So much more than $3,000 and a card.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at camp with High schoolers from Hope in Las Vegas. The camp was CIY Move. It was incredible to say the least, I wrote a bit about my learned experiences there two blogs ago and the impact summer camp has had on my life in general. Although I've attended and worked at multiple summer camps, I think this one takes the cake overall. And it wasn't because there was a huge band or the most amazing speaker ever, or we raised a million dollars. It was because God's Spirit was at work... In students, leaders, youth pastors, speakers, worship leaders, etc. 

The whole week is a push for being a #kingdomworker. What is a kingdom worker you might ask?? Basically anyone who uses his or her talents, passions, job, place of influence to impact the world for God's Kingdom and, ultimately, eternal value. At the end of the week, everyone receives a #kingdomworker card. This card has a challenge for the next year. It's every persons choice whether to accept it or not. I chose to open my envelope. I was expecting to get one that said drink water for a year but no, it didn't. It said "Raise $3,000..." Stop right there, hold up, what? Yes that was only the beginning, slight panic attack. I hate fundraising. I don't like asking people for money. It's uncomfortable. So the card reads basically to raise $3,000 for a missionary our church supports. Contact and pray for them monthly. Wow. Yes a significant challenge. 

Once I had decided, I was committed to this, I got caught up on who. God placed a missionary on my heart who I worked with when I was in Africa in the summer of 2009. Still praying to confirm that and planning on getting information from this missionary soon about specific needs. I'll be raising money for the next year. I will also be raising money for a trip to Africa myself and a team next summer. Details for that are also in the works but I will keep you updated. Please pray about how you would join me: will you buy something I create? Give monthly? Pray for the missionary? Host a fundraiser for you and a group of friends?

I'm begging you to join me on this year-long adventure. In some way that is meaningful to you. The Kingdom of God is beyond our word of "big." He knows what you're going to do and how you will be impacted. Listen to His Voice and pray for me to be sensitive too! Praying now! 

-Melis

When words are enough OR too much...

Because I am incredibly auditory, I struggle with words. Because I am an introvert, I struggle with sharing those words that are inside my brain. I am often defensive, feisty, and short with words when they do come out hurried and hurtful. When I stop and think (this side is encouraged), I deeply regret the words I say, am pleased with others, and think about why each side was the way it was.

There was more than once today that I used my words to empower people. There was also more than once today that I used my words to hurt people. Overall, my interactions today have been positive but a few times, I noticed I went straight to defending something that was not worth being offended over or just silenced the other person because I'm over it.

Why.... why... why... is the question I constantly ask myself. Repeatedly, I find myself going back and apologizing for something stupid I've said that I think hurt someone. Most of the time, they thought nothing of it except I was crazy that I went back. I think it's better to err on that side, than the other.

Because one of my top love languages is words of affirmation, I really struggle with feeding negative words into my brain. I remember and dwell on those things, and why someone would say those things to me. Tonight on my way home from a very full day, I prayed, asking God to restore balance in this area. Unfortunately, it seems that most people are normally VERY defensive OR very run over. Then Jesus began to speak over me in my car, reminding me of the way He deals with things. He did not let Adam and Eve rule and reign the world when they chose to sin. He put His foot down. My God is not a God to be run over by our fast talking brains and snappy attitudes. He just doesn't do it, straight up. He also reminded me that in the New Testament, He never let the Pharisees get away with their mocking of His commands. He put them in their place. He did offend them, but only in a way in which they needed to be offended. He told them Truth. He did not spout off an academic's scholars belief on something, nor did He Google it to figure out what they needed to know. He told them what God's best was for them. They had the choice to walk away or pursue that Truth. We have the same choice.

When I'm approached, I want to be ready to speak, but I also want to be slow to speak. Quick words hurt. They do not heal and restore. I've read more than once the statement, "Hurt people hurt people." People who are defensive often hurt people, it's not conscious, it is their defense. That doesn't make it right, but it is what happens. When I know God's Truth and I walk in the Truth, I will find that I am quick to think but slower to speak, quicker to listen, but slower to jump down someone's throat. 

This is an area I know I need to work on. Let us be slow to speak but ready. Let us listen before we jump to conclusions and assume. Let us tell the Truth. Other people's words do not have power over us but we must know HIS WORD. Let us be careful and apply the Truth we know to our own lives as we beg others to join us in this. Praying for you, will you pray for me in this area? -Melis

P.S. If you are a person who I have hurt with my words before, I would like to sincerely apologize. Praying that my words are Truth and empowering to you in the future. Jesus is correcting me in this area! I am grateful for the grace with which you've been patient too. Thank you for your recognition to extend that to me.

Life-changing summer celebrations

Join me on a journey, would you?

I went to summer camp with my youth group for the first time in high school. The first year, I surrendered my life completely to Jesus, I was 15. After my senior year, I felt that God had something incredible for me- ministry of some kind, I thought potentially in the church and now I realize that He had called me to Himself while working in a public school. I'm so grateful.

In college, I got to walk with young ladies every year at Camp Cherokee in Tennessee. I got to go back and work at SuperWow, the camp God used to change my life, as a missions/service coordinator and my last summer of college, I got to enjoy Camp Cherokee, SuperWow and got to visit Colorado for a Student Life camp with students from Hope while I was working in Las Vegas. Oh yeah, I went to the UK then too! What a life for a college student! Talk about an incredible summer! At that point, God began speaking to me about living in Las Vegas. It was unclear but became more clear through my senior year of college.

After moving to Las Vegas, I spent that summer volunteering with students at Hope and joined them at camp in California (my first of many adventures there!) and did the same the following summer. In the summer of 2008, I took my first mission trip to Zambia and that part of my life was on repeat for the following 3 summers, varying in length and time and what I did there. That was before most of my friends decided to get married and that took some time out of the following summers to celebrate with them in the great work that God was doing!

Jesus greatly uses me in the school year and it is often draining so by the time I get to summer, I am ready to take deep breaths. I tend to hear Him in my summer silences, without the voices of 200 or so students asking me a million questions and telling me what I should be doing.

I am grateful to have gone back to summer camp with Hope's student ministry, Refuge, this past week. I was a little skeptical (I admitted this to them) about the group of girls I had but ended up loving their sweet, devastated hearts so much. I really had the best of both worlds because the senior girls Arianna and I have walked with for the last year were also there and so I heard a lot of the big things Jesus did in them and then I clearly got to join in God's great rescue of my girls. He met them exactly as they were, exactly where they were. He loved them. Through song, messages, small groups, friendships, walking up and down the hills, playing on the beach, and watching short films. He deeply loved them. Neena and I got to be His hands and feet and put our arms around them, pray for them, and squeeze their hands amidst tears.

Selfishly, Jesus reminded me of the deep, deep pit I had dug for myself and was drowning in the past year. He rescued me and as the bell rang to represent life change Tuesday night, I was full of tears with gratefulness that He chose to extend His hand. He gave me a life to live again, without fear of where it was going next. He spoke to me about waiting, grace, and continuing to walk in freedom. I can't say that camp changes everyone or that summer changes everyone but it has a tendency to do that for me. I'm praying for my next steps, how to follow Him in every environment I'm in and how to love every person I meet. AND I just finished my last class of my Master's degree. I am waiting for a fall internship and will have it complete in December. I am grateful, grateful, grateful for what God is doing. What is He doing to change your life? I hope it's big and beyond your comprehension.

Praying that for both of us- Melis

A stunning display.

I am procrastinating. Yes. I just want to make that clear.

I have spent the last month traveling, beat of my heart, it stresses me out and I love it. I have met some of the most incredible people, got to love and be loved and I have not lacked in how much I eat. AT ALL. I love teaching for this reason. Summer. Although, I am dreaming up plans for next year, I am able to do that on bus, plane, train, or automobile. I love the modern world. Thank you turn of the century a hundred years ago-- you were good to us.

I have felt lonely, desolate, reckless, insecure, and so confused, yet at the same time, I have not felt more loved, more pursued, and more stunned than I have felt in a while. I am so grateful to have spent time with so much family, to be a part of my sister's drop-dead gorgeous wedding (yes, I am clearly biased), to sing again, and to feel like I don't have to say much. I have watched incredible sunsets at the beach in Florida and California, on the river in Oregon, and over the capitol of the United States. I have talked to some of the most intelligent and incredible people. Pause. Story time.

::Every time I board a plane, I prepare myself for one of two things-- sitting next to someone who pretends they hate me and I'm invisible (this morning) or sitting next to someone who tells me the beautiful story of their life (Atlanta to Vegas last weekend). While I overall prefer the latter, I have often wondered if my invisible shirt that says, "Tell me your whole life story" magically appears as I walk onto the plane. I had a wonderful conversation a week ago with a professor from Bob Jones University on being a Christian, why we should stick to standards and morals, being single and married, his family, what it's like to want to stay where you love but other people are begging you to move, how do you find more. I walked away from the plane ride so grateful for his encouragement, wisdom, and perspective. It fed this needy heart of mine.::

Press play. Yesterday, after the wedding of one of my best friends, Katie, she and her new groom had left and me and the girls traveled to see Multnomah Falls outside Portland. While this is an incredibly beautiful place that I can hardly describe, the view of the river on the way back was out of this world. The freeway runs beside the Colombia River and the sun was setting literally just perfectly as we were driving. We found a view point to stop at and so we did. Staring out over the water made me a little breathless, in that, I felt overwhelmingly loved.

It seems at the times we feel the most inadequate, God sends us a messenger with encouragement. When we feel the most discouraged, God sends the sweet words of a friend in the most unexpected way. When we feel ugly, God says that we are beautiful through a person who we are so grateful for and may not even know that much about. There may not be words, there are just some people who make you feel beautiful. When we feel there is nothing in us, He stares deep into us through sunsets, waterfalls, rain clouds, and rainbows and delicately whispers, "You are utterly mine. No one else's. And if I should so choose to give you someone to love, you must always choose me first."

His selfishness (so to say) is deserved and our tragedies and pity parties turn a very silent spirit into a stunning display for those around us to see He is at work in our lives. He deserves every bit of the glory. And whether we like it or not, He will take it-- it was His to begin with and He will keep it.

His love for us is a stunning display and it can be seen all over if we only keep our eyes open. It is felt in a sincere touch of a friend and is heard in the sweet words of a song. My life is made up of so many of these moments that I could not count if I tried. I can just stand back and admire from a semi-distance the loving work Jesus has done in my life to rescue me from a deep pit. I can sit and tell the story of why God called me to move to Las Vegas and why I can't leave until He says go again. I can pray for people who do not love Him to be empty so that they search and find someone so precious and worth loving. He is it. And He is worth it. I am stunned completely.
-Melis