I'm clinging to the promise of a lifetime...

I figured it was time for an update, it's been a few weeks. :)

Hm... I believe we left off with Kids Camp last? Man, that seems like so long ago. My life was so insanely busy back then... we turn in time cards every other Tuesday, 3 in a row were over 140 hours. My biggest one was somewhere around 158 hours (there was like a .25 in there, or something...) If you think about that, there are 168 hours in a week. 336 in 2 weeks (sidenote: I tried to capitalize the first 3. That equals #. #36.) I worked almost 50% of those 2 weeks. How crazy is that? I should get like a month off. ;)

(Just kidding. I learned/am learning A LOT, which is why I'm here.) :)

Life has slowed down a lot since then. Soon I'll be starting a girls only small group with another single sponsor, Amber, who's 28 and went to Moody Bible College for counseling. Which is funny, because I get called Amber a lot. She says she gets called Amanda a lot. This could potentially confuse people. :) Plus I'm considering grad school for counseling. Could God have done this on purpose? There's a good chance. :) I'm also now the leader of the Combo quad.

Let me explain quads... there are 3 major schools in the area, Kennedy, Linn-Mar, and Washington. There are also some homeschoolers and a lot of smaller schools in the area. The first and third Wednesday of each month, the youth group splits into these 4 groups, called quads. The Kennedy quad, Linn-Mar quad, Wash quad, and the Combo quad. Combo quad has sort of been seen as "the leftovers." It's the kids that don't go to any of the 3, basically. It's like a smaller youth group, we have about 20 on average. The focus of quad nights seems to be solely fellowship and relationship building. I don't think this is a bad thing, but I definitely don't think it's the most important thing we can do. There is no Biblical teaching on quad nights, something I see as the primary purpose of a youth group. My goal is to change this in Combo quad, as well as to get them to be better at communicating ahead of time, and potentially get students involved in leading some Wednesday nights. I'd LOVE to see that happen, but I'll have to see how the idea goes over...

I also finally was able to join something for myself. Every Tuesday night the young adult female senior high sponsors meet at the home of a mom/sponsor in the youth group. It originally started last year as a group to talk about relationships/how to be a Godly wife, but it's still going and will continue until God says to stop. :) Anyways, we're going to start a Beth Moore study on Esther next Tuesday, and I hear her studies get pretty intense. I'm really excited. :) :)

So even though the trips have slowed down, I'm still staying fairly busy. I hang out with kids several nights a week and now I'm teaching 3rd and 4th grade Sunday school on Sunday mornings as well, the first intern to teach Sunday school. Just to add something else to my plate. :)

It's kind of hard not being at HU right now... seeing all the things going on and all the relationships building without me... :( I just keep reminding myself that I only have 3 months left, and when I do leave I'll wish I was still here. So I'll make the most of being somewhere where a piece of my heart will always remain, before returning to another place where a piece of my heart will always remain. I need to stop leaving bits of my heart laying around the country, don't I? It's a real problem.

Well, that's all folks.

Love. God, each other, yourselves. Do it.

Amanda