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.