I'm pretty sure it's time

for a blog post! I haven't acknowledged the fact that I have a blog in quite some time now... O.o

I was about to say that, as usual, I don't actually have anything of value to say. But then I remembered something! (and I still wouldn't expect it to be of value..but at least it's something significant!) You know that missions trip I was planning on going on to Romania? Well...turns out I'm not going. Honestly, I had been feeling uneasy about the whole thing from the get-go. But after praying about it for a while, I assumed that God wanted me to go, and I was just naturally nervous. But as time went on, and I continued to pray about the trip, I realized that I was not going for the right reasons. The only part of the trip that I felt even remotely excited about was the traveling and the fact that I would be in anther country. And I should have also been excited about the ministry aspect of it! But instead, I was actually dreading the vast majority of the trip! I still don't know why, but I decided that it was a pretty sure sign that God didn't want me to go.
I also realized that if I went on the trip, I may not be able to go to camp! Which would be really sad. I realized that, for me, working at camp IS a missions trip! I'm serving God through serving the camp and the kids! And it's something that I'm passionate about, and I would like to do for a long time to come! So, I got my JC application in the mail yesterday, and it turns out that the best weeks for me to go were during the missions trip. :)
Since "backing out" of the trip, I have become even more certain that it was the right decision. There have been many neat things that have come to my attention since then that happened as a result of my not going on the trip. So, I feel pretty good about all of this. It was a very difficult decision, but I think it's what God wanted me to do. :)
Aaand, that's my story. Haha :)

Speaking of camp and being a JC and such.......I have some pretty exciting news! I have wanted to be a JC with my church since 6th or 7th grade, and Mr. Tony asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would like to do it this year! :D I'm so excited!!! :) This means I could potentially be at GBC for three weeks total this summer! ^_^

Anywho...hm...well, obviously the Superbowl was on Sunday night. Yeah, unfortunately I don't really get into football. But, I had a special friend over, and we had a lot of fun hanging out and talking ;) Although now I feel bad that he totally didn't get to watch the game... O.o

Teens Involved is in two weeks!!!!! Oh. My. Goodness. O.O I feel pretty unprepared. Although, I do feel better about the Tipos' song after this weekend. Until Saturday, we had only had one practice! But then we practiced for like, two hours on Saturday night, and I feel much better about it....but we have to perform in a Sunday School class this Sunday! Hopefully we're ready... :) This year we are singing "You Raise Me Up". (thank you, Jacob, for recommending the song!!) :)
And drama...well, I haven't even had one practice with what I'm doing, yet. So I feel EXTREMELY nervous about that. I mean...I'm only doing the "tech" aspect of it, so I'll probably just be operating a cd player, but I'm not good with short notice...haha :P But even if I fail epicly, it won't be the end of the world, right? I have already failed basically as much as it is possible to fail at TI (by laughing through half of our song), so it can't get any worse! ;)

One more thing real quick: my church showed this AMAZING video on Sunday night, and I think you guys should watch it! Yes, it is 33 minutes long, but it is SO worth the time! And it honestly doesn't even feel like it's that long. So here is a link to the website, and I hope you will take the time to watch it! :)
http://180movie.com/

Well, that's my post for today! I'm sure I will be posting more at some point in my life! But for now, I bid you farewell! :)

~Beth

Today I have a lot of

random stuff to post about! Now...allow me to remember what these things are...haha

Okay, so...you may have noticed (or maybe it's just me?) that Christmas is coming up!!! I'm pretty excited! But, it really doesn't feel like Christmastime, this year! :( Maybe it's because it's so warm? Or possibly just because this time of year has seemed to sneak up on me so quickly. It literally feels like I was JUST getting ready for my busy summer! Wasn't I just filling out an application for JCing at camp? And just finding out that Laura invited me to go to the beach with her? Goodness...now it's December!!
Anyway, I'm very excited that Christmas is on a Sunday this year. I really think that will help me to refocus on Christmas day -- the fact that we as believers get to celebrate our Savior's birth with one another in our place of worship ON His birthday. That should be pretty cool. :) Also, my family is waiting to open gifts and such until after church, so I think it will be good for the focus to be JESUS first, and then presents. :)
Speaking of presents, I've felt very scatterbrained when it comes to getting gifts for people this year. I'm only doing gifts for my family this Christmas because of the missions trip I'm going to in July. But still! For some reason, I just have felt like I have no idea what to get for people!! But I have finally obtained all the gifts I needed for my family, so I feel better now. :)

Okay, random happy thing: So, on Monday, my mom and I were having a pretty lame day. Like, we were both in a bad mood, and we just felt like blah. And we knew we had to go shopping, too (I had to get a couple gifts). So we were both kinda like "Ugh...this is not a good day for this...but there's no other day to do it, so let's just get it over with." So then we went out and guess what? It ended up being exactly what we needed, and we had a lot of fun together :) We hung out at the mall and other stores for a while, and got mocha frappuccinos at Joe Bean's -- mine had a shot of butterscotch flavor, and her's had a shot of german chocolate flavor. Best. Frappuccino. Ever. :) (I know...I work at a cafe that serves Starbucks, and I like Joe Bean's better. Whatever.) :P :)
But anyway, we had a lot of fun. I love doing stuff like that with my mom :)

Oh, hehe, so on Tuesday, something funny happened. A couple weeks ago, Ben and I were like "Oh! I want to watch 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'!!" But then we looked for it, and we were like "Wait...we don't own that movie! Ha! Psh...why did we think we had it???" So then, we thought it was pretty funny and we told our parents about it. :) But then on Tuesday, Ben all of a sudden comes into the living room like "Guess what! I just found Voyage of the Dawn Treader!! We DO have it!" And then my mom groaned and looked at the presents under the tree..."That movie is wrapped and under the tree!!" Hahaha! So, now we have two of them! :P Hopefully we'll be able to return it...lol

So, Tuesday was Alek's birthday! :) His family invited us over to their house for his birthday dinner. That was SO much fun! :) Alek has three younger sisters, and two of them played with my hair for a looong time. Hehe, it was so fun :) And we all played a board game about sharing memories, and that was fun. :) So yeah, it was a blast. I love that family :):)

Random fact: May I just say that my mom makes THE BEST tomato soup in the world???!!!! :D And you know what is really good with it? Salami and Swiss on Rye sandwiches ^_^ Okay, that is all.

OH OH OH! Guess what?! Okay, so I was selling coupon books to raise money for the missions trip, and I sold 22!! :D I'm pretty excited because that's $220 going toward the trip! :) Yay! :):)
I really am excited for the trip. But I'm still super nervous about it. I even keep wanting to chicken out and not go. But then I remind myself that it will be good for me to get out of my comfort zone again. This is going to be WAY out of my comfort zone... But I think that's when God teaches me the most. So, hopefully I will be learning A LOT on this trip!! :) But if you think of it, please pray that I will get more excited about it. :) I don't mind being nervous, but I really don't want to be dreading it...

Okay, well, this post is probably long enough by now, and I need to eat dinner. So, I'll post more later! Adios! :)

~Beth

I was trying to decide

what to do: read a little in Wings of Dawn (by Sigmund Brouwer...amazing book, lemme tell ya. This is my third time reading it), write some more of the story I'm working on, or write in my journal. And then I was like "Hey! I should blog!" ^_^

So, anyway, I honestly have like, nothing interesting to blog about. haha. I'm so brilliant. "Hey yeah! I'll blog even though there's nothing to write!" Oh well...I'll make SOMETHING sound interesting...

Well...I ate peanuts today. They were yummy. But a little too salty for my liking.

I also read a chapter in the boringest (yes that is a word. "Why?", you ask. Because I said so. Which reminds me! So like, you know how sometimes you ask someone "why" and they say "because"? Okay, so in Spanish it's "Por que?" and "porque." hahaha...yeah...I find that amusing...) book ever. It is called "Stanley". Okay, actually it's called "The Scottish Chiefs". But I named it Stanley... This book belongs to my dear friend, Matt. Although, I might not consider him so "dear" anymore by the time I'm finally finished with this horrid book. It's his favorite (FAVORITE!?!?) book. And unfortunately, I made a deal with him to read it if he read 8 books that I wanted him to read. But see, here's the thing: Matt is a speed reader, and I am not. And the books I wanted him to read were EASY and AWESOME books!!! The book that he wanted me to read is hard to read and boring!!! :'( So, my mom has now put it on my school reading schedule...so I'm just considering it to be schoolwork. :P Bleh. B to the L to the E to the H. :PPPPPPPPP
Okay, I am finished ranting now, I suppose.

Aaaaaanywho, OH! I actually do have interestingness to post about! :D My best friend, Erin, had a birthday party on saturday! ^_^ It was SOOO fun!!!! And I loved getting to know some of her friends from school! Cause, ya know, it's like I hear about them all the time, see them on facebook and everything, but I've just never gotten to actually hang out with them. So it was awesome actually getting to do that! :) AND we got to dance. ^_^
Which reminds me...I am going to yet another birthday party on Friday night! My friend, Jaymee, is having her sixteenth birthday party, and it is going to be epic. Once again, we will be dancing :) I'm excited cause I'll get to learn more dances :) I only know a few, so this will be awesome. :):):):)

ALSO, I am SO pumped cause my aunts are coming to visit this week/weekend!!! YAY!!!!!! And Ant Janet and I are, at some point while she is here, going to see "African Cats". :) Ant Janet says she wants to go with me because I'm the only one who will appreciate it as much as she will. Haha :) I'm excited :)

Okay, so for school right now, I have to write a paper comparing William Golding's Lord of the Flies to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It's pretty funny, because I brought this upon myself. I simply mentioned to my mom that the books had some similarities, and then she was like "Hey! You should write a paper on that!". I was like "oh...snap." haha :P But I actually think it's gonna be kind of cool :) I liked both of the books...especially A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, I really want to read it again. I was just SO confused for the first like, 2/3 of it, that I feel like I didn't get much out of it. But now that I understand what was going on, I want to read it again! :) It's really a good book! I sobbed at the end of it. hahaha

Oh! So, the Blue Angels were doing an airshow here over the weekend, and to raise money for our missions trip, our youth group was selling parking spaces near the show. Erin and I helped out on Sunday afternoon, and it was SO fun!! :) Matt was with us for a couple hours, too, which added to the funness :)  The Blue Angels were soooooo cool, though! We could see them a little from the parking lot, and we could DEFINITELY hear them! It was awesome :) AND we made a lot of money! :) That's always nice! haha :)

Have I told you about our missions trip? If so, y'all can just skip this part...lol :) It's a local trip. We'll be staying at the church all week, and hosting a VBS for kids from downtown. I think it will be great :) I've gotten to meet some of the kids that we'll be working with, and they're so sweet :) I'm very excited to get to do an outreach for them. We'll also be helping a lady in our town who is in need. Her house is full of her belongings, like she just has a LOT of stuff, and it needs to be sorted through, and cleaned out. So, we're going to be taking all of her stuff out of her house, and then cleaning the house while she sorts through the stuff. I am so excited that we have the opportunity to help someone out in such a big way! She is so excited...she apparently sees this as the day when she will "get her life back". How cool is that??? We would appreciate your prayers for her and her son, that they will come to Christ through this experience. :) And also, for all of the kids we'll be working with at the VBS! :) Thank you! Oh, and the missions trip is close to the end of June, by the way.

Another thing I'm really excited about (although, it is completely different) is going to King's Dominion in June!!!!!!!! :DDD Yup. It's gonna be sweet. I've never gone with our youth group before, so I'm pumped. :) :):) HOPEFULLY, at least Erin, Laura, and Matt will be going on this trip (if not more of my friends), so it's going to be sooooo muuuuuuuuch fuuuuuun! :):):)

Okay, well, I'm done for now. Probably none of that was interesting to anyone but myself...but oh well! It was fun to type! haha :) ipml! Have a good night!

~Beth