In two weeks, our youth group, the Uprising, is going to be in charge of evening church. During that Sunday night, we will be sharing what we learned at MOVE. It is going to be really cool. WE are going to sing worship songs we learned and talked about the lessons, show a couple videos and maybe do a skit.
This is probably going to be our last thing like this with our seniors, Lincoln and Justine. That means me and Landon need to be ready to step up and be in charge. I am excited, but I'm also nervous. I'm going to have to take Lincoln's place as the pianist...and I'm not as good as him. I play be ear and he can do so better in a way I don't know how to. So as far as music, I don't know how well I can play. And since I'm taking over Lincoln's position, Kaitlyn will be taking over mine and be in charge of the skits and games. I'm excited for it, though. It will be fun.

In other news, I've memorized even more of Ephesians:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God,
To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise be the the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless, in his sight. In love he has predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance to his pleasure and will- to the praise of his glorious grace, that he has freely given to us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance to the riches of God's grace, that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, that he purposed through Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment- to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

CIY Challenge

So our youth group just got back from CIY and on the last night, they passed out these little green envelopes to us. They told us inside them were different commitments we could make if we chose to open them. But if we opened them, we HAD TO DO THEM.
Everyone was pretty excited to open theirs, but our youth minister, Stony, told us we had to wait until Sunday morning at church.
We got home and came to church the next day. We began to go around the room opening the envelopes. Some of them said they had to volunteer to tutor elementary school kids for a year. Others said they had to volunteer in a soup kitchen and do whatever they say to do for a year. One girl had to plant a vegetable garden and give all its produce to a local food bank. Two people have to start a bible study at school. This one guy has to do 2 nice things for our youth minister a month for a year.
There were also things on the cards like "Raise $2,000 to send 10 non-Christian friends to CIY next year" and "Sell $500 worth of your stuff and give the money to a charity". One girl has to pay and plan a trip for her parents.
I have to memorize the book of Ephesians. But when it was read to me, I thought Stony said Exodus. Thats a 34 chapter difference. But I feel like I should have something more challenging. How is memorizing a book reaching out? I know I can talk to people about it, but still.
I already have to first 2 verses memorized:

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God,
2 To the saints of Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I memorized that this morning.

I'm going to try and blog more often, also.

FCA Camp

I recently got to go to FCA Camp! What an experience! It was amazing! Not only did I become closer to God, but I also got to try out crazy new things, like horseback riding, repelling, and high ropes courses. It was so fun!

I would encourage everyone who reads this to talk to your local FCA or church to find out how you can go to one of these totally awesome camps. Also to encourage all your friends. You can go to http://www.fca.org/ to get more info.

Here is a video from this year at my camp. It is kind of blurry, but it's great!

Palm Sunday

OK, I'll be in Florida on Palm Sunday, so I won't get to put in an entry on Sunday. So I'm doing it today.

Hopefully you all know what Palm Sunday is: it is when Jesus rode into town and all the Jews who were there laid leaves and branches for Jesus and his donkey to walk on.

I just wanted to wish everybody a happy Palm Sunday and a good Spring Break.

Jesus Rock

Every day I carry around a little stone in my pocket to help me remeber to act like a daughter of God at school. It really helps alot more than I first thought it would. And it doesn't have to be a rock. It can be a piece of paper, a coin, anything really. Try it.

Free Rice for Vocabulary Words

There is a website: http://freerice.com/, where you can answer vocab. words and for each word you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to help stop world hunger. IT doesn't seen like a lot, but last night I spent about 25 minutes messing around with the words and got 7240 grains of rice donated. And even a little bit can make a difference.

Compassion

There are a million little kids in counties in poverty. I know that a lot of places that you can sponsor children from cheat people out of their money and only about half goes to the children and I know that the sponsor people can be extremely annoying when they send you all that extra crap about sending more money and having other people sign up and stuff, but knowing that a little kid is getting helped makes it worth it.

I am currently sponsoring a 11 year old girl in Ethiopia named Emebet. She is so cute! And at times when I question why I signed up to sponsor her, the next day or so I'll get a letter from her in the mail and it makes me happy and ready to help again. Like God is trying to help me stay on track to help her. She always sends me these cute little pictures she's drawn of cars and animals and herself. And then I remember why I do it. The people who I sent the money to is Compassion.

So what I'm trying to say is we as God's children should help his other children in need, whether it be helping out in your community or sponsoring a child. Do something! Remember ARKs?
And if you are currently sponsoring a child somewhere, that's great! And if your not and you would like to, check it out here.