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!