Anna Schuetz's Blog - Week 2 - Domestic Ministry

I can't believe another week has flown by so fast!

WEEK 2 OVERVIEW

We spent this past week in Adrian, GA partnering with Camp Adrian to serve Adventures Relief. Adventures Relief is a disaster relief organization and partner of Adventures In Missions. Camp Adrian is a non-profit camp and retreat center. Each of our “squads” are broken down into smaller “teams”, and each team had different tasks we worked on to help the camp.

My team mostly served in the kitchen for breakfast and lunch duty, which was so much fun! We made great friends with the kitchen staff (shoutout Ms. Karen and Kenny aka “Big Teaspoon”), got to hear their stories, and prayed over them. We spent our time washing dishes, preparing food, and cleaning. It was a joy to see the fruits (quite literally) of our labor and be a part of blessing everyone there.

Being at Camp Adrian was such a treat. Everyone there had a huge heart not only for serving the relief efforts, but also us as we prepare for oversea ministry. Let me paint you the picture. We came from 10 days of Training Camp, and I won’t complain, but just understand the experience is meant to prepare you for any kind of conditions. Then, we show up to Camp Adrian with flushing toilets, A/C, and all the food you could want or imagine.

One day, right as lunch was about to start, we needed to set the dessert out, but found that the key lime pies got ruined in the cooler. I remember telling Ms. Karen not to worry and we really didn’t need dessert at every meal. But she responded by saying she was determined to bless us before we were sent out all over the world, not knowing when we would get “good American food” again. This is the kindness we ran into with the workers there!

After two days in the kitchen, we spent Wednesday helping clean out the maintenance shop, which was a change. There was SO much random stuff in there, but we made a lot of progress by organizing and cleaning it out. It was cool to see how grateful the camp director was when he walked in there and saw the change! For our remaining time, we were back in the kitchen and helped out with other cleaning.

We drove back to Camp on Saturday, had sabbath on Sunday, had “mini debrief” Monday, and will prepare Tuesday to leave that night for the airport! We will arrive in Guatemala on Wednesday!!

HOW IM DOING

I am experiencing such a mix of emotions each day. I’m excited about what we've been doing and for what's to come. I really miss the feeling of home and the normalcy of my life. I miss the control I had over each day back home and the busyness of my days, but I also appreciate the slower pace of life here. I really love my squad and am so grateful for how God has put us together, but it's still a big change and deep connections take time. I went from never knowing these people to being with them all day every day for the next nine months, and that is a BIG change, even if it's simultaneously a good change. I try to take it day by day (sometimes hour by hour) and balance being where my feet are here but also keeping connections with old friends back home.

PRAISE GOD though because He answered the prayers about my sleep situation. Last week I was so sleep deprived along with being sick and my physical wellbeing was just unwell. This week really gave me the chance to rest and recover between better nights of sleep and naps. Even being back at camp, it has been much cooler, and I've slept about 10x better! Seriously so grateful for this!!

HIGHLIGHTS

Worship! Each squad took turns organizing worship throughout the week and one night I got to sing with the worship team. I loved how much variety we had there and how much we could do with just guitars and our voices.

Roommates! Honestly the whole bunk situation was amazing having mattresses and flushing toilets, but it also reminded me of summer camp. Greta, Kathleen, and I always got ready for bed early but ended up hanging out and staying up late anyways.
Spraying people while washing dishes! Washing dishes was already a fun, monotonous task that I had so many good convos during, but I made it more fun by creating this game where anytime a squad member would return their dishes, we would spray them with the hose.
Walks! I even went on a morning run one day, which I haven't done since before my knee surgeries!
New friends! I already mentioned Kenny and Ms. Karen, but we made such good relationships there and were sad to leave them. The kitchen staff called us their “dream team”.

Food! Literally every meal had fruits, veggies, multiple sides, and dessert.

Real church! Our mentors, Ethan and Bailey, invited us to their church which was so wonderful to be in an actual church service for the first time since leaving home.

Lake day pt. 2! We went during sunset which made the experience even better.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Health (again)! Our squad has had 9 hospital visits which is honestly wild. It honestly feels like a spiritual attack as well as physical on the team. One squad member, Jhon, has been 3 times now for extreme dehydration and a spider bite, so please be praying for him!
Encouragement and vulnerability! This is our team's prayer as we transition into Guatemala. Just so we continue to strengthen connections, love each other well, and are therefore more effective in our ministry.
Smooth travel day! This will probably be our easiest travel day since it is so short, but we are still praying for everything to go smoothly. I am on the logistics team and we are in charge of getting our squad safely to each country on travel days. We leave Tuesday evening, spend the night in the airport, and will wake up at 3:30am for our flight. We should arrive in Guatemala around noon!
Discernment/wisdom! Whether it's travel logistics, ministering to people in the airport, or conflict resolution within our team, please pray for guidance in the times we need it.