Miami County Fair!

It is my last week, hard to believe it, but at this time next week I'll be waking up in my own bed, getting overwhelmed thinking about packing for school, and enjoying being at home for a very short amount of time. At this point, I am just trying to enjoy everything I do because I have nothing to stress me out this week. I think they'll be at least a couple more posts as I wrap things up in this week and next week.
Besides all of that, I had a wonderful weekend at home for the fair! I helped get the sheep ready a little, relaxed, watched the horse pulls, ate the best fair food(!), and showed before coming back on Sunday.
Here are the pictures I took at the draft horse pull:

These were the mini horses that pulled first.

I painted this last week. I don't know if it is "done" yet, but I  painted it with nail polish.

Journal 6 (a month later)

This is the journal for a couple weeks ago (pretty much a month ago now).

Journal 6
For the week of July 10

I have really felt God’s presence this week as I continue to learn and grow.

In this week I am amazed at how much I have grown with God and felt God. I have never been a big Bible reader, except for one time in high school when I tried to read the Bible in a year and got through Genesis, Exodus, and maybe a couple other books. My prayer life also was typically confined to prayer led by other people, usually on Sundays, until more recently since I’ve been in college. So as you can see, I have never had a strong grounding in these disciplines until more recently. College is when I realized I had to really own my faith and there’s more to it than what I thought so I tried a few times to pray before bed or before meals or do a devotional for lent. Usually these practices lasted for a little while but eventually I either ran out of material (the devotional) or I just started to forget and make other excuses. This summer though, has felt like a solid change.

In June I picked up one of the devotionals at the church for the summer months and started to read it each day. The first couple of days I was lackadaisical about doing it so I didn’t think I needed to do it every day. Then something hit me and I realized that I should be reading the devotional and scripture everyday because it is how I am going to grow my relationship with God and learn more about God.  Since that day I have read the devotional every day, preferably right when I wake up. (What better way to wake up, than with God?!)

I’ve already mentioned prayer a little bit too but I would like to add how I’ve improved with it. During my spiritual disciplines class I made prayer the discipline I wanted to practice intensely. I half succeeded at this by praying before meals a little bit more and improving my prayer communication with God a little more but it wasn’t enough. Howard-Miami is a church that prays, a lot. Every meeting starts with prayer concerns and a prayer and people depend on this church praying for them. They do more than just talk about praying for people. This has empowered me and supported me more than they know. I am amazed at how much more comfortable I am becoming with praying during my time.

I find both of these growths exciting and it energizes me to continue them after I leave here.

Just the other day I was doing some of my required reading from the book recommended by Sarah called Purpose-Centered Youth Ministry written by Mike King. I had a wonderful God moment as I was reading outside under the maple tree. It was around two o’clock in the afternoon and King’s chapter was titled “Trusting the Holy Spirit with Your Ministry”. At this point in the chapter, King is talking about an experience of his own that included experiences of fire, water, and wind (91). I was sitting outside under the maple tree at home reading the section about wind. King speaks of a particular camp-type experience, feeling the nearness of God and breathing it in causing the youth to encounter the presence of God (92).

As I was reading, the breeze around me started to pick up and just continued to a hearty, but non-threatening wind. It was an enjoyable wind, with strength, but not intimidating. I was so thankful for the wind. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me the opportunity to connect with God, learning, and scripture in that time. I will conclude with a scripture King includes in this section, John 3:8, which says “The wind blows where it should and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.”

Past Week

These are just some random happenings from the past week. Monday I'll post another blog with one of my real journal entry's.

•  I opened my box of Olympic Pop Tarts that I was saving for school but I'm so glad I did! They had gold wrappers (I thought when I opened the box, it would be so cool if they were gold instead of silver wrappers.. what do ya know?!), they are red colored, and the berry filling is blue-ish. They were delish!

• I saw more beautiful sunsets this week. I love them! The left one is from tonight after a storm rolled past us. The right picture is from earlier this week. 

• I enjoyed some unique things outside. I looked at this flower from a different angle and saw a hot air balloon in the right picture.

Peace, love, and blessings
Jessica

Great weekend.. only 3 weeks left...

I wrote the front page for the Howard-Miami Newsletter for August. You can check it out by clicking the link.

Besides that I had a great weekend!
A few words to sum up the weekend: painting, nap, watched The Sandlot on a baseball diamond, Amish breakfast buffet (delicious donuts), lost hiking, gummy bears :), teaching how to bake cookies, Olympics (I love the Olympics!), Sunday School, homemade Sunday lunch, and lots of laughing!

It is really starting to hit me that I'll be leaving in 3 weeks. I think the youth and congregation are also starting to realize it. I don't know when but I will have to make some visits back to Kokomo to see them all because it's been a great summer!

Peace, love, and blessings,
Jessica

Not too bad

I made dinner tonight for my family. We had scrambled eggs with veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and green bell pepper), sausage, fresh pineapple slices, and cinnamon rolls. This is the first time I've made all of this (I've made scrambled eggs before but not with veggies inside). I'm quite surprised it all tasted pretty good, I didn't cut myself, and nothing was under cooked, in fact, the sausage may have been a little over cooked, oops.
But what I am most impressed with are the cinnamon rolls. I found the recipe on line but am going to tweak it a little bit for the next time I make them. They rose incredibly well though! Check out this picture! (Not the best picture quality but you get the point, they rose, are thick, and look like real cinnamon rolls.)

Busy week!

I have a busy week, meeting every night, a Sunday school lesson to plan, the front page of the Newsletter needs to be written, and I'm preparing to lead worship on Sunday. Also, a couple visitors will be gracing my presence in the next 1.5 weeks, mom & dad, a college friend, and someone from illinois. Lots to do and lots to prepare for so as a blog entry I'm going to share just a little bit with you.

I have weekly meetings with my mentor, Sarah, as part of the program I am in. We talk about things I'm doing, what is coming up, the church, life, and God. I really enjoy these times and am going to miss them when I'm gone. During these times she has 3 questions she asks every week. They are good questions, just not always my favorite.

1. What has been enjoyable?
2. What has been challenging?
3. What has God been teaching you?

The questions are about the previous week that we have just ended, so in my meetings I think back and try to come up with answers. It's funny, now I know the questions by heart but I still have to take time to think of the answers. Sometimes I have about four answers to one of the questions but can barely find one answer for another question. Overall though these questions have been really helpful as I reflect and think deeper about what I'm experiencing this summer.

One day in talking about these Sarah commented that she might start journaling just to answer these three questions each week. I think that's a good idea which I might try after I'm done this summer (if I can get myself to actually journal!)

I challenge you to think about these questions for yourself, you might be surprised what you come up with.

I'll try to add some more pics next week.

Peace, love, & blessings,
Jessica

Absolute Beauty!

There is beauty in many things.. even in county fairs! Trust me, you will want to finish the end of this post, it will be worth your while. And, while there may not be beauty in county fairs to all, there is to me. (What can I say, it's in my genes!) I promise, even if you don't find beauty in the county fair you will probably find beauty in the end of my post, so keep reading!

Tonight I went to the Howard County 4-H Fair. I took some pictures to illustrate my experience.

 I felt right at home. One kid even was showing southdowns!

 The pictures that follow are the inside of this round barn. It was pretty cool.

 These are the tracks from the old tractor above the ferris wheel.

Old tractor...

 New tractor.

 I got back to the sheep barn just in time to watch showmanship, my favorite classes!

 This barn housed ALL of the animals. Pretty different from what I'm used to.

So then I was driving home and saw the gorgeous sky which I had to take pictures of! 

I just couldn't stop being amazed and continued to take more photos of the sky.

What beauty God gives us in all forms!

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11a

~Peace, love, & blessings.

I'm famous! ;)

I was doing some perusing through Bluffton's website which I like to do from time to time and look what I found: http://www.bluffton.edu/about/news/newsreleases.asp?show=062912_01
That's me! Haha, I release this isn't a big deal but I had no idea they would write a press release about my summer. Pretty crazy.
Anyways, today is my day off so I have spent it as any day off should be spent.. doing nothing relating to work. I have lazed around quite a bit today soaking up all the rest I have been lacking from the past week. I think this evening is going to be spent outside reading and enjoying my beautiful scenery.
I wasn't planning on posting today but after I found my exciting news I just had to share it.

Peace, love, and blessings.

A long post for a long, yet quick week.

So it's been a week since I last posted but it has felt like 2 weeks with the holiday on Wednesday. Sunday, July 1 was a pretty neat day. It was my first time teaching Sunday School (ever) and first time leading youth group as the main coordinator/planner. Big day. I learned that I really enjoy teaching Sunday School. Granted it was only the first day but it went well and I liked have the pre-planned lesson time with the youth (high school aged). It was nice to have a theme and scripture ready to go with activities, some of which I did and some which I altered at least a little.

This is before the storm hit Sunday afternoon.

Later that night, after a yummy lunch, a goodbye, and a storm, I took 9 youth bowling. Howard-Miami's usual youth group size is 4, aka the core four. But with friends and community youth we had 9 go bowling then swimming at the house of one of the girls. Add in 2 sponsors, a daughter of one sponsor, a family of one of the youth who went (but on separate lanes), and me to equal 16! I was pretty excited at the turn out considering at the beginning of the week I only expected 2 youth (the others were supposed to go camping). I've heard that they had a lot of fun and I feel like I know them a little better. What a great day it was.

My time Tuesday in the office was focused on preparing for Thursday so I'll leave that for a couple paragraphs later.
Tuesday afternoon I made a drive to Illinois for a 4th of July celebration. Too bad I'm a terrible navigator (even with a GPS and directions) and I got lost adding 1 hour onto my travel time. Oh well, I made it there safe and sound. Although, I don't know if I will travel again in a car with no air conditioner in 100+ degree heat. Especially when I've never traveled there before.. not a good time.

The 4th of July Parade

Wednesday: what more can be said than, early morning walk, parade, cookout lunch, nap, air conditioning, baseball on tv, tilt-a-whirl & scrambler, bbq chicken, and fireworks. No other way that I would like to spend a day off.

Thursday morning I got up very early and drove back to Indiana (this time only making one teeny tiny wrong turn which I easily corrected within 2 minutes). I got to the church at 10:50, 10 minutes before the Mennonite Women Sewing meeting was to begin during which I was going to speak. At 11:30 I spoke for 20 minutes about stories. I shared my story and that telling stories can be a service to others and can teach us so much, even Jesus did it. I shared 2 stories from Colombia which deeply affected me. I know I did the families of these stories a service by sharing their stories with the ladies here. I was very happy to hear their comments afterwords that they enjoyed what I had to say and agreed, they really appreciated hearing about Colombia and my experiences there.
Thursday evening we had Jeremy Kempf visit the church and grace us with his worship leading. Some of you don't know who this is, he has led youth worship at Mennonite Convention for the past 3 years. He makes great music with his band. He visited Bluffton once before so I had seen him then and was excited to see him again and purchase his CD. As pastor Ben put it, 'He's kind of a Mennonite rock star.' (haha, that statement just makes me smile)

Nothing particularly special occurred for me on Friday other than really focusing on planning my Sunday School lesson and staying out of the heat.

7:25 am, outside the church.

Today, Saturday, I got up at 6:45 for a meeting at 7:30 am. That makes 3 mornings this week that I've gotten up before 7, yay. This is what the sun, sky and field looks like at 7:25.
After the meeting I enjoyed a yummy breakfast with my hosts, their sons, and another family from church. All the kids grew up together and they were all home so they had a great time laughing and reminiscing and catching up on the latest developments in each others lives. After a hot trip in town for supplies this evening I'm making cookies for Sunday School class (it relates to the lesson). Been a good weekend so far.

Peace & blessings. Stay cool in the heat!

Strange summer

To say the least this summer has been strange in a couple different ways. I'm working in a new place. We have had temperatures over 100 degrees. I saw a windstorm that made me feel like I was in Kansas. I have been at a church that has had 6 viewings and funerals in 4 weeks. I have read 3.75 books already this summer with at least 4 more to do. And it's only June!

Here are some pictures from this past week to illustrate it a little bit.

 It was hot later in the week but on Monday I actually laid outside for a couple hours reading and soaking up some Vitamin D. Thank you Mr. Sun :)

 I tried a new chex mix which is really good. It is cinnamon-sugary. They say it is breakfast on the go. I think for me it might just be a traveling companion for afternoon and morning!

 Everyone was stressed in the office on Tuesday so I felt like the best way I could help was by making something to take in on Wednesday. Mom's idea was monkey bread. This was the result. It was a hit, everyone enjoyed snacking on it throughout the morning.

The only casualty in monkey bread making was this pot holder. It may have gotten a bit too close to the heating coil and flamed for a few seconds in the oven. Oops.

And this afternoon it rained! It was nice to see the rain and hopefully it cooled it down a little.

Have a good weekend!

~Peace & Blessings! 

Journal 2 (written for week of June 12)

Boy, oh boy, my second week was a busy one! Last week I had Bible School, a funeral, and a weekend conference. It just goes to show that life doesn’t slow down even if it is only your second week in a new place.

Let’s start with bible school. It was a really good week overall. I enjoyed seeing how another church does their bible school compared to previous experiences with it at my home church. Sarah was the ‘teacher’ of the class and I was the ‘helper’ for the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Since I was unsure of their format and still new, Sarah taught the first two nights and I taught the last two nights. This worked out really well I thought. I was really surprised how quickly I came up with an idea for the first night I taught. In a short amount of time my lesson came together and I felt ready to teach the kids. Wednesday night came, the kids arrived, and it was time to teach.  I didn’t think I was nervous until three new kids showed up to the class (including a pair of siblings) and I realized everyone was hyper! The class dynamic was completely different from the previous two nights. Keeping their attention for twenty-five minutes was going to be a challenge. I went through my lesson just as planned and nothing majorly wrong happened. Overall, I was happy with what happened in the lessons both nights. Thursday night was not as much of the lesson that the curriculum called for, but instead an overview of the week, especially since there were kids absent for multiple days.

Also in this week I saw a lot of ministerial life which I have never experienced before. This started with my first hospital visit with Ben and Sarah on Friday (of my first week). We visited Martha Mast who was the first female elder at HM church in the 1980’s and lived her life to serve the Lord. Unfortunately I did not get to meet this inspirational woman that I heard so much about because, Friday evening, after our visit which was while she was sleeping, she passed away. I was with Ben and Sarah that evening when they got the call and from that point started to wonder when the arrangements would be made. It was decided for the viewing on Tuesday and funeral on Wednesday. Ben and Sarah knew Bible school would have to be canceled for Tuesday night. (After a short meeting after church it was decided not to add Friday night because not enough volunteers could be there to pull it off.) Seeing this side of death in a church was interesting and necessary. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning provided for me an opportunity to see how another church does viewings and funerals.

What better way to top off a week of bible school and a funeral than to go to a conference. Friday morning I headed to Detroit, Michigan with Craig and Linda Miller, an elder and the church treasurer respectively. They were to be delegates at the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference Annual Sessions. While this trip did not start out as planned, Ben and Sarah were supposed to go but due to the unexpected death of her uncle, they went to PA for a funeral, it was an enriching experience. I learned more about the conference, specifically, what it does, the people in it, and where it is going. I enjoyed meeting the other people there and discovering what is happening in Detroit. It also helped me to learn more about God and God’s word. Worship was very intentional in this setting and I appreciated its abundance. Not only am I glad I could go to this experience for the obvious reasons but also because it allowed me to become closer with, even just two more people in the congregation. It was great to share that end to a full week with them. 

Sunsets, books, and scripture.

This is how I spent my evening after my church meetings tonight. It was wonderful.

 Relaxing.

 I watched the progression of the sun setting.

Mhm, I'm in an Amish area.

The sun finally set and I thought of creation.

"And God saw that it was good."