A Reflection on my growth through out the year!

 April, 17, 2013

        I have had an amazing time in the Kaleo program these past 8 months. Sadly my journey through the program is coming to a close. However my ministry is not. I have learned so much through this program and I will continue to use what I have learned here in my everyday life. Something that has been a huge help in my spiritual growth would be the ministry aspect of the program. In this program we not only got to take classes and learn a lot academically, but we also got to experience it and put everything we have learned in class into practice. I really enjoyed being able to be stretched in the ministry aspect by trying new things like teaching sunday school, leading in youth group and counselling at retreats. Through out this year I have grown to love helping out in various ministry areas, in fact I loved it so much that I am working here this summer as a senior counsellor. Councelling will give me an opportunity right away to use what I have learned this year and grow even more through that.I am very sad to have to leave this amazing program. However, I know that through this program God has been equipping me for what is yet to come in my life. I do not know what lies ahead for me, but what I do know is that I can trust in the Lord to guide me where I am supposed to go. 

      I have grown a lot through this program and most of my growth has blossomed out of being stretched and challenged. Some of the challenges that have stretched me and made an impact on my growth would be experiencing life away from home and my family. Being away from home has really challenged me to be independent and take ownership of my faith instead of copying my family. This program has really challenged me to learn more about my faith and find out what I truly believe. Another way that this program has challenged and stretched me is academically. At the beginning of the year I was really stressed with all the homework and long papers that we had to write, and I began to worry if I was ever going to make it through. God really began to work in me through the academics. Because I was stressed God taught me to trust him and give all my worries and stress to him and that he would take care of it. God has a plan for me, of course I still have to work for it but because I trusted in God I no longer had to stress or worry. Papers that I had to write seemed really scary at the beginning of the year but through Derek helping me to understand the proper way to write a paper and trusting in God I found a way to get better and better at my paper writing. I also began to find enjoyment in the papers because they were of topics that I enjoyed and wanted to know more about. It was such a blessing to have this year to dedicate completely to learning about God and I look forward to sharing all that I have learned with others and continuing to learn more as there is always more to learn.

        I am going to miss this program a lot but I know that I have to move forward. I am going to Briercrest in the fall. However, I am really going to miss living in a small community like this. Living in a small community allows you to grow closer to people and to have that close bond. The bond that I have between all of the students this year is so strong that I know that no matter how far away we are from each other we will always keep in touch and be there for each other no matter what. Another thing that I am really going to miss is the intentionality of this program to make sure that you grow in your faith and to help you do that. This program was very intentional with helping in your spiritual growth, on every out trip Andrew found some way to make it about God and found something that we can learn on every trip. We also had many group discussions to see where everyone was at in their journey, along with Bible study giving us a chance to dig deeper into scripture in a smaller group. I know that from now on I am going to have to be the one being intentional in my spiritual growth, but I know that this year I have grown strong enough that I can do it. Just because I am not in the program anymore does not mean that I can't use some of the students as accountability partners. Even though some may be far away I know that this will be beneficial for us all. I am very thankful to God for giving me this amazing opportunity and I am looking forward to what he has for me next.

       Thank you all for your prayers this year they were much appreciated. Your prayer is powerful! 

       

Appreciating Camp Ministry

         April 9, 2013

        After finishing the Camp & Youth Ministry class I have learned a lot about how much work it is to plan and run a retreat. In the class everyone was split into groups and had to plan a retreat. Each group had to think of a different theme, games, speaker topics, schedule etc... After doing that assignment I have a new appreciation for camp ministry. Before I took this class I had never realized how much work was put into planning a weekend retreat and I cannot even imagine how much work goes into the whole summer at camp or even just one week. Now that I have a better understanding of all the work that is put into camp ministry I realize how passionate one must be about children to put this much work into it. I also realized how much they would need God to equip them for this job. I am really excited to be able to help out with camp ministry this summer. In order to run a camp especially one as big as Qwanoes it requires a lot of people to fill a variety of different positions. I am very happy that I get to contribute by being a counsellor this summer. 

          This past weekend I had the opportunity to be a counsellor for my second time ever at the juniors retreat. I really enjoyed counselling at this retreat and I learned a lot. After counselling for the weekend I was really excited to counsel for the summer, but I realize how exhausted I am going to be at the end. However, I know that even though I will be exhausted it will be worth it in the end. Something that really stood out to me about this juniors retreat is how much I have learned since the last time I counselled. Through the kaleo program God has been equipping me for many things and one of those things is counselling. After taking more classes and finishing our camp and youth ministry class I have learned a lot more about God and how to answer the hard questions that children or even adults might ask. I think that this time counselling I was better equipped and able to help the children in their spiritual growth a lot more. I am really looking forward to the summer and experiencing even more growth.

           God was definitely present at the juniors retreat. In my cabin I had the youngest girls, I had the ages 7-8. This meant that there was a lot that they did not understand about the message the speaker was presenting. This gave me a great opportunity to have God speak through me in a way that was understandable to the girls in my cabin. However, there was one message that the speaker presented that God really used to help the girls and it was one that they understood a lot more. The message was about being invited into God's family and that we have to accept that invitation. After the speaker presented the message we had a cabin devotional and all of the girls were filled with excitement and questions about how to accept the invitation into God's family. God was really working in all the girls hearts that day, and I had the opportunity to pray with five of them about accepting this invitation. God did great things that weekend through me and through all of the girls in my cabin. At the end of the week the girls were all excited about learning more about God and I gave them Bible's so that they can continue to learn and grow more while they are at home. 

            Overall, I had a really great time learning more about camp and youth ministry and really enjoyed being able to use all that I have learned when I was counselling.