tis the season.. how i love it so!

i should probably stop talking about how it's been a while since i posted and just start posting more! haha :) guilty.

well, we just got back from Christmas break and have jumped right back into work. it felt weird working again, but it is so great to be back and with the interns! i missed them so much. to catch yall up on what has been going on i will list some things! the week before we left for home we had a Christmas party/ get together every night for 4 nights straight! monday through thursday we worked during the day and had Christmas parties at night! so much fun, but really exhausting. we had a staff wide party at Shine FM in baltimore who is part of Peter and John Ministries. the Ranch is also part of P&J Ministries. it was so fun to see how the station works and putting faces to the voices you hear on the radio! that night we had a party for the community around the ranch. i believe i mentioned that before in the last blog. it was a great way to get to know the neighbors. i played with the kids all night.. too much fun :) the next morning we had a just ranch staff gift exchange. i got an awesome travel coffee mug from Morgan. woohoo! more parties followed.. it was a great time connecting with others, but i really do feel exhausted after weeks like that.. i needed some down time and alone time for sure. on friday Matt let us leave early right after lunch because of the blizzard that was coming! good thing he did because it hit and left us under 18inches of snow! absolutely beautiful! well, instead of going home i drove to my friend carly's house who had just gotten back from Africa. she was there for 3 months. i ended up being snowed in at her house for 3 days! didn't bother me any :) :) we had a lot of catching up to do anyways. it was great to reconnect and hear about how God worked in her down in Africa. then the long trek home.. ugh.. 4 hours turned into 7 hours.. thank you traffic and snow on the sides of the roads. spent a great week at home spending much needed down time and quality time with friends and family.. you ever wish you could clone yourself and be 20 places at once?? sometimes i do because there are so many friends i want to see and spend time with.. i havent even gotten to spend time in the burg yet!! i will make it there, mark my words! i had a great Christmas with a special guest! Stephen came down for Christmas eve and morning. it was one of my favorite Christmas presents :) as great as it was to see family and spend time with them it can also be tough. let's just say my last day home wasn't the best.. arguments, bad memories, and the struggle with guilt weighed heavy on my heart for a few days.. the Lord's love endures forever and for that i am grateful.. he washes me clean and white as snow daily. thank you Lord for new days, new chances, and new opportunities to grow and learn from mistakes. thank you for being my refuge. i did my devotional yesterday and it was on how the Lord is our refuge.. it is something we always hear, but i had never taken the time to look into what a refuge really is. i discoved that it is a safe place. God is my safe place.. He is the person i run to and the person i feel completely safe with. where i know i am forgiven and where i am learning. i can't imagine not having Him to run to.

a little update on what is happening now.. we are continuing to prepare for Winter Meltdown! Winter Meltdown is an event we put on for 100's of youth for 6 weekends. We want to challenge them to grow in the faith and for some start the new journey of following the Lord. Working on the set and OTM trying to get the building looking tip top for the event. i have been assigned to read 4 poems from memory. not gonna lie i am very nervous! i have 1 memorized and half of the really really long one i have to do. i know i will have them memorized in time, but i am afraid i will feeze. it's weird cause i am a huge people person and i can be in front of large amounts of people and be fine.. but having to memorize something makes things more nerve wrecking for me.. make sense? haha if God brought me to it He will bring me through it!! just gotta believe it! :) positive self talk.. learning that too! ;) the poems i have to read are deep. i mean deep for kids! and kids wrote these poems! the one that wasn't written by kid's is really long.. i have memorized a little over half, but the catch is that it is slam poetry.. that means i have speak it with a lot of soul.. funny they choose me.. :) i am excited yet very nervous.. pray for me! :)

i will update more on this week when it's over.. it is a very eventful week.. we have a very large group in now and we have the summer staff reunion mid week for RVR.. it's a new years thing so we will be working new years pretty late, but it will be fun!

along the journey,
beth.

oh happy day.

yesterday and today we have been preparing for a community Christmas party that we host for all the neighbors of RVR. we are pretty loud in the summer and we bring in a lot of traffic to the area. in appreciation of our neighbor's great attitudes and patience with us we throw them a Christmas party. so the interns have been helping decorate and set up inflatables for the kids.. these inflatables are massive.. we washed them out all day yesterday and then patched the holes today.. we may have then played in and on them for a good bit of the day :) one of many reasons i love my job, but another reason i love my job is that we reach out to the community.. we don't just sit in our bubble and let people come to us. we go to them and we show them the love of the Father we believe in. it's a great opportunity that we have here at a place like this.. the same goes for other camps as well. after lunch we had our 2nd Old Testament class.. i love this class. it really challenges me and makes me think a lot about my faith and what i believe. it also teaches me a lot of what i don't know which i realized is more than i thought. today we talked about how the life of Moses foreshadowed the life of Christ. it was some pretty amazing stuff and pretty neat to see how the Lord was working out his plan through one man's life. the topic of prayer was then brought up and why we pray for healing if the Lord already has His perfect plan.. something in me just lit up.. i started thinking that if my prayers don't mean anything and they have no effect then what am i doing? but i know they do and i know they are heard. the Bible commands us to pray and to pray for one another.. i may not understand the mind of God, but i know that he wants to hear from us and He wants to answer our prayers.. it may not be the way we expect, but nonetheless they are answered. and for that it is a happy day. :)

beth.

thanksgiving/updates/thoughts. :)

ahhh its been too long since i have written.. i guess i am just having too much fun ;) well when i wrote last i was on thanksgiving break.. i had a great break, i got to speak to my church about my trip to china (which went great), i got to catch up with high school friends, and hang with my family.. i love my family, but it's hard to be around sometimes.. i guess all families have their issues. see i'm not who i used to be, i've come a long way since i have lived at home. the Lord has really brought me a long way from then. when the same issues that go down with my family happen i now get sad. sad because i can't change them. sad because i used to be them. sad because i want so badly to open their eyes. i used to be angry. i used to be a mad kid and just react with anger. that's how they knew me and that's how they think i am going to react now, but i don't and i think it is taking a little while for them to realize that i have changed. it's almost like they don't wanna believe that i have changed. i know they do realize it, but it's hard to accept i guess. it's a learning process and i know that good will come from all situations. over the break i had an amazing devotion on forgiveness. i had always felt that i am a pretty forgiving person, but i guess the Lord showed me that i was leaving some people out. there is a lot of family history that i would need to explain, but for the lack of space and time i can not explain it all. i have forgiven my father for a lot of things that have happened, but i realized that i don't forgive my siblings. my siblings are living like i used to live. i used to live with a me mentality that i must look out for myself and protect it at all costs.. its a selfish one and it makes you angry when things don't go your way. i hadn't been forgiving them for being like that. it hurts me to see it and it hurts to be treated that way, but i realized i need to forgive them and be patient with them. the Lord forgave me for being like that and had patience with me. it may be taking them longer, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't forgive and have hope that life will turn around for them. it's a learning process that i am on.
so after break i went to house sit for my family at sandy cove. it was so great to spend time with their only daughter, kat. she is a great girl with a good head on her shoulders.. i'm hoping the Lord will use me to be an example and an encouragement in her life. i am probably not the best example, but i do know that i wanna be used by Him. we stayed up too late talking about life, but it's worth it to be a listening ear.
got back to the ranch and started right back into work. i was gone for 10 days and it made me realize how much i missed these guys! the interns have become my family without a doubt. i have never been in such a tight knit group with the same goals in mind. it really brings us close together. the girls are becoming some of my best friends and the guys are just my buds. i really have been blessed to be a part of this group. we did some cleaning and had some classes on the history of our retreat programming and also an old testament survey class.. i must admit i am excited about learning more about the old testament. well, guess what. i went to another chic-fil-a grand opening last week. :) it was crazy. everyone in our group made the first 100! it was a crazy story. you have to get there the day before at 6am. at 6 they take everyone there. if it is less than 100 they will let more people in who were later and if it is at 100 they dont take any more people, but if it is over 100 at 6am they do a raffle. what that means is that they take all of our names put it in a bucket and draw names until they get 100.. well there was about 130 of us and guess what number i was! umm, 100! can i please say that i never want to go through that again.. it was such an awesome feeling and a crazy rush, but i would rather not have to wait like that again. it was fun like always except for the pouring rain and the wind with up to 40mph gusts. yeah, i didn't sleep much. that leads me to last weekend, where we had our first snow of the year. about 3 inches. we worked half a day sat and got some stuff done as well as play in the snow.. :)
i house/dog sat for my old boss this past sat night and sunday. i don't think the dog was feeling so good. he peed 4 times inside and i wasn't even there for a full day! pour guy. sunday, i went to church with my 2nd family and then got lunch at ikea after. that place is way cool! i am so grateful for the fishers and how they make me feel like a part of their family. i also got to spend my time catching up with a girl i worked with this summer named beth anne. she is about 4 years younger than me, but is very mature for her age. i love seeing younger girls have such a strong love and devotion to the Lord. it is very encouraging to me. we caught up on school and boys (because we both had stories to tell about the men in our lives ;) which by the way can i just say i am a very blessed girl? well, i am and i do not deserve all that i have been given. i couldn't have written this story more perfectly. there really is beauty in the waiting :) the Lord is most certainly writing this love story better than i had even tried to play out in my head. i am grateful for a friendship that has now started a new journey and i am grateful for the time i have to spend with him and get to know him even more. thank you Lord for always blowing me away.
that brings me to today. nothing out of the ordinary happened, but i have learned to love the ordinary. to love the moment i am in with he people in my life. i couldn't ask for more. the interns led worship and prayer this morning for the staff. we made a slide show and had an audio we recorded and made as well. i think it went absolutely perfect. it was the Lord's doing for sure. i hope that other's felt Him move as much as i felt Him move in my heart. i may not live a life that is un-Christ like, but i know that i have not being living in a way that is Christ like if that makes sense. i've been living in the middle, the safe place. i wanna be on the other side. the side that shines so brightly for the Lord. that is what my heart was convicted for this morning. to live as a picture of Him is my longing, but man do i fall short. Lord, use me and mold me into the image of your son and forgive me when i live a safe comfortable life for myself rather than stepping out and living one that shines so brightly for you. Teach me to shine bright and teach me to live boldly. Amen.
i serve and believe in a God who is Emanuel. what other God is with us? none. Emanuel means God with us. Who better to serve that a God who is actually with us? Who better to love and give our lives to than one who lived and gave His life for us? none. Serve Him. Love Him. Live for Him.

in Him,
beth.