June Journey

Wow, this has been a crazy month. It is nice to be home for a little bit. This past week I was camping across North Carolina with the Youth Group and other Kingsway church youth groups. It was a blast! Met some cool peeps! Here's a quick overview of the trip...

We started off at Emerald Isle on Sunday. That night we had worship on the beach and a time where everyone drew a box around them and made a decision to step out of it. Then we had a time where people could be prayed for and they would go and wash their hands and feet in the water signifying that they were washing away the old.

The next few days were filled with sun, sand, water, worship. We had a bit of tragedy happen while we were at the beach. Tragedy (maybe that word is a little strong) #1 was when 2 of the guys were sword fighting with the oars of a boat as they were standing on the railing of a pier. The problem happened when one fell off into the SHALLOW water. He hurt his ankle pretty bad. It was so bad that he couldn’t walk on it. That's bad when you have to hike down a mountain in a few days! We prayed over his ankle and all I can say is the Lord healed him. Not like "Sha-bang, you are healed” but 2 days later, He was hiking down a mountain with us!
Tragedy #2 was a little more serious. One of the guys fell off the back of a car and hit his head pretty bad. He had to be ambulanced to the hospital and later flown to Greenville for head injury. They had found blood on his brain. Thankfully God healed him, also. He didn’t get to finish The Journey with us, but Praise God that he was ok!

We left the beach on Wednesday and headed up to Taylorsville, NC where we met up with Robert Mearns. Robert exhorted us to leave our fear and insecurity.... our fear of man. As a generation to press into God. Later that night we camped in someone's front yard (we knew him. lol.) That was my first experience of sleeping under the stars. A few of the girls and I decided to X the whole tent thing and do it under Gods blanket of stars. I even saw a shooting star!!!

We left Taylorsville in the morning and headed up to Boone. There we met with people from Living Waters Church, and had some great time of teaching, prayer, and fellowship. The girls learned what it meant to be a Godly servant. Not sure what the guys talked about. You'll have to ask them. After that the guys headed off on their own adventure and the girls hiked down into our campsite. It was a 30 minute hike down to a site right beside a waterfall. It was awesome. The girls decided to put into practice the servant message we heard, so we set up camp for the guys.... Campfire and all. The video footage is hilarious! But we did it! :O) We took a dip in the falls. I won’t mention names, but some decided to bear it all! Later we shared testimonies around the campfire. The guys showed up just in time for dinner. Night #2 under the stars was awesome. It felt like I was in a rainforest b/c we were so thick into the woods that you couldn’t see the sky. I went to sleep with the lullaby of bugs and waterfall.

The next day we packed up camp and hiked out (which was quite a bit steeper and harder). We drove to Andrews, NC where we rafted down the Nanahala River. That was fun. Of course, our raft was the best (I'm sure the other rafts would have some discrepancies with that, though.) After that we went to the campsite to get cleaned up. OK, by this time we have been sweating like crazy from all the hiking and physical activity which would have been fine if it weren’t for one minor detail. WE HAD NOT SHOWERED SINCE THE BEACH (almost 3 days earlier). So we were pretty smelly. I think it was when we hiked out of the mountain that I looked and saw that my friends had bugs flying around their heads. I was thinking, "Dude, that’s gross, you have bugs flying around your head." Then I looked up and noticed, "Dang, so do I."
Thankfully that night we got to shower and we were treated with the BEST Mexican food! I got the usual... Chicken burrito with extra sour cream. For dessert.... Sopapillas! If you haven't had them, you got to try them!
That night I opted to sleep in my car back seat with my feet hanging out the door. We didn’t set up any tents, so most slept under the stars.... that is, until it started raining at 5 am. Then everyone scurried to the cars. Jill and Jess hopped in with me.

The next morning was Saturday. We loaded up, had a big breakfast, and then had worship prayer and closing exhortation. Micah encouraged us in the Journey of life. He talked about Paul’s writing in Philippians 3:10-14.

It was a great youth trip! Praise God for healing! Praise God for Break-Throughs! Praise God for allowing us to step out of our Boxes! Praise God for Great weather! Praise God for His Creation! Praise God for endurance! Praise God for fellowship of Brothers and Sisters in Christ!