be bold

    so, I know I haven't blogged in forever but I really hope ya'll will read this. for the past few weeks at riot (my church's wednesday night youth worship) we've been learning about being bold and really stepping out for God. tonight thought, it really hit me and gave me such a reality check. I'm a really outgoing person until it comes to sharing my testimony, I feel awkward and shy and scared to death. I'm scared people will think I'm crazy or weird or they'll laugh at me. but tonight my youth minister was talking about how our story is epic and important and it's our job to share it with others. he listed reasons why we don't share and they went right along with why I don't share, then he said something that blew my mind...if you look at all the reasons why I don't share it's because I'm making my story about me. REALITY CHECK BROOKLYN, it's not about you. wow. mindblown. "your story is epic if Jesus Christ is the hero of your story." I can't make it all about me because it's not.
    in Ephesians 2:1-10 it says "¹ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ BUT because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
    in verses 1-3 it talks about how we were sinners and how we were dead in our sin and then in verse $ is where the but comes in, "BUT because of HIS great love..." I, in no way, saved myself or "earned" my salvation...it was because of God's great love for me, His love for everyone. tonight is when I realized my testimony isn't about me, it's about God and how he changed my life forever.
    so tonight after the message, our youth minister challenged us to take the facebook challenge. basically you make of video of you sharing your testimony and then you post it on facebook and tag your friends. it's pretty bold, once you put something on facebook anyone can see it. and honestly, i'm scared to death but I know it's not about me, it's about the almighty one who saved me. so be looking for that on facebook hopefully this weekend and please watch it, not so it can be about me, but so it can be about Jesus Christ.

  

OUTBREAK.

so I haven't blogged in awhile cause I got really busy with finishing up school. but now it's summer..well, summer is halfway over. anyways, this past week was our high school church camp. each year I am amazed at what God does in everyones life and in my own life. this yeah didn't let me down at all. in fact, this was the best year of camp I have ever been too. God showed up big time and rocked my world.
so, on monday night during worship our speaker, Mike Taylor (check out his awesome ministry here), asked us four questions. they were:
1. do you see yourself as a debtor?
2. do you want to go to Rome? (not literally, but are you ready to die for your beliefs)
3. are you prepared to see the power of God?
4. what are you really trusting God for?
so that night I was really thinking about those questions and number 3 really hit me. like when you're a Christian you think of course I'm ready to see the power of God but that night I was really praying about it then something awesome happened. my whole life I've wanted to teach kindergarten and then go on missions to Puerto Rico during my summers. then God totally blew my mind and was like well, what if you taught in Puerto Rico. WOW. I could feel God calling me into the ministry and I'm not sure how it's all going to work out but right now I'm thinking about doing the Trek X program. I've would take online college classes and live in Nashville for 2 years while taking my classes and preparing to go to Puerto Rico then during the summer I would spend one month in Puerto Rico. then after the two years I would go live in Puerto Rico for 2 years. I've been praying about it a lot and I know I need to fully trust God to provide. it's amazing what He can do when you just let Him.
this past week was incredible and this friday I leave again to go to Puerto Rico. I'm praying God will do big things because after all He is a big God. He is incredible. I'll post again when I get back!

my amazing group, neon pink pegasus

some of my favorites on mud day

k bye,
brookie cookie

minnesota mission

this is gonna be a long one so be prepared. so this past week my church highschool choir went on choir tour over our spring break! this time we ventured to minnesota, a good 22 hours away from alabama. crazy, I know. you can read the official choir tour blog here.

so anyways we left friday after school and we started the journey. we arrived on saturday in the afternoon sometime, I can't even remember and then we chilled and just got ready for the next day.

sunday. we had 5 concerts. we sang in the first 3 morning services at a church and then had a full afternoon concert there and then moved on to another church where we had another full concert, we we're SO tired afterwards.

this of S and I at the first church and this random inflatable elephant they had. quote of the day, "arn't you gonna mention the elephant in the room?"

so monday morning started early and we had the opportunity to go to a private christian elementary school that is closing after this year. it was such a small school but it was so amazing to just go encourage those precious children. of course, I took a ton of pictures so here are some of my favorites from minnehaha academy (I love the name!)

this is L and I with the most precious little girls, Cameron and Lily

Cameron and I, supposedly we look alike

at lunch with the kids, they were hilarious

I love this picture, two awesome roomates and Dash...the coolest lady ever

after the school and after waiting in the parking lot for the bus that ventured to get drugs (a TON of people got sick) we went to the minnesota sculpture gardens. for some reason this giant spoon and cherry is like famous, don't ask me. I guess it's a minnesota thing.

the giant spoon and cherry

K and I's failed attempt to lick it

after that it was off to the ZOO! I was really excited about the polar bears...like beyond excited. so we set out to find the polar bears and this is what we end up finding...

we saw these precious seal thing...

then these precious polar bear baby...

then a sleeping polar bear and never any seals...lame

after the zoo we went to the union gospel mission, which is basically a homeless shelter for men. we set up for the concert and we were all super tired. everyone just started praying and all the seniors prayed over everyone else and it was just amazing. God totally did amazing things that night, the person in charge there said he saw God in our faces...whoa. awesome. I realized that up until that concert, I was going up on stage and putting on a act. raising my hand and "worshipping" God but honestly not meaning it. I realized that night that it needed to change. my theme quote of the week became, more of You, less of me. from then on I tried my hardest to do everything for the glory of God.

tuesday was an awesome day! we started it off right at feed my starving children. you can read more about that organization here. it is such a cool place! they offer 2 hour sessions for volunteers to come in and package this special rice mix that they then send to other countries to well, feed the starving children.

this is our group packaging the mix, our group was a bit ADD

okay so I'm dumb and can't figure out how to rotate this picture or put them in order so on the right is Omar. he's 8 and weighs 19 lbs. on the left is Omar as well after six months on the feed my starving children meal, he is now healthy and 73 lbs. how awesome

at feed my starving children

in the end we packed 92 boxes. each box contains 36 packages of food. each package of food consists of 6 meals. do the math and thats 19,872 meals. our group packaging food there for 2 hours resulted in us feeding 55 kids everyday for a year. God is truely amazing. I want to go back so bad. imagine what we could have done if we spent the whole day there, which I totally could have. so I feel as if this is a good note to end on. this is getting long and I'm getting tired. I'll post about the rest of the minnesota trip later.

k bye,

brookie cookie



a communi erumpere

so a lot of my friends have blogs and I find them interesting. I enjoy reading blogs while at school, it gives me something to do. so today I was like, why not have my own? so here it is.

okay so I assume everyone who is reading this, which is actually probably no one, is thinking what the heck does "a communi erumpere" mean? unless you're in latin, then you might already know. so obviously it's in latin. I was going to titled my blog breakfree from ordinary. why you may ask? because God calls us (His followers) to be different from others. to stand out and not conform to the world. and then I thought, hey I would look pretty smart if I put the title in latin. so even though I'm in latin, I had to get some help from google translate. I typed in break free from ordinary and it gave me a communi erumpere so then I translated in back just to make sure it wasn't something crazy and translated into english it means to break out from the common. whoa, I thought that was pretty awesome. the "common" people are those of the world and sometimes I forget that I was called for a purpose and to be different from the common and to stand out in a world of nonbelievers. that's something I struggle with all the time. especially at school, it's hard. so that's why I picked that title, just as a reminder to myself.

so I guess since I just went on a rant about that, I'll just tell you a bit about myself. I was planning on posting about my mission trip/spring break to minnesota but I'm too lazy. I'll do that later. I'm 17, I'm a junior in highschool, I love my friends, I love my church, and I am currently counting down the days until school is over (21 plus 4 exam days!!). I'm excited. that's all.

k bye,
brookie cookie