Howdy there everybody!
How's it going in the world? Well if you read the header you would have found out that Persist ended. And minus one point on my reliability score, it ended at least two weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to telling you. But add a point because I already sent out my thank you letters to all my supporters! I was on top of that.
Persist was awesome, Immerse was cool too. I totally recommend doing Persist to all the youth that even stumble onto this page. I know if you start looking into it you are going to see these figures that look crazy, but let me tell you, my family didn't have to pay a penny-out-of-pocket for Persist. Don't be afraid to ask for support, God will meet you where you are, but you have to do it in faith. Nothing will happen without faith, and our faith was said to be "able to move mountains". Trust in God. But I don't recommend it if you are not commited to prayer and seeking God. It calls for true desire and hunger for the Lord and just to let you know that desire and hunger will only grow stronger, they aren't trying to cure you of it.
It was the best summer for me by far!
Thanks all of you for reading my blog. Yall rock!
I love you all!
Callie
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Day 2 of Kansas City Trip
Good Morning everyone,
How's life?? It's tough trying to catch up on lots of days you missed. But I will catch up eventually.
So yeah its the second day of our trip and we all headed out early to the prayer room again. It was the same thing as the day before, but different band members and possibly more people. We stayed in there that same amount of time.
And spent rest of our day at home play games together like Cranium and me and Bethany went against the three 'M's. Me and Bethany were way ahead and then got stuck on the data heads!!! And then all those 'M' names caught up to us and won!!!!! Crummer!
That night we went back to the awakening service and stayed again until 10. It was good to just sit and soak in the spirit among everyone else doing the same thing. Time really flew, it didn't feel like 3 hours at all before we left.
That night we all slept well and got ready for our trip back home. Another 12 hours awaited us and we were mentally prepared. Bethany had a book in her bag called 'To Save a Life' based on the movie that was made this past year. I read all 314 pages in six hours.lol I was really bored. I drew Bethany and she drew me and we swapped pictures I took a picture of mine and it's the screen saver on my phone.
We didn't stop to eat dinner so we could get home sooner. It was a great trip! And I am thankful to God for helping me conquer my fears.
From all my observations of IHOP I learned that they love to say three things: joy, fire, and more Lord.
Thanks for listening about my trip! Yall rock!
How's life?? It's tough trying to catch up on lots of days you missed. But I will catch up eventually.
So yeah its the second day of our trip and we all headed out early to the prayer room again. It was the same thing as the day before, but different band members and possibly more people. We stayed in there that same amount of time.
And spent rest of our day at home play games together like Cranium and me and Bethany went against the three 'M's. Me and Bethany were way ahead and then got stuck on the data heads!!! And then all those 'M' names caught up to us and won!!!!! Crummer!
That night we went back to the awakening service and stayed again until 10. It was good to just sit and soak in the spirit among everyone else doing the same thing. Time really flew, it didn't feel like 3 hours at all before we left.
That night we all slept well and got ready for our trip back home. Another 12 hours awaited us and we were mentally prepared. Bethany had a book in her bag called 'To Save a Life' based on the movie that was made this past year. I read all 314 pages in six hours.lol I was really bored. I drew Bethany and she drew me and we swapped pictures I took a picture of mine and it's the screen saver on my phone.
We didn't stop to eat dinner so we could get home sooner. It was a great trip! And I am thankful to God for helping me conquer my fears.
From all my observations of IHOP I learned that they love to say three things: joy, fire, and more Lord.
Thanks for listening about my trip! Yall rock!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Trip to Kansas City
Dear reader's of the world,
Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I was on my trip to Kansas City! To International House of Prayer!! It was my first trip away from my family and I was very nervous leading up to the trip and it took a lot of humility to ask for prayer about my anxiety, but when I did I was really happy I had. My team was so sweet to me and were empathetic to my fears. You rock Persisters!!
We road tripped in and it was a 12 hour drive there and back. We took a whole day to drive there and by the time we got to the 7th or 8th hour we were all getting a little tired of the road. But we listened to music and play bible related car games and it was good bonding time. We got there and stayed in a cute little house that some of Matt and Moriah's friends found for them. It was a great house, only one problem, six people:one bathroom.
Me and Bethany shared a room and a tiny bed. We had to sleep horizontally, and I almost got pushed off the bed twice! I'm not bitter. We slept long and well and woke up early the next morning to get ready to go to IHOP.
We arrived and went into the prayer room right away to my surprise IHOP was huge! The amount of people in the prayer room was astounding! At least a hundred and fifty and it was 9am in the morning on a Thursday! They had a band on stage singing songs and then just jamming out on the guitar and piano. We sat down near the front and pulled out our bibles and started to sing with the this went on for about an hour and then the band switched with another, careful to always have some form of live music playing. The second band started playing softly and a man walked up to the podium and started to pray for Israel and everyone joined in and chanted a small prayer for Israel for awhile.
We stayed in the prayer room for another hour or two and headed back to the house for lunch. And I nap before we headed back for a teaching on Evangelism by a woman that had a vision of hell. I didn't quite agree with her teaching. I think that it is completely wrong to be scared into religion, God wants us to show his love when we evangelize, not threaten the lost with an eternity of agony. But that is just my opinion on the subject.
That night we ate dinner and got ready to go to the IHOP Awakening Service. I don't know if I've ever seen so many well dressed people! Anyways, there had to be at least five hundred people there! And half of them were all crowded up in a mob in the front by the stage where Misty Edwards was playing Soul Cry. It was really cool to see so many people rocking out and then there were other people wandering through the crowd laying hands on people and people were shaking and falling and laughing and crying and it was so cool! Me and Bethany walked up and joined the mob and started laying hands on anyone and everyone! It was so freeing to be in a place where a bunch of young people were all gathered together in God's name and having a great time and operating in the gifts God gave them!
Well anyways that completes the first night of our trip!We went home at about 10 o'clock that night me and Bethany watched Jurassic Park for the first time once we got home. I thought the people made the funniest faces when they were being eaten.
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Day 8
Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Wednesday...what happened on Wednesday? OH YEAH!!!!
Well I got there early and hung out with Bethany and Micah for a little while and then we had a little time of study, but Bethany left her binder at a house down the street so we walked over there to get for her which pretty much took up our time of study, but whatever that's okay!
We went into the prayer room and prayed for an hour and a half(I did a lot of study on Galatians and that was super fun) and then sat in on Midday prayer. I have sat in on so many of those that I actually have all the regular prayers memorized!
We then went and grabbed some Nachos and headed into an office to have our lesson about the bible and the different ways bible characters functioned and ministered. We studied the Old Testament and the only way not listed was charismatic because that involves the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and that didn't occur until Acts 2 in the New Testament.
Then we went back into the prayer room for staff prayer and that was awesome! We spent a lot of time thanking Jesus for the cross and then praying for Israel and then we put two people into the center of our circle(Bill and Jake) and everyone was praying for Bill when Matt said "I think our interns have something for you, go interns, Bill's nice!" So we all prayed for Bill and that was really fun because we all did better than we thought we would and then we were the first to pray for Jake and that was cool too.
Then we had an hour of fun and Bethany had to leave early so me and Micah went over to the Cogdell's and played Twister with Noah and Kara and that was cool. Noah and was really competitive so it was really hard to beat him. But I was happy and sore after I won the last round!
That's the end of Day 8! Thanks for keeping up with all my fun happenings!!!!
Love yall!
Wednesday...what happened on Wednesday? OH YEAH!!!!
Well I got there early and hung out with Bethany and Micah for a little while and then we had a little time of study, but Bethany left her binder at a house down the street so we walked over there to get for her which pretty much took up our time of study, but whatever that's okay!
We went into the prayer room and prayed for an hour and a half(I did a lot of study on Galatians and that was super fun) and then sat in on Midday prayer. I have sat in on so many of those that I actually have all the regular prayers memorized!
We then went and grabbed some Nachos and headed into an office to have our lesson about the bible and the different ways bible characters functioned and ministered. We studied the Old Testament and the only way not listed was charismatic because that involves the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and that didn't occur until Acts 2 in the New Testament.
Then we went back into the prayer room for staff prayer and that was awesome! We spent a lot of time thanking Jesus for the cross and then praying for Israel and then we put two people into the center of our circle(Bill and Jake) and everyone was praying for Bill when Matt said "I think our interns have something for you, go interns, Bill's nice!" So we all prayed for Bill and that was really fun because we all did better than we thought we would and then we were the first to pray for Jake and that was cool too.
Then we had an hour of fun and Bethany had to leave early so me and Micah went over to the Cogdell's and played Twister with Noah and Kara and that was cool. Noah and was really competitive so it was really hard to beat him. But I was happy and sore after I won the last round!
That's the end of Day 8! Thanks for keeping up with all my fun happenings!!!!
Love yall!
Update!!!!
Dear Readers!
I am so very sorry for the delay in my posts. I hope that you haven't all left me! The internet was down where I usually type up my posts and I have been unable to type until this very moment!
PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!
Callie
I am so very sorry for the delay in my posts. I hope that you haven't all left me! The internet was down where I usually type up my posts and I have been unable to type until this very moment!
PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!
Callie
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Day 7
Hey there everybody!!!!
How's God blessing you today???? He's blessing me with tasty bacon for breakfast!(sorry to any vegetarians or vegans reading this blog) Anyway's lets talk about what I'm doing at Persist because that is what I'm here for! Lets get started before I get super off topic!
Well I got to AHOP really early yesterday and I wrote my blog then we all met up and went to Bennu and Micah got this drink that smelled like jello and we had this really long talk about how he shouldn't drink that because it might have jellotine in it and that has cow in it and Micah and Bethany are vegetarians, and I feel super creepy eating my bacon right here as they're reading over my shoulder!!!! ANYWAYS we went to Bennu to have our group mentoring time and talked about our studies and questions we had.
Then we went back and prayed for two hours and we did this cool thing where we went through the alphabet and said things like "God you are Awesome, Amazing, All powerful, Able...etc" and we got all the way to 'I' and had to stop.
We ate lunch with the rest of the staff and then played four square on a court we built in the front parking lot which I think is still there though its been run over several times. We then went into class and had another lesson about hearing from God. This hearing thing gets so much easier with practice!
We went into the prayer room after class to pray over what we just learned and that was fun and helped make things a little clearer.
Well I think that about wraps up Day 7!
We went into the prayer room after class to pray over what we just learned and that was fun and helped make things a little clearer.
Well I think that about wraps up Day 7!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Day 6
Good Morning!
I feel like I start blogging earlier and earlier, when in reality I log on at about the same time every morning! Wait...I am actually starting earlier today!!!
Anyways, I hoped you all liked my Treasure Hunting Adventures! Sorry it took so long to post them, but I had so many stories I had to put them in a separate entry than Day 5.
But this post is about Day 6 so let's talk about yesterday! I got to AHOP at the usual time and entered my post and at 9am we all met together to do some volunteer work for Cielo, a water company that also share's the building with AHOP and Imagine Art. They brought out several trash bags full of water bottles and two tubs of water and told us to make an assembly line and clean the water bottles, all who had for some reason fallen on the floor and needed to be cleaned with bleach water and then clean water and sorted. So we spent an hour doing that.
Then we went into the prayer room and prayed for 2 hours. And then went out with the rest of the staff to eat sandwiches and over lunch we had a very interesting conversation with Philipe and Will about marriage and what you're looking for in your spouse and what makes a good marriage, and it was kinda fun to see everyone's view's about it and what they looked for in a mate.
Then we walked down the street to a neighborhood trampoline and we jumped for awhile and walked back. It was really hot outside! I shouldn't have worn jeans!!!
We then went back into an office and had our lesson on hearing from God and how he speaks to each of us differently. And that was cool because I didn't know that God could speak through things so clearly like music, or books, or even the time on the clock!
Then we went back into the prayer room for another two hours of prayer and we had a fun time listening to God and hearing what he had to say. At the end we met up to say what we heard and Matt said God told him "Brusselsprouts=trash"!!!hahaha!
Anyway that was the end of day 6 of Persist!
And we're........................................................................................................................................DONE!
I feel like I start blogging earlier and earlier, when in reality I log on at about the same time every morning! Wait...I am actually starting earlier today!!!
Anyways, I hoped you all liked my Treasure Hunting Adventures! Sorry it took so long to post them, but I had so many stories I had to put them in a separate entry than Day 5.
But this post is about Day 6 so let's talk about yesterday! I got to AHOP at the usual time and entered my post and at 9am we all met together to do some volunteer work for Cielo, a water company that also share's the building with AHOP and Imagine Art. They brought out several trash bags full of water bottles and two tubs of water and told us to make an assembly line and clean the water bottles, all who had for some reason fallen on the floor and needed to be cleaned with bleach water and then clean water and sorted. So we spent an hour doing that.
Then we went into the prayer room and prayed for 2 hours. And then went out with the rest of the staff to eat sandwiches and over lunch we had a very interesting conversation with Philipe and Will about marriage and what you're looking for in your spouse and what makes a good marriage, and it was kinda fun to see everyone's view's about it and what they looked for in a mate.
Then we walked down the street to a neighborhood trampoline and we jumped for awhile and walked back. It was really hot outside! I shouldn't have worn jeans!!!
We then went back into an office and had our lesson on hearing from God and how he speaks to each of us differently. And that was cool because I didn't know that God could speak through things so clearly like music, or books, or even the time on the clock!
Then we went back into the prayer room for another two hours of prayer and we had a fun time listening to God and hearing what he had to say. At the end we met up to say what we heard and Matt said God told him "Brusselsprouts=trash"!!!hahaha!
Anyway that was the end of day 6 of Persist!
And we're........................................................................................................................................DONE!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Treasure Hunting Stories
Hey its me again!
When we started out on our treasure hunt, we were all a little nervous. But once we got started we saw that we had nothing to be worried about. We all piled into the car and headed out for Highland Mall. It was about 11am when we got started so the mall wasn't too crowded at that time which was nice so that it made our clues easier to find.
When we got in the prayer room to find our clues, I had gotten Earthbound Trading Company, and thought it was kind of strange but put it down anyway because they say the weird ones make for the best stories. Anyway, we went into highland mall and the first store we noticed when we walked in was an Earthbound Trading Company! So we went inside, and I didn't feel led to pray for anyone in there so we left and decided to come back later and try again. We started walking further into the Mall and passed by a clothing store where Will saw a girl that looked familiar to him, and of course Will said hello and told her about treasure hunting and asked her if she would like prayer. And she said yes right away and we each prayed for her for a minute or two and then when we finished she turned around and prayed for us! It was really cool to have our first person be so open to recieve! That really encouraged us.
Next we went into Macy's and we ran into a Muslim woman that to our surprise was open to us blessing her! And then Will and this woman talked awhile about beliefs and the after life and I liked listening to them talk it was very educational on the different sides of our religions.
Then we walked out and Moriah saw a man in a red shirt with writing on it and that was one of her clues, so we followed this man and his buddy into a shoe store and asked them their names 'Jesus and Isreal' hehehe God is funny sometimes. Well the man in the red shirt was Isreal and we prayed for him first and blessed him and then we prayed for his pal Jesus afterwards and they were really nice and we talked to them for awhile.
Then Will ran into another person he knew (the man has connections) and we prayed for him too and blessed him, we prayed for money to find that the guy already had some. hehe But he was super nice and open.
Then we were going down stairs and Bethany saw a lady talking on the phone and we waited for her to finish so we could approach her. Well me and Bethany went to pray for the lady by ourselves and she didn't want prayer, but said 'That's okay!' and left.
Will thought that we should try going to Earthbound again and we headed back there. Right when we got into the store I saw a man and woman that I had seen earlier in the day and felt God say to pray for them but they looked really like people you DON'T want to approach (especially if you know me(5' 2" and very slender) so I just said no and kept walking. But when I saw them again in Earthbound I knew God really wanted me to pray for them. Right away Will asked me "How do you feel? Do you want to pray for anything?" and I pointed at the man and woman and started walking towards them and Will followed close behind. He stood next to me as I did all the talking, explaining who we were and what Treasure Hunting was, and why I felt led to pray for them, and with every word I spoke the man backed further and further away from me. He said that he was athiest and it was okay if we prayed there, but walked away. I felt so much love for that man and woman that I couldn't help but start praying for them right there! I could feel such resistence from God and it made me so sad, I desperately wanted them to know Gods love and I prayed that over them. I don't know what happened to that man and woman but I hope they've experienced some form of God's love since Thursday.
We left the mall then and went outside and earlier in the morning Bethany and Micah had both gotten the same image of a boy sitting alone on a bench and he was sad and we never found him so Will sat down on the bench and we prayed for the boy there. Praying for that boy we didn't know made me realize something I never had before: How many times have I been sad or needed prayer and God showed someone far away that had no idea who I was, a picture of me and placed it on their heart to pray for me??? Like just the idea that God loves me so much that He would ask someone to pray for me when I live thousands of miles away!!!! That's amazing! I mentioned that thought to the group and Will said something interesting too: "Paul is praying for you now, he said that when he was praying, he was praying for all the saints, so that is people that believe in God even thousands of years later!" Crazy right!
Treasure Hunting was awesome! I can't wait for this weeks trip! And to go treasure hunting in KANSAS CITY!!!
When we started out on our treasure hunt, we were all a little nervous. But once we got started we saw that we had nothing to be worried about. We all piled into the car and headed out for Highland Mall. It was about 11am when we got started so the mall wasn't too crowded at that time which was nice so that it made our clues easier to find.
When we got in the prayer room to find our clues, I had gotten Earthbound Trading Company, and thought it was kind of strange but put it down anyway because they say the weird ones make for the best stories. Anyway, we went into highland mall and the first store we noticed when we walked in was an Earthbound Trading Company! So we went inside, and I didn't feel led to pray for anyone in there so we left and decided to come back later and try again. We started walking further into the Mall and passed by a clothing store where Will saw a girl that looked familiar to him, and of course Will said hello and told her about treasure hunting and asked her if she would like prayer. And she said yes right away and we each prayed for her for a minute or two and then when we finished she turned around and prayed for us! It was really cool to have our first person be so open to recieve! That really encouraged us.
Next we went into Macy's and we ran into a Muslim woman that to our surprise was open to us blessing her! And then Will and this woman talked awhile about beliefs and the after life and I liked listening to them talk it was very educational on the different sides of our religions.
Then we walked out and Moriah saw a man in a red shirt with writing on it and that was one of her clues, so we followed this man and his buddy into a shoe store and asked them their names 'Jesus and Isreal' hehehe God is funny sometimes. Well the man in the red shirt was Isreal and we prayed for him first and blessed him and then we prayed for his pal Jesus afterwards and they were really nice and we talked to them for awhile.
Then Will ran into another person he knew (the man has connections) and we prayed for him too and blessed him, we prayed for money to find that the guy already had some. hehe But he was super nice and open.
Then we were going down stairs and Bethany saw a lady talking on the phone and we waited for her to finish so we could approach her. Well me and Bethany went to pray for the lady by ourselves and she didn't want prayer, but said 'That's okay!' and left.
Will thought that we should try going to Earthbound again and we headed back there. Right when we got into the store I saw a man and woman that I had seen earlier in the day and felt God say to pray for them but they looked really like people you DON'T want to approach (especially if you know me(5' 2" and very slender) so I just said no and kept walking. But when I saw them again in Earthbound I knew God really wanted me to pray for them. Right away Will asked me "How do you feel? Do you want to pray for anything?" and I pointed at the man and woman and started walking towards them and Will followed close behind. He stood next to me as I did all the talking, explaining who we were and what Treasure Hunting was, and why I felt led to pray for them, and with every word I spoke the man backed further and further away from me. He said that he was athiest and it was okay if we prayed there, but walked away. I felt so much love for that man and woman that I couldn't help but start praying for them right there! I could feel such resistence from God and it made me so sad, I desperately wanted them to know Gods love and I prayed that over them. I don't know what happened to that man and woman but I hope they've experienced some form of God's love since Thursday.
We left the mall then and went outside and earlier in the morning Bethany and Micah had both gotten the same image of a boy sitting alone on a bench and he was sad and we never found him so Will sat down on the bench and we prayed for the boy there. Praying for that boy we didn't know made me realize something I never had before: How many times have I been sad or needed prayer and God showed someone far away that had no idea who I was, a picture of me and placed it on their heart to pray for me??? Like just the idea that God loves me so much that He would ask someone to pray for me when I live thousands of miles away!!!! That's amazing! I mentioned that thought to the group and Will said something interesting too: "Paul is praying for you now, he said that when he was praying, he was praying for all the saints, so that is people that believe in God even thousands of years later!" Crazy right!
Treasure Hunting was awesome! I can't wait for this weeks trip! And to go treasure hunting in KANSAS CITY!!!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Day 5
Dear Readers,
Remember how I told you in my last post that I was super excited about the next day? Well...I had a great reason to be excited about Treasure Hunting! I had the most fun yesterday out of all four days so far at Persist. But I am going to tell my whole day in order because Treasure Hunting wasn't the only thing that happened and I'm not changing the pattern of the way I write my posts any time soon! So let's get started!
I got to AHOP at the usual time about eight o'clock(oh and I've been getting several comments from followers asking "how do you get up that early to blog???" and in actuality I am just waking up at that moment and don't get to AHOP to start writing buy about eight o'clock in the morning so the time is about two hours slow!(I thought I would clear that up(Oh and any further questions or comments PLEASE ask! I'd be happy to answer and love your feedback!!!) and grab a doughnut and my coffee and sat down to write the last entry, and thought about all the awesome things I would be doing today.
We went into the prayer room at nine and Philipe was already in there playing the piano and singing scripture right out of the bible which I was really inspired by. And we prayed for about an hour and I started my second book "Streams of Living Water" about the different types of traditions of spirituality in Christianity , like Evangelical(Word-centered Life), contemplative(Prayer-filled Life), holiness(Virtuous Life) and so on.
Then at 10am we all gathered together in the center and Will and his friend Mike came to join us. Mike was leaving to go to a businessmen gathering that connected Christian business partners and so we were able to pray for Mike before he left and after we all prayed for him we all felt really encouraged and ready to go Treasure Hunting!
I think I have left you hanging on the last two words of that sentence for long enough! Treasure Hunting is a form of street ministry that originated in California and has found it's way to AHOP! Well you start out in a prayer asking God to give you clue's to finding your treasure, things like appearance, places, names, what to pray for, and just other things that don't even fall into these categories. And once you have those then you can start out looking, it's nice to go to some place where there are a lot of people like a mall or street down town. And you look for people that fit your clues that you got from God in prayer, don't be afraid to go off the list though if you feel led to pray for someone. Well we went to Highland Mall and had a blast!!! I have so many stories to tell that I am actually going to make it a whole post of its own! So you will have to wait until my next entry to read all of those!
We ate lunch at the food court and we have the big joke going around because one of the interns doesn't like to eat and has a very sensitive stomach, but they ate more than twice what we've ever seen them eat before in that one sitting! Crazy!
Well we went back to AHOP and had about an hour of free-time so we played four square again and that was fun! And then we checked in and talked about our plans for next week and that was good to get any idea about.
Then we had a study time and prayer time for another hour, and while we were praying a girl came in and we all decided to pray for her. She was so happy and joyful and we spent a ton of time just laughing with the Holy Spirit it was a GREAT way to end the day!
So be on the look out for my next post! Because I am going to have some CRAZY FIERCE happenings for you to read about!
And we are......................................................................published!
Remember how I told you in my last post that I was super excited about the next day? Well...I had a great reason to be excited about Treasure Hunting! I had the most fun yesterday out of all four days so far at Persist. But I am going to tell my whole day in order because Treasure Hunting wasn't the only thing that happened and I'm not changing the pattern of the way I write my posts any time soon! So let's get started!
I got to AHOP at the usual time about eight o'clock(oh and I've been getting several comments from followers asking "how do you get up that early to blog???" and in actuality I am just waking up at that moment and don't get to AHOP to start writing buy about eight o'clock in the morning so the time is about two hours slow!(I thought I would clear that up(Oh and any further questions or comments PLEASE ask! I'd be happy to answer and love your feedback!!!) and grab a doughnut and my coffee and sat down to write the last entry, and thought about all the awesome things I would be doing today.
We went into the prayer room at nine and Philipe was already in there playing the piano and singing scripture right out of the bible which I was really inspired by. And we prayed for about an hour and I started my second book "Streams of Living Water" about the different types of traditions of spirituality in Christianity , like Evangelical(Word-centered Life), contemplative(Prayer-filled Life), holiness(Virtuous Life) and so on.
Then at 10am we all gathered together in the center and Will and his friend Mike came to join us. Mike was leaving to go to a businessmen gathering that connected Christian business partners and so we were able to pray for Mike before he left and after we all prayed for him we all felt really encouraged and ready to go Treasure Hunting!
I think I have left you hanging on the last two words of that sentence for long enough! Treasure Hunting is a form of street ministry that originated in California and has found it's way to AHOP! Well you start out in a prayer asking God to give you clue's to finding your treasure, things like appearance, places, names, what to pray for, and just other things that don't even fall into these categories. And once you have those then you can start out looking, it's nice to go to some place where there are a lot of people like a mall or street down town. And you look for people that fit your clues that you got from God in prayer, don't be afraid to go off the list though if you feel led to pray for someone. Well we went to Highland Mall and had a blast!!! I have so many stories to tell that I am actually going to make it a whole post of its own! So you will have to wait until my next entry to read all of those!
We ate lunch at the food court and we have the big joke going around because one of the interns doesn't like to eat and has a very sensitive stomach, but they ate more than twice what we've ever seen them eat before in that one sitting! Crazy!
Well we went back to AHOP and had about an hour of free-time so we played four square again and that was fun! And then we checked in and talked about our plans for next week and that was good to get any idea about.
Then we had a study time and prayer time for another hour, and while we were praying a girl came in and we all decided to pray for her. She was so happy and joyful and we spent a ton of time just laughing with the Holy Spirit it was a GREAT way to end the day!
So be on the look out for my next post! Because I am going to have some CRAZY FIERCE happenings for you to read about!
And we are......................................................................published!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Day 4
It's me again!
Another awesome day yesterday! I had so much fun! I showed up and was asked to go water the garden outside. I had so much fun watering the plants and singing Micheal Jackson hits all by myself!
Then I went in for my hour of individual study and finished my book "The Way of the Heart". I was happy to finish it, but that is no big feat because it's only about 90 pages long. It was a good book, well written, not all of the idea's and precepts of the Desert Father's agreed with me, but I had to keep in mind the different time and simple life the monks led which isn't possible now in this era.
Then we went into the prayer room for an hour and a half for silent prayer and study and they asked us to do an Ignatius exercise, where you read a story in the bible(they said the best kinds are stories from the Gospels or 1 Samuel) and picture yourself as the main character and try to imagine what that person is thinking, feeling and how their life was changed. We read the passage John 4:4-20 of the woman at the well and when we met together after our studies we all said what we got from the passage and it was really cool to hear all the different interpretations that people came up with.
Then we went to get lunch and met in the back with Philipe(sorry if I also misspelled your name!) for our lesson. We talked about being "Christ-like" and what that end product looks like. He read to us from the end of "Renovation of the Heart" and made it so easy and simple to understand. And he was very straight forward and insightful about how God felt about us and what he wanted us to work towards and be like as his children. We actually talked about a half hour over our allowed time for the lesson!
Then we went into the prayer room again and jammed and danced with everyone and prayed for awhile and before the two hours was up, the two other interns and I sat in the center of the circle and everyone prayed for us and it was really sweet!
Then we had extra fun time after that(not that everything else wasn't fun too!) so we set up a foursquare court in the back and played like an hour and a half of foursquare and I was King for the longest amount of time, but Matt followed close behind he was really good at it, with all sorts of tricks we couldn't keep up with.
And that was the end of my day. It was really fun. Now I'm even more excited for today because we are doing something I love very much! We're going TREASURE HUNTING!!! If you don't know what that is you're are just going to have to wait until tomorrow when I'll have some awesome stories to tell you about today!
Another awesome day yesterday! I had so much fun! I showed up and was asked to go water the garden outside. I had so much fun watering the plants and singing Micheal Jackson hits all by myself!
Then I went in for my hour of individual study and finished my book "The Way of the Heart". I was happy to finish it, but that is no big feat because it's only about 90 pages long. It was a good book, well written, not all of the idea's and precepts of the Desert Father's agreed with me, but I had to keep in mind the different time and simple life the monks led which isn't possible now in this era.
Then we went into the prayer room for an hour and a half for silent prayer and study and they asked us to do an Ignatius exercise, where you read a story in the bible(they said the best kinds are stories from the Gospels or 1 Samuel) and picture yourself as the main character and try to imagine what that person is thinking, feeling and how their life was changed. We read the passage John 4:4-20 of the woman at the well and when we met together after our studies we all said what we got from the passage and it was really cool to hear all the different interpretations that people came up with.
Then we went to get lunch and met in the back with Philipe(sorry if I also misspelled your name!) for our lesson. We talked about being "Christ-like" and what that end product looks like. He read to us from the end of "Renovation of the Heart" and made it so easy and simple to understand. And he was very straight forward and insightful about how God felt about us and what he wanted us to work towards and be like as his children. We actually talked about a half hour over our allowed time for the lesson!
Then we went into the prayer room again and jammed and danced with everyone and prayed for awhile and before the two hours was up, the two other interns and I sat in the center of the circle and everyone prayed for us and it was really sweet!
Then we had extra fun time after that(not that everything else wasn't fun too!) so we set up a foursquare court in the back and played like an hour and a half of foursquare and I was King for the longest amount of time, but Matt followed close behind he was really good at it, with all sorts of tricks we couldn't keep up with.
And that was the end of my day. It was really fun. Now I'm even more excited for today because we are doing something I love very much! We're going TREASURE HUNTING!!! If you don't know what that is you're are just going to have to wait until tomorrow when I'll have some awesome stories to tell you about today!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Day 3
Good morning to everyone out there!
I have gotten through two days of Persist and approx. eight hours of prayer and two lessons and I'm more excited than ever for what else God has in store!
Yesterday was even more fun than the first day! We all got here at 9am and I got everyone donuts and we saw that one of the circles of dough in the center of the donut didn't fall out and of course I ate that one! We went over to Bennu, a coffee house that makes really good lattes and had compostable cups which impressed me very much, for our one on one mentoring time. It was really good to hear more about Moriah and Bethany and we were all so open with eachother and our walks with God it felt really nice to know that I am not the only person who sometime's feels like my walk with God isn't as good as it could be in some areas and that we can all make our relationships better, with the help of God and Persist.
Then we came back to AHOP and spent our two hours of prayer. We met this really nice guy named Daron(Daron, if you're reading this I'm so sorry if I misspelled your name!) and he just happened to be in the prayer room at the same time that we were and we got to pray for him! He was a musician and Bethany loves music so we asked him to pray for Bethany too, and it was so sweet!
Then we went into lunch and I'm so cool that I had to eat something else as usual because I'm such a picky-eater. And after lunch we went out on the porch to play some cards and that was fun, we played two hands and Moriah won the first and I won the second hand!! Yay!
We went back in for our lesson on listening to God and asking him questions and how you know that it is God's voice you are listening to which was VERY helpful, I've struggled in the past a lot with discerning what God's voice is. And after class it was really easy with the tips they gave us. They asked us to ask the Lord three questions and write down the answers he gave us, and I suppose I'll tell you one of the really cool answers I got to one of my questions. I asked Jesus "What is one of the treasures that you have waiting for me in heaven?" and he replied instantly "A stringed instrument much like a lute or mandolen, made of perfectly smooth shiny golden wood. The strings are tight and always tuned, and not rough so that no matter how long you play your fingers won't hurt. On the body of the instrument were carvings of scene's of happy memories of my life! And what I thought was the most wonderful was that it didn't just make the sound a lute makes, but it could make any sound I wanted it to or even multiple instruments at once and could even make the sounds of people singing." I couldn't believe that God would give me something so wonderful to worship him with!
Well we finished out the day with another two hours of prayer and I'm super excited for what we are going to learn about and do today!!!
I have gotten through two days of Persist and approx. eight hours of prayer and two lessons and I'm more excited than ever for what else God has in store!
Yesterday was even more fun than the first day! We all got here at 9am and I got everyone donuts and we saw that one of the circles of dough in the center of the donut didn't fall out and of course I ate that one! We went over to Bennu, a coffee house that makes really good lattes and had compostable cups which impressed me very much, for our one on one mentoring time. It was really good to hear more about Moriah and Bethany and we were all so open with eachother and our walks with God it felt really nice to know that I am not the only person who sometime's feels like my walk with God isn't as good as it could be in some areas and that we can all make our relationships better, with the help of God and Persist.
Then we came back to AHOP and spent our two hours of prayer. We met this really nice guy named Daron(Daron, if you're reading this I'm so sorry if I misspelled your name!) and he just happened to be in the prayer room at the same time that we were and we got to pray for him! He was a musician and Bethany loves music so we asked him to pray for Bethany too, and it was so sweet!
Then we went into lunch and I'm so cool that I had to eat something else as usual because I'm such a picky-eater. And after lunch we went out on the porch to play some cards and that was fun, we played two hands and Moriah won the first and I won the second hand!! Yay!
We went back in for our lesson on listening to God and asking him questions and how you know that it is God's voice you are listening to which was VERY helpful, I've struggled in the past a lot with discerning what God's voice is. And after class it was really easy with the tips they gave us. They asked us to ask the Lord three questions and write down the answers he gave us, and I suppose I'll tell you one of the really cool answers I got to one of my questions. I asked Jesus "What is one of the treasures that you have waiting for me in heaven?" and he replied instantly "A stringed instrument much like a lute or mandolen, made of perfectly smooth shiny golden wood. The strings are tight and always tuned, and not rough so that no matter how long you play your fingers won't hurt. On the body of the instrument were carvings of scene's of happy memories of my life! And what I thought was the most wonderful was that it didn't just make the sound a lute makes, but it could make any sound I wanted it to or even multiple instruments at once and could even make the sounds of people singing." I couldn't believe that God would give me something so wonderful to worship him with!
Well we finished out the day with another two hours of prayer and I'm super excited for what we are going to learn about and do today!!!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Day 2
Hey there!
Wow! Yesterday was AMAZING! I had high expectations for Persist and it still exceeded all of them! I left with so much more knowledge than I started and its only the first day!!!
But lets talk about what actually happened from the very beginning. I got here and posted my first entry and then met with Matt and Moriah and the other two interns Bethany and Micah(wow that's a lot of "M" names!) and they gave us the overview of Persist. Then we went into the prayer room and remember how I told you that they wanted me to lead the first hour? Well I did and it was awesome! The presence of God totally met us there! I used the prayer in Ephesian's 3:16 as my base and it went really well to my surprise.
We then prayed for another half hour by ourselves and then can back together for midday prayer, which was interesting and I actually learned how to correctly "cross" myself isn't that sad?
Then we went to lunch and ate with the other staff at AHOP and some of the Artist's at Imagine Art which is a non-profit for Artist's with mental and physical disablities, that shares the building with us. Then for some down time we went down the street to play on a trampaline and we played Blind Man's Bluff and I was so scared I'd fall off since there was no net, but I didn't.
Then we came back and got back in the zone, with teaching a lesson about the Prophetic which was really interesting. Mr. Matt taught it and we had another staff member named Will come and do an activity with us! It was kinda weird the way we did it because all the things we heard from God didn't really fit together, but Will said that was okay and we would find meanings for the things we heard, later on.
Then we went back into the prayer room and prayed another to hours of solitary prayer and study. They gave us four books and assigned us the first one "The Way of the Heart" and the is about Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry, and it was talking about solitude and how important it is to have a time in your day where you tune everything out and just be silent and listen to God and you will discover a lot of things about yourself.
By that time it was four o'clock and our first day was over. I can't believe how good it was and how much I learned! I thought that praying for four hours would be extremely difficult, but it proved to be not as hard as i thought, but more peaceful.
Well I'm ready to start Day 2! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle another four hours of prayer, but God knows what He is doing and will help me if I get weary...
Wow! Yesterday was AMAZING! I had high expectations for Persist and it still exceeded all of them! I left with so much more knowledge than I started and its only the first day!!!
But lets talk about what actually happened from the very beginning. I got here and posted my first entry and then met with Matt and Moriah and the other two interns Bethany and Micah(wow that's a lot of "M" names!) and they gave us the overview of Persist. Then we went into the prayer room and remember how I told you that they wanted me to lead the first hour? Well I did and it was awesome! The presence of God totally met us there! I used the prayer in Ephesian's 3:16 as my base and it went really well to my surprise.
We then prayed for another half hour by ourselves and then can back together for midday prayer, which was interesting and I actually learned how to correctly "cross" myself isn't that sad?
Then we went to lunch and ate with the other staff at AHOP and some of the Artist's at Imagine Art which is a non-profit for Artist's with mental and physical disablities, that shares the building with us. Then for some down time we went down the street to play on a trampaline and we played Blind Man's Bluff and I was so scared I'd fall off since there was no net, but I didn't.
Then we came back and got back in the zone, with teaching a lesson about the Prophetic which was really interesting. Mr. Matt taught it and we had another staff member named Will come and do an activity with us! It was kinda weird the way we did it because all the things we heard from God didn't really fit together, but Will said that was okay and we would find meanings for the things we heard, later on.
Then we went back into the prayer room and prayed another to hours of solitary prayer and study. They gave us four books and assigned us the first one "The Way of the Heart" and the is about Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry, and it was talking about solitude and how important it is to have a time in your day where you tune everything out and just be silent and listen to God and you will discover a lot of things about yourself.
By that time it was four o'clock and our first day was over. I can't believe how good it was and how much I learned! I thought that praying for four hours would be extremely difficult, but it proved to be not as hard as i thought, but more peaceful.
Well I'm ready to start Day 2! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle another four hours of prayer, but God knows what He is doing and will help me if I get weary...
Monday, June 21, 2010
Day 1
Hello blog-readers of the world!
I'm starting this blog, because of a super awesome internship I am participating in called "Persist", hosted by the two grooviest people ever, Matt and Moriah! (For all you highschooler's out there reading this, you MUST and I mean MUST join this camp next year!)
Anyway, the internship cost some real dough that my family needed some help getting, so I had to step out of my bubble of comfort and ask for support and God totally provided for me!
!SHOUT OUT! Thank you to all my supporters! You all helped make this all possible! If God hadn't worked through you I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about all the amazing things that are happening in my life! Thank you from the bottom of my heart and I hope this blog show's you just how much God can work in one teenagers life!
Where was I? Oh yeah! Well Moriah emailed and asked me to lead out the hour of prayer today!!!! Psyched! Well I have never lead out a prayer meeting so, it's my first day and I'm already jumping off the deep end!
Well I need to pick out my topic and verses!
To be continued...
I'm starting this blog, because of a super awesome internship I am participating in called "Persist", hosted by the two grooviest people ever, Matt and Moriah! (For all you highschooler's out there reading this, you MUST and I mean MUST join this camp next year!)
Anyway, the internship cost some real dough that my family needed some help getting, so I had to step out of my bubble of comfort and ask for support and God totally provided for me!
!SHOUT OUT! Thank you to all my supporters! You all helped make this all possible! If God hadn't worked through you I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about all the amazing things that are happening in my life! Thank you from the bottom of my heart and I hope this blog show's you just how much God can work in one teenagers life!
Where was I? Oh yeah! Well Moriah emailed and asked me to lead out the hour of prayer today!!!! Psyched! Well I have never lead out a prayer meeting so, it's my first day and I'm already jumping off the deep end!
Well I need to pick out my topic and verses!
To be continued...
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