Water, World Records and Dancing

Last weekend, along with 8,956 other people, I got to take part in the world's largest water balloon fight. Check it out:

It was absolutely insane trying to find a balloon to throw while being pelted with hundreds of other balloons.

The next day, Asbury tried to have a water balloon fight of their own as well as a water slide. While it wasn't quite as epic, it was still a lot of fun. I didn't participate, but I enjoyed watching everyone else and taking pictures.

That night, CSF (Christian Student Fellowship) hosted a dance party and of course, being an Asbury student who is allowed to dance at "off-campus celebratory events," I had to go. As always, my friends and I had a blast. It was a great first weekend back to school.

"So, what'd you do this summer?"

I've only been back on campus since Wednesday and I've already been asked the title question several times. My answer, you ask, "I had a marketing internship for a company that sells airplanes, called AirMart." Sounds cool right? Oh, it was.

I also took pictures of airplanes, which I think was my favorite part. I'm very thankful for the great learning experience and opportunity that I had. My last week, my boss took me flying over Wilmore.

If you're ever interested in buying an airplane, let me know. I have connections :)

The End of Summer

First, I apologize for not posting anything lately. It's been a crazy busy summer that is bittersweetly (yes I just made that word up) coming to a close.

Here's a short overview of my summer:

Lots of nights hanging out at Confrontation Point with friends, playing euchre until the wee hours of the morning

Went to the rope swing on some hot summer days to jump into the muddy Kentucky river

Worshiped, served and praised God at the wonderful Ichthus Music Festival with friends and made some
 new ones

Hung out in Nashville with some friends


Helped out the wonderful people of Tuscaloosa, AL

Threw a surprise birthday party that was a great success

and had an awesome internship (I'll write a post about that later)

I'm very thankful for the summer I had, but I'm really looking forward to being back at Asbury.


God is good

Northern Ireland

A small piece of my heart resides here. I have never seen a more beautiful place than Northern Ireland. I took the above picture at Giant's Causeway. This place screams God's exsistance. People often say that a proof of God's exsistance is through his creation and this place made that statement real to me.

I have been twice and my last venture was the summer of 2010. I worked with some wonderful kids and although it was probably the most challenging two weeks of my life, I wouldn't trade it.

Places to visit/return to:

Tollymore Forest: where C.S. Lewis was inspired to write The Chronicles of Narnia

Giant's Causeway

Belfast

Murlough Beach: because dune jumping is awesome

Maud's ice cream shop: Pooh bear with nutella ... so good

I wanted to return this summer, but that wasn't God's plan for me, but one day, I will. The summer team leaves this week and although I won't be there, I will be praying a lot for them. 

God is good.

  ¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)

The Best 4th of July Weekend

This weekend was great. It started out with my wonderful roommate, Cassie, coming down to visit me and ended with the most fireworks I've ever seen in my life. Epic.

Saturday:
Cassie came it and we got to hang out with our friends Anna and Jane. After contemplating what to do for several minutes, we decided to get crafty. After a Walmart run and much internet surfing, we decided to make flower pins

Sunday:
We started off with church and made our way to Culver's for lunch. Then we obeyed the commandment and rested for a few hours and then wasted sometime on Stumble Upon and were inspired again. That evening, we went to a park with friends and watched fireworks. It was beautiful.

Yeah, I'm excited about this one. I'll let you know how it goes.                          

Monday:
We went to Wilmore and watched the parade with friends.

Sadly, my camera died right before the parade, but it was great. The best part was the lawnmower brigade, which is a bunch of middle aged men wearing shorts, white button downs, ties and caps, walking down the street to music and doing formations led by a whistle. Hilarious.
That evening I hung out with family and friends. We cooked out and set off more fireworks then I thought possible. It was a blast (literally).

After this weekend, I am a little too excited for school to start back. C'mon August!

Surprise!

This is one of my best friends, Laura:

She is amazing. She is a beast at math, a true beautiful southern belle, can play the piano beautifully, she lets me rant to her about my life's problems, but the most beautiful thing about her is that she has a heart that spills over with love for the Lord. Like I said, amazing.

Her birthday is coming up, but she will be on vacation, but I couldn't let that stop me from celebrating her day of birth. So I devised a plan.

Her sister, Katie, and I teamed up to plan a surprise party for her. She didn't have a clue that it was coming and was completely surprised. Can you tell?

What made it even better was that she was having a pretty bad day. She was really bummed about not being able to see everyone before she left for Maine and was stressing about it. We got pretty much all of our friends in town to come so that she could see them all one last time before she leaves. Thanks to everyone that came and made it a great night.

     

God is good :)

Ichthus

In my previous post, I talked about the endless wonders of Wilmore and one of them being Ichthus Music Festival. It was about a week ago, but I'm just now recovering from it. It was amazing, entertaining and incredible. Here are 10 highlights/conclusions of Ichthus:

1. Serving backstage is the way to do Ichthus. Plus you get to meet some awesome people.

2. Chris Tomlin knows how to worship

3. The Galleria stage is where it's at

4. Only at Ichthus is screamo Christian music popular

5. I had a glorious reunion with a friend who I didn't know was in town. Lots of jumping and screaming was involved.

6. Watching YouTube videos at 2 A.M. when everyone has gotten minimal sleep for the past few days and is slap happy is the best. Two words: moist quelfs.

7. Getting Zach to jump into a pool is nearly impossible, but a floating owl statue always helps.

8. It will rain every year. Always.

9. Matthew West's songs about Ichthus and Wilmore are hilarious

10. God was glorified and praised.

Amen

Wilmore

As stated in my "About Me," I go to Asbury University in a little Kentucky town called Wilmore. Wilmore has a population of about 5000, but once a year, the population triples when Ichthus Music Festival happens. (I'll write more about that later).

Anyways, Wilmore is small. There are two stop lights, two gas stations, a couple of small resturants for your dining pleasure and then there is Asbury smack dab in the middle of it. The hub, if you will.

I love this town. Although I don't want to live here forever, it'll always have a special place in my heart.

As you can imagine, there isn't much to do in Wilmore, especially on a Monday night, but this past Monday night was different.

I was hanging out at Confrontation Point Ministries with a couple of friends when suddenly we see huge billows up smoke coming from town. Of course we had to see what was going on, so we all jumped in a friend's car and followed the clouds of black smoke.

Upon arriving, we noticed that it was the old seminary housing that was on fire. We were confused, because no one lives in the apartments any more. We then realized that the seminary had donated the aparentments to the fire department to conduct drills. Of course no one knew that, so the whole town was out watching. The ice cream truck even came by. It was good business and the firefighters enjoyed it too.

Resting

I'm really bad at resting.

You may think this is a weird concept, but really, it's hard for me to simply rest. My daily schedule usually consists of the following:

7:50 A.M.- Alarm goes off, hit snooze button
7:55 A.M.- Alarm goes off again, hit snooze button again (this drives my roommate crazy)
8:00 A.M.- Finally get out of bed and get a cup of coffee
9:05 A.M.- Out of the door and on the way to work
9:30 A.M.- Arrive to work and get more coffee
4:30 P.M.- Leave work
6:00 P.M.- Head to Wilmore to hang out with friends/scheduled activity/ work at Bath and Body Works for the rest of the evening and home back between 11 and 1

This is during the week. I can't even begin to explain my weekends, but I love it! I love constantly being busy. I'm a professional at list making. Give me a task and you better believe I'm gonna make a list to accomplish it. (Thank you Zach for introducing me to the application "Things" for my itouch) 

But sometimes, without realizing it, I'm breaking God's commandment.

  ⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20: 8-11 (NIV)

Even God had to rest after he took 6 days to create the world. Although I enjoy my jobs and feel like i'm accomplishing a lot, I think creating the world is a lot cooler then what I do and takes a lot more effort, but I still need to rest. I break this commandment way too often.

I am trying to think of ways to keep myself busy, yet still resting. My friend Laura had the good idea of baking on Sundays. I really enjoy baking and I've done this for the past few Sundays, yet I always find time to cram some kind of work related task in.

What I've learned:
Be intentional about resting. God did it, and commands us to do it.
You can still be productive while resting
It's actually kinda fun

"It don't mean a thing, if you ain't got that swing"

I went swing dancing last night for the first time and it was a blast. I am not very good ... at all, but thankfully my dance partner was, as he put it, "on the same level of wanting to learn," as me.

A group of 7 of us went to "Swing on Main" in Lexington. They closed down a section of Main St. and had a live jazz band playing. We missed the lesson at the beginning so we had to just jump right in. 

Can you tell that we had a blast?

The plan was to go to Lyman's house afterwards for a bon fire. Needless to say, it was way too hot, so we had ice cream instead. I absolutely love ice cream and there were so many toppings! It was the perfect ending in to a wonderful night.

Alabama

Less than a month ago tornadoes ripped through Tuscaloosa, AL. A friend of mine from school, who just graduated, is from Tuscaloosa. Sadly, his house was damaged and homes of family members and friends were destroyed. The weekend following, my class, the sophomore Awakened class, decided to do a fund raiser for both Japan and Alabama through Fro-Jo's Frozen Yogurt and Coffee in Lexington, KY. We raised over $300 to buy supplies for the people of Alabama and sent it to them through a local radio station.

  

I heard that a group of students were going to help out in Tuscaloosa the following week and I knew that I just had to go.  

This is the few, the proud, the people who had no plans for the first week of summer, who decided to go and help out.

Although Asbury is a small college, I did not know many of these people, but we had a great time. The men put their muscles and chainsaws to work and took care of the trees in yards (actually they completely cut apart the tree in the above picture) and helped with outdoor clean up. But they were showed up. How legit is this?

Yes, that does say, "Texas Baptist Men, Chainsaw Unit." Biggest chainsaws I've ever seen!

Being the only girls on the trip, Jenelle and I helped out at a church sorting donations. We met some awesome people and experienced true southern hospitality and stellar sweet tea.

Although these pictures don't do it justice, the devastation was great and indescribable. Please continue to pray for the people of Alabama, but also those in Missouri and everywhere tornadoes have hit.

Roll Tide!

New Summer = New Blog

I’ve had this vision for awhile, this vision for a blog that is. After mulling it over and annoying my friends and mentors about the idea, I figured it’s about time to start the blog.

My goal with this blog is to encourage the younger generation to live a life above reproach, a life so “that no such criticism can be made” (Oxford Dictionary). I realize only being 20 puts me into the younger generation category; so really, I want to help my peers out.

I attended a Christian high school and now attend Asbury University (you guessed it, a Christian university). While I love them both dearly and would not trade my experiences at either of them for the world, I’m often disgusted at the lives I see lived by current students and especially alumni. After being in “the bubble” of the Christian school environment, and being released from its captivity, these free birds like to “experience the real world.”

I’ll admit, there is often a romanticized version of life when living in the bubble, but why does the outside world seem any better? Is it because there are fewer rules? No accountability? No guilt? I do not know the answer to these questions, because I have chosen to live in the world and not of the world. Christ is my strength and the rock upon which I stand to do so. I’m not saying I’m perfect. Trust me, I’m still a sinner and have struggles daily. I don’t always remember to read my Bible or pray before every meal. I’m growing.

I have decided to call this blog lambs among wolves for a number of reasons. In a class this past semester, I read a book called Roaring Lambs by Robert Briner. The whole book is about the need for Christians to be vocal about their faith, but not abrasive or flashy, to be gentle like a lamb, but fierce like a lion. I really wanted to steal the title, but decided the law suit wasn’t worth it. This is the kind of image I want to portray. I want to encourage people to be ambassadors, roaring lambs about their faith. The name comes from Luke 10:13 

“Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (NLT). 

We are sheep and Christ is our shepherd who rescues us from this world full of wolves. We must trust in him to survive.

I don’t want this to be a daily devotional kind of blog or a Bible study. More than likely, it will simply be musings of mine, adventures, and maybe even a story about God putting me in my place. I want my life to be an example of what this idea of roaring lambs/a lamb among wolves and what it looks like. Please feel free to comment, laugh, and make fun of the life God has bless me with. It’s pretty great.