Laura, Christine, and I at opening day

Us girls on an adventure in CA where we found this epic van and took a picture in front of it. :)

Me and Christine with our happy hats. :)

Goodbye lovely Santa Clarita, CA. Thanks for the memories. :)

A verse that really stood out to me this week was from Luke 10:38-42, "Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations and she came up to Him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.' But the Lord answered and said to to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." This week I was convicted about how worried and bothered I was about little things that did not matter. This was tempting me to lose the joy of sitting at my Master's feet with excited expectation and peace....just waiting to see what he would do. Then as the week progressed, he continued to remind me to just sit in awe of his work and simply listen. I want to continue to grow to learn to sit as Mary did.

Blessing from the week:

• Heart to heart with my female staff director when I was struggling emotionally
• Getting to write notes of encouragement to my staff
• The dorms at Masters College
• Filling my heart with truth in the morning from the Bible
• Having a walk with the Lord and listening to praise music as I walked
• Having one of my fellow staff members tell me, "Rachel, the best thing that God made was you." :)
• My nine 15 year old girls at camp
• The kitchen staff at Masters making gluten free food for me
• The hills that gave me a workout leading up to the dorms
• Jelly beans
• Beats and lentiles
• Hugs
• The sound of flowing water from the fountain on campus
• A raccoon that visited our group twice at T-time. :)
• Having grapefruit (which I do not like) every morning for breakfast because my girls liked it. :)
• Being called "Rach"
• God's tenderness to me in the midst of body image struggles
• Soy milk in my coffee
• A peanut butter bowl of epicness with cranberries and jam mixed in. :) (That was my latest cafeteria creation)
• The lyrics to the song "Be Thou My Vision"
• Making my first diving catch for a point in Ultimate frisbee. It felt so cool. :)
• Having my students all go around in a circle and share what they appreciated about me. It melted my heart. :)
• My sunburned nose (I look like Rudolph  :P)
• Jeremiah 9:23-24
• Orchard flavored skittles
• Quick talk with my mum on the phone

God continues to blow my mind with his goodness and tenderness to me. I am not the same person that I was a month ago and that thrills me. :)

Praise the Lord for this opportunity. 

~Rachel

My sweet intern Karley from this past week.

At the Grand Canyon (What a cool moment. We ate dinner as a team while we watched the sun set over the Grand Canyon)

Jenna (one of my fellow staffers) and I

Arizona.....what a cool state with awesome people! :) This week was epic. I was so blessed to have ten 16 year old girls in my group. They were all incredible young women. I was also so encouraged because God gave me Karley as a co-leader of my group. She was so full of energy, new ideas, and love to pour out on our girls. I couldn't have successfully completed the week without her.

A verse that really blessed me this week when I was feeling a little weary was John 5:34, "Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me to accomplish His work." I needed to read that this week because I was trying to get my strength from so many different sources, just not from the Lord. The Holy Spirit reminded me what my purpose should be while being here. :)

Here are my bullet points from this week.

• A time of encouragement as a team on the van rides. We called it "Honey Roasting" each other where we went around the circle and shared what we appreciated about each other.
• Having Karley as my intern this week
• Learning that my girls from the Oklahoma camp  the week before nicknamed themselves "The Happy Hoopers" :D
• My Arizona girls meeting on "our bridge" on campus every night
• Hard sleep
• Not getting sick
• My mum sending me a epic package filled with fruit snacks and protein bars, and notes from my family!!
• Staff meeting each night when I get to seek advice from the leadership.
• Skipping down the hallway with Karley after making sure our girls were in bed.
• Playing volleyball with the students
• Crazy Flagstaff high altitude. It made me feel so out of shape. Even walking up stairs was tiring. :P
• Sweet texts of encouragement from my team members
• Running through the sprinklers with my girls after a long day of lectures
• Having a skunk come visit my girls and I during one of our small group times outside. Thankfully the skunk decided to not bless us with his smell. ;)
• Being convicted about living a life of conviction but not guilt
• When we got into the vans yesterday to start driving to California, Caleb said, "Yes! Rachel is in this van. Deep question time!" ;) All of us in that van had a really fun and deep conversation. :)
• Seeing the Grand Canyon and standing speechless in awe of God's creation.
• Beautiful Arizona stars at night
• Giggling and crying at the same time :)

God is so good. Life at camp and on the road has been exhilarating and exhausting, thrilling, and oh so rewarding. I am loving it!

~Rachel

Wow….and now the week is done! Goodbye Oklahoma and thanks for the memories…..

Jen and I before she left staff training...miss you sweet girl. 

Ashley, me, and Laura after ultimate frisbee staff vs. students game

Only some of the amazing goodies that the mom's bought for the staff (the bullet point later on explains more)

Blue Sky in Texas

My gluten free burger complete with Idaho fries all the way in the great state of Texas :D

This past week was my first week of camp with students. God blessed me with 15 fifteen year old ladies. We had times of laughter, tears, hugs, deep questions, eating sugar, volleyball, sweaty high fives after frisbee in the Oklahoma crazy humidity, sharing our hearts, inside jokes, and prayer. My sweet girls blessed me in so many ways that I can’t even describe. God was at work and refining me in both the blessings and challenges. My heart is very happy. If I had a “happiness meter” then it would be passed the highest level. J

One of my favorite parts of this week was seeing how God multiplied my strength when I was absolutely exhausted. After four nights of 5-6 hours of sleep, my energy was zapped, but whenever I remembered to pray for strength, God would grant it to me in abundance. One night when I was going to sleep, I realized that I was scared for the next day because I thought my energy would gone and I couldn’t serve my students. God convicted me and showed me how I lacked trust in his ability to sustain me in any circumstance. The Holy Spirit brought to mind the words of Psalm 3:5, “I lay down and slept. I awoke for the Lord sustains me.” God blew my mind with this truth the next day! 

Here are my bullet points of blessings from this past week:

·         Seeing my girls’ names for the first time the night before camp started and getting to pray for each of them.

·         Eating organic chocolate chews and talking with God

·         Rocking out on the van ride with my team

·         My squeaky bunk bed in my dorm room. My roommate and I nicknamed our beds “momma and papa mouse” because every time we moved in the middle of the night the bed would squeak loudly just like two mice talking to one another . ;)

·         My girls making connections about the truth they were learning in lectures each day

·         Orchard flavored skittles

·         Getting to be in charge of the medical kit for our team. *cough* I think nursing is the right career for me if something as simple as having the med kit makes me stoked. ;)

·         When my girls were willing to honestly share what was on their hearts with me.

·         Doing laundry

·         My dear student who brought a volleyball with her to camp. We played with it so much!

·         “Happy fruit snacks” that my mum sent me from home J

·         Helping to facilitate Mafia for the students. Nate (another staffer from my team) and I were the story tellers and we had these hilarious and terrible German accents to tell the story with. Our theme for the mafia round was “Veggie Tales characters in the grocery store”. We laughed a lot with the students to say the least. J

·         Showers to clean up after long and hot days

·         Frizzy hair and headbands to mask bad hair days

·         Oklahoma stars at night

·         Looking over a sea of 120+ faces in the lecture hall and being able to pick out the faces of each of my awesome fellow staff members among all of the students. My team has encouraged me, challenged me, and made me laugh really really hard.

·         Grading exams at 1:30 a.m. in the morning

·         Sweet notes from my girls as camp came to a close

·         After wrapping up camp, our team went into lobby of the dorm to eat some lunch. We were greeted by two tables spread with food. One table had everything from chocolate covered acia berries to packs of gum for us to take on our van ride to sprite (my favorite pop). Oh…and they also bought me gluten free brownies and made our team homemade cookies and brownies. J After 2 weeks of eating cafeteria food, this gesture truly blessed me. It turns out that some of the moms of the students from camp went out and bought our team all of this stuff to support us and thank us for taking care of their students at camp. I was so blessed that all I wanted to do was start crying.

·         Our team’s van ride to Arizona for our next camp

·         Talking with my family on the phone

·         Going to two new states (New Mexico and Arizona)

·         Southern rain storms

·         Reflecting on all the lessons that God taught me this week. J

It is crazy that I have only been gone for 2 weeks. It feels like I just left yesterday and also that I have been living with this team for years. Funny how that happens. I am just so thankful that I am truly loving this adventure and the opportunity that I have to love on students all over the U.S.

Onward to Arizona!

~Rachel

Week 1: (Staff Training)

Christine...me...Lauren

A beautiful fountain at Oklahoma Wesleyan University where we are having staff training.

Sunset on campus

I have been so blessed here this week! Each day, I am richly encouraged, challenged, and built up and I am not even one week into my adventure this summer. :) God has been taking care of me in such sweet ways. I realized this concept in a new way when God lead me to this verse in one of my first quiet times here in Oklahoma. Psalm 3:3-5 "But You, O Lord, are a shield about me. My glory and the One who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice and He answered me from his holy mountain. I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me."

Now, as promised, I wanted to share my bullet points of blessing about the week so far.

• The first night I got to campus for training and was surprised by my staff director with a gift. 
• The time with my roommates who will be some of my fellow staffers throughout the next 8 weeks
• Coffee with my "happy stevia" added in :)
• Eating pickled beets and loving them
• Catching the frisbee in ultimate frisbee, which meant a lot to me because I typically don't excel in that game. ;P 
• Hearing Mrs. Booth (one of the faculty wives) talk to us about what the condition of our hearts  should be as staff this summer. She said, "God's people are called to be tent dwellers, not comfortable. You do not deserve comfort. Instead of complaining about poor cafeteria food or a lumpy dorm mattress, look for how to make the situation an adventure." 
• The purposefulness behind every decision that Worldview Academy makes about  how to best run camp 
• Going witnessing in downtown Bartlesville, OK and sharing the gospel by using the starting question of "What happens when you die?"
• The tenderness of the Lord
• My leadership team and how they have come alongside us so wonderfully in this period of training. 
• Laughing so hard that I cried
• Last night having my female staff director, Amy, take all of us ladies outside and one by one wash our feet to demonstrate Christ like service as laid out in John 13.
• God taking care of me with the cafeteria food. I have been trying to take the advice of Mrs. Booth and make eating on college campuses an adventure. So I made up this "dessert" called "Cocoput" which has canned peaches, shredded coconut, and pecans in it. It makes my tummy happy and helps my mind to "feel" like I am having dessert without causing my stomach to hurt.. :)
• The unity of our team even after only 5 days.....I am super excited to get to travel with these people. They challenge me, make me laugh really hard, tease me about how I pronounce words and live Christ before me. 

I am thrilled that on Sunday afternoon, my first set of students will arrive. I can't wait to see their faces and get to know what is on their hearts. They are "God's kids" and I get to take care of them for a week and I can't wait!!! :)

Onward to the adventure.....

~Rachel