Home Sweet Home-For the Next 8 Months

The time has come at last to dust off my school supplies. It is a bittersweet feeling knowing that my classes start tomorrow. It is always sad to leave a beautiful summer behind, but exciting to see what the new year brings... :) 

On Monday, I moved in to my dorm with much help from my mom, two dads, and my wonderful guy. I have realized that I am in a hall with mostly freshman. It is a funny feeling not having my friends from last year bursting in to my room to tell me things. Ha.
My room mate this year, Rachel (my bestie Becca's sister), is lovely. We are going to have so much fun being room mates. 

Rachel and I! 

Apparently they made the Freshman this year do 

a community service project as part of their orientation weekend. 

She had just got back from washing tons of windows in this picture. 

She told me "Im SO grungy!!"

This is how our room looks thus far.

With as much stuff as we have, we probably won't be changing it really. :)

This is my desk/piano space. :)

Rachel and I have our desks back to back. 

It is pretty fun to be working on something and talking at the same time. :) 

Our lovely futon which is full of pillows. Hee! At least it will be comfy!

I am on the top bunk. 

I have had to brush off my ninja skills from last year to get up there.. :)

Well, here is to a new school year. 

Hopefully I won't be attempting to pull out my hair this year like I was last year. Ha!

Camp Harlow - 8 - Tween Camp 2 - My last week at Harlow

I can't believe it is over! 

It seemed like it was yesterday that we were going through training!

This last week of camp was one of the best. I met some amazing campers and saw another big number of kids come to make the commitment to follow Christ. 

Riley and I really decided to let go and just go crazy with worship, and it paid off. 

The first night we did an up beat set of "Life is Good, Eternal Life is Better" and "Undignified". It was crazy to see almost all of the kids dancing around praising God. We are used to half, if even half, participating with us during our worship times, so it was super encouraging to see. 

All in all it was a great week. We had crazy water wars with big slip n' slides, fun night games (that can be dangerous at times... I ended up being punched in the face by accident), and amazing times of fellowship with the campers. As I said before, it was one of my favorite weeks. 

I kept telling all my devo girls throughout the week that it was my last Monday or my last Worship set/Camp Pastor. They weren't too happy with me. They kept telling me that they were going to kidnap me and make me stay. :) I have to say, I was blessed to have such a lovely group of girls in my devo group. It has been really fun to watch them grow over the summer and seeing God's light shining through them. There were a few that had heartbreaking stories who have come to lean on Christ for strength, and who have persevered because of it. I learned so much from all of them. I actually think that I learned more from them than they did from me! God blessed me so much by bringing them into my life.

My whole time out at Harlow was such a blessing to me. God has gifted me with many new friendships with those on the Impact team and the counseling staff. All the people that work out at Harlow are wonderful, and I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to work with them all. 

Moving out of the mod was a bittersweet experience. I was excited to be getting a week to ready myself for school, but I was sad that I was going to have to leave my wonderful friends and the ministry that is Harlow. I am going to miss them all terribly!

God has shown me many things while I have been out at Harlow. The one thing that sticks out above all else is how He loves us and takes care of us. I have seen so many things happen before my eyes that has shown me how great God is. There is no struggle or problem that God can't handle. God is bigger than it all, and He is willing to carry us when we feel we can't carry on. It is crazy to think how much I have grown over the past three months. God has really worked in my life and has made me into a stronger Christian. 

God works in big ways, and Harlow is a great example of that. 

I really hope that God blesses me with more years at Harlow, but we can never really know what God has planned. 

Now I'm off to Corban U. again tomorrow. It is so weird to think that I am going into my sophomore year already! It's going to be great. 

God is SO good. :)

Camp Harlow - 7 - Day Camp 2

Day Camps, although very fun, are quite exhausting.

You would think that, with the campers leaving at 5:00, we would have the opportunity to go to bed early. However, the counselors stay the night, meaning that we have planned activities and cabin checks at night. I do love the time with counselors (we tend to have lots of fun), but everything tends to go later than expected which causes us to go to bed late and have a rude awakening at our usual Day Camp wake up time of 6:00.

I love the kids that come to camp. 

They can be little angels, most of the time,

pulling out Oooh's and Aaaww's from all the girls (and even some of the guys).

One thing people don't realize is how smart the campers are.

On Fridays, the program and worship teams run Bible trivia games for morning rotations, and it is insane how much kids actually know. From questions about Jesus' miracles, to the history found in the Old Testament, the kids knew the answers to almost every single question we asked them.

We were very surprised to say the least. 

Day Camp was fairly uneventful... So I will share a really cool story that is a testament of how insanely awesome God is... :) 

We as an IMPACT team have been (and still are) praying for a girl named Ashlie, in her 20s, who suffered a stroke and ended up having a blood clot in her brain. Her best friend, Amy Coumas, was the worship leader for the past three years before Riley and I. She had been keeping us up to date on Ashlie as her condition began to worsen. Over the span of a couple weeks Ashlie's condition went from bad to worse, 

and she began not to respond. We went into overdrive of prayer for her. 

We prayed for a miracle, not knowing what crazy thing God had planned to do. 

A week ago this last Sunday, we found out that Ashlie had died.

Many were confused, wondering why God took her home. 

Hours later, we began an IMPACT meeting, getting ready for the week to come, when all of

a sudden Amy burst through the door and collapsed on the floor saying "SHE'S ALIVE!!! SHE'S ALIVE!!!" All of us were dumb struck, not quite knowing what to do. It was almost like we had heard wrong the first time, but no, 

Ashlie was alive. 

Three hours after Ashlie had been pronounced dead, her mother began signing away her organs. During this process, the doctor came running into 

her telling her she needed to see her daughter. 

After being dead for three hours, 

Ashlie came back to life. 

 

All of our prayers were answered. A miracle happened, and a lovely young girl was given another chance to live by our great God. 

As of now, only a week later, Ashlie is back and better than ever. She can talk and move, which is so much more than they have seen in the past month. 

God is incredible. :)

Camp Harlow - 6 - High School Camp

It was over a year ago when I was finishing out high school. 

All I can say, I am very thankful that I never have to go back!
It's so nice not to have to deal with all of the immaturity. Don't get me wrong, most of the campers were delightful, but it was interesting dealing with some slight profanity among them, along with LOTS of purple. For those who don't know, purple is when girls (pink) and guys (blue) get too close (much too close), and the result is purple. The funny thing is a lot of the relationships that were creating purple sprouted the first day of camp, like they met and then got together within hours. It was crazy.

Something that really opened my eyes was the fact that among the 280 campers we had, there was so much pain. If there was ever a time for us to love on the campers and show God's love, it was this week. Behind the smiles and laughter, there were children in pain. It was a blessing from God to be able to share the love, grace, and mercy of God to these campers. Although there were some who seemed unwilling to listen, there were many who soaked it in, and it changed their life. 

Riley and I were given the opportunity to lead morning devotionals for the high schoolers. Despite having to wake up an hour before everyone else, it was a real blessing to lead. The worship time, along with reading the word and prayer, made for great times of praise to God. The theme of the week for our devos seemed to be leaning on God in times of trial. I hadn't planned on doing devotions on that, but God really put it on my heart the night before day 1 to switch my plan.  God really knew what he was doing, because I heard from most counselors that their campers really needed to hear what we had to say. It was such a blessing to hear that, because I wasn't sure how they would respond. By the end of the week, I was getting such great feedback, It was incredible. God is so great and he knows exactly what His children need to be filled up.

By the end of the week, we as a staff were so encouraged by the new believers and re-commitments that sprouted up. Many of the new Christians, and even some of the re-commitments were some who seemed unwilling to open up at the beginning of the week. In the end, there were 10 new commitments, and many (probably around 60) re-commitments. Among those, we saw 18 campers, along with a few counselors, baptized. It was such a blessing to be a part of that great experience. 

This week made me lean on God more, as I was stretched in different ways than I have ever experienced. I witnessed God work in mysterious ways. All things I experienced this week made me realize all the more how great God is. 

He sure does take care of His children.