Team 2 because God is number 1

This summer led to lots of different things for me. I learned a lot, made friends and family all over the country, and played a lot of sports with kids for Jesus. I worked for Infinity Sports and made a couple of new friends in my teammates: Jessica, Kayla, Amber, Jake, Evan, and Tiffini. Although these guys were my teammates they became true brothers and sisters. We fought, poked fun, aggervaited, laughed, cried, plotted, discipled, grew together. We did life together for 8 weeks. We became the best family we could. We also all knew that all of us have given our summers to do things for God. The church in Acts talks about getting rid of everything they had to follow Jesus! We may not have given up everything but as college students we did the best with what we had. My teammates and my summer taught me a lot. The first sunday we spent together the sermon was about breaking down your walls and letting people in to see you and not the picture you had painted for everybody to see. I had been doing this with just about everybody and as my friends back very thing, my teammates had discovered the importance of it quickly.home and I were working on doing that
During our training week we got to see kids get baptised in the pool at Camp Liden. It was one of the best experiences we could have asked for. After spending a week with these kids and getting to see some of them get baptized was a beautiful thing! We all knew what were there for that summer and what could happen. We played soccer in the rain that week as a team and knew that we were all playful kids that were old enough to leave home and travel together. Nothing ever changed except our closeness.

This summer taught we what it really means to do life together. Not only can you joke around with each other but you must be encouraging to one another. We worked together, ate together, traveled together, and sometimes slept together. The only real time apart we got was in the shower. We knew what kids everybody was dealing with and the struggles that went along with it. I learned that although on campus we may do things a little differently we are still doing things for Christ and that in itself can be hard in todays world. Therefore, encouragement is HUGE!!! We must look past the jokes, the words, the acts and make our actions known and really make people wonder what is so different in ourselves. However, in today's world its hard not to do it with the support and encouragement of your fellow brothers and sisters in christ!

That brings me to another thing I learned this summer was transformation. We were in business to transform these kids life instead of conforming them to a religion. In today's society it is so easy to conform to the way people believe, the way they act, the way we do things. It's not easy to transform your life for chirst. That is our mission though and mine doesn't stop from this summer. Our team motto read: Team 2 because God is number 1! He was in control this summer and we were in business to Glorify His Kingdom!

Joshua 1:9 was my verse for this summer. It says that God is with you where ever you go. I had to trust God this summer for things to work out. I was apprehensive about spending 8 weeks with people I had never met and going into homes of people I had never met and doing some kind of mission work I had never done before. After having done it though I wouldn't change it for the world. God was with us all summer from traveling, to dealing with kids, to being tired, to the homes were walked into week after week. Once I got there there was never a question in my mind as to whether I was doing what God wanted me to do this summer! It was an overwhelming joy to know that God played a hand in my summer and in my life!

I can't tell you the joy it puts in my heart to know that there are truely Godly people out there willing to open homes when we would have no where to rest our heads. We relied on God to supply and provide and God did just that from food to kids to homes to friends. I have learned that you can go through the motions or you can put everything at the throng of God and let Him deal with it and become a Jesus Follower instead of just an oridinary world viewed Christian.

Thanks to my teammates who made my summer amazing! The people I now call family all over the US for helping me keep my lifestyle of being a kid! The growth I experienced will follow me back to school where nothing changes except my mission field will go from elementary age kids and playing sports to college age and living life. Thanks for the prayers and the support! And as we put it all summer YOU ROCK MY WORLD!....after God of course!