This past week at Glowing Heart music camp, I was challenge physically, mentally, and spiritually. I have never been so exhuasted, but so filled with life at the same time. First off, I was with a group of people who work along side me so dilligently, and all in the name of the Lord. Hour after hour working on the same music over and over and all for the Lord. It was very stressful at times, but it was worth it. Going through the music so many times, I began to think about what we were really singing about. Singing of our God's mercy and His grace, and His neverending love. God's love for us is beyond imagination; the songs we sing and the words we say can not even paint a worthy picture in my mind of the true love, mercy, and grace the Lord has for each of us. I love how God's grace for us is neverending, because I don't know about you, but I fail and mess up many times every day and I would be in one big bind if the Lord's grace and mercy wasn't neverending. Also, the Lord has really blessed Glowing Heart this year with such a unique group of people. We are from all over the United States; each of us with a different story, and have a different story on how we were called by God to join the group.

After our first week together, we have already become a family of people, united together for a sole purpose of knowing Christ more intimately and to make Him known more widely. It is amazing in how much God has done in our group in only a week! After four days of blood, sweat, and tears (the tears were mainly by the women), we anxiously awaited the students from Fork Lake Baptist Church on Friday afternoon to begin our very first D-now as a group.When the students first arrived, we instantly began creating relationships with them, and some reunited with past relationships that were already established. We had a very intense afternoon of fun games and sessions that all ended with one massive game of capture the flag that took place on the entire Focus Pointe Encampment.

The theme of the weekend was "Taking a Stand" and I personally really like this topic for taking a stand in Christ is something that i remember being hard to do in my earlier years through middle school and high school. We started off the first session with talking about Peter, and when he took the risk of stepping out of the boat to walk on water with Jesus. I began to think about this to myself the other day and realized that I personally do not know if I would have the faith to take a step out of the boat into the raging waters and walk on it with Jesus. I would have to think about it and ask that He would assure me it would be okay. Peter did the exact same thing though when he said to Jesus, "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water." Jesus' reply to this was "Yes, come." I could not even imagine just jumping out from the safety of the boat onto the raging waters to walk with my Lord. The next lesson, we actually took a look at taking a stand for Christ, and facing tough decisions. Seeing this made me think of myself back in my High School years at PNG. Back when I would tell my friends  "no" to the alcohol and drugs and just simply going to the parties. I would get made fun of because I didn't go to these activities simply because I stood on my Christian beliefs and knew Christ would fill the void in my life that my friends tried to fill with those wordly acts. I can look back now and be very proud of my younger self for taking a stand back in High School for Christ and avoiding all the worldly things that a lot of teens these days get involved in.

I am very proud of the Lake Fork Youth Group for already taking a stand in Christ! Sunday School prior to the Church service on Sunday morning was such a blessing seeing the youth tell of what God had been doing in their lives all weekend, and even the youth that had not been able to attend the Dnow stand up and speak of the recent work God had been doing in their lives! I see the joy of Christ in not only the youth at Lake Fork Baptist Church, but the entire congregation! My prayer for that group is that they will continue to take a stand in Christ and their faith in Him into the school year and throughout it. I believe that if they do this, they will begin to see Christ move through their schools and start to see a change in even their community for Christ!