Texas Fever

After a week and a half of training, learning Blueprint policies, how to do flooring, roofing, and power washing, cleaning out the tool shed, restocking tool boxes, visiting Home Depot, and delivering supplies, it is time for the first group to come. They are getting here tonight around 10:20, good thing because the Spurs are playing right now! (Can't have anyone disrupting the viewing of the game). 

(Funny side note: you can't look anywhere around San Antonio without seeing a Spurs sign, t shirt, tattoo,  etc. So much Spur pride. Go Spurs Go!)

Our first group consists of middle school students who will be painting a total of 6 houses. I had the pleasure of both power washing the houses and dropping painting supplies off at the houses. By pleasure, I mean that I have been able to see the faces of the homeowners light up with excitement of the reality of getting their house painted. I watched one woman's face increasingly light up as Doug explained that not only will we be coming within the next week, but also that we are doing it for free. Acts 20:35 says it "It is more blessed to give than to receive." How true that is! I pray that the campers coming find this to be true as well. As a ministry, I hope that we are both able to be a light in the community, but also be a light to the youth coming to serve. 

Apart from the ministry we have for others, Deedee has made sure that we, too, are being replenished spiritually. This Monday the nine of us went to a river ranch about 45 minutes away from San Antonio. Here, we not only just had a day of play, but also an amazing day of fellowship as we really got to know each other personally. We speed prayed with each other, which was essentially the same idea as speed dating in that we took turns with each person. Together, we discussed prayer requests and concerns. It was so powerful in bringing us together as a family. Aside from the serious talks that day, we truly were able to enjoy each other whether we were sitting around eating or floating down the river on tubes. It helped solidify just how truly blessed I am to be surrounded by such a fun and encouraging group of people.

Outside of the Blueprint activities, we have gone to Monster Mini golf, bowling, San Marcos, HEB, out to eat, watched the Spurs games, gone to church, sharing 3 pound cinnamon rolls (yeah..it looked like a loaf of bread) and stayed connected when not together through texting, Hey Tell, Twitter, and Facebook. Not only have I gotten to know our immediate group better throughout this, but also a wonderful young adult group at the church, called The Park, we will go to throughout the summer. The amount of relationships I have already formed is amazing. God works in many ways and I am thrilled to continue seeing how he works through all these people now in my life.

To summarize my past week, I have officially caught Texas Fever. I cannot imagine leaving these people I am becoming so close to or leaving this town that I am weaving myself into. As I have heard and said many times, Texas Forever. 

#Texasforever

#GoSpursGo

My Summer Home: San Antonio

Texas has been the only thing on my mind for about two months now. And here I finally am! I already feel so blessed to be working with such an amazing group of people! DeeDee Sedgewick, our director, is an angel. She is such a sweet, sweet woman! Our two assistant directors, Dwight and Sarah, are also amazing individuals. Doug, our construction and facilities director, will essentially be my mentor this summer as I learn about construction and lead teams in doing it. Doug has a wonderful wife, Colby, who made me feel so welcome before I even came, and I have yet to meet her in real life yet. The other interns,  Karen, Bryan, and Andrew are also so great! We are all bringing different gifts and talents to the table and I can't wait to see how well we all work together this summer. The other intern who has not yet come is Reed who is currently in Africa with his mom and cousin (cool right). Clearly, he will have a great perspective to bring to our hodgepodge group! I am so excited, as our Blueprint family, we will be doing a book study on Radical by David Platt which I have been wanting to read. We will eat lunch together every Wednesday to discuss what we have read! Another awesome aspect of Blueprint Ministries is the willingness of family members and friends to volunteer their time, service, money, homes, and prayers to help meet the goals of Blueprint. You can tell that the organization is greatly loved by such an enormous group of people.

Our facility is a renovated 3 story United Methodist church. It is a beautiful building equipped with living areas, eating space, a  sanctuary, bathrooms and showers, and places to hang out and play both inside and outside of the building. It provides a perfect home for youth groups and other organizations as the come for a week or weekend at a time.

So far, we have gone through a lot of our facility procedures as well as begun to meet our homeowners who we will be working with this summer. One amazing thing about Blueprint Ministries is not only are they impacting the homeowners through their work to give them a livable home, but also providing them with love and support. The homeowners will receive a scrapbook made by the team at the end of every week so they can remember the kids who worked on their house. Additionally, they are invited to each dinner with us every Wednesday! 

Also, today Doug taught Andrew, Bryan, and I how to lay flooring. Not only were we able to finish the flooring in a sweet man's home, but also were blessed with playing with his grandchildren, a little boy and girl. They assisted us by pulling the paper off the bottom of the tiles we were laying. It was neat seeing such desire to help in such small children. 

On a funny note, I had no idea what an HEB was until Monday. My fellow Blueprinters were in hysterics, especially Andrew, over the fact that I asked, knowing that it was going to be a question to be mocked, "What is HEB?" HEB for all you non-Texans is basically Walmart but much nicer and only in Texas. It is basically the go-to place for all your needs except for clothing, unless you go to HEB Plus, which I did! I am now entering the world of HEB. Here I come.

As far as my living situation goes, Karen and I are staying with a magnificent couple, Jeff and Jana Galt. They are hosting us until we move into the facility next Wednesday and also on the weekends. I am enjoying coming home after our day of work to two dogs welcoming me with kisses at the door and the smell of food in the kitchen. Could I have asked for anywhere better to live? I have yet to meet Jeff because he has been gone for work, but Jana is a beautiful woman inside and out! She radiates joy and hospitality. They live in a beautiful neighborhood on the Northern side of San Antonio (Blueprint is on the southern side so it has been a hike everyday.)

Speaking of going to and from Blueprint, San Antonio interstates blow my mind. The organized chaos is astounding as people switch across five lanes of traffic to exit off only onto an interstate running parallel to the interstate they just left. It is going to take me another few weeks to really understand how to navigate myself around our big city!

Anyways to wrap up my long entry, I am just so excited and so blessed to be here this summer. I pray that I grow in more ways than I even know and also encourage others to grow in their walk with Christ. 

LeaderShape

For those who don't know, LeaderShape is an international institute that helps people with dreams step out of their comfort zone and begin to make active steps toward reaching a goal. It is a six day program that immerses you into a group of people who also have big dreams and passions. It teaches you to lead with integrity, learn more about yourself, and connects you with others. I was so blessed to be a part of this experience at the University of Tennessee session this May.

This is the 2012 University of Tennessee graduating class of the LeaderShape Institute. We are the second group to go through this program at UT. The best part about our group was the extreme diversity, yet the extreme ability to get along and become friends with every single person.

Within the whole group, we had 5 different family cluster facilitated by a UT faculty member. Mine, in the middle, was Shanna Pendergrast who works as an advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences. Not only did she serve as our facilitator but also as our friend and partner in striving to reach our goals. Each group had their own team name, ours clearly was The Adventurers. Within our group, we really dug into ourselves and encouraged and supported each other. Of course we also goofed off a lot!

One activity we did was to find out what our core values were, aka the driving motives behind all we do as individuals. Once we evaluated ourselves and found which ones we truly held close, we wrote them on these paper t-shirts so that we could wear them around and others could see our values. 

My core values are love, stability, community, knowledge, and trust/honesty.

LeaderShape vision: A just, caring, and thriving world where all lead with integrity and a healthy disregard for the impossible.

YouVersion

I have always had the YouVersion Bible App on my phone, even with my blackberry. It has about every translation of the Bible as well as devotionals. I have always read from it every now and then. But, this week I started 2 devotionals on it and also have learned how to bookmark and add notes which I can even make public to share with others. I can also find others' notes. It is a great App and I definitely encourage you to use it. Anyways, one of my devotionals today focused on keeping our bodies as a temple for God. I ended up really digging into the topic and made a note about it. I didn't know how to directly share it from the site so I am going to copy and paste it.

"Don't you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don't belong to yourselves. You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body."

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (GWT)

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 is such a convicting statement. So many times as humans we indulge in numerous sins with our bodies whether that be gluttony or sexual immorality. Also in simple ways we don't show God through how we use our bodies. Through dance moves, by dressing up with the only motives to impress others, and even not feeding our bodies the way we should, we are not keeping the temple of God how we should.

This is such a hard concept to actually put into action within our word. So many aspects of today's world tell us that immodesty and indulging yourself with food is a normal, if not encouraged, act. It's hard to step back and think "No. I am not doing this to please or impress others. I need to do this to uphold the dwelling in which God lives by his spirit (Ephesians 2:22)."

The part that really sticks out in these two verses is that we were bought for a price. Okay, so now you can think of it in today's terms, you know, because it says bought" and we are so caught up in consumerism. Let's think about it this way. If you buy a present for someone and later see it torn up or damaged, doesn't that hurt your feelings? That was your gift to them and they abused it. In the same way don't you think God looks at us like that. He didn't use mere currency as his way to pay for us, but the death of his son. HELLO! What are we doing? Someone died for me and I can't return the amazing favor by taking care of myself or resist the many temptations of the world?

I know God doesn't expect us to be able to hold strong against every temptation (even though all things are possible through God (Matthew 19:26)). Yet, He wants for us to strive and desire to be better for Him.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship."

Romans 12:1 (NIV)

Roommates

This year, I was incredibly lucky with my rooming situation. Our suite mates, in room 1229, were Kayla, with the red hair, and Taylor. I can honestly say that without the two of them I would not have been kept so entertained throughout the year for a variety of reasons. Taylor was the first one of us to arrive to college and the first to leave as well.

Meanwhile as Taylor was moving out, my room looked like a war zone with Dani packing. 

Dani's last night here, we went out to Macaroni Grill with her parents, who I adore after being able to spend my spring break with them. Very, very, very fortunately, I was assigned with Dani as my roommate. Not only did I have one of the best living situations I could shave asked for, but also made a best friend! 

Then we have Kayla. So many words can be used to describe her, but some of the best are tolerant, caring, and selfless. Kayla is always putting herself second which I think is such an admirable trait. Although she is crazy and loud, I couldn't imagine a better, more dependable friend.

As sad as it is, it now time for the three of us to split up, only temporarily. We may look like an odd group, act odd, and talk about odd things, but that is what I love.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) puts it best:

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

The Last Hoorah: Summary of Good First Year (Part 1)

This year, I have been blessed with an abundance of amazing friends. Not only are they fun-loving, but also motivated to follow Christ. I became involved with Campus CRU, whose mission is to encounter Jesus and give our lives to Him and others. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to be a part of. Although many of the guys in CRU are so special to me, I am going to focus on the great friendships I've made with some awesome girls.

(These are some of the core Freshman CRU girls)

Friday, 5/4/12, a big group of us went to eat sushi in Market Square, one of my favorite places in Knoxville. After that, we hung out and really just enjoyed our last night to spend together as a big group, despite the few who had already left for home.

 Rachel and Madelyn are not only beautiful girls outside, but also inside. As cliche as that is it is true. I have the privilege to eat breakfast Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with Rachel last semester. She has such a sweet heart and fun-loving personality. I am convinced that me and Madelyn were destined to be friends. From the moment we saw each other we already decided we liked each other. But, it wasn't until Fall Retreat with CRU did we really realize our connection through our moderately lame humored personalities. One of my favorite things about Madelyn is her extreme musical abilities which she continues to pursue as she studies Music Education (such a neat girl). I can't wait to continue getting to know these two girls more!

One of my biggest blessing of the year was getting to know Sarah Spiceland. Not only is she a friend but also someone I can look up to as a spiritual leader. She leads a middle school bible study and met with me on Thursdays for breakfast during which we discussed the book of Ephesians. She probably thinks that she only poured into those girls, but she was pouring into me every time I saw her. She is such a beckon of light showing Christ in the world. And I love that Allison was the person who introduced us.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better group of girls to be surrounded with this year. I had a great Bible Study lead by Allison, my sister, and Celina, one of my roommates for next year. 

Blog 101:

I guess here goes nothing. I sure am excited to start a blog because I want my friends and family to have a place where they can keep up with my life. 


This summer, I will be spending almost 2 and a half months in San Antonio, Texas working for an awesome organization called Blueprint Ministries (http://blueprintministry.com/). Blueprint Ministries focuses on the construction, renovation, and improvement of sub-standard housing within the San Antonio region. Not only that, they love on the homeowners and share Christ's love, hope and grace. I will be working as a team liaison and leader in construction. It is going to be such a great experience, so I needed a place to document all my adventures.


So, here I am and here is my blog. I hope to learn how to use it better so that it will become more reader friendly and neat to look at.