Day 4 May 24th

Well new record, I woke up at five this morning. AH! Yesterday was good we prayed through a few psalms and I really noticed how much they talked about scripture. I need to dig into the word this summer.

Yesterday was filled with laughter. God, thank you for this staff. Thank you for blessing me and Hanely's relationship I have enjoyed him so much. Also thank you for Derek! He cracks me up and I feel liek we have really started to bond. Yesterday we cleaned the bathrooms and cleaned the store. We had two really good breaks yesterday.

I had a one on one with Hanely and it was amazing. The spirit definitely orchestrated our meeting. Father, give me strength this summer. I have been operating on less sleep but I believe you will be my rock and energize me. "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Journal Day 3 May 23

Yesterday was good and extremely long. I woke up early to get in the word and to journal. Then we cleaned bathrooms and worked until lunch. Then We kept working aned worked on the trail to the cross.

I had a great time working with Derek and Ben. Father Thank you for bringing Derek Back I was hesitant but we have hit it off! Funny side note the three of us probably spent forty-five minutes pushing over dead trees on the mountain! I felt like I was six again. We had a blast lots of laughs.

Thank you for this staff they are all wonderful and I know you love them so much. Thank you for leading me here father. After dinner we cleaned then met in the lower i ( crew hangout) to play games. I got worked in shuffle but. then we discussed expectations for the summer, each other, ourselves, the leadership, and the campers. Now I'm at Devotions, So I have to go!

Journal Day 2 May 22

It is now the morning of day three but I am going to recap day two. Yesterday we had breakfast and then split up our crews. I worked with the three other service guys and collin lead us through a lot of stuff.

(The Crew staff includes Hanley: Crew Director, Katilyn Crew PC(Counselors coach/Hanely's Fiancé), Collin PC, Service guys Me, Derek, and Ben, Outdoor: Kyle, Kitchen: Joanna and Whitney. Horse: Chris and Julie. Store: Jessie ann. Office: Rachael and Jen.)

We worked straight till lunch. Working with the guys was awesome. A few times I had to check my attitude. I got the feeling like all this work is hopeless, we are going to do it again and again. I am really trying to be committed excellence and owning the position entrusted to me of being a steward of this property.

After lunch we continued work, we had some breaks before dinner so we enjoyed some tea time. LOL! thank you for the little things father. After dinner we showered. O Baby that was beautiful. we hadn't showered since being at camp. Then we met in the lower I to play some games. I was Hanely's partner one round and we had a blast. Thank you for developing that relationship!

After games we talked about discipleship and servant hood. The conversations were encouraging. I just feel so lucky and blessed I was silly to doubt. God will provide this summer he already has so much. I think this staff is just going to be amazing. Well its time for Devo's 6:15 ha ha I woke up at 5:30 AM. INSANE!

Camp Journal Day 1

So I'm at Eagle Lake Camp and I have been journaling every day to help myself remember my experiences/work through tough things/be more understanding of my prayers/see where God has taken me from.

I have been in the pattern of writing about the previous day in the morning whens I wake up to have my daily quite time.

Day 1: It has almost been a year since my last journal (Same book I had last summer). I arrived at ELC last night. Father I'm so thankful for the people you have placed as crew counselors. I can tell I'm going to love these people. We are just getting ready to eat breakfast then we are hiking down to the glen. I'm so excited! Last night we went to dinner together as a crew staff adn it was incredible. It had not really sunk in that I was going back to camp and I had not been excited yet. But dinner was soo good! At some point during dinner it was like all of the excitement and affirmation hit me. It was a wonderful moment. We had a great time! "God, I am so pumped"

Support letters/ADD/Bitterness

These are a few of the things I pulled out of my bucket of the fifty or so thoughts I had to write about. Maybe that is because I started the day with 4 cups of coffee......

Also I'm listening to the new The National album right now. It is incredible. So a big thanks to NPR for streaming it. And I thought the government never did anything right.

So today I'm supposed to be working on putting together a support letter for the summer. I really don't want to write a support letter or to mail it out. I didn't do it last summer and I planned on not doing it this summer but my mom kept bothering me and I felt really bad. Eventually I have just decided it is better for me to honor her and to make her happy than to hold to my reasoning for not.

Which my reason for not writing a support letter is because I feel like if you want to make a commitment to be a servant and you don't have other people you are responsible for you shouldn't be asking for handouts because "your doing something good". I just felt like "hey, I can afford this, yeah I will have to make some sacrifices but that was a big part of it right?" To sacrifice time and money to serve the Lord. Honestly one of my biggest pet pevs is high school students raising thousands of dollars to go overseas to spend 10 days site seeing and working for 2 days. I just think it might as well say "Support me so I can go have a life changing experience/ give me X thousand dollars so I can be changed"

I didn't do this so I could go have fun for a summer or push of responsibility and I know part of the reason was for me to be changed. I chose to come back to Eagle Lake because I felt like God lead me there and opened lots of doors for me to be there. I wanted to respect that and follow God's lead. I don't desire to be rich, I desire to serve my father and experience his love more fully. This is why I didn't want to send support letters and why I feel so uncomfortable doing it. But God is good and I'm honoring my mother through this.

Coffee makes me crazy.. I can't handle to much caffeine (SP? Really That is not an easy word to spell.... for me) I think the caffeine buzz is actually starting to subside though, which is good, I can finally focus a little bit.

I had breakfast with Corey this morning, that was so good to catch up. We have really struggled to stay in touch. It was actually a really hard adjustment for me because in high school I relied on Corey so much. He really discipled me in the complete sense of the word. He lived life with me, we got coffee or lunch almost weekly and I constantly went over to the k-life house to see him. I had another guy at northwestern who started to mentor me but then I transfered. Anyways I'm sending Corey my blog address soon so. (HI COREY). I will keep writing like he won't read this though. I am hopeful that if I move back to Des Moines he will start discipling me again. That would be amazing.

Well Doyle just walked in and we are going to play basketball so I have to go.... More to come later. Good talk