a few stories.

The first two Sundays I was here I spend the night in our church watching over sleeping homeless women so they could sleep well in order to go and face life the next day. It is really cool, its called "women's homeless initiative" google it! To hear the stories of some of these women would change your life and the way you think. Let me also tell you a story that literally just happened to me right before I walked into the house. I was walking back from church eating my PB&J sandwich for dinner when a lady pulls up next to me and tells me she needs help. At first I thought she just wanted directions but as I got closer to the car she had a panicked look on her face. She proceeded to tell me a long story about how her mother just died and how her sister had downs and would only get into a purple cab but she didn't have enough money for a cab because she was locked out of her house. She told me that she owned a house in the area and had a job and I could call the hospital, her job, anything, she just needed $20. I gave it to her and she said that she had to pay it back. While her whole story didn't add up, most of it did, and I'm impressed if she made the whole thing up. Now, I don't usually just give money to people, in fact this might have been the first time. But I did because when the Lord tells you to do something, you better do it! I will never see that lady again in my life and the money I gave her is now in the hands of the Lord. One last story for you. As part of our program we send out groups into the streets to talk with people. As interns we figured we better go to one of the worst possible places they could find when we sent them out. We went to civic center park. This park is right across the stress from the capital. One thing you will find when you interact with these people in the park is they start the conversation. It was me, another girl, and a guy. The first people to speak to us was a black guy and a Mexican guy who claimed to be brothers. They asked what we wanted to buy. We told them nothing and we just wanted to get to know our city. Then we were accused of being undercover cops because we had nice teeth. Then they asked if we were from the church... they knew that people like us did not just hang out in places like that. That day we didn't share Jesus with anyone, we just loved our neighbors. The things I saw in that park shocked me, every kind of drug was being bought and sold there, it was crazy, and there were people that I would not want to see in a dark ally alone late at night. But hey, I live downtown. When I says that I live downtown I mean, I live in the hood. I can't count the number of homeless people I pass by and interact with everyday. I can't tell you how many times I want to gag from the things I smell. I hear sirens by the hour. I don't walk any place alone. I carry a backpack instead of a purse because danger is a real thing. I carry with me granola bars so I can give food instead of money. I now even carry a lighter because people love their smokes but don't always have a lighter. I am in the heat of the battle, and my heart will remain heavy for the entire summer. I will live day by day relying on the Lord to get me thought the heart break and darkness I see and experience. But all the awhile I love where God has placed me for the summer!

Stranded!

Oh my goodness, one of the best weeks of my life. There is no way I can tell you everything because there is way too much. But I will give you the highlights.

First, let me tell you what it was all about. Unusual Soldiers is a ministry that focus is on Dark, Despised, and Dangerous places of the world. These people live out the great commission. So this thing called stranded was a training event to go into dark, despised, and dangerous places of the world. So Sunday through Friday

Sunday: 

we get there and have no idea what to expect, I think we were excepting to literally be dropped off in the wilderness for days. We started with getting to know each other and learning about the ministry. Then they fed us dinner, I think we all ate way too much before we arrived and were over stuffed for fear of not eating for days. and then they kept feeding us. Then they told us our goal for the week. The goal was “to reach the vulture tribe for Christ” with this came a few details about the tribe. I believe this is when we made the list of anything and everything we could think of to take with us that would help us to accomplish this. A few things on the list were things such as sleeping bags, a Bible, extra rope, passport, and the like. Then we had to rate ourselves on a scale of 1-10 on our risk level. From this we were divided into 3 teams. The black team was the high-risk team and the other 2 were lower risk. Also based on the risk level was the number of items each team got to take to the wilderness. The next day was go time

Monday:

We got our supplies and were literally dropped off by some trees in a field and told to fine a certain spot. We wondered around for a few hours till we found it. Then each team had to build their own shelter. While we were building our shelter we came across a soft looking plant that we were going to use for bedding. One of the girls said she knew it was white carrots and they were edible. Well, we're in the wilderness, we might as well eat some. 7 of the 12 people had a little bit of what we later found out was water hemlock (more on that later!) After that it was late and we were all tired and were going to bed. Yeah right. After a few things happened we found ourselves hiking through some dense woods about 11pm. We did some team building, and then we all had to hike a trail, alone, without a light, and meet up at a certain spot. Once we all met up we ran into some “rebels." We talked with them for a little bit, some people thought it was a good idea to answer their questions about how many there were of us and where we were staying. So once we all got back to our camp about 2am it wasn’t very long until the rebels came and kidnapped a few people.

Tuesday:

Oh what an exciting day

We had to get our captives back, while being “shot” at, (figuratively, but kind of literally) in doing so I army crawled thought a cow pasture… Kim does not do those things. Once we had our captives back, they told us they didn’t think those plants were white carrots, but water hemlock, something we should never goggle, and anyone who even licked it was going to the ER. So, 7 of the 12 of us went for a little trip to the hospital. We were complete fine but had to go just in case. We had the whole hospital scared that literally every available staff in this small hospital everyone from lab techs, to secretaries, had formed a semi circle right inside the door and were waiting for us as if we were going to walk in half dead. Truthfully, we all should have already been dead. Water hemlock is the most deadly and poisonous plant in North America! Jesus for real had His hands covering us completely because no one even got sick! Can you say divine intervention, blessings, and how awesome our God is? WOW! Another blessing was while we were there we to telling the doctors and nurses why we were doing what we were doing. We got to tell them that we are crazy for the sake of the gospel. And that news got all over town! For the glory of the Lord. We got checked out and they sent us back. The doctor told us we should probably eat a steak dinner… we had a soda and a few chips. After that we had kind of a down time to process it all. Then we were told that we were going to the tribe that night. So we put together a plan of how to share the gospel with them and went. It was crazy, it was fun. Half way thought I was handed a live chicken that I held for about 45 minutes. Chickens are heave. We later killed and ate it… such is life.

Wednesday:

Was challenge day! Lots of physical challenges. A few people had to make tough decisions. From the decisions that we made we all got to get out of the wilderness. We had a nice big cookout and debrief time. It was nice to get out! And we got showers! PTL!

Thursday:

Went spend the day listening to the Lord and following His leading. We talked about next steps and where the Lord might be leading us.

Friday:

We did some closing things and said our goodbyes.

I was so blessed by my time doing this I learned so much about the Lord, and myself met some awesome people, and got an idea of a place to minister.