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!!!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
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.
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.
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| Me and the other Kiersten. |
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| Sweet picture of our group. |
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| Normal picture of our group. :D |
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| Me and Abby (and Seairra in the background) |
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| 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
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| Seairra laughing at who knows what. |
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| Diane and I taking pictures of taking pictures. |
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| Beautiful Margaret! |
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| and Seairra photo bombing in a very creep way. |
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| Diane. :D |
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| Oreos (and Seairra's tongue) |
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| Diane and Seairra having a conversation about food. |
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| Abby, Seairra, and Diane |
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| Amy being....well....Amy |
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| 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.
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.
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.
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| Here is a picture of one of the guy small groups trying to figure it out. |
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.
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| Diane and Kathryn at Mafia. |
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| Me, Rebekah, and Margaret playing Mafia. |
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| Leader Rebekah and Amy at Mafia. |
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| 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.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
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!!!
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.
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.
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!!!
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| Here is some of the staff ready to greet students! |
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.
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| Me and my daddy in the dorms. |
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| From left to right: Abby, me, and Diane. |
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| Me in my room. :D |
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.
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| 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.........
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.........
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