shame....shame

shame. Sorry everybody that it has been forever since I have written a blog. :( So.....our long trip to Kentucky....it was pretty much awesome. we got to see alot of the countryside on our way up there. It was pretty cold and rainy most of the trip up there but we made it. The coolest thing that we got to do on the way there was to stop in St Louis and go up into the Arch. it was pretty amazing it cost us about ten dollars for a ticket but it was totally worth it :P The trams that you get into to go up to the top look like something out of a 50ies scifi movie. The door to get in was about two feet wide and five feet tall. inside it looked like the inside of an egg all painted white and lit really brightly. When we got to the top the views were breathtaking. it was a rainy day but everything looked really green and pretty and some of the leaves around the area were starting to change. It was a beautiful experience. While I was up there I kinda began to think about the tower of Babel. I couldn't help identifying with the people who built that tower. I definitely felt a sense of pride in the work that this architect had accomplished, and it would have been easy to feel very very very proud with the work of human hands. But then I remembered my priorities and thought about how God had created the very ground on which that building is sitting. I remembered to give glory where glory is due.
when we got to Peduchah we were welcomed with open arms and a whole lot of food. this is something yo learn about the south is they love you by feeding you. That night we were split up and sent to host families from the church around Peduchah. My friend Amberlee and I got to stay with an older couple. Their names are Daryl and Jackie Blagg. the blags are amazing people and i was so thankful that we got to stay with them. They are always remarking how much the "Lord has provided" and as we spent some more time with them we heard some stories from them that sounded as if they were some pretty tough struggles. For example Daryl has a Tracheotomy and is not able to breathe through his mouth. However they seamed to find that silver lining in every situation. Funny story...so the first morning Daryl takes Amberlee out to the deck to look at the back yard. when they got out there he pointed out a building that liiked like a garage only nicer. In a hushed voice he said " that is where my other woman lives". Amberlee didnt quite know what to do. But then he laughed and said " dont worry its only a car". it was really funny. Ok.....so Daryl has a 2004,aniverasry edition,last ones ever made, THUNDERBIRD!!!! this car was beautiful!!! five hundred horsepower. It was amazing and Daryl let us drive it. He kept saying" mash that peddle, mash it to the floor!! But I was to chicken to let tit go all the way. But I am pretty sure that I hit 100mph and I could feel that it could go much faster................more to come about our trip and life tomorrow I promise.

LICE!! Gods Little Attitude Adjusters!

Hello there. This week has gone fast. Isn’t it funny when you get home from a trip it seems like the next week is when you play catch up. This week has had a lot of activities.
I want to tell you a story……On Monday we went to Cool Waters which is a program that the Sunset youth group participates in. Cool Waters is a program that feeds the homeless. This was a really impacting thing for me. I think that I was affected most by lice. When we got to the bus station (where we were handing out food) I saw a guy that looked pretty miserable. I took a lunch and gave it to him. I shook his hand and as I looked at him I noticed that his hair…….was moving. It was FULL of lice. I was immediately repulsed and discreetly moved to another part of the room. I was bothered all night, itching and scratching and feeling like there were bugs crawling all over me. When I got home I immediately got in the shower and scrubbed down from head to toe. However I still felt gross like I had bugs in my skin. I didn’t get very much sleep that night I was tossing and turning and feeling really silly because I didn’t even have lice but I was still going crazy. Then it hit me…….that man still has lice…real lice. AND he doesn’t have medicine, a bed, food or even the knowledge about Jesus to comfort him in his unfortunate position. I failed to give him the latter because I was a little uncomfortable. How selfish! The one thing that I could freely share with him I held back. If I were to catch lice by some strange incident I would have money to get medicine to take care of it, I would have water to wash in and I have Jesus to comfort me. I am constantly amazed at how the Lord works day by day because the very next morning in class we talked about how Jesus healed a leper in Luke. When He healed the man, He didn’t just wave His arms, pronounce him healed and leave because He didn’t want to be contaminated. NO! He actually TOUCHED him. He put his HANDS on that dirty, smelly and most likely lousy man. I am going to Cool Waters again this week, and I am going to try to find that man. I will shake his hand again, I will learn his name and I will pray with him. I will remember that in God’s eyes I am no better than he is…. clean or unclean, lice or not … Jesus loves us! ALL OF US! We are called to be JUST LIKE HIM!

Refiners fire!

Hey there! Wow! A lot of things have happened in the last three weeks. The main event was spending some time in New Mexico. My area church group was asked to help out at a youth camp up by Las Vegas NM called Blue Haven Christian Camp for the weekend. The kids that came to the camp were from the Sunset Church of Christ youth group. The weekend was really productive. We mostly worked with the recreation crew. The activities that the kids did were really neat. They all had a spiritual message with a practical application. The activity that I worked on was called the ladder. The kids had to build a ladder in order to get their team over an obstacle. The ladder is constructed in such a way that it can be taken apart and put back together. However, there is only one way to put it together correctly because every slot that the rungs fit in is a different size corresponding to a particular rung. It can be really frustrating. We made a phrase and wrote it letter by letter on the rungs. But the phrase was meant to confuse the kids more because some of the letters were upside down and backwards. It was really interesting to see how the kids worked together to build the puzzle. The challenge is designed in such a way that the people who are leaders will try to work out the puzzle by the first apparent solution (the phrase) however; the quiet people will look ahead to the real solution (trying each rung individually). The activity promotes teamwork but in a different light then most see it. It elevates those who are not natural leaders and gets them to voice their opinions in the group. There were about three different activities like this every day that we were there. The kids had a great time and I am sure that we learned more than the kids did but I am finding out that this is how it is a lot of the time when you teach the word.
Because we were headed to another camp the day after Blue Haven was over, our team got to spend an entire day at Blue Haven by ourselves. We went on several adventures. Including driving up on a mesa during a thunderstorm and consequently getting our car stuck in the clayish mud on the way down. We actually had a lot of fun pushing the car out of the ditch, guiding it down the mountain and getting absolutely filthy in the process. A few of us also got to go on a guided tour of the area led by the caretaker of the camp. Apparently when Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders the first place he went was New Mexico. There is an old campsite called “Camp Blue” that was the first place that Teddy found men. We went up the Mountain in a “mule” (basically a hardcore golf cart). We stopped at a place called Inscription Rock. The story goes that one of the men in the first bunch of Rough Riders was a skilled stone worker. He made an inscription of the names of the Rough Riders and also made a sign on a rock that said) “Old Camp Blue”. Also on the side of the rock that the names are in, there is a scale carving of a rifle complete with trigger and hammer!
After we got done at Blue Haven we drove straight to Mountain View Christian camp in Ruidoso NM. It was beautiful! You can’t even imagine how awesome trees smell until you have lived in Lubbock for a month. Mountain View was a time that we were allowed to get some rest and catch up on some sleep. We were blessed to have two amazing speakers: Mike Tenero and Geoff Dunn. They are both dynamic speakers. We were challenged by Mike to quit nibbling on the word and FEAST on it! And Geoff sparked a fire to our passion for the Lord and his word. I was challenged to HUNGER and THIRST for righteousness. It is so amazing how much I have grown just in two months. Every lesson is life changing and every class is motivating. I can’t wait to see what I will be like in eight months! I was humbled by an illustration that Kristen told me at Mountain View: When a silversmith is refining his metal he lights a fire under it. Slowly, painfully the ore is melted down. After it is given to a certain heat the impurities float to the top and as they do, they are scooped of and thrown into the fire. This process is repeated and repeated. The silversmith knows that his precious silver is ready for use only when the liquid, hot, maleable silver reflects clearly the image of his face. And so it is with the Lord. Pray that I am wise enough to allow myself to be refined over that fire, and that consequently I clearly reflect His face!!!

This is the sunset above the apts where I live.

The sunsets are one of Texas' redeming qualities.

This is my adorable fellow Montanan!! AKA my roommate Kristen Smith!

Exausted!

Hey everybody! It was a good week! But I am exhausted. Fun fact: There are 66 AIMers in this class, 39 girls and 27 boys. How many books are in the Bible?!Old Testament? New?! :) Pretty cool huh? Anyway we were split into Area Church Groups this week. Because there are so many AIMers it would be impractical for all of us to attend one church so they split us up and spread us out over the state so that we can be a benefit to more churches and so that we can improve our serve. My area church is right here in Lubbock at Sunset COC. There are eight of us in our group three boys and five girls. We have been working with the youth at Sunset. This Wednesday night we put on a skit for the kids during class. It was really fun and I am really looking forward to getting to know the youth here better and hopefully we can influence them for good. This next weekend our group gets to help out with a camp for the sunset highschoolers called Blue Haven retreat. We are all super excited! It should be a blast. I am excited because it will give me a little taste of YBC which I missed this year because I was working. Well I caught the Lubbock Crud as it is called around here. Its a combination of not getting enough sleep, adjusting to a new climate, a weakened immune system and a nasty cold. Thank Heaven I didn't miss any classes, at least physically. I am better now thanks to my classmates who took great care of me and my roommates who are just awesome! I have a bit of homework to get caught up on however. I love you all and you are in my prayers. Please keep me in yours :D I especially need prayers this week and the next to stay focused as we head into midterms and various other activities. Pray that I do everything to the Glory of our Lord! Also be praying for Kane Berry, one of my classmates, as he is struggling with not one, but four rare forms of arthritis. He is the bravest person that I know and he never ever complains. He is willing to give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Pray for relief and healing for him. Nothing that we do here is easy and I am sure that it is ten times as hard for him. Thanks! love you all!

Whew! What a ride! I cant believe that I have only been here two weeks. It seems like a lifetime ago that I wrote my first blog. Sorry that I didn't update last week.
So when I arrived I was pretty nervous. But everything seemed to iron out smoothly. My roommates are pretty amazing. They are such Godly girls! I am so blessed. Our apartment is really nice. We have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. I admit I was a little worried about four girls sharing one bathroom but thank Heaven we have two. My house mates are Sarah Harris, Michelle Marricini and Kristen Smith. Kristen and I share a room. She is so so amazing. We already have a lifetime bond as friends. We joke that we were twins that were separated at birth. HAHA and in our room we have a whiteboard that is dedicated to Cally/Kristen-isms for whenever we say something funny... like last night Kristen was talking about how she was going to finish her homework in the morning. She said "a whole can of worms is gonna be unleashed all over that". We laughed for long time about that mixed metaphor :P
my classes are AMAZING! And by amazing I mean exhausting. I have five classes this term, Christian Evidences with Ed Wharton, Old Testament Message with Bill Tracy, Life of Christ with Pat Shaeffer, New Testament Message with Gibby Gilbert, and Missionary Mindset with AIM director Kris Smith. Each of our teachers are calling us out spiritually and mentally. The homework is life changing and attitude altering. We had our first "Ed Test", as they have been daubed by past AIMers, this week. We were asked to memorise a propositional statement for the class and the two step methodology for proving the proposition verbatim from Ed. Also the names of some Jewish and pagan sources that substantiate historicity of Christ and the Crucifixion. IE Josephus and Pliny the Younger. We had to know dates and reasons( also verbatim) why these sources are important to us as Christians. Even after only two weeks in this class I feel better equipped to practice my Christian apologetics to reason the historic reliability of the Bible. On the first day of class we started out in Gibby Gilbert's class. As we arrived we were given a card with a number on it.Instead of having a normal introduction, he had us stand in two concentric circles and get to know the person across from us. After we had chatted for a while we all sat down and he told us that we were going to play a game called "auction block" he called a number and we were instructed to speak encouraging and uplifting things to the person who was on the "auction block" a few went through the process and then the number 7 was called. No one stood up. Then up on the screen a film started playing. It was Jesus on the "auction block" being whipped beaten and crucified. The first to stand up was Dustin Horn, a young man from here in TX. We all followed suite and with tears in our eyes we praised and lifted up our Lord. It was an emotional beginning to our time together but I felt as if I had truly worshiped God for the first time.
this is just a taste of the things that We have been experiencing in our classes. In Bill Tracy's class our first test was a spelling bee on the Old Testament books. If you think that sounds easy, I challenge you to get out a sheet of paper and try. You will be astonished how many you thought you knew how to spell but didn't. In Kris Smith's class we are learning about how our attitudes can affect our message. I thought that I had a pretty good grasp on this but I was astonished to hear his story about Eastern Europe and how the AIMers there had to live with and minister to people in filth, disease, and poverty. In Pat Sheaffer's class I got to see Jesus born. Pat is going through Luke with us. The way that Pat presents the gospel is so real and emotional that it feels as if you could reach out and touch Jesus. Which is exactly what we should be able to do. We rediscovered the miracle of John's conception and the real tough faith of his parents.We saw the beauty, grace and Godly submission of Mary as she gave up her dreams to do her Father's will and how she treasured all those things in her heart. We traveled with Mary and Joseph up to Bethlehem and struggled along the road with them. We saw His birth and how absolutely divinely human it was. We were reminded not to miss the fact that Jesus had a bellybutton and that when he was born he didn't pop out with a little halo on his head preaching and healing people, but he was a baby, a crying, poopy, beautiful baby. And that is the beauty of it because he was fully human and yet he was fully God at the same time.

At the beginning of our classes one of the teachers refered to what we would be experiencing in AIM as "trying to drink out of a fire hydrant". I think that this is the best way to explain how I feel at the moment. My prayer is to be a sponge. I want to just soak up the knowledge that is raining down from these spiritual giants.

How I Decided To Go To AIM

Hello there everybody! This is really exciting! Right now I am in New Mexico with my mom and my older sister. They are helping me get all ready for my move. I just wanted to give you a little background on this last year of my life.
This year has been a big one for me. In May of '08 I moved out of my parent's house and into my older sister Casey's in NM. I spent the summer being a nanny to my little niece Cadence. the summer really helped me to transition to living on my own. In august I moved to Montana State University in Bozeman MT. I made some awesome friends there. Among them, Jacob Dorton and Christopher Ketchem. Jake and Chris were constantly talking about their experiences in the Adventures In Missions program in Texas. It seamed to me that the experience was life changing for them but at that point missions was the farthest thing from my mind. My first semester was a little rocky, as is to be expected, but I was supported by the wonderful campus group from the Bozeman Church of Christ. I was working my way through some core classes and I had decided that I was going to declare a major in photography the next year. However, God had other plans. Although I had basically decided on photography I was still struggling with the question of what I needed to do with my life and what impact that I was to have on the world for Jesus. One night in particular, at the beginning of my second semester, I was in the laundry room in my dorm. I was just having some quiet time and I remember asking God to show me His plans for me and help me to trust Him to carry them through. I don't know what prompted me to but I typed "AIM" into google. As I read through the web cite, the questions that I had been asking God were answered almost word for word. I emailed AIM and asked them to send me an application. And so began my journey.
For the next week I prayed about what I needed to do. I shared my dilemma with Jake and Chris, and they were both ecstatic that I was considering AIM. One night after small group Bible study, Jake and his wife Stephanie took me out to coffee to talk about AIM. When we got our coffee and sat down Jake looked at me and said " You are gonna do it aren't you?" and right then I knew that it was what I needed to do. That night Jake drove me to my parents house to tell them my decision. Ever since then the pieces have all fallen together to get me here. The most amazing thing was the money. I was really worried about raising my support. I sent out about a hundred letters to friends and family but in the middle of July I had only heard back from a few people and I didn't have nearly enough support. I just decided that I needed to let it go and let God provide. The next Sunday was pledge Sunday at my home church in Livingston. My church is relatively small, we usually have about 70 regular attendees on Sundays. On pledge Sunday my tiny little church raised almost ALL of the monthly support that I need while I am in Texas! What a blessing! The Lord has a way of humbling us to the point that all we can do is trust Him and then He fills our cup, pressed down an shaken together, overflowing with Joy.
I am beyond excited to embark on this adventure! I hope that I can be a blessing to others while I stretch and grow in the glory of His grace!