A Little Update

Well, it's been awhile since I posted, so I'll give y'all a little update of what's going on in my life.

On August 20, I returned to Ambassador Baptist College for my Sophomore year of school. I was excited to get back and see all of my friends again as well as being back at Emmanuel Baptist Church with my church family.

I have two roommates this year, one of whom was my roommate last year (Christy Godfrey). The other is a freshman from Brazil, Jennifer Duarte. Jennifer is an absolute sweetheart! I could not have asked for a better roommate!

The Monday after everyone returned was Skate Night for the college. A local skating rink was rented out and all of the students divided up amongst various cars and the school vans to get there. I had an absolute blast! It had been awhile since i last skated. I think the last time I had skated was skate night my freshman year. Despite that, I did pretty well. I didn't fall at all, which made me quite happy.

Throughout the rest of the week we had various other events such as the annual cookout and the get-acquainted day. On Thursday, classes started. Because I only have two classes on Tuesdays & Thursdays, it was a pretty easy day for me. Friday was a little heavier of a day for me; I had three classes. I know, I know, I have it so tough this year!! :D On Mondays and Wednesday I have four classes (one of my classes, the 7am one, only meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is why I have one less class on Fridays).

Saturday was league draft. Because I am the secretary/vice-president for the Patriot League, I was kept quite busy from Friday afternoon into Saturday evening, especially since for most of the time I was the only one working on our room and our booth in the gym. I was exhausted by the time League Draft started on Saturday night. To make matters worse, I had a horrible asthma attack during one of the games, and they ended up having to call the squad. Not a great way to start the semester!!

On Monday, Opening Revival started a school. Dr. Glenn Jaspers spoke in the morning chapel services, and Evangelist Dwight Smith spoke in the evening services and during Wednesday chapel. All of Brother Smith's messages spoke to my heart, but I think my favorite was the message that he preached on Thursday night, entitled "Power Outage." He spoke about how we have to surrender everything to God, and how he can't give us anything until we first empty our arms. This message really spoke to my heart because there was something, or rather someone, in my life that I was refusing to give to God; I wanted to keep it for myself. That night I surrendered it to the Lord. I can't say that it's been easy since then, that I haven't been tempted to take it back form God, but it has been easier than it was. I still am struggling with this, so your prayers in that area would be appreciated.

As much as I love opening revival, I am glad it is over. It was a very tiring and hard week for me physically but especially emotionally. These next few weeks are going to be rough, but I know that the Lord will help me through them. I am learning already this semester that I am not going to make it through unless I give everything to Him.

I am looking forward to seeing what God has in store for me this year! Some specific prayer requests that I have are: finances (I need a job), good grades, and that I can be a blessing both at church and on campus.

I will try to update again before too long!

The End is In Sight!!

Well, the semester's almost over. I have six finals left, and then I will be done with my freshman year at Ambassador Baptist College. It's kind of bittersweet. I'm excited to be going back home for the summer, but I am definitely going to miss all of my friends. Thank goodness for cell phones, email, facebook, and skype. All of my friends have at least one of those, so I will be able to keep in touch with them during the summer.

The school year has absolutely flown by! It's hard to believe that it was almost nine months ago when I first arrived. It seems like only yesterday. Out of the two semesters, I would definitely say that this semester has been the most difficult. I've been through a lot this semester, especially wiht my asthma. It has gotten way out of control, and no one can seem to figure out why. I have had so many doctor appointments in the past month that I've lost count. Thankfully, my last one is this Thursday, and my Mom and Dad will be here for it!! A week ago Monday, I went to the hospital to get some tests run and the doctor is going to let me know the results at my appointment on Thursday. The test results will hopefully tell the doctor why I'm having so many problems with my asthma. I'm hoping that it's something simple and easy to fix, because I'm tired of having all these asthma attacks.

Holly will be graduating this Friday! It's so hard for me to believe! I'm really going to miss her next year. She has been such a great help and encouragement to me this semester with everything that's gone on. I wish she sould come back, but she odesn't have the finances, and she wants to plan her wedding, which will hopefully be taking place next spring. NO, there's no ring on her finger yet, but hopefully she'll have one on there before the end of the year. The parents' permission has already been given, so now it's just a matter of time until Andrew asks her.

I don't really have any plans for the summer other than working. I'm going to be babysitting Chase and Cole four days a week to start, then hopefully five days a week. RIght now, Cahd, their dad, is only working four days a week. One nice thing about that is that I'll have my birthday off. That means i won't have to get up at the crack of dawn!!! That was one thing I wasn't looking forward to. I've always taken my birthday off before, but I wouldn't be able to do that babysitting. The Lord worked it all out.

One thing that i really want to do while I'm home is become active in my church, New Lexington Bible Church. I'd really like to get involved with the children and teenagers. I'm going to be teaching my mom's Sunday school class, which is grades 2-6. I'm very excited about that. One of the things I'll be teaching on is the book of Esther. This is one of my favorite books of the BIble, so I'm really going to enjoy studying it out and teaching it to the kids.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll try to post as often as I can during the summer, but I'm not sure how frequently i'll be updating. I'm always horrible about that!

Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm finally home for Christmas break. I've made it through my first semester of college!! There were a few times when I wondered whether or not i really would make it.

I love college life. I can't believe how fast this semester went! It seems like just yesterday I was arriving on campus, scared to death about starting my first year of college, and now I'm back home.

This semester has been very rough. Just a few weeks into the school year, the college experienced it's most serious car accident involving students. A church van carrying 13 students was on it's way back to school from visitation when it rolled over. It's only by God's grace that no one was killed or seriously injured as only three of the passengers were wearing seatbelt. Praise God for his protection!

On top of that, I've experienced some very serious asthma attacks this semester, a couple of them the worst I'd had up to that point. They had to call the squad for one of them. The paramedics came and gave me oxygen as well as administered a nebulizer treatment before it subsided. Needless to say, it was quite scary. A week or so after that one, I had another. Thankfully, we were able to get it under control without having to call the squad. I've had a few minor ones since then, but nothing real major.

I've had my share of sickness this semester. First, I got bronchitis. I had that for about two months. I got over it, then a week or so later, I got the stomach flu. Not fun! :( A few weeks after that, I got laryngitis, and just when I was starting to get over that I got a horrible cold. I'm still fighting that a little bit, but I'm almost over it.

The beginning of October, I got in a car accident on my way to work. Thankfully it was minor and my friends and I, as well as the people that I hit, were okay, but it took a few weeks to get the car repaired.

This seems to have been the year for car accidents. On top of the van accident at the beginning of the year and my car accident, there have been several other accidents as well, thankfully all minor ones. The school lost both of it's vans that the ensemble travels in due to car accidents, and a few students have wrecked their cars as well.

Enough about the bad stuuf. Let's move on to happier things. I'm in the Marjorie B. Jordan dorm this year, which, in my opinion, is the best girls' dorm on campus. I have one roommate, Christy Godfrey, who is engaged to be married. She can be crazy at times, but she's a lot of fun.

I have four best friends, two girls and two guys. The girls are Laura Dillon and Lindsey Castano, and the guys are Nathan Houck and Caleb Getty. Nathan and Lindsey are dating, as are Getty and Laura. I do feel a little left out at times, but most of the time I really don't mind being the only single person in our group. Pretty much whenever you see one of us, you'll se at least one of the others.

I enjoyed all of my classes this semester. I'm not sure I can really pick a favorite, but if I had to, it'd probably be Life of Christ. I've learned so much from this class. I thought that I knew pretty much everything about the life of Christ, but boy, was I wrong! There was a lot that I didn't know.

I think my faorite part of the semester was singing in the school's annual Messiah concerts. They were held on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. The best part of that weekend was Friday morning right before chapel, when my parents walked into the R. A. Torrey auditorium. I had no idea that they were coming, so, needles to say, I was pleasantly surprised!

The Saturday and Sunday before I left to come home, my church in North Carolina, Emmanuel Baptist Church, had their cantata, "When Jesus Came." It was so good!!

As wonderful as this semester has been, and as much as I love college, I'm so glad that Christmas break is here. It will give me a chance to rest up before starting next semester. I'm very anxious to see what God has in store for me!