It’s official. I am in Heart Butte, Montana…finally. After months of excitement, I’m FINALLY here. Wow.

After 3 flights and a weekend with friends in Denver, I began one grueling week of training, called RAMP (Region Area Mission Preparation). Between crawling my way out of  three new fully-stocked binders of information and enduring hours of training sessions, I hung out with my 70+ new best friends (What up, Western region!), including my three wonderful staff members–Aaron, Bonnie, and Duffey. WHAT A WEEK–full of Settlers, round-em-ups, lingo, crazy icebreaker games, story time, inside jokes, a night of footwashing, and one ridiculously beautiful site directors meeting.

And then reality hit. Sure, my brain was overstuffed with information and this training week had come to an end. We’d have to say our goodbyes to all but our own team. It simply felt like it was time to go home–all done. But it hit me like a brick–it’s go time. Two seven-hour drives and a nights’ stay at another site stood between me and this beautiful place I will now call home for the next three months.

So I’m here. Already, my experiences have God’s handprint all over them.

First off, we were actually let into the school building right away. While this may seem silly, this is the first time in 6 years that YouthWorks staff were let into the building the night we arrived. In recent years, the staff usually had to stay in a hotel for a night or two.  This was especially amazing, with a huge praise to God, seeing as our primary contact was unexpectedly out of town, but graciously connected us with another person who could let us in. It was totally God’s amazing provision, a “first” in many years.

Second, this is probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived in my life. My whole goal for this second point was to post a picture, but seriously, folks, none of the ones I’ve taken could do this beauty any justice. BUT I will try. You’ll just have to dream for a little while. 🙂 But more than that, the souls here are even more beautiful. As always, I’m surrounded by God’s imagebearers–many of whom profess such a deep and lasting love, devotion, and respect for the Creator. And they’ve made my staff and I part of their families. I’ll have to tell you all more about this in the coming posts–way too much for this post!

So now, here I am. I’m about to drive another 7 hours back to the Crow reservation where my staff and I will have another week of hands-on training before we begin our own programming weeks. Please pray for favorable weather (this region has experienced an incredible amount of rain, unusual to the area) and for safe travels, but even more so, for soft hearts and eager ears. We had the blessing of meeting many people on the Crow reservation on our way through and we were welcomed there, too, with open arms. Pray that we may love them well, and serve them with humble and willing hearts.

That’s all for now—but not because I’m out of words—simply out of energy. Choose joy, my friends. I look forward to sharing more of this journey with you in the coming weeks.