SummerLINK Clemson: The Beginning

This is the first week of SummerLINK Clemson.  So far this week has been amazing and challenging.  Before I talk about what we have been doing this week, I am going to talk about how God led me to do SummerLINK this summer.

At the beginning of March, I had absolutely no intention of doing SumerLINK.  I had my own plan for my summer.  My plan was to do something that I wanted to do and I was hoping God would pick from my list.  One Sunday, I was at Crosspoint and one of the pastors started talking about SummerLINK which I took as my cue to zone out.  Right before he was finished talking about it my eyes drifted up to the screen that listed all of the SummerLINK locations.  My eyes landed on Clemson and my mind began turning.  I started thinking that “hey maybe I could do SummerLINK Clemson.”  In that moment God began to work on my heart.

That Tuesday I met with my mentor, Esther Morrison, and she challenged me by asking me what my plans were for the summer.  When I told her I didn’t know, she reminded me that I only had about a month before school was over and summer began.  At that moment I started freaking out.  I earnestly started praying for God to reveal his plans to me for the summer.  I mentioned SummerLINK Clemson to Esther and she told me to pray about it.

After that everything started coming together.  I contacted the assistant director of GenerationLINK who got me in contact with Sammi, the SummerLINK Clemson assistant director.  By the next week I was meeting with Sammi and filling out an application.  God was so faithful and showed me exactly what his plans were for my summer.  The plan didn’t come from my list but came directly from him.  I learned that even though I appeared to be trusting God, I really wasn’t.  I was trusting him with MY list.  His plans are always better than mine and he constantly reminds me of that.

The journey to today has been so humbling and such a blessing in my life.  I have had to make hard decisions and turn down things that I might have wanted to do before God showed me that I was supposed to do SummerLINK.  God has provided so much so that I could have this opportunity.  I was able to get a job that works well with my schedule.

Now that SummerLINK has started, I have been made aware of just how much God has blessed me.  My team is made up of the coolest people.  We all get along really well and I feel like by the end of the summer we will all be best friends for life.  We have only known each other for five days and we are already great friends.

I will be serving with the youth ministry and I am so excited about having the opportunity to serve there.  I can’t wait to meet the youth and get to know them.  I pray that I can be the kind of person who can say “imitate me as I imitate Christ” and I am excited because I feel like SummerLINK will help me grow closer to becoming that person.

The pictures are from gender night.  The girls group went to the rowing docks to watch the sunset.  We had such a great time that night talking about what we pray the Lord will do in us and through us this summer.

Posted by:  Katherine Alimpich