Please Pray!

This morning as I was spending time in prayer, I felt led to find out how LeTourneau Christian Camp is doing. I told y'all a bit about them this past summer. They are still currently trying to raise money so that they may procure the deed to the property so that they may be able to do so much more with it. They'd like to upgrade things that are outdated, weatherize the tabernacle, and so much more!

The camp is located about 10 minutes away from the city of Canandaigua, and is on the shore of Canandaigua Lake. One of the most beautiful places to be is when the sun rises behind you, and the sun sets in front of you when you're on the shore of the lake.

I've gone to LeTourneau for the past 4 summers, and for a couple winter retreats. It sounds cliche, but they have impacted me there. Being able to serve by encouraging and reaching out to those in my group, and be served in similar ways, is a blessing. Before I end this post, I would like to share my experiences from this past year when I took Child Evangelism Fellowship's Christian Youth in Action training for the 4th time.

Monday: I arrived and I settled into my room. I met my roommate who was a sweet girl. We all went up for lunch, and right after we prayed I went to stand up, but felt nauseous and sick. Lunch smelled horrible to me, so I went straight to bed for 3 hours. I felt miserable. I told myself if I didn't feel better by 6:30 I was calling home. Thankfully I improved over the afternoon, and by evening I was 90% myself. Being sick changed something in me. I can't quite put my finger on it. I sang on the praise and worship team which really lifted my spirits. 

Tuesday: A long day with classes all day. I learned many things in the Bible, adding a few more sticky notes, bookmarks, and underlined passages. God's word really spoke to me that day. I also began to consider sharing a testimony on prayer. I almost did it that night during praise and worship, but something held me back. In my diary it says "When you open your heart in Scripture, praise or prayer, it's simply amazing how God shows things to you."

Wednesday: This was the first day of our practicums. The interns (I was an intern) were taken out for ice cream. I also demonstrated the first lesson of the missionary story on this day. I "over-dramatized" it, and I will probably be teased for years! It was a wonderful day.

Thursday: From my diary "POWERFUL day! Wow! The awesome power of God is unexplainable! I shared a testimony during praise and worship that had a ripple effect that was all GOD. Praise God for his glorious plans!" God said yes to my desire to share something. I shared a testimony about the fox attack and how prayer sustained me. I then shared that during the time this spring with my Mom off her ankle for a month, and then her sinus infection for 2 weeks, my prayer life grew in leaps and bounds. I would not have gotten through it without God. I used 1st Thessalonians 5:17. Right after I shared that, one of the leaders shared something on prayer, which lead to many heartache-filled testimonies which we prayed for as we went through them. I would have never guessed the stories from some of them. God's hand was moving that night. Tears and prayers were lifted to God and burdens were lifted. (That night still amazes me to this day!)

Friday: I had a few people come to me for prayer, as I had offered to pray for them, and one person told me that morning that the verse I told them to look up was an answer to prayer. They had asked God for someone to give them a verse to encourage them. God answered not only that prayer, but another one. From my diary - "God is so good. I praise him for the glorious things he has done. <3 He is truly amazing! A lovely day @ camp & some heavy prayer requests" 

Saturday: "This is the best year yet! I'm so sad it's almost over!!!! I miss everyone though. Thank you God for this lovely day you've blessed us with!" Monday and Tuesday were hot. Wednesday was nice. Thursday and Friday were very chilly in the morning and evening but nice in the afternoon. By Saturday the weather was quite enjoyable. 

Sunday and Monday were days filled with busyness as it was the end of the training, we went to Church, finished up our practicums, packed up, and were commissioned for the work we were doing that summer. It was a long powerful week, and I still look back on this past summer as the best summer I've ever had. Why do I say that? Because I grew remarkably in my faith in God.

In closing, I ask that you pray for LeTourneau as they continue to raise the money needed to procure the deed. They have a wonderful ministry, and after 80+ years, it's still going strong! Praise God!

(Here is a video about the camp!)

Beautiful Feet

Feet.

Those icky yucky things we often forget about.

To be honest.

My feet are hideous.

I always have some sort of blister, sore, toenails with issues or scars.

Honestly, I sometimes want to complain about them.

They just aren't cute.

A couple of my toes have a weird "bump".

Sometimes that's a hindrance.

But when ever I'm tempted to complain and feel sorry for myself, I remember this verse.

Romans 10:15
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

When I remember this, I remember that beauty is only skin deep.

My feet are beautiful.

Not on the outside, but on the inside.

I use my feet to serve others.

I use them to work with kids.

I use them to dance for others to cheer up their day.

I use them to help my great grandma.

I use them to run errands.

I use them for everything.

God gave me these feet to spread His love.

And when I remember this.......I don't feel so bad about them.

Thank you God for my beautiful feet!

Love

We are messy. Our hearts are messy, our lives are messy, our possessions can be, too.

But none of that matters. We have God.

He's too mighty, too powerful, too marvelous, too perfect, to understand or comprehend.

We are all messy. We all have messed up hearts, messed up lives, messed up motives, messed up love.

Our love is miniscule compared to God's. His is everlasting, ours is transient.

Jeremiah 31:3
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."

The Lord who made the Heavens and the earth loves us??

And he continues his faithfulness to us??

We are nothing. He is everything. And we treat him as if it was the other way around. We treat others as if it was the other way around.

Our lives are fleeting on this earth. We are born, we live, we die. All within about a century.

In Sunday school we are going on a trip through the Bible to refresh our memories of what the Bible is all about.

My teacher was pointing out that in the beginning of Genesis in chapter 5 it talks about how long the person lived and then he died. Our lives are short.

So I want to challenge all of you.

1st Corinthians 13:4-8
 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it dies not rejoice at wrong doing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

In the next few weeks I'm going to be focusing on my family, prayer, and my relationship with God. I love my family, I love praying and learning more about God but I've been doing it wrong.

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect.

I'm "breaking away" from the worlds ideas. I want to treat God, my family and friends as if they were Kings and Queens.

If God can show us everlasting love why can't I do the same?

It will be hard. It will be tough. I will want to give up, but the world needs to see God's love overflow in our lives as Christians.

So I challenge you: what ever you need to do to accomplish this, do it! If you need to limit computer, limit movies, limit alone time, what ever you need, do it!

Philippians 2:4
Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also the interests of others.

For me, I'm going to limit my online time to 2 hours a day for the next week. Unless I'm using it for school work or research, my time limit is going to be 2 hours. I'm going to take the extra time and start being there for my sisters, becoming a young woman that God desires me to be, spreading God's love, and being a servant to my friends and family. I'm also going to spend that time delving into God's word and praying.

Matthew 5:14
In the same way let your light shine before others so that the may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven.


Join me! :~)