day 078. [farewell]

Farewell is such a bad word to use. It sounds like I'll never see these people again. That's such a lie! I will see some of these people again in the months, maybe even weeks, to come.

The best part about the relationships I've made from Kid's Camp and High School Camp is what our linkage is; God. Our friendships, as new as some of them might be, go deep. We hit the core of each other because of our individual relationships with God. Our relationships are so much more real compared to some of our other relationships we have. I feel bad for saying that, but it is true for the most part. I feel like I can trust these guys with just a bit more compared to my friends who have yet to start that relationship with God.

If you're wondering by the way, this is my friend Kyleann. Unfortunately she goes to school at Snohomish High School :P

She was a leader at Kid's Camp and my food friend during High School Camp! We ate most of the meals together and I found myself eating off of her plate most of the time. Especially when she didn't like something that I liked, haha. Kyleann is just one of the few people I've had the opportunity to meet and become friends with these past few weeks.

If you don't remember, during Kid's Camp I became friends with Calley (my best fran!) and Kevin (BFF!!). I also met Miranda there at Kid's Camp. I met Chase Weholt there as well. From High School Camp I also got to be better friends with Isaac. I can't forget Regan. That fool, I met him about two years ago - going on three. Time amazes me at how fast it's going, ha. I loved serving with you New Lifers, and I loved being a camper with you guys.

Keep an eye out because I might pop my head in at New Life every now and then ;)

I definitely cannot wait to serve with you guys again!!

PS. These are just a few people I met. I met a ton more of people, haha :)

day 077. [party]

I wanted to punch someone after today's morning chapel, ha. God literally called me out. I'm sure he called out other people, but he honestly called me out with the sermon that Phil gave this morning.

He used Phil to call me out in SEVEN areas of my life that are not only lacking, but are areas of my life that created a covenant with God that has OBEDIENCE stamped all over it.

I felt that God was using this last sermon to just wrap things up for me. Just close out what this life of obedience is going to look like for the years to come. Am I scared? Oh hell yeah! But am I excited? Definitely. Not only will this be a season of obedience, but it will also be a season of trust. That's because for the first time in my life I don't know what to expect from God. I don't even know what to think about how this will all turn out. That's because I'm more interested in what God has to offer me day by day. This really will be a season of crying out to God daily. This is what I want. This is what I'm fighting for now.

As for evening chapel, there was no sermon. It was just straight up worship. But different ways of worship were there. Journaling, singing, painting, praying, and even communion. I think the kind of worship that definitely got to me was the traditional worshiping of singing worship music. Something about worship music and worshiping from the heart is really powerful. Also journaling was powerful for me. I've always been someone to write, but I've held back on it until this past week. God has revealed my old love for writing/journaling. I get a joy and a sense of peace out of it. The one station that hit me at my core was the prayer station. Not because it was a time to talk to God, but it was also an opportunity for me to write down the name of a someone to accept Jesus Christ in their life. I hope you know I'm praying for you.

For such a serious day, and the last full day of camp; how else do you think we ended it? Well, it a dance party and a bonfire. Oh man, I love dance parties. I think I might have gotten carried away with my dancing, bahaha X)

I gotta learn how to keep it Church-Rated, haha.

day 076. [sand]

It was time for the annual Beach Volleyball Tournament. My team got robbed of not only a final championship game, but the title as well. We had it in our hands, ugh. Father's House ... haha. I love those guys though ;)

To continue with the trend of what I've been writing about, morning chapel was about how God will use us if we pray to him about it. Thing is, when we pray to him to use us, it can be a dangerous thing because he will use us somehow.

If you're wondering how this goes along with this call of obedience in my life, it's because when God calls on me to do something, I will. I'll do it because I want to and because he has called me to do something.

I might have said it in my other posts, but this life he has called me too is going to be one of things that I won't expect. It'll be a life of hardship, but I'm so ready for it. Despite how scared I am.

Moving onto evening chapel. Let's just say that for part of it I got a little discouraged. But then for the later part of it I was a little relieved as to what God had to say to me. This was one of the nights where I didn't get a whole lot of out it, to say the least. That was because tonight was the night where people were called up to receive their prayer language. You see, I've been wanting my prayer language for awhile now. It's like a direct line to God, if you want to think of it that way.

I didn't get it tonight.

I was discouraged, but thank you Phil for going up there and explaining how we'll get it when we get it. To be honest with you guys though, I had a lot of stuff on my mind that night. That was possibly keeping me from really being surrendered. Instead of getting my prayer language, I got confirmation that night from the Lord.

He told me that what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I'm studying is where he wants me to be. At the same time though, God called me to Children's Ministry. Not necessarily to become a Children's Pastor, but to continue to minister over kid's. If you couldn't tell from the other week where I was gone, I really have a heart for Kid's. I get such joy out of seeing them come to know their father. It just fits that God has called me to continue working with Kid's :)

Did I mention? He also called me to a year of just him and me. No relationships. No silly bromances. Just him and me. Who knows, it might be more than a year. ;)

day 075. [riley]

Really quick, this is Riley Sullivan from New Life. I hope I typed down the right church, haha.

You see, he prayed over me last night. He prayed over me at the exact moment that God stripped me of everything that had defined me. At that moment though, I felt like I could trust Riley and just let him know what exactly happened at that moment. Hence why I ended up talking to him today about what God did that night.

Anyways, moving on, ha. Morning chapel had something to do with how God is our new system rather than making him part of our old system. In other words, once God is a part of us we don't try and make it so that he has to work with what's already going on inside of us. Instead we need to make him our new system meaning that there's nothing for him to work with. It's a fresh start. I really felt that this was one of the ways God was telling me how I need this season of my life to be now that I'm stripped of everything and have been called to this life of obedience. (I apologize now for using the word obedience throughout the posts of the week, haha).

It was good to hear this because I have fought so hard to try and make God part of my system when he wants nothing to do with it.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. - Mark 2:22

What kind of wineskin are you? Just think about it.

To be honest, as I look at my notes from evening chapel I draw a blank as to what Shane was trying gto tell us. I do remember the altar call from this night because it really called me out. It was also a special moment between me and a few of my Living Word home skillets ;)

First of all, Shane called the following people to the altar:

1. Those that have had to perform/impress others for their whole lives
2. Those who just haven't felt accepted in their everyday lives

If you can guess, I went up for the first one. I can't even begin to tell you how many people I've had to try to impress in these 19 years of my life. My parents are just a scratch in the surface of the people. Trust me, there's a long list of people. You probably don't even know how many times I've failed to perform/impress for some of these people. The hurtful things that have been said after such a failure. They stuck with me. I let them define me. But God decided that it was the end of that tonight.

God pretty much let me know, through others praying over me, that I'm done. I'm done needing to perform/impress others. I need only to meet the expectations that God has called me too.

What made this night as special as it was, was because God had me pray over two of my Living Word home skillets. I first prayed for Steven Welch, seeing as he was right next to me. Now that I think about it, I didn't pray for him. I just spoke words to him that were from God. How God doesn't see him as another face in the crowd. How God knows him by name. How he is an individual that is noticed. It was a powerful moment between the two of us. I really do consider Steven to be that little brother I never got because my parents didn't want a third child, ha.

The other person I prayed over was Laura Nagel. I really did pray for her, haha. That was another powerful moment as well because my prayer consisted that Laura would stop searching for acceptance because it was right before her. It was in front of her. It was honestly a good moment for us.

Praise Jesus! Praise God! Love :)

day 074. [purity]

This morning started out with a really good sermon given my Katie Barnhart. She spoke on how at one point in her life God called her to live a life of purity. Also, how living this life really changed who she was from when she started high school to when she finished high school.

The funny thing about God calling her to live a life of purity is that during Kid's Camp God had called me to live a life of obedience. Obviously during Kid's Camp had God started to speak elaborately to me on what a life of obedience looks like it might not have stuck. I mean during Kid's Camp my focus was not on me, it was on my boys. During high school camp though God had the ample opportunity to speak to me about a life of obedience and even give me a picture of what that looks like. (I'll go in more detail with the later posts).

It seriously started with this sermon though. God revealed to me in bits what obedience was going to look like.

Later that night at chapel Shane spoke on Grace and how Freedom is attached to it. God tested me that night at the altar call to see if I would really be obedient to him. You see, in past times at altar call when we have an opportunity to let go of things I have a tendency to hold onto a few areas of my life so that I know I'm still in control. But it's not about me anymore. It's about having freedom from the grace of God. It was about me being obedient and letting him strip me of everything that had defined me for the past 19 years. It was weird because I stood there in the presence of God bare, weak, and vulnerable. I also stood before him as Rick Baleros. That's it. Nothing more. No titles. No labels. No judgement. I was just Rick Baleros. Do you realize how good that felt? How uplifting that was?

Let me tell you though, I was clueless as to what would happen from there though. I didn't know whether or not to be overly joyous. I didn't know whether or not to cry. I was just clueless. The thing is, God had a few more days to reveal even more to me what this season of my life would look like ...

day 073. [high school camp]

Disclaimer to my readers: So much happened this past week that if I wrote it all out I would end up writing a novel or two. Because of that though I'm going to keep things short and focus more on what God was doing in me. If you have any questions though, feel free to ask me.

Since I'm writing on what was most significant, my posts might be short, but that's a good thing for you guys reading them! :)

Anyways, on the first day that we got there we obviously all settled into our cabins. What are the odds that I'd get put into Cabin 22, which is double 11, haha.

That night at chapel I wasn't expecting for what Shane brought to the table. He started talking about how this week God will personally talk to us and that we'll have to listen for what he has to say. (I'll go more into that one for day 074's post).

A lot of what this night consisted of was Shane preaching on what makes a church beautiful. But what I wasn't expecting was Shane to call people to the altar who had stuff to let go of before God. Shane also said that God was letting us know that we don't need to look back anymore because there's nothing there. Right away though God put two obvious things in my life that I had to let go of. As personal I would love to get, ask me what those two things were and I'll let you know what they were.

Let's just say that this was an awesome way to start off a week that has so much more in store!

day 072. [growth]

This might sound like a concert review, and the thing is ... it might be, ha. Also, it'll kind of be like a tribute to my good friend Jessica Andrukat :)

So a few posts ago, actually a week ago, I wrote about how Jessica is such an awesome lady who lives for God. How she has so much wisdom in that brain of hers; that brain is almost 20 by the way!

What I failed to mention though was that her wisdom isn't just through her spoken words, but her wisdom comes from her lyrics in her songs. Yeah, that's right, Jessica is a striving musical artist. Give her a listen if you get the chance. Her lyrics are strong and deep.

I've gotten the pleasure to really get to know Jessica over the past two years. I met her during my sophomore year, her junior year, while I was helping out with the choir because it had an oboe part. Thing is, with the time I've gotten to know her I've had the opportunity to get to see her grow as a musician, as a Christian. As did she, she got to see me grow in ways that I would have never been able to grow if I didn't except Jesus into my life.

Jessica, if you're reading this, I love you! You're seriously an amazing person.

Back to her lyrics, ha. What I love most about her lyrics with her songs is that they're deep (I said that already) and they're real. You can just tell that so much of Jessica goes into her songs, which makes them personal. With them being personal, they can be relatable to people. She is seriously speaking into people with her lyrics. Ahhh! I could go on and on about Jessica. I really am blessed to have gotten to know her these past two years.

Anyways, if you're one of my readers or someone new to my blog check out this bonus blog that was written with you in mind :)

Just an insight on some of her lyrics, this is from one of her songs that she sang tonight at the concert:

"We were meant to be much more than we see"

Flippin' amazing if you ask me :)

I forgot to mention, if you want to see pictures from the concert tonight go to my flickr! I will put more of the photos up when I'm back from camp!