Mission Arlington!

So some of my girls put clothes in the washer 45 minutes before they had to be in their rooms, and now I have to wait for them to dry, so I figured I'd catch everyone up so I don't get taken off of JMob's blogroll.

The past couple of days at Mission Arlington have been awesome for the most part. I'm staying with the 8th grade girls, and unfortunately, 8th grade girls bring 8th grade drama. Yesterday, they were letting the drama get in the way of the work, and I reemed them last night. Jaron is really starting to wear off on me. Anyways, after about 2 hours of a cry fest and apologizes and such, all is well for a while.

The kids have been doing pretty good for the most part, and since you can read Nic, Jaron, and JMob's blog to find out what's going on, I thought I'd just tell you about some pretty cool stuff that God had been showing me through two of the youth on the trip.

The first kid is a little boy that is going to be in 7th grade. He's a little weird, but he has a good heart. No, a GREAT heart. He's probably one of my favorites. Anyways, all week he has been telling everyone about how he doesn't care a bit about what other people think of him, which is awesome, but more importantly, it really came in handy today. There was a kid who refused to have anything to do with out Rainbow Express (VBS) group the last two mornings, and this morning, our little 7th grader went up to the kid and started fanning him with a paper fan he made. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know many 7th graders who would do this, because it would look "weird" or "uncool", but this kid didn't care, and the next thing you know, the boy who wouldn't participate is coloring on a coloring sheet and hanging out, all because our youth didn't care about being cool. How many more people could I reach if I didn't care about what others thought?

Here's the other youth that's really been impressing me. There's a girl in my room who recently lost her mom to cancer, and when I say recent, I mean she buried her mom a little over a week ago. I think its impressive enought that she came, because I don't think I would be able to pull myself together enough to do so, but her attitude and work ethic this week have been incredible. She's the only girl in our Rainbow Express group that I can honestly say has put in 120% both days. Here's the truly awesome part. We were talking tonight, and she told me about how her dad was already thinking about seeing someone. Not only did she call and talk to her younger brother and calm him down and make him feel better about the situation, and not only did she call and talk to her dad and calmly and respectful explain her and her brother's feelings about the situation (which in turn led to her dad realizing he was making a mistake), she also told me that one of the reasons she took care of it tonight was because she wanted to make sure that she didn't have any distractions before we went out tomorrow, since tomorrow is such an important day. Talk about awesome. I don't know many 8th graders who would handle a situation so well, and be able to put mission work in front of family drama. To be quite honest, I wish I could be more like her.

Deep Thoughts

So I havn't blogged in a while, and everyone has been giving me crap about it, but I'm a busy girl, so get over it. We spent last week at Beach Break Camp, if you want to know the details, you can read Nic, Jaron, and JMob's blogs. Overall, it was a really great week, and even though it really wore me out, I think every second of it was worth it bc of what the kids got out of it. For the first time in a while, I feel like I'm serving where God wants me, and I love it.



After we got back, I worked a little, and then I went home to spend Father's day with my pops. I hung out with Georgetown kids and my family and it was a good weekend. On my way back I stopped in Lockhart to drop off Jaron's birthday presents because tomorrow is his birthday. Afterward, I hung out with Jaron, Jmob, and Cody and Caleb. I really like those kids, and I had a ton of fun hanging out with everyone. Sometimes I just wished I lived in Lockhart and worked as Nic's 4th intern. I'd enjoy that a lot more than what I'm doing now.



Today I went to class, and sitting through class I realized how much I HATE school lately. Literally, never, in all my years of education have I ever disliked class so much. I still like what I'm going to school for, but I think its a sign from God that He is calling me to do bigger and better things with my life as well.



Speaking of God, He has been speaking to me a lot today. Not really more than He does in the average day I guess, but I'm trying to make this blog really good and long for all the haters, so I think I'll share today.



1. Today I had to work up at the Methodist Church that I sometimes do childcare for. The women there are doing a Beth Moore study, and my job is to sit in the study for 30 minutes and take any kids that show up to the childcare room. No kids showed up, but I did get to listen in on the study for a while. Most of it was corny, but one of the women did say one thing that I really liked. She said that guilt and shame are also idols. I never thought of guilt and shame as an idol before, but I have a serious problem with guilt and shame and letting go of things when I mess up. The woman also talked about how Paul never could have been the man he was if he had spent his whole ministry looking back at his mistakes. I think God was really telling me that I need to do a better job of letting go of my own mistakes.



2. Lately, I've been doing this thing were I listen to podcasts on the way to school since its about an hour long drive. I've mostly been listening to stuff from Mars Hill. Today I listened to a sermon from May 31st. Mars Hill had a guest speaker named Steve Chalke. Steve Chalke is the founder of Oasis trust, which is an organization that established schools, hospitals, and hostels for children all over the world. Mr. Chalke is also one of the most active individuals in stopping people trafficing around the world.



So anyways, I learned a lot from my podcast listening today. First of all, did you know that every 30 seconds a person somewhere in the world is kidnapped from their home and sold into sex or domestic slavery? This includes almost 17, 500 children in America, most of who are used as sex slaves (experts estimate that is number is MUCH higher, but the number cannot be confirmed because not many people admit to having sex slaves).

Two other things I took from my podcast:

1. Mr. Chalke talked about how the modern day church should not just be a church. It should be a church and a school, or a church and a hospital, or a church and a hostel. Basically, the church should be the center of the community. Chalke said that the church should be the "hub" and it should be a building that is opened and available to everyone in the community 24/7, not just when the staff is in the office. That's good stuff.

2. The other thing Mr. Chalke talked about is a passage from Genesis. Genesis 1:26-27, which says:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Chalke talked about how EVERY person male and female were created in God's own image, and that each person deserves to be treated as such. He said that everyone lives in poverty. Not everyone lives in the type of poverty that we picture poverty as, some people live in social poverty, or emotional poverty, or spiritual poverty, or any other type of poverty. The role of the church is to meet the poverty needs of EVERY individual, not just those experiencing spiritual poverty. Chalke talked about how everywhere that people go they are told they are screw ups, not good enough, too much to handle, that they don't deserve second chances, and every other message this world can give you. The church is the one place where EVERYONE should feel like they belong, no matter what they have done in the past. The church is also the place that everyone should feel comfortable coming to meet their individual poverty needs, because EVERY individual represents that image of God.

So, the question stands blog readers: How are YOU treating the image of God? Bc I know I could be doing a MUCH better job.

The Week in Review

So this week has been relatively interesting. I went to school, but that wasn't the interesting part, that part actually sucked. I'm already tired of school and I have only been going a week. I am outrageously ready to graduate. Not be a grown up, just be done with school.

I'm going on all of the youth trips with Nic's youth group this summer. I told the director of the daycare about this when I first got my job, and she said it would be fine, but this week she let me know that she would have to find someone to take my spot and that I would have to become the sub, because our current subs are "unreliable" according to her.

Today my replacement showed up for training without any warning from my boss. Not only that, but my boss yelled at me in front of all the other employees for nap time being crazy and unorganized. She later apologized and explained that she was stressed. Additionally, I was supposed to get off at 11:45 but stayed until 1:50, not because my boss asked me too, but because I am nice and I knew things were crazy. If I didn't love the kids at my work so much, I would so quit.

After work I headed out to Lockhart to spend the weekend with Nic and Jo and Jaron before we leave for Beach Break. While we were spending time with Mrs. Pittman, I was talking to them about this razor burn that I have had in my armpit for a month or so that had really started to hurt and burn, among other things. I'll spare you the gory details, but after talking to them and my parents, we decided that it would be best to get it checked out and take care of it before we left for the beach. So, Jaron and I went to the minor emergency room to get it checked out. It turns out I got a variation of staph infection (not the serious version). However, it is not contagious and is easily treatable with some antibiotics and creams. Just so you guys know, I do bathe on a daily basis.

While we were at the hospital, a criminal was in the waiting room and I sat down right next to him when we first came in. I filled out all of my paper work in front of him, and then when he got up to go to the bathroom, I noticed that the man sitting next to me had on ankle shackles and handcuffs. At the same time the sheriff escort (with a gun in his holster) kept nodding off while they were sitting there. Needless to say, I was very glad when they called my name.

And such is my week. We are leaving for Beach Break on Sunday and I am so excited!

Weekend Fun

So, I spent the weekend at the Burleson's, as everyone knows. Today, we had pancake breakfast, a short sermon and a fun Sunday school lesson. Then we hung out with the Pittman's the rest of the afternoon typing up recipes for the youth group recipe book (let me know if you want to buy one!).

After I got back from the weekend, Haley was finally here, and the three roommates spent a little while hanging out on the couch talking and laughing and catching up. It was a ton of fun.

Lately, I've really been dreading school and work, and I was really starting to think that this summer was going to suck. After spending the weekend in Lockhart, and the night with my roommates, I know that the hours outside of school and work will be a ton of fun. I guess things are looking up after all!