hi

I'm still alive and doing very well YAY. The Assembly went really well. I did really good (not to brag) with my 1st main part in a music video. and I led morning prayer on Monday and tuesday. Academics are going really good. This has been really generor but thats because I have to go and I wanted to say something I'm going to try and write more in detail later.
~Krista

Ministry Final

Hello Everyone,
I am not sure how long it has been but I will only write on this last week. Which was (drum roll) MINISTRY FINAL!!!! Ministry final is where we go and take everything we have been taught up to date and apply it. This year they divided us into three groups. The 1st yrs were divided into there traffic groups (ministry learning groups) and then us second yrs were our own group. On Monday we all went to the Valley and had a meeting with a businessman in are church and he talked about professionalism and business ethics. On the way back we were all assigned hand tailored jobs for each of us designed with the intension of challenging us in different areas. I’ll list them off in the order they came.
Trevor, lead and execute a youth service that night.
Lance; come up with a new ministry venue to present to the pastoral staff Wed. morning.
Bre, plan and execute an outreach for both 1st and 2nd yrs that has never been done.
Krista, manage the 2nd yr team and make sure all assignment are done.
Esther, focus on relationship NOT task. Plan and execute an outreach to a nursing home.
Well we had a LOT of questions and then we dived in. Monday night’s service was good but not all that it was supposed to be. So are first lessons to be learned. For Trevor you HAVE to Rely on your team. For me I hurt my team by not speaking up. I’ll expound later.

On Tuesday we had academic stuff in the morning and then jumped into planning an outreach (Bre) for a woman shelter. It went really good, we all had a great time. But this was just an outreach with us second yrs. So it didn’t count as Bre’s assignment. Then when we got back from that 8ish we jumped into preparing Lance’s Ministry Venue. We worked on that till 4:30-5ish wed. AM and then we went home showered took an hour nap and came back all dressed up to present it to the Pastoral staff.

Wednesday, Our presentation was supposed to be 10min. long with A&Q. We finished presenting in 7 min and then the Pastors proceeded to question us for 42 min. It was really good and we all learned a lot and we will continue to work on the Ministry Venue and present it again. From this Lance learned in a major way about having a soft heart and tough skin. And taking what is said and learning from it. And the rest of us learned this in varying degrees. We then spent the rest of the day preparing for Esther’s nursing home outreach. And doing Financial Peace University. And then after all that we had mid-week ministry and I have to tell you all I love my Preschoolers. Then we all went home and studied a little bit and went to bed. YEAH

Thursday, we madly practiced our instruments the nursing home. And then we ran to lunch buddies ran back grabbed stuff threw it into Lance’s jeep talked to the first years about what we were doing that evening With them. And ran to the nursing home. We had a lot of fun it is always so much fun to go to nursing homes you leave feeling so encouraged. But the Race was on again so back to the church we went and taught the 1st yrs the skit they were doing for that evening threw a different set of stuff into the Van (caught ya you thought I was going to say Jeep HAHAHA) and went to a after school program place for kids and had a Christmas party with them. It was fun and Really nice to have the 1st yrs back with us.

So what did I learn over all from all of this? I learned that you have to speak up. Unfortunately for Trevor I learned this from not doing so with his ministry (sad day) some of the components that he was supposed to have were creative and using the whole team. I knew he was doing either but I didn’t tell him I decided that it was better for me not to interferer. Boy was I wrong that night when Shelly and Pastor Josh evaluated the service they tore him up pretty bad for not using his team. His sermon was good and interaction with the kids was good. But he didn’t use his team. Now the fact that I had seen this and not pointed it out to him was really an eye opener for me. And so I tried really hard the rest of the week. I spoke up and present my argument to Pastor Josh for a Curfew extension and because of it we got curfew lifted so we were able to finish Lances projected. If I hadn’t that would have been another meeting I sat through going I saw this and let my team down by not speaking. I later let Esther down by not helping keep everyone focused on Wednesday (we were all so Very Tired) I helped both Bre and Lance by critiquing they’re speaking. (Funny I know since I’m the one that doesn’t speak. But I did take a public speaking class and they haven’t) So I will continue to work on this speaking up thing. Something of interested that Esther told me was that by not speaking up you lose the right to be heard. And this was meant only in a good way not in a bad overbearing sort of thing. So that is what I am coming away from this week with.

I have to go study or I would tell you all about yesterday and today as well. But I will say Really fast that today’s outreach was Amazing. And we are beginning to see the fruit of are labors in Hillyard from over the last 2ish yrs.
~Krista

My thoughts

Hey everyone life is still pretty laid back, but busy at the same time. We are making another human video and it is really cool. I am excited about it. I am also playing the lead girl in it WOHOO.

On a bit more of a serious note, I have some thoughts from a scavenger hunt we did the Friday after thanksgiving. With this scavenger hunt a group of adults from the church goes to the mall and hides, while the youth tries to find them. The youth that finds the most people get a reward.

The hiders are encouraged to dress up. Bre wore her host brothers clothes and went as a boy, Molly dressed like a girl punk rocker. I dressed up like an interesting Emo/Goth. I ended up getting separated from the group and walking around the mall by myself for two hours. I learned a lot by doing this.

People would shy away from me like I had leprosy. This was weird because people usually crowd me and make me move for them! The little kids were all scared of me and were hiding behind their mothers! Everyone else acted like they didn’t SEE me! Now, they had to see me to avoid me. Didn’t they? After an hour of this I really just wanted someone to smile at me or even acknowledge my presence. One person did a person at a KIOSK!

I got to thinking about it. The place was crammed with people from the church, but none of them saw me. I walked by all the youth kids, and because they wouldn’t look at me, they didn’t recognize me. How often do we walk around judging people by how they are dressed? All the mothers that hid their children from me, would have let me baby-sit if I was dressed differently!

How may of the people that look mean and scarey that walk around the malls or around town are inside longing for someone to just smile at them? I was. You have kids with bad lives that start dressing scarey or even just DIRTY, because they cant afford nicer, and people treat them like outcasts. Except the RELLY gothic people, the witches, they will accept them. So that is where they go. The whole time they might be crying out, as they are be dragged down that road, but we, as Christian,s don’t see or hear them because they are ”scarey” and not “acceptable”. Next time you see these people, try smiling instead of the judging look that asks why someone would dress like that.

I'm about to be shut off so I don,t have time to reread this so if it is hard to read in places sorry.

Life has been real laid back this week. We had are 1st INSTE class YES and we have Excelsiar youth tomorrow night so you can be praying.

Alissan

Trevor writing stories about Les Swab for Veranica
Anne (She is a wild one)

Wed. Night Kids

Andrew and Ryan

Veranaca, Alissan, Camdyn and in the background Makenzy
Andrew, Grace, and Toby Playing hide and go seek

Setting up the brickbreaking stage

Setting up the backdrop(this is the crew I was incharge of)

Backdraft

Are Backdraft Assembly(Shelly speaking, Tim and Rena in the background)

Setting up the stage
Mask

Esther and Trevor at Orintation

Esther at the doctors after Backdraft.

Saturday outreaches moving the pile of wood. Trevors the one on the phone, Rachel is the smiling one, JD is the one bending over.

The pile of wood

Lance and Shelly getting ready for Ignite

Esther and Adriano
Jeff and Eric

this week

So we got home on Sunday (11:30) and they gave us Monday off YEAH. On Tuesday we had a guess speaker come in and talk to us all about being internet coaches for this internet ministry that they are doing. It was really good and it sounds really exciting and pretty amazing. Basically they have these commercials that air on a TON of different radio stations Christian and secular and they tell people that for help and support they can come to these Website (They also talk about Jesus) and when the people go to the site there is a bunch of pages on all different types of issues and there is also the option to E-mail the people asking for help or go to the chat room and have a chat. So they had a respond to 5 different mock E-mails just to see how we communicated. And then on Wednesday he (Sean Dunn) critiqued are E-mails and gave us some more guide lines on how to do it and the does and don’ts of it all and showed us how to log on. So we will all be doing Chats primarily. Which means that once a week, for two hours we log on to the website and wait for someone to want to talk and then we talk to them? Then we had mid week ministries that evening and that as always was a ton of fun. Trevor and I are going through Rainbows with the Preschoolers and we finished up the section on turkeys. Which is giving thanks and all the kids actually new there verse? It was really neat but the kids were also very hyper we are going to try and figure out a way to reward good behavior because just punishing bad isn’t working to well. If you have any suggestions let me know. Thursday we had Lunch buddy interviews this year it is much more in-depth and took a lot of time but we got everyone through. Then we did Scripture review test and after that the 1st years did INSTE and us second years started working on getting water to boil for a ministry that we were going to do that evening. PS3 is coming out and there are lines of people waiting to buy it so we were going to go hand out Hot Chocolate to them all. Then we all meant up to debrief on Ignite (we hadn’t had time at any other time that week) after that people started setting up the sanctuary for the ladies event Friday night and Esther, Trevor, and I started putting the hot chocolate together. Then off we went to minister well when we took on e of the corners both things of hot chocolate spilled everywhere. So we spent three hours cleaning the van instead it was actually pretty fun just not what we expected.

Ignite

Hi everyone sorry about the long absence in writing I am still alive. SO last Monday and Tuesday we scrambled like mad people to finish getting ready for Ignite. On Tuesday evening we had Excelsior youth which is a correctional facility here in Spokane, that some of us go to. Well we have been going for 6+ months with no major response but last Tuesday Lance asked if anyone would like to except Jesus and 4 people did and 2 others recommitted there lives. So that was awesome and then on Wednesday AM we took off for Eugene to do Ignite. We were doing a service that night at Calvary and usually when we get places after a bus trip you have a little time to clean up so we all got on the bus ready to travel and found out after taking off that we weren’t going to have time to clean up so we were all doing are hair and putting makeup on and changing all along the way. But when I went to do my hair at one of are stops there was no plug-ins but across the street there was a Burger King that some people were going over to get some food from so I went with them to use the Bathrooms there but there was no plug-ins in there bathrooms either but there was one outside of the bathroom so that is the one I used so Rena did my hair for me in Burger King there was a couple people that could see us and they were staring at us like they had never seen anyone do there hair in Burger King before. J But we got to Calvary which is where we were doing the service for the youth group and we ran though the human video/skit (mask) a couple times and then the kids were showing up. We didn’t make it through Mask this time without injuries either so are “good luck” is still working. Nick got hit in the face pretty hard. But I didn’t get the wind knocked out of me this time YEAH I only bruised my elbow. The service itself was really good I enjoyed the youth and I could tell that I have changed because I wasn’t hiding from the youth. We got to see are family which was really fun and exciting. Then we have Thursday on Thursday we set up Lighthouse for Ignite one of the things we did was hang up these banners from the ceiling which was kind of nerve racking but it all looked good when we were doe and we had no major injuries. Aunt heather stopped by and took Bre, Esther, and I to see G-Pa it was a fun visit. After that we all went out to eat and just talked with Aunt Heather, then we went and visited with G-Ma. After that we went back to the church and crashed. Friday the youth conference began and it was great the speaker Troy Jones rocked the house they did an altar call and it was amazing watching not only the kids but also the first years as they all came out of there boxes and started interceding for the kids. It was also amazing to stand back and just watch all the kids (650) worship. Saturday was also had rocking speaking from Troy J and also Vaughwood they both did a great job and it was really amazing just watching as hearts were changed and people were set free you would also have the 1st years come up to you all excited about what they were seeing. It was all in all just a real amazing time. We did are human videos on Saturday both went really well and we had no major injuries YYEESS. We took everything down that night which actually went pretty fast. Sunday: on Sunday morning the first years headed home with the youth group while the 2nd years and staff and a couple alumni stayed back to do Total Praise for the morning services at Calvary. We were all exhausted but we got up there the first time and did it and it was good. But after the first service we all had no strength the team looked awful. We had people that were sick and people that were injured and no one had anything to give. And we had nothing left to give of ourselves so we just got up there and gave it all to God and I’m telling you the 2nd time when we had nothing was much better than when we had a little left whether or not the church could tell I don’t know and I don’t really care for us doing it, it was like a breath of fresh air, that whole worship time was so refreshing and worth it all.

My Crazy Week

This week has been VERY busy. All day Monday we worked on the Harvest Party I found out that I was in-charge in a weird way of the Preschool section of the Harvest Party. So I worked on finding everything and checking to make sure it worked in the AM and then we started working on taping cardboard together, then stapling it to the wall. To make the hallway look like the hull of a ship (the theme was Pirates of the Caribbean). Others were working on making a big cardboard ship for the skit. And others were just goofing off. We learned a lot about 1st year team dynamics. Then after dinner we had people drawing wood grain on the cardboard, people finishing the boat, making an Island, and then my group up working to set Preschool up. I had Lance and Rachel upstairs. I put together a bunch of lattice as section dividers and they started blowing up balloons for the balloon pit. I finished getting everything ready that I could and then started helping blowing up balloons. Eventually Eric showed up to help us blow them up. We he got there he said I heard people were losing there minds up here. Which was really funny, we blew up about 650 12in balloons. We were all VERY light headed and loopy. We went home at about 10:00.
Tuesday, everyone finished putting the finishing touches on there project’s and if I may say it all looked great. Then we killed about and hour (I wrote a short paper for core groups) then it was time and we all put are costumes on and went to are places. But I was really getting stressed because the stuff for three of the games hadn’t been dropped off yet. But it all worked out. We had eight games and registration and 4 workers (Esther, Trevor, Lance and I) so Esther was stationary with reg. and the rest of us jumped the kids had a great time and it was fun. We finished clean up at about 11:00 (I thing). The funny thing with the Harvest Party is that you wake up the next day and are shocked that Halloween is over because you never even noticed it was coming.
Wednesday, we started getting ready for Ignite. We are making a video/music video/ shadow thing that all goes together in a really amazing way. So we started learning that stuff. Wait back up, for and hour before that a group of us worked on making motions for a skit/ music video about the Full Armor of God. Then it was lunch. I took a Trevor; he is the one in-charge of the whole movie thing. And Eric, he is Jesus, and Jeff and J.D, they are disciples to the river to film the calling of the disciples it was really funny to watch because it was bright and sunny out but still rather nippy and everyone had there shoes off. And Jeff and J.D were wining the whole time about how cold it was and I just had to laugh at them. We came back did some odds and ends stuff which I can’t remember what it was. Wait I remember now we had Core groups. And then went to dinner and came back for mid-week ministries. Which was really interesting because all the kids were coming off there sugar highs?
Thursday, we had study hall in the morning then the 1st years had Inste. Us 2nd years did some studying then decided to go over Total Praise. Which was amazing doing Total Praise always is because it is 10 min of intense praise. Then it was lunch time. After lunch we had review scriptures tests and church choirs. While taking are test it started to snow outside and it just got harder and harder as we did choirs. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem but we were going out to film the rest of the video after choirs. And now everything was covered in snow and it just kept coming. So we all put on are bible costumes and went out in the snow to film the Sermon on the Mount. We were going to have to take are shoes off but they decided that we could keep them on YAY. But we weren’t able to film the other two scenes. So instead we came back to the church and started working on the full armor of God. We have 4 people doing a drum line in the back one person reading Eph 6:10-18 and then two angels that are putting the armor of God on a guy. Bre and I are the angel’s and Jeff is the guy. So we had Eric read and help nit pick it while Shelly taught the drummers there parts and everyone else choreographed the rest of the passage (we only finished the actually armor on wed) we stopped at 6:00. Then Esther and I went to Tai-kwo-do with shelly.
Friday, was our day off we kept hoping busy in the morning then Trevor and David helped Esther and I move her into her host home. She has been living with me while they tried to find her a home and they found her one on Wednesday. Then we started working on banners for Ignite. We stopped there and went to Candi’s baby shower. Then Esther, Molly, and I went to Wal-Mart to buy fabrics for the back drop at ignite. Then Esther and I went to hangout with everyone else at a girl’s apartment from the college group. Saturday, we had outreaches Trevor’s and my outreach groups are combined right now because he only has Rachel, and I only have J.D. So we went and put plastic up for I guy on his block collected money to pay for the dump run we made to week before from some people on my block then finished moving a pile of wood for another guy on my block. Then we came back to the church and went out to finish filming and low and behold it started to rain so we have footage in the sun, snow, and rain. We then came back to the church and had some people working on the banners, one person washing all the costumes, and then everyone else worked on the Full armor of God. We finished working at the church around 7:00. Then we ran home because Shelly, Rena, and Bre were coming over to hang out while Shelly braided Esther’s hair. I fell asleep before Bre and Rena showed up and slept the whole night through.

The rest of the week

Hi so after Backdraft the week has actually been pretty quit. We have been preparing for the harvest party. And just living life, we will probably be running like chickens with are heads cut off next week but that’s Okay. We are taking Financial Peace University (FPU) and that is a lot of fun and we are learning a whole lot about proper money management. We are still trying to get are INSTE books and having issues on that front but we are almost there. We took are personalities test this week, which was amusing. But that’s about it for now.

Monday(Backdraft)

Monday
We had the assembly on Monday are you surprised? It was in Puyallup which is on the other side of the state. So we all arrived at the church at 0430 to drive there. We all crashed in the bus and then woke up and did some scriptures and slept some more and prayed for the assembly and ate are sack lunches. And then the moment we had all been waiting for, WE saw the school (YAY). We ended up having a whole hour and a half to set up for the assembly and practice some of the stuff. Then the kids showed up and I was very proud of are team they actually got in there and started meeting the kids. Then it was time and we started the assembly. The speakers all did really well the one always scares me when he speaks because he stops (sometimes he forgets his lines others his dramatic affects are just too long (we are behind the backdrop and can’t see)) the humans video also looked really good but everyone that could get hurt did. When Nick is supposed to almost cloth’s line Trevor, Trevor didn’t go down in time so he was actually hit. Then we he picked up Esther who fell down while acting drunk (she was supposed to) he accidentally hurt her arm that was already hurt from the all-nighter. Then I came out (the nerd) and at one point I jump in his arms and he spins me around and drops me on the floor. Well I landed on my elbow and knocked the wind out of myself. But everyone covered it up well enough that no one noticed but we all got behind the backdrop and were in pain. And then when we did chains (the one where Eric gets the snot beat out of him) we hit the ground wrong and couldn’t move his arm and he was throwing up. But he also did a really good job of covering up till he finished the music video. Then Nick finished the assembly off by breaking bricks. So we had the main man of one music video down and another assembly in 20 minutes with kids showing up in 10 minutes (we did the same assembly twice). So it took some Holy Spirit power to rearrange the whole ending of the assembly (which was all based around the music video which we now couldn’t do) in such away that it wasn’t corny or short. But Josh managed to pull it off. But once again Trevor was slow in dropping and this time Nick was slow when Trevor went to punch him so Nick was hit and Trevor also hurt his shin again. But Esther wasn’t hurt this time through. I landed even worse and thought I was going to throw up with Eric but I didn’t (WOHOO). And then Nick hurt his arm breaking bricks the second time and almost wasn’t able to do it. The thing about all of this is that we practiced it ALL and NEVER really got hurt in practice, we would get bumps and bruises but nothing serious. But we finished them both. Iced Eric’s shoulder, torn it all down, and headed home. They rushed all the kids out right after each assembly so we didn’t get to talk with the kids and get there reactions which was a bummer. But I believe that looking at the opposition that we had that there had to be a kid there that needed to hear what we were saying. And seeing how we fought through and finished strong even with all the opposition I think we probably had a kingdom impact. We may never see it but that is my feelings on it. Because we were faithful with what we were given there has to be results. Eric went to the doctors today and had his shoulder looked at he strained his muscle and I am right now at the doctors while Esther has her arm looked at. This will be a great year I can since it in my bones (grin).

My week

Hey everyone how are you doing? This past week has been really busy and hectic.I was armor bearer this week, which means I pray for the staff member that is in charge of Morning Prayer and do refocus. Refocus is the 15 min right after lunch when we all come together and refocus. So I talked about being a Bond Servant for refocus I drew it out all week. It went pretty good, we will see whether or not people are going to apply what I said. If you haven’t ever looked up the meaning of Bond Servant in its original text I highly suggest you do it. Or maybe I’ll post it someday, when I have my notes with me so that I get it all actuated. We walked the first years through the first week of Masters. Which means we had a TON of meetings. The church is also doing this door to door ministry and we put those packets together all week the packets consist of a brochure and little bag of kisses with a label on them put inside a bigger clear bag which I then tied shut with ribbon that you then curl. So every spare moment we’ve had this week we worked on those. We also prepared for a couple of Backdraft assemblies, which we are doing tomorrow (Monday). On Friday we had a youth all-nighter which was a blast we did dodge ball, human fussey ball, laser tag, broom hokey, bowling, and then “watched” a movie. In a nutshell that was my week. But now to tell you about Backdraft, Backdraft is a school assemblies program where we go into the schools and do an assembly we are not allowed to mention God in any way, which is a bummer but we get to go in and provide some hope for kids and get in contact with them if they E-mail us or My space us then what we say is free game. The one we are doing on Monday is all about the power of choice. You can all be praying for this assembly all of us second years have been attacked. Mostly physically, Esther’s shoulder is all messed up from bowling, Bre is sore and stiff from broom hokey, Trevor’s fell and hurt his shin and then kept re-hurting it at the all-nighter, Lance is losing his voice and is fighting a cold, My knees are all black and blue from broom hokey. Isn’t it funny that the 1st years, that aren’t doing anything didn't get hurt it was only us 2nd years? So be praying we do two back to bakc on monday at 11:00-2:30 western time zone so be praying. Nick, Shelly, and Josh are speaking. Rena, Tim, and Lance are giving there perspectives (testimonies).Bre, Esther, Nick, Trevor, Lance, and I are doing a music video there. Then Later Bre, Eric, Lance, Trevor, and Tim are doing another music video this one is violent so pray for safety especially Eric’s. Then Nick breaks bricks. So be praying. I need to go do scriptures so till later. bye

Some of Wednesday

On Wednesday we had a bunch of workshops that were pretty much just to tell the 1st years how Master’s worked. Then after lunch we has traffic groups Olympics which was a blast. The 1st years were divided into two teams and then there was us second years, except Bre was pulled to take Rachel’s place because she couldn’t run (sad day). I was real proud of our 2nd year team because we all worked together really well and finished about 5 events ahead of the other teams. I have to go but here are some pictures I’ll write about that evening later.