A Few SummerSalt Pics

OK. I give. Here are some of my SS pics. I wanted to wait for the billions David (our youth intern/leader) was supposed to give me, but since he's off honeymooning I'm not betting on getting those real soon. So, here are a few of mine, and when/if I get David's I'll post some of them too!




Me and "Holland" <--- Doncha love nicknames?



Me and Holland butting heads :D



Me and Lauren hanging in one of the awesomest chairs ever!



Lauren, Daniel, and Me at the class of '09 and '10 ice cream party.



My roomies: Me, Holly, Alex (the bestest college leader!), Marissa, and Lauren.



My Cell Group


Good times, good times.

Never

Lots of things should never happen.

Finding out that someone you knew was murdered by a serial killer is one of them.

You may recognize this picture from one of my very first blog posts last June. Abby, Me, Holly, Lauren, and Faith in the middle. It was taken June 20, 2008. Who would have thought that just a little over a year later, one of us would be dead. This afternoon, I found out that last weekend, on July 4th, Abby died as a result of being shot by the Gaffney serial killer. This killer had taken 4 other victims, the fourth was her dad. She was helping out at her dad's furniture store, and for some reason, this deranged killer decided to end both her and her dad's lives.

She was just a girl I met at SummerSalt last year. I didn't talk to her again after the day this picture was taken. But we hung out for a week. We were in a Bible study group together. I remember walking down to the lake with her, just talking. I remember her being really sweet. She was the kind of person that you're supposed to recognize at camp the next year, go up and talk to them, ask how they've been. You're not supposed to find out a year later that they were murdered. Never.

So, I'm sitting here, wondering the purpose behind my writing this. Wondering why I'm crying right now over a girl I hung out with for a week a year ago. Maybe it's the sheer wrongness of it all. No high schooler should be murdered. Never. But maybe it's just the fact that this girl, who I talked with, walked with, put my arm around, is now dead. Shot. Murdered.

Now I start to wonder God's purpose behind this. Why did I meet Abby, hang out with her, then find out she was killed? Why did our lives intersect for that short amount of time briefly before hers was taken from her?

I can't imagine what her family must be going through. Losing not only Abby, but her dad as well. Please keep the Tyler family in your prayers. The unthinkable happened to them.

About Camp...

So it's been a week since we got back from camp. Sorry it's taken so long to get this written. I was wanting to post my thoughts and pictures at the same time, but as I'm still waiting for some pics, I figured I'd better go ahead and write this out and put up pics whenever I get them. So, here it goes!

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends more on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." - Colossians 2:8

That was the theme verse for SummerSalt 09, and what an experience that was!

Worship/Big Group - First off, Matt's teaching was amazing, more so than last year! I mean, everyone learned and/or was convicted of so much. The truth hit us "like a truck." Truths about being desperate for Jesus, about cherishing Scripture. It was incredible! The worship time was amazing as well. The songs weren't as good as last year, but they were still really powerful. Some of my favorites new songs we learned were "Our God Saves," "Lift High," "Everlasting God" (a different song than the very popular Lincoln Brewster song), and "My Savior Lives."

Cell Groups - I was really blessed to be chosen (along with Holly, Lauren, Marissa, Daniel) to be in the catalyst cell group which is a group especially for the leaders of the youth group. I enjoyed so much being in a group with other youth leaders and sharing with and learning from them! Our Bible study times were really great, and there weren't any awkward pauses waiting for someone to say something because everyone was really open!

Church Groups - I enjoyed this time with just my youth group. I especially liked hearing from some of the middle schoolers, what they were learning and their thoughts on different things. I think it really hit us leaders that week that within a couple of years, all us "founding members" will have graduated and that we need to be training the middle schoolers now to be the next group of leaders.

Games/Activities - My favorite activity we did as a cell group was the high ropes course. This was the second time I had done one, though it was a good deal different this time. Last time, the ropes course was very much an individual thing, only one person could be on a section at a time. At SS, though, everyone had to be on the section before anyone could get off on the other side. This involved a lot of teamwork, which was interesting since we had only met each other the day before, but I think it's one of the things that got us close as a group from the beginning.

Random Hang Time - Whether we were hanging out at the pool during free time or eating rice krispies at 11:30pm, I always enjoyed just chillin' with my friends. They're such fun to be around, and we had some good times together at camp!

Soooooo... those are my thoughts on camp! I'll probably throw a few more tidbits out there when I post pics, but for the most part... that's it! Yay, glad I got that off my to-do list! :D

I hope I can post some random stuff tomorrow, if I have time, about what's been going on lately and whatever I can come up with to say for Independence Day. Right now, I want to go to bed.

Nightie-Night!

Off to Camp!

Since Phillip has a fever and I'll be staying home from church with him, I thought I'd use some of this time to post a quick update. This week was pretty good. My other cousins (Brit, Bre, and Blair) came up, and we got to do some stuff on the lake with them on Friday. I had my first falls of the season, thanks to Blair! How she, who was in the middle, the safest place on the tube, managed to knock 4 out of 5 people of the tube is beyond me!

I realized I never really said how my trip to NGU went a few Thursdays ago. Well, it was raining, so we had to walk around campus with umbrellas, but I really liked it. We toured campus, met with Dr. Savage (head of the theater department), and met with Wes (my admissions counselor). Everyone was super nice and I was really please with the size of everything! Apparently the average class size is 15 students, so I'm really excited about that. The only school-like experience I've had outside of home was at MLC, and I enjoyed it so much! I got to know my teacher and our class had around 15 kids, so we all knew each other well too. Needless to say, I'm now 110% sure that's where I'm going. Now I've just got to find someone to drag over there with me! I've got a couple potential possibilities...

Tomorrow we're heading off to SummerSalt! Yay! I can't wait to see Matt again (he and Sarah officially moved a few weeks ago)! He's going to be the camp pastor that week. I'm also really excited about, well, camp! We had a lot of fun last year, and I hope it'll be as good this year! Any prayers would be much appreciated.

Well, Mr. Sick wants to get on, so I'd better get off. I'll try to update soon after we get back, hopefully with lots of pics!

Summersalt Buddies!

These are pics of me and my friends who went to Summersalt with me. We had so much fun together, and as you can tell from the pics, were a little crazy!!
Daniel, Will, Lauren, and Holly - What am I
gonna do with ya'll??


Holly and I

The "Crosspoint Girls"... BFFs!!

Our Dream Team

All us "Crosspoint girls" were in a Dream Team (aka Bible Study Group) together. During Dream Team time, we did a Bible Study and played some crazy games (Keypad, Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Land Whale Watching were the names of a few of them). These pics are of us with our Dream Team girlfriends (Abby and Faith), our whole Dream Team, us with our Dream Team leader (Stephen), and our whole Dream Team.

Back from Summersalt!

I got back from camp on Friday. I had such an awesome time!! Rebekah left for Summersalt yesterday, and my friend and I were so jealous. We wanted so badly to go back!! The whole camp - games, Bible studies, meeting new people - was amazing, but probably the best part was getting to know the people from my youth group a lot better. Thanks for your prayers!! I'll try to post some camp pictures soon!!

Gone to Camp this Week

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I, along with four other guys and gals from youth group, will be gone to camp this week. Please pray that God will speak to us, that we will get closer to each other, and that we won't die of heat strokes (the camp is one of the hottest places in the state I believe!! :/)!! Talk to ya'll when I get back!!

Summer Camp, Here I Come!

YAY!! From June 16-20th, I get to go to Summersalt, a camp, with some folks from my youth group! The two girls I'm rooming with are also going to go with me on a mission trip in July, so it'll be good to get to know each other better through camp. I'll have to take some pics to post on here once I get back.