Thoughts at a truck stop..

I know I have been horrible at keeping up with my blog this summer, but I've been pretty busy with my housemates and with working. I am currently sitting at a Love's truck stop about 100 miles from Detroit, wating for my car to cool down so I can properly check the fluids and most likely add some engine oil. I'll take this golden opportunity to catch you all up on what I've been doing this summer.

This summer I am living in the amazing city of Detroit with 5 other college students and each of us is working at a different site in the city. Myself and 2 of my housemates are working at The Outpost at St. Timothy's United Methodist Church. The Outpost is basically a day camp and summer enrichment program for kids. At the day camp, the kids learn Math, Science, Reading and Spanish. I am teaching Reading for the summer and it has turned out to be a LOT of fun! There are three age groups: 5-8, 9-11 and 12-14 and the hardest class for me has been the 5-8 year olds. I think this is because at least 3 of them do not know how to read and it's really hard to gauge what the rest of them know and what they don't know. The other challenging part of the day camp is that last week, we acquired Caleb. Caleb is an 11 year old boy that has Down's Syndrome. He is a very very sweet kid and he seems to really like and respect me, but the other kids don't understand when he pinches them and sometimes spits on them(he does this when he gets nervous). Other than that, camp is going great. In the afternoons, after class, we have games and free time. Most of the time, we've been going outside and playing basebal, which is great, but it can be a pain when it's 97+ degrees out.

The other huge part of my summer is living in an intentional community with 5 other individuals. Living in intentional community is a lot different than just sharing a house with people. We eat together, hang out together, do different things within the city together and are basically just working on becoming a very tight knit community. The house that we live in is on Wildemere street in the University District in Detroit. It is a very nice neighborhood that even has it's own 24 hour security patrol. I've had a great time getting to know all my housemates, and I think that we all get along very well, which is a good thing.

Well, that's all for now.. I need to get on the road. I hope you all are having a wonderful summer!!! I will update more often. Also, if you happen to be on Twitter, follow the following people and you can get a close view of what goes on in our house and community: @D_tm @joshuamckamie @jessystark @cari_drolet @carlgladstone @erinmaxam