Send Me

This past week, I got to experience one of the best trips I've ever been on with my church if not the best yet. My trip was to Bamboo, Jamaica to hold a VBS for the kids in the area and then go do some construction on a camp for future use with some other activities thrown in the middle.

Now that you know what our "plan" was, I'm now going to tell you how it pulled through. Our schedule, after a few tweaks, went like this. Wake up around 7:30 for breakfast (5:30 if you wanted to see the sunrise) and then hold our devotion time, where two people would tell us about how the passage for that day applies to us as believers for ourselves and how it applies to us as a whole. Then we'd get on our bus and drive up into the mountains to Bamboo Tabernacle where we held our VBS. Around 12:30 we headed over to Daddy Collin's house for lunch, some resting time, and then our project for the day. When 4:30 came we drove back down to our hostels for some free time. We ate dinner around 6:30 and then had debriefing for the day. Then you had time to just hang out or hit the bed because you were so tired.

Let's start with the beginning of the days. Breakfast consisted of some of the greatest fresh fruit God ever created, pineapple and watermelon, and we also had pancakes or toast or whatever they made us that day. Devotion time was always good because we got to hear from our peers everyday and what they were getting out of the passages. The drive up the mountains was a very exciting. First of all they drive on the opposite side of the road and that was fun in itself. Then some of the turns they have to take are completely 180 degrees and the only way they know someone is around the corner is to constantly honk. Honking there is also not a rude thing; it's communication between cars and sometimes the people on the streets.

VBS was one of the funnest things I've ever been able to be apart of. The kids were amazing and I learned a lot from them just by playing with them or just talking to them. JJ (my youth pastor) and I were talking one day just watching the kids and it finally hit me that these kids have pretty nothing and yet they have so much with footballs (soccer balls) and sometimes even as simple as a toy wheel. They loved interacting during the teaching times and really loved worshipping. They also got the oppurtunity one day to teach us a song which became our trip "mascot song". And it went like this:

"Jesus on the telephone,

Tell Him what you need,

Tell Him what you need right now.

Some want silver,

Some want gold,

But I want Jesus in my soul.

Jesus on the telephone,
Tell Him what you need,
Tell Him what you need right now."

The construction part of our week really did not consist construction. We ended up painting a gate for Daddy Collins at his house. We were all kind of upset because there was such a lack of supplies and it really wasn't construction. That night at debriefing we got to talk about it and we all noticed that that wasn't in God's plan for us and we had to keep going so it was a lot easier the next day because we knew this is what He gave us to do and we had to take it. All that we know though is that we made that gate look good.

Our two side projects we had were two very different orphanages and two very different experiences. The first one we went to was named Widow's Mite and it was for special needs orphans and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I walked in carrying some things and I just had to keep bringing stuff because I was not ready. So when everything was brought in, I took out my camera to get comfortable. I looked over at one my leaders, Dave Edwards that happens to also be my 242 leader, and when I saw him playing with the kids, I just started crying. His 6 year old daughter had a very bad sleeping accident when she was to and now she is challenged and when I saw him those kids having so much fun, I just thought how lucky Claire is to have him as her dad. The kids there had such huge smiles the whole time and were very happy to see us and loved being around us, it just brought joy in love to our hearts. The conditions they were living in weren't the best but yet they were still so happy was one of the biggest things that hit me there because God gave them to us for that hour and a half and he did a lot for us and for them and I'm very glad to say that God is always working no matter what country or what conditions.

The other orphanage was for troubled girls but it was also a sanctuary for many girls. We stayed outside of the main room and prayed for our girls the whole time. It was interesting to hear their stories once they got back to us because they all had different experiences. Ours was very powerful because we could feel God's angels around us the whole time and it was awesome.

The debriefing times at nights were very good for our group because we got to talk about the through the same 3 simple questions that had meaning to them. "Where did you see God working today?" "What frustrated you?" "How can pray for something for it to get better?" Every night we would answer the same questions and every night we gave answers. The neat thing was after this time, we all seemed to just break up into pairs and just go talk. One of the things that frustrated pretty much everybody was that we weren't getting anything or that we just couldn't feel God anywhere, we all kind of felt lonely. But as the week went on and more and more pair talking went on we all noticed that we were there to build relationships and friendships within the group. I went in with the formulated question "Is this what I want to do?" but God didn't give me that question and that's what hit everybody expecting for it to be answered. We all realized we were working as a team just building each other up and for the seniors getting ready this last year of high school and I think after this trip, we are ready. I mainly built my friendship with Kelly, Alli and JJ but the whole team felt a huge uplifting throughout so it was amazing in and of itself.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for my class and I tackling senior year but were hoping it's a good year and that we can leave a "legacy" like the senior class I came into high school with did.

And I bet you can't wait to see pictures. Well I did take 583 pictures to be exact but I'll put my favorites or just the ones that need to be on here.

Behind-the-Scenes

Well it's been awhile since I last posted but its because I've been pretty busy. Last week was VBS 2007 at our church and let me just say it was loads of fun. I always have fun that week. This year was different because I got to participate in the dramas and I really enjoyed being in the "behind-the-scenes" the whole time. It felt like I had a lot of free time but it was still fun. The theme for the week was Deal or No Deal and they tied it in with High School Musical. It sounds weird at first but once you read the script and saw it on stage it made sense. I also got to experience history last week. I was at the Astro's game when Biggio hit his 3,000th hit and it was the best Astro's game I've ever been to. The crowd roared when it launched into the air and they had to stop the game right where it was because it was so loud and very touching for his family. This week has been getting ready for my Jamaica trip next week. It's our mission trip with our student ministry at our church and I'm very excited I have the privilege to go this year. The mornings are going to be early every morning but are going to be worth it because we get to hold a VBS for the children in Bamboo, Jamaica, right outside of Ocho Rios. The afternoons are going to be spent constructing a camp for future youth groups to hold activities and possibly stay there. We're not going to finish the camp during the week but we're going to definitely get it started and get the project going. Sometime during the week we also have the opportunity to go to an orphanage for special needs children and I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us with that. Every night, we're going to have a worship/bible study for our group and we teach each other. Of course, I got picked to teach the first night, but thankfully my partner is Marissa so we're going to do great. I ask everyone to pray for our safety and pray that God changes our lives individually and we can all take something from the week and bring back into our own worlds. Well tomorrow is Joanna Lucas' wedding and I'm very excited for her. To end this post, I want to put some lyrics from a song that has really been impacting me.

"The Wonder of the Cross" by Vicky Beeching

"May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross,

May I sing it like the first time, standing as a sinner lost.

Under the mercy and left speechless,

Watching wide eyed at the cost,

May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross."

Spam

Last night, I got the chance to see the last show of the tour of Spamalot. you're probably wondering what that is and if you don't know I'm about to tell you. Monty Python decided to lovingly rip off from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail to make a musical out of it. It was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen and I'm sad to see it leaving. What made it funny was pretty much everything about it. The sets were crazy elaborate but yet they had humor to them. The costumes were very funny but pretty raunchy at parts let me just say. They did really good with transistioning characters from the silver screen to the stage. The dancing was hilarious to watch because some people would very outrageously and would really stand out.We also had lots of fun before the show at Niko Niko's and here are some of the pictures.

He's so weird. Collin had my camera so a lot of these I didn't take and were crazy.

Mary close up.

You like it.

Mary's hand got in the way of Daniel trying to take a candid picture.

And they were all yellow.

Yellow.

Daniel, Theresa, Liz, me, Mary, and Collin. Liz and Theresa had orchestra seats and we had mezzanine seats so we met up during intermission and after the show.

one

Hello everyone out there. I'm finally writing my first post and it might be a long one because after this week I have many things to say. This week I traveled to Panama City Beach, Florida for my church trip "one". You're probably wondering why I'm not capitalizing it. It's because the symbol wasn't so therefore I'm not going to capitalize it lol. The trip was named "one" because it was supposed to symbolize becoming one body of Christ and I think God did a perfect job in giving us the name and then us using it very wisely. Anyways back to the week, it was my third year going and I think every year it has gotten better and better by what I have gotten out of it. Many things changed in friendships, for the better, and I can't wait to see our youth group become "one" after this trip. We started the vacation pretty rough though. There was a bigger group going this year so we had to get two buses. Well we got a smaller coach and a regular size coach and upperclassmen got put on the smaller bus since there was less of us. Well about four hours into the trip, the air conditioning decided to be weird and not wanting to work right. It soon got hot on the bus and we tried everything to get it to cool down. Well about thirteen hours into the trip, the other bus driver comes on our bus and shows us that these two little vents were open, sucking out all the cold air. We don't why she chose to show us that far into our torture but it didn't matter because it started getting dark after that so there was no more sun to heat up our bus. Well at about 9:30-10ish we pulled up to the Majestic Beach Towers and were able to unload for the start of the week. Every night after our beach/free time we had our corporate worship/teaching time for the day and to end the night we had a creative element to get us closer to "one". The first night we had to let go of all of our boundaries or tear down our hurting walls so we all got balloons and wrote on note cards, attached them to the string, and went out to the beach to let them go. It didn't quite work as well as it sounds but it was funny to see everyone chasing after their balloons to make it to where they go into the air and not down the beach. The second night again we got balloons but we had to line up and walk with the balloons pressed against each other without ever touching the balloon or ever talking, a lot harder than it sounds. The third night we had communion and one of the things JJ said before we could start communion was to confess any sins to anybody you needed to and I took advantage. The last night was probably one of the best nights I've ever had in my life. We had three stations to really hit home, one was a prayer station ( for praying over anyone), the second was a blessing station (where you could just say what was on your mind about a person), and the third and most powerful was a foot-washing station. I've never cried so much on such a powerful, spiritual, and eye-opening activity. At the beginning of the night, I was excited about getting to experience it but once it happens to you, something inside of you opens and I definitely broke down every time no matter if my feet were being washed or if I was washing. It was one of the most powerful things I've ever experienced. I cried for a very long during it but they were different tears that I can't describe with words. God works in unimaginable ways and I saw that in many ways this week. I also got experience something I've never been able to do. A dolphin/jet-ski tour was offered to us for $50 and two hours so I paid the full way with my first paycheck and I do not regret it at all. At the first stop we made, we had dolphins coming right up to our jet-skis and to the swimmers. I didn't get in the water because i don't like not being able to see whats under me (it's weird i know) but it was still a great experience to see them come right up to us. The second stop was a lagoon type place where we got to collect sand dollars and see some marine life like sea urchins and very large mantarays swimming around us the whole time. The last stop we made was a very little and exclusive island called Shell Island and guess what they had there, shells!! It was the most beautiful water I've ever felt. Swimming around on that island, I just looked out and experienced God's power in a beautiful way. Another thing I got to experience was joining with the Senior WOWman (now graduated WOWman) in the Iron Chef competition. Our room wasn't allowed to participate alone this year because we won the past two years so we decided to let someone else shine and since they were always our biggest competition we decided to help them out to win and they did. We were all dressed up as pirates and had lots of fun messing around with the judges. Another really big thing that hit home with me this week was the worship. There was two songs that everytime we sang them, I would just close my eyes and get staright into a prayerful state. The band was Tom Edwards band and if you ever get to listen to them please do because they've gotten better every year. Back to what I was saying about the songs was there was two parts of the songs that hit me. One said "I love the way you love; I love the way compassion knows no end; and I love the way you take me as I am, teach me to love like you." this hit me because it made me think about my attitude about everything in my life right now. The other one said "I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can't climb. I will lift my eyes to the calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will life my eyes to the healer of the hurt I hold inside. I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to you." If you just sit there and read those lyrics you definitely feel something hopefully. Okay now picture time.

This was the look of everything with the symbol and yours truly designed it (but I can't take all the credit because Sarah Stone gave the black and white idea.)

Me and Lindsee being bashi (the made up word *Kelly Buchtien* for ghetto).

Haley, Liz and Theresa some of my all time favorite now junior girls!!

The view from our balcony, 15th floor!

The balloons from the nght we tore our walls down.

Another view.

On the beach about to let them go. (fogged up because of humidity)

Our room wrote one really big in the sand one night it was lots of fun.

Hannah, me, and Mary at the one of the morning meetings.

My sister and Nate as the emcees for the week and that day was ghetto day.

The sunset one night from our balcony. Awesome is the power of the Lord.

Me and Marissa!!

We rock at life!!

Great sunset.

Me and Lindsee on the beach on T-shirt night.

Let me just say this week was such an awesome week and I thank everyone for the encouragement notes that you wrote to me which I never explained. During the whole week, we were to write encouragement notes to anybody you wanted to and at the end of the week after our midnight worship on the beach we got them and got to read them and it completed the week. Well I can't wait to actually start posting these blogs but let me just this one took well over an hour and I hope not all of them will go this long. Oh and in a month its sad but I will be getting home from my Jamaica mission trip and that one will definitely be a long post. And I might be going to see Spam-a-lot tomorrow so I'm very excited.