Christ's love for us

Each day- I get these "daily bible verses" emailed to me and its interesting to note how the right verses come when they come... today's verse was taken out of Romans 8:35,38-39, which read's

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Not sure why I am posting this, but it served as a reminder and encouragement for both my trip that is 11 days away, as well as working here at camp, at Christ's powerful love for us-nothing can seperate us from HIS amazing LOVE!
Keep Encouraged

Camp Update

Camp has been amazing these last few weeks...sorry I have not updated this sooner but have not wanted to spend a whole lot of time updating this...but do not worry, I will when I am out in the Ukraine for sure (2 weeks to the day till take off!!)
How to sum up the last 3 weeks?? First off, I have one more week to go as June 2 will be my last day at camp. But how to sum it up. Basically here was my thinking...."go into camp, serve my 4 weeks and not get attachtced and leave once the month of may is over" Well, here we are 3 weeks later and so much has happend. Now, Camp has become more then just camp-there are people there who have become like family. The connections, the memories, the struggles and everything in between, will be engraved in my heart forever. Going in, a purpose for going was to fill time between school and the Ukraine, since it was hard to find a job for that amount of time (I acutally handed out 7 applications in town and never heard back from any) so deciede that if nothing job wise came up, off to camp I would go, and so that is what I did, not knowing what God would teach me but I felt liek I should be there.

Being outside, working with the kids, sharing GOd's love not through scripture (in this case) but by playing games with the groups that come, by laughing and telling jokes or allowing kids to laugh at you when you purposely do something silly, has all been a real blessing. The relationships in dorm..I pray they will be life long and I think they will be, was alll a real encouragement and blessing as well
I can honestly say I am "bummed" to leave camp in just over a week and leaving camp was NOT suppose to be this hard..but it is and I am thankful and would not trade it for anything....

As to the Ukraine goes, 2 weeks from now I will be in toronto waiting for my next flight over to Frankfurt Germany then on to Kiev Ukraine..I will be arriving in the Ukraine aroudn 3:00 their time (so subtract 8 hours for time here) Mixed feelings I have, excited, scared nervous, etc but trusting GOd through it all

Continue to pray for me: pray for this last week of camp tha tI have, that it will just be a huge blessing and encourgement
Pray for me as I count down days and prepare for take off
Pray for my family who will stay behind (namely my mom) that God will just calm their hearts while I am gone
Pray for Health and saftey while I am out there and travel to and from
Pray that my heart will be opened and my eyes focused on God
Pray that I will be a light out there
Pray for my own Spiritual life and relationship with God

Thanks so much for your support
I have take Zephaniah 3:17 and sort of made it my "own" for this trip.
It reads..
"The LORD your God is with you,he is mighty to save.He will take great delight in you,he will quiet you with his love,he will rejoice over you with singing."

It just serves as an encouragement for me and I hope it does for you as well!

Pictures From Camp...

Leadership and Lessons learned...

So throughout this past year at SBC-there has been a re occuring theme that has kept been brought up to my attention and all. It is something that is fairly new to me at this point and I am still exploring it myself.
What is it?

It is this whole idea of leadership and to define what IS leadership. Growing up, I never thought myself as a leader. There could be a couple reasons for this, but whether they are legit reasons or excuses, not sure. Some of them would include just the group of friends I was in. Great group, but I was not the leader in that group. Although at the same time, not a follower as welll (if that at all makes sense). Perhaps it has to do with having grown up with brothers and having them just naturally being "better" at everything they do. Who knows.

But like I said, this past year at SBC, I have been challenged, and even forced into leadership. One of the re occuring questions I have been getting is "why do I shy away from it?" For example-Caregroup leading, or being the yearbook editor etc, both formal forms of leadership. Honestly, I do not know why I shy away from those-cause its not like I am not capable of doing it (and I am not just saying that to sound cocky...because more then one person has asked me why I am not doing it because they said I am beyound capable of doing it) (and if you followed that train of thought-well done!)

I have found that I love hanging out with people and I never would have thought I would have said that being an introvert-and I know I am still an introvert at heart, but am realizing a lot more extrovert qualities in me. So for example, I get challenged as to why I am not being a CGL since being what it, deals with a lot of people andhanging out-yet I tend to avoid it.... same goes with yearbook-that involves taking pictures (which I love) and working on computer/pictures (which is also fun) so again, doesnt make sense.

It also has to do a bit with stretching myself....I need to be stretched, but am not sure if this way of leadership is a way, at this point, to stretch me...for Example, Ukraine wil be stretching and that is partily the reason for going as well...again just some thoughts...

One thing that I think might contribute with me shying away from it (leadership) is this fear of failing that I have...I am not sure where or how this plays into it but here is a part of the email I wrote...But yah, I think what it comes down to is that I am scared to fail/disappoint. Let me clarify. I think I have put this to big of expecation on myself (or I tend to, also be to over critical of myself) and so when I am "Performing" I have to be able to perform and know I can complete the task well enough. maybe it also has to do with not wanting to disappoint other people.

Its this personal expectation that I have on myself that I think is holding me back. I knwo last summer at camp, I sat down with the camp director and we went over a evaluation thing for field ed at school and part of it was a self eval and a directors eval...he said he had looked at mine and overall-he said he thought I would being to hard on myself, that I had marked myself, the work I had done, to low.

I hope some of this makes sense-for those that know me-perhaps you can shed some light into this as well!

(the pics are a few from camp taken earlier this week!)
Till next time!

Camp

So here I am, 3 days into my Camp (Spring Staff) expereince at Winkler Bible Camp. THese last two days have consisted of lots of Orientation, but its been good. Today we did a lot of yard clean up and all but it was good. I am realizing I love being outside all day instead of inside all day, although I think it is more tiring but still good!
Tomorrow I will be helping out with bikes and horses here at the camp which will also be new and exciting but yet still good!


Ukraine is 1 month and 2 days away! crazy! but sweet. Mixed feelings about it but I lknow God will stretch me and I know it will be good for me!

Just a quick up date from camp!
God Bless