So yesterday's blog pretty much left off at the end of my junior year. That was one of my favorite years in high school. I took classes that were a lot of fun, made a lot of good friends, and grew a lot in the faith. That summer was a lot of fun. I took a trip to Europe and made a lot of great friends that I still keep in touch with today. That trip helped me grow a lot in my faith. That summer was a big time of growth. I read almost every day, all day. I had gotten to where if I started reading when I woke up and stopped only to eat, I could finish a 250 page book in a couple of days. I finished anywhere between 7-10 books that summer and I loved every second of it. I finished the Bible on July 1, 2011 and dedicated my time to books people had recommended and that I had discovered. After a month I had finished all of those books and decided to read the Bible again, except I was reading the Message version.
At the beginning of senior year I was on track to graduate and go to college just like the average high school senior. By October I had applied to Asbury University, Mississippi College, and Auburn, and been accepted to all three, so I had a decision to make. I went and toured the colleges throughout the month of November, but just couldn't make a decision. I absolutely loved Asbury, but it was way too expensive. I liked Mississippi College, but they were covering half of the cost to go there. And Auburn was just home, but no scholarship. Amongst all of this my friend, Daniel Harris, told me about this thing called Passion that happens in January in Atlanta. So I looked it up and I was dying to go. They had some really awesome people like Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio, Kristian Stanfill, Francis Chan, David Crowder band, Beth Moore, Hillsong, John Piper, and many more. I was looking for any way to go that I could. Then I saw the college pastor at our church tweet that they had spots to fill, and as soon as I saw it I emailed him asking if I could go. He said that I could, and I was super excited.
So all of Christmas break I was looking forward to Passion. For Christmas my dad got me this book called "Kisses from Katie" by Katie Davis. Katie is a girl that decided to take a year off after her high school to go do a mission experience somewhere, and she ended up in Uganda. At this time I knew that I was going to Uganda for a little while, and that was the amazing trip I took earlier this summer. Keep in mind that I still hadn't made a decision on where to go to college yet.
I finished that book in about 3 days, but didn't really think anything of it. The day that I finished that book I picked up the Bible and began to read out of Isaiah, and this is what I read:
"What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families" (Isaiah 58:7, The Message).
As soon as I got done reading that verse, I knew that the Lord was trying to tell me something. Fast forward about a week. I'm at Passion having an amazing time. Chris Tomlin tells us that we are going to sing "How Great is Our God" but we were going to sing it in different languages. I didn't really think much of it when he told us that. It was getting close to the end of the song and an African Children's Choir jumped in and began to sing with us. It was one of the most beautiful things that I have ever heard. I had to stop singing multiple times because I was so choked up.
At the very end, Louie Giglio got up and he said, "I know that God has put a country on your heart." And right at that moment, I heard what sounded like a faint whisper and it said "Uganda". Since I had been through this once before, I knew that it was God telling me that. And at that moment I knew that God wanted me to go to Uganda for longer than a week.
I didn't think about it much while I was at Passion, but the whole ride home and the whole weekend I thought about how I was going to get there. My whole family left the weekend I got back and I had the whole weekend to think about it. That weekend I contacted Jamie East. She was my history teacher junior year and I knew that 5 months earlier she had moved to Uganda to work with 4 Corners Ministries. So I asked her if it was alright if I came and did an internship with them in the fall. They were all for it, so I was on board.
Then I had to find a way to tell my parents. This was going to be a lot of fun. So they got back on Sunday and that Sunday night I pulled them into my dad's office to tell them about this. Surprisingly, they were pretty cool with it. Yes, they had their questions, but they were on board.
Over the following months I had to apply for the internship, interview, and I got accepted. I was so excited!! I now have a plane ticket and I leave in 12 days! I am so excited to go back over there and see what the Lord has in store for me.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
My Call to Ministry
So as most of you know, in 13 days from today (August 22, 2012) I will be leaving for Uganda for 3 months. I'm so excited to see what the Lord has planned for me! But over the past few days I have really been reflecting on how I have come to this point. Over the next couple of days I will be sharing that with all of you.
Before I really began following Jesus, I was really struggling. I was doing things that I shouldn't have been for almost 3 years. I remember many times throughout this 3 year period thinking that there is no way that God could exist. I don't exactly know why, but I did. Needless to say, I was giving in to Satan's tricks. At the very end of this three year span I remember thinking, "I've had enough of this. There has to be more to life." That was really when I began to turn my life around.
That was in November of 2010. In January of 2011 one of my best friends, Michael Hutson, invited me to a small group that his youth group did every Sunday night at a different person's house. I just went on and told him that I would come. So I went and the leaders challenged us to have a verse ready to talk about for the next week. I went home and opened up my Bible (for the first time in years) to Ephesians 4:1, which I had never read before. It says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." So the next week came around and I shared that with everyone. I remember thinking that I had no idea what my calling was, and we were about to go to college. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So the leaders of the small group really encouraged me to pray about it. One of my favorite verses that I began to pray was Psalm 25:4-5 and it says, "Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long." So I began praying about what God wanted me to do with my life.
It had gotten to be February of 2011, and Lent was fast approaching so I was deciding what to give up and what to take on. Well the thing I decided to take on was reading the whole Bible in chronological order. So I started at the end of February and in chronological order the Bible goes from Genesis 1-11 to the whole book of Job, then back to Genesis 12. So I had read up to Genesis 12 by the time that Spring Break of my junior year had come along. About halfway through the week I was at my grandparent's house doing a little turkey hunting. Right after we had gotten home from the morning hunt I decided to go upstairs and read a little bit. So I picked up the Bible, opened to Genesis 12, and this is what I read:
"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you'" (Genesis 12:1-3).
As soon as I got done reading that, for some reason I sat up and looked straight ahead. Then a thought ran through my mind: "I can't believe people haven't heard about this! I have to go tell someone!" And I will never forget what I thought after that. I sat there and thought that was the weirdest thing ever, that I was going to keep that to myself, and no one was ever going to know about it. Then I went downstairs and tried to get my mind off of it. Of course now I look back and want to go to myself and yell in my face, "IT WAS GOD YOU IDIOT!" But that is impossible so I have to live with it.
I stuck that memory in the back of my head until the first weekend of April. I signed up for a retreat with a study for my church called Man2Man. I didn't think much of it. One of my best friends, Christopher Slagley, told me to sign up for it, so I did just thinking I would at least have a good time. Well the theme for the weekend was "All In." That saying had gotten very popular around Auburn considering that the team won a national championship that year and pretty much trademarked that saying. But anyways, I will never forget on that first night at the retreat, a man was speaking and he said, "How has God called you to be all in?" And that question really hit me hard. I wouldn't realize how hard until the next day though.
The next day a different guy was speaking and for like 2 hours he talked about Matthew 16:24-25, which is one of my favorite verses today. It says, "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." After we spent a good long time talking about that verse, I realized that that moment almost a month earlier was a call to ministry.
So of course, I felt the call to ministry so I automatically thought that I was going to be a preacher. But little did I know, that God wasn't done telling me what He wanted me to do, but I will get more into that tomorrow.
Before I really began following Jesus, I was really struggling. I was doing things that I shouldn't have been for almost 3 years. I remember many times throughout this 3 year period thinking that there is no way that God could exist. I don't exactly know why, but I did. Needless to say, I was giving in to Satan's tricks. At the very end of this three year span I remember thinking, "I've had enough of this. There has to be more to life." That was really when I began to turn my life around.
That was in November of 2010. In January of 2011 one of my best friends, Michael Hutson, invited me to a small group that his youth group did every Sunday night at a different person's house. I just went on and told him that I would come. So I went and the leaders challenged us to have a verse ready to talk about for the next week. I went home and opened up my Bible (for the first time in years) to Ephesians 4:1, which I had never read before. It says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." So the next week came around and I shared that with everyone. I remember thinking that I had no idea what my calling was, and we were about to go to college. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So the leaders of the small group really encouraged me to pray about it. One of my favorite verses that I began to pray was Psalm 25:4-5 and it says, "Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long." So I began praying about what God wanted me to do with my life.
It had gotten to be February of 2011, and Lent was fast approaching so I was deciding what to give up and what to take on. Well the thing I decided to take on was reading the whole Bible in chronological order. So I started at the end of February and in chronological order the Bible goes from Genesis 1-11 to the whole book of Job, then back to Genesis 12. So I had read up to Genesis 12 by the time that Spring Break of my junior year had come along. About halfway through the week I was at my grandparent's house doing a little turkey hunting. Right after we had gotten home from the morning hunt I decided to go upstairs and read a little bit. So I picked up the Bible, opened to Genesis 12, and this is what I read:
"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you'" (Genesis 12:1-3).
As soon as I got done reading that, for some reason I sat up and looked straight ahead. Then a thought ran through my mind: "I can't believe people haven't heard about this! I have to go tell someone!" And I will never forget what I thought after that. I sat there and thought that was the weirdest thing ever, that I was going to keep that to myself, and no one was ever going to know about it. Then I went downstairs and tried to get my mind off of it. Of course now I look back and want to go to myself and yell in my face, "IT WAS GOD YOU IDIOT!" But that is impossible so I have to live with it.
I stuck that memory in the back of my head until the first weekend of April. I signed up for a retreat with a study for my church called Man2Man. I didn't think much of it. One of my best friends, Christopher Slagley, told me to sign up for it, so I did just thinking I would at least have a good time. Well the theme for the weekend was "All In." That saying had gotten very popular around Auburn considering that the team won a national championship that year and pretty much trademarked that saying. But anyways, I will never forget on that first night at the retreat, a man was speaking and he said, "How has God called you to be all in?" And that question really hit me hard. I wouldn't realize how hard until the next day though.
The next day a different guy was speaking and for like 2 hours he talked about Matthew 16:24-25, which is one of my favorite verses today. It says, "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." After we spent a good long time talking about that verse, I realized that that moment almost a month earlier was a call to ministry.
So of course, I felt the call to ministry so I automatically thought that I was going to be a preacher. But little did I know, that God wasn't done telling me what He wanted me to do, but I will get more into that tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Post Work Crew
Hey guys!! So I was just reading after not looking at anything having to do with my blog for the past six weeks, and in my last one I said that I would post something after we were done at Work Crew to let everyone know how it went. Well me being my forgetful self, I forgot to do it until now, but here goes nothing.
Work Crew was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was also one of the hardest things that I have ever done. We were supposed to wake up at 6:40 every morning, but on some mornings we didn't because the alarm got unplugged somehow. Anyways, usually up by 6:40 every morning, because we had devotional at 7:00. After that we had breakfast at 8:00, then we had to do everything to get ready for camper breakfast which was at 9:00. Their breakfast was usually over around 9:30, so then we started bussing our tables and resetting. By the time we got done it was 11:00 and we only had 30 minutes until we ate our lunch. Then we did it all over again until about 2:30. Usually we had a couple of hours of freetime between getting done setting up for dinner and our dinner which was at 5:00. Then we did it all over again and usually got done around 9:15-9:30. Some nights we had Work Crew meeting which would last until about 10:30, then we stayed up goofing off until about midnight and did it all over again. It was really hard doing that every day, but it was worth it.
Our Work Crew had 22 people, and since we lived together for a month we all got to know each other pretty well. One of the many things that I learned while I was at Southwind was that everyone's story is a story of God's grace and redemption. All of us had been redeemed, or made a new creation and you could see that through our stories. Another thing was that some people had been in way worse situations than others, but they all show God's grace. For the people that were in very dark places in life, it is by God's grace that they had gotten out of those places. And for the people that didn't go through as rough of a time as others did, it is by God's grace that they haven't experienced any of that.
On this trip, I learned what hard work was. I've never had a real job, and doing this was a job. But not only that, it was a job that required everything you had to give for 30 days and not get paid for it. One verse that kept coming up was Mark 8:34-35: "Then he called the crowd to him along with the disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.'" That verse has been one of my favorites ever since the first time I heard it, but we lived out that verse during that month at Southwind and it was absolutely amazing to see.
The most important thing that I left Southwind knowing was that I am a son of the Living God. Our work crew boss read a verse to us every opportunity he could and it was Mark 1:10-11: "As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'" One morning for devo, we read the parable of the Prodigal Son. That is one of my favorite stories that Jesus tells. After hearing the verse from Mark read over us so many times and then reading the parable of the Prodigal Son, it finally hit me. I am a son of God.
One of my favorite things about spending a month at Southwind was making friends that will last a lifetime. We spent every waking moment together every day for a month, and we all became great friends. It was just amazing to me to see how quickly God brought us so close to each other, and to see how hard it was for us to leave each other. I love every single person that spent that month with us at Southwind and I wouldn't trade any of them for the world.
That time at Southwind was one of the best months of my life. I loved every second of being there and I wouldn't trade it for the world. It was absolutely amazing.
Work Crew was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was also one of the hardest things that I have ever done. We were supposed to wake up at 6:40 every morning, but on some mornings we didn't because the alarm got unplugged somehow. Anyways, usually up by 6:40 every morning, because we had devotional at 7:00. After that we had breakfast at 8:00, then we had to do everything to get ready for camper breakfast which was at 9:00. Their breakfast was usually over around 9:30, so then we started bussing our tables and resetting. By the time we got done it was 11:00 and we only had 30 minutes until we ate our lunch. Then we did it all over again until about 2:30. Usually we had a couple of hours of freetime between getting done setting up for dinner and our dinner which was at 5:00. Then we did it all over again and usually got done around 9:15-9:30. Some nights we had Work Crew meeting which would last until about 10:30, then we stayed up goofing off until about midnight and did it all over again. It was really hard doing that every day, but it was worth it.
Our Work Crew had 22 people, and since we lived together for a month we all got to know each other pretty well. One of the many things that I learned while I was at Southwind was that everyone's story is a story of God's grace and redemption. All of us had been redeemed, or made a new creation and you could see that through our stories. Another thing was that some people had been in way worse situations than others, but they all show God's grace. For the people that were in very dark places in life, it is by God's grace that they had gotten out of those places. And for the people that didn't go through as rough of a time as others did, it is by God's grace that they haven't experienced any of that.
On this trip, I learned what hard work was. I've never had a real job, and doing this was a job. But not only that, it was a job that required everything you had to give for 30 days and not get paid for it. One verse that kept coming up was Mark 8:34-35: "Then he called the crowd to him along with the disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.'" That verse has been one of my favorites ever since the first time I heard it, but we lived out that verse during that month at Southwind and it was absolutely amazing to see.
The most important thing that I left Southwind knowing was that I am a son of the Living God. Our work crew boss read a verse to us every opportunity he could and it was Mark 1:10-11: "As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'" One morning for devo, we read the parable of the Prodigal Son. That is one of my favorite stories that Jesus tells. After hearing the verse from Mark read over us so many times and then reading the parable of the Prodigal Son, it finally hit me. I am a son of God.
One of my favorite things about spending a month at Southwind was making friends that will last a lifetime. We spent every waking moment together every day for a month, and we all became great friends. It was just amazing to me to see how quickly God brought us so close to each other, and to see how hard it was for us to leave each other. I love every single person that spent that month with us at Southwind and I wouldn't trade any of them for the world.
That time at Southwind was one of the best months of my life. I loved every second of being there and I wouldn't trade it for the world. It was absolutely amazing.
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