Its That Time of Year Again!

In one month, my big brother will be graduating from UNC-Wilmington, and in two months my little brother will be graduating high school and my sister will be finishing up her last few days of elementary school. It's this time of year that makes me feel really old! I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by, and how much God has worked in my life! Right after my big brother graduates, I'll be jetting off to Norway for a class I'm taking at Wingate. I'm really excited to be going out of the country again, it seems like Costa Rica was a lot longer than two years ago! I'm really excited to see a country with so much natural beauty and be able to take it all in through the stuff our teacher has planned! Two days after I return, I'll be headed to Williamsburg, Virginia to be a SummerShiner for the third year in a row! I'm excited to work with 13 other Christians serving the campers that come by for a taste of colonial times! In all the craziness of life, I keep Nehemiah 8:10 posted at my desk "The JOY of the Lord is my strength," and truly He is the one that keeps me going and gives me energy!

Through Thick and Thin

This school year, especially this semester has been the toughest time in my life, yet it's been when I have sensed God the most. Through everything that has happened, I can see where He was preparing me for each step that He planned for me to take. It's so amazing to see Him at work in my life and the lives of those around me! The friends that have stood by me through thick and thin will be friends for life, I'm more sure of it now than ever! With everything that has happened this year, I'm feeling more prepared than I ever would have thought possible for this summer. I reapplied to be a part of SummerShine again this summer, and I found out just a few weeks ago that I'll be serving God in beautiful Mt. Rushmore this summer! I'm so excited to see what's in store for the summer, and know God is going to do big things!

This verse from The Message has helped me though and has become one of my new life verses:

"Be strong. Take courage. Don't be intimidated. Don't give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you." -Deuteronomy 31:6

God's going to be all over Mt. Rushmore this summer, I can hardly wait!!

The end is so near

Actually it's tomorrow...just over 12 hours from now.

After 12 weeks of being in Cherokee, my time here is coming to an end. I never thought i'd see the day, because three months feels like eternity, but i'm finally done. Today was my last day of work, and my mind still tells me that i'll be in there tomorrow renting tubes and booking tours, when in reality my body will be in the car headed for Greensboro. In retrospect, this summer has flown by, but I promise the weeks got longer the more time I spent on the campground. God has really blessed me with everything that happened this summer, both good and bad. He's taught me a lot about who I am and who He should be in my life. I've met some really amazing people that I hope I will be friends with for a very long time, because they taught me how much God truely cares about me and wants to have a relationship with me. I've been quite blessed to have spent my summer with such amazing people! Although many of them are gone and have been for about a week or so, I can't seem to wrap my mind that it's going to be a long while till I see many of them again. For some reason, I keep expecting them to just walk right in the door and start talking like they were never gone. I'm really ready to go home, but I also wish that this summer hadn't gone by so quickly.

While it's sad to leave, I'm so excited to be going home! There are so many of my friends that I feel like I haven't seen in forever that I will get to see while I'm home, and I'll get to spend a little time with my family before I have to leave again for school. I'm so excited about going back to school, I just saw pictures of what my apartment looks like and I honestly couldn't be happier! It still needs some decorating and a few touches here and there, but i'm so ready to move in!! It's going to be nice having a set schedule that doesn't change from week to week.

It's kinda bitter-sweet, but I guess it had to end sometime...

It's been a while...

Whoops! It's definately picked up around here since the 4th of July, so I haven't had much time to blog. Working at the KOA is still a lot of fun, it's just starting to wear me out. Work is much easier now that i've completely figured out the system, it's just a little more stressful since the campground is almost always busy.

Lately, the computer system keeps going down and we have had to do a lot of our sales by hand. Usually, the people are pretty understanding and don't complain about how long it takes us to fill out everything we need to, but it takes a while to imput everything in when they do come up. For example, yesterday morning we rented tubes to 30 or so different groups of people. The computers came back up at about 1pm and were only up for about 10 mins before they went down again. They came back up later and were up for most of the day before they crashed again at 7, right before closing. It was a little hectic, but it was good math practice!

I can't wait to get home for a week and see my family and friends in Greensboro before heading back to Wingate. The summer has flown by!!

ALL of Me

Last night I finished reading Hadassah: One Night With the King, a fictional book that adds to the Biblical story of Esther. I got to a point in the book where I didn't want to put it down because the story was so interesting. I've always been a fan of the story of Esther, but the book gave a new light to her courage and internal beauty. Although it is fiction and probably not completely accurate, it gave me a lot to think about. I've always wondered what must have been going through her head during everything that she went through and reading the author's opinion made me feel more normal. There are many times that I forget to go to God first with my problems, and the story painted Esther with struggling with that same thing.

So far over the summer I've realized that God is the only one who can give me strength when there are tough customers that i have to deal with. It's taken me a long time to realize that I was still holding on to parts of my life and hadn't given everything completely to God. We had a guest speaker in Bible study a few weeks ago, and he spoke about how if we hold on to just 1% of our lives, that little part means that we really have given nothing to Him. 99% isn't enough to give to God, I need to give Him all of me, because that's all He wants from me. I've had a lot of time to think about what areas of my life I haven't given up completely, and I've slowly been fixing those areas. I'm still far from where I need to be, but I've never felt closer to Him than I have this summer and I absolutely love it!!

What a wonderful birthday!

I had a really good birthday on Monday!!! I slept in a little and when I woke up there were streamers decorating my bunk! I was really suprised, because I usually wake up at the slightest noise and there were several girls that decorated my bed. I was the only one in the cabin, because everyone else had to work. There was a cute little sign on the stairwell with a crown, glasses, a ring and a candy bracelet that I was told to wear. I got ready then walked to the front of the campground because our cabin was a little boring. I didn't wear the crown or sunglasses as I was walking to the front, because I didn't want to get strange looks from all the campers. I was chided for it when everyone saw that I wasn't wearing them, so I put on the crown.


I helped out with the basketball activity and showcased my "awesome" skills. No kids showed up, so it was just several SummerShiners playing knockout and PIG. It was really fun to just hang out and play basketball games.


I had to work at 2, so I left right after basketball was finished. It wasn't too busy of a day, and I was with another girl so it wasn't too lonely either. She got off at 4:30 and I had to work till 6. About 5, a group of people showed up and started unloading a U-Haul with a bunch of sound equipment. It took me a few minutes to remember that there was a sign on the door of the main office that said there would be a choir from Texas performing that night. It was kinda a bummer that we had to miss it, but we were leaving for staff night at 6:30 and we weren't going to make it back in time to see them.


As soon as I got off of work, I started to walk back to the bungalo(our cabin) and it was raining a little. It wasn't bad, because if it hadn't been raining, it would have been really hot. I got back, got ready as quick as I could and then we left a little before 6:30. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Sylva, so it took about 45 mins to get there. The food was really good and the wait wasn't too bad. After dinner, one of the guys got up and told the waiter that it was my birthday. I told him not to, but he did anyway. A few minutes later, a really heavy sombrero was put on my head and the waiters started to sing. A pair of sunglasses were on the table and one of the waiters put them on my face. I was a little confused, then I got a pile of whipped cream and chocolate syrup in my face. I was a little taken abak, but it really wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be. After I had a bunch in my face, they flicked crushed up chips into it as well. I was laughing the whole time, but everyone thought I was crying, because I had my face covered. It took me a few minutes to clean it all off my face, and I was smelling chocolate syrup the rest of the night, but it really wasn't that bad. When we got back to the campground, we sat on the porch and talked until the other car of people got there. It was a little while till they arrived, because they stopped to get cake and icecream. We all ate cake, icecream, and English's apple dip. It was fun to talk to everyone and hang out for a little while. I was up a little late hanging out and playing on the playground, but it was so much fun!

All in all, it was a wonderful day, and i'm really excited to celebrate father's day with my family when they come to visit me this weekend!!

Please Pray for Me

I really love it here as a whole, but I keep having those days where I wonder why I'm here and not at home with my close friends and family. My job is not the hardest, but it is really stressful when I get blamed for stuff that I have no control over. Some of the campers don't realize that the girls who work in the tours office don't make all the rules that we enforce. It's ok every once in a while, because some people do understand and are really sweet to us, but there's always those who are not polite and quite obnoxious. Please pray that I will have patience and be polite to all the customers even when they complain about things I can't control. God has already enabled me to have more patience than I did when I left, but I'm still a work in progress...

It's been a full week!

I'm almost suprised i've made it! I got here last wednesday night, so i've been working for a full week. (Only 11 more to go!!) As the days go by, I get more comfortable with my surroundings and enjoy the job that I have been given. I work with great people, and usually the customers are nice and pretty polite. I didn't think I would enjoy working in the mountains, but it's just about the perfect temperature all the time. There are times when it is hot, cold, or rainy, but for the most part it's great! I'm getting to know all my fellow staffers better, and many of the staff that work here full time.
I miss my friends at home and at school a lot, but i'm making wonderful new friends that are doing a good job of distracting me! Part of my family is going to try to come visit me next weekend, so i'm really excited about that!

It's a little hectic sometimes...

...but it's amazing so far! I'm still working in the tours office, and it continues to get less stressful every day. I enjoy the people I'm working with in there, and I'm starting to get used to the computer program we have to use. I feel very blessed because my job is not extremely physically demanding. Don't get me wrong, its hard, but in a different way. It's mentally stressful at times and others it's hard to find enough to do that i don't feel like I'm wasting my time and the company's money.

My first two days off were quite fun. On Monday, I didn't do much of anything other than hang out and meet some of the campers. Tuesday, I went swimming in the pool (we have a really cool water slide that is really fun to go down!), washed laundry, and went tubing down the river that flows past the campground. It was a really fun, but I'm still in pain from the all the rocks that poked me as i was floating...

Tuesday night was staff night, so we left the campground and went to a place called the Fun Factory. It was fun, there were lots of arcade games as well as bowling, laser tag, and mini golf. We had a great time just hanging out as a staff and playing games.

Tonight we went to Unto These Hills, the outdoor drama that tells the story of the Indians long journey until now. It was pretty cool to see, and now I will be able to answer many of the questions that the people who come to my office have about it.

God's going to change and grow me greatly this summer, I can already feel it!!

Making Headway

So i've worked two 8 hour shifts, and the campground is starting to fill up for the weekend. The tours office (where i work) was actually almost busy today. We had many people come to rent bikes and several people book either horseback or rafting tours for tomorrow. It was a little stressful, but not near as bad as I thought it would be. It doesn't really feel like 8 hours while I am there, because there is usually someone to talk to and customers to help.
Right now, i'm sitting outside because it was really nice when I walked back from work, but it just started to rain a little bit.
Tonight we are having a movie on a big screen for the campers, so I'm looking forward to going to that and meeting some of the campers.

One day at a time

I arrived on the Cherokee campground today at about 3pm. It was about a 4 hour drive, but it went a lot quicker than I thought it would. I didn't do much but get unloaded and go on a golf cart tour of the campground. It's a lot bigger than I imagined, but I guess that's a good thing, because there is a lot to do. I'll try to take pictures on my first day off, but I don't know when that will be for sure yet. Tomorrow I start work, and I've been told that I should be working in the tour center. It's basically a job where I will sit inside a little hut thing and rent intertubes and book people for tours to different places around Cherokee. It should be fun, but i'm ready to check it out for myself. The cabin that we are staying in is also a little smaller than I figured, but it should be manageable for the summer.
For dinner tonight, we went to the church that our activities director is a youth paster at. We sang a few songs with their congregation, then had a potluck dinner for a man that just returned from jail. It was really cool to get to meet some people from the community, and the food was AMAZING!!!
We walked to the adult center when we got back to the campground and some of the other summershiners are playing risk. Allison and I walked outside and are sitting on the porch with our computers. It's a really nice night, and i'll be really happy if it stays this cool!

It's here...

...and I'm scared out of my mind.
The trip that I will make tomorrow is going to be completely out of my comfort zone, and there is no way that I could do it without God. Tomorrow morning sometime, I will be leaving to spend 12 weeks of this summer in Cherokee, NC. I've talked about it before, but it's finally here. I'm really excited, don't get me wrong, but I have no clue what to expect or even what to pack. My mom is driving up with me, so if i take too much, she can always bring some of it back for me. I'm still really nervous about what will happen tomorrow as i give myself up to God and let Him take control of my summer! I'm sure it's going to be amazing, but i hope my nerves don't get the best of me first.
Please pray that God will use me to impact the lives of many people over this summer, and that I will completely rely on Him for all my needs and worries.

Preparing

It's hard to believe that freshman year is completely done with!! I'm back at home, enjoying a few days of sleeping in and trying to get everything in my room organized again. I miss my school friends, but it's nice not having to worry about classes or homework and being able to just relax.

Tomorrow night I leave for Charlotte, then Saturday morning is my flight for Costa Rica. I'm more excited now than I was, because I've found out more information about where we are going and what we are doing. The language school that we are going to is a lot different than the one we would have gone to in Mexico. It's going to be more hands on (museums and traveling) instead of just classroom time. It should be interesting, and I'm sure I will learn a ton of Spanish. This will probably be my last blog until I get back on the 23th, because I won't have my computer with me. I do plan on keeping a journal while I am there, so I'll have lots to share about the trip. I tried to start packing, but it's more difficult than I thought it would be. It's been over two years since I've been out of the country, and I've never been gone for two weeks. I guess I just don't know what to pack because I'm going to be gone for so long. I'll figure it out sometime before I leave though!

Just a few days after I get back from Costa Rica, I leave for Cherokee, NC. I'm so excited about it, and can't wait to see how God is going to use me and the rest of the staff this summer! I should have my computer there, so I won't be completely out of the loop on everything. It's kinda sad that I don't get to hang out with my friends as much as I did last summer, but many of them will be away as well.

It's going to be an AMAZING summer, I can't wait to get going!!!

Endings and New Beginnings

I had a GREAT weekend, and it's actually been a while since I've had so much fun at school! Friday I saw 17 again which was really a pretty good movie. I went to the theater with 4 of my friends, but 3 of them decided (at the ticket booth) to go see Crank instead. My friend Kayla and I were not as easily swayed. We had planned to go see it together last weekend, but I wasn't able to go because of SummerShine orientation. It was a good thing we didn't go watch it with them though, because it turned out to be quite explicit and not that great of a movie. Since our movie started earlier, Kayla and I sat outside to wait for the other movie to finish. We weren't out there for long before Jessie joined us. She didn't like the movie at all, and didn't want to be in there for a minute longer, so she came to talk with us. After a few minutes of talking, we all realized how hungry we were and walked across the extremely sketch parking lot to Applebees. We were afraid that it would be closed considering it was almost 12pm, but they were open and we were seated. Right after we ordered we got a call from the 2 guys Jessie had left in the theater, because their movie had ended and they didn't see us and were worried about us. Sweet aren't they! We told them to just come in and sit with us. After we ate our food and had many laughs, we headed back to school to watch another movie. We started The Pacifier, but didn't get very far before curfew. We headed to our respective floors, but I wasn't really that tired, and neither was Jessie so she came to my room and we just talked for a while until we were both about ready to fall over.

On Saturday, I got up a little earlier than usual so that I could go to lunch with my older brother. He had driven to Charlotte from UNCW on Friday afternoon for the Dave Matthew Band concert and the 21st birthday of one of his best friends from high school. Since my school is right on the way, and we hadn't seen each other since Christmas, he stopped in to say hey. It was good to catch up with him, since he's staying at the beach for the summer, and I'm going to the mountains...

Wingate's "Spring Fling" was on Sunday. I'm not sure if they do something similar every year, but pretty much it was a day full of live bands and pool games. As the finale, Sister Hazel played live. They were a lot better than I was expecting, and actually sounded better live than they do on their Cd's. It was a lot of fun, even if there were a ton of drunk people all over the place... It actually made me feel like I go to a reasonably sized college. I'm not sure where all the people came from, but it was cool to see so many people in a relatively small space, since that doesn't happen very often.

Today I went to my absolute last class of freshman year. It's kinda weird to think about it...as long as I pass all my finals (hopefully that will happen...) I'm no longer a freshman, wow that sounds weird. After classes and dinner, I drove home. I needed to bring a bunch of stuff home so that I would have room in my car at the end of the semester, and my first exam isn't till Friday morning.

Oh, we found out today that we might not be able to go to Mexico because of the swine flu. It's still up in the air, but if it doesn't start to get better, chances are we aren't going to be able to go. I'd actually started getting excited about it too!

Ahh!! 1 month from today I'll be in Cherokee! I can't wait to be a SummerShine Staffer!!

I will go, I will go, I will go, Lord send me...

I was going to go to bed early tonight, but seeing as a fire alarm kept my whole building outside for at least 30 minutes, I'm wide awake now...

I was quite scared about this weekend, and I probably prayed at least half way there. God does answer prayers, and He worked quickly for me this weekend! I don't know what I was so worried about. I got there and felt a little out of place at the beginning, because everyone was talking with their groups for the summer, and people kept asking me where I was going to be working. Even though I was meeting people left and right and I was in a room completely full of people, I felt alone. Someone encouraged me a little when they said that because I was there, I had a better chance of getting a spot than someone who didn't show up. That made me feel a little more confidant that I was actually there for a reason, but it didn't completely calm my nerves.

We listened to several encouraging speakers, and about 9 people started heading off to stay with the families that had given up space in their homes. I was talking to some people that I had met from State, but they left not long after the first few people went. I started talking to a girl that had flown from California to come for training, and she completely eased all my stress. She was telling me all about SummerShine and how much fun it is. I talked to her about most of the stuff I was worried about, and she explained how she got involved last year.

I was placed with a high school girl that was assigned to work at the Cherokee KOA this summer and we were assigned to stay with a really sweet couple who promised to come visit both of us. We stayed up till almost midnight talking to them and hearing the really cute story of how they met. The next morning they had breakfast all set up for us and we got a chance to talk to them some more while we were eating.

We got back to the church around 9:30 and had several more speakers before lunch. The director told a story about how a bird tried to fly in his glass door at home, but ran into it instead. He said we should make sure we fly through the doors that God opens for us, instead of those which we want to enter, because it won't work unless the door has already been opened. When lunch was ready, the director said he needed to talk to a few people and named off a few names. My name was one of them and my stomach literally flipped. Everyone was dismissed by where they were going, so that they could eat and get to know the people they were going to be working with over the summer. I was left in the room with a couple of other girls that didn't know where they were going to be either. The director's daughter came and talked to us about how we might be subs, because there were just so many girls that wanted to work and not enough places to put them. I started to panic, because I didn't know why they had called my name and figured the worst. After she was done talking, I went to go talk to her dad in the other room and he handed me an envelope. He said they had a spot open at Cherokee and wanted me to join the team there! I was quite ecstatic, because I had pretty much figured that I wasn't going to have a spot.

The weekend only got better from there! I got to meet the other people that I will be working with, and had many questions answered that have really put me to ease about this summer. I truly feel a peace about it, and can't wait for it to actually start! I'm definitely going to miss my friends and family, and probably my phone and Internet access, but I know I'm going to grow as a person and as a Christian. It's a wonderful experience, and I can't wait to make the most of it!

The title of this is from a song by Starfield that we sang at church on Sunday morning. It's been stuck in my head all day, and I absolutely love it!