we returned changed...

Thank you all so much for praying and being a part of this week with me, I did not feel as though I was leading a cabin alone but felt as though I had so many people sitting in cabin time with me asking difficult questions and hearing difficult answers, so thank you for that.

This week at Rockbridge was probably one of the hardest weeks I have ever experienced leading. My girls are sassy, real sassy I say this with all the truth in my heart, sometimes I say that to be funny but this time I really mean it. There were times throughout the week when I couldn't even believe the way girls were treating me or the summer staff and work crew, it was almost shocking but it made me all the more thankful they were there hearing about Christ.

By day 4 when girls got to hear about this thing called sin for the first time I realized how they were changing. After cabin time I took 5 girls on the porch of our cabin because they were hurting so deeply, crying so hard, and wanted to talk even though they acted like they were "ok." We sat out on our porch until 2AM and the Lord let me hear the brokenness of girls who have told me they were "fine" for the past 6 months, I heard the pain of hurting families, of hurting bodies, of emotions that had been buried deep for years and I felt undeserving. I felt like the Lord granted me such a vision into the hearts of these girls and all girls at Hickory and it rekindled a fire in my heart for leading. We sat and talked out everything each girl was facing at home and I told them how this was never God's intention, that He never wanted them to hurt this deeply. From that moment on girls changed, they started asking questions they wanted to be with me, they wanted to laugh, they longed for freedom.

On Day 6 our last day, I sat in a rocking chair for 6 hours straight meeting with girls for one on ones. I was able to pray with 3 girls to welcome Christ into their hearts and these girls were lost, one was a girl I was petrified of all year at club she was 14 and I was scared to death of her, but now her life is forever changed and the Lord allowed me to be a part of that and to love her.

That was one thing I learned so deeply over this week, I had girls fighting me, questioning me, and not listening to me all week and I loved them, I can't even explain it. Girls would say rude things to me to the point of me having to leave the room to cry and I would love them, it sounds so masochistic but I think for the first time in my life I caught a glimpse of the ways in which Christ loves us. We are rude, we go against Him and He loves us. This week at camp allowed me to see why I love leading Young Life why I am in love with Christ and why I so desperately want to share Christ with others for the rest of my life because I want them to feel this love that Christ so freely gives us. I want people to know that their brokenness is not the intention of a loving, just God.

I want to share every second of camp so if you want to hear more I would love to talk with you about it all but for now this is what the Lord put on my heart to share and I just thank you for praying for strength I made it up that dumb obstacle course hill because of you!

Prayers Mid-Week of Camp

Thank you so so much for praying. It's been really tough way tougher than I was prepared for. Last night my girls heard for the first time about sin. Its always crazy to me how that night is when girls are the most rude and the most broken at the same time. As we sat down for cabin time the holy spirit worked boldness in me. I sat with 5 girls on our cabin porch last night as they shared the turmoil the pain and the brokenness in their hearts. Pray for movement of the spirit tonight at 9:45 we will have the 20 minutes, pray that tonight would be life altering for these girls pray that they would see that our world is not meant to contain the pain it does.

Pray for
Hallie
Stephanie
Elyssa
Kelli
Amber
Francesca she is hurting deeply right now is closing herself off and sits and cries.

These girls are so ready but so unsure pray for my one on ones with them.

Please pray for these boys, my teammates are so passionately in love with them and have already had such life giving conversations with them.

Cody
Hunter foutz
Andrew donafrio
John shaw
John die
Steven Cotnoir

Pray for my guy teammates
Jacob
Nacho
Parker
And 2 of their key guys who are loving their friends desperately
Zach
Justin

Thank you from all of my being thank you for prayer it is felt and needed.

pray for the hearts of many.

I want to thank you so much for offering to pray for my camp trip to Rockbridge. It is such a gift knowing that I have people surrounding me who have the same heartbreak over high school students that I do. I woke up this morning for the first time excited for this camp trip. I think previously I had been distracted by numbers, health forms, checks, cash all the dumb details that go along with taking kids to camp but now I am excited, I am breathing easily and cannot wait to be with these kids. I am really excited that Hickory is taking about 25 kids on this trip and all of Chesapeake is taking close to 200!!!


Of course I would love for you to pray for all the kids on this trip but selfishly please pray for these 10 girls of whom are ALL first timers, I wanted to include a little something about each so you know what to pray for.

Stephanie- she is conforming to this world quickly and easily, she believes goodness will get her into heaven and is EXTREMELY worried about what others think of her and won't let go.

Elyssa- quiet reserved and she has never been able to make the choice to live for Christ it was just told to her by her family, pray that this is the week it becomes hers.

Kelli- Kelli goes through the motions of going to youth group, church but sees her faith being based upon legalism. She is a girl who will thrive with all the crazy stuff we do at camp pray that the Gospel becomes hers not something distant or an obligation.

Amber- She is moving to Texas two week after we get back this could be the last time she ever hears the Gospel. She is another that will thrive in the insanity and is a bit boy obsessed.d

Francesca- I had to beg her parents to let her come she is Catholic and her mom isn't the biggest fan of out of Church ministries, Francesca is bound by legalism and doesn't see that Christ a freedom giver.

Megan- Probably one of the most intimidating freshman I know, she is really quiet and secretive if that makes any sense, pray that she would open up I literally know nothing about her.

Bailey- Megan's best friend pray that they don't seclude themselves from the rest of the group.

Hallie- She grew up with an extremely stern mother, and knows the right answers knows what to say and how to say it.

Emily- This girl is so precious to my heart, pray she wouldn't sit in club thinking she has already heard this all before and tune it out pray she would hear it for the first time.

Haley- Pray that her absent minded nature wouldn't put up more walls around her heart than are already there, she has such a sweet sensitive heart and I pray that the truth of Christ would penetrate it deeply.

Lastly for me:
Pray for boldness, that I would NOT be afraid of these girls that I would live with these girls that I would run HARD with them and that I would really be able to put them at a crossroads. I want to treat this trip like it is my LAST chance with each of these precious girls. Please pray for my physical health I am worried about how I will do on the obstacle course as well as this hike we are doing in the morning.

I am sitting in our office right now as all the other schools are figuring out cabins and who to put where and of course my pride is being pushed but I am so thankful that I get to be in a cabin with 10 girls that I love so so deeply and that I don't have to worry about splitting them up or not being with all of them.

Thank you so much thank you thank you. I will try to send a little update mid-week.

Ezekiel 34:1-16

Giving your life away... that is what these sweet women to the left did for me when I was in high school and even into college and of course even now. Carrie was my Young Life leader (red hair) she would have me at her house every weekend for sleep overs would take me to coffee would take me on errands to her office everything, Meghan (second from the right)is my best friend, she also was my fake leader in high school for a semester and this woman loves me so incredibly well, just last week I was crying outside of the post office to her on the phone and she encouraged and loved me and pushed me into Christ. Lesa, I was able to love and disciple when she was a freshman and I was a senior in high school and Heather (far left) did that very same thing for me when I was a sophomore and she was a senior... giving your life away...

What the heck does that even look like now? I have been learning so much about what this means over the past few days, to give it all to share it all and to have no remorse or regret for it. SO many times when I have told people that I am being convicted over giving my life away they tell me "thats all you do Katie" oh gosh what a sweet lie. In my brain I am thinking about how I can shine, when I can get a break, when I can do this or that or how this will give me the best outcome instead of dying to everything that includes me and giving it to you, to them.
I think often about my afternoons recently and it has been incredibly hard for me to go to the school, admitting that here is really humbling because of course I want to hide that from everyone. I haven't been able to get enough courage to go there the past week and a half!! Don't get me wrong I have picked girls up from school but I've gone around the parents loop to get them I didn't inconvenience myself by parking in the student lot and getting out of the car to walk amongst students, no sir that was too much for me this week. I can't figure out why this is happening right now, they are in their final weeks of school and I just can't make it... I pray that this is the last time I say this to anyone but I pray for the feeling of urgency that is so often talked about.

I realized this last night that I see often times my high school students almost like an enemy that I have to make an allie instead of seeing them like myself, struggling, trying to live this life but for so many of them it is for a different mean and by my giving my own life away they can maybe see where real, full life comes.
My heart is overflowing with Christ and why would I not want to give that overflow away? I want to give it away to stop hoarding my heart, stop hoarding my life and die to myself. I pray that as I get ready for camp I can become more aware of dying to myself and giving my life away.

Reading Ezekiel I found such a sweet vision of our God the saving God we know:
"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

He will search for them, He will love them He will rescue them from ALL the places where they have been scattered... I breathe that in and cannot comprehend how His entire life is for us... how I pray the same for me.

For now the Lord is humbling me... deeply and fully... thankfully.

Sing Oh Barren Woman

I'm exhausted. I shouldn't be, but here I am exhausted. Last week was our last club we have our last just Hickory campaigners tomorrow night and all of our alumni students are back in town from college. Things are supposed to slow down right? No, not for me and I like that.

I read this scripture in Isaiah this morning and my heart just felt such rest in it. This time last year I was at rockbridge getting the camp ready for high school and middle school students to hear the greatest news of their lives. Now, here I am on the other side of it all, at least it seems that way, as I sit here in our Young Life office heart broken over girls. Truly I am heartbroken, I say this not so it sounds impressive but truly because it is my heart I have never felt this way before the Lord has put such a burden on me that I simply cannot lose it. As I read Isaiah 54 this morning so much stood out but one part especially:
“Sing, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the LORD.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.

I am a single girl doing youth ministry, I am in 8 weddings this year and was invited to 13 you can imagine what that can do to your heart, especially someone like me who doesn't necessarily stop. Reading this allowed me to see that although I am single and I may be single for the rest of my life, who knows, that my children are plentiful. I go to the high school, I go to games, I go to coffee, to dinner, to prom pictures, to chess meets, girls spend the night in my house, come over to do crafts and I am single... girls text me, and call me, and meet me at tropical smoothie and I am single. "sing barren woman you who never bore a child, burst into song shout for joy." Oh I am singing, I am singing loud for these kids. "because more are the children of the desolate woman" this is what brought such peace to me, comparison is a thief and it has been for me. I see close friends of mine getting married talking about kids (don't worry they are older than 22) and I sit here thankful I haven't had a longing for it not yet but of course it is woven in me and I want it but more are my children. More time do I have to give, more heart, more places in my life. I am desolate maybe, but more are my children... more of my heart can be burdened for girls. Maybe this is why I am exhausted and if so there is no other exhaustion I would rather have.
So as I type this now I am preparing for an evening of gym classes with high school and college girls, dinner with a leader, and district soccer where I watch girls at Hickory play their hearts out... this is where I find my heart on a gym floor laughing with a lost girl or in the stands screaming for girls I have yet to meet. This is where my heart sits "You oh barren woman" I want to be barren because there I will let my tent curtains expand.

This sounds so extreme but my heart is here and that is what blogging is for right? For you to see where I am?

Oh yeah and last night I played my first villain ever... my name was CD McNosering I hated 3 things 1. Young Life business 2. Sarah McLaughlin and 3. Josh Ring's (a leader) innocence. Wish you could have seen.

7:21 at tropical smoothie

Every Thursday morning at 7:21 (I tell them that time) I meet with two sweet girls Elyssa and Stephanie at Tropical Smoothie. Together we are doing a Bible study/ book study on Brennan Manning's book The Rabbi's Heartbeat (thanks Natalie for letting me borrow it two years ago!) Its so funny because I love doing Bible study but its hard sometimes... really hard. I am pushing and pulling these girls asking them questions trying to see where their hearts are but they are so scared I typically get one word answers and averted eyes. These girls could change their school, I mean REALLY change it but they don't see it at all. Pray for this time for me, pray that I would be able to push the girls hard. Pray that they would remember their times at tropical smoothie as deep and meaningful when they look back at high school and that they could see the realness and the rawness of our conversations.

Prayer.

Please pray for the Valentine family they live here in Chesapeake.
Their daughter, Kelly who was 12 was hit by a car last night and died in the hospital she camw to Wyldlife club and heard the Gosepl. Her older sister Katie is at Great Bridge high school and attends YOung Life as well. Pray that their family feels the nearness of Christ during a time where the "whys" can out weigh every other thought.