Thanksgiving

-I know I'm a day late but happy thanksgiving! I hope everyone is having a fun thanksgiving break visiting family, eating food, playing games, chillin at home, or whatever.
-As for me and my family we are at the farm with my aunt and uncle and cousins. It's been lots of playing games, baking/cooking, watching movies, hunting, walking around on the farm. It's fun to get out of town and spend time with my family. When people ask me what's my favorite place in the world I always say the farm. I love it love it love it. Even though its only a couple hours away I love to come here to get away. It's so peaceful and beautiful. I feel like I get to take a break from all the chaos of life.
-I have so much I am thankful for but these are a few:
-my family: I am so thankful for my family. Even though we argue sometimes they mean so much to me. They are always there for me. We have so many hilarious times together. I love them so much and I don't know what I would do without em.
-my friends: I am so thankful to have the most amazing friends ever. I am so blessed to have best friends that I can talk to about everything and hang out with and be weird and goofy around.
-my church/youth group: I am SO thankful for such an amazing church family and youth group! We worship together, pray together, laugh together, play games together, pull pranks on each other. I am thankful for such loving and accepting people to grow in my faith with.

The Spofford Home

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to volunteer at The Spofford Home for Children. In case you don't know what The Spofford Home is, its a residential facility for kids ages 4-12 who have behavior issues, have been abused, neglected, etc. We got to play games, do crafts, and hang out with the kids. This is only one scenario but, I sat down with this little boy and he asked me to paint with him. Every time I would put down my paintbrush because I was done, he would say, "no! you gotta paint more with me!" It breaks my heart to know that such young kids are hurting because they don't have anyone. They are afraid. They don't feel loved. It really opened my eyes that there are so many kids hurting not only in our world, but right here in our community. All I want to do is do anything possible to make them feel loved, and let them know they don't have to be afraid because God is always with them.

Revival: Night #4

Revival
Night #4
November 14, 2012
Dr. Jim Diehl

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave. Christ is risen from the dead, we are one with him again, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave. Oh death! Where is your sting? Oh hell! Where is your victory? Oh Church! Come stand in the light! The glory of God has defeated the night!"

Notes from tonight's Revival service:

-->Don't give up just because the world is going the wrong way.
-->2 Timothy 1:6, 4:6
-->The fire isn't going to run forever if you don't put more fuel on it.
-->You need to put another log on the fire in your soul.
-->If you can't preach with fire in your heart, quit preaching.
-->Don't minister to people with a heart of ashes. 
-->Let the Lord stir up your heart to get the fire going again.
-->God has given us a spirit of power.
-->The Lord is here changing lives.
-->Let the Lord our God set us free from fear, and let him fill us with POWER and COURAGE.
-->If you do what is right, even if no one else is clapping, Jesus is clapping for you standing up for what is right.
-->Hatred is not born in our lives.
        -Hatred comes in our lives when we are hurt.
-->If we don't give our hurts to God, the hurt develops to bitterness.
-->Hatred is not going to get into heaven.
-->You've got to bring EVERYTHING to God.
-->Lord, set us free from bitterness, and set us free with LOVE
-->Give it all to God and you will be set free!
-->No matter what, God is BIGGER!

Revival

Revival
Night #3
November 13, 2012
Dr. Jim Diehl

These are some notes that I took from the service tonight:
"Lead me to the cross, where your love poured out. Bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down."

--> DON'T BREAK THE TRUST!
-->We are ALL worth more that $280.
-->God's rules for life are so that you will be SET FREE!
-->If we live like God wants us to, there will be FREEDOM and JOY! :)
       -if we don't, it will cost us.
 -->3 John 1:9
-->There are givers and takers in this world, be a giver!
-->There are murmurers and encouragers, be an encourager!
-->There are watchers and workers in the church, be a worker!
-->Do not focus on the problems, focus on the promises of God.
-->Don't jump off a bridge to rescue at hat.
          -FOOL
-->Jump off a bridge to rescue a child.
          -HERO
-->Too many of us shed blood over stuff that doesn't matter.
         -Don't shed your blood over something God doesn't care about.
-->Believe in the culture of LIFE.
-->Jesus died on the cross so we could have a personal relationship with Christ.
-->Develop a heart for the youth<3
-->85% of Christians gave their lives to Christ between ages 8-18.
-->Where the young people are in the church, the church is ALIVE
-->Ecclesiastes 12
-->1 Timothy 4:12-"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers."
--> Young people + God = can change this world!

At the end of the service, Pastor had all of the youth(21 and below) come up to the front. The youth is what makes the church ALIVE. He had everyone else come up and lay there hand on a youth and pray for them. It was really touching for me because these are the people, these are the parents and grandparents that have walked along side with me since I was a baby at this church. These are the people that have grown with through dedication, giving my life to Christ, baptism. Through camps, retreats, and mission trips. I have to thank everyone, young and old, my peers, parents, and grandparents, I have to thank all of you for walking with me through everything, good times and hard times, thank you for believing in me, praying for me and with me, thank you for never giving up on me. 

Past Couple Weeks.

Sorry it's been awhile since I've blogged. I guess I'll just post what's been going on these past few weeks.

Normal life-
mostly I've just been doing school, going to work, hanging out with family and friends.
Family and friends are extremely important in my life and I don't know what I would do without them. I love been able to just chill and watch movies with them, go shopping, hang out, laugh together, cry together. Friends and family are my everything.

We had MNU Homecoming the last weekend of October. It was fun to go to the homecoming game with friends and to see a whole lot of people come together who hadn't seen each other in a long time.

Service Project-
That same weekend our youth group, The Vine Student Ministries did a service project an cleaned up trash in a creek near our church. It was super fun to be with some of the kids in the group and help clean up. It's amazing how beautiful God's creation is and we should do our best to take care of it.

FALL RETREAT
The Vine Student Ministries had our fall retreat the first weekend of November. We had 50 students join us. It was amazing. I love coming together with my youth group and worshiping The Lord and playing games together and connecting with each other. It's amazing to see some of the other students grow so much in their faith in Christ. And it's fun to see kids become friends with someone that had never talked to before. I need to say I am SOO thankful for my youth group and for everyone being there for me and for lifting me up when I need it. And for always believing in me.

That's just a little bit of what's happened these last few weeks.