Family visits and more :)

Group Pic outside the Vail Church

I feel that it is almost pointless by this point to explain that my blogs are long overdue... because they always are haha, but better late than never I guess. So there is only a week left in the Vail Summer Project, and I honestly cannot believe it. My time here has been so incredibly Spirit Filled and just an incredible period of fellowship with the Lord and other believers; definitely life-changing. Our theme for this week reflects how we need to use all the we have learned and grown through this summer when we return to our campuses and try to apply them in our daily lives... it is : Get out of Vail, and BRING IT home! I am so excited to see how God uses me this year at Duke; sure I will be leading a Freshman Girls Bible Study, but there is so much more to be done beyond that. It is time for my life to become a picture of the Gospel and all God has done in my life. I cannot be content with anything less than that and look forward to stretching myself beyond my comfort zone in all areas of my life. Please pray that my burden for the lost will continue to grow as I approach my return to Duke and that I will always look for ways to show the love of Jesus.

Whew, I got a little excited writing that paragraph above haha, I mean every word though. Anyways I figured I would fill you guys in on some of the weekly themes we have had lately that kind of shape our focus for that week. The past month or so have been...

• Get out of Complacency and into Intentional Living : (probably one of the most convicting themes of the entire summer, it really woke my up. I feel like I should make it the theme of my life haha)
  
• Get out of Judging Others and into Loving like Jesus : (also quite applicable in my life)


• Get out of Relying on Others and into Relying on God : (the cool things about this week was the emphasis on prayer, and how it should be like breathing during out day in its frequency. Its hard to go to God before our family or peers, but if you try it, the resulting peace is overwhelming)


• Get out of Vail and Bring it Home : (the applications here are pretty obvious, but actually following through and carrying it out wil be the challenge, keep us in your prayers as we come down off this mountain)

Now lets flashback to almost 2 weeks ago when my parents and Robbie visited!!! Sadly Snort could not come because she was playing soccer for Jesus in Brazil with the Charlottle Eagles. We missed her terribly, but completely understood of course : )

The fam flew into Denver on th 20th and visited with Drew, Natalie and the new baby Honey Hill!! Then Tuesday they came up to Vail and visited me at Piney, where mom was utterly shocked by the type of work I did there. hehe it was pretty funny, you will have to ask her for details. Then Tuesday night, they came and watched us play an International Soccer game at Ford Park, and Robbie actually braved the altitude on those lungs and played with us...scoring quite a few goals I might add (he is in white in this picture and I'm in pink). Wednesday I took the day off and we all went rafting which was really fun (we had some pretty sweet wet suits as you can see in the picture to the left), and then that night they came to our Wednesday service at the Vail Church. Thursday I got up and had breakfast with them before I left for work, then they ended up coming back to Piney and went for a hike while I finished out the day (5.4 miles with a sweet waterfall at the top) (here my cute little parents are at the top, aw i love them :) Then Thursday night mom and I (mostly mom) cooked dinner for a group of other Cru kids for our "lifeskills" that night. We had a slight fight with the oven, and a few issues with the microwave, but everything was delicious and it was definitely an unforgettable evening. Then Friday morning at 3:45 am, Robbie and I left with 4 other kids from project to climb another Fourteener!! Mt Quandry, Rob took the change in altitude like a champ and we all made it to the top (this picture is us at the summit, 14265 feet im pretty sure). I am going to attach a video if I can... After our descent, we met up with mom and dad in Frisco and off they went back to Denver to catch a flight back to NC. (Below is a picture of the whole Quandry crew: Robbie, Ciara, Me, Rob, Dennis, and Andrew at the bottom)

Their stay was amazing, and I loved every minute of it. Oh i didnt mention that their room was literally 3 steps from mine; they stayed here at simba which was so so great! Cant wait to see you guys when I get back!

Mt Elbert

hello! my dad is going to be shocked that I am actually updating this because I have been telling him that I was going to for about a week now...so this one is for you dad!
The main purpose of this post is to tell you about the incredibly cool Friday night/Saturday morning that I had last week!

So last Friday, July 10/Saturday, July 11...

• 11:3o pm: met with 6 other crazy people in the lobby of Simba Run
• 12:15 am : loaded up the cars and headed an hour west into Leadville


• 2:00 am arrived at the trail head (the drive took longer than an hour bc we got a little turned around :)


• 2:15 am : started up Mt Elbert, the tallest peak in Colorado


• 5:20 am : summited before the sun was up (the picture to the right was right before the first rays starting coming over the peaks across from us, it was absolutely freezing!)
5:47 am : watched the sunrise from the tallest peak in CO while freezing my hiney off (the smaller picture is of the 2 other people who made it up before the sun! Elisa (Omaha) and Matt (Mizzou) were my hiking buddies throughout the night)





• 6:00 am : started back down to the cars


• 9:30 am : collapsed into cars and headed back to Vail


• 11:00 am : best nap of my life :) but only for 30 minutes bc soon we were headed off to Denver for the Rockies v Braves baseball game!

Below is a completely ridiculous video of me that I took from the top of the mountain, please excuse the fuzziness at some points, it ends up focusing again...and please excuse my lack of brain functionality, it had been like...46 hours since I had slept at this point, and I was starting to feel the effects haha.






Another thing that I should share with you guys, since it was completely novel to me when I first arrived, is this whole concept of "Fourteeners." They are apparently a really big deal in Colorado, and most places out west. The name comes from them being at least 14,000 feet, and you are not considered a hardcore hiker until you have done at least one. (So now im officially harcore in case you were wondering) haha, actually people do tons of these and Elbert is probably one of the easiest, but it still sounds kinda cool to say "I have done a Fourteener"

Mt Elbert is Colorado's highest peak at 14,443 feet, but is the second highest peak in the continental US, there is one in CA that is like 65 feet higher.


My night hike up Mt Elbert was an amazing time of fellowship with my friends and just another incredible way to see God's beautiful creation. Everyday here I grow deeper in my thankfulness for the world and people He has given us to enjoy. Here is a little peek at the sunrise I got to see.

Long Overdue Update... I miss you all!

Hey Everyone!!!

I cannot believe I am halfway done with summer, we are 5 weeks in which means the Campus Crusade Staff just left on Saturday at our banquet (I’ll explain more later, but the picture to the right is the Piney crew with the baby we watch every once in a while :)) and we now have student leadership in place the guide the course of the rest of the project! The first 5 weeks absolutely flew by, and I learned so much; so I cannot wait to see how God is going to continue revealing new things to me and the others on project, ah it’s going to be exciting!
So since I last updated you, a ridiculous amount of exciting/important things have happened, but here are the ones I am going to focus on:

· Christine and Lee’s Wedding back in North Carolina on June 20
· The Great Adventure Race on June 27
· LumberJacks and LumberJills midway point banquet on July 3
· 4th of July events

Christine and Lee’s Wedding!!
This weekend was a complete blur, but a completely wonderful blur. I drove to Denver on Thursday to Drew and Natalie’s apartment, which by the way is adorable, they live in a beautiful area and I just loved everything about it, but anyways… They took me to the airport (thanks again guys) then went off to dogsit haha. I flew to Atlanta and then landed in Charlotte a little after midnight where my amazing parents had stayed up half the night to pick me up and greet me, I LOVE YOU! As soon as I got home I climbed into Courtney’s bed (as I usually do when I visit home) and spent Friday lounging around the house and soaking up my family’s awesomeness. Friday night we had the wedding rehearsal (a picture of the bridesmaids with the beautiful bride in the middle is to the left) and dinner which was a really sweet time of seeing my cousins and celebrating Lee and Christine.

Then Saturday rolls around and I get up super early (like 7 am haha) to get my hair done and meet up with Hope and Haley (two of the most amazing humans ever) before I have to be at the church. I have a short but sweet lunch with Haley and Hope at Panera, then head home to go be a Bridesmaid for Christine! I practice The Prayer like 100 times (a duet I sang in the wedding but didn’t have the music for until the night before), then I had to pretend to be confident with it so Christine did not freak out. We get to the church and treat Teenie like a princess (she obviously looked like one, happy newly weds to the right :) Everything goes perfectly! The reception was so much fun… dancing with dad and paw-paw, getting to see Teenie and Lee as a married couple after 6 years of dating, cutting up and being ridiculous with Snort and Robbie (pic of the Craft kids decked out in wedding attire) … and it was great to see some of my friends and family that I had been away from all summer BUT, my flight back was leaving at 6am Sunday out of Charlotte which meant early morning for the Parents and me. They lovingly and willingly slept like 2 hours so they could drop me off; then they headed to the lake for the Father’s Day celebration while I was Vail bound yet again.
What a great weekend, I love you Teenie and am so happy for you

The Great Adventure Race!
5 teams + swimming +10 miles on a Bike + scramble up a waterfall + 4 mile uphill hike + 4 mental puzzles + blood/sweat/tears and a ton of LOVE = Great Adventure Race
As soon as this event was mentioned, I was automatically super pumped about it. Even as I write this I can feel residual excitement left over from it that makes my adrenaline pump a little bit. We were told that we were going to have one of the most physically challenging days of our lives on Saturday the 27th, from 8:00 am until whenever we were able to finish, for my team it was about 5 and a half hours, but it took some teams as much as 9 hours to finally complete the challenge.(the picture to the right is 5/7 of my team at a crossroads of the biking section before we start the uphill climb) They also told us that we could be as competitive or non-competitive as we wanted, but to get with likeminded people so everyone could enjoy the day. Of course I wanted to be in a competitive group, and thus THE BEASTS OF THE EAST were born, haha I actually have to take responsibility for coming up with that ridiculous name....
Ciara Alley (Vanderbilt), Stacey Miller (UNC), Rob Cousins (Clemson), Tyler Kirby (USC), John Eskridge (UNC), Andrew Coley (UT), and me (Duke) worked as a team through this physical challenge and were able to hang together in love as we faced some challenges along the way.(this picture is us studying the map to see where we were headed next) It was an amazing time of fellowship, and something I will definitely never forget. The Lord used physical and mental challenges to bring our entire project together on the day of the Race, even when people weren’t on the same team there was constant encouragement and unity among the entire project. One of the best days of my life, doing the things I love with people I love.

LumberJacks and LumberJills Banquet
We had a celebration up at Piney (the place I work) to bid staff farewell and announce the student leadership for the remainder of Project; Logan Russell (ETSU) and Libby Burrell (UGA) were in charge of planning it and did a great job using the Lumberjack theme to make it really fun. This marks where we officially take ownership for sharing the Gospel this summer; we have been trained and discipled by very amazing spiritual leaders and now we need to be intentional with using the skills we have developed for spreading the love of Jesus throughout Vail. I love the theme that leadership chose for this transitional week “Get out of Complacency and into Intentional Living”…I mean wow, what an incredible challenge for me and all of project as we step out together in Faith. (the picture is of me and some crazy lumberJacks whose shorts got in a bit of a fight with their chainsaws...or scissors)

4th of July Excitement!

The 4th of July is usually time for me to be at the lake with my family and friends, but this year my family was actually already at our annual beach trip...which I am missing for the first time ever. But if I cant be with my family then I guess I had some pretty good alternates for this year; we started by going to Vail's 4th of July parade(picture of the parade group is to the right), which was small town and adorable. We then came back and had a little cookout by the pool, just a modge podge of random stuff people had in their rooms. Then a bunch of us took hammocks and beach towels to a local park and cat-napped until about 3, when more people came and we had an epic game of volleyball. That night we had a large group meeting about evangelism, and directly implemented it later when we went to fireworks downtown.

The fireworks started at about 9:30, so we all went downtown at 7:30 and just tried to talk to people about the Gospel. We kind of used "Freedom" as a springboard in honor of the 4th of July to transition into spiritual conversations about where people find their freedom, and how we find ours through Christ. It was a really cool time, and I was able to have some conversations with people that I know stuck with them and made them think later. However, I was not as bold as I would've liked to have been while we were out, and I was sharing this with my friend later that night, and was telling her to really hold me accountable about sharing my faith openly in the future...

And its funny how God works because the very next day at work, He opened a huge door at Piney and I was able to really witness and share my faith with one of my co-workers while washing dishes in the kitchen! Its amazing how tight you get when you work in the kitchen with people; I am really encouraged by my interaction with this and one other co-worker who has also been coming to some of the recreational events we have been holding, like he came to volleyball tonight for example :) So if you think about it, please pray for the workers up at Piney and our interaction with them. God is really starting to work there, and I want Him to use me in the biggest way possible!

New Stuff :)

People at Piney :)


So these are the people I work with from left to right : Me, Stacey Miller-the girl I rode out here with :), Ciara Alley- my roommate I told you about earlier, and Bryan Green-super cool guy who goes to App and knows a bunch of my friends from high school

We have the most amazing time at work and I am so incredbly blessed to be able to spend everyday with these people.

Also, we are really starting to connect with the people we work with! Which is super exciting, they are actually initiating ways to hang out with us : ) I dont feel like I should give specific information about the people I work with, but in general there are 2 guys and 2 girls that are pretty close to us in age, plus 6 older (like late twenties/early thirties) people who are there too. We have had such an awesome time getting to know our co-workers, and trying to clearly show them the love of Christ through our actions. A huge part of what I am doing this summer is just reaching out and loving the people of Vail for Jesus, and I am daily reminded how priviledged I am to be offered such an opportunity. Please pray that our relationships will deepen even more, and we will eventually be able to bring our co-workers to church or other Crusade events to get them connected!


Getting OUT!
Our general theme for project this summer is GET OUT! and each week we have more specific ones to help direct us in out goals and activities that we do, or the stuff we are studying and reflecting on.
So far our weekly themes have been...

1. Get out of Isolation and into Community-this made us focus on getting to know everyone on project and the the city of Vail instead of just being comfortable with the people we already knew
2. Get out of Blindness and see with the eyes of Jesus-this week helped us change our perspective on people, and how we are apporaching evangelism on a daily basis... are we willing to be uncomfortable if it means leading someone to Christ?
3. Get out of Control-this week we really started focusing on the Holy Spirit, and its role in guiding the daily steps of our lives. "Spirit Filled Living" is a huge overarching theme that we are learning about here, and it is completely changing my perspective on my relationship with Jesus.
4. Get out of Self Obsession and into Self Sacrifice-By far the most convicting week for me so far has been this past week, pride has always been a huge stronghold in my life, and it truly affects the way I approach almost everything. How I respond to homeless/begging people was one thing that has really been heavy on my heart; instead of reaching out and trying to act as Christ would, I usually try to avoid rough looking people, not even considering what needs they may have. One aspect of what we talked about this week too is the Nature of God that lives within our core versus our Flesh which we combat daily in order to carry out God's will for our lives. The passages in Romans 5-7 that we went through where Paul is talking about the dual natures of himself and all humanity really hit home with me, and I see in myself a lot of the same struggles that he was describing in those verses.

So that is just a tid bit of what I am learning here, I hope to elaborate more on it later. I love you all and hope to talk to you soon!

Day-to-Day stuff

As I write this I am actually sitting in my house in North Carolina because I am home for my cousin, Christine's wedding! But, in the 12 hours I have been home so far, I have already been asked by 3 different people what I do at the Piney River Ranch so on any given day I could be....

• doing various maintenance tasks for the landscape around the cabins/lodge and cleaning the cabins, cottages, yert(pretty much a wigwam) or tee-pees before/after guests check in and out



• waitressing/serving in the restaurant that is connected to the lodge



• babysitting my manager's precious little 10 month old boy



• monitoring the lake/boat dock while people are canoing, kayaking or fishing



• spending the day grocery shopping for the restaurant and various weddings/parties we may be hosting that week



• setting up for an event that is being hosted at the ranch

So that's pretty much what I am doing on different days. They rotate us so we have variety from day to day which is really nice too.
But the coolest part of our job is definitely getting to know our awesome co-workers; we have been building relationships with them and are trying to invite them to church and other events we hold that they could come to. Please pray that these relationships will lead to spiritual conversations through which we can share the Gospel with them!


Mountain Biking!
This week I went on my first legit mountain biking experience, and it was so fun! Rob, Dennis, Andrew, Stacey and I all road up together... well kinda together, Rob is a machine and sped ahead a lot... and Stacey and I were struggling a bit... but we all made it up there :) Then we sped down the bumpiest, craziest looking downhill ever, I was cracking up the entire time and felt like my bike was on a jack hammer. Stacey and I screamed the whole way down, and I literally felt completely out of control at some points, but it was SO FUN! Hopefully my biking skills will be improving throughout the summer and I can give better updates...with less screaming...later

This is a picture of the sweet view at the top :)

Sunday continued...

Well climbing was an epic fail, only 2 people got on the rock face before it started pouring rain. So now I am back at Simba Run (the condo place we stay in). But I was going to write earlier about some stuff that has happened lately...
Tuesday night after work a bunch of kids from project played a huge game of capture the flag with some people that we met through the Vail Church, very fun :)
Thursday we had another lifeskills time that was focused on different types of roles people take on in groups and how we relate to each other with those. We were divided into our family tgroups and each assigned a role then told to put together a puzzle. I was "total excess" which pretty much told me to be as destructive and distracting as possible, which is totally opposite of my personality but was actually pretty fun. There were also "performers" who really wanted to get the puzzle done well, and "isolationists" that just stood there and did not interact/contribute to the group at all. It ended up that no groups completed the puzzle and then we all discussed these different roles and how we can learn from these extreme versions of them. It was pretty interesting to see the emotions that some people felt. Then we compared how these were different from "Grace and Truth" which is how we should all be treating each other, but often are crippled by sin when trying to do so. Very eye opening.
Yesterday the entire project had a 4 hour "Rescue Mission" through the mountains about 20 minutes away. I can't divulge all the details because the project director kind of likes to keep it a secret, but it was pretty much a series of real life scenarios to share your faith coupled with a scavenger hunt in teams. It was a very eye opening experience, and one that I will not forget.
Tonight we will have a guided reflection time to just spend some time with the Lord from like 7 to 10 pm, which I am pretty excited about. It is always a sweet time of fellowship and relaxation; great way to start the week :)

Another Sunday in Vail.... : )

Well today is another beautiful Sunday in Vail. I went to the early service this morning at church and then came back to tidy up the disaster of a condo that my roommates and myself have been living in this week.  I feel like I should tell you about my roommates since they are a huge part of my experience here...

• Jess Almeida will be a Senior next year at Penn State, she is completely adorable and really inspires me in her passion for the Lord.  She is always reading or studying the Word and I am just so blessed to have a role model for me this summer. She is working at Bubba Gump along with 11 other people from project which was such an answer to prayer :)
• Ciara Alley is going to be a Junior at Vanderbilt and works with me at Piney River Ranch! She is my late night snacking buddy (we both have an obsession with cereal), running partner, and is also a great advice giver about any and everything; which is great because I know I can always trust that her opinion is strongly grounded in the scripture.  She also has a ridiculously wide vocabulary and is always enlightening us with new words.  
• Jill Buechel is technically my roommate/bedmate but she prefers to sleep on the couch because the beds are extremely firm and the couch is ultra cushy haha.  She will be a Junior at the University of Wisconsin in Platteville(its very possible that I just spelled that wrong) and she is an extremely caring and compassionate person; probably one of the most eager people to learn more about God I have ever met.  She and Ciara run together a lot too; Jill actually ran cross country in college for a while.  

Here is a picture of us with some of the boys who made us dinner one night when all the guys were treating us girls! Our room had a delicious meal of baked ziti and salad :)

In order from left to right,

Boys: Stephen, Robbie, John, Matt. Girls: Jill, Ciara, Me, Jess

There is way more that I want to say but I am about to go rock climbing so I will have to update this again later!