What do we do without a leader???

Today I work, I only had 2 kids left by 4 and so we went to the duck pond. We spent about 45 min watching the mother duck and her ducklings and anxiously waiting to see the school of fish that lives in the pond. About 30 min into it, the mother jumped out of the pond and walked in the grass. The moment she jumped out, the 8 ducklings chirped constantly for their mom. They even tried to jump out with her. They followed her around as she walked on the outside, but they were completely lost with out their leader Even though she was out of the pond, every time she quacked, the ducklings knew just where she was. It reminded me of one of Jesus' parables:


"3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”
John 10:3-5

Go here and read the rest of the story. My question--can you recognize your Father's voice? Have you ever been lost and then you hear His voice? Any cool stories you have hearing Him?

Be Still My Soul

I'm reading this book called Be Still My Soul, by Elisabeth Elliot, and I wanted to share a part about prayer...

"I realized that the Bible itself is full of written prayers, including the one Jesus taught His disciples when they asked for a model of prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven...(Matthew 6:9-13) The older I get, the more I use that prayer and the more I realize that virtually everything that really matters is contained in that one prayer. I am not praying to get an answer to every question or a solution to every problem, but rather to put my whole live and all the lives of those whom I love in the light of heaven."


How has your prayer life changed as you've grown older? What are your favorites ways to pray? Do you have any prayers you pray every day?

Memories

So I don't have anything really great to say, but I want to hear stories....so what are some of your favorite stories of me??? I'll post back what my favorite stories of you are :)

OKC---

This was my first weekend at OKC!! I'm exhausted (Sundays are so much longer...) but I had so much fun! I got to be in rooms that I haven't been in before and every time, God sent me someone I knew, or at least someone who was personable (you'd have thought we'd known each other for years...). It was different not knowing anyone and starting from scratch. I had no credentials. Left and right people asked and told me what to do, and I just bit my tongue and learned. Thanks for all your prayers. It's gonna be great, just pray I make new friends easily. :)


***Side note...only 3 more weeks until graduation! I can't wait! I'm headed to Edmond now for Konnect!

Lesson 1....

Get all your strength from God...He'll supply all you'll ever need.

Here's something that amazed me about my experience in Chihuahua: 1) I didn't eat half as much as I usually (I can only remember being hungry once...on the way home--Domino's night) 2) I slept very little, I mean like 3-4 hours a night (not once did I feel worn out from exhaustion) 3) I did some major work out and managed to always make it up the mountain (in my own time...another lesson, so stay tuned).

The whole week I pulled so much strength from my Jesus. When I painted all day without rest, He guided my brush. When I spoke after having no sleep, He guided my words. When I ate enough food to be polite, but not enough to fill my tummy, He gave me the Bread of Life. When I felt I couldn't walk any longer DOWN the mountain, He sent me a friend to walk with. When I needed a day of silence, He spent the whole day at my side, just listening, but never speaking. When I doubted I could make it UP the mountain, He sent me a helping hand. When the journey seemed like forever, He sent me a guide. When the blister grew on my foot, He gave me a friend who let me borrow their socks. When I knew I couldn't walk anymore on my knee, He brought someone to carry me. When I was in pain, He sent a friend I could lean on. When I needed some encouragement, He sent me a beautiful sunset. When I felt lonely, He blessed me with a sunrise. When I needed some real food, He blessed me with potatoes and ketchup. When I needed affirmation I was doing a good job, He spoke through everyone around me.

Get all your strength from Him, He's all you'll ever need.

Nothing left...

"Here’s a story that started on Christmas
When a baby was born in the night
And those who came far, who followed the star
Were seeing a heavenly sight ...
a heavenly sight.

Well the years hurried by, and the boy, now a man
Could make the blind see with a touch of his hand
He was born to be King -- he was Rabbi and Priest
But the best that he had, he gave to the least ...
He gave to the least.

He was born and he died, almost 2,000 years ago
He laughed and he cried, he felt all the fears we know
But what does it matter? A story so strange ...
Even if it is true, what does it change?
What does it change?

Well he spoke like a prophet -- like no one they’d heard
This simple young carpenter -- crowds hung on every word
He hated injustice -- He taught what is right
He said “I’m the way, and the truth, and the light.”

His friends soon believed that truly he was the one.
The Savior, Messiah, God’s one and only son.
But others, they doubted, they did not agree
So they took him, they tried him,
He died on a tree ...
He died on a tree.

God has made a way
for all who mourn and grieve
Death will never be the end
if you just believe.

There is nothing left to fear
nothing Heaven knows
For he died for us to give us life
and to give us hope He rose
He died for us to give us life
And to give us hope He rose."


This is from "An Easter Carol" produced by VeggieTales. We were watching it today at work and I had kinda tuned out the lyrics--after all I had already seen it so many times--but I just happened to tune in to

"There's nothing left to fear, nothing Heaven knows.
He died for us to give us life and to give us hope He rose."

As most of you know, I've really been battling some fears. For the first time in my life I can say I'm genuinely scared of change. But as I'm facing this huge change (graduating high school, friends going to college, going to a different campus...and the list goes on) I have to remember Jesus suffered the worst just for ME! No matter how many times I'm hurt, no matter how many times doors keep closing, no matter how many times people leave, I always have hope...my Jesus never leaves me, He never hurts me, and He will always open the RIGHT doors at the RIGHT time. (Go check out the video by clicking on "An Easter Carol" at the top...)

Journey back home!!!!

We woke up bright and early at 3:30 (well, not really bright, it was still dark...), loaded up the van, and fell asleep again. :) I slept for another 4 hours, until the sun came up, another beautiful sunrise!! Everyone woke up slowly and we crossed the border around 8:15. We were stopped by the military again, this time, however this time they made us all get out. Thankfully we were all awake when we crossed the border. :) When we were crossing the Rio Grande, we sang the National Anthem, and Mel recorded it. She still had her camera out when we got to the border patrol, and they "confiscated her camera and made us all get out of the van while they searched it. A van, with an x-ray inside of it, which was kinda cool to watch. After some rigorous searching, we were on the road again. We drove for another 3 hours without stopping, and Lori decided she couldn't wait any longer and we pulled over and she took her orange trowel and went on the side of the road!!! In TEXAS!!! We were in such a hurry to get home, we stopped at a gas station for lunch, grab our food real fast and jumped back in the van to continue our voyage home. We were all just giggling and laughing at all our funny moments and next thing you know, our conversation turns completely serious and we all opened up and had some incredible discussion about the trip and the things we learned, about our favorite parts and our least favorite parts. It's amazing what God can do in an instant. We started to get a little hungry, and almost simultaneously, we (the students) had this brilliant idea to buy the leaders dinner. We wanted everyone to be able to sit down and talk (we hadn't sat together as a group the whole week). After much debate, we stopped at an Arby's and somehow got our food correctly (there was some poor management...) and were able to just sit and talk. Lance opened up to us about how he felt the trip went and we told him exactly what we thought...WE LOVED IT!!!! About 30 min later we hopped in the van again, and headed home. Sarcastically I said, let's say our favorite thing about each other, well, Lori took it seriously and so for the rest of the drive home, we simply encouraged each other. Talk about cool. This pretty much blew Paco's mind...here we are, a bunch of teenagers and we're sitting in a van talking about Christ and each other so positively. He didn't stop going on about it! We made Chris (the leader) cry because of how much of a leader we all were at age 16, 17, 18. Mel couldn't stop complimenting us either! It was so cool, probably one of the coolest "drive-backs" I've ever had. I will never forget some of the things people said about me (it's crazy how you see yourself one way, and everyone else sees you differently). You were all such an encouragement to me, I hope I spoke half as much life into you as you did to me. Well, that's about it--we got home at midnight Sat (the next morning was Easter). I went with some people to IHOP (as always) and we sat and talked for some time. I think I finally made it home around 1, and took a much needed shower (I think it was 4 days...), and fell asleep around 2am and woke up bright and early at 7 for Easter Sunday!!

Thanks for sticking through this all and reading it! It's amazing all God did in me. I'll be posting what I learned from people and from My Jesus in the next few weeks!

Day 6

The next morning, I woke up to the sun and hurried down to the lake to watch the sunrise. It was quite cold, but totally worth it. The lake was covered in fog, and as the sun inched up over the mountains, the fog followed it and there were even some small "tornadoes." The sun came up and brightened the water quite a bit. I hurried back to camp and Lance prepared coffee cake for breakfast. It was AMAZING!! We finally got moving around, packed up again and started to head out. Before we left one of our leaders Chris did something that I thought was pretty cool. He took each of us students and told us something he had noticed about each of us that had inspired or encouraged him. I bet you'll never guess what mine was...that's right, my smile, along with perseverance. He said he could always count on seeing my smile and that my smile gave everyone the energy to keep moving. (I thought it was pretty cool anyway). We loaded up and start the drive to the hot springs. I think the drive was only about 30 min, but the rest of the way to the hot springs was grueling. As we pulled into the park, the guy who took our money told us it was only a 3 kilometer walk, however, it turned out to be about a 7.5 kilometer hike into the canyon (keep in mind, we were in our shorts, a swimsuit, flip flops, and a t-shirt). Then when we got to the hot springs, they were PACKED and were just little pools, not really hot springs, but we swam anyway. Everyone else there was more or less drunk or were at least on their way to getting drunk. But we stayed and swam for a little while, but lunch time came, and we were ready to hike back up. It took me and Mel an hour to hike back up (I had a growing blister, and my knee was throbbing, as was Mel's, so we took it slow). We got to a stopping place where everyone was waiting on us and I drank 2 full bottles of water. The leader Chris ran to the top and drove the van down to get us. We drove to Divisadero (the touristy spot of the cannon) and shopped and looked at a great deal of the canyon. After about 2 hours, we loaded the van and headed back to the orphanage to sleep for the night before we headed back to America. This was a 6 hour drive and by the time we got back to Chihuahua we were starving, so we pulled in some money and ordered 6 boxes of Domino's pizza!!! For 8 of us to eat!! And all but one box was eaten. We stayed up a lot of the night talking and laughing and made it to bed around 2:30 only to be woken up at 5 to start our journey home.

We've got one more, the journey home...look for it on Thursday!!

Day 5

We started to drive to Creol, which is a four hour drive. We went on the side-of-the-mountain road again, but I was laying down, so I didn't stress so much. :) A lot of us slept on the way to Creol since we had gotten little sleep the night before. The map we were using to get to Creol was 30 years old, so where we were going was a little sketchy. We had to stop and ask for directions and after about 30 min of driving around Creol, we found our destination. It was a lake (I'm not sure of the name of it). The first entrance we went in was full of people. Apparently the Mexican fair was going on, so after we couldn't find anywhere to camp, we left and went further down the lake. About 20 min later, we found a nice quiet spot where no one was and set up camp. Hannah, Lori, and I went to the lake and Caroline eventually came too. The four of us sat around and talked (we hadn't spent a whole lot of time together) for about an hour while admiring the lake and birds. Eventually we had to go back to the campsite for dinner. Lance and Mel made us meatloaf, green beans, and potatoes. It was DELICIOUS and I'm not much of a meatloaf fan. For desert we had peach cobbler, which was also DELICIOUS, at least the part I ate. After dinner, Caroline, Hannah, Lori, Chris, and I went back to the lake to watch the sunset. It lit up the lake in beautiful shades of red and orange. It was almost as pretty as an Oklahoma sunset in the summer. :) We came back up and had some hot chocolate and some "'shrooms" (or marshmellows as most of us call them), and told funny stories. We discussed some leadership stuff from Habitudes and after the fire died, we went to bed.

I'm almost finished, we've got one more day, plus the journey home. Thanks for reading. I know this is taking a long time.