His Glory.

Just when I think I have it figured out and I'm "going strong" and thriving and serving the Lord, something hits me and God reveals more to me and I'm humbled again. Today it was this: My ultimate goal should be to bring HIM GLORY--not to live in peace and happiness in my own life. I have been focused on seeking God because His way of life is the BEST way of life--which is completely true! However...if that is the REASON why I seek God than the root of my desire and motive is for my own personal freedom and happiness. God doesn't promise to give me a happy life...HAPPINESS is because of circumstances but JOY is in spite of circumstances. He promised to give me sustaining joy but not necessarily sustaining happiness. That's hard to swallow...there are very few times that I have genuinely desired God's GLORY alone...it's a humbling thing.

This weekend off has been absolutely WONDERFUL and I've been able to spend time with and have incredible conversations with some incredibly precious girls here. I'm surrouunded by missionary kids and their perspective on life is refreshing, challenging, encouraging, and fascinating. We watched a sermon by Tullian Tchividjian online this morning called "The Glorious Impossibility" (Part 1) and I was SO challenged. There's always more to learn, more to understand, more to show me how depraved and sinful my heart is, and more to show me how GRACIOUS and GOOD He is to save me and love me.

I miss my family! Miss my precious little sisters and wish I could be there for them and wish they could come and do all the activities here at camp! I miss my daddy--Father's Day was last week and his birthday was TODAY! Happy birfday, Daddy :) Miss my sweet mommy and love every chance I get to talk to her! Miss my big sister and her sweet wisdom and love! BUT I'm hopefully going to get to see her this Saturday because she'll be in Houston for a wedding!

Thank you all for your love and prayers!

One month down...two to go!

Precious Lord, give me Your words to present the Gospel clearly to these girls at every opportunity. Help me to love them relentlessly just as You love me remembering “my reward is with my God” (Isaiah 49:4). Speak, Lord, I beg You. Penetrate their hearts this week and transform their lives. Take me out of the equation. Only Your glory.

This is a prayer I wrote in my journal this past week, and it expresses a lot of what my experience here has been. I’ve been with three different groups of campers so far, two of the groups were 5^th graders, and the most recent group was 8-10^th graders. With the first group, we didn’t live in with the campers, we were just team leaders and went around with a certain group of girls and their leaders and facilitated the activities.

The Lord has been so faithful to make the Gospel CLEAR to me so that I have CONFIDENCE in sharing it. This is something that I have never experienced before and I am so incredibly grateful!! There is SO much that the Lord is teaching me--I have never been in a place of such joy and understanding! As I am acclimating and feeling more comfortable and at home here, it all feels like such a great adventure! I absolutely LOVE being in the outdoors--hearing the super loud crickets at night and staring up at the stars. We had an INCREDIBLE thunderstorm last week and it was a kiss from the Lord because it gave us extra rest time in our cabins and it was so peaceful and refreshing :)

I have discovered that boating in one of my favorite things in the entire world and we get to do it every week with our campers! We are required to ride on the tube and the banana boat with every group of campers so that there is always a counselor in the water with them :) I also love being on top of the 50ft tower, hooking the campers in and sending them of the 1,000 ft zipline! These are just a few of the super fun activities we get to do with our campers :)

Here are some verses that I've been holding on to this past week...

"...if we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself." 2 Timothy 2:13
"But God's word is not chained." 2 Timothy 2:9b
"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who CORRECTLY handles the word of TRUTH." 2 Timothy 2:14

Please continue to pray for the Lord to work here! He is POWERFUL and WORTHY of all glory and praise! Pray that He would open the eyes of every camper that comes through our gates. Pray that He would reveal Himself to the hearts of the precious kids that have been here and are now gone and those that are going to come.

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
2 Timothy 1:7

I love you all and thank you for your prayer and support!! I am encouraged every time I think of you.

First week over!

Hey Everyone! Our first campers left after lunch today! I have SO many stories and God was SO faithful to fill me up and use me when I was completely spent. I wish I could write more now but we have more campers coming at 10:30am tomorrow morning and I am sooo sleeeeepy! Please pray for physical strength to persevere on little sleep! And for our new campers coming--that they would see the Lord clearly!