I love to be HaPpY...

Don't you just love to be happy?!?! When you smile at someone and they smile back... it just makes the day better. I love to make people smile. I'm in a really happy mood and I love it when other people are in a happy mood and don't ruin it for me. So smile at someone today, or make a joke, add some humor to your life. Laughter is the best medicine and a smile could make someones day... ~ Lon

Hey guys

Hey guys. just wanted to tell everybody that my new e-mail is joneyboy@bellsouth.net. and i will be on facebook from now on.

Thanks

JOn

Facebook

Hey everyone! There's this great network called Facebook. All of your friends can communicate within minutes. Wow, that totally sounded like I was advertising it. (I was. lol) Seriously though, it's a faster way of communicating and I think all of you should join, but get your parents permission first.

As far as my life is concerned; school is crazy! I'm in the 11th grade and it's definitely harder than I thought! Oh well, life is good and the Lord gets me through each day. Pray for me though, I'm failing in a couple of subjects (ya it's not that far along, either!)

Love all of you,
Anna

The Indianapolis conference

Whoa, what have you all been up to? I majorly miss you guys. But here goes on the Indy conference...I actually don't have any pictures. But. aaaannnyways....

At the conference, I saw Rachel Jorgensen, Jessica Friesien, James Lindley, Amy Ortiz, LeeAnn Martens, Sarah Ferraro, Nate what'shislastname (I don't think he remembers me), and some other people from my CI team...Andrew Jorgie (Rachel's bro), Anna Grier, Kat Taylor, umm...oh! Mr. Gothard :), and I met some new people....

At the conference, the Lord really just shouted one thing at me. I tend to hold tightly to people, expecting them to fulfill me, love me, make me happy, and satisfy me in general. God and God alone is worthy of that place in my life! What am I doing, replacing Him with these human idols? I don't know, but it's silly. It helps me to write things out, so I wrote out a bunch of names of friends and...other...people...and gave up my expectations of these people to the Lord.

I was a COMMIT leader, which I enjoy with my whole heart, and I got to give my testimony there to the the whole group. I look out on those girls and think, where will they be in two years? The same place I was? Or will they be given over wholly and devoted to the Lord?

Now I'm doing the graphic design class at ITC, and actually got to see our own Anna Crigger and her family for three days...we said goodbye tonight . I hate goodbyes. But it was great seeing her...now I'll only have my new buddies and Tyler and Ryan to smile, talk, and laugh with. Or cry and pull out my hair with, if my creativity for layout is exhausted...oh! my word...I'm going to die. I'm so tired.

Well, come on, give me lots of comments, and I so am looking forward to seeing all of you! In heaven, if not earlier. Keep close to the Lord, and all your ducks will fall in a row. That...is not the right expression. But too bad. I'm tired.

<

Here are a few pictures from camp.
we learned alot including how to sacrifice-human sacrifice!!
Just kidding!
Thanks for your prayers VBS went well and four kids recieved
Christ as there savior
Jen

I'm done with REFINE

Hey everyone!

I'm done with REFINE!!! I'm at a friend's house and I'm on the computer typing this post. I'm sooo glad to be in regular business!!! I'm sooo excited and can't wait to post. so i'll see you later.

journey alumni.

we've actually had quite a few people return to go to a journey again, some have even been twice before.
it's amazing, cuz every single one of them will tell you, there's something new that stands out to them everytime they come.

for the last journey, mr. g asked me to give my testimony...[ya know, his sublte little way of saying..."um, katherine, would you like to come up here and tell us your story?"]
omgosh, so mean. lol jk
get this, there were 69 journey people alone, plus, ALL the staff!!! "P lol
i wanted to, of course, and i LOVED telling it, all my friends LOVED hearing it, but i wasn't sure it had that much of an impact.
it was on the second day for them here, and a lot of them were still skeptical, as was i when i came.
but then, the next sunday as they came up one after another to give their testimonies, one guy came up and said..." on the first day here there was a girl who got up and gave her testimony about how she didn't allow God to change her till the very last day of the journey...and right then i purposed in my heart, that i was going to prove it was possible to get through journey without being changed...well, i'm here to tell you, that you can't go through a journey and NOT be changed."

i flipped out, it was so cool, i wanted to jump up and say, "that was me", my testimony actually meant something to somebody!!! lol " )

praise God!!! = D

well, anna wrote me a few weeks ago and i was just writing her back yesterday, when she showed up in the afternoon on the journey, with refine!
OH....MAH....GOSH!!!!!
i didnt' see her till i was sitting and a few rows up i saw a familiar face!
i wanted to SCREAM!
but i had to sit there being tortured for another hour and a half before i could squeeze her to death!
it was AWESOME!
there's also another friend of mine here who goes to church with us!
ti's incredible to be able to see these girls again.
and daniel troyer's bro, bradley is here too.


it will be amazing to hear all the testimonies', it alwas is, but i know some of the peoplethis time.
so it'll be extra cool.
lolz.

well, it's great to be eble to be with friends again.
just wanted to write and give a little update about the journeys... " )

God bless you all.
hope this is an encouragement to you guys.

in Christ alone,
~kitty

Prayer request

Hey everyone!!!sounds like your all doing well!!
life in Mexico goes on!
I just got back from camp I came back quite full!!
Six young people came to know the Lord as there
savior and many Great disisions were made!
Okay the prayer request is that tomarrow our
VBS starts,we don't have enough help and I am
half dead due to a time of invigorating games and
long hours of study.pray our week will be effective!
Jen
It is Awesome to here what the lord is doing for Y'all
please pray for matt as hes at Quest

I've come from the shadows of the ITC

Well, here i am to tell you that I'm alive! I have some interesting news to tell all of you. I was supposed to work in the kitchen at ITC, right? Well, at the last minute (45min. before we left for ITC) the leaders (mr. and mrs. gurgani) of ITC said I should be in REFINE. REFINE is a program that teaches girls to minister and serve! It definitly has been refining! If you want more details go to my blog. Anyway, my dear friends that I'm spending Sunday with allowed me to use thier computer. I must go for now.

What it’s Like to be a Spy at PHC

This summer at Patrick Henry College, I attended an enthralling Strategic Intelligence Camp. Assuming a new identity, I lived my week as Maxwell Dylan Owens. I was an aerospace engineer who worked for Boeing and lived in Cocoa Beach, FL. The scenario for the camp was in a fake sub-Saharan African country called Mankobo. The situation was grim: Radical Islamic Akbar terrorist and their leader Malik were trying to overthrow the government of Mankobo to rule it themselves. Divided into six different U.S. agencies, our leaders sent us (the campers) to complete a series of missions and eventually capture Malik and turn him over to the Monkobian government.

The missions were conducted at night along with chapel and other recreation activities while during the day we agents were trained through lectures and presentations about the intelligence community and its true functionality. The truth of the matter is that intelligence agents don’t drive cool cars with special gadgets and walk around in tuxedos with guns in their suits like James Bond. Intelligence agents range in many ways from those to act like normal citizens, trying to gather information about a certain country or group, to those who tap into foreign phone conversations or look at images to learn about future plans. In the lectures, we learned about the history of intelligence. From Joshua and Caleb and Rehab in the Old Testament to post 9-11 intelligence services. We also discussed the different agencies in the U.S. and the different types of intelligence they each conduct. For example, the CIA and NSA concentrate on foreign intelligence by gathering information from humans and technology. The FBI on the other hand concentrates on domestic intelligence and protecting our country from our own civilians.

I greatly enjoyed the chapel nights at camp. Camp chapel was on Monday and Wednesday nights. This chapel was great because of the congregational singing. The worship through singing was probably the best part. On the nights we didn't have camp chapel we had wing chapel. This was like a devotional time with our team's counselor. We also had breakfast devotions which set our eyes on Christ for the day. These chapel times helped us keep our focus the Lord amidst all the fun and distractions of camp.

Thursday we took a special trip to the spy museum in Washington, DC and saw all of the interesting intricate artifacts that spies have used trough out our history. After the tour through the museum we were able to go sight seeing in DC with our agencies. My agency, SOCOM, toured the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. During the week, the agencies were summing up points for passing room inspections, arriving to breakfast in time, and successfully completing the missions.

Friday night we culminated the point scoring with a skit. The skit was worth so many points that it could completely rearrange the agencies rankings. The tension could have been cut by a knife as the head counselor stood up to give the final scores after the skits. As our agency’s name was not called for the four last for places, it came down to who was in second place. As the counselor dragged out the agency in second place, our team roared with cheer as we didn’t hear our agency called. This only meant that our agency had won first place! We had worked well together to be at breakfast in time, work with each other to clean our rooms, and use our brains together to successfully complete the missions. Our team successfully soared above the rest and showed our flying colors with successfully avoiding the terrorist and seldom breaking cover during interrogations. This camp was one of the best I’ve ever attended and I am looking forward to attending other PHC teen leadership camps in the future.

If any of you are interesting in attending SI camp or other great leadership camps at PHC, visit http://www.phc.edu/teencamps/.

God bless,
David