A Peek into the Past: 2014 edition

Whoa!!! I cannot believe it is already New Year's Eve! I have been way to busy to have any time to post anything, so I will just to a little more detailed "looking back" this year.

• Went on my first college visit, which was with my dear friend Winter. :D
• Met my new friend Audrey
• Had my first Spotlight Youth Theater showcase
• Saw Pentatonix live (I was going to saw it was my second concert ever, but that would have to not count all of the orchestra concerts I have gone to, so I don't think I can say that!)
• Saw Sharyssa being a Who in Seussical 
• Mrs. Genau, Mr. Gene, and Ms. Janet went to join Jesus in Heaven
• Have a FrozenFest with my amazing friends
• Bella boo turned 4 (Where has time gone?!?!?!)
• Caleb got a new car (plus his drivers licence)
• Had my first guitar recital
• Learned my first Chopin piece for piano (and loved it!!!)
• Saw Sharyssa as Prudy Pingleton in Hairspray
• Went to Worldview Academy with Rebekah (and we got to be roommates!!!!)
• Caleb graduated
• Went to Spotlight Youth Theater camp and got to be an Ozian for a week :D
• I turned 17
• Sharyssa turned 18 and graduated
• Josiah graduated
• I finished school in August, because I could
• Rebekah had a Pride and Prejudice marathon and we got to see Diane from Worldview and spend the night :D :D
• I started dancing with Ms. Jodi-Ann taking ballet and tap
• I started ballet with Ms. Jenae
• Went to Audrey's 12th birthday
• Bella acknowledged 4 as a number (for those of you who do not know her, this is quite an accomplishment!)
• Caleb turned 19
• I accomplished walking in pointe shoes
• Bella learned to hula hoop, which is absolutely adorebubble!
• Had Audrey, Kyrie, and Avery over to make maple leaf cookies
• Went to fall festival and got neck paintings (those who were there will understand)
• Stayed the weekend at college with Winter and her friends (we brought cheesecake, so they all loved us quite a bit!)
• Found out Bella loves the ukulele
• Went out of the country for the first time to Kosovo 
• Had the smallest table in Christmas Tea history (Rebekah, Katherine, and myself), but we had the most fun :D
• Curled Bella's hair with foam rollers and found out she really does not like being called a "Bella-asaurus" (generally she did not like the curlers, but the nicknames did not help.)
• Learned how to put on fake eyelashes (It was for my dance recital!)
• Had my first dance recital at the studio, as well as my first ever pointe recital!
• Had my Christmas piano recital
• Had an amazing Christmas sleepover with Sharyssa where we made gluten free, dairy free sugar cookies and buttercream frosting and had lots of general fun and joy!!!
• Walked around in releve plie for hours with Sharyssa (on the balls of our feet and our knees bent and our arms out to the side resembling a dinosaur) pictures of this will also come in a later post)
• Had a marvelous Christmas
• Got a Bosu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (pictures to come later)
• Helped Sharyssa's brother and sister-in-law paint their new house
• Thoroughly cleaned my bedroom

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A Crazy Busy Type of Summer

Wow!!! Summer is gone, fall is upon us, and I have not posted anything since Worldview!

A quick overview of my summer:

• Worldview Academy
• Caleb graduated
• Spotlight Youth Theatre camp
• My 17th birthday
• Oshkosh week
• Sharyssa graduated and turned 18
• Josiah graduated
• I finished school for the year (in August)
• Pride and Prejudice marathon 

What has happened since school started:

• I started ballet, pointe, and tap
• Bella has returned and started ballet
• Guitar has restarted

As wonderful and brief as this was, it is not very detailed, so I will post more specific descriptions of everything as soon as I get around to it. :D

An Overview of Worldview Academy 2014

How to shrink it down? It is so hard, but I will do my best. (If you want more information than I put here, you can read my last few posts with detailed descriptions of each day.)

Worldview Academy has always been amazing, but this year felt different. I made new friends, but got to spend a lot of time with old friends and treasured all of the special time I got to have with them. My leaders we awesome, as usual, and I got to have the new experience of having two leaders, which I highly enjoyed. :D All of our faculty was epic and there was not one lecture I did not enjoy and learn something from. Evangelizing went really well, at least as well as you can expect when high schoolers go out and ask people what happens when they die. Not everyone walked away from us and we had several really good conversations. Overall, it was an amazing year!!!

People have asked me which year has been my favorite, and I do not think that is a fair question. Each year has been special in their own ways and have had different impacts on my life with different lessons to learn. God has used each year in a unique way that fit what was going on in my life at that time, and I could not be more amazed at how perfectly He has done this!!!

If anyone reading this is between the ages of 13 and 19 next June, I highly encourage you to go and experience this life changing camp! I love it and plan on going back every year for as long as I possibly can!!!

WVA 2014: Friday

Friday morning is always hard. It is hard to convince yourself to get out of bed and admit that the last day of camp has actually arrived. 

Rebekah and I finished up packing and then sat and talked on the couches in our room while Abby and Diane finished packing. The four of us walked together to the lobby of our floor and met up with Margaret and Seairra. Amy and leader Rebekah met up with us pretty quickly after we all sat down and we headed down to devotions. We were all being rather pathetic while we were walking down the stairs, but it is rather funny now. Leader Rebekah lead devos that morning and read a passage from Ephesians, which is where Pastor Greene has been preaching from. :D

At breakfast we all had a lot of energy and ate quite quickly. Amy and leader Rebekah had staff stuff they had to go do, so our group went into the lecture room and talked, explained some inside jokes created the night before, and signed each others notebooks, as well as took pictures with each other. (I will post those at the end of this post. :D) 

Our last lecture was "The Driven Leader" by Randy Sims and our parents were able to come and listen to this one with us. There were quite a few parents there, but mine did not come in until a little ways into the first part of the lecture. About half way, Mr. Sims let us have a ten minute break and I ran over to say hi to my parents and Caleb. Then I returned to my seat for the last half of our final lecture. Seairra and I were not paying the closest attention to the lecture, but it was still very good. 

At the end of the lecture, we had a fifteen minute break before we went and found our small groups and leaders and had our final small group time. During this time, Amy and leader Rebekah gave us our packets which have our certificates that say we lived through camp, a Worldview sticker, our tests from the night before, and a whole bunch of college stuff. We talked for quite a while, then got up to go look at the book tables. While our parents were in a meeting of some sorts, we played some games and I said hello to some people from my small group last year that did not come to camp this year. 

At some point during the parents meeting they had us all get in a group outside the doors and try to be quiet for quite some time before we all ran in screaming and cheering. We went to our seats and they let us know what was in our packets, in case we had not cared to look. Then we thanked our parents and the incredible staff and faculty. We had a worship time and got to see our camp video for this year. Then we were dismissed from camp. :'( I said good-bye to all of my friends, most of them I said good-bye to multiple times and introduced my parents to Amy and leader Rebekah. I also gave Katherine back her watch, which she so kindly let me borrow for the week, because I completely forgot mine. :) 

I had to go get my bags from my dorm, then I said good-bye to Worldview Academy for 2014. 

The end of a marvelous week at a marvelous camp!

Now, for the pictures I promised!

Seairra, Diane, Rebekah, and Margaret.

Seairra, Diane, and Rebekah

Me and the amazing, sweet, adorable Diane.

Me and the infamous Seairra. :D

Sharing inside jokes.

Whatever was said humored Diane and not Seairra. :)

Me and sweet Margaret.

The Three Musketeers. (Well...3 out of 6!)

The Three Musketeers strike again!

A picture from Thursday night. Our amazing, loving, selfless Amy.

Another picture from Thursday.
 Leader Rebekah, me, and Rebekah.

More from Thursday.
Abby and Margaret. 

And another one from Thursday. :D
Sweet Diane and her grown of flowers from the frisbee
game. 

Amy, me, Rebekah, and leader Rebekah. 

THE END

WVA 2014: Thursday

Our last full day of camp started off rather bumpy for me, but soon picked up. I woke up not feeling too great and had to go get Amy and leader Rebekah. They had me not go to quiet times or breakfast so I could rest. I spent most of that time doing my quiet time, but I also watched the wind blow the rain off of the trees in sheets, which was really cool!!!

After breakfast, Amy and Hannah (the female staff director) camp up and walked with me over to lectures. Our first lecture of the morning was "Word (part 2)" by Andy Frye. This was the second part of our lecture Wednesday on evidence for God's Word. He mainly focused on the New Testament this time.

In our break, Robert, the camera guy, had us walk into the room, going straight to our seats, and sitting down so he could tape it. Then we went into our next lecture. "What's the Matter with Matter?" by Andy Frye on modernism.

Next we headed to lunch, which felt like it came really quickly that day. I had my one-on-one with Amy during lunch, which I enjoyed thoroughly!!! One-on-ones are very special parts of camp, because we get an hour alone with our leaders and get to know them better.

Once lunch was over, Amy and I went and joined the rest of our small group in front of the fireplace outside of the cafeteria. We played a game called "Who would be more likely to...". Someone would come up with a question like "Who would be more likely to kiss a frog?" or "Who would be more likely to eat a whole pizza by themselves?" and everyone puts their finger on their chin when they know who they think would be more likely to do that thing. Once everyone has their finger on their chin, someone counts to three and everyone points at the person they are thinking of. It is a hysterically funny game! Seairra asked "Who would be more likely to (purposely or accidentally) set a house on fire?" and everyone pointed at her. :D Then we all started laughing and decided she would do it by accident dancing with a candle and doing her candle dance, which made us all laugh harder. Robert was videotaping us playing this game, but he did not stay very long. :D I think we scared him off! Eventually it got too hot to sit over by the fireplace, so we moved to the couches and continued our game. After a while, Amy and leader Rebekah talked with us for a little bit about our lectures and the rest of the plans for the day.

We left as our group to go to the dorms and get ready for the relay and color team challenges, as well as the Staff vs. Student Ultimate Frisbee game. All of us ran around getting into our shirts and doing our hair (for some of us, this included putting our color team's color chalk in our hair) and then we met outside the dorms to go to the lecture hall where everyone was assembling.

They gave us some rules, then released us by color team to run down to the football/soccer fields for the cheers and relay. Everyone started off running, but slowed down about half way there. At the field, everyone started running again and getting re-organized in our color team again. Blue worked on our cheer and then all of the teams performed them.

Next was the relay. We had a lot more activities than last year, but it was still really fun! This is easier to show through pictures. :D

Our first task was to drag someone on a disc sled around cones and back to the group.
We had to do so many girls and so many boys before we could move on.

The next objective was to kick a soccer ball around cones and back.
Two guys and two girls had to do this. I was one of the girls.
It was fun, but very challenging!

After the soccer we had to carry an empty can of spam between two people's hips around the cones and back. Again, there was a set number of girls and boys that had to do this, but I don't remember what that was.

Next was one round of charades. Someone was given a card and had to act out what was on it. After that we had a blue balloon we had to pass through a girls line, while the boys were passing theirs through a line. We had a set distance to go, so we had to run to the end of the line to actually make it the whole distance. Then we played the longest ever game of leap frog, still in our girls and boys lines, all the way back down the football field. This took what felt like forever!!!

Ultimately, red team won the relay, but it was highly enjoyable and no one got hurt, which is an improvement from last year!

We got a short break before the Ultimate Frisbee game started, then we split into teams. The staff was already in their teams before we could figure out how to get split up. Thankfully, we figured something out and were ready to play.

This was my team at first. We got switched around quite a bit before the end.

The girls! (L to R: Rebekah, me, Angie, and Sarah)

The staff won the frisbee game 11-7, which is actually pretty decent. Then we all got into a circle and dabbed up (Worldview's way of holding hands) to pray. I love looking around the circle and seeing the pure amount of kids and leaders all there for the same purpose. To glorify God and grow closer to Him.

A portion of the prayer circle.

We did not all have time to shower before our next lecture, so some of us just rubbed on lotion and tried to wash some of the chalk out of our hair and changed our clothes. Then we met back up with our small group to walk over to the lecture hall for another lecture. "Imago Dei" by Andy Frye (we heard a lot from him!). It was about man being made in the image of God and ethics.

Next we got dinner! YAY! After running around outside, we were really hungry! Dinner went very quickly, then we headed into worship and our next lecture. "Branding" by Randy Sims. It was a really good lecture and referred back to our first lecture. It was quite bittersweet because it was our last lecture as just us students. The next lecture we would have would include our parents.

After our lecture, we had to take a test, which is actually really easy because it is open book and if you took good notes, everything will be in your notebook. When we finished our tests, if time was not up, we wrote poems to our leaders. When time was up, they went over all of the answers then we had the Spamley Cup.

The Spamley Cup is whoever got the most color team points, but they always do a huge theatrical things to announce who won. The theme this year was Frozen and Amy was Elsa, which was really fun. Red won, which was Amy's team, but no one else in my small group was on red.

After the Spamley Cup, we went into campfire where students gets to share their favorite memories from the week and what they learned and really stood out. We sang some songs and students talked for a while, then we went into our last t-time. It was marvelous and sad at the same time. We had our own little small group campfire with snacks and lots of laughter.

Then we were off to our rooms to finish packing and attempt to get some sleep.

:D Cue the hysterical laughter. Abby, Diane, Rebekah, and I did not go to sleep. We all sat in mine and Rebekah's room and talked about all sorts of things and laughed until everything hurt. I was the watch and would go check outside every once in a while to make sure our leaders did not hear us awake because they were having a staff meeting down the hall. At one point Amy was standing outside our door listening, but thankfully we were being really quiet at that time, so she did not hear us.

Eventually we did get into bed, and after Rebekah and I talked a little longer, we went to sleep.

WVA 2014: Wednesday

There is a lot of anticipation in camp Wednesday morning. It is evangelizing day. We all got ready for the day pretty quickly, then headed to devos and quiet times followed by breakfast. I was pretty nervous and so was the rest of my group.

After breakfast, we went into our first lecture which was called "Deconstructing the Matrix" by Andy Frye. It was about postmodernism. We got a five minute break then went into evangelism training. 

Evangelism training is usually just a quick meeting telling us where we are allowed to go and generally walking us through the tract we were given, but this time they did a short bible study on evangelizing, which was very encouraging! After our bible study, they went through the usual things, but there was something very shocking they told us. We would be evangelizing in Millennium Park. Even the alumni was shocked by this fact. Usually we go evangelizing in very small areas, so we were not expecting such a huge location! 

We were dismissed from training and sent into our small groups to be put into evangelism teams. My group had two girls and a guy, which included Abby, myself, and Daniel (who is leader Rebekah's younger brother). Once we met up with our groups, we were sent to lunch. Daniel, Abby, and I were going to awkwardly sit at a table with just the three of us for the hour of lunch, but then we noticed that our small groups were sitting together at one of the big tables and decided to join them. Abby and I sat together at one end of the table and Daniel ended up sitting at the other end, so we really did not get to talk much, but that is okay. Abby and I were at the same end of the table as Andrew (Daniel's leader), Amy, and leader Rebekah, so we got to ask a lot of questions about where we were going, how long it would take to get there, and all of the other logistics, before hand.

After what felt like a very short hour, Amy and Andrew told us it was time to go to our dorms and put all of our bags in our rooms so we did not have to bring them with us. Abby and I made fools of ourselves all the way to our room and while we were in the room because we were so terribly nervous for the evangilism practicum.

We met back up with our small group and Andrew's small group and then loaded up on the buses. Half of my small group was on the other bus, while the other half was at the very back of my bus. Abby and I sat together with Daniel and Abby's older brother Jacob in about the middle of the bus. Talk about a loud bus ride! I never knew an hour ride in a bus could take so miserably long!!! Once we got closer to Chicago, Abby and I started talking about Divergent and got very distracted by this thought for quite a while.

The buses dropped us off in Millennium Park and the group gathered around the leader who was facilitating our practicum. He prayed with us and told us what time to meet back at the buses and then released us for our practicum.

Abby, Daniel, and I walked around for a second trying to find someone to talk to, then approached a man who was very cautious of us at first. After a few moments in conversation, he started to warm up to us and then told us about where he went to church and how amazing the Gospel is. We highly enjoyed talking with him and were very encouraged, but we knew we had to move on.

The next people we talked to blew us off pretty quickly. Daniel asked him "What happens when you die?" and his response was brief, "I don't want to die, so it doesn't matter." I cannot help but feel bad for this man and his family if that is truly what they believe. There is no hope in that. None at all.

Abby and I started the next conversation with two women who were talking on the sidewalk. One of the women very adamantly did not want to talk to us, but the other seemed willing. Sadly, the woman who did not want to talk to us dragged her away before we were able to have much of a conversation.

We talked to a black couple who was very open. I was not too sure what they believed at first, but soon realized they were both Christians. Sometimes it is rather encouraging to talk to someone who believes the same thing, especially after being rejected back to back several times.

Our next conversation was by far the longest. There was a couple sitting on a bench and Daniel started talking to them and the conversation lasted almost 15 minutes, which is a pretty decent amount of time. The one man claimed to be an atheist and the woman did not know what she ultimately believed, though she did know that she believed nothing happens when we die. At one point the man started to get very loud and pushy and a leader started circling around us to make sure we were okay, then the conversation settled back down and we continued through without any problems.

After we talked to them, it was time to head back to the buses. Abby handed her pamphlet out on our way back, then we met up with our small group outside the buses and talked for a little bit before it was time to load up.

On the way back, Abby, leader Rebekah, and I sat together and we had a lovely talk all the way back. It kept me distracted from the noise and the motion sickness that was starting to overwhelm me. We talked about all sorts of stuff and were all laughing and having fun on the way back with the pressure of evangelizing off our shoulders.

When we got back, we had evangelism debriefing where students get to share their stories. This is one of my favorite parts of camp, because it makes us feel like we are not alone and others were rejected. Also, some people talk to individuals who are willing to have a decent conversation and are open to hearing the Gospel.

After our debriefing, we had two minutes to go back to our dorms and grab our bags. It is a five minute walk one way, so we all took off running back to the dorms full-speed. On the way back, Abby, Diane, and I got stuck in a downpour and were quite wet when we got back to the lecture hall. Amy met us before we made it in the room and then we headed in for our lecture.

We were all so hungry during our lecture, I don't think many of us were paying too much attention. I honestly don't even remember what the lecture was really about. It was called "Word (part 1)" and Andy Frye gave it. The lecture was something along the lines of proof that the Old Testament is real.

Dinner was next. Heavenly food!!! My whole small group ate way too much and all had pretty bad stomach aches afterwards. In the time between our next lecture and dinner, leader Rebekah taught us a silly game with sound effects and motions. We all were laughing hysterically and it was nice to play a game that required us sitting down and not moving around too much. :D

Our next lecture is a lecture that all of the alumni look forward to. It is called "A Night at the Movies." The marvelous Chris Sharp presented the lecture and did a fabulous job. It is a lecture talking about the worldview in popular movies and how to decipher the main questions each movies asks.

After our lecture, we got to go to t-time. We played "Never Have I Ever..." combined with musical chairs and had a blast!!! It was so much fun to play and get to move around a little bit after sitting so much (and after our stomachs had the chance to settle a little!). We had our own small group evangelism debriefing for the rest of small group time. Then we walked back together in the rain to our dorms.

Naturally, we had another after t-time small group party. This time we finished off the oreos and spent most of the time laughing and enjoying the freedom of being done with evangelizing. Leader Rebekah came to give us our five minute lights out warning and ended up hanging out for those last five minutes. We also experimented with eating oreos and bananas which is rather good together!

Amy told us lights out and none of us fought to hard before going to bed.

My amazing evangelizing group! (Daniel looks like
David Tennant from Doctor Who in this picture!)

My evangelism group talking to the couple.

Special birthday celebration!

Happy happy birthday to an amazing friend and sister. I love you so much my dear Rebekah!!!

HAPPY 17th BIRTHDAY REBEKAH!!!!!

You are a sweet and caring friend and I could not imagine my life without you in it. There are so many great memories I have with you and hope to create many, many more. Thank you for being an excellent friend and listening to my crazy antics, especially with signing stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed having you as a roommate at Worldview and our late night heart-to-heart talks and giggles.
Praying that you have a marvelous year and that you are able to grow closer to God each and every day as He is preparing you to become an adult (next year!).

Love you!!!

WVA 2014: Tuesday

Tuesday morning we all woke up with renewed energy...sort of. We were all exhausted, but ready for the day to start nonetheless. We actually made it to devotions on time and then went to quiet times. After quiet times was breakfast, as usual. Our group played more "Never have I ever..." and then headed into our first lecture. Once we claimed our seats, we played the foot game (our usual game for during breaks).

The staff did a skit and then we went into our first lecture of the day. "Aesthetics" by Dell Cook. I really enjoyed that lecture. It was talking about what is beautiful and Christianity and the arts. We got a five minute break and then returned to lectures.

Our next lecture was rather different from the others we had because it was a role play lecture. Dell Cook took on the personality of a struggling Christian who just lost his wife and three daughters in a car accident. The students' job was to talk to him about how God was still good and still had control and had his best interests in mind. About three quarters of the way through, he switched back to being himself and debriefed us on our conversation.

We headed to lunch after that. Diane and Seairra started a "war" of which I am not sure who won. They were keeping score on who scared who more.

Once we settled down a little more, it was time to go to small group. We got to have small group in the circle room (my favorite room on all of campus!!!). Amy and leader Rebekah talked with us about our lectures and we also practiced presenting the gospel to each other in preparation for our evangelizing practicum on Wednesday. It was really strange trying to share the gospel with each other when there were no prompts or anything to segway into. We talked with one person for a while, then they would have us switch to another person. I talked with Diane and Abby. We debriefed from that for a little while and they talked to us a little bit about evangelizing and what was generally expected of us and so on.

Abby, Seairra, leader Rebekah, and I headed out to frisbee that afternoon for free time. While we were waiting for everyone to get there to play, we played the foot game to stretch out and also to keep us occupied. :D Abby and I played frisbee until we had about an hour before our next lecture, then headed back together to get showers and get ready for the rest of the night.

We walked back to lectures together and waited for everyone else to get out of the circle room where they were playing/watching mafia. Then we went into the lecture hall and commenced listening to our next lecture. It was called "Logos" and was given by Andy Frye. Every year we get a lecture generally along the lines of this one, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless.

When the lecture was over, we headed to dinner. It was just Diane and I who ended up sitting together for dinner, but we thoroughly enjoyed each other's company. :D

Our next lecture was called "Roadblocks to Leadership" and was presented by Randy Sims. He gave this lecture in a different format than any other lecture we got all week. It was very student involved and we gave ideas for what was holding us back from being servant leaders. Lots of people came up with really good ideas and the lecture really made me think about my personal roadblocks to being a leader.

We went into worship after a five minute break, then began our last lecture of the night called "The King and I" by Andy Frye. This was our only government lecture this year, which made me happy. It wasn't honestly that bad either. He talked about Christian's role with the government and how we are to react to laws we don't agree with.

After that lecture, we went to t-time and were able to read through our pamphlets we would be using for evangelizing the next day. They were pretty cool. Our prompt question was "What happens when you die?" Not my favorite question ever, but it did start a lot of conversations (more on that in my Wednesday post). We ate snacks and talked about the remainder of our lectures from that day, then went into our dorms. Once again, we had a small group party, but leader Rebekah was with us this time. :D Amy came briefly to tell us lights out, but we ended up running around like chickens with our heads cut of trying to get ready for bed. We stayed up a little later than usual because Rebekah and I were talking about evangelizing.

This was the end of the second full day of camp.

Me and the other Kiersten. 

Sweet picture of our group.

Normal picture of our group. :D

Me and Abby (and Seairra in the background)

Fuzzy llama at Worldview!!!

Small Group Party (Monday night)

As mentioned earlier, Monday night we had a little small group party (minus leaders) in our dorm and ate lots of yummy food and took lots of silly pictures. This post is for the sake of the pictures. :D

Seairra laughing at who knows what. 

Diane and I taking pictures of taking pictures. 

Beautiful Margaret!

and Seairra photo bombing in a very creep way.

Diane. :D

Oreos (and Seairra's tongue)

Diane and Seairra having a conversation about food.

Abby, Seairra, and Diane

Amy being....well....Amy

Long story behind this picture. In short, there is an oreo on the table
and Seairra wanted it, but did not want to get up. Diane is taking a picture
of me sitting on the desk. Thus, the picture.

WVA 2014: Monday

Monday. It feels like ages ago, so much has happened between now and then.

Since we stayed up so late Sunday night, you would think getting up by 7:30 would be hard. Not at all!!! We all got up and were ready to walk out the door, sitting in our lobby area of the dorm room when Amy and leader Rebekah came to wake us up. :D The looks on their faces was priceless when they realized we were all ready for the day.

Once it was actually time for us to meet up, we went into the lobby on the floor of our dorm building we were staying on and Amy and leader Rebekah talked to us about having quiet times and some important things. They talked to us about how to make it more meaningful and the purpose of having a quiet time. Then we went and did our quiet times. They were really short because we talked for a while, which was totally fine by me. I wanted to glean as much information from Amy and leader Rebekah as I could during the week.

We finished up our quiet times and walked over to the cafeteria as a group. Breakfast was great, as usual! Bacon is totally awesome!!!!! The night before we had chosen breakfast as our meal that we ate all together as a group, so we claimed our table and all sat together and enjoyed each other's company during breakfast. After everyone finished eating, we still had some time before lectures, so we played "never have I ever..." and learned lots of random facts about each other. It was highly amusing.

After breakfast, we went and got together for camp pictures. We met behind the dorm buildings and were organized by gender and height. We talked with the people we were standing with for quite some time while they organized the boys into their lines. Then we all got into our groups and headed over to the actual place where they were taking the pictures. After they took the pictures, Robert, the videographer, took a short video of all of us jumping around and cheering for the camp video he made at the end of the week.

Then we were off to our first lecture of the day. It was a role-play lecture given by Andy Frye. He pretended to be Muslim and held conversations with all of us from that point of view. Most of the students did not know he really was not Muslim and that he was actually one of our faculty for the week. :D This was quite amusing after he switched to actually being himself.

We got a five minute break after lecture where my group played the foot game and got really well stretched out!!! When our breaks were over they played Pharell William's song "Happy" to get us to sit down. It was really fun to have a way to know when to sit down other than them having to yell "Tally Ho!!" almost five times before we actually accomplished the task.

Our next lecture was called "Servant Leadership" and was presented by Randy Sims. It was on the five pillars of leadership: empowerment, integrity, vision, meekness, and attitude. This is a lecture we get every year, so I already knew what he was going to say, but he is an excellent story teller and I thoroughly enjoyed all of his stories he put into the lecture!

After that we went to lunch, where our group sat together again, because we love each other so much!!! We played more "Never have I ever..." after lunch because we really enjoyed that game. Then we were off to small group time.

Actually, it was our leadership practicum first. This is something that makes me very curious. Anyway, we had to each hold a strand of rope and tie a knot in just one of the ropes. It is very difficult to describe. We worked at it for almost an hour before Amy and leader Rebekah told us we had to stop.

Here is a picture of one of the guy small groups trying to figure it out.

When we finished, we went into small group time, which meant we sat down, and talked about which of the pillars of leadership everyone exemplified. Then it we talked through some of our lectures for the day and were released for free time!!! YAY!!!

For free time we had several options on what to do, but most of the kids either go to Mafia or Ultimate frisbee. I was going to play frisbee, but started not feeling so up to it, so I played Mafia with Rebekah, Seairra, Margaret, Diane, Amy, and leader Rebekah. Abby was the only one from our group that went to play frisbee Monday.

Diane and Kathryn at Mafia.

Me, Rebekah, and Margaret playing Mafia.

Leader Rebekah and Amy at Mafia.

Seairra (left) playing Mafia.

After free time, we went into our next lecture, "Nature of God & Man" by Dell Cook. He talked about the different categories of worldviews (atheism, polytheism, pantheism, and monotheism). When that lecture was over we headed to dinner! 

Dinner always feels like the shortest meal because afterwards we head back into lectures. Our next lecture was called "Deep Magic" once again given by Dell Cook. It was about critical thinking. When that lecture ended we had worship time, then, guess what? Another lecture!!! This one was on the "Trinitarian Life," or more simply put, how to live out life as a Christian. (Can anyone guess who gave this lecture? Yep! Dell Cook!)

When Mr. Dell Cook finished with his lecture, we went to t-time with our small groups. My group played psychiatrist and then talked about our lectures from that day. At the end of t-time, we were supposed to go get ready for bed, but my group had a better idea. We had our own little small group party. :D I will post pictures of that later. 

At lights out, Amy and leader Rebekah came to find us all in the same room eating candy and trail mix and laughing hysterically. They ushered us off to bed smiling at our wackiness and we all fell asleep pretty quickly that night. 

Thus ended Monday. 

WVA 2014: Sunday

Sunday morning was the slowest, most torturous service I have ever had to sit through. Camp was only a few hours away, but those few hours felt like days. Finally it went from five hours, to four, three, two, one, and then none!!!!!

Staff at Worldview are amazing!!! They are always happy and energetic, but Sunday is a little different. When you drive into camp, as one student put it, they are attacking your car. This is pretty accurate!!!

Here is some of the staff ready to greet students! 

 As I got out of the car, the guys grabbed my bags (except my guitar, I kept that with me!) and took them to my dorm for me and I went to get checked in. As I rounded the corner from the parking lot, I saw that we were in the really wonderful dorms again. They are suites and really spacious. I did my silent little happy dance.

At check-in I met my main leader, Amy (not shown in the picture above) and got my color team bracelet (go blue team!!!). Then I went and retrieved my key to see which dorm I would be living in for the next week. I was on the third floor, so I had the privilege of climbing three flights of stairs three to four times a day. :D I was roomed with one of my dearest friends Rebekah, as well as someone from my small group last year, Diane. The other girl in our dorms was Abby, who's brother is friends with mine and Rebekah's brothers.

Me and my daddy in the dorms.

From left to right: Abby, me, and Diane.

Me in my room. :D

 Diane, Abby, and I met up in the lobby and hung out for a while. I greeted other friends from years before and got to know Abby better.






















Eventually, round up came about. We all grouped into our color teams and did a quick challenge trying to see which team could come up with more stuff. for their team (waterbottles, bibles, etc.) Then we were split into our small groups. It was a little while before my small group was called. Amy and Rebekah were our amazing leaders. In my group was Diane, Seairra, Rebekah (yes, there were two Rebekah's and they spell them the same way. I will try to differentiate for everyone on here!), Abby, Margaret, and myself. We went straight into orientation, led by Chris Sharp, our staff director. After orientation, we had a little bit of time with our small groups before dinner. My group played "two truths and a lie" and found out fun little facts about each other. Then we were off to dinner! At dinner, we found out A LOT about each other. Like the fact that we are all homeschooled and bookworms. This made us bond pretty quickly, and shy little Seairra disappeared. She exploded into this dancing, wacky, amazingly beautiful person and we never saw her shy again!!! :D

After dinner, we had our first official lecture. It was called "The Excellent Life." Dell Cook (one of my personal favorites this year) gave the lecture and talked about The things we should reject, value, be and do. It was a really good opening lecture!!!

We had worship after that, which was really good, as always. :D After that we went into another lecture. It is "Intro to Worldviews" and was given by Randy Sims. I absolutely adored this lecture!!! His last point was that we should live our Christian lives like we are on the black diamond trail. Then he showed a video of people jumping out of helicopters and skiing down the sides of mountains. Our challenge for the week, and ultimately for the rest of our lives, was to live a life like that.

We were dismissed from lecture and the girls headed to the dorms for hall meeting where they reiterate the rules and go into a little more detail. We also get to officially meet all of the girl staffers. Then we headed to our first t-time.

T-time is my favorite part of every day. It is where our small groups get to hang out and digest the day. We also get to eat food and be rather silly. Amy brought Nutella and pretzels and we ate that quite happily (who wouldn't!!!) and played a game called "hot seat," which is where everyone is able to ask the person in the 'hot seat' anything they would like for one minute. This was quite fun and we liked stumping each other with questions that they could not answer right away. :D

At the end of t-time, Amy and leader Rebekah asked us what our goals for the week were, and then sent us off to get ready for bed. Diane, Abby, Rebekah, and I talked for a little bit, then went into our rooms at lights out.

Rebekah and I talked until a little after 2:30am then finally went to sleep ready for the next day to begin.

Rebekah and I with the Worldview sign. 

Worldview Academy 2014

Whoo Hoo!!!!!!!!!! I am home from camp and it is now time for my daily documentation of camp. :D I probably won't do it the same way I did last year because I have too much going on this week, but I will try to get all of the days up before the end of the week. :)

I had an absolutely amazing week and got to meet back up with many, many friends and meet new friends as well.

Here we go.........

Ms. Janet

A couple months ago, a very dear friend/surrogate grandmother was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. She has been in many different hospitals (I think the total was three) and a nursing home. This past Saturday she went to be with Jesus. I know for sure that she was a Christian and is much, much happier than I could ever even start to imagine. Even though I miss her dearly, I am glad that she in no longer in any pain and currently worshiping our dear Lord Jesus Christ and will be for the rest of eternity.

Please keep her family in your prayers as they are all struggling with her passing. It is really hard not to have her around all the time and I have been blessed with amazing friends who have been supporting me and I pray Ms. Janet's family has that same support.

Guitar Recital

Saturday was my first guitar recital. :D It was quite a bit of fun. There were only four of us who were able to perform in the recital, but that made it short and sweet. I played "Rock Around the Clock" and "Amazing Grace." "Rock Around the Clock" was chords and I played to a track, while I played the notes for "Amazing Grace." The recital was at a church that I used to go to co-op at, which brought back a lot of rather funny memories. :D I highly enjoyed this recital and am looking forward to a winter recital!!!

Piano Recital

A couple weeks ago was my Spring piano recital. The theme was music through the ages. I played Chopin's Prelude in E minor. It was so much fun!!! I really enjoyed this recital. Most of the people played two songs, but I was very happy and pleased with my one song. Originally, I was playing two songs, the other was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but I did not learn it fast enough/ practice it enough. :D So it is pretty much my own fault I did not get to perform it. Overall, it was a very good recital and one of my favorites.

The devious duo :D