70 People picked to live in a house, work together and have their lives changed...

Summer is over and school is in session once again. No more beach days, pool parties, or vacations. My summer consisted of none of those, and yet it was the best summer of my life.

You can read from previous posts that I was hired to work at Glorieta Conference Center. I spent my whole summer in the tiny town Glorieta, NM (about 15mins outside of Santa Fe). I left mid May and came back 3 months later in mid August. I knew I was going to be working the front desk but didn’t really even know all what I would be doing at the front desk, let alone know what kind of people I would meet, or really anything else.

I was picked up from the Albuquerque airport by the couple in charge of all the summer staff. I had never met them or talked to them. I only know he was tall and had brown hair and glasses and she had brown hair. I was scared to death of how it was all going to work. I felt like I was on MTV’s The Real World.

Needless to say, everything worked out perfectly. I was one of about 70 college students working on Highpoint, Glorieta’s summer staff. Every person on summer staff was so unique from the next. I loved each person there for a different reason. There was always someone in our lobby to hang out with or talk to. We were together in this journey.

Explaining how amazing this summer was is impossible to put into words. My life was changed in so many ways. I had my first roommate, lived on my own for the first time, lived in a new state, and was surrounded with complete strangers. Those strangers became my family. Together we had Christmas in July, Encouragement Week, Western Night, and a staff banquet. We took care of each other like a family. Micki (the lady who picked me up from the airport), took me to emergency without hesitation when I broke my foot. When we were excited we had people to share our joy with. When we had a hard day at work we had people to share our frustrations with. Day or night, we were there for each other.

This summer I met some of the most incredible people I have ever met in my whole life. They changed my life. Some of them I may never talk to again, but there are also some that I will be friends with forever.