The End is also The Beginning

Well, BT09 is officially over. On our last night of camp I became so overwhelmed by the fact that God allowed me to serve him this summer but not just serve Him in any way, I got to serve Him while doing a job that was perfect for me, travel the country and make some of the best friends. What an awesome God I serve.

We just left the home office in Birmingham where I told the majority of our team bye. I cried. Lots. Right now I am sitting in a hotel room with 6 other girls who were on my team. We are just hanging out for a while then going to Iguana Grill (YUMMY!!) for supper in honor of Michelle's birthday! yahoo!

I will fly into Houston tomorrow and spend a few days in Conroe with my family and then on Wednesday I will move into my new apartment!

Gotta go take a shower and start getting ready for supper!

Peace!

Hope.

Read this blog post. It is an example of how Compassion International is carrying out the mission of the gospel all over the world. What are you doing to further the gospel?

http://blog.compassion.com/michelle-tolentino-brasile-family/#more-4439

Sights and Sounds of the Summer

I've sat down to write a blog about 5 times in the past two weeks and just couldn't think of what to write.....Totally stole this idea from Ashley Hatchett.

Sounds:
*campers asking Micah if they can touch his hair
*7000 campers worshiping at Daytona
*BA singing "Boom Boom Pow"
*hammers echoing off the walls of the worship room
*Three Dog Night singing in downtown Chattanooga on our night off
*printers jamming
*lots of music....LOTS of music

Sights:
* 25 people wearing the same shirts as each other. every day.
* "kids in the quad" aka campers sitting around in a circle playing a guitar and singing (bonus points when there are numerous guitars present and being played)
*a room full of beautiful MACs
*lots and lots of dancing
*the sun rising in Gatlinburg as we walked out the Convention Center after our all-night load out
*beautiful mountains and the wonderful views from on top of said mountains
*my favorite Kenyan experiencing many American things for the first time
*hundreds of Compassion children being sponsored
*numerous dance parties (including the dance part of ALL dance parties on July 4th)

Tastes:
*Cinnamon biscuits at Covenant College
*Fast food on travel days
*Dove chocolate on reg days/day 2
*snacks from Decatur!
*coffee after staff devo in the mornings

Smells:
*Antibacterial hand sanitizer
*Lysol (thanks to Alicia)
*air freshner in the office
*smelly feet on the end of reg day from wearing our closed toed shoes all day
*funky smelling bathrooms

Christlikeness

Last night I was readying through 'The Valley of Vision' before I went to bed. You guys probably get sick of reading about this book but I love the pure sincerity of words. The prayers in this book express the words of my heart that my mouth does not know how to verbalize. I was reading through a pray titled "Christlikeness" and the last few lines really hit me...

"Help me to walk as Jesus walked,
my only Saviour and perfect model,
his mind my inward guest,
his meekness my covering garb.
Let my happy place be amongst the poor in spirit,
my delight the gentle ranks of the meek.
Let me always esteem others better than myself,
and find in true humility
an heirdom to two worlds."

I'm still here...I promise

I've done such an awful job of keeping up with my blog this summer. So sorry about that...the camps I am working at might be smaller this summer but things have been super crazy.

I spent the last week in Gatlinburg, TN. That place is just odd. It is by far the most touristy, commerical place I have ever been in my life. That week was not a normal week of camp, there was no recreation or missions during the day. Instead, churches came to Celebration (our morning worship service), left and did their own thing (shopping, white water rafting, etc) and then came back at night for another worship service and on nights 2 and 3, a concert. Leading worship was Steve Fee and our Camp Pastor was Louie Giglio. On night 2 we had a concert with Leeland and on night 3, The David Crowder Band. Our typicaly weeks of camp have had between 550 and 650 kids (though some are larger, around 1200-1500 campers). But, in Gatlinburg, we have 4500 people attending....CRAZY!

It was a great week of worship and ministry. Sadly, I was not able to go sit in on worship much because of work that had to be done.

We finished there at 10:30pm on our last night of worship and started loading out. Due to some different situations, we were up ALL night working. We finished around 7:00am the next morning. Thankfully, we had a few days off and were able to sleep all day (I love me some Hampton Inn beds!!).

We are now at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. This is our largest week of "traditional camp" with about 1500 campers. It has been an interesting Reg day....camp is full and I am short on mattresses. I hate SO MUCH not having beds for people....but, camp still happens :-)

Off to do more work....

~Lisa

Boom Boom Pow

Well yesterday was the long awaited, much needed, afternoon off.

It. was. lovely.

After 1 week of training and 10 days straight of camp, we were all very very tired and in much need of rest. So yesterday we went off campus for a really fast lunch. We also got to make a Wal-Mart run (where we accidently left someone....sorry about that Beth). Once back on campus it was time for a nice lonnnnggggg nap (3hrs for me...yay!). Once we were rested, the girls got all pretty and had a mini-photo shoot. One of the girls on our team, Caroline, is an excellent photographer who loves taking pics and us girls like having our pics taken so it is a great combo :-) After pics, we met up with the guys and went to downtown Chatanooga. I ate at Big River which was VERY yummy. We then wandered around downtown for a bit, took some more pics, ate some Ben and Jerrys. The evening was made extra fun by the random fact that Chatanooga is in the midst of hosting a large music festival and we got to watch Three Dog Night...we walked back to our car listening to them sing "Jeremiah was a bull frog."

This morning, while walking to our early morning meeting, we decided that an afternoon off, combined with 8 hrs of sleep, makes our team much happier and nicer :-)

Off to do Registration Day 3....

~Lisa

Where's Lisa??

Oh. My. Goodness. These past 2 weeks have been crazy and yet so amazing. Here is my attempt at a quick overview.

Training Week
During this week I met my team, who are all fantastic. There are a lot of returnees from different teams but there are also a good number of people who this is their first summer working for Student Life. Everyone is a very harder worker and I am so excited about serving with them for the next 2 1/2 months.

Doing my job the second time around has its own challenges but the actual "housing" portion of my job is so much easier now that I have had 3 months last summer to figure it out. :-)

1st week of camp
After MANY late nights or preparation we started our first camp. Registration Day, which is always pretty crazy, went really well. The craziest part of the day was when the fire alarm went off in the building where our camp office is, which is also where we were/are housing all of our female campers and where the cafeteria is. Needless to say, keeping 600 people outside when it is supper time is quite the adventure.

Towards the end of Reg day, when I was hurrying to get to a meeting on time and had not gotten to eat yet (and had a feeling I smelled a little bad) I realized how much fun I was having and how glad I was to be doing this and how greatful I am that YHWH has placed me here with this people, working in this job.

Overall
Honestly, I am a little fearful about this summer. Our world is so sinful and broken and it seems that a large portion of this is manifested in the youth of America, whether it is because of their own mistakes and sin or because of the actions and sin of their parents. God is, and has been for a while, in the process of breaking my heart more and more for the hurt that is present in our world because of sin. The thought of being surrounded by about 15,000 broken and hurting teenagers in a 2 1/2 month time period is frightening because I know how emotionally and spiritually draining it is. It is my prayer, though at times I want to be selfish and not pray this, that God will teach me about the healing that He brings through His overwhelming love.

My prayer is, and will continue to be that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:4).

Thanks for going on this journey with me and being patient with me as I am slow in communicating. The Lord is working in lives, and is it a great thing to be a part of.

Blessings,
Lisa