What time is it? Lakeside time ya'all

I can't believe that Lakeside has finally come to an end for this year!=( If I could relive these last 3 weeks forever and ever I would, but I know that's not possible.  I have absolutely had a blast and I wouldn't take back anything that has happened over the last 3 weeks and I've gotten to experience so much.  God has allowed me to experience Him in many different ways over the last 3 weeks.  As hard as it is to be back home and not in my "holy huddle", I'm ready to take my faith to the next level and I'm ready to "make" my town and community Lakeside!  We here all the time at Lakeside that teens don't wanna go home and face the "real world", but the truth is Lakeside is the "real world" and we need to share Christ's love when we get back home.  So for those of you struggling right now because you aren't at Lakeside anymore, remember this:  Lakeside is just a place. It doesn't matter whether we are at home, or at Lakeside, we need to be sharing the love of Jesus with other people, and we need to worship God wherever we are....Not just one week out of the year.

I can not express how amazing it was to be a part of Junior High Lakeside for youth once again this past week.  Junior High Lakeside is so special and near to my heart because that's where "it all" began for me.  I can't tell you the exact day, time, or occasion that I got saved because I've always for the most part believed in God, but the summer before my 7th grade year I came to Lakeside for the first time and that's when I started to really take my faith and relationship with my savior seriously.  There is just something about young people experiencing God in such a powerful way that keeps me coming back year after year to help for the past 5 years.

I brought up a group of 8 girls this year and it was such an amazing experience to watch them grow in there faith over the week and to hear them ask the tough questions.  I just can not get over how amazing our God is and I'm still in awe of everything that I have experienced.  i'm still trying to take it all in and process everything.

I was asked to be an Interest group leader for junior high lakeside and teach dance.  To be honest I was a little nervous at first because I was going to be teaching by myself and I had never taught and IG by myself before.  I prayed about it and things went great! God is so good!!! Each day I taught two sessions of dance and the kids learned a dance to "hallelujah" by Heather Williams(who was at senior high lakeside).  The kids only had 35 mins so I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to teach them all of the dance but each group picked it up really fast. It was amazing that God had given me the opportunity to share my passion of dance with them.  I started off each session by introducing myself, praying, and then telling them how I became involved with Liturgical dance, or what I like to refer to as Worship dance.

Yesterday I had the best "God moment" during my IG.  All week long I kept feeling like I needed to share just a little bit of my testimony with the kids as to why the song "hallelujah" was so powerful to me.  During my second IG yesterday I felt God tugging at my heart telling me It was finally time for me to open up and share just a little bit.  I told them that they were the first group all week that I was going to share what I was about to share with them and I hadn't told any of the other groups.  I shared briefly about my brother and why the dance/song meant so much to me.  After I shared, one of the counselors came up to me and told me that we were almost the same person.  She said that we had had a lot of the same experiences, her brother had passed away too, and she too had a passion for dance and she even started a dance ministry at her church(where she is the youth director) How cool is that? What an amazing God moment! Someone who has experienced some of the same things I have and who loves dance!

The coolest thing with this IG was that some of the girls and myself were able to "perform" the "hallelujah" dance last night during communion.  It turned out great and God showed up big time!!

Each day we set aside a few hours for servant time.  We divided the kids up into groups and each day they would participate in something new.  We had a walking choir with pastor Todd, a prayer walk, and a card making station to send out thank you's for everyone who works in Lakeside( over 300 employees WOW!!!!).  I was so blessed by each group.  On Tuesday my table group participated in the prayer walk.  it was awesome to be able to go out into the community and go door to door and ask people if they needed prayer, and then being able to pray for them right on the spot.  One house we approached, the lady told us her prayer request and then asked if we were taking donations.  I was then able to tell her about our mission project which was Mexico.  She ended up giving a small donation and i dropped it in the mission bucket at dinner that night.

Wed afternoon my group participated in the walking choir.  That was fun because we got to walk around lakeside, sing for people, and you could tell that people were blessed by us.  Yesterday my table was a part of the "thank you" cards group.  Each person made 2 thank you cards and then we hand delivered them to the different people.  They recipients of the cards were mostly shocked because no one ever thanks them for what they are doing.

Last night during communion each one of us filled out a question/answer paper with questions such as "Where did you see God working the most this week?" It was so cool because when we were all done we were told to put it in the envelope, seal it, write our addresses on it and then in a couple months they would send them back to us in the mail so that we could remember or time at lakeside.  i thought that was so cool because life isn't always going to be easy just because we went to Lakeside, but hopefully these papers will be a reminder of how awesome our time at Lakeside was.

I am truly BLESSEd!!!!