​There is a certain amount of times a person can be asked “What exactly are we doing today?” before they become comfortable with not always having a concrete answer. In a position of leadership (at least for me), the ideal circumstance is knowing exactly how the day is going to go. I’ve grown up wanting to know the day-by-day itinerary for every mission trip, every family vacation, and every other adventure I’ve ever been on. It’s comforting to feel like I’m in control of every detail of what I’m doing. However, over the past month of work with AYM, I have had to let go of some of those tendencies.

Over the course of this year, and especially since joining the staff of YMCo., I have heard a lot about being “intentional” with my actions. That could mean praying intentionally, having intentional conversation, or sometimes it means being intentional about the way that I explain an activity. Yet, somehow the term has always felt a bit unnecessary to me. Don’t we always have a reason for doing what we do—otherwise, why do it? It wasn’t until my first week as an AYM intern that I learned the real importance of intentionality.

​This summer, and for the following school year, we will be exploring the theme, “Creating Space.”  It’s a theme that we think will be very relevant to youth, to their experience here at Youth Mission Co, and the world.

​Here is a statement from several youth at Trinity Presbyterian Church of Charlotte.

​As a student at Presbyterian College, a professor taught me the phrase, “You cannot be a Christian alone.” Whether this was an original quote or simply borrowed words, the phrase stuck with me after graduation, and as I began my year serving as a Young Adult Volunteer in Asheville. I first began to fully grasp its meaning during my first few months here. I was given the task of working in a new worshipping community where I didn’t quite understand some of the viewpoints of the members there, and I began to struggle with what God was calling me to do. It was during a phone conversation with a friend from college that I was reminded that, “We cannot be Christians alone.” She said to me, “What good is faith if it is only lived out among those who look, think, believe, and act like us?” Little did I know, she was setting me up for a life-changing 7 months working for Asheville Youth Mission.

The nice part about a job with a fairly consistent schedule is that on any given day I can provide a pretty good guess about what I’ll be doing. Every Sunday a few things happen: I forget to eat dinner because of poor time management, groups arrive, I struggle in the name game we play, and the night concludes with orientation. During orientation every week we ask the kids to put on flexibility pants and humility vests, two (imaginary) articles of clothing that provide them with superpowers. Flexibility pants give you the power to be flexible at work sites, which means being prepared if plans change. Humility vests give you the power of being humble enough to do any job that’s asked of you.

​Hey guys! My name is Lauren Nalley and I’m a intern at Asheville Youth Mission this summer. I’m currently a sophomore in college in Colorado, but I am really excited about being able to work in Asheville this summer because this is where I was raised. I’ve lived in Asheville for 18 years and am super excited about giving back to the community which has given me so much in the past. My blog post this year is a video of spoken word slam poetry. I wrote this poem about my time in Asheville through out my life and what I have learned while being a part of AYM. It refers to many social justice issues which I have noticed in particular throughout these past weeks including homelessness, racism, police brutality , and many others. I hope you enjoy!

​Every Wednesday evening, after groups have finished their last day of work sites and are participating in discussion and reflection during program, we do what we like to call “taking inventory”. We ask groups to reflect back on where they went, what they did, and who they met throughout the week. This is a time for them to recall favorite worksites, funny anecdotes, interesting observations, and meaningful interactions. It’s usually fairly easy to recall places they visited and things they did, but sometimes names slip away during the hustle and bustle of the day.

​Palms Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville, FL is one that has made mission partnership their intentional focus, and have been engaging their youth in mission work for more than 30 years. Youth Director, Wilson Kennedy, says, “It’s the hallmark of youth ministry at Palms. This is how our youth are engaged in the world and think theologically and critically about our world and about how our faith calls us to be active and engaging in it.” A few months ago, before kicking off a summer of mission trips and local service work, Palms youth came together for a mission retreat. At the end of it, high school senior and Palms’ resident videographer, Jacob May, created this video, highlighting trips they’ve been on in the past, and what each member of the youth group feels is most special to them about these trips. The photos in this video are not only from their mission trips to the Carolinas and beyond, but also from work they’ve done in their home community of Jacksonville. Wilson says, “Because we’re situated two blocks from the beach, we’re intentional about being engaged in mission, and in partnership, and in solidarity in the beaches. There are over 250 chronically homeless people in Jacksonville, so we partner with organizations like Mission House and BEAM, which stands for Beaches Emergency Assistance Ministry. Our church is also undertaking a study on issues of access [to services, affordable healthcare, job creation, and job training] at the beaches because we have the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor living together. So we’re constantly serving in different ways in our community and our neighborhood.”

​Driving down I-240 with Top 40 radio set to a dull roar has never been my ideal time for reflection or an experience ripe with opportunities to learn how to better show love to others. I usually keep the windows rolled down, the radio up high, and my thoughts on mute—using the highway only as a necessary means to a more purposeful end. But this summer I have found myself sitting in a lot of 240 traffic—on the way to and from the office or leading groups to and from worksites—consequently with loads of time to think.