A morning at school....

Here's an excerpt from my journal from yesterday:

"My attempts at studying weren't overly successful this morning as I tryed to plow through some written communication homework. Previous visitors to the library had left their perfumes and colognes suspended in the air in pockets around the library forcing me to relocate multiple times. Finally having settled down away from the noisy talkers and smelly air, I focused on studying only to be distracted a few minutes later by a steady but soothing beat reverberating through the library's walls and floor. After a confused minute of contemplation it dawned on me that today was the morning that the Kenyan drummers were performing in the cafeteria. Excited to have some sweet music to study to, I quickly but neatly gathered my books and bags and scampered downstairs. Coming around the corner from the stairwell into the cafeteria I discovered people everywhere. Chairs and tables where overflowing with people, backpacks, cellphones (among other electronic gadgets), and half eaten lunches. People sat on the floor, leaned against posts and anywhere else they could find to.
That brings me up to now [about 12 noon]. Sitting here practicing my writing, soaking in the beautiful and energizing music while chewing my Almond Joy candy bar from Alyssa. Ah... this is the life :) [yes, the smiley face IS in my journal.... lol] I haven't quite figured out what it is about the "college life" thing that I'm enjoying so much - but I really am. [I think it's finally feeling like I'm moving forward and have a "place" and purpose]. I'm only taking one class here right now but it feels like "my school" and I'm enjoying it.
Sitting here serves such a great opportunity for an observation study on people! There are people who dance to the music without abandon and there are people who look terrified at the very thought. There are some who want to dance but hestitate. I sit here thinking that it's great that those people are confident enought to get up and dance without caring, while the girls next to me discuss who looks stupider.
And then there's me.... pretending to know how to write, while bobbing to the music and analyzing the world around me like a physicology geek. :) "

I added the following shortly afterwards:
"I was going to be done on that note but I want to also comment on the fact that a bunch of those who were dancing were disabled people/ people with special needs and I was just thinking about how free they are. They are not held back by fear of what people will think of them or what could happen. They are, perhaps, the freest people in our world."

After the Kenyan's left I had lunch with a homeschool friend who also attends the same Technical school and finished off my day with my ballroom dance class and a bunch of practice. I LOVE ballroom and I'm so excited to be learning it this semester. I may even have the chance to compete! :) It'll take me awhile to get proper posture down though because while I have decent posture, ballroom posture is alittle extreme. lol :)

I'm back!!!

Dear friends and family,

I'm back! (And definitely excited to be back). After five months of more learning, growing, messing up my life and coming to decisions, I am finally back to blogging. I've been wanting to for months, especially for my poor grandmother's sake (she loves reading my blog - sorry Grandma!!!), but I just knew I won't do it.

So the questions arises: Why ARE you writing then Courtney? The answer is simple - because it's time for me to be writing again. I'm taking written communication at a local technical college to help me improve my writing and to get me writing again. I finally came to the conclusion that it was time to move on in my life and pursue my dreams - all of which started with writing. It sounds simple, but what most people don't realize is that I have been scared to death of learning to write. I love journaling, blogging and writing letters, but I have had some really difficult past experiences with my attempts at structured writing. I let my dreams slide (this happened for two or three reasons - fear was one of them) and never pursued any of it further. Over "Christmas Break" (haha - I didn't have anything to break from... ) I was reading a book that Mom gave me for Christmas and I realized my fear and I realized that I had lost site of my passionate dreams (which I believe to be God given) for my future. Fear of many, many things had been holding me back and I didn't even know it!

I tried registaring for a course and found out they were all full. Thankfully, at the start of the semester some of them opened up and I was able to join a class mid week. I'm now doing a bit of "catch up" but I'm so excited to be moving forward. Today was my first day of working on my school and the old anguish threatened to resurface a number of times, but I took a deep breath, reminded myself of why I'm taking this class and pushed forward. I failed last time (last year) I tried - I let my frustrating over take me. I'm NOT GOING TO FAIL again. :) I spent much more time on my assignment then most people may have required and I have other "simple" assignments hanging over my head that I know will take me equally as long, but I'm going to keep pressing on and I'm GOING to learn.

I'd be interested in knowing who all reads my blog so email me or drop me a line on facebook!

In His grip,
Courtney Lynn

Check out this video:

Monday is here - The last week has begun

Hello friends and family!

I can't believe it, but the last week has begun. Saturday afternoon I said goodbye to my campers, packed up my stuff, turned in my forms and moved out of Bayberry for the last time. After that it was time to get dressed up and I joined the other g i r l s who were getting ready for our SST wrap-up banquet. The banquet was wonderful and full of great things, challenges, encouragement, sadness and tears. We ate, had our last hymn sing, shared what we had meant to eachother, watched the wrap up video, had our last "prep for ministry" (ministry outside of camp....) and our last prayer circle. We didn't get back to camp until almost midnight.

Sunday we rolled out of bed for church in the Chapel with Carney Free who had a service and picnic here.

Yesterday afternoon a group of us went out on a curvy county highway into the middle of nowhere, turned right down a dirt road and drove for a few miles, parked and walked for 25 minutes and there it was! LaSalle Falls and it was gorgeous. We stayed until 8 hiking around (and climbing out to the middle of the river if you're Courtney.... :) and then went to Pizza Hut and Walmart and drove back by midnight :)

This morning custodial began. It'll be an interesting week since I have to train a new crew everyday..... As usual, custodial's already thrown more intresting projects and things at me. I got attacked by the garbage today and got a nice y cut on my leg, I discovered the insane number of vaccum cleaners camp has when I had to change all the bags this morning, I discovered how heavy a garbage bag full of dirty vacumm bags is.... lol and I'm on my way in 60 seconds to be trained on driving the red mule (another camp vehicle) since the five wheeler is down.

All in all these last few days have been great. I'm loving and appreciating everyone more than ever and I'm enjoying working alongside all the SSTers and having fun with them instead of a bunch of random volunteer staff I don't know.

Prayer Requests:
-That things would go fairly smoothly
-That I wouldn't be intimidated by or annoyed with any of my crews (most of them are good friends of mine but not all of them)
-That I would get to spend some quality time with God
-That at home details would get arranged quickly
- That goodbyes would go okay and that God would give us all strength to endure them and make the transition back to the "real world".
-PRAISE: That we serve an amazing God who has given me the great privledge of serving here this summer!

The last full day

Here it is - the last full day of youth camp.

I'm absolutely shocked that it's here. It feels like it's just the end of another week of camp, but it's not. Tomorrow is our wrap-up banquet and then the goodbye's begin. 1/4-1/3 of our staff leave on Sunday while the rest of us stay one more week to work for the all week Alliance Family Camp. Those of us who are staying will be leaving on August 16th.

My s this week are great and I'm having a blast with them. I want so much to be able to help them through all the different things in their lives. None of them feel like they have it all together or are blatantly apathetic towards God. All of them are searching for answers which is so cool. Another totally neat thing is that four of my s live within two or three miles from me - two of them are under a mile and within walking distance and I'm excited to maintain those relationships as we go home and they begin highschool.

God continues to be faithful to provide, sustain and speak through me even though I get tired, frustrated or doubtful. I'm only getting about six hours of sleep each night so that's not helping my overall end-of-the-week mood. :)

Prayer requests would include being able to reach out to these s in this last day and a half, for strength as I say goodbye to one of my closest friends up here this weekend, for strength and a good attitude as I once again take up the role of head custodian next week (our head custodian is leaving this weekend) and will (besides the cooks) have the least amount of freetime and will most likely be the tiredest.

Thank you all who have so faithfully supported me in so many ways (including this blog) throughout the summer. I love and appreciate you!

Your sister in Christ,
Courtney Lynn

Here we go again - but for the last time

Wow. That's all I can say. Today is the beginning of our last week of camp! Next week we have a family camp but that doesn't really count. I'm one of the eight s counselors for this last week for grades 8-10th. Because of the age group there is a potential for this to be a very interesting week. Thankfully God has helped turn around my attitude so that I'm fairly excited about counseling again.

After my all-nighter I knew I needed sleep but I didn't know when I was going to go to bed. Well, my body took care of that for me. I laid down on a couch that next night at about 8 during a conversation and promptly fell asleep. Someone was kind enough to wake me at 10:30 to go to my cabin :) Where I slept another nine hours. So, for anyone worried about my sleep (like my parents and a selected other few) I'm doing pretty decently even with the all nighter and God really used that night to change my attitude and make me excited about this last week of camp.

Prayer Requests (I would definitely appreciate it):
- Wisdom in leading these g i r l s
- That my focus would be on my g i r l s and not on spending time with the staff - especially those leaving Saturday or Sunday
- Staff health and attitude - Many of us are sick, injured or just getting to late summer exhaustion and just struggling with the idea of giving 24/7 again

I'm so thankful to all of you who have prayed, have financially supported me, have written to me, who have emailed me and who have been reading this blog. Thank you so much for caring about my life and for giving to it. I'm excited to announce that my financial support is now not only above my minimum but is also above the staff goal! Praise be to God for providing.

I'm still up here for two more weeks even though camp's winding down - so please still write me letters! :) - [I havn't gotten many recently]

Much love to you, your sister in Christ,
Courtney Lynn

Precious Moments

As the summer draws to a close, the time I have left with the staff, especially those leaving early becomes very short. Jess is leaving next Sunday and because of our schedules last night was the last time we were going to have a chance to spend time together. She had a project (her shell turtle) that needed to be finished by today and so I kept her company while she worked and we finally had a chance to talk. The time passed so quickly as we talked about things going on in our life now, shared where we think God's leading us, read verses on God's faithfulness and the entire amazing Psalm 37, sang various songs, shared our testimonies and just spent time together. She finished her project and it was 4:30am and getting light out! We couldn't believe how such a short time it had seemed. In our adventurousness and spunk we decided that it was our last chance to do something crazy and we wanted to make the memory together so we pulled an all nighter. After the project was finished we went to the craft shop to wrap it, went to the dock at sunrise, and decided that swimming at 5:50 would be fun (which it was - it was amazing). I did take a short 45 minute nap before breakfast - so no worries - I slept. lol :) As tired as I was this morning (I'm doing okay right now but I'm going to go take a nap again) I do not regret a single thing about last night because it was one of those precious moments God gives us with the special people He puts in our lives. Only God knows how much I needed that time last night to talk through what's been on my heart and mind. I was struggling alot throughout this week and God used the care and love of a friend to minister to both of us because I found out later that Jess needed our conversation as much as I did. I'm so thankful to the God who works all things together for good and works in our lives to make the beautiful and amazing - simply because.

Jessie working on her turtle
The finished turtle - and this picture in no way does justice how cool this thing looks. It's made out of the shells she picked in Mozambique on a missions trip right before camp.
The lake at 5:30 - so beautiful
Camp in the early morning light
Out on the dock, sleepy but oh so happy

We serve an amazing and faithful Lord!