3 Days :D

In 3 days and a couple short hours we will be leaving for Hato Mayor! I am so excited and have so much anticipation for all that God has planned! My prayer is His will to be done on this trip and to open my eyes and heart even more to him. It is hard to not have high expectations for certain things to happen on this trip but I am praying that we all have open hearts to what God has planned and to not let our own wants get in the way of that. Thank you to all my followers that have prayed for our group! I can't wait to tell all the great stories and share pictures! :D

Countdown: 7 DAYS!!! AHH

By this time next Saturday I will be at the church probably getting ready to go to sleep because we will be leaving for the airport at 4 A.M. I can't believe it is so close! I have been waiting for this day for 7 almost 8 months! I'm so excited for all the things God has instore for our group! Gah! I still can't believe I am going to the Dominican Republic! I am so ready to go and meet our youth group Compassion child Rosa! We get to spend a day with her just playing and meeting her family and visiting her home! I can't even express the excitement and joy I have for this trip!

This is where I am heading

Countdown to the Domincan Republic!!!!!

I am going to start counting down my days till I am on a plane leaving for the Domincan Republic. I am going on a 7 day missions trip with Meeting God in Missions! This will be my 4th mission trip and my second "over seas" trip. My first was to Tijuana, Mexico way back in 2008 when I was only 14. I have grown in my faith a lot since then and I can't wait to experience all God has in store for our group. We leave June 19th very super early in the morning. We have a group consisting of 17 girls, 21 boys, and 8 leaders. Prayers for group unity and continue growth in Christ and safe travels would be so lovely. Especially travel since our group had to be split into 2 seperate groups so the boys have to travel up to Buffalo, NY to fly out while us girls only have to go to Pittsburgh, PA.

"Secret Life"

It's monday March 28 and what does that mean?? It means that the spring premiere of Secret Life of the American Teenager is tonight! To begin, I love this show, I am addicted! But it does raise questions in my mind.... It makes me think about how often teen pregnancy happens now a days, and it is soo common that it doesn't even surprise people when it happens! That should be alarming, like what has this world come to? About 900,000 teen girls between the age of 15-19 get pregnant ever year. That is jaw dropping! Then on top of that an American girl gets pregnant at a rate of 12 times higher than that of a girl in the Netherlands. Wow! Then there is the issue of STD's which 3 million, yes million, teenagers are infected with a STD each year in the U.S.! What happened to modesty, and purity! Why do people/ more importantly teenagers risk all that for the tiniest bit of pleasure? I just don't understand.

Day five: A favorite quote



'A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."

                                                                       - C.S. Lewis

I love this quote mainly because it reminds me that I am not in control. I don't control God and I am not God. God is always going to reign and he will always be God no matter what we do! He will always get glorified in the end even if we don't personally do it. But I personally am gonna praise him because of all he has done for me and he is my best friend! He deserves all the praise I can give!

Day four: A favorite band

hmmm... I have a lot of favorite bands to choose from. Hmm.. I guess I'll go with the one I've been really listening a lot to lately. and that is............................... THIRD DAY!!! I've just connected with all of their songs lately! Especially "show me your glory". It has just been another prayer of mine! Mac Powell's voice is soo unique and powerful and it just shoots right through me and gives me the chills! I absolutely love them!



Day three: A favorite book

Okay this day is very easy for me! My favorite book or I should say books is the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I love love love love love it! I've read them all at least 3 times each! Rick Riordan is an amazing writer! I love the mythology in them, I have a weird fascination with greek mythology. It's something me and my BFF Amber share in common. I love how Percy thinks he is nobody and can't do anything write and then bam he gets thrusted into this world of demigods and he is suddenly a hero having to save his mom! Just how his character and Annabeth and Grover grow so much through each book and each adventure! They are just amazing books!

Day two: A favorite movie

This one is really hard for me, I have so many! I could go with a classic or a new one. Hmmmm...... Okay I got it!!

Princess Bride!!! My alltime favorite movie!

I absolutely love Wesley! His character has everything a good character needs from charm, good looks, humor, and an undying passionate love for Buttercup!

Not only does Inigo have the most quotable role but he has such determination and drive. I mean he was stabbed mutiple times and still kept fighting and won!

Look at that! It melts my heart!

So that's my favorite movie. I think it is an amazing love story but it's not just a romance tale! It has action and comedy and ROUS!! It is just simply amazing!

A glimpse into my mind

My mind is a very interesting place. Here's a small glimpse of what goes on up there generally.

several times a day I will randomly think about this and start saying it outloud

I always am thinking about how blessed I am to have the amazing friends I have!

I am usually thinking about how one day I will have my own Gilbert

This is generally how I talk in my mind and with people I am comfortable around

I quote this movie daily and randomly laugh to myself when I think about it

Finally, music that glorifies God(above skillet:hero)

SIMBA!!

So this here is my kitty Simba. He is my world! I love him so much! To start and interesting story off I am not a cat person, generally I don't like them much. In 2008 I got this other cat named Spunky. He was evil and vicious to everyone except me, he was my buddy. One week after Spunky's 1st birthday he went to the vet to be neutered and to make a long sad story short he was put to sleep for being a "threat to society". A couple of days later I went to the pound to pick out a new kitten. When me and my sister got back into the room there were a lot of kittens and this one older very gross looking kitty and I went over to him. We instantly bonded and I knew that he was the one for me! After arguing with my sister over him I asked the attendent if she could hold him till the weekend when my mom can come pay for him. The lady said he was scheduled to be euthenized the next day and my heart just sank. Then she said if we were definetly going to come back for him she could keep him until Saturday for us! I was so estatic! I called my mom right away and that Saturday we went and picked up Simba. He has now been with us for two years and he is my buddy! He sleeps with me, follows me around the house, plays with me, everything you would expect from a dog not a cat! When I move out of my mom's house I don't know what I will do without him! It shall be a sad tearful day!

Day one: a favorite song

One of my all time favorite songs is Shawn McDonald's Closer. It has turned into my prayer for my life. How he says "I am yours, you can have all of me, anything, everything" it just breaks my heart for all things God! God has used this song in my life as a way to draw me closer to Himself and put a burning desire in my heart for him! I hope it can have the same affect on you!

Having compassion

In small group and sunday school lately we have discussed compassion and loving others like God loves us. Generally I hear comments from people like "you are so nice", "you could never be mean to anyone" but honestly I don't think that is true. Mainly for one reason and that is my relationship with this kid Andrew. It is really weird for me to admit that I actually am struggling with being nice to someone. I don't know what it is that makes me so angry when I am around him but up until this point I haven't been handling it well. I even made a comment at youth group saying that I didn't consider him a person. My very close friends pointed out to me afterwards that I was being completely nasty to him and he genuinley seemed hurt by it. Not wanting to admit that I was wrong at first I asked Noah if I was "too mean" to him and he replied that no I wasn't. As I have been praying since then I have been realizing that in an outsider guys perspective I wasn't to mean but to Andrew and to a girl's perspective I was very mean and was not a good example of Jesus to him. As an older member of the youth group I should always try to set a good example of compassion and Jesus' love to everybody no matter if I have had issues with them. Tonight at small group I asked the girls in the group to hold me accountable to be friendly and compassionate to him and everyone I come in contact with.

Valentine's day

So Valentine's day was yesterday and I had an unusual experience. Usually my valentine's is the crappiest day of the year for me. I struggle with not having a boyfriend and with my mom usually not getting me anything for it either. But this year was completely different, no I don't have a boyfriend to spend a romantic day with or any of that but I do have a new perspective on the day. I started praying about a week ago that when the day comes I will be satisfied in Jesus' unfailling, unconditional love and not worry about not having worldy love in my life. So Sunday, the day before valentine's, I was wallowing around all sad because again I don't have a boyfriend when something really surprising happened. I was explaining my husband journal to my friend(and crush) Noah. I was telling him how even though we don't always think about it or realize it we already have that one person we are gonna marry. He or she(for guys) exists and God has already written into our lives that that is our husband or wife. So why not write to him and act like he exists? I knew that all along thats obviously have a husband journal but it never actually sunk in and hit me that if God already has a guy for me why do I keep trying and being sad about not having a boyfriend? I shouldn't be! My realization is that I am gonna stop pursuing guys(with God's help of course)! Then to top it all off Kaitlynn(one of my best friends) got me chocolates that had a picture of a princess and a frog on it, symbolizing that my prince will come one day! And finally the icing on the top of the cake was that my mom left me a card Valentine's day morning asking me to be her valentine's dinner date! It truly blessed me!

My current status on life

So it has been awhile since my last time blogging and a lot has happened. Most importantly a lot has happened in my walk with Jesus. To begin I have only listened to Christian music for the past two months. It has had the biggest impact on my life, you couldn't even imagine unless you have done it for yourself. This small step has just increased my longer and desire to be closer to Jesus, just as the song Closer by Shawn McDonald says "you can have all of me, anything, everything I just want to be even closer to you", that is my prayer for this year! Secondly, I have been going to Sunday school and church everyweek since before Thanksgiving. Before I started going to church regularly I found it harder to do my devotions, focus of God, even care about anything more than going to work and making money. Now four months later even if im exhausted I wake up and go because I have seen the tremendous change it has done in my life! Third, I have started reading the Bible from beginning to end. Throughout my Christian life I have read parts of the Bible but not in its entirety. It hit me that if I want to have a relationship with the God of the universe I have to take the time to read and listen to what he is telling me. To make any relationship to work you have to learn about eachother and the Bible is God's gift for us to learn and grow in him! It is sometimes a struggle, sometimes i get too "busy" or just don't feel like doing it but I am trying to push through it and do it! The fourth and final point I am going to make is that I am still going regularly to youth group! I have always gone faithfully to youth group and have loved it! The thing is now that I am making the rest of my life revolve around God and things reflecting him I am getting more out of youth group and I am loving it so much more! I feel God's presence there more than ever and I am even making friends with people I've known for years and have never even talked to much. My life is completely changed now and I can honestly say I am a new person!