Holiday Happenings

On Dec. 18 I, with the help of my brother and sister in law purchased a ticket for me to come home to surprise my mom for Christmas. I have always wanted to come home and surprise my mom but it has never worked out because i get too excited. But this time the whole plan worked out so last minute that I didn't really have time to let my mom know what was going on. The trip was great! I got to spend lots of time with my brother and his wife, which i haven't ever really gotten to do and i got to see mom!
During my trip i also was able to catch up with the Klein family! I love them all soo much and miss them. It was great to get to sit down face to face with them to let them know how much they have encouraged me and taught me about ministry. Christmas Eve was a lot of fun, I spent the day shopping with my sister in law, Kim and ended the day with my extended family! I love my family and miss them soo much. But all of this was not the end of my travels.
I left early on Christmas morning to catch a flight back to West Palm. I arrived with just enough time to do some laundry and get some sleep. Friday Dec. 26th I headed to Gatlinburg, TN. We took 10 students, 2 volunteers, and 4 YFC staff on this Campus Life conference in the Smokey Mountains. We took two days to get there, and stayed for 3.
It was such an great trip. The students that we took along with us were great and with it being our first year going on this trip everything went relatively smoothe. There was a lot of mini-golfing to do, and lazer tag too on the first day. On the second day half of the group stayed and skiied on the mountain in Ober Gatlinburg while the other half of us headed into Pigeon Forge,(home of Dollywood for those who didnt' know). The purpose of going into Pigeon Forge however was not to go to Dollywood but to try some Indoor Skydiving! It was soo cool! I will try and get some photos up of this event. The conference went really well too, of our 10 students 3 made decisions to follow Christ!
We headed out early in the morning on the 30th and returned safely into Palm Beach county around 9pm. I'm am finally out and about having conquered a cold and sleep deprivation. This holiday season has been like no other. I got to see and spend time with my family whom I love and miss dearly, and I got to experience God moving in the lives of teenagers.

The theme of my life:)

OK so anyone who knows me knows how much i enjoy singing. No matter how good or bad i may sound. I love music and i know a lot of music (mostly popluar music from the last 25 yrs.) So came up with a question that has become something i ask everyone around me. You may have heard it before but as you think for yourself and how you might answer have fun. I have gotten some really great responses...

If you had a theme song for your life what song would it be? You should not have to explain why the song should speak for itself, or rather you! Drum roll please as i reveal my pick for the theme song of my life.

"Dance with somebody" by Whitney Houston!! Take just a moment and picture me singing this for you:) Other responses that i have gotten from the high school students have been pretty funny. Everything from"Final countdown" to "Hokey Pokey". So tell me what would your theme song be?

Discipline

I believe that everyone knows when you ask God for something that He usually "sends" you trials concerning your request and continues to "assist" you until you get it right. Kind of like when you ask for patience you end up with a broken down car and your having to ride the bus with a screamin child sitting next to. So who knows what I may have ended up with a couple of weeks ago when I began to pray and asked others to pray for discipline fior me.
Little did I know that as I began this endeavor to pray that my opportunities were already in front of me. Simple things like being on time to a meeting, and not eating out when I dont' really have the money. Its crazy to think how soo many of these things are easy and apart of everyday life and yet I feel they are challenging to get done.
Last week I was very busy. I think between Youth for Christ and C28 I worked like 75-80 hours. And believe it or not I actually got more things done. I really dont' know what my problem is and why that is, that when I am the most overloaded I seem to be the most on top of things. Suppose I may have always been this way??? I guess I will keep praying and hope to find other areas to get it "right" :)

New Kids

I know this blog can really be about whatever I want it to be, however I have seen it as a great tool to infom people about my ministry, however today I want to take a break from that and celebrate my youth...well I'm still full of youth if you ask me more like celebrate my childhood maybe?

For months there had been rumors of a possible New Kids on the Block reunion, and then bam it was confirmed. And they were coming here to south Florida. However by the time I'd gotten around to ask if anyone was interested in going everyone had there tickets already. Only minorly bummed I moved, that is until a week ago when I recieved a call from one of those friends who had tickets and couldn't go. I still had trouble though, who was I going to get to come with me? You dont' go to a concert like that without a friend.

For days everyone who I asked me laughed at me, I took quite a bit of grief for looking forward to this. I stood strong though and eventually convinced my friend Christen to come along.

It is really hard to even describe the scene of this "historic" event. Picture 98% mid-twenties+ women, i'm gonna guess 11% of those were pregnant, (for real never seen so many pregnant women at a concert). 5% men, who were dragged by there significant others.

There were two opening acts for them, first one was "Lady Ga-ga" (whatever), and the second was Natasha Bedingfield! Now I love Natasha, I've been a fan of hers for several years now. When her set was over I went out to see if I could meet her at the merch table. Line was too long but i did get a couple of good pictures of her...the point of this part of the story was the mass-hysteria that took place when the lights went off for the New Kids to take the stage. I really didn't know so many women were into running?

All in all it was a Great concert, laugh if you will, but the whole thing took me back to when i was in the 4th grade and my biggest crush was Joey McIntryre, and I wanted to be just like my cousins (who by the way were old enough to see them in concert the 1st time around). I really, really, really hate to say that the New Kids music is timeless, but for the 10,000 plus women who were at that concert last Saturday night there music holds a place in our own personal history. It was great how there reunion "reunited" us all with the simpler times of life and each other.

The I never post, post?

So even as I began this blog I had the most incredible of intentions to keep up on it. My good friends had sucessfully excited me about it. The fact that I would have a way to provide others with the info. of what was going on in my life (if anyone really cared), and an opportunity to share my successes and my woes in ministry. Needless to say I was seriously into having a blog. Then I got one.
Boy does that change things. I have done a poor job of maintaining and even posting. Why you may ask as you point out the fact that its not that hard to do. So here are my top 5 excuses..

5. Time, I'm just all over the place these days
4. I've got a Facebook, and a Myspace now what more do you want:)
3. I don't like using other peoples computers for personal stuff
2. I'm not too tech. savy, honestly afraid i might hit the wrong button
1. Have you ever read other peoples blogs...they are good, I'm not clever or funny nor do I have imput to change the world or entertain it.



So there you have it my top 5 excuses. I hope now that I can get over this and get back to blogging a little more often then once every other month:)

YFCamp 08

I returned from YFCamp a couple of weeks ago, and it has taken me this long to get to a place of relization as to what really happened at camp. I went as a last minute addition because we had too many girls going and not enough female adults. It was middle school camp and even though I do high school ministry because I know camp is always an amazing experience I wanted to go when I was asked.
In my cabin were 7 awesome and fun girls!!!! Camp consisted of the regular camp activities, swimming, ropes course, tubbing, kayaking, and a game room. The game room was usually the place to be as it rained many times throughout the week putting a damper on all outside activities. Cayerio a band from Memphis, Tennessee performed, and a man named Gilbert delivered a piercing message each night. The theme for the week was "Be Real". Being real I learned isn't super hard for most middle school girls especially when they feel comfortable and are around their friends. Six of the seven girls in my cabin went to the same school so they were very open and honest anytime there was small group discussion. And God certainly moved in the lives of each of the girls.
Traditionally camps climax in the mid-week for the Gospel presentation, but at YFCamp the climax begins mid-week with an emphasis on brokeness, and each girl was given the opportunity to release what brokeness they had in their lives, and then continued the next night with the presentation of the Gospel. Now I am not sure when the last time you were truly broken was but this took a lot of time and energy. I remember middle school being horrible and it being a very tough time for me, but at camp I had to come face to face with it and help these girls see that God was there to get them through this. Before the end of camp 6 of the 7 girls made committments to follow Jesus, and really make Him Lord in their lives realizing they couldn't get through it alone. PRAISE GOD! Middle school sucks, and is hard for girls. The real point to this story is not just about the girls and God but about me and God. This was sooo hard to do. In helping each of these girls I realized that even now there is brokeness in my life that needed to be dealt with.
Sooo to sum up YFCamp.....It was exhausting and challenging, but God met the students and me there and it truly was a place where things changed.

Liberty

So I have been reading this book by Elisabeth Elliot called "The Liberty of Obedience." The book starts out with a great story about a tribe in another country believing that any person from the outside world were cannibals because the other tribes around there area were cannibals. With this they viewed any action by any outside human being to be a trait of a cannibal person. This story brought up some interesting questions and this was just the beginning of the book. The next chapter possed the question "What is mean't by the appearance of evil?"
This really challenged me to think and consider what things that I view as "sin," what things are "worldly" and "holy." When I paired these thoughts together it brought together what a real Christian world-view must be like. Because every culture, and time is/was different, and every persons weakness' are different, sin can change...wait a minute that doesn't sound right? Which brings us to the next chapter discussing sin. The previous chapters had presented a lot of questions regarding sin, and scripture to support boths the sides of legalism and grace. The chapter that I just read helped to clear up some of the questions that had been formulating. Things of "this world" are exactly that things....therefore they in and of themselves can't BE sin. So that leaves only one factor to BE sin...me. I don't really know why this lesson was soo eye-opening to be. I guess to me in my mind it was the perfect mixture of grace, and the truth of the Word. Just as pastors, both past and present have always taught me that the Bible is not just a list of Do's and Don'ts. I knew this but here is where the Need for grace comes into play even if I obey the list of do's and don'ts to a T it could become sin depending on where my heart was because it is me who is a sinner not my actions soo I have to depend on God's grace and forgiveness because I don't know if I can ever be more than I am...which is totally dependent on HIM.