For the beauty of the earth

This past Sunday was our first official day of services here at Grant Village. Darcy preached, Rachel led w0rship, and I did prayers and offering. We had 15 people at our first service and 24 at our second, and 8 at our evening service. Some of our support staff from Gardiner came to our second service and brought us a whole bunch of fresh fruit. It was really the best gift anyone could have given me at the moment: Grapes, plums, bananas, strawberries, and blueberry bread. Sunday afternoon in between services, I went hiking with some people to a place called Fairy Falls.

Monday was filled with adventure. I went to Cody, WY with some new friends. The highlights of the day included buying a camelback backpack for $42 with my Xanterra employee discount, jumping off a rock bluff cliff thing into a lake surrounded by beautiful rock formations (in my clothes), finding some random roadside-seesaws that were remnants of an old riverside campground, eating pizza and ice cream, and learning a new card game called Nertz that is like Dutch Blitz. It was a pretty good day.

Work is still pretty stressful and kind of dramatic a lot of the time. It is hard to separate my work life from my regular life because I live and hang out with the same people that I work with, so naturally the two kind of meld together. Sometimes I get discouraged when I am at work because the hours are long, but when I step outside and see the majestic mountains across the lake, and the towering pine trees all around me I remember how thankful I am and how blessed I am to be able to spend my summer in such a beautiful place filled with beautiful people and beautiful creatures.

I am really doing a very good job of filling every moment of my life here with excitement, adventure, socializing, and movement. I am realizing that a big part of "ministry" is just BEING with people, co-existing, listening, talking, sharing, learning, discussing, reasoning, discovering other people's stories and sharing mine with them. I think that I am learning a lot, but i know that I have a lot to learn still. This is a summer for growing and learning and being.

Sun is in the sky oh why, oh why would I want to be anywhere else?

Even when the sun is not shining, this is pretty much how I feel here (besides the fact that I miss all of you a great deal and would love to be with you). I especially feel this way on days off (Sundays and Mondays) and after 5 o'clock, when I am done with work, on all other days. Work is ok, I don't mind it, but let's be honest here: I did not come to this park for the housekeeping job. I am thankful for the job and the people I have made friends with at work, but that's just a small part of all the awesome.

Today was Sunday, my favorite day of the week. This was our last week of no services at Grant, because tomorrow the campgrounds and ampitheater here finally open up for the season, so we can finally start our services (3 weeks late). So for the 3rd Sunday in a row I went up to Lake Village to help out with the services at Bridge Bay and I spent the day hanging out with other ACMNP friends there. They are all awesome friends, and I have been very blessed in my time ministering and fellowshiping with them. I will miss helping with their services, but mostly I am really excited to get ours underway here at grant. Anyways, today after services we went fishing at Gull Point, but I am dumb and lost my fishing license, so despite our desperate efforts to get it replaced (asking at 3 different places and experiencing clueless employees at each one) I succumbed to the fact that I would just have to watch everyone else fish. But no worries, I found things to do on the beach including: making a sand castle, cat-napping in the sun, playing on logs, exploring down the beach, and peeing in hidden forested place. Needless to say, I had quite the wonderful day.

Tomorrow I am going with the ministry people to the Snake River down by the Tetons to whitewater raft. I am pretty excited because I have never done this before, even though I know that it will be cold. That will surely be an adventure and I will keep you updated.

P.S. I have some pictures on my facebook page if you are interested.

tid bits

Hullo friends!

Yesterday I started training for my new position here, and today I continued training. It's a tough week because we are opening up another lodge unit that has been closed all year. It is very dirty and requires lots of scrubbing hard with chemicals. Tomorrow the Lakehouse Restaurant opens up here at Grant Village, so tonight they had a pre-opening for employees tonight as a practice-run. And it was free. I had a delicious bison burger.

My roommate moved out today because she is moving to a different location in the park, so I will be getting a new roommate tomorrow probably. So that will be an adventure...

Other news: I learned a russian card game pronounced "Do Rock" (spelled differently) that means "idiot" in Russian. There is only one loser and no specific winner in the game. I love it. I am going to go rafting on Monday at the Snake River with other members of the ministry here in the park. I saw another grizzly last night. And this morning I decided to drive the .25 miles to work because there was a grizzly and a cub roaming around Grant Village. 2 more days left until my weekend :)

Promotion?!

I have officilaly finished my first week of work here. On my official first day of work (meaning when I was finally working independently without shadowing someone), my Team Leader (aka TL or supervisor) for the day approached me and told me that my rooms were perfect and that I had to go talk to the manager after work because I "needed" to apply forone of the3 open TL positions. I thought to myself, "excuse me, are you aware that this is my first day of work?" TL interviews had been going on for the past 2 weeks before I arrived (and there are plenty of other good, hardworking housekeepers that have been here since the beginning of the season in May), and he was telling me to go apply for this position? I was flattered and quite surprised, but I decided to apply. The interview went well enough.

On my second day of work I learned that I got the job as "Relief TL", meaning I am a substitute TL for resident TLs on their days off. This means that I will get a raise, more responsibility, and management experience for resume. This is a blessing. I am excited, but I hope that I will be able to do the job effectively, because it will be a bit more demanding than cleaning toilets and making beds.

On my third day of work (today) I was assigned a trainee (remember this is within the same week that I finished my own training), thus receiving a higher hourly pay for the day. Apparently I am good at cleaning up other people's hair, poop, pee, garbage, and trash. But I feel it is necessary to mention that all this week the verse that has been in my head (especially before I got the promotion) is Colossians: 3:23 - Whatever you do do heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. SO put that in your cake and eat it.

Although my work life has been rather eventful, thankfully my life here consists are far more adventure and excitement such as meeting new people on a daily basis, going on fishing trips (which is bittersweet because I dont have my fishing pole with me), hiking, and just hanging out. Earlier this week I went on a sunset hike to Storm Point, by the North of Lake Yellowstone. The view from the rocks overlooking the lake was real purdy. I would put pictures up, but the internet connection here is slow as molasses, so maybe I will give it a whirl someday when I am feeling patient and bored.

Tomorrow is Sunday which means I will be going up to North Lake again for their ACMNP church services, because we cannot start our services here at Grant until the end of this month, due to Grizzlies that are feeding on berries in the campgrounds here. Speaking of grizzlies, I saw my first one the other day. It was running across the road. It was quite chubby and jiggly. That same night I got caught in a traffic jam caused by bison, which is a common occurrence in these parts.

I will try to keep this updated more often, but until then, toodles.
Katie

romping time

Hi Friends!

So as many of you know, i am spending my summer volunteering with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP)in Yellowstone National Park. I have a day job as a room attendant in a lodge (housekeeping), and on the weekends we host several church services for visitors in the park. Throughout the week we get to hang out with other workers in the park (hiking, playing games, eating meals together) to get to know them and try to be a light.

I arrived June 3rd, and I have about finished my training for my job. It's hard work, but good paying. I'm also meeting a lot of awesome, beautiful people, which is awesome because I love people.

I am working and living in south Yellowstone at Grant Village. Because there are grizzly bears that are feeding in the campgrounds at this location, we cannot start our church services here until after June 21, so today we went up to another location in the park for their services, and I got to meet and hang out with a lovely group of ACMNP volunteers. After church some of the guys went fishing, and me and some of the girls made a video in the woods and then I climbed a bunch of trees, threw things, and played in a creek. It was... good.

It has pretty much been raining nonstop (not even exaggerating) since I arrived here, but even so everything is so beautiful. The snow-capped mountains, the creeks, the lakes, and the animals (so far I have seen a lot of Elk and Bison, and some sheep, and especially the trees. I can hardly wait to see everything when the sky is blue and the sun is shining because it will be all the more beautiful.

Tomorrow I am going on my first hike here to Beaver Pond in the north of the park and to Bunsen Peak. I am hoping to see some more animals (grizzlies, birds, and maybe a moose?!). it'll be adventurous :)