New people, new places, new ways of doing life

As I sit in PIT or as Harper and I like to call it the Pit of Despair, I am preparing for week 3 of camp. These last two weeks have been absolutely amazing. I have learned so much and I have seen the Lord work in hundreds of kid's lives. We are preparing for a camp with 500 this week which is a huge feat knowing that last week we only had 300 but nonetheless we are ready! I have been learning about new foods, new words, new bugs, new ways of doing church and new lifestyles and I love it! I love everything about the South, I love everything about Centri-Kid and I love everything about my team. We are a family and it is only week 3 and for that I am VERY thankful!

For everyone who has been praying for me and my team, thank you! Keep em' coming!!

oh joy....

The past week has been crazy but amazing! God is so good!! He has been working in amazing ways at camp this week. This week we only had about 300 kids and adults at camp which had it's good and bad aspects. We all had an opportunity to have intentional conversations with kids which was a lot easier this week. But, it also requires us to have a lot more energy because there are way less kids. Nonetheless, this week was AWESOME! I had 5 kids in my Bible Study accept Christ as their Lord and Savior and that is the greatest feeling ever. Seeing the kids walk down the aisle during the invitation gets me every time. I am definitely a wreck three out of the five days of camp. I am so excited about what God is doing in these kids lives. I also had the greatest Church Group (Yay River Springs Baptist Church). They let me sit in with them during their church group time and I got to hear what the kids are learning throughout the week. It definitely has been such an encouragement to me because we put so much hard work into making camp amazing and to see that the kids are really learning something makes it all worth it.

On another note, my ankle has not gotten any better in the past two weeks. I went to the doctor today and the verdict is...fractured foot. Talk about bad news bears! The clinic that I went to was called Toccoa Clinic and it was very interesting to say the least. I walked into the clinic with Meredith and the receptionist yelled "you ain't never been to the clinic before." I was like umm no definitely not, I live in AZ. Talk about awkward. Oh and we saw a lady with a mullet. It was the greatest thing ever! I go on Wednesday to see if I need a real cast put on my foot. For now I am in this ridiculous aircast. We'll see what happens. Pray for healing so that I do not have to get a real cast because the humidity and the heat here would make my foot smell real bad.

The weekend we have off which will be a nice break. Thanks for your continued prayers! Week 3 here we come!!

Last 6 days = very long but VERY good!

The last six days have been a whirl wind!  We had the biggest camp that Centri-Kid has had with around 800 kids and adults.  To say the least it was CRAZY!  Over half our team has never worked camp before so that always makes things adventurous.  This week was amazing though.  I have absolutely fallen in love with Centri-Kid and just working camp in general.  I eat maybe once a day and I sleep around 5 hours a night but it totally doesn't matter.  We do all those things for the kids and when they walk down the aisle on invitation night it made it all worth it.  Around 30 kids made first time decisions for Christ last week and one of them was in my Bible study.  The kid in my Bible study was one of those too cool for school kind of kids and was bored with everything.  He walked up to me on Friday morning and handed me a decision card that said he accepted Christ.  It was one of the best feelings in my entire life.  I love seeing God work in kid's lives and I love being able to be apart of it.  

I got to teach Make It Take It for my track time last week and we got to make Tie Dye shirts which I love.  I had some of the greatest kids in my track time.  They were just so enthusiastic about being at camp and they really made me smile.  They listened and were so good at following directions which were definitely needed because we made some crazy projects during those three days.  I loved them!   

And now for the craziness that was our lives yesterday.  We were leaving Cleveland, TN yesterday afternoon and our caravan of cars was heading to Toccoa Falls, Georgia.  Our team has a Ryder truck, that we call a Budget, that holds all of our camp supplies and our luggage.  Our Budget turned the corner and the front of it clipped a bridge and it ripped off the top of our truck and the sides.  All of our supplies went flying into the street.  So we spent about 6 hours getting all of our stuff out of the street, unloading all the stuff still in the truck and reloading it into another Budget.  It was the most tiring work of my entire life but God used it for his glory.  Our team really stepped up and no one complained; we just got the job done.  It was one of the greatest things that I ever witnessed.  I feel so honored to be apart of CK-4.  Thank you to everyone that prayed for us yesterday.  We got to sleep in today because everyone was so exhausted and we knocked it out of the park today.  Tomorrow is church and finishing registration and getting ready for campers to come on Monday!  Next week we only have 315 people coming to camp...a lot less than 800!  

Here are some pictures from our accident...

Before Picture

The back of our truck and half of it in the street under the bridge

What was left of our truck after the accident

The truck with some supplies still left in there.  

Your continued prayers for our safety, rest and team unity are much appreciated!  

Love ya'll!!

First Full Day

The day has finally come!!! The kids have arrived for our first week of camp and it has been amazing so far!  I teach 3rd/4th grade Bible study and absolutely love my kids...we are the documentaries and they have a lot of spirit even though it is so hard to chant our name because it is so long.  I am so proud of them and feel so blessed to be their bible study leader.  

These past two days have been an absolute whirl wind.  I honestly do not know where the time has gone.  I have been running around since 12 pm yesterday afternoon and have gone non-stop since then and luckily I am not tired (yet!).  There have been some definite stressful moments throughout these past two days but the name of the game has been flexibility and I haven't freaked out yet so that is a good sign.  

We had an invitation in our message tonight and had kids come forward if they wanted to accept Christ.  It was one of the most powerful things I have ever seen.  It definitely solidified the fact that I should be here at camp this summer.  I was in tears as the kids walked to the front and it just reminds me how important child-like faith is.  God is moving in this place and it is an honor to be apart of it.  

Prayer Requests: Intentionality with my kids to have spiritual conversations with them.  Rest because these days are so draining and we never get a break.  Healing: I have a huge lump on the side of my ankle and we don't know what it is from. Pray that it goes away because it is super painful to walk and we do A LOT of that!  

I love ya'll and am continually thankful for your prayers and support!  

Reflective...

Today was a day of reflection for me.  I have been thinking about how I got here...how I got to this place of working a whole summer telling kids about Jesus.  Why was I chosen?  Why this summer? Who poured into me in order for me to pour into these kids?  How can I ever repay those who have believed in me?  

The first church I ever stepped foot in was Church on Mill in Tempe, Arizona.  I remember begging my dad to not make me go because I was terrified because I didn't know anyone.  From the first time I went to that church, I felt at home.  People cared about me, about my life, and about who I was going to become.  For over 8 years, I was constantly poured into by so many people from that church, mainly our pastor Dennis Wood and my children's minister and youth pastor, Bill and Andrea Heaton.  They really cared about me and encouraged me to pursue my passions and even to chase passions I didn't know that I had, mainly working with children.  In the most difficult times in my life, they were there.  Dennis would come over to my house, pray with our family and whether he knew it or not, I was constantly learning spiritual truths from him.  He was the first to speak the name of Jesus to me standing up at the pulpit and Bill and Andrea spent the next 8 years encouraging that relationship.  For them, I truly am eternally grateful.  As the years have gone on, they gave me the opportunity to work with kids, develop my passions with them, and tell them about Jesus.  It was because of them that I am here now...that I am working camp...and that I have the greatest opportunity in the world, to tell kids about Jesus!  

Thank you Dennis for teaching me to continually press on, even when times are tough. 

Thank you Andrea for giving me my first opportunity to work in children's ministry

Thank you Bill for giving me the opportunity to grow and develop the skills that I now need to teach these kids.  

I am grateful for Church on Mill and what they have meant to me over the last 11 years of my life!  Ya'll are amazing!

*Oh and I will be an aunt for the second time in January!  Congrats Ryan and Anna!  

Finally Here!

We officially made it to our first camp location, Lee University in Cleveland, Tennesee!  It is gorgeous here and I cannot wait til the kids arrive on Monday.  Two weeks of preparation finally pays off when those kids step off that bus on Monday afternoon.  Like I have said before, this past week has been the most stretching week of my entire life.  I have been learning SO much and really trying to work on some important character traits while I am here and so far so good!  

Our team is working with CK-3 this week at Lee University and then they are off to Mississippi to work camp for the summer.  They were a HUGE blessing especially unloading the Budget this afternoon.  Today, we drove from KY to TN, unloaded the Budget, did inventory on all our supplies, and then went to Sonic because they were serving free rootbeer floats today.  It's been a busy day but tomorrow will be jam packed once again which is just the way I like it.  

It has been amazing to see how God has brought our team tomorrow.  I look at other teams and it seems like every single person is placed on exactly the right team.  I don't feel like I would fit on any other team than the one I am on and for that I am grateful!  The Lord is good and I am excited to see how He is going to use us this summer.  I love CK-4!  

Please continue to pray for me as I am preparing to teach, lead, and pour into these kids.  I am changing and growing and as hard as it is, it is going to and already is amazing.  I am truly living the dream!  This camp...it has been my greatest dream for the past 6 years and it has finally come true.  I didn't get here like I would have liked to but God always has a plan and he will use everything for his glory!  

Love ya'll!

1 week...7 days...168 hours...10080 minutes...604800 seconds

First I'd like to send a shout out to my Camp Director, Meredith!  She told me that she read my blog so I thought I'd just take the time to acknowledge that.  I appreciate her and her dedication to our team and everything that she is doing to prepare us for an awesome summer.  She is extremely encouraging especially when I mess up on I-9 forms and expense reports.  

To the latest news...I participated it what we like to call OMC (organized mass chaos) today.  Basically you run around like a crazy person and complete different tasks.  It was fun until Matt Weston sprayed shaving cream in my mouth and inside of my ear.  But, I am super excited to do this for the next nine weeks with the kids.  It will be a good opportunity to purposely get dirty.  :)

Next, I am off to sit with other people who are teaching the same track times that I am teaching this summer but that are on different teams.  Hopefully they will have some amazing ideas that I will be able to use because I would HATE to have a horrible track time.  

I'd like to leave ya'll with this...

"Watch your life and doctrine closely.  Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." - 1 Timothy 4:16

We all have amazing opportunities to be lights to those around us.  If we continually watch our lives and the doctrine we are living by, people will be saved.  I am so grateful for the opportunity that the Lord has given me to be a light to kids who do not know him.  Once again, I am SO thankful for your continued prayers.  I will see kids one week from today and that makes me very excited. 

Love ya'll!  

(oh and I can perform almost a whole song in sign language too!  who would'a known :))