Opportunities are Arrising!

I once heard someone say that you have to be careful what you pray for because it might just come happen!

I would like to thank all of you for praying for a job, I have one now. I am working in admissions as a student worker for the Outreach Coordinator. It is working pretty good, I am able to write my own hours and come in when I can.

I have also been praying for ministry opportunities and boy have they come to me!!! I have 2 churches now interested in me being a part time youth minister, also I have one opportunity to travel with a guy that works at our school with church relations to preach together and he would mentor me a little bit. I am currently in the decision making process and am trying to way the pros and cons of each opportunity. There seem to be equal pros and cons to each opportunity, so I have been praying for a little discernment there and would appreciate if you all would too!

School is going pretty good, there is nothing to complain about there. I'm sorry it has been a while, I will try to do a little better in the future. I know I say that a lot, but it could happen!

School comes every fall like it or not....

I moved back into my dorm room yesterday! It's weird though because I usually am not excited about school starting or being in classes, but this year I can't wait. I am excited to be in about every class I have! So it's been a little weird because I happy to be doing what most people dread, but I guess I'm not most people.

After I got all my stuff moved in I went and visited some of my friends who were actually in class at the time (early week class, I couldn't take anything...) and they told be there was going to be free Chik fil A at 5!!! I love any kinda of Chik fil A, but the free kind is absolutely the best! So we went to this park where it was being served and I got to see many old friends and here about everyone's summer stories, which was a great time!

School starts next week, but til then I am going to be looking for a job and visiting some old friends and who knows what else I'll get in to! Also Saturday I am going to the Beach Waterpark with about 6 of my friends, which is also a free event!!!!! You really can't beat free!

I hope everyone is doing well. Please be praying that I find a job quickly!! Thank you!

I'm Sorry and Camps are Over

Hello all you faithful blog followers! Long time no talk. I would like to start with a sorry that I didn't keep everyone updated as much as I would have liked to this summer, but I hope you all are doing fantastic.

My summer has truly been one of the best summers in the most unique way. I have had the privilege to travel with a team of 4 to many summer church camps and do whatever it is I am asked to do. I have done everything from the dance from the movie "Hitch", to leading worship, to crawling through mud, and one of my favorites was canoeing/kayaking on a lake with many jr. high students. I really wish I could put in one blog how much I enjoyed every experience at every camp that I have been to.

Also I would like to add that I have grown a full beard that has been growing on my face since June 14th. It has become quite thick and now it is weird to see pictures of what I looked like before I decided this would be a great idea.

Along with all of my camp experiences, many of you know that my brother has also recently entered a little life-sentence I like to call wedlock, also known as "holy matrimony". I was honored to be his best man, which entailed that I stand behind him and sign my name to a fancy piece of paper with a fancy little pen. So that was fun.

On a less fun/yet still fun note, I was asked to help a family that I am really close to move to New Jersey. Now this wasn't a fun thing for me to do with the knowledge that they are going to live farther away now. However, it was a really fun week I was able to spend with them. We had the privilege of seeing the Statue of Liberty, going to Six Flags, as well as exploring the neighborhood, which included going to see the latest Harry Potter movie at the local cinema.

If you check out my Facebook page you will see many of the pictures taken over the summer. I hope you all enjoy and here are a few to get you started.
There she is!

This is my beard with Lady Liberty!

Just another shot of the beard.

Here is my team. Just as if you were reading a book:
Kaela, Katy, Jeremy, and Yours Truly

Camp camp and more camp!

Hey everyone! I just finished my first week of camp this past week and I'm getting ready to go out for another one today!

In case you don't know or perhaps forgot, I am doing this thing through school where I am on a team of 4 that goes out to different church camps and tells people about the school and am there to provide a helping hand.

This past week we were at an elementary week, which was interesting to say the least. First off, we were only supposed to have jr. high and high school kids since our job is promoting the school, but somehow this camp tricked us. Sneaky little buggers.

I was the worship leader for the week, which wasn't that big of a deal because I have been leading worship for the elementary kids at my church for about a year now, but what was interesting was trying to do it alone with no one to teach the choreography. So I would tell them how the song went, then I would try to remember the choreography the best I could, then we would play the song. Anyone ever heard the song Romans 16:19? Well that happened to be the kids favorite song and they begged for it every day. I played twice a day every day and there was only one session that I managed not to play that song. It's not that it's a bad song or anything, but twice a day for a whole week is a little much. :)

We had many interesting experiences with the campers, but for the most part they were good kids. This part might make you southerners smile: the camp was in southern Kentucky and by the second day my whole team was starting to say little words in a southern accent, it was so bad that at one point when I woke up from a nap I was hearing my thoughts in a southern accent! Don't worry though, for the most part I have kicked it, but it was scary, I wasn't sure how long it was going to last!

I was planning on showing you all pictures, but we just didn't take very many, so this week we will take a lot of pictures and I will be able to show you my team and everything. You can also see them on my facebook if you want to see, and sorry for the creepy profile picture!

On the bright side we have high schoolers this week!

An end and a beginning

School is out and, to steal a McDonald's slogan, I'm lovin it! I have not been doing too much with my time off, but that is what you are supposed to do with a break from what I hear.

Since I have been off I have gone to visit some friends, ate out with my parents, visited some other friends, taken some prom pictures for some friends, gone to church, led a jr. high youth group, worked a day and had dinner with my grandparents! I've only been out since Thursday too. I don't know how so much is able to fit into such a short time, but it did.

Hopefully I will get some of the prom pictures to put up and show everyone, but I don't have them. I co-took the pictures with Jenn, so they were on her cameras and she has all of the pictures.

I am starting my camp team extravaganza tomorrow. Well, training is tomorrow, then we get a week off then the big adventure starts! I will be touring the country and doing what I do best... I actually don't know what I do best, but I will basically be doing whatever I am told to do by the camp. I could be doing everything from leading a small group to leading worship to preaching, who knows what I'll be doing! I will hopefully be blogging a lot though so all ye faithful followers will know what I am up to!

Before tomorrow comes I have a lot to do, sort of. I brought home a lot of my stuff from school and all the farther it made it was to my room, not put away, just in there. So my mission for the day is to clean all of the mess up asap and get packed and ready for our 3 day mock week training thing. Well I hope to hear from everyone. Have a great week and a great summer.

Again?!?! No Way!

Yes that is right ladies and gentlemen, I am writing twice in one week! 

Finals are coming up this next week, so the late nights have begun, along with Saturday study times... ugh. I would like everyone to know that I have successfully only had one Saturday that I can recall where I did homework or studied on a Saturday, but today will be the second day.

One nice thing that has come from  late night studying was last night my friend Matt and I rented a couple movies to have on while we were working. We rented "Marley and Me" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." We were going to go to the Reds game last night, but it was raining pretty hard the whole time, so we just rented movies. I decided that I would watch Marley and Me and then would start on my homework during Benny Button. Well I will just say that I wish I had something to distract me from the first one, Marley and Me made my eyes wet. I never cry during a movie, but this one really got me teary-eyed. The film was beautifully done and I really felt like I was a part of the family. At the end of the movie as I was getting teary-eyed I was trying not to let Matt see me, but then at one point I hear him say, "Stupid dog has me cryin all over the place, dangit." I look over and he had tears flowing down his face, then I didn't feel so bad for getting a little teary-eyed. It had to have been a funny scene to watch if you would have walked into the room: a couple of guys on a Friday night, in a little guys dorm room, watching Marley and Me, and sobbing. We felt pathetic!

So for the Curious Case of Benjamin Button we called our friend Taylor and went up and watched that one in our "Student Life" area, that way we didn't feel so pathetic and I did homework during that one to keep me distracted if it got too emotional. It was a good movie, but it was extremely long (2 hrs. 40 min. long)! It was interesting though to see how the cycles of life are sort of similar whether we go from young to old or old to young. You still have to learn to walk, bend over and be able to tie your own shoes, feed yourself, and eventually you grow muscles. At the end of life you basically unlearn everything you have learned if you live long enough. I just thought this was an interesting observation. It just goes to show that you have a certain period of time when you are very capable of a lot of things and should take full advantage of it. All of us are in that stage right now, not dependent on anyone and able to get along just fine and remember everyone we come in contact with. There really isn't any reason to complain about what we have right now.

Other than my sob stories there isn't much going on. I was thinking, since I go to a Christian College, maybe I could just pray for a good grade on my exams? Just kidding, I will just be grateful that I have a capable mind to try and comprehend the glory of God. I hope all of you have a marvelous Mother's day too, do something special for your mother, and for those mothers that are reading this, have a great day and know that you can really have an impact on your child, more than what you think you have probably. 

I love you all.

Slow Poke!

That would be me! I know that I apologize every time I write an entry, but I really am sorry I want to keep my followers informed about my life, but I just forget sometimes.

Not a ton has been happening in my life lately. I was at a jr. high retreat two weekends ago and led a class about not living in the past but learning from it and looking forward. I didn't expect much response from it, but the kids really did seem to get something out of the class, I know that wasn't my doing. The retreat in general was pretty cool, it was called A Letting Go and they were talking about letting go of the things that hold us back from a relationship with GOD. It was pretty interesting. I forgot how easy it is to get jr. high kids to do the stupidest things for the smallest reward. We were playing this game where the students received rocks as a reward and at my game I made a rule that if someone would go off a rope swing that went out over a creek and landed face first in the mud that they would receive 20 additional rocks! I couldn't believe how many kids would do this for something as simple as a few rocks. It was so funny.

Last weekend I was a part of a 30 hour famine and I was asked to lead worship for it. So, I asked the best pianist I know, Dave Searle, and a very talented vocalist, Kara Clutter, to assist me in this. We ended up with an amazing worship time, we had the amount of songs to go for about a half hour, but ended up with close to an hour of worship. Needless to say it was awesome! 

I don't really know what else to talk about. One thing that I have been noticing more and more is the continual need for service, especially in the church. That is mostly what we talked about during the famine and then we talked about it tonight in our dorm devotions. The main passage we looked at was Isaiah 58, which talks about true fasting, and then tonight the song we listened to was The Tears of the Saints. If you want to hear a great song look it up, it is by the band called Leeland, you won't regret it if you have to buy it. I just thought I would like to share a little something that has been on my mind and in my heart lately. I hope you all do something with it and I will try to keep up a little more on my blogging, but as usual, no promises. Take care everyone.