Being an Example

July seems like it is always a busy month. Aside from Christmas, I think that consistently July is one of the busiest times of my year. As much as I love the activity, I think it's safe to say that I'm ready for August to get here and for things to calm down a bit. :)

Last week we had Camp with the youth group.  It was AMAZING.  Last year's Camp was great, but I was still at the beginning process of getting to know the girls, and learning to be a youth pastor's wife.  This year I had relationships better built with them and knew better what to expect.  I think it was definitely a "bridging" week for me in the youth ministry as I learned to take more of a leadership role than a chaperone role.

I LOVE our teens.  God has blessed us so much with the group we have!  They truly have a heart for God and want to know Him more which is so so cool!

 Of course, He not only spoke to the teens, but also to us "adults."  As I mentioned earlier, this Camp for me was one of the first times I've really taken leadership over the girls... mostly I am with Steven as he leads the group and help where needed.  This week I was able to have some heart-to-heart conversations about what they were going through.  I had to have a few VERY minor "disciplinary" talks, which though they were minor it is still not fun for me to do... but necessary for me to get used to!  It was a week of me growing into my role at the church.

But of course, if we are growing, Satan is going to try to attack it.  Even before we started dating, Satan was on my case about how I wouldn't be a good youth pastor's wife.  He told me I needed to know ALL the verses, that I would never know the right thing to say, that I wouldn't connect with the teens.  And to this day that is one of my greatest insecurities... that I'm not doing a good enough job or that I'm not prepared enough.  We have teens that go through so much, and in comparison I went through so little in high school.  I got my heart broken by boys and friends, and had typical arguments with parents and insecurities, but that was basically it.  I felt SO ill-equipped to help girls who have been abused, struggle sexually, or have no self confidence.  Through tears, I got to talk about it with Susan, our pastor's wife, as she drove me to the airport on Thursday.  She helped so much!  She reminded me that nobody has the answers all of the time... that what the girls need right now is to know they have a friend/mentor that will love them and encourage them.  To hug them tight and let them know that God loves them and wants them to experience JOY.  To live my life as an example.  My cousin Dayna reminded me that I am expecting more out of myself than even God expects from me.

It was a great week.  So much fun.  I left early to attend a family reunion in Oklahoma.  The weekend went by very quickly but it was nice that I was able to see everybody even just for a couple of hours or days.

 Now off to a full week at my new job!  God is so good.  :)

 

J-O-B

I have some big news today.

Two weeks ago, my boss Karen told me that our Administrator needed to talk to me.

She asked me to take a full-time, permanent job!

Until now, my job has been part-time (23-30 hours/week) and temporary.  I started the job filling in for a girl in Basic Training for 9 months.  After "training" her after she got back, I had 0 hours for two weeks while waiting for another girl to go on maternity leave.  But when she gets back in September, they had no way of giving me any hours.

Starting Monday the 28, I will be working the front desk in the morning and the front office in the afternoons.   I'll have insurance, benefits, sick days....  a big girl job.  

God's timing is so cool...  the first day allowed me to go to Camp with our youth group.

And the timing also allowed another Activities girl to work for 5 weeks while 3 of us are gone and before she starts Missions Training

I will miss Activities so much, but right now (pre-kids) is the time for me to have a full-time job so we can save up as much as possible.  Plus I'm planning on eating lunch in their office every day.  :)

GOD has been so good to us.

 

What Have You Been Doing Lately?

Well, I'm back!  We have had a busy and crazy July so far and it's going to get more crazy before it calms down.  Here are some updates from our month...

We were in the O'Fallon Parade on the 4th of July to advertise our church and VBS.  We passed out over 4000 flyers with candy attached... Super fun yet hot!  4th of July night, we went to Dan and Susan's for dinner and games with some friends at church, then we went to hang out with some youth group teens and play games with them.  Fun night!

 We went to the wedding of two of our friends from church on 7/7.  It was so nice and I love weddings and getting to remember our special day and how blessed I am to be married to my best friend.  We also got to dance to our First Dance song, "You are So Beautiful".  I think I might request this song at every wedding we go to from now on...

 We had VBS at church last week.  It went AMAZING.  Steven helped head it up and we were so happy with the results... the kids raised over $700 for our missionary which resulted in Steven and the Worship Band all dying their hair neon colors.  And we prayed for 101 kids and God gave us 102!  Most importantly, 5 kids got saved.  It was a great (yet exhausting) week.

AND this past weekend, my bff Kelly came in from North Carolina!  We had a great week with her.  She got here Friday at 9:30 am and we went non-stop until I dropped her off with her aunt today in Columbia.  We went to see Aladdin at the Muny, she took Barkley to DG with me when I worked 4 hours (and one of our Residents threatened to shoot him), we went to Main St. in St. Charles,  went to Panera twice, ate at Chipotle and Five Guys, went shopping, got "Grandma's Cookies", slept in, and even saw the Wienermobile twice in one day!

Kelly is such a special friend to me.  She lived across the street in 5th and 6th grade... and has lived in North Carolina ever sense!   The distance has not gotten in the way of our friendship, though, which is how I know we'll be friends for MANY years to come.

 

Beautiful Day

A few weeks ago, Steven and I went to the Royals/Cardinals game in St. Louis!

The Cardinals has this amazing program where they give "Clergymen" two free tickets to any/all games! (except Cubs games).  This was our first time taking advantage but I think we will more often now.

It was so fun to go and see our home team play our new "home" team.  Steven wore his Royals shirt and cap, and we enjoyed spotting a few others with their Royals gear on in St Louis as well!

The Stadium was just re-done and it was amazing... So cool with it being downtown and with the Arch right behind the score board!

Obviously, these free seats were in the 3rd Pavilion, but it was actually nice to be up so high because the air was circulating so well and we could feel the breeze on such a hot day.

We paid $5 for parking, and the Stadium lets you bring in outside food/drink so we brought in sandwiches from Jimmy John's!

I mentioned on Facebook that we were at the game, and some of our youth group kids called Steven that they were there too and they had two empty seats with them!  So we joined them after the 2nd inning.  Their seats were much closer than ours but it was like we were sitting in a sauna.

It was a crazy, high-scoring game, but the Royals ended up losing at the last minute.  But it was still a fun day out!  I definitely want to do it again sometime.

Thanks for the free tickets, Busch Stadium.  :)

The B-I-B-L-E

It has been a while since I've written last... but this last project I did was worth the post!

I have had my eye on making a cover for my Bible.  I've only used it a year so far but I was ready for it to be a little more unique and have some personality to it since it's used so much!

I found a few people who had made Bible Covers on Pinterest (here and here), but the tutorials were very minimal and I liked different attributes of both the ones I found.  I ended up combining them and kind of putting my own spin on it and figuring it out as I went along!

My goal was to have it done by Camp (the end of this month) but I finished it today!

 I made it with a velcro closure so I can have varying amounts of papers, bulletins, etc inside. (and the amazing flower button is velcro'ed on also so I can wash the cover if needed!)

Finally, I left the ruffle strip on the spine open, so that I can always have a pen and highlighter with my Bible!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and can't wait to bring it with me to church Wednesday.  :)