Every kid, Every Where, For Eternity

One other truth the parable reveals to us is that ministry is a lot like farming.  It is hard, slow work.  It does not feel very heroic and involves a lot of difficult and mundane tasks.  It involves knowing your land well—constantly walking the fields to check their condition and to stay attentive to what needs to be done (and when).  It is work that’s messy and will get your hands dirty.  There is no way to do it from a distance—you have to be in it up to your elbows.  It is not just a hobby, but an entire way of life (a calling).  It is a life filled with tilling the soil, and weeding, and digging.  It is a life filled with plowing up the hard ground and breaking up the rocky soil.  It is a life filled with doing whatever it takes to make the soil (soul) as receptive as possible to the seed of the Word. -Jim Branch, Reflections



If there was ever a crunch time in the farming industry Jim calls ministry, it would be now.
I leave tomorrow for YL camp in Georgia. Hopefully, it will be all that we leaders build it up to be, THE BEST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE!
A week kids get to have away from their friends, significant others, families, jobs, stress, drama, etc.
They will get to hear the gospel as they never have before in the midst of having more fun & freedom than they have ever experienced.
It will be neat to be on this side of it this summer.
I worked behind the scenes last year, Tawashie Boss, second session.  Meaning that I cleaned toilets, mopped cabin floors, & made beds day after day. 
I enviously looked on as leaders spent time laughing & crying with their kids.  Leading them towards the cross.

I enjoyed my work, but I kept wishing that my friends had signed up for camp.


Well a year later, and here I am.  
Camp kind of snuck up on me! 
I have been preoccupied right up until time to start packing.
But now it's real!
Only one of my high school friends signed up but thats better than none!
But am I ready?
Do I really know how to handle this week?
Am I prepared to put the work in?
Until this point, it has been the slow, steady toiling that softens the soil, that makes it "receptive as possible to the seed of the Word".
Have I done my best?
Have the long hours, the many miles driven, the many lunches had, the soccer games attended really set her up to hear what will be said at camp?


I am anxious & excited. It really will be the best week of her life. I know that. 
But it also has the capability of being the week that changes everything.
I don't have it all together. I don't have all the answers. I don't live a perfect life.
But I have a Savior that loves me, that guides me, that set me free & I so desperately want her to be able to feel those things too. To have hope, joy, & peace.


So if you stumble across this blog, say a little prayer for me, for Savannah, & for all the high school kids that will be at YL camps across the world this summer.
Every kid, Every Where, For Eternity.

Someone

Someone loves you the way you wish anyone would.
Someone wants you the way we all want to be desired.
Someone thinks you are the most beautiful, most perfect, most invigorating creature to ever exist.
Someone knows you  better than you know yourself.
Someone thinks of you every minute of every day.
Someone that calls  you names like my beloved, my cherished one, my daughter, my girl....

It just so happens that this someone is the creator of the universe.
The one that sets the stars in their places, that made the ocean waves, & sent the breeze blowing through our hair.
He, the great I am, is the someone that treasures you above all others.

5-1-12


I wrote this for a high school friend, then realized I needed to hear it more than she did...

Remember Scarlett, and keep her holy

I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatrual & never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird & walking when I want to run & saying I feel faint after a waltz when I could dance for two days & never get tired.  I'm tired of saying "How wonderful you are" to fool men who haven't got one-half sense I've got & I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything so men can tell me things & feel important while they're doing it.  Why is it a girl has to act so silly to get a husband? Someday I'm going to do & say everything I want to do & say & if people don't like, I don't care.

-Scarlett, Gone With the Wind