the end or the beginning

Well, last night was my last official day of ministry here in Orlando. Wow! I'm still here until Wednesday. We did some debriefing today after church, and then we're going to FunSpot to hang out and ride some rides tonight. Tomorrow we're headed to Disney. Tuesday we're cleaning the camp and then we have our closing banquet. Then Wednesday, I'll be driving home. My mom is flying in on Wednesday to drive back with me so I don't have to make that 9 hour trip by myself. Anyway, I'm done at GKTW. As I type that, I have tears welling up in my eyes. I cried multiple times yesterday. I don't know that I'll ever be able to put into words what it meant to me to be a part of making a child's wish come true. I loved being able to just provide a smile for them or a word of encouragement during this terrible time they're facing as a family. I have grown so much this summer, but I don't know if I can really put into words what I've learned. All I can tell you is that I'm a totally different person than I was ten weeks ago. I didn't know it was possible to grow and change this much in such a short time. I've learned to rely on God in ways I haven't had to before. For example, the first week in, my cell phone fell in the toilet, and I couldn't talk to my family or friends at home nearly as much as I wanted to. I didn't know anyone here well yet, so I had to learn that God truly is enough and He really is my Father and He really is my best friend in a way that I hadn't had to experience it before. And I grew so much through that. I think it also helped me put my focus on what I was doing here in Orlando instead of thinking about how I missed my family and friends. I grew in so many other ways, and that is such a small example. I saw God work in ways that I never had before, and that really changed me and made me realize how I have been living life with God in this box of things that I truly believed I thought He could do. I may have said that I believe God could do anything, but I don't know if in my heart I really believed that before. And now I do, and it changes the way I look at everything. I just spent two hours sitting in Arby's with three other girls and we were able to talk openly and honestly about the things that we've struggled with and debate some really hard issues and fears that I don't know if I've ever really addressed to anyone at home. God has blessed me so much this summer and I've grown in both knowledge and faith. As ready as I am to come home, at the same time, I don't want to ever leave. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but that's really how I feel. I'm fearful that I'll come home and fall back into routine and it will be like that two steps forward, one step back. But thankfully, God sent a pastor to our Tuesday night worship service this week who addressed all those fears that we were having about going home. He acknowledge that it would be hard, because we've all had this experience and our friends haven't and they won't understand to the capacity that we want them to no matter how hard we try to make them. But he reminded us that God had brought us here and He would be with us at home and had things lined up for us to do and people to help us already. The pastor also reminded us that we would still have each other, that we now share an unbreakable bond, and I know that's true and I find so much comfort in that. He talked about how we shouldn't look at this last week of our time here in Orlando as the end of our journey but as the beginning. He reminded us that none of us wanted to tell our children that one summer we did this really awesome thing and that was it. We want to tell our children that one summer we went to Orlando and did this really awesome thing and it changed our lives and is the reason that we are who we are; that we want to be able to say that we had this life-changing experience and never looked back and kept moving forward. That's what I so desperately want. And I have been filled with such a greater hunger for the truth of God's Word and challenged to grow so much more and not let it stop here. Like I said earlier, I don't think I can put into words how I'm different or how I've grown, but I'm not the same at all, and I'm so excited about that and I hope you can see that when I get back home. I'm excited to see you all and I'm excited to see what God has in store for me when I get back to South Carolina. See you soon!

update: 9 days left

Hello! I'm nine days from being home, and it's very bittersweet. I'm ready to get away from a lot of things and back to a lot of things, but I'm so sad to have to leave GKTW. I cannot believe how quickly the ten weeks has passed. My last day at GKTW is Saturday, August 1, then we have debriefing and that sort of thing the last few days. Oh, and a trip to Disney :) Anyway, GKTW is just such an amazing place, and I can't imagine not being there six days a week now. I've gotten to know so many of the staff at GKTW, and have become great friends with a few of them. Leandra and I had breakfast with our closest friend, Jenny, this morning, and have plans to go out with her several more times this week. We also had quite the scare this morning. After we left breakfast, Jenny was headed to work at GKTW and we were a few minutes behind her on our way back to camp. We saw a wreck on the side of the road, and the front end of the car was totaled. As we drove past, we realized it was Jenny's car, made an immediate u-turn, and went to go talk to her. She ended up having to go to the hospital, and so we went with her, because her parents live an hour and a half away and were going to be a while. We got to stay in her room in the ER with her and keep her company, which she so appreciated because she was really shook and didn't want to be there by herself. She's fine, minus a lot of bruising and cuts, but there's nothing serious.
Tonight, the girls are getting all dolled up and going out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. I'm so excited! It's going to be a great time!
Since my last post, three more kids have been led to Christ through the Kids Clubs we do. It's so great to see the fruit of our hard work. God has been doing a lot of work, and we've been able to share the Gospel with so many children over the summer, and even though we haven't seen a lot of salvations, I know we've been planting seeds.
I can't wait to see everyone soon! I miss being with my family and friends back home, but have been so blessed to have made new friends from all over the country since I've been here.


Continue praying for the innovators from Montana that I sent out a Facebook message about. To keep up with everything going on and know how to pray for them visit these sites:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/vangsnesboys
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/scottminear

Coming to and End

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having fabulous summers! It's flying by for me, here in Florida. I only have two and a half weeks left! Things are going great here, but I'm ready to get back to South Carolina. I love, love GKTW and everything that has to do with it. But camp life is getting old, and as you can imagine, being with the same 18 people ALL the time, can get pretty hard too. Pray for us that we'll be able to stand strong in Christ against the Devil's attempts to tear us apart. God is doing great things though! I mentioned before that Leandra and I have started doing airport greets for GKTW. It is so fun to be the first people that they meet in Orlando and be able to help them through the airport. It's a great opportunity because the families we greet remember us when they see us later at the village. See, GKTW has hundreds of volunteers every day, so to all the other families, we're just another volunteer, even if we've become attached to the children. But, for the families we greet are always so excited to see us later in the week. We've really been able to build stronger relationships with the families since we've started doing airport greets.

A cool story from this past week:
Leandra and I were running the carousel on Sunday night, and a girl in a wheelchair came up with her parents to ride. We'll call her Allie. Allie was severely handicapped and unable to speak. (By the way, our carousel is the only wheelchair accessible one). We put her on the ride and strapped her in, and her mom started crying and saying, "Allie, you're riding by yourself! It's the first ride you've ever ridden by yourself. Oh, Allie!" She turned to us and thanked us a million times. It was so special to get to be a part of that memory with them, because you could tell how special it was. We later saw Allie and her family at Christmas (we have Christmas every Thursday) and got to talk to them again. They actually remembered us, probably because that memory at the carousel was so special to them. Then, we got to see them this morning (Friday) in the castle and show Allie her star on the ceiling. It was awesome, and I'm sad to see them leave on Sunday.

See you all soon!

Tuesdays

Well, I learned my lesson last week to never blog before a Tuesday night worship service. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Tuesday is the one night that our whole group comes together and we have a speaker come in, and we usually sing one or two songs a capella. Well, this past Tuesday (06/30), God blessed us by bringing in a couple to lead worship for us. I know that you don't have to have instruments to worship, and all we had was a guitar, but God just so spoke to all of us that night through the music and really prepared our hearts for the message. Our speaker was the director of church planting for the Greater Orlando Baptist Association (GOBA). He said a lot of great things, but the one phrase that has stuck with us and become our mission is "One day, I want Orlando to be more known for Jesus Christ than Mickey Mouse." How awesome would that be? But I know a lot of you are sitting there, reading this right now, and thinking, "That will never happen." And that was my reaction at first too. But then he asked us what we thought of when he said "Salt Lake City, Utah." Someone immediately said Mormons, and then it hid us like a load of bricks. How much are we doubting God if we don't think that if we all allowed ourselves to be used, it could happen. Why couldn't Orlando be known more for Jesus Christ than Mickey Mouse? Because we don't have the faith that God could actually do that? That's just sad. I know that it can't happen in one summer, but I know that it CAN happen one day. Then a friend of GOBA got up to speak. Her name is Nancy and she was there with her son Bryce. Nancy gave her testimony. Nancy, her husband, and their two boys have been coming to Orlando every summer since 2002, maybe 2003. Anyway, they were out at Pointe Orlando one night, and they heard the CA Team from that year singing. They decided to stop and listen to the show, and then when the CA Team came out to speak to the crowd after their performance, Nancy and her two sons were led to Christ. Since then, they've been CA Team groupies. They follow the CA Team around to all their venues and go to their shows, just to be an encouragement. It was such a blessing to hear from someone who had been touched through a GOBA team before. It reminded us why we were all hear. Then she talked a lot about her life after, and a lot of it had to do with her son, Bryce, who has had three friends die of cancer since that first summer. Two of those deaths happened within the last three months. I just sat there and cried the whole time because while I'm at GKTW, I don't really think about how these kids are spending their last days at such a wonderful place. I have to put that out of my mind while I'm there or I would be a wreck the whole time. So the next day, everything was still so fresh on my mind, and I had the hardest day at work so far. We were singing "Happy Birthday" to a little girl, who was turning seven, at breakfast, and I just started crying because I kept thinking about how this could be her last birthday, and I got to be a part of it. Whew, that was so hard to get through. Since then, I've been able to refocus on being there to make the kids happy, but that day was just so rough.

This Tuesday (07/07), we had an AMAZING worship service. We sang two songs to start off. Then we spent about 30 minutes sharing prayer requests and praise reports. We're never all together, and I was amazed by the some of the things that my teammates are going through that I had no clue about. It was good to know how we could be praying for each other, but so good to see how God was using our team. Then, we had a speaker come up. He talked about the gray areas of life. Basically, we all know it's bad to lie, and good to read your Bible, but what about when you're trying to decide what TV show to watch or what to wear when you get dressed in the morning. He gave us 6 questions to help us make those decisions and he really challenged us. Then, we read John 13, where Jesus washes the disciples' feet. They gave us buckets, bottled water, and towels, and we washed each other's feet. I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words how special this night was. I don't think any of us will. It was so humbling. We were ALL sobbing, from the tiniest, sweetest girl, to the biggest, strongest, guy here. After we washed a person's feet, we would pray with the person. Everyone had at least one person wash their feet, and it was just a night of healing. People who have come to almost despise each other, washed each other's feet, and prayed together. You could just feel the walls breaking down, and you could feel God all around. Like I said, I just can't do the night justice. Then, we closed by singing our theme song for the summer, "God of This City," and then had a group prayer. Wow, what a special night.

Hope you all are doing wonderfully! Four more weeks until I'm back in South Carolina. It's crazy how fast it's gone by!

Halfway

Hi! I don't really have much to write about this week. Tomorrow is the halfway point of my trip. It's been 5 weeks! Even though each day individually seems neverending, the five weeks as a whole have gone by fast. Everything is still going great for me. Give Kids The World is such an amazing place. It has stolen my heart. Some exciting news: Leandra and I are signed up to do airport greets! This means that we will go to the airport and meet the family as soon as they arrive in Florida! We'll be the first people they see. We have our training session tomorrow afternoon, then we'll be able to do it by ourselves. We are very excited about this opportunity. We're also making some great relationships with some of the staff and other regular volunteers, which is really exciting. Other than that, I don't really have anything new. Hope you're all having wonderful summers!

Oh--if you know anyone coming to Give Kids The World, please let me know. I would love to meet them. I don't get to see all the families, but I do see a lot of them!

Through This Strom

Hello!! I hope everything is going well wherever this blog finds you! I've learned a lot about praising God through the storm the past week, through my own experiences but more so through other's experiences. For me, I was very distracted by various situations at home this past week: a friend having a baby, a relative in the hospital, a friend tearing her ACL, just to list a few. Then my brakes were making noises, and I went to get the car checked out, and the problem turned out to be a lot bigger and more expensive than originally thought. I was so close to tears so many times throughout the day, and thank goodness Leandra was with me, because we could just laugh together, instead of cry, about how terrible our day was going. I had to learn to put those things aside and focus completely on what God has in store for me here. I had to learn that God is in control of those things and I can't do anything about them, even if I was at home. But all those things were so small to me compared to what one of the girls has gone through. Friday morning, Misty found out that two of her friends had been in a car wreck the night before. She prayed about it, and we prayed with her, and she decided to stay. It was a really hard decision for her, but she felt like she needed to be here. Then today, Tuesday, she received a phone call that her best friend was in the hospital with kidney and liver failure. She broke down and sobbed and none of us could understand why Misty was going through all this. Later tonight, she got a phone call that her friend had passed away. She came into the lounge, where we were waiting for a meeting to start, and told us. We immediately encircled her, and she fell to the ground on her knees, sobbing. We laid hands on her and prayed for her, cried with her, and just lifted up prayers to the Lord. But over and over in the prayers it was echoed that God had a plan and knew what was going to happen and that He was bigger than this pain Misty was experiencing. We prayed that God would use this tragedy for some good. As we were praying, I began to see one good thing that was already happen. Through Misty's loss, our team was drawn together. As we prayed together, it was like I could feel the hard feelings melt away, because our disagreements were so small. God has already used Misty's friend's death to bring our team back together. For the first time in over a week, I felt like we were truly unified as one team. Misty is most likely flying home in the morning, if she can find a flight she can afford. She also plans to return to Orlando, once she's spent some time with her friends and family, because she still knows God has a plan for her here. Even tonight, Misty kept saying over and over that she knew that God was going to use this and that it was His timing, even if she hated it. She praised God for the time she was given to spend with her friend and for the life that her friend had lived that had been a witness to so many other people.
We've had a lot of stuff thrown at our team this week, other than the things that happened to Misty and me, but God has been in the midst of it all. I'm learning to trust in God and His plan more than I ever have had to before, and I love that I'm growing in that way.
Continue to keep our team in your prayers. Jonathan arrived last Wednesday and has fit in very well with the team and added a lot to the team dynamics. Another child was led to Christ through Kids Club, and so many relationships are being formed that are leading to great conversations about Christ. It's amazing to see how God is working through us and using us to make His name known.

Pray for us

Hello everyone! I'm going to start with some really awesome news: Two children were led to Christ this week at our Kids Club! Yay! I realized I haven't described what everyone is doing here, so I'm gonna give you a brief description of everyone's job, so that you'll know how to better pray for them.

Johnnie, Brian, Tabitha, Lisa, Allison, Megan C., Robby, and Clay: All these guys are Innovators. They work at a secular job, an amusement park called FunSpot USA. Their whole goal is to minister to their coworkers, which they have had great success at doing so far. They are already forming great relationships. Pray that those relationships would continue to grow.
Melodye, Tabatha, Michaela, Misty, Megan W., Macy, Kayley, and Jonathan: This is our Creative Arts team. They have been working SOO hard getting their performance ready. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, they perform shows, offer free face painting, and talk to the people that come to their shows. They are awesome! They sing, dance, and do puppets during their show. They're rehearsals can be very stressful, and they are together for over 12 hours a day sometimes, so pray for unity among them. Pray that God would give them opportunities to share His Word.
Leandra and I: We're at GKTW, which you already know. We love our jobs! Pray that God would open doors for us to be able to talk about our faith, because we are not allowed to talk about our faith unless someone else asks a question. We are allowed to say that we are summer missionaries though, which opens doors for conversation.
Kids Club: We all do this ministry. We go into hotel pools and basically do a VBS three days a week from 10-12. We play games in the pool, have a snack, tell a Bible story, make a craft, then play some more games. This is where the two children were led to Christ. Pray that more opportunities will arise and more children and families would be led to Christ through this ministry.

Also, pray for unity among our group as a whole. The newness of everything is starting to wear off, and we're starting to see some big personality conflicts. We're together all the time, and that can start to take its toll on people. Just pray that we will stand strong and not allow Satan to tear us apart. We all see what's happening, and we're all praying about it, but we need your prayers desperately too. We're all getting tired, so we're more irritable, which isn't good for our unity. Also, Jonathan is not actually in Orlando yet, but he'll be here Wednesday. He is two years younger than the youngest people here, and three years younger than the youngest guy. He just finished his sophomore year of high school, so not only is he coming in late, he's younger than all of us. Just pray for him and for us, that we'll be able to include him and he'll feel comfortable around us.

Thank you all so much for your prayers!