lessons learned.

As I'm looking at the end of the school year here at MACU I am looking back on the things I've learned in this environment that is so unlike any I've ever experienced.

I've learned:

• There are more hypocrites than you think. People that live their whole lives as a lie.
• That even at a Christian school people aren't as open to talk about their faith. People are afraid to question things and admit their struggles. Because when they do they are faced with judgement.
• College is like bigger high school. People gossip, people judge, people say hurtful things to make themselves look better, people lie, cheat, and do "bad" things.
• People grow up at very different rates. And rush into big life commitments without thinking them all the way through and making responsible decisions just because they want to feel like grown ups.
• That even though people screw up and have faults there are a lot of them that genuinely love God and want to honor Him with their lives and their ministry positions. These people make me happy and proud of my generation.
• That when you find someone who cares about you, embrace it. Loving people comes with the risk of being hurt, but it's worth it.
• What true beauty in a person looks like.
• How to love a person's heart. Their raw, broken, ugly heart.
• I've learned how to voice my opinions. To stick up for myself and others.

I've been tested on my patience, my loving nature, my integrity, my communication skills, my friendships, and so much more. Some of these things I've failed at, but as I've failed i have grown, so I don't look at it as failure. I am thankful for the lessons I learn, but I'm not done learning them yet. I want to continue to learn. I am thankful for all the friendships I've made this year, and the relationships I've cultivated.

I want to be an amazing woman of God.

I want to be a woman like:

Norma Furgerson

Marjorie Furgerson

Darla Givan.

It is an honor to know and have known these women, it is a privilege to call them family. I hope to leave a legacy of at least a fraction of the ones these women have.

nova

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to be home.

invisible.

There are Invisible Children.

TOUR!!!

I promise I was happy.

Me on the Chopper in Downtown Disney.

The awesome girls from the last night, Tori and Madison!

Our wonderful group.

Due to either lack of internet access and sometimes energy, I did not get to post everyday of tour. Our director, Amanda Avery, wrote an extensive post at the end of the trip which has a bunch of the highlights.

I just looked over my prayer request post and it confirmed EVERY one of them were answered.

Tour was amazing. I will admit that I had my doubts. I was nervous, mostly about drama that tends to happen with events like this, and there was none. Praise Jesus.

Our host families were awesome! They were all so friendly and welcoming. All of them had stories and some even had little words of "wisdom" for us. All of them were simply great, which I am so thankful for.

Universal was awesome! The lines were super short for every ride and it wasn't crowded and the weather was fantastic. Glory.

I spent way too much money on the Orlando days, between my $80 ticket to expensive park food, nice dinner [HardRock... wished my Daddy was there] , downtown Disney gifts for the boyfriend and Mayonnaise, and Rainforest Cafe lunch... whew. I thought was going to be in trouble. But after all was said and done it wasn't terrible. And I am not bankrupt. Daddy will be proud [ps: I almost bought you a meduim guitar pick at the Orlando Downtown Disney Harley Shop, which only had 2 bikes... what in the world, but figured you wouldn't have wanted me to spend that money for a guitar pick. The thought was there].

Holy Amazing. South Carolina. Russelville. Isn't even on the map. God is there. Oh man. We got there and I was really nervous because it was the middle of nowhere and I was scared I wasn't going to have cell phone signal and be able to talk to my man. Worse, the sound set up was not prepared for us at all. They didn't have things we needed, it was bad. God made it work. He is GOOD. Avery gave us a motvational speech beforehand and oh dear, I teared up. Which everyone knows is a big deal. She's the best. I have never had a director like her. Love her. We didn't use mics at ALL, you could hear us, we worshipped. I also teared up during Revelation Song, we sounded good. We worshipped. Our voices were pure and powerful. Avery and Mike were in the sound booth looking proud and excited, and it felt good. I teared up. Whew. And then during my All I Can Do solo I sang the wrong verse. Whoops. I sang the 2nd verse again instead if the 3rd. Oh well...

Our family that night was precious, I enjoyed all of the families but this one had two drecious daughters. One of them was 4 and one was 18 mo. They were adorable.

It was good to end tour on that note.

Praise Jesus.

I love music. Music is my passion. I need to worship.

tired.

Day 1 (Saturday):

We traveled all the way to Jacksonville and got to the first church around 5:30 or 6. We had a cookout at a family's home with the pastor, youth pastor, and that family. It was good to be out of the van. After dinner we went back to the church for a soundcheck for Sunday morning, and then went home with our designated host families Our host woman was insane. There are stories. Crazy. Ask me. Oh dear...

Day 2 (Sunday):

Long, long, long. We did the whole church service at the first church, had lunch, and then an hour of free time. Then round 2. We went to our 2nd church in Jacksonville and had sound check and did the program. It went really well. Especially since we were all exceptionally tired already since we had already done a service.

Day 3 (TODAY!):

We woke up and went back to the church form last night, today was supposed to be an easy day. We did 2-5 year old chapel at the same church form last night. We told them a story about the yuck-bugs from the Island of Gak and taught them to use kind words. Afterward, we showered them with bubbles, because bubbles are happy and make you smile, just like kind words. Precious. After that we went to the Christian High School in town and talked to 4 math classes about the school and whatnot. Recruitment. Sweet.

I am suuuuuuper tired still, traveling is kicking my butt.

ORLANDO TOMORROW! Hooray for a day off and universal to pick up our spirits and refresh us a little :]

Prayers are still greatly appreciated!

TOMORROW IS TOUR!!

Tomorrow I will be waking up around 6:15 am [gag], spending approximately 15 minutes getting ready for the day and doing last minute packing or whatever needs to be done. Then I get to spend my last 30 minutes of freedom with my wonderful boyfriend who is going to wake up early on his day off just for me. I'm a VERY lucky girl.

At 7:00 am tour officially starts. We will be meeting at the vans and loading them with our one suitcase each and whatever equipment we personally need. I still need to finish packing, oh dear. We are actually departing at 7:30, where we will spend at LEAST 9 hours driving down to Jacksonville, FL. The church there is having a cook out for us upon arrival, which is nice. Hooray for southern hospitality :]

Specific prayer requests:

- That the group gets along. No major drama. That we can all deal with our annoyances maturely and not make something dumb and little into a whole huge fiasco.

- That all of our traveling goes smoothly. There will be a lot of driving in this next week so that's a big deal. Pray that we remain safe.

- PLEASE PRAY PRAY PRAY PRAY PRAY and PRAY some more that we keep the outlook of leading worship instead of performing, it's hard since we've been rehearsing the program since August and we know the ins and outs of hopefully every pitch in the every single second of the approximately 1 hr long program. We know the music. But pray that we focus on what we're singing, what we're leading other people in singing, that it impacts and refreshes us as much as it does for them. Even if we've all heard the songs 2,374,398,245 times. Pray we aren't just singing words and phrases and notes, that we are singing about life, and salvation, and a God who loves us and died for us. Those are big messages. We need to remember to treat them as such.

- Pray for the people who are going to show up to see us. Pray that they are the right people, with open hearts, ready to worship our Creator with us. Pray that they come and aren't distracted, but are ready to receive God's love, grace and mercy through us and the speakers.

- Pray for the churches that are welcoming us into their church families for even a short while. That we may bring a good representation of Christ, Christians, and MACU.

- Please also pray for Mrs. Avery. This is a new experience for her, too. She has had to deal with putting it all together, and now it's time to go. Please pray she doesn't get stressed out [about us, the churches, traveling, or grad work], that she doesn't miss her family too much, that she can actually relax and enjoy the tour with us.

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING! It's finally here!!

Until Florida...

long sigh.

I know I've already written today, and I typically don't even write every day... but it's just one of those days.

Satan must be trying to KNOCK ME OUT today and really discourage me. And it was kind of working. I woke up and my neck, back, head, legs all hurt. Bad. I went to chapel, it was good today. I went to class and lunch. I got up to my room after lunch and my lungs hurt and my head was POUNDING. In addition to everything from this morning. Awesome.

And then it got worse. I had 2 conversations with 2 different people that just left me feeling horrible, like a failure, and just bad. There were tears. Luckily I was in my room where no one saw. After I gained composure I put on some waterproof mascara, which looking back was a good idea, and then started packing some more.

Then Stephanie walked in my door looking for Veronica, my scrubbing dishes thing that looks like a head... we named her yesterday. Steph is kind of one of those friends talked about in the last post. We were SUPER close and then had a bunch of ups and downs. We go to the same tiny school, live 5 doors down from each other, but still grew apart. We're still good, just not super close like we were. People here don't refer to us as a pair, or even associate us with each other, and are constantly surprised when they find out we knew each other before school and were best friends. But we still care. Thank God.

When she came in my room she could tell something wasn't right, and I was doing a pretty good job of hiding it [Cody says I'm terrible at hiding it, but this time I think I was doing pretty good] and she sat down on my bed and told me to spill.

So I did.

That waterproof mascara came in handy, because more tears escaped my bloodshot eyeballs. She told me that she could tell I was going to cry as soon as I started talking. I'm not even a crier. At all.

Right now I have a lot to be thankful for. But I'm especially thankful for Stephanie. And that her and Steve had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, that she had to do the dishes right then [and then decided after talking to me she really wasn't going to do them yet], that she could tell I was having a rough day, that she gave me a much needed hug. And I don't think it was all her... I'm thankful for a God that knows when I need some love, and He provides.

Sigh.

Leaving on tour Saturday at 7:30. Hopefully blogging throughout to keep people in the loop of where I am and what I'm doing. Please, please, please pray for the group, the churches, the traveling, the people that who could possibly hear about Jesus for the first time and the people that might need to reconnect, pray for focus, and patience. A lot of patience. At least for me, I'll probably need it. Thank you. LOVELOVELOVE.

ent.

ew ew ew.

Spring has sprung.

I really do love Spring. I love the warmth, the trees blooming, the flowers, being able to wear dresses and flip flops, and even the rainy days to some extent...

BUT NOT THE POLLEN!

Oh dear, I hate it so much. It covers everything. It makes me sick, which in turn makes me grumpy, and it just gross and filthy.

Hopefully Florida won't be crazy bad with that... but somehow I doubt that. Better start drugging up now...

guilty by association.

I try to not associate things with people. Songs, food, places, activities... it's not just with guys, it goes for girls too.

If I attach things with people and get attached to that person, and then somethings happens with that person I don't want to be constantly reminded of our memories or whatever with them.

If I let myself get too close to someone and then they are gone, for whatever reason, then I am just left with nothing but memories. I am back at the start.

I am horrible at getting close to people. Once it starts happening I start to push them away, most of the time without even realizing it. I don't fight for relationships, if someone isn't going to make the effort to keep up with me then I'm not going to try. I know that's wrong, but it's how I am.

I am a bad friend.

Gahhhh.

My thoughts are, people change, they grow apart, it's part of life, there is no such thing as "best friends forever." Maybe it's because where I grew up people were in and out and rarely established roots. There were only a very few number of kids I went to school with from Kindergarden to Graduation. Friends came and went. It was a way of life. I do keep in touch with some of the people that have moved away over the years, but it is very few and far between. And we probably don't talk often at all, so you could hardly even consider us to still be friends as much as we used to be. And I try to keep in touch with some people from high school, but it's hard! I couldn't even do it over the summer if I wasn't home, which I wasn't. And I know how people moving to and from NOVA is not an excuse, but it helps explain a little, right? Maybe? A little?

I'm trying now to establish friendships. That's part of what you do in college, right? Establish lifelong friends? The ones that are supposed to be in your wedding, be the god parents to your children, have reunions with whenever possible. Especially at a Bible college where most of us share something so important to who we are. I'm trying. It's hard. I've already gone through a lot of friends in the past academic year. What in the world?! Some of the friendships are coming around and I'm starting to talk to people I stopped hanging out with as much.

I'm trying to learn. How to remain close to people. How to not push people away. How to love people unconditionally. How to be a real friend.

whew.

Read this.

I'll wait... Don't hurry. Stop and read it, slowly, carefully, thoughtfully. Let it really sink it.

Whew. Convicting. At least for me.

I know I'm a skunk. When I get stressed I get UGLY. Seriously. It's not a pretty thing. I get mad at people way too easily, and the littlest things will bring me over the edge. I will twist comments, or pick out the one statement that I don't like and pick a fight with it. It's been pointed out. I don't do it intentionally, but I do it. Maybe it's because the negative things stick out to me the most and it's a defense mechanism, I don't know. But I want to fix it.

I want to be sweet, fragrant, like a rose. I want my natural instincts to be sweet and loving. I want that to be my character and my nature. I don't want to be a skunk, I need growth.

I'm going to try to be more positive, more loving, give people the benefit of the doubt more, have more patience. Then maybe, when that pressure is applied I will emit the lovely fragrance of a rose, rather than the foul odor of a skunk. We'll see...