Happy Sunday All,

Back from YoungLife weekend camp and I am as exhausted as I could have expected to be. It was FREEZING (which is great because it keeps reminding me why I am headed due South upon graduation), but sure a fun time with girls. After going on so many of these things...and by things I mean Young Life weekends and summer camps...I think I always look forward to spending uber amounts of time with the whole group of girls. I am excited for what we will ALL do TOGETHER, and always find that is is quite the opposite that ends up being great.

I love being with people individually. It is part of my selfishness when it comes to friends because I want them all to myself, but this is a good selfishness. I love to hear people's true hearts - what they will say when no one else is around. This is especially true for high school girls that I have come to love. When they are willing to share their hearts with me I feel like I am receiving the greatest blessing from God. I got a few moments this weekend where I got to be one on one with girls. I think that I am initially so "eh" about these moments because I worry that they will ask me hard questions, or that I will not be able to comfort them if need be. SILLY ME. How can I keep worrying about this when God has showed me time and time again that He will speak through me. That my words will be HIS.

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

I NEVER want people's faith to rest on what I have to say. No one would know God because of my jumbled up words. My favorite verse here is verse 2. To know NOTHING but Jesus Christ and HIM crucified. Now that is life man. It does not matter what comes out of my mouth if I resolve to know nothing more than Christ. Sometimes I get so much anxiety about leading. It is hard and it stresses me out a lot because i feel a lot of responsibility, when in all actuality, God has chosen to use me in this ministry for my own sake. He doesn't NEED me, IN Mariemont, in order to bring people to Christ. He would do that anyway. All he wants me to do is KNOW Him and know only Him.

I love this ministry. It works and God does huge things through relationships, which are the cornerstone of Young Life. I was talking to Kim, who leads at Madeira, this weekend. Telling her about my possible move South and she asked me if I was planning on getting "plugged in." at first I wasn't sure exactly what she was getting at, but assured her that I would probably get involved with a church and what not and hopefully serve Young Life in another capacity for a while. She strongly suggested that I stay plugged in to Young Life because I won't find any other community like it. Other things may not help me to grow in the ways that Young Life has. Seeing this ministry firsthand makes it harder to become involved in others. Young Life is such an outreach ministry rather than working on simply feeding and sustaining the people themselves who choose to come around. I know that when I move, wherever it happens to be, that I want to continue to serve in Young Life. I think it will look different for a while, meaning not in the field , but rather serving college students who volunteer or participating with committee things, but I am not being called out of it yet. No way.

Cannot wait for Tuesday. Home is calling me and I am pretty jealous because the sisters are getting there tonight. They will all have fun without me of course. Uncle David (doesn't) know(s) how that feels. Gotta get back to procrastinating on my paper due for night class tomorrow. Probably settling for a B on this one.