Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Changing the World

As most of you know, my motto in life, or my goal; whatever you want to call it is that I want to CHANGE the world! I'm getting a very special opportunity to start changing the world this fall break.

I'M GOING TO HAITI!!!

If you can't tell, I'm a LITTLE excited. Greg, Michelle and I will be going down and visiting some orphanages and really just seeing Haiti and talking to people. I absolutely cannot wait to get down there! I won't be updating a ton until then because I'm trying to get prepared to go, but I will do my best!

I know the Lord has called me to do this and I know that it can definitely turn into something long term, so I'm praying about where I am going and what I will do when I graduate in May.

As most of you also know, I have a slight obsession with the Philippines. Two days ago, a lot of the Philippines became submerged under water and a lot of people have lost their lives. It hurts my heart, and I am with those people in spirit and will be praying hard-core for them!

I'll update soon!

>K

Friday, September 18, 2009

M-Fuge! Finally :)

So I know that I've mentioned M-Fuge in a couple of my blogs recently, but this one is actually about it! Finally! So if you haven't figured it out, I went to M-fuge with my "husband" from Super Summer and his church. Let me just set the scene: I know 3 people that are going to this camp. Can you say scary? I was! So I drive from Nashville on a Sunday afternoon to go to Greg's church and meet everyone that will be going on the trip.

Those who know me well know that I am not shy at all. But this day, I went in a little shell and didn't come back out for a while. I was so nervous and scared. I knew that we were leaving at like 4 in the morning and I was already tired, so I tried to go to bed pretty early, but of course that didn't really work. So I slept for a little while on the bus on the way there, but also tried to talk to some people and learn more about them so that the week would be great and people wouldn't think I was TOTALLY weird.

So we get down there and do our registration and get things ready and mark what thing we wanted to do. The options were social (nursing homes and things like that), drama or something like it, games and recreation, children's ministry, pcy (yard work, construction, and painting - I think). Naturally, I put games and rec as number one, children's as number 2 and I think social as number 3. I really wanted to be put in games and rec, but ended up being put into childrens.

At first I was super bummed, but when I got to meet our group leader and the other people in my group I was really excited. We were going to be working at this place called Light of the Village. I have worked with inner-city kids before, so you know that I was super pumped. We got there the first day and I automatically fell in love. The kids were super rough, but it was amazing to see that they actually came and were learning about Jesus, and how to stay off the streets. Another amazing thing was that 2 guys from an organization called Homeboy Industries were there. They would talk to the kids about what it was like to be in a gang and how Christ transformed their lives and they are now living for him and helping other people that are on the streets turn their life around. The kids really loved these guys because they could relate to them. I played a lot of basketball with the kids, and made crafts, and helped the super little kids with their Bible story of the day. I met some really awesome kids and I pray that they stay off the streets and really cling to the Word of God. I hope that I can go back there some day and minister to those kids some more.

My roommate was Greg's wife, Michelle. I had just met her the day before we left for the trip, and she was super sweet. I was excited about rooming with her, and it was definitely a blast. We totally got in trouble by some of the other church groups for being too loud. Oooopsieee! We also had a lot of great talks and she was really there for me when I was struggling. Sometimes it hard to be in a leadership position, and be expected to be perfect all the time. I have faults too, and she definitely helped me get over that and realize that I am just a girl and I will make mistakes, but its what I make of those mistakes that determines who I really am.

One really bad thing about M-Fuge was the food. It was absolutely disgusting. That may also be because I am one of the pickiest eaters in the whole world. We ordered pizza's a couple of nights because a lot of us girls were super hungry. I got some of the food down, but it was definitely a struggle. They had the best pie though! I survived on that!

The morning Bible studies that we had were pretty good. It was really really early, so it was hard to focus sometimes, but I liked that there were only about 15 of us and we were all in college. I like small groups a whole lot better than humongous groups. It wasn't the deepest Bible study I have ever been in, but it sufficed.

The morning show was ridiculous of course. I'm never a big fan of those, but this one was alright. I tried to get in to it as much as possible, and it was funny. I enjoyed the time in the morning to grow closer to my team and enjoyed seeing all the campers go wild.

The evening worship was up and down for me. I didn't really enjoy the band that much. Some of the songs were great, but they did a lot of songs that no one had ever heard of, and a lot of them I felt weren't completely Biblical, so it would make me a little agitated, but was overall pretty good. The speaker was pretty good. The only thing that I would get aggravated about with him was his time. You can only usually keep teenagers for about 15 minutes, and he would speak for about 45 to an hour. I could concentrate the whole time, but most of the teenagers would be nodding off or get ADD so it was hard to try to keep everyone focused.

The church group time was good. We usually just talked about what we had done that day and something awesome that God did, or showed us. I was mostly quiet because I wanted to give the kids the time to talk. One night, Greg asked me if I would take the girls by myself with no other adults and just have some time with them. It was my favorite night, of course, but I really got to see them open up and see their hearts. I think that was the night I gained the most trust from the ladies. It's hard to open up to a group when they don't know you, or you don't know them, but I was really glad that they did.

Overall, M-fuge was a lot of fun. I definitely made some awesome new friends, and lots of new experiences. I've definitely opened up a lot more than I normally have to people that I normally wouldn't. I'm so glad I got the privilege to go, and it has only led to me spending more time with those students, which I have absolutely loved. I hope that I can continue to minister to students in some of capacity for the rest of my life. My heart really does have a passion for youth, and this trip helped me realize that even further.

I'm not sure what my next blog will be about, but it will be soon! Promise!

>K

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I know I'm a slacker..


Since Jessie has been mean to me because I haven't written a blog in a while, I figured I would write a short one for now until I have a little more time to write an update on my life. As you can probably guess, I have been super super busy lately. Between work and school and being sick, life has been put on hold so I can focus on more important things.

First important thing that happened... I was attacked with the swine. Cool.. I know. Here is a nasty picture of me with the swine.


I definitely didn't know that I had it, so I went and hung out with some friends. Luckily, none of the people in this picture got sick, but I did accidently get quite a few people sick. Hopefully none of them hate me.

Another important thing that I'll expand on in another blog are the camps that I went to. The first camp I went to was called Super Summer. It was my third summer to do this and it was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of my awesome family.


Aren't they beautiful



This is husband Greg sitting on me

This camp was a lot of fun, and I think that one of the coolest things that came out of this camp was my awesome husband. We found out on the first day that he lived about 45 minutes away from Knoxville and then we ended up being small group leaders together, so it was a lot of fun to get to work with him. On the last day of camp, he asked me if I wanted to go to camp with their church, called M-fuge. I told him that I would absolutely love to, and it was a great decision. I went knowing very few people, but gained a ton of friendships through it. Here is a picture of everyone on the bus.



I had so much fun serving alongside these people and had a lot of fun especially with my roommate that week. Greg's "real wife" Michelle was my roommate for the week, and I'll just add a couple of pictures to show you what went down a couple of nights.




But we also had some good pictures taken too....


But like Super Summer, I am going to write another blog on M-fuge very very soon. After we got back from M-Fuge, I started attending Greg's Church, Church of the Cove.

I've been going there and hanging out with their youth ever since then and I absolutely love it. It's been a lot of fun getting to know everyone there, and there is a lot happening that could influence my future a TON, but I'll talk more about that later :) Always have to keep you guessing!



The other big big thing that happened this summer is that I turned 21! My day was pretty good. I drove all the way to Nashville so that I could spend the day with my family. We went to Kabuto, which is my FAVORITE restaurant in Nashville. In honor of my 21st, I got a drink called the Volcano, which was humungous, and I hardly drank any of it! We shared all of it around the table but it got finished. Here are some pictures from dinner.



So there's just a few of the pictures from my birthday. It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad that my family was there to celebrate with me.


So this past weekend, my dad got the privilege of being on David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, and Huckabee. I am so proud of him and he did an awesome job on all three shows! I also got to go see him play this summer in Pigeon Forge and I took a couple of pictures so I'll share those too!

My dad's name in LIGHTS!

Me and Mom before the show

George and Nancy

My dad singing!

The Man Himself!


So thats pretty much my summer. Now that I'm back in school, all I see are books, teachers, and my desk at work. But I'm making it. I applied to graduate today which is super super exciting so I'm just waiting for that day in May. So as I mentioned before hand, some of my future is up in the air, but big things are happening.


This summer, I was talking to my mentor, Lisa, and I told her that I really just wanted to get involved in a student ministry and I was going to try to help with a church in Knoxville. So after being at the Church of the Cove for a few weeks, Greg asked me if I would be a part of their student ministry and help with their middle school aspect. God truly answered prayer in that. So another thing that I have been worried about is what I am going to do in my future. I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to travel and do missions somewhere. I was talking to Greg about it and he mentioned that he was very involved in ministries in Haiti and India. So God is definitely opening doors and helping to to figure out things. I have such a peace about leaving America to go minister to those who do not know him, whereas before I was freaking out about it. I honestly think that by this time next year, I may be overseas somewhere doing the Lord's work, and that excites me!


Well, it's about time for me to be off work, so that's all for this blog. As soon as I have so more time, I will definitely update with a full update on Super Summer and M-Fuge! Hope you all have a good day :)


>K