Casting Crowns=an amazing example of a Christian band!

I was able to see them in concert on Saturday night, and was reminded how great they are. It was a good show, but it was also a night of amazing worship too! Sometimes I get a little cynical when it comes to the integrity of well known Christian speakers or singers, but they just seem so genuine and SO much fun!

Jake also was able to hook us up with awesome seats, and meet and greet passes too, so we got to meet some of the members of the band-such a great time!

So about Jake, sometimes I have to remind myself how lucky I am to have him in my life! It's been so great to get to know him the last few months. I remember thinking that I'd never find a guy that would be as sweet or thoughtful as I'd expect them to be, or someone that would appreciate my geekiness or laugh when I'm a little irrational, but I seem to have found him. Plus he's so incredibly smart! It definitely keeps me on my toes...and it keeps my humbleness in check too. He also loves God...which is a given, but it's so incredible. So yeah...enough gushing...sorry!

So I'm also feeling kind of anxious about starting school in the next couple of weeks. I've decided to finally finish my teaching degree after a few year hiatus. It's been something I've wanted to do since I was a kid, but my life has gone a couple different directions since I graduated from college, and has finally come back to the place where I need to start school again. I know I'll love the learning aspect, but it's the papers and tests (those little details) that I'm freaking out about! It'll be nice to take online classes so I have a little flexibility as far as the school work goes.

Life is good!

Between work, sleep, and watching What Not to Wear and the Food Network...I've been trying my best to take advantage of the fabulous warmer weather! I'm so thankful to have a nice park with a cool lake that's close enough to walk to...it's an extra incentive to get out and walk! I also decided to test out my green thumb this year and plant some flowers, snap peas and tomato plants. They're all just in pots, so I'm excited to see how they turn out! Hopefully I'll have little tomatoes before too long :)

I'm also super excited about a little trip to Alberta coming up in August! It still seems so far away, but it's definitely creeping up so fast. I can't wait to see everyone, to see Lisa and Ryan get married, and to see the little babies and how much they've grown up! I miss everyone like crazy...I can't believe it's been over a year.

I've also had a new relationship development in my life in the last couple of weeks. It's kind of exciting, and it's a bit of an adjustment, but it's a good adjustment! It's been so long since I've been in a relationship that I kind of forget what it's like!

He's a very sweet guy, calls when he says he will, he's totally fun to hang out with, and it's one of those situations where I feel like I can be myself and not worry about what he's going to think of that. I guess I'm really excited to see what happens :)

He's also a truck driver, so he's gone during the week and usually home on the weekends. It actually works out pretty good because my work-a-holic self can work and do my own thing during the week, but I still have someone to talk with and spend time with once in awhile too.

Anyway, that's it for now..I filled my blog quota...maybe it'll be less than 3 months before I post again :)

A New Season

It's about time that I stopped TALKING about changing things and actually start DOING.
I've been living in Michigan for 10 months now (holy freaking cow...it's been almost a year!!). I've struggled with a lot of things this year, and it's about time that I start taking steps to get through those struggles, get the focus OFF of myself and on to God and other people.

Item #1) After 10 months, I think I've found a church that I can connect with and feel part of their community. It's called Northeast Community Church of the Nazarene. I actually visited there in Augustish, but decided to cross it off of my list because there weren't enough people. However, I feel extremely welcomed by the people there and I just feel like that's where God wants to put me right now. http://www.northcommnaz.org/ I'm excited to see what God has in store for the church there.

Item #2) I actually joined a gym. http://www.fitness19.com/ I've talked about exercising for a long time. In the summer I was a little more active and took a lot of walks around the neighborhood and stuff...but it wasn't really a regular thing. Then in the winter I found myself not doing anything and gaining weight...not cool. Money has been an issue, but I just decided that I needed to make it a priority to be more healthy and I'm sure it'll work out. So yeah, I'm actually really excited about that.

Item #3) God is showing me that I need to get outside myself and focus on other things. For the past few weeks I've been volunteering at Love INC in the thrift store there and I've had a ton of fun. I love thrift stores anyway, but Love INC is such a great ministry that helps people right in the community with needs that they have...food, housing, clothes, whatever...so the money from the thrift store helps out with those things. The volunteers are all really great people, so it's good to work with them, as well as good to meet the people that come and shop in the store. I'm excited to get more involved in different areas there as well. http://www.loveinthenameofchrist.org/

Item #4) I decided to observe Lent this year. Lent is generally a Catholic tradition, but I know a lot of Protestant churches and people that observe it as well. Lent is the 40 days of preparation before Easter that Christians use to focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. I don't observe it every year, but this year I feel the need to renew my focus on Christ himself and spend more time thinking about Jesus, his life, his death, his teachings and everything else about Him. This may seem like a weird thing...but it will be a sacrifice for me...I'm going to give up eating out on my own. This includes fast food runs during work, on the way to work, the way HOME from work...all of those things :) It will help me eat healthier, help with finances and maybe I'll learn to cook as well. It doesn't sound like a very spiritual thing to give up, but it will be a reminder to me that I need to focus on the reason that I've given it up in the first place.

So that's it. Those are big things for me, but writing them out will make it easier for me to remember those goals and keep them in mind when I don't want to get out of bed on Sunday morning and go to church, or if I think I'm too tired to go to the gym. I'm excited to see what this year has in store...

A is for Action

B is for "boy was it fun" and...

C is for Confession

So I did something that I'm not necessarily proud of...but the problem is that I didn't really feel guilty about it. It sort of scared me that I knew it was wrong, but I still didn't really care about the consequences and I justified it because it made ME feel good. I realized that those thoughts meant that I was extremely inwardly focused (again) and that I need to get outside myself make a decision about what to do next in relation to that action.

Anyway...here are a couple of random pictures that I felt the need to post since it's been so long since I've posted here.

We had to take advantage of some great weather this summer and hung out at the beach in Holland...Gracey, Jesse and Zion had a lot of fun playing in the sand


Who knows what the heck is going on in this picture, but I'm sure we were doing something very silly...Shell and I had such an awesome time in Connecticut during Alicia's wedding festivities, I'm so glad I got to meet her!

I just love the way this picture turned

out...it looks like it came right out of 1900

I also decided that for Christmas this year I would like to send money and/or gifts to other people instead of receiving gifts myself. I haven't done a lot of giving this year because I've been a little financially unstable with all of the changes going on in my life...so it's something I would really like to do.

World Vision is an organization that is incredibly awesome as far as providing aid to countries all around the world to help people grow their own food, helping with water purification, AIDS awareness and also helping children to go to school. I've been sponsoring a child through World Vision for about 4 years, but they can always use money for their general work as well.

They also manage to use 86% of all the money and gifts that come in directly to help people that need it. This is a very large percentage compared to other world wide organizations. You can check out http://www.worldvision.org/ for more information on that.

There is also an organization here in Hudsonville called Love INC. They help a lot of people in churches to connect with needs that are in the community, they collect used items/appliances/bikes/etc and refurbish them and sell them to anyone who needs any of those items. This year one of their projects is called "Camp Bag Project", and it stood out to me as something to get involved with. They are collecting items and money for scholarships to help send kids to camp this summer. Because I've been involved in Christian camps for awhile, I've definitely seen how awesome Camp Ministry is to kids, and I've seen a LOT of kids that show up for registration with no Bibles, soap, shampoo, or other basic needs. Follow this link for a list of all of the items they would like. http://www.loveinthenameofchrist.org/campbag.php

So yeah...that's what I want for Christmas :)

updates and observations...

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a terrible blogger...and I can live with that! First of all, I'll just give a couple of updates on things that are going on...These comments are pretty segmented, so I'll just leave it at that.

1. In case you're unaware, I'm in Michigan, staying with my parents for the next few weeks while my work visa gets straightened out. It's been super cool to be able to hang out with my brothers and sisters in their "normal lives". I've been to more games, concerts, and dance recitals in the last few weeks than I've been to in a LONG time :)

2. I'm getting ready to go to North Carolina to visit my Granny in a couple weeks! I'm pretty excited...only because I haven't been to her place in about 13 years or something...so it'll be really cool to see her cabins and her new house and all that stuff. My Granny's pretty awesome!

3. There's a possibility that this visa stuff isn't going to work out, and I won't be able to go back to Canada...so because of that, I'm trying to think of a few "back-up options". It's tough because I don't want to think of a back up plan, I want to go back to Camp Harmattan, continue life the way it was and move on from there, but God might have other plans, so I need to be prepared either way.

Ok, now observations... 1. As I've been hanging out in Jenison, it's kind of reminded me of the reason that I left in the first place... It's a great town to raise your kids in, but the people that I've been running into seem to be a little bit fake...or something...I just don't feel at "home".

2. This is a pretty random quote that I got from a friend, who got it from a friend...but I thought it was pretty profound. "a relationship with him (God) is not complicated by design. we make it complicated and the more complicated we make it, the less we get out of it." I just like that...it's not about big words or understand the Greek language in the New Testament, it's just about a relationship...

3. I went to a band concert tonight (yes, my brothers (JP and Tyler) were playing... and it happened to be senior night so all of the seniors were introduced, and someone read their future plans as they were introduced. It was kinda cool...we got to hear what college they were going to attend, their major...whatever. Well, most of them also had "get married and have kids" after college too...and I just was thinking about how interesting it is when you're 18, and you have your life layed out in front of you the way you THINK it's going to go. I just had to wonder, how many of them would follow through with the plans they had talked about. Of course, I think about my own life...after college I had NO idea I'd be in Chicago...New York wasn't even on the horizon...and I get to back to Canada? Crazy! Of course I didn't think I'd be living my "post college" life alone either...but hey...that's life :)

WARNING: this is going to be personal...if you don't want to learn about what's REALLY going on with me, don't read it :)

So my Aunt Jill has a word that she's decided is going to be her "theme" for the year. I think this is a really cool thing-first of all, because I don't really think very far in advance, and a year is a long time for me to give myself one word to focus on. Second of all, my life changes so much, how can I have ONE word that is a theme for my ENTIRE year?





Well, today I discovered that my "theme" or "word" for the year is going to be....

I've struggled with insecurity a LOT in my life so far, and even though I know that it's something I will continue to struggle with, it shouldn't consume me as much as it has been. The bottom line is...

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Psalm 139: 14)

I need to be...

-secure in myself and my abilities

-secure in my relationships with my friends-they love me, that's why they hang out with me. Just because they look at me a certain way, or call less frequently than I would like them to, it doesn't mean there is something wrong with me.

-secure in my relationships with my co-workers. Just because they don't always tell me I'm doing a good job, or they like what I'm doing...I need to remember that that's not why I'm here working.

-secure in my relationship with God

-secure in my appearance

-secure in my future

-secure in my finances

....and secure in everything else as well.

I am finding lately that because I'm not secure in those things, I am always consumed with improving myself, when I REALLY need to focus on OTHERS and how I can help them, or improving my performance at work, thinking of new ideas, etc, etc, etc. It's a little frustrating because it's been such an ongoing struggle, but I think that if I do concentrate on that as my "word" this year...it'll be a constant reminder to be secure in those things, and it may improve other areas of my life as well.

Also, by writing this, I give you COMPLETE permission to call me out on any insecure statements that I may make. I definitely need help with this stuff, I obviously can't do it alone.

The truth is...

-I am pretty cool, even if I'm not great at everything that I do...I do have some good qualities :)

-I have AMAZING friends

-God is awesome and is faithful to me every day

-I have more than enough money to take care of the things that I need

social butterfly

It's probably about that time to post another blog...

I'm making the shift in my life from "bored out of my mind" to "trying to find time for myself", and it's kind of a cool thing. I started playing floor hockey 1 night a week, and it's been a ton of fun! I've been trying to exercise more regularly, and I bought an exercise bike that I've been using, but playing with other people is definitely a more fun option.

Also, last week I got to go to a couple of different schools to do some staff recruiting for the camp. One of those schools was Ambrose University College (formerly known as Nazarene University College), where I used to attend. The school has changed a lot (for the better), but some of the staff are the same and a couple of people that I went to school with are now on staff there...so it was awesome to spend time with them. I also made a visit to MySub, probably the best sub place I've been to!

It was also really cool to hang out with staff members from other camps. It's like you already have so much in common with them because of your job, but camp ministry is also a way of life. It's awesome to connect with people who live in that same way and have the same passion for their area of ministry too.

Then this weekend I went to a young adults gathering/small group thing at a Nazarene church in Calgary. I wish I could go all the time, but it's kind of a drive to go every week...but this week was awesome. We talked about what it means to be made in the image of God and how part of our humanity is included in that...the fact that we're made for relationships, we're made to be spiritual, to be logical and to be creative. I always love discussing things like that with other people because you always learn a lot from others...they bring a whole different perspective to things you may have heard before. Anyway, after that a group of us went out and it happened that I was the only girl in this group of about 8 guys. This is usually not a bad thing...but I sorta forgot what it's like to hang out with with guys who don't care if a girl is present. Let's just say there was a lot of conversation about puke, poop, girls...etc...definitely enlightening for me :)

Anyway, in general...life is great. I'm totally at a point where I feel satisfied with all of the different things that my life is made up of...and that is such a great feeling.