I worked with Alabama Rural Ministry this summer helping run their summer missions camps. For seven weeks this summer, we had assorted youth groups coming to either Tuskegee, AL or Livingston, AL to spend a week doing home repair and helping to run the day camp for local, at risk children. I was one of the day camp counselors for the Livingston site. My experience with ARM wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. Honestly in almost every way it was different from what I thought I was signing up for when I put in my application. And while there were definitely struggles we faced from the very first day till the very last, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything because of the awesome youth I was able to meet and try to help grow throughout the Summer. Whether it was just talking to them to get to know them better, playing basketball with them in the gym of the day camp, or telling high school seniors how great Auburn University is, they made my summer amazing and I couldn’t have made it without all of them.
