What to expect from LeaderWorX: a fantastic summer as long as you have an open mind and willing hand to help.  You will be placed in situations like serving at a soup kitchen, facilitating conversations between 13 year olds, and walking into a home for mentally disabled adults with five teenagers trailing behind you.  As long as you refuse to be scared and allow God to help you, you will always come away from your experiences having learned something.  Do not expect a lot of free time or a lot of sleep, but be prepared for community building and late night discussions revolving around faith journeys.  Expect cooking, working, driving, attending Mass, and community service as a family, because that’s what your housemates are.  Expect to find the teens on retreat equal parts challenging and inspiring. That way you’ll keep, your sanity.  Expect a lot of help which will always be available to you.  Expect long car rides, especially to West Virginia. Bring music and games.  Expect to be humbled this summer in the best way possible.

I'd say to expect to spend time in community and engage in community activities, for those formation weeks were a big part of my summer. It was not just about leading service, but also learning about fellow community members, building community, and being a part of the larger Trenton community. The weeks spent not leading service groups were important for my personal formation, which I did not realize would be the case. So, I'd say to expect also great personal development in faith and knowledge beyond leadership.

Expect to have the best summer of your life. You will meet incredible people in the people you work with, the people you encounter on trips, and the teens themselves. Expect long days and longer nights. It's exhausting in so many ways, physically, emotionally, spiritually, but it is also gratifying. There will be so many more moments that will make you want to pull your hair out and cry than there will be gratifying ones, but those are the moments that will get you through another day. Expect to be challenged living in community, but expect to love those same people like a houseful of crazy siblings. Expect the teens to push you to your limits of patience and kindness, but then expect to miss them like crazy when the week is over, and come home bragging about your group. But then again, don't expect anything. Come into the summer with an open mind and heart, and just be present to the entire experience.

Be ready to experience the best summer of your life! You are going to have an amazing time at LeaderworX. The best part of this experience is that you will develop relationships with members of an awesome community of students, brothers and sisters who share the same faith and are passionate about serving God and serving their neighbors. Always have a positive attitude with the youth that you will be serving and develop relationships with them as well. Bring your acoustic guitar or ukulele, congas, skateboard or longboard, a soccer ball, and all of your energy to participate and do a lot of service learning. You are going to learn many new things especially living in community.

LeaderworX is time consuming but even with all the responsibilities of being a leader, one does not have to do everything on their own. The LeaderworX community is supportive and if one is uncomfortable with any task, then someone is always willing to help you out. Also expect to be challenged in ways that you never would have imagined. There are activities that push you to be vulnerable and if we are not vulnerable as leaders, then how can we expect the participants to be open with us? In the end, expect to fall in love with this place as it will hold a special place in your heart.

With this experience, I saw on previous “what to expect posts” that they had a life changing summer or the best summer of their lives. I thought they were being dramatic or trying to make people want to be leaders, but I was so so wrong. I can say I had the most life changing, beautiful and fun summer ever. Yes, expect stress. Expect it to be scary the first formation week during training when you have no idea what you are doing or what to expect. Expect it to be awkward for the first bit of this with the community of leaders. Expect there to be unexpected issues during the trips, whether with the kids or at sites or even challenges within yourself to stay awake or be positive. But, expect to have an incredible and intentional leader community to lean on during the difficult times, make you laugh when there is nothing else you want to do but cry, and just simply be there for you. Expect to do the same for them. Expect to have fun, whether it is singing songs in the vans, goofing off during staff meetings, or joking around with the kids. Go in without expectations, and just let things happen. Expect that it will all be okay. Expect to find God and find love in the simplest of things and within the people around you.