Youth Convention!

Youth convention was this past Thursday through Saturday. It was my 5th year going. It's a statewide Assembly of God youth convention for 7th-12th graders. 27 people went from my church. It was very fun and I'm exhausted! We left Thursday morning and drove 6 hours. We had vehicle seating assignments which I thought would be really annoying but actually was the best thing that could've happened. The convention part itself wasn't as good as usual. The speaker was very good, though, and we had some intense altar calls and good worship. Other then that, it wasn't how it usually is. I wasn't looking forward to it much to begin with because it was my first year without my best friends there with me. It ended up being a very good experience, making new friends with people from my youth group and getting closer to ones I was already buddies with. I had my own room of 3 other girls, Hailey, Tara, and Amber, so I was kind of a counselor :) In our vehicle, it was myself, and 3 other girls Emily, Hailey, and Mary(who was very quiet and didn't socialize much with us)  and 3 boys, Alex, Kyle and Michael. We were basically best buddies by the time it was all over. It was a great experience and I'm really sad it's over! Here's some pictures. 

Hailey, Jessica, and I :)

Once again.

Emily, Jess, Hailey, and myself at the church in Fargo after one of the services.

The girls of our vehicle. Myself, Emily, and Hailey. They're both 14. I was the only older girl there, but thankfully got along with everyone, especially these 2 girls.

Us 3 again. We didn't take many pictures at all. We took this at the church after we'd gotten home.

Here's our vehicle. We named ourselves the kkahmels because of our initials. (Kyle, Karmen, Alex, Hailey, Michael, Emily, and Lindsey, she was driving) from left to right it's Kyle, Alex, Michael, Hailey, Emily, and Myself.

One of my closest friends Missy came home from college this past week for fall break. We have a tradition of taking pictures in leaves with our buddy Michael -the guy in all the pics- so we were going to recreate that while she was home. We were giving this girl Emily a ride home so she tagged along. 

Life as an official high school *graduate*

Finally, after months of seemingly everything getting messed up and waiting for my last school subjects to get sent to me, I finished my very last test on October 2nd. I needed a half credit to be done (which most people thought I was, in May) so I decided to take Sociology. It feels wonderful to actually be DONE! There isn't much else to say but here's a few pictures of how I've been spending (or wasting?) my time since.

Ruby and I have a little too much fun with the Photo Booth app on Mac's.

Hmmm...

Can you tell we're related? (Her expression is so funny!)

As you can see, my friend Marcy and I get a little photo booth crazy too. (Apparently graduating high school doesn't change the nerd in me...)

She is my only close friend that does come home pretty often. She goes to school 3 hours away in Bismarck, so coming home Friday, leaving Sunday, is pretty easy.

 I got a little bored one day and randomly decided I wanted full on bangs again.  I whipped out a scissors and this is the result :)

This could be big

I'm not quite sure how to jump into this story, but I guess I'll start where it started :) So Tuesday afternoon I was just messing around on Facebook, wasting time mostly. I clicked on the 'Group' section, for no real reason, and saw (it shows groups your friends have joined) called 'Soul Edge for Girls'  

Back in November, this ministry team of 4 young guys, ages 18-21 - two from England, and 2 from Canada - came to do an assembly at the high school and also our youth group service. They really impacted our school and youth group as well. They were apart of this ministry called Soul Edge, which was almost a kind of discipleship training school. They would take a group of boys for 5 months, and they'd study different parts of the bible, have different focus topics every week, and things along that order. They go to Kenya for 3 months, and continue the 'bible studies' while doing ministry type work down there. Then they go to this christian conference in England (Watford England to be exact! :) that they are associated with. They stay there for 2 weeks then head to Canada (Saskatchewan) where the 2 boys I met (they're the founders) live. You stay in an old schoolhouse type building, and continue studying the bible and also help out with different things at their church. They also have a focus on physical challenges, along with the spiritual and mental, so they do different outdoor sports every week, such as mountain climbing, kayaking, camping, ect. It's kind of hard to explain all it is about, but they do have a website. www.souledge.ca  Anyways, back to facebook :) so I saw that, and was momentarily shocked, because I remember always wishing they would have a girls version. Anyways, I wrote to one of the leaders, and I guess this girl saw what I wrote, so she added me, and here she is the leader of the girl version. I figured you probably have to be 18 since you deal with a lot of foreign stuff, so I wrote and asked her, and she said that no, it's for girls aged 17-21, she wrote a lot and seemed like a really nice person. Did I mention she's from England? haha. Most the girls that go are. Considering I've been fascinated by England/British people since I was 6 or so, that only entices me more. Anyways, the course runs from January 8th-June 1st. It costs about 8k, which includes everything, including all the foreign flights, so that considered, it's  really not that expensive. I'm not really sure what to do. I had just finally surrendered everything to God, I was done trying to figure out what in the world I was supposed to do. Then this comes up, and I don't think I can handle trying to figure out if I'm supposed to or not. It's just so weird cause these last 6 months or so, even though I did want to go to college, I remember thinking, praying, and writing down (journal to prove it) that more than anything, I wished I could just be shipped off to another country, just do missions type work. Yet at the same time, I did want the school type experience, the fellowship and the learning. This is both combined :) I've always been incredibly drawn towards missions. As well as other countries. Ever since I could read I would pour over encyclopedias and childcraft books, reading whatever possible about foreign places. One of the weirdest things, that I was telling mom about last night, was that earlier this year (2-17-08) I made a list a life goals, and one of them was 'Climb a mountain in a foreign country' now, sure I've hiked, and even repelled off a cliff, but I've never even climbed a mountain in the U.S. so why I wrote that down, I don't know. The craziest part is, I was reading what the site said out loud to mom, and the biggest physical thing they do while in Kenya, is climb Mt. Kenya. Coincidence? maybe. Needless to say that threw me off a bit. This all seems a little unreal. My heart feels excited and amazed, yet at the same time I'm absolutely terrified. Terrified that after all these months of complete desperation as I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life, what God wanted, all the while everyone around me seems to have it together, that after all of that, I could, in fact, have actually found something. It's a bit overwhelming. 

anyways, any comments/suggestions/thoughts?

Like aunt, like niece

Photo Booth fun with Bailey.