Introductions and Scheduling

Time for introductions!!

I want you all to specifically meet my teammates.

But I will also introduce a few others who are near and dear to my heart.

I won't be serving exclusively with just my team this summer.

I'll have opportunities to serve with all the other summer missionaries as well,

but for the most part,

I'll be sticking pretty close to my team.

Which will be fun and interesting.

Anywho, here we go!

 This is Grace!

She's just graduated from college,

and she just got engaged.

She's a sweet girl,

and she has a huge passion and desire to minister to girls and to women.

 This is Erica!

She is so much fun!

She has this way of making people laugh all the time.

She loves to talk about God and serve Him,

and she's just fun.

 This is Courtney!

She's a vegetarian,

I know, kinda a weird thing to put down, but it's very much a part of who she is.

She loves God, and she desires to serve Him.

And she loves youth.

 This is Mary Grace!!

Oh my goodness, she is my twin.

No joke.

We've been talking a lot over the past week,

getting to know each other and what not,

and we have SO MUCH in common.

SO MUCH.

I could tell you lots and lots of things.

She loves youth and she has a special passion for working with middle school youth.

She loves God, and she just wants to serve Him with everything she's got.

And she drives a VW bug.

Crazy? I think yes.

 Anyway, so this is the performance team of 2011!

We have come together to serve the Almighty.

And we desire more than anything to reach the lost with the light of Christ.

We know that we have a huge mission before us,

but we also know that God has already gone before us,

and the victory is His.

I am excited to see how God is going to move within each of us,

and around each of us this summer.

It's going to be incredible.

Starting on the left: Mandy, Krystal, and me.

These ladies were my teammates the first summer I served here in the Low Country.

My goodness, I was literally jumping for joy when I found out they were serving again this summer!

God has definitely brought us back together for a reason.

And I am so excited to be serving with them again.

There's no telling how often my heart longed to hear their voices as we did devo together.

Anyway, God has some amazing things in store!

 This is the LCM staff! (Not all of them though. We're still missing a few.)

Back row (from left): Kurt, Mandy, Andrew, Mary Grace, me.

Middle Row (from left): Erica, Courtney, Jenn, Holly

Front row (from left): Will, Stephon, Erin, Kellie, Grace, Krystal, Ashley

We're missing: Larry, Sarah, and Kia

These staff members have all become friends over the last week of my life.

They have left their imprints on my heart.

And I don't think I will ever be the same.

We all have an amazing journey before us.

And it is going to just be absolutely incredible.

Schedule

This summer schedule is going to be crazy,

especially over the next couple of weeks.

I'll give you a run-down of what is going to happen each day,

once we're done practicing in our free time.

Monday:

Ministering to the Lifeguards - AM

Down time - Afternoon

Staff Meeting/Silly Songs with Larry - PM

Tuesday:

Ministering to the Lifeguards - AM

Lunch/Downtime

Bible Club - Afternoon

Lifeguard Dinner/Coffeehouse - PM

Devo

Wednesday:

Day off

Mossy Oaks Ministry - Afternoon (I will be doing this one on my own.)

Down time - PM

Devo

Thursday:

Ministering to the Lifeguards - AM

Lunch/Downtime

Bible Club - Afternoon

Dinner/Down time - PM

Devo

Friday:

Ministering to the Lifeguards - AM

Down time

Dinner/Down time

Devo

Saturday:

Sleep in some

Prep for Performance

Perform at Caligny Plaza on Hilton Head Island

Devo

Sunday:

Church at North Island Baptist Church

Lunch

Prep for Performance

Perform at Caligny Plaza on Hilton Head Island

Devo

And then it repeats each week.

But for the most part,

especially over the next few weeks,

we won't have as much down time,

because we really need to nail down our performance.

And we need to do it quickly.

So, it's going to be an intense couple of weeks.

But I know God is going to provide in amazing ways.

As the Community Ministry team needs us to help with VBS's around the area,

we will also have opportunities to do so.

I know that I'll be helping out with a couple already.

I've been recruited. haha.

And a few of us are going to be serving at North Island Baptist Church on Sunday mornings.

We'll be doing Children's Church as well as working with their youth.

So it's going to be great.

Let me explain the ministries we do:

Lifeguard Ministry - We walk the beaches every morning going up to the lifeguards and talking to them. We have otter pops with us and we provide them with a few so that they can cool down some from the heat. Our main goal is building relationships with them so that we will have opportunities to share Christ with them. Every other Tuesday night we have a free meal for the lifeguards that they are welcome to come to. We do a short devotional with them, and we continue to build relationships with them. We're hopefully going to be starting a new ministry this summer: a Coffeehouse. It'll be mainly for the lifeguards, but also for any other singles on the Island. We want to offer a place to come and hang out and just talk.

Bible Clubs - We will be going to two different apartment complexes each week, one on Tuesday, the other on Thursday. We will have the opportunity to build relationships with the kids living there and show them the love of Christ. We'll have craft time, story time, game time, and snack time. It'll only be a two hour time period that we'll have, so we have to be intentional, but at the same time flexible.

Mossy Oaks Ministry - This was started back in my first summer. We go and visit with the older ladies who live in this apartment complex. It's a time of devotion, singing, and just visiting. These ladies love God, and they just need some people to come and show Christ's love to them. I am really excited about seeing all of my ladies again this summer. I have missed them so much, and I know that it will be a good time of refreshment for me.

Silly Songs with Larry - This isn't really a ministry. This is more of our staff meeting/book study with our supervisor, Larry. We just thought it would be a whole lot more fun to call it Silly Songs with Larry than Staff Meeting.

Performances - Our performances are on Saturday and Sunday nights. We'll be getting there late afternoon/early evening to get set up and all that jazz. Then we'll be playing some music and doing balloon animals as well as face painting to draw people in for the performance. Then we'll perform. After the performance, we'll be doing some more face painting/balloon animals waiting to do another performance. This ministry is to reach out to young families as well as children and show them the love of Christ in a short amount of time.

I know this is a lot to take in.

It's been overload for me this entire past week.

Almost overwhelming.

But God is good, and He's taking care of me.

My host home is completely gorgeous.

I want to take pictures and post them,

but I don't want to do that til my host family isn't here.

Ya know?

Anywho, I think I am really going to love my host family.

Bethany is a sweetheart,

and she's been just what I need over the past two days.

Christopher is a famous chef,

and I can't wait to get to know him better over the next few months.

If anyone wants to send me anything, my parents have the address.

Or you can message/email/text/call me and I'll get it to you.

Prayer Requests:

-team unity- we need to be unified, not letting anything come between us and God, and us and each other. It's going to be rough. I know that over the past couple days I have been experiencing an extreme amount of spiritual warfare, so I know that Satan is fighting hard against what is going to happen this summer here in the Low Country. So if you could be praying for me as well as my team and every one of the summer missionaries, that would be excellent. We're going to get tired and worn out, but I know that through God, we'll be able to stand strong.

-the people we're going to be ministering to- we're going to encounter people from all over the world this summer. And a lot of them are going to be from here in the Low Country. But I want to be able to serve them and show them God's love however He wants me to.

I can't really think of anything else to be praying for. Just us, our ministries, and our focus.

I want to keep it God centered this summer.

It's all about Him.

Nothing else matters.