day 086. [family]

At camp one of the things that we talked about heavily and made it an important thing was our church family. Some of the pastors said that if they were to pass away they would rather leave their children with someone from the church over their own family. That's just how important it is to get rooted into a church family.

On top of that, that night so many people gave their lives to Jesus and we were able to welcome them to the family. You're probably wondering why I'm talking about this when camp was about two weeks ago. Well, you see, I leave this Friday to go back to the University of Portland. My good friend Aloysia (she's a college student now) leaves tomorrow morning for college. Devin Tanner & Courtney Tuttle, they leave on Tuesday. Nathan Young leaves on Wednesday.

They are part of my family. They are part of my church family.

So I'm coming to realize that a lot of my post this summer have most definitely been about God. It's what I do. For those of you that didn't see this side of me during the school year it's probably because I tried hiding it. Why I hid it? I don't know, but I don't want to hide it this upcoming school year. But yeah, this is a big part of my life and it's a part of my life that I don't mind sharing with you :)

Anyways, I wish I could remember what was going on during church, but I can't. haha. After church though I went to go play some volleyball. It was good. A LOT of the high school girls were there and it made playing that much more fun because we were actually playing volleyball. Not just passing the ball over back-and-forth.

When I got done with that though I got myself ready for Youth Group. I went to both Jr. High and High School. Why I went to Jr. High tonight? I don't know, felt called. High School Youth Group was where it was at though. Just like in Jr. High we shared our testimonies as to what God did during camp. Some of us even spoke on what God has been doing in the last 18 months. The thing is, I don't know if you can question our testimonies because these were our experiences with God. They were that real.

The hardest part about tonight though was we had to say goodbye to the seniors that were leaving for college this week. Something that was also hard tonight was saying goodbye to the youth group, again. I thought it'd be easier this time around, but it definitely wasn't. There were faces that I didn't say bye to last year because they weren't part of the youth group. There were faces that I didn't say bye to last year because I wasn't close with them. It's funny what God can do in a year. It's funny what God can do in a summer. He brought people to the youth group. He brought relationships in my life that are real and true.

As typical though, the youth group headed over to Applebee's to spend one last Applebee's with the parting seniors as well as those that are just going back to college. It was PACKED that night. Bless those servers who have to deal with is. I say that like we are a burden because we definitely can be sometimes.

Afterwards though Steven and I hung out for about an hour and a half just kind of talking. Like we usually do. I can't wait to hang out with Sharmaine and Steven this week. It better happen!!

PS. So there's a story behind the photo. Corey has a tendency to get pictures with all the Asian girls ... just like that. I kind of wanted a picture with Corey. What better way to do it? haha.