Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart
Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light
Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord
Thou my great father and I Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one
Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise
Thou mine inheritance now and always
Thou and Thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven my treasure Thou art
High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven's door, bright heaven sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, oh ruler of all
Still be my vision, oh ruler of all

This was my cabin of crazy Tropical Treasures! I will be with these girls for there junior high years and this is only the beginning! I'm so excited to see what God does in there lives in the upcoming years as they grow in him. My prayer is that God will give me the words to say to help them come to know him better!

THE MEGHAN SAWYER!! She was my co counselor and I honestly don't know what I would have done with out her. She was an amazing help and I'm so happy that I can now call her friend. We have gone through a week of something that most people never have to or get to experience. This week we learned a lot about ourselves, about each other and about our girls. I can't wait to get to know even more about this women of God! *I do know that she is not a morning person and I learned this by waking the whole cabin up with music before I left for my counselor meeting every morning. Good Times!*

What a Day!

I know I haven't been blogging much but after the last two weeks i finally am finding time and I will be updating you all on what has been happening.

Now I would just like to say thanks to all of you who contributed to my birthday! It was a great day. I got tons of Target gift cards and a fire dance. It was legit. I realized that I am now TWO DECADES old. 20 Years old! It's crazy to think about it because I still feel like I'm in junior high. Maybe that is because I am working with junior highers but I don't know. I still can't believe I'm not a teenager. Funny thought too was my last week of being a teenager I went to super summer camp. I really went back to the good old times of being a kid.

After 20 years I honestly can say that I am one blessed girl. I have great friends and family. I have had my struggles. I'm sure that I will have many more. But God has taken care of my through it all. His plan becomes clearer every day then he serves me a curve ball. At first I would be really frustrated about the sudden changes but then I think, What fun is life with out the curve balls? I look back at my life so far and I see that those curve balls have really been blessings in disguise and they have truly taught me to rely on God. This is a continual lesson that I am so bless and happy to have. And let me tell you that God is working in me because I don't think that a year ago I could feel this calm about the curve balls.

Basically I just wanted to let you all know that I'm so thankful for all of you guys in my life and that I am truly blessed!

(This first one is blurry but I think this is the best picture to show you the fire dance i received on my birthday. Ron and Chris were the best even though i for sure feared for my life. The Second one gave you a better picture of my emotion.)

Only the Beginning

As I hope most of you know already I am working as one of the junior high interns at Bethany Church of Long Beach. It was fun to see God take my situation and put this church and the junior high ministry right in it. He definitely shut doors...slammed them shut but he also opened big windows. This leads me to say that I am one of the junior high interns at Bethany Church of Long Beach.

After being offered the position of intern and then accepting it did not take Jon, the junior high pastor to ask me to go to Super Summer camp with a cabin of 5th grade soon to be 6th grade girls who would be in the youth group for the next couple of years. He wanted to get as much staff to welcome these new junior highers in as possible. This was a bigger task then I thought.

I met the girls first at the camps pre camp rally. Let's just say that I found out that I had my work cut out for me. But in everything God puts things in our lives to help us grow and hedoesn't give us anything that we can't handle. This was a verse that I had to keep in mind forthe next couple of weeks leading up to camp and continually as I was at camp. I honestly thought that going to camp was to get to know the girls and help them make the transition into junior high. What I didn't expect was to meet tons of new people in the Bethany church family who helped make me feel like part of the family. It was a true blessing to meet the other staff and to get to know a lot more kids then just the girls in my cabin. God's plan was far greater than I could have ever imagined. He took care of every fear and yet he challenged me so much. Not only was camp hard but when you lose your voice on the second day and your name is Cheryl Kay Krake, a person who talks a lot you find yourself in a bit of a problem. I had to learn to depend on my other counselor, which I think helped her grow too. God takes every experience and he uses it to show his glory. He has proven to me once again how good he really is.

Now that I am finally updating everyone on camp summer is officially on the way! God is really using this summer to teach me and I am excited to see what he has planned!