From the Hillside to the Nations

So, I'm at Hillside Intensive in PA. What a blessing it has been so far.

God has been revealing so many new things. For example, He has been showing me just how unknowable his grace, mercy, and love are. The more we experience it; the sweeter it is! The more we see it; the more we want it!

There have been a pretty good selection of speakers and musicians here in the past 2 weeks...wow! It's hard to believe it has already been two weeks. Rick Pino, Sean Feucht, Bryan and Katie Torwalt, Leonard Jones, Awaken Wells, Erik Smith, David Fritch, Daniel and Natalia Hazelwood, Charles Stock (Pastor of Life Center Church in Harrisburg, PA), and many more.

Each musician is a true artist. I can't really say that I have liked one better than the rest. It seems to me that each God uses differently. He has used each of them uniquely to reveal different things to me. It is a real journey. It is hard to choose a best part, because I know the best is yet to come!

What I have learned...so far...from some of the people...
I would write about all of them, but my brain might get tired out from all that thinking :)

Rick Pino: Wow! What a humble guy. He is just so real when he talked with us. He talked about the power of music. Rhythm makes you want to move. Melodies affect your soul. Lyrics affect your spirit. It is our job to be a voice for the Lord! Also, he talked about consecrating yourself to the Lord as the Nazirites did. Spending time with the Lord will cause you to draw closer to Him and grow in relationship with Him. Probably my favorite thing he shared was about popularity and influence. The culture now almost demands us to be popular...it says if we aren't popular, we are nothing. Well in the Kingdom of God that is NOT true!!! First, he said that we should be famous before God and to get your identity from the one who can truly give it...that's God just in case you were wondering. He already knows you inside and out, because he made you. Psalm 139. Also, there is a big difference between popularity and influence...popularity changes with the wind....influence changes the wind! Rick's messages have been challenging me to really find my identity in God and spend time with him. I want my heart to look like God's heart.

Sean Feucht: Well, I didn't really know who he was coming into this thing. As he has spoken, I found out he has been on some crazy adventures with God. He has traveled many places around the world with God. He was one of the founders of the BURN 24/7 movement...it all started as quiet time with God in a dorm stairwell. Crazy! He has a real heart for the nations and carrying/bearing fruit that remains. He has talked about building a relationship with God in the secret place. It allows you to carry that with you wherever you go once you have built a strong bond with Him. God's heartbeat will become your heartbeat. The more we are with Him, the more we become like Him. This has challenged me to get into that secret place with God simply to know Him better...and to do what I was made to do ---> worship!!!

Bryan and Katie Torwalt: It was so cool to see these two in person. I had actually heard of them before I came to school here, so I was excited to hear their story. They led worship for 3 nights of the school. It was really cool to be able to watch them usher the corporate body in to the presence of the Lord. Bryan spoke to us during one of the morning sessions. He also talked about getting away into the secret place with God. He said it is so important, because you need to learn to be aware of when God walks into the room and speaks. That was really cool for me to hear, because so many times we sing and talk about Jesus being our best friend. If we have a best friend that is a human, we usually notice when they come into a room. We notice if they say something; we don't ignore them. Man, if Jesus is closer than a brother, I sure want to know when He is in the room. I know he is on my side and always has my best in mind! We also had a Q&A time with Bryan and Katie. It was so great to just hear their hearts for leading, and how God has really brought them on a journey with Him to be where they are today. It made them real people instead of just singers.

Leonard Jones:If you want to hear some crazy music, check out Leonard Jones. He is really skilled at his instruments. He has definitely inspired me to practice more. He was telling us he practices anywhere from 4-8 hours a day! He's no novice either. I think he was telling us he has been playing the guitar (along with 13 other instruments) for the past 40 years. Now you might think that after that long you could stop practicing, but that is not his plan. Leonard told us that he plans to continue to get better and better. He doesn't want his lack of skill to keep Him from playing a melody the Lord puts on His heart. Now while I probably won't have 4-8 free hours in a row every days, I will take what I can get!

Daniel & Natalia Hazelwood: What an amazing couple!? Natalia is one my family group leaders. She is such a strong woman of God. She has been in and out for these 2 weeks, because she was speaking at a women's gathering in Texas. Daniel has been leading some of the soaking sessions along with teaching a class about keeping our minds in open communication with God. This will allow us to receive revelation and insight on different concepts and scriptures. It is absolutely mind boggling. Verses I have read many times suddenly become completely new! It's wild. For example, we were talking about John 1:1 --->In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.<--- From this we see that Jesus is the Word. Now when we call on God, He answers us with the Word. So essentially, He is answering us with Jesus. Now when Jesus left the earth, He sent one as a comforter---Holy Spirit---to live inside of us. So then there is the trinity---all three are one. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are one together. So the answers are inside of us. We just need to ask God to take away veils that blind us from seeing what is already in us. Our bodies are new and redeemed We are new creations in HIM!!! How beautiful.

Now if that doesn't confuse you, I don't know what will. I am still working on understanding it myself. 


There has been so much more amazing worship and teaching. It would take me pages and pages to write it all down. One other thing I just thought of---we have been learning about the Tabernacle of David. What a place! Some scholars believe this Tabernacle cost---either $1 million or $1 billion per square foot!!!! (I know that's a big difference in cost, but either way that's a lot of cash to be putting down on a Tabernacle.) However, it is for the Lord so money is really no object. King David got over 4,000 full time musicians to play 24/7 worship for the Lord. That is so crazy!

So there was this little shepherd boy on the hillside that God called to be his mighty warrior through song. His nation was changed through the worship of the Almighty Lord. The generation after Him knew no war...only peace! Whoa! So this school is meant to give us a place---the Hillside---to get close to the Lord. To draw near to His heart and then be launched into the nations to exalt His might name.

It's all downhill from here.

Friday morning the ravens in the camp ground thought I set my alarm for 7:00am...well, they were wrong. I wish I would have had some kind of firearm to use as a snooze button. 

The plus side of the story is I was able to walk around Seward in the morning while I waited for the rest of the crew to wake up. 

Seward has around 4,000 people and is no more than 2 miles long. Here's a little more info I learned while I was walking around. The city was named after President Lincoln's Secretary of State, William H. Seward. It is a sister city to a city in Japan. It used to be a pretty big port. Now it is used for smaller fishing boats and cruise stops. It is the northern most ice free post, and it used to be the Southern terminal for the AK Railroad. Seavy's also make their home in Seward. 

Don't recognize the name? Let me give you a hint...mushing, "last great race on earth." 

Did the Iditarod come to mind? Dan Seavy helped organize and raced in the first Iditarod. His son, Mitch, won the Iditarod in 2004. Dallas, Mitch's son, won in 2012. He also set the record for the youngest musher to win the race. So this town has some pretty famous Alaskans calling it home. Unfortunately I didn't meet any of them...as far as I know. Also, the Iditarod used to start in Seward. Now there is a ceremonial start in Anchorage, and the race really starts in Willow. I thought that was some pretty interesting info. 

To continue the walk I walked along the beach of Resurrection Bay down to the Seward Harbor. 

I also watched the boats head in and out. There was a pretty wide variety. There were all sizes of fishing boats and tour boats. 

This is a look across the bay. There was some pretty heavy fog on the water almost all day. 

For a while I sat and simply watched the waves roll. It was very relaxing. The sound and the constant movement about put me to sleep...I was a little tired since those ravens missed the alarm clock memo. :)

What a great way to spend the morning. 

Later that day we headed back to Birchwood in a nice rain shower. Let me tell ya, I was glad to be back at camp. My that camping wasn't fun, but I was ready to sleep for more than 6 hours. 

The next couple days we just hung out and finished cleaning camp. It was pretty uneventful. The most exciting thing was probably the race to the showers after we got back from Seward on Friday night. No one wanted to be without hot water.

To wrap it all up....

I am so glad God gave me the opportunity to come back to Alaska and serve. It is a beautiful place. Being able to see how he brought together this group of interns to Birchwood camp was really amazing. Under normal circumstances we would have never met, but with God all things are possible. Some of the interns had connections directly to the camp, some knew about it through friends, and others found it online...crazy. Even though we all came from stuck different places, we were able to work well together and get stuff done. 

God made it clear to me how important it is to keep Christ in the center of everything you do. When He is your focus, it is easier to work toward a goal. You are focusing in the bigger picture of God's love and his people rather than yourself. It makes it easier to work without getting irritated with others. Now I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but it definitely gives me focus. 

               Summer well spent. 

This is always the thing: God is good and we are always loved. 

Mount Marathon and Beyond!

The morning after MAD camp all the interns slept in for a while. I think it was well deserved. A little before lunch, we got together with Stephen and Marie to plan some camp clean up. They had this slick cork board with "To Do", "Doing", and "Finished." As we chose a project to take on, we initialed it and moved it to the "Doing" section. Then no one would try to do a job twice. 

By the end of the day, we finished everything!

Once we finished, Meagan, Gabe, Helen, Ches, and I went into Eagle River to run a few errands....bank, Walgreens, and grocery store. Some of the interns got some crab and shrimp for supper to celebrate a successful camping season. It smelled like the sea shore in our staff lounge :) Personally, I would rather it smelled like a barn...

Gabe was the master chef. Everyone who ate some crab said it was really good. 

Tuesday we headed into Anchorage to meet up with Jeremy and Jessie. They both counseled at camp, and Jeremy co-directed a week of camp with his sister. We were going to head to Seward for the 4th.

Now there's something you should know about Seward on the 4th. There's this mountain there called Mount Marathon, and on the 4th there is a race up and down the mountain. So this small town of about 4,000 gets about 6X bigger for a few days. People come from all over to watch the race, and join in the Independence Day celebration! Our group camped about an hour north of Seward, because of the overwhelming amount of people.

Wednesday we drove to Seward to your around the town before the masses arrived. Jeremy had a few ideas of things we could do while we were in town for the day. Options...hike Mount Marathon to see what it's like for the racers, go to the Sea Life Center, and hike to Exit Glacier. We decided that hiking Mount Marathon might be a good idea, and we could even eat lunch once we got up to the top. Not such a bad idea, right? Jeremy told us it wasn't too bad. We had heard a few tidbits about the race from Stephen and Marie. For example, last year someone who was racing went missing and is now presumed dead, and another racer just got out of a coma from a serious fall. Still not such a bad idea, because they were racing. We are just going to walk up the mountain. No big deal. 

Well, as soon as we started, this is what we came to....

                A hike...not too steep...

Jeremy, next time we should all get on the same page as far as definitions go. We had to climb up this piece of the "hike." This was about 10 minutes into the trip. 

After we got up this part of the mountain, it flattened out for a little ways...about 20 feet. Then we were back on the ascent. 

This is from where Jessie and I stopped hiking. 

We all stopped for lunch right here for a little bit. It took us over and hour to get to this point. I would say this is about 1/3 of the way up the mountain. 

In the top left corner you can see a little bit of Seward. 

This picture is looking up from a little below where we stopped. 

View from the top. Photo courtesy of Ches. 

I can't believe people race up this thing, or people let there kids race up this thing! It is dangerous! We were climbing up some rather treacherous stuff....keep in mind this is in comparison to Eastern Montana. I'm not trying to down play the seriousness of it, but it is something to remember. 

Here's a map if the mountain. 

Turns our we hiked/climbed up the down trail....ooops. We went up the Gut. Che's and Gabe made it all the way to the top of the mountain. It took them a long time. 

Jessie and I hiked back down and found an easier path out. We met an old guy named Gus on the mountain. He was probably about 70. He told us he just had his hip replaced 3 years ago, and he was in the biathlon in the 1960 Olympics! Wow. 

Even though it was a challenge to get up the mountain...or even part way up, it was worth it. 

Ches had a good analogy for the hike and really for life...I will enjoy this view while I'm here, but I'm not going to let that stop me from moving forward to enjoy the view for somewhere else. 

It's true. We can't be satisfied with good enough, because God wants the absolute best for us. 

So if you are ever in Seward, Alaska and you are thinking about hiking Mt. Marathon. Think twice before making your decision. 

After we made it down, we found a place to eat supper. We found out there were going to be fireworks at midnight. To use up some time, we went to Exit Glacier after supper. The walk to the glacier was a breeze after our mountain climbing adventure. 

It was pretty cool to see the glacier. 

We went back to town after to watch the fireworks. The fireworks were well worth it. It was a pretty good show. 

On the 4th we went back into Seward to watch the Mt. Marathon race. It was crazy. There was a 7 year old in the youth division. Some of the women finished the race in just a little over an hour.

Here is the first woman down the hill. You have to look very closely to see it. 

The men's race was even more intense. They were movin' right along. 

This is the start of the men's race when they were all starting up the mountain. 

It was fun to watch the race. I even saw a couple people from Montana. One guy had a Bobcats track uniform on...Go Cats Go!!!

It was a crazy couple days. Well worth it!

...and now for the real work

MAD camp done. 

We had a good week at music and drama camp. The play was Malice in the Palace. It was the story of Esther with a few twists. This camp was for 5th-10th graders. It was a pretty good age range. This camp was 7 days instead if the typical 5 day camp. 

It's hard to even describe the week. The campers spent a lot if time in rehersal for the musical. They only had 5 days to get everything memorized. On Saturday ad Sunday they performed the musical in two churches in Anchorage. The counselors were also in the choir for the play. For the first couple of days it was fine, but about day 3 things started deteriorating. I got a cold and lost my voice..... Not so good. 

For the rest of the week I helped make props for the play. That was actually pretty fun. I decorated masks and made some "feather pens." 

I will admit I was bummed that I lost my voice. I couldn't even sing along during the worship services. God really challenged me with this little obstacle. At first I was really irritated, because I think that God has really blessed me in the area of music. I didn't realize it until last week, but I have really relied on songs...especially singing them...to worship The Lord. God showed me that my view of worship is really limited. It blew my mind. I started thinking about the community and how we worship together. The truth that God really cares about our heart in worship really hit me. It's not about the words your say, the prayers you pray, or the dances you do...it's about the heart behind the action. I felt like God was challenging me to simply listen. Talk about a challenge. 

We seem to put so much weight on the music and songs during the worship services. So this is my challenge to you...next time you are at church or worshipping with a bunch if people, stop and listen. Listen to God's people worship the King of Kings!

After this week, I will be heading back to Montana. Putting all the things God has taught me into practice is going to take determination and patience; however, I know it will be worth it. 

Summer Solstice

If you look closely in the background, you will see this cow's twins. 

Another week has come and gone....very quickly! I can't believe I've already been in Alaska for almost 4 months! Wow. 

This week was Faith Adventure camp for 4th-6th graders. These campers sure have a lot of energy. They were going all the time...breakfast, cabin cleaning, Morning Watch, TAG Time (Time Alone with God), Family Groups, group games, lunch, FOOFBOB (nap time){the counselors LOVE this part of the schedule}, swimming, Crafts, snack, more games or boating or swimming, supper, all camp game, Worship, snack, and finally bed time! Try saying all that in one breath! Even after all that these kids are still going 9-0. 

It was a lot of fun to see how excited this group was about God. They got pretty excited about TAG time and even more excited about the music at the nightly worship. We couldn't sing Happy Day enough! 

Music seems to be such a powerful tool to connect with God and learn some new things about His character. It is really amazing. I know that not all people connect with God through music, but for me it is very powerful. 

Quotes of the week: "What was that verse(Philippians 1:3-6) about?" "Well, it was about Paul Bunyan saying thank you. A lot." :)

"It's true. They only serve the best at Birchwood." This was while we were eating pizza for supper. I believe the night before Al, a volunteer aka Camp Grandpa, was telling the campers about the hot dogs we were about to cool over a camp fire. He said they only serve the best at Birchwood, and that's why they had kangaroo rat hot dogs from New Mexico, Gila Monster from down south, Rattle Snake from Texas, porcupine, and about 7 other varieties of hot dogs that the kids could choose from. He is an excellent story teller. 

A little off topic, but when I get home there are a few things I will be extra thankful for...fewer Mosquitos, a bathroom inside my house (the chance of running into a bear or moose in the middle of the night deter most people from making numerous mid-night bathroom trips...also I won't have to ward off the bugs on my way to brush my teeth), and being able to actually unpack my suitcase. The saying is true...it really is the little things that make all the difference.

Only One more week of camp left. MAD camp. That is because by this point in the summer all of the counselors have gone mad :) or it might be Music and Drama camp! The campers will be putting on a production of "Malice in the Palace" more commonly known as Esther. It will be a good way to end the summer!

  The new resident moose of Birchwood. He has been back several times this past week. 

Also, it was the summer solstice this weekend. We went to a Solstice festival in Anchorage for a bit and then to a Solstice  party. It was fun. Nothing too spectacular though. Now the days will only get shorter. 

Birchwood Camp Weeks 1&2---Alaska 2013

Well, another couple weeks have passed. We have had two camps so far. 1st-3rd grade and then 7th-12th grade. That was quite a difference in ages. 

The first camp was God Seekers. It was only 3 days which was perfect for that age group. They definitely had a lot of energy. I think there were about 40 campers. We did have a lot of fun...needless to say we spent most of our days herding kids from one place to the next. That had its pros and cons. It was exciting to see the kids learn new things about God. My favorite part was watching the campers sing some of the camp songs. For example, we sang one called "The Karate Song." As you might imagine, it had some actions and sound effects. Those little ones really got into it. Even of they didn't quite know all the words, they sang at the top of their lungs!

Another exciting part of God Seekers camp I didn't know about until Friday evening was we had an unexpected visitor on camp Thursday night to the dumpster. Earlier in the week, they had put up a trail cam on the dumpster to catch any action, and sure enough they caught a bear on camera. A large brown bear came to the dumpster, tipped it over, opened it, and ate a little of the food that was left in it. Now keep in mind that the dumpster was supposed to be bear proof.

The weekend was pretty relaxing. We went into Anchorage for lunch and a trip to the Saturday Market a.k.a. tourist trap. There were a bunch of little tents with food and trinkets for sale. Some of the stuff was pretty cool, but I could tell other stuff was just a rip off. It was a fun was to spend the afternoon. That evening, a family in Chugiak invited us to supper for a BBQ. The highlights of the meal were grilled salmon and homemade root beer! Yum!!! A story of the evening was that the family across the road was having a garage sale, and a momma moose and her twins decided to stop by the sale for a bit. We never got to see the moose, but it was still a good story. 

Youth camp was a whole other story. It was a real challenge changing my thought process from lower elementary mode to junior high and high school mode. I will say it was nice to not be herding kids from building to building.  It was interesting to see the dynamic of jh and sr. high together. 

My cabin was mostly upper high school girls. It was awesome to be able to connect with them. The evening worship services were amazing. It was great to see how open all the campers were to trying new things. For one of the worship activities, everyone took a handful of ash to represent the desert in their life, and then they went down to the lake to have their "desert" washes away by the water. It was super cool. There were a lot of other cool worship experiences as well. I get the opportunity to play with the Birchwood Band aka the Woodchucks for the music portion of worship. It was fun to play with a whole band. 

Throughout the week, the campers really opened up to the many opportunities to share how God was working in their lives. Some of the high school girls in my cabin mentioned how cool it was to see the junior high kids get up and share stories about how God was working in each of their lives. Since the campers were older, we were able to play games with them and really connect at another level with them. 

Playing on the worship team was unbelievable. It was like having a front row seat to see God working in the building. Awesome. God is so good. 

Another perk of the older group was that we had an opportunity to participate in a native sweat ceremony at a sweat lodge that was built at Birchwood. It was very interesting. Kelly, the gal who lead us through the process, said that a sweat is to help you really focus on God. Since your body is so hot, you can either choose to focus on the heat or God. 

There were 4 rounds of prayer....cleansing, prayers for others, thanksgiving, and blessings you are asking God for. When I first walked into the lodge, I didn't know if I would be able to handle being in there for an hour. Then I just made up my mind I would stay for a little while. I'm glad I did. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure my body was cleansed of all impurities. My clothes were completely soaked with sweat. Even my knee caps were sweating. I didn't know knee caps could sweat! 

Friday night we got a chance to simply relax for a while. That was really nice. I was also glad to be able to sleep without worrying about campers. It was a very restful sleep. 

Saturday afternoon we took a trip to town to pick up this and that, and then we went to supper at a Tex-Mex place called Jalapeños. The food was pretty delicious. 

After supper, we(all of the interns) decided it would be a nice evening for a kayak ride. So we took some inflatable kayaks and a couple of real kayaks out on the lake. We didn't intend on getting wet, but that soon changed. If you saw the inflatable kayaks, you would see that they look similar to surf boards. I thought it would be fun to run off the dock and slide onto the water like I was surfing or something. As you may have already guessed, it didn't turn out very well. When the kayak hit the water, it immediately flipped. I got a good laugh out of that. Maybe I will try it again someday. :) In the end, we all went swimming. It was a blast. 

That evening we started helping a couple people move out and old convection oven and put in a new one. It was quite the process. We started about 9pm and didn't finish til about 12. We ended up having to take out doors and move appliances to get the old oven out. Luckily we had about 8 people there to help. We were even able to have a designated mosquito killer when we were moving the oven outside the building. It was a good project to get done. We has decided we are now interns by day and construction workers by night. :)

I'm looking forward to another day of rest tomorrow. I think the campers this next week are going to be pretty energetic. They are 4th-6th graders. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next week. I'm sure it is going to be amazing. 

Back to Alaska!

Back to Alaska!

Well, it's summer #2 in Alaska. I've been here about a week now, and it's been great :)  I got into Anchorage about 11pm (1am Mountain Time). Surprisingly enough, I was so worn out from traveling I slept til about 9:30 the next morning. 

During my layover in Seattle, a saw some pretty neat planes...maybe I will be able to fly on one of these bad boys one day. 

I toured around AK a little bit. We walked around a little path near Flat Top Mountain, went to the Zoo, and went to a small pullout near the ocean. 

I was also able to get in some good reading time. "Dreamers" by Angela Hunt...AMAZING! It is a three book series about Joseph and his journey from the bottom of a well pit to the 2nd most powerful man in Egypt. A great read. I'm on round 2. 

On Wednesday, I got to head out to camp in the evening. Thursday we started with a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy! Yum :) There are 6 interns at the camp from all over the country...Ohio, Idaho, Georgia, Texas, and Montana. There are two from Georgia...just incase you only counted five states. The girls are Helen, Meagan, Shannon, and me. The guys are Gabe and Ches. We will be here for at least the entire month of June and some are staying into August. 

It's really exciting to hear what each of us are excited to do this year at camp and how our personalities really do compliment each other. God knows what's going on :)

Continuing Thursday, we learned a little about each other and some of the camp rules. It is interesting to see a new style and new ideas of how camp can be organized. One thing that is obviously different is the fact that we have about a week of training before camp even starts. 

We spent most of the day with Stephen and Marie, the camp managers. They live at camp year round. They were telling us that they only have a couple free weekends during the year. Birchwood Camp hosts a variety groups year round. Stephen and Marie both seem very passionate about creating a positive and energizing camp environment and giving campers the ultimate camp experience. 

Friday, we did much of the same; however, we were also able to work with Brent and Liz, some other camp residents, on figuring out our personalities. 

Today we also learned much about animal safety. The camp is in a pretty woodsy area, so there is an occasional bear or moose. Also, the camp has a couple porcupines that like to wander around camp. Their names are Eddie and Edwina...it's anyone's guess which porcupine is which. The camp moose are Rufus and Rufina. I'm pretty sure the bears don't have names...they aren't really welcomed in camp. Now hopefully I will be able to remember all the bear safety tips when I need too :)

After supper, we went on a short hike toward Harp Mountain. We didn't make it very far up the mountain, but we did find some snow and were able to do a little sledding. Meagan, the girl from Texas, requested we find some snow. As you might imagine they don't get a lot of snow down there. 

I am really excited to see how God is going to use all of us to work together this summer. I'm sure he is going to so some awesome things this summer!

If you could keep us in you prayers, we would really appreciate it. One main prayer request would be that we would be able to take in and remember all the important information we are learning during this training. Also that we would be aware of what God is talking to each of us about, and that we would be obedient to what we hear. 

Thanks for tuning in. 

Over and out.