Summer 2007 July 28, 2007

I felt it fitting to write my first blog about the most incredible summer I have EVER experienced.

As many of you know, I took a position as a Summer Missionary through our association.  This fits perfectly with my blog name because…well…June 2nd…the day of our oriention….I was waaaayyy out of my comfort zone..

So I figured…Christ didn’t intend on our life to be comfortable…so off I went to be uncomfortable for the rest of the summer.  I went to the orientation and soon learned the ridiculous looking moves to the Game Day music and was assigned a schedule.  I went home repeating to myself…”What was I thinking?”  And so….my summer began.

Here’s a few stats from the summer:

2 months

7 missionaries

17 churches

7 weeks

260 hours of VBS

6 songs sung……

6,000,000 times (ok it just felt that way)

3560.1 miles (just mine…not counting the other missionaries)

2 flat tires (on my vehicle of course)

1 blown transmission (not my vehicle, shew!)

umpteen hundred gallons of gas

35 days of rain

7 meetings in Jacksonville

22 trips to Walmart

1 trip to Chuck-E-Cheese’s

0 hours of sleep

8 days that I was home

1050 kids

….and 52 salvations!!!
I praise God for every kid that came to know Him.  I praise God that He gave me the strength to overcome my shyness and become friends with 6 of the best people in the world.  I praise God that I was able to spend an ENTIRE summer sharing the gospel with kids all over East Texas…and most of all I praise God for Jesus….for sending His Son to die for me….an awful, sinful person…and giving me the gift of salvation and the opportunity to tell others about that gift.  I could not have been blessed any more than I was this summer.

(This is a long blog…I know…but I have to get it out somehow   )

One of the most inspiring weeks was the week that we were at Purtis Creek Baptist Church….my parent’s church.

The children from Oak Street Outreach attended the VBS and were amazing.  Their smiles and laughter would light up the room immediately.  I am so blessed to know them.  By the time the end of the week came, I felt led to buy Bibles for each of the 7 children from Oak Street.  I prayed that God would use the Bibles to be a light and a sword for the children as they grow and as they deal with some of the tough battles that they are dealing with right now.  So Friday afternoon, along with two of the other missionaries, I headed to Lifeway to purchase Bibles.  Upon arriving at the store, with a list of the kid’s favorite colors, I headed to the Bible section.  This Lifeway didn’t have very many Bibles in my budget, but I managed to find 7 that I thought the kid’s would like.  On my way home from Tyler, I stopped by Oak Street and dropped off the Bibles.  When I walked in the door, one of the children saw me holding the gift bags and smiled and said, “Oh my goodness, is there more in the car?!”  I told him (while laughing)  that there weren’t any more in the car, but that I had one for him.  He said, “Hey, that’s ok, but can I have mine now?!”  I passed out the Bibles and the kids were ecstatic.  I left the praying that the children would use those Bibles and that God would answer all of their questions and heal all of their pains that they were dealing with.

A week later, I when with my parents to Oak Street for a Sunday night service.  Dee, the owner of the outreach, told my parents that he had gone out to the trampoline to check on the kids, and the kids told him to go away…they were having a Bible Study!!! Praise God!!

Apparently, the kids have been having Bible studies and have been reading them the whole week.  We wrote a message in each Bible to the kids and one of them, Dillion, highlighted every word we had written.  He was so excited that we had taken the time to write a message just to him.

Those kids are truely a blessing and God has used them to open my eyes tremendously.  Who would’ve thought that writing a note and giving a Bible to a kid would make such a huge impact in their life?

So, in conclusion, I can honestly say, that God is incredible…and without Him…this summer would’ve been a wreck….

All credit is due to Him for the salvations, the fellowship, the safety, the fun, the rain, and every other event that occured this summer….

To Him be the glory….