An End of a Season

    On Saturday my life will transform into a new season, as that is the day I'll meet the students I'll be constantly with for the next nine months of my life. It will also be the day that I'll move out of my summer home. The School of Worship is said to be super intense, and will make you mature three years in just the nine months you are there. I have no doubt this will be the beginning of a new season for me. A transforming season, and possibly a very challenging period. I hope I'll be able to write weekly updates of what I've learned each week. Since that season has yet to start, I'll write a summary of the last part of the season I'm in currently: Summer 2016.

May 2016
- I took my last exam on May 13th in the last possible time slot. My Geography teacher wanted to torture us and make us stay on campus up until the last minute possible. After my exam, it was time to pack up from Parkside and move back to Slinger. This meant saying goodbye to the best roommate ever, Huiying. The nicest roommate, whom I had gone on many adventures with. Whether it be trips to Chicago or Six Flags or as simple as going to the Dollar Store or cleaning up the Racine Zoo.

 

-  I stayed in Slinger for the month of May before moving to Racine May 31st, where I was accepted into the home of Jim and Rachel Garnett with open arms.  I couldn't be more thankful for that. Even though most of my month was spent in Slinger, I would go down to Racine each week, so I could finish a church class called V+C. V+C stands for Vision and Commitments, and it's a twenty week course that teaches you everything Living Light believes in, and biblical scripture backing up why we believe the things we do. Thank you to the Kreye family and the Nitz for accepting me into your homes on Monday nights after V+C took place, so I didn't have to drive all the way back to Slinger.
-Before I said goodbye to Slinger, I spent my last weekend seeing Dan and Phil in Milwaukee. Two British YouTubers who were then on their tour in America. They did a theatrical show, putting in elements of their YouTube channels within it. It was beyond amazing, and the set itself was super creative. Thank you Alex and Anne Leviska for experiencing that with me!

-June 2016                                                                                                                                             

-I found out I got accepted into the School of Worship,majoring in guitar                                  

-I saw a lot of movies this summer, not just in June including: "Neighbors 2", "Finding Dory",

"BFG", "Suicide Squad" twice, and "Secret Life of Pets"                                                           

-Went on many adventures with Laurette and Kelsey including: trips to the beach and Shirl's

-Started training as a camp counselor for Recreational Activities for the Developmentally Disabled (RADD) The training made the job seem way more intimidating then it actually was.                  

-Started working at Camp Kinder, which God would teach me a lot through including seeing life through a whole new perspective. (Hopefully a new blogpost on that later).                                

                

- Saw the premiere of "In the Land of Canaan" a documentary that a guy put together about the importance of kids with special needs after his daughter died in October. I connected with this movie a lot, because it reinforced what God was teaching me through my workplace.                                    

- The "Underground Huddle" was launched at West Park.  Something I knew little about that would slowly become important to my purpose for being in Racine this summer. The Underground Huddle focuses on reaching youth in the community with the gospel, and giving them a safe atmosphere to hang out, and make friends with others while doing activities. I am a volunteer co-teacher and friend for the ladies who have become apart of this group.                                                                        

-July 2016                                                                                                                                           

 

-Laurette left to go to basic training for the Marines                                                                    

-July was filled with mostly working and helping out with the Underground Huddle so there won't be much more :P                                                                                                                                 

                       

-In the middle of July I went to Merriville Indiana to go to a conference through my church.  I gained so much wisdom, and got to get to know people more from the church, whilst having the best roommates.                                                                                                                                      

 

-At the end of July I went down to Chicago with my friend Cleo.  We explored Naperville while almost having our bodies melt away to sweat puddles because of the hot temperatures. We did this all to meet a YouTuber (Shane Dawson) who probably wasn't as excited to hug dripping wet sweaty fans. It was worth it, even though it was rushed so no one would be reduced to a sweat puddle on the ground.                                                                                                                                       

-Went to the Washington County Fair with one of my friends, Liz who was home after moving out to Virginia.                                                                                                                                                

 

-August 2016                                                                                                                                         

-Saw a friend I hadn't gotten to talk to in awhile, Liza and went down to Zion to listen to some free live music.                                                                                                                                      

  -Ended a successful summer of Camp Kinder, however I must of picked up the plague before it happened, because I went through it the next day. Which was the first day of our family vacation. Nothing says happy start to vacation better than a migraine, bad stomach, leg cramps, a bad cold, and general uncomfortableness. Here's a far away picture of me going through it while on my laptop.

- The plague took about two days to overcome. After the plague was over I enjoyed fishing, going out to eat, mini golfing, and shopping on vacation in Hayward.                                                            

-After vacation I went back to Racine for two days, after that I would go back home for a week. The purpose of going to Racine, being that one of my wonderful homegroup leaders from church was having a baby shower, and I wanted to help out!                                                 

- Spent my last week at home finalizing things, and got to see one of my best friends from school, and catch up!                                                                                                                                

                                                                                        

                            

      I start the school on September 6th, so before then I'll be seeing some friends, who I might not get to see too often during the school, and I'll be moving into David and Amy Meyers on Saturday, as well as meeting all the people I'll constantly be with for the next nine months!                                                                         

 

 

Faith Will Win, Fear Will Lose

     In this post I'm going to be vulnerable once again, as I feel God is leading me to type out this post.  At the prayer meeting this evening, one of our elders was talking about the concept of "fight or flight".  He used real life examples of how today he came home from work and just felt really frustrated.  Why was he frustrated? He didn't even know? There was no reason. He then began to talk about how if he was frustrated being an elder/husband then he could step down for a bit.  In reality that's not true, that doesn't do anything or help anyone.  It's giving into flight mode. Satan wants us to flee instead of fight. Flee from doing God's work, and instead hiding. God gave me a real analogy in my life on this "flight or fight" mechanism these past two weeks. 

     Satan knows are weaknesses, what makes us want to hide away from life. For me my weakness is my anxiety.  My anxiety was used against me and also for me the past two weeks. (Isn't it great how god can make a bad situation into a lesson?) About two weeks ago was the last day of our family vacation, we had just gotten back from being out in town. I sat down to relax, but my mind was overtaken with panic. I grabbed my guitar, and started playing. (Usually this would soothe me from my panicky thoughts). It didn't. I ran out of the room and to where my mom was. She has dealt with my anxiety before so she knew what to do. My mind kept flickering to that I'd need to go to the hospital to escape this feeling. My mind seems to jump to this irrational conclusion whenever I have a panic attack. I told my mom to take me somewhere...maybe the hospital. (That's never happened). During my panic attacks for some reason my mind tells me running is a good idea.  (I absolutely hate running, and only have the urge when I'm in the middle of a panic attack.) My mom told me we could walk outside. So we did, and that's what I did at first, took off running. (Literally deciding to flight in the fight or flight situation.) My mom shouted at me to stop running, and the rational part of my mind made me stop. It's just like God saying  in points of trial to stop hiding and fight. Don't let your fear win, let your faith win. Faith will win, fear will lose!

         Fast forward one week, still recovering from my last panic attack as the recovery period can take a little time. It happened again. This time my parents and I were in the car on our way home from my aunts at like 9ish. It was dark out. Being in a car at night used to give me anxiety, but it hadn't in awhile so I thought I'd be fine. I wasn't, not really. I started feeling the panic overtaking my mind, I tried to distract my brain with cotton candy (We had been at a festival before going to my aunts house which had cotton candy, no shame). The cotton candy didn't help, and I immediately felt the urge to get out of the car, like my life depended it. So I said just that. I need to get out! My mom made my dad pull over, and she opened the back door. Before the irrational part of my brain got to me and I jumped out of the car and started running down the sidewalk, my rational part stepped up, and I didn't actually step out of the car or my seat. It was like a metaphor for the darkness of sin/Satan coming and trying to consume me, and the urge to run, is to run away from the darkness and hide. Me staying in my seat and not giving in, was God letting me know it's okay and he has me, and he has already won against the darkness, so there's no need to fear.

           Not having a panic attack for 6 months, and then having two within two weeks was frustrating. But if God can use it as an inspiration for someone, then I guess it will all be worth it.  It will also lessen the effect of Satan's tactics.

The First Time I Went to Living Light

     While I was packing for vacation last week, I came across an old notebook that had an entry dated with the date of the first time I went to Living Light. I used to journal a lot, but never remembered writing an entry specifically about this experience, but I'm so glad I wrote one! I thought it would be cool to share part of the entry with you all, so you can see my first thoughts of this great church. It is written in letter form as if I am talking to God, and about the things that I learned. It's kind of short but I think its pretty cool still.

   December 21st 2014 (Gabe Williams was speaking on the troubles of anxiety, which had been a big struggle of my life.) Thank you God for putting Trae in my life and letting me experience this church as well as today's message, which made so much sense to me. You don't have to be afraid, with the power of the Holy Spirit within you. This power of the Holy Spirit has the power to make you appear positive to someone like a light.  You instantly know the difference between them and you. All Christians have these amazing gifts like healing and words of wisdom.  God has already won our battles for us, we're at the finish line, it's okay for us to celebrate.

This is a picture taken after my first experience at Living Light, discussing what I had just witnessed.  If you ever been to my church, you know it's a lot to take in at first, so discussions after your first time. Obviously to discuss the amazing things that you hadn't experienced from a church before.

What God's Been Teaching Me Series (Part 2): To Have a Servant's Heart

     Recently God's given me the joy in serving people. Whenever someone is in need and asks for help, I rarely say no.  Not because I can't say no, and feel obligated to say yes, but because the thought of being able to help someone actually excites me. Need help after getting shoulder surgery? I got you. Need someone to babysit? No problem. Need someone to help lead a new youth group? I'm your girl. Need help getting ready for a baby shower? I'm there. (<--- Real life examples on how I'm currently serving people in my church.) If you're schedule is relatively empty, maybe your not realizing the full potential of what God wants you to be doing. I know in the past if someone had asked me to do something after I had been working, I'd be more reluctant, so to have this feeling of joy with no negativity is so freeing.
       I was going to just end the blogpost there but I feel prompted to share this story. So one of the first weeks at the Special Needs summer camp I am working at one of my staff members asked me if I could help her lift one of the kids out of her wheelchair,  I accepted right away not even having a thought in my mind of saying no. Especially at a job like this, it's very important that we help each other out.  She told me she was so relieved because everyone she asked told her they wouldn't do it. Hearing that made me angry, and I told her to tell one of our camp directors, which she ended up not doing. (This is the only incident at camp that I've heard of like this, so I think it must of been an off day.) For some reason writing this made me think of another situation I don't know why I'm sharing (About to get deep....maybe).
        When people don't help you out it's really frustrating. Which leads me to high school gym class (super cringe). We were doing kind of like a gymnastics unit.  So you needed to do these poses alone and with 1 or more other people. (Not having a friend in that class was so brutal). I asked group after group if I could join them, and even though I could have they said no. Being rejected multiple times in a row when you really need help is so brutal too, I wouldn't have cared but it was for a grade. An actual gym class you could fail. (Whenever someone talks about their gym classes they always seem so nice and easy, but this one was not. We had like boot camp style warm-ups for 40 minutes before we started the actual activity we'd be doing that day.) I remember breaking down in front of that teacher after getting so frustrated. (All the gym teachers I've had have never seemed to like me so she wasn't much of a help.) A few classes later the popular kids had gotten all the poses done, and were literally just standing around talking even though the gym teacher told them they could get extra credit if they helped people do poses who hadn't completed them yet. One of the girls not apart of the "popular" crowd helped me complete some of the poses she had already done, then talked badly about the "popular" crowd for being so stuck up that people like me not apart of the "popular" crowd were treated like literal trash. People no matter how different they are to you deserve to be loved and cared for.
        I'm so glad that the popularity thing vanished after high school.  Too much was based on how popular you were, and not how you were as a person which causes so much unnecessary insecurity. I'm not calling out the people who are too busy to help out or the ones who say no for a personal reason. I'm talking about those who blatantly don't help because they don't want to or because of the person they see you as. God is a giving God, and all those times you care for someone in need, God rewards you more. I'm not doing this for the reward, I'm doing this because I genuinely love serving people. Serving others= Serving God.

What God's Been Teaching Me Series (Part 1) To Love Children

1)    To Love Children: In my family I'm the youngest of most my relatives.  If they were younger it was only by a couple years. So up until recently I had been really awkward around kids, not really knowing what I should do. I had experience being around younger kids, but my mom would always be around too, so I'd never be totally alone with them. I remember about 2 years ago, my moms cousin and her little girls were coming to visit Wisconsin while we were camping, I played with them on the playground and things and I guess they did the pick me up motion quite a lot, but back then that was sign language to me, and I didn't know that. I picked them up a couple times, and it was okay but not totally comfortable. (embarrassing I was literally 18).
          I've done a 180 since then (okay maybe not quite).  The church I go to (Living Light) is filled with young kids, so I think maybe being exposed to their cuteness on a weekly basis helped me be comfortable around kids. I totally love picking up kids now (maybe I'm obsessed ;p) But it's okay because they usually like being picked up too.
          I took a babysitting course, when I was whatever age you can legally babysit, but never got any use out of the course, because my mom didn't want me babysitting at stranger's houses and no one we knew ever needed a babysitter. So I didn't start babysitting alone until age 20.  What age am I now...20. I think you get how recent this is. God assured me it would be fun, and that it'd help serve a family at my church.  So I took the risk, and I absolutely love it. I also work with kids at a Special Needs camp, but their ages range from 5-27. I get to work with a young group of kids this week who love to be picked up. So I get to hold them and play with them multiple times a day all week. I'm pretty excited. Recently during a conference through my church, they sent out an email asking for people to help out in the infant or toddler room. I felt an inner tugging in my chest to volunteer for the toddler room, even though I really had no experience with toddlers besides for two kids in my church that I enjoy watching/playing with. (Torah  and Deuce). Arguably the cutest toddlers at my church.  I signed up though, and had a blast. Serving the church by keeping their kids safe and comfortable.
        To end this blogpost I will put pictures of the kids I've helped my mom watch, the kids mentioned from church, and the kids mentioned from work.

One of the girls I babysit Arwen!

Four kids I babysat a few weeks ago: Eve, Emerson, Jack, and Ryland. (I didn't take this picture.) ;P

Torah!










                                     

     Deuce: Probably the most talented 2 year old I've Met

 

 

 

 Two of the kids in my group this week at camp

 

Sierra and Amelia: When I first started picking up children at 18 ha ha.

 

Dayton and Addison                                                               

 



 



 

A Strange Feeling

     Tonight something strange happened. I was at a time of worship with my church, and thought about a heartbreaking circumstance my friend was going through. The phrase, this is one of the most heartbreaking things that can happen, went through my mind, but I didn't really feel heartbroken. But I knew I needed to pray about it.  So I went up to make the prayer request, feeling perfectly content, but in a millisecond that content feeling turned to sobbing. I felt the reality of the situation. Not only did I feel my own heartbreak for my friend, I felt a supernatural sadness, that must of been God's sadness for her. Like he was saying, I want you to know how I feel about this situation, and how much I long for it to be fixed. Even though I was sobbing in front of a group of people.  I silently thanked God, for letting me feel his emotions, and be able to be able to more greatly empathize with the situation. I always saw people sob at church, and I felt the sadness of things too, but never in a supernatural way that would leave me crying.  But I'm so glad God shared such an intimate emotion with me.

       It's really heartbreaking when someone is told about God's love, and they reject it, but I think it might even be more heartbreaking when someone who knew God's intense love falls away from him.  I don't understand it.  But that's just it, the devil is really good at what he does. He can take the most faithful people, and turn them away and deceive them. His ultimate goal is to steal people away from a perfect life with God in heaven. To truly know God at such a deep level one moment, and the very next moment fall away so quickly.
       
      It reminds me of a Halloween play  I saw back in October at my friend's church. It was about all the unsaved souls going to hell, and what it looked like there.  All the suffering people, as Satan named off why they were all there. Some people were there for an obvious reason, but one of the boys that was there had loved God, but then fell away, and in the scene Satan was laughing.  This was such a victory for Satan.  A victory that could of easily been Gods was now the devils, and he was so proud of that. It still confuses me, how something like that could happen, especially when you knew Gods love so well.

        In society today, it makes sense to me why a lot of people don't trust in God.  With all the churches being so corrupted, and people adding conditions to God's love.  Rules to follow unless you want to be condemned. People who feel unwanted at church.  But to be apart of such a church that knows God's love so well goes over my head.

          I know that even though she doesn't feel God right now, he hasn't given up on her and he is closer to her than ever.  Ready to take hold of her hand when she reaches out to him again. I don't by any means think this will end up being a victory for Satan.  With our prayers I pray that her process of knowing God will come fast, and she won't dwell in a dark place for too long, and try to do things by her own strength. It's so much easier for a person that doesn't know God to continue not knowing God then for a person that once knew God to not come back to his love. This is because we are no longer attached to the world but to eternity.
 

Individualism vs. Being a Group

   Society today, puts a high standard on being an individual. Who are you? How are you different from everyone else? What makes you unique? But why don't we try and figure out what is alike about us. I know this sounds stupid, but follow me for a second.

     In a prayer meeting at my church last week God gave me a picture of leaves. A stem of leaves all connected to each other. Together a group, living on the same stem, making up the tree. A small grouping apart of a much bigger thing.

      In school I didn't really like group projects. It always seemed like ideas were overlooked or someone pulled more weight then the others. I would rather do it by myself to ensure it got done the way I wanted it to get done. But that ultimately won't make you successful in the purposes of God. In order to further God's kingdom on the Earth we need to work together as a team.  There's only so much we can do by ourselves, and it's not enough.

        God puts people in our lives for a reason. We need to find the people God has sent for us to work together with "our people" (the other leaves connected to the same stem as us) to work efficiently while in this life. It can be hard, and there might be disagreements, but it's so worth it.

        Like in my job, I work with another staff member each week.  Without that help, things would become really hectic.  There would be no way to ensure the safety of the kids I was watching then.  One could decide to wander off, and I'd have to either go after the one wandering off or make sure the other four are safe etc. (I work at a special needs camp). We need to have the staff work together to ensure the kids are safe, having a good time, and comfortable.

       Who's a part of your leaf stem? Who's God calling you to work together with to ensure the best possible outcome?