Relaxing Week Up Mt. Washington

So, last week we went up to Mt. Washington! That was a blast! We were there for the whole week and we stayed in the sweetest lodge ever! There were two sides and three hot tubs and we were right on the mountain so we could easily go back and forth from the mountain all day. I was learning how to snowboard the first two days that we were there, then on Wedneday we went snowhoeing and it was incredible! The view was absolutely gorgeous and we could see Mt. Albert Edward, the mountain that we climbed at the beginning of the year. Words can't even describe the beauty that was bestowed upon us that day! The next day, we went to get our rental snowboards and we were back out on the mountain snowboarding. My very first run of the day, I go to sit on the chair lift and I am with Downey. Keep in mind it is first thing in the morning and everything was covered in a thin layer of frost before you judge me. So I go to sit down and I feel right away that I am not completely on the seat and we start to get higher and I slip right out of the seat and fall about 10 ft. It was not one of the best experiences ever. Needless to say, I didn't go boarding again after that. But I did have a glorious time napping and hanging out in the hot tub! The whole trip was amazing regardless of the pain that was inflicted! And since we have been back here at school, it has been a mad rush to get papers done and getting ready for the class that we have tomorrow. Tomorrow we have our first Intro. to Christian Theology class....I am super pumped about it! Here are some pics from the best trip ever!!!

I'm Back!

I am finally back at school! I have been here for about a week and a half now, and I have been having soooo much fun! Getting here though was quite the adventure. I flew back with Jon, but our first flight was delayed a looonnngg time! By the time we caught our flight, we had already missed our transfer flight in Calgary. So Westjet, gave us both food and hotel vouchers. That was pretty sweet. So Jon and I finally arrived in Calgary and we got into our hotel room at 2 am and we were sooo exhausted that we just crashed! Then we had to catch an early flight the next morning. It was a fun adventure, but as soon as we got here we had class. We were late for class by a couple of hours, but it was totally ok. So, as soon as we got here we had classes for a week! The class was the Pentateuch and it was sooo sweet. I learned so much and I loved it a lot! And I am really excited about doing my final paper for it because I love it so much! The past week and a half have been super busy with classes just school work. But we do get a nice little break this week. We are heading out tomorrow morning for Mt. Washington. We are there for the whole week snowboarding! It is going to be so amazing and I am so excited about staying in the chalets! Oh, our Vancouver team has also been meeting! We have determined that our team is the best team and we are going to have the most fun for sure! I am so pumped about the mission trip to Vancouver. I honestly didn't think that I would be this excited about it, but the more we plan and the more we talk about it the more excited I get! And youth group was sooo good last Friday. We just played games and hung out with the kids and it was incredible! I love just connecting with the kids and hanging out once a week with them. I really enjoy it a lot! Anyways, I have to go to bed because we are leaving so early tomorrow and I need lots of sleep! haha...Bye!!!

It Snowed!

IT SNOWED SOOOOO MUCH!!! The snow just fell one day and it kept going for two days! It was the greatest snow ever too! We had snowball fights and made snowmen and forts and we attempted to make an igloo, but it turned into a giant snowball fight!!! The weather was so bad that we could hear trees falling down in the forest, so we weren't allowed to play over there, we could only play in the open field! It was such a bad storm though because the power went out! I hate it when the power goes out...I get so freaked out especially if it happens at night time and the emergency lights even went out. I was terrified, but when I came down the stairs Joel was playing the guitar and singing and that made me feel so much better! Even after dinner, I asked if he would keep playing and he did. So, we sat in the dark and sang songs together until finally the power came back on.

Anyways, last week we had class! Yuck, I know! It was Foundations for Church Ministry, and believe it or not I actually learned a lot that week. On Wednesday, we were to have taken a spiritual gift inventory already and be ready to discuss it in smaller groups. God has been showing me so much just through that little test that I have taken a million times before! And on Thursday night there was a festival of lights in Ladysmith, so Kaleo got to go on the float and sing Christmas carols! That was a lot of fun, but the best part was the fireworks!! They were so pretty! Overall the week was pretty sweet; I learned lots in class, it snowed, I played and sang and saw sweet fireworks! I am so blessed to be here experiencing all this and learning so much at the same time! God is sooooo good!

What a Week!

This past week was our 24/7 week of prayer. What an amazing experience! We started last Saturday morning and I was the first one to spend an hour in there. Kelsey joined me, and we just sat in silence. We had our Bibles and we were writing out a couple verses, but we were both nervous to be the first ones to put anything up on the walls. So, we just left our pages on the desk. Someone came to relief us, and I wanted to stay. There was something about that room that made me want to be in there all the time. Slowly, people became less hesitant to put posts on the wall and the next time I was in that room, the walls were covered. As the week went, the paint on the walls slowly disappeared behind everyone's prayer requests and praises. As I read more and more of the posts, I realized how many scared and broken people there are in this community. There were many people asking for prayer for themselves. They wanted to feel Christ close to them, they wanted to be healed, they feel broken, they are scared to let the rest of us in. It made me realize how little I actually know the people that I live with. I wish that some of the posts had names at the bottom so I could run to them and hug them and love them. But, my time spent in that room was very significant in my personal walk with God. I prayed over every single post in that room and every person that is in this program. As the week progressed it was great to see that prayers were being answered. This past week itself was an answer to prayer for me. The week before, I had been thinking a lot about how I am at Bible college, but I am not reading my Bible or spending time with God. My God-time had become something that I did for homework. I was really struggling with the lack of God-time in my life. Being able to have a place and a time designated for prayer and time with God really helped me with seeing the importance and the difference that it makes in my day. I am really needing to make a conscience effort to sit down and spend time with God. Because of the prayer week, I was unable to go to youth group on Wednesday or Friday because of the times that I had to pray. I really missed the kids and prayed for them the whole time that I was supposed to be with them. It was a really sweet experience! Also during this past week on Tuesday and Wednesday we broke into two groups. One group went to Victoria on Tuesday while the other group went to Oceanview (an old folks home) and then on Wednesday we switched. I went to Oceanview on Tuesday and I loved it! The ladies in that place are phenomenal! They tell stories over and over again, but it is so fun to just be with them. They like to do puzzles and play with the ball. I really enjoy spending time with the ladies and just loving them and I am hoping to go every Saturday to visit with them. And then on Wednesday, a small group of us went into Victoria to visit and talk with some homeless people. I'm not going to lie, I was terrified! I had asked Jon, the night before if he would go with me and I expressed my fear to him and he was so good about it! He totally comforted me about it and he said that I could hold his hand if I was ever really scared! And I came close to reaching for his hand when we were talking to these three homeless men who were drinking alcohol on the street. Walking around the streets really opened up my eyes to the kind of world that is really out there. I think the part that scared me the most was having to communicate with them. The world puts such a label on homeless people and I am so used to walking by quickly and avoiding eye contact, but this time I was forced to make eye contact and make conversation. It was a good experience and I enjoyed listening to their stories, but I don't know if I could do it again. I was so thankful to have Jon there with me and I wouldn't do it without him. The week was just a good week. I spent a lot of time with God in prayer and in His word and I put myself out into the world and became a servant. It was a very powerful week!

So, this past week was reading break! It was so much fun! A lot of people went home or went to other peoples homes. I was one of the few who decided to stay back though. It was interesting and kind of strange at the beginning to be here alone, but at the same time it was very refreshing. No one else was around and it was very relaxing! I wasn't at camp the whole time though. Catherine and I hopped on the ferry to Salt Spring Island on Wednesday and we spent the night at Ellie's house! It was so incredible to be in a house with a family! We did what any typical girls would do and we went shopping around town, watched movies, ate ice cream and sat in the hot tub until the wee hours of the morning. Reading break couldn't have come at a better time because we all have so many assignments to do, and we were all pretty stressed out so it was a sweet time to just relax!

Youth group this past week was so much fun! Friday night was one of the girls birthdays, so she brought an ice cream cake and we all celebrated with her. It was sweet to see a 16 year old girl want to celebrate her birthday at youth group with her leaders and not out on the town like most 16 year olds would do. We talked about persecution and that really challenged some of the girls in the group to really think about their faith. We talked a lot about whether or not we would talk about Jesus if we knew that we would be persecuted and some of the girls had to think hard and were still thinking hard when they left. It was a good time for Jahnaya and I to really share what we believe without even thinking twice about what others might think. I love all the girls so much in both the junior youth and senior youth. They are a group of such special girls, and I look forward to spending more time with them and helping them grow in their faith!

So, girls night was incredible!! We had so much fun shopping and blessing each other! We also had a blast ambushing the boys in paintball! It was a very relaxing two days and it was really good to connect with just the girls...although we did talk about the boys quite a bit! haha!!
Anyways, on Wednesday night I went to junior youth and had a blast as usual!! We played games and lately we have been going through the basics of who God is and last week we talked about forgiveness. One of the girls totally poured out her heart and shared with Ellie and I everything that has been happening at home, and it was kind of scary to know what she lives with everyday. It was eye opening for me, because I now realize that many of these kids come from very broken homes and youth group is a safe place for them to just be who they are. It put a whole new perspective on why I am there and who I need to be to these kids. I need to be a model of what a Christian is to these kids. Now that I understand that, it changes the attitude that I will have when I go to youth every week. These kids need me to be there more so then my homework needs me to look at it. And lately I have also come to the conclusion that God placed me in Warmland for a reason. I'm not gonna lie, I haven't exactly been excited or happy about going to church. I know that I need to change my attitude though. If I am going to make the most of my time here and be a blessing to my church, then I need to change my attitude! Pray for me!! Anyways, I will definitely keep you updated about my attitude and youth group!! Later!

hello everyone! so, I missed writing last week! stink!! I was definitely swamped with school work and it completely slipped my mind! Anyways, I am writing this week! Yeah!!! So, this weekend was th junior high retreat! Sooo much fun! I was an all-star again and I loved it again! I like being an all-star because I can connect with all the kids! We played the same games that we did with the juniors, but it was more interesting with the junior high kids. They are so much more intense and they try to cheat, so you really have to watch them! haha....Andrew and I were all-stars together all weekend and that was so much fun because Andrew is such a good guy. I find the weekends that I have to serve I connect so much more with the staff and other Kaleo students that I am working with. I like it so much! I was a belayer in the challenge course too and that gets really intense because the kids get so scared and you really have to work hard to convince some of them that they will be safe. It took a lot for me to believe that I would be safe when I did it, so it was really hard to help the campers through something that I was terrified to do! It was a really good experience though because after they had done it they were so glad that they did and I felt the same way after I had done it as well! It is so good to conquer a fear and then the feeling of accomplishment afterwards is so rewarding. Just seeing the campers so scared going up and then coming back down laughing and saying that they want to go again, is so rewarding. It just reminds me that the Lord is my strength and that I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Retreats are always a good time to step back and do a reality check! I love it! Anyways, I better get going....all the girls are going away tomorrow night! so excited! Later!