Week 6

This week has been one of the most challenging but one of the most joyful weeks I have had.  It has been awesome!  I feel like I am experiencing and understaning the verse 2 Corinthians 12:10 ~ "For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Before I came here I honestly didn't think I was "good enough" to come here.  I knew that FCAV was about developing leaders and there was no way I would have ever considered myself a leader.  I could give you a million reasons why me being a leader was a bad idea.  I replayed the lies of satan in my mind over and over which prevented me from accepting God's love understanding who Christ has called me to be.  When I thought about being a leader I thought that I had to be someone or follow in the footsteps of others.  Yes, it is good to have role models, but when you are only looking to them it creates a pressure that you have to be someone.  When I thought about being a coach, I thought it had to be done a specifice way.  I constantly beat myself up when I messed up and thought that I wouldn't be a good coach. 

God has given me a boldness to try new things, but once i fail I become scared to put myself in the same situation (sports, jobs, relationships...). The truth is that we are not perfect and we are going to fail.  God isn't mad at us when we fail.  All He wants is for us to trust Him and learn from Him through the process.

Last week I was able to heal me of different areas of my life and allow me to trust Him and find my identity completely in Him before anything else.  I began to stop believing all of the lies of "I can't and I'm not good enough to."  I was able to accept His love and seek Him with my whole heart. Fully surrendering to Him creates freedom to do what He has called us to do.

Since then I have had increadible opportunities to be used by God.  Last week I was able to minister to some people at beach fest and grow even closer to the girls here. Then someone had a crazy idea to make me camp director at the next camp we went to.  At the beginning of the summer I knew that at some point I was most likely going to be camp director and honeslty I was not excited about it. 

When I found out i was going to be camp director, initially I was a little hesistant but knew this was going to be a test of faith and something I knew God wanted me to do. I had some doubts because I would be the first intern to be camp director and I found out the night before camp.  My role as camp director would be to come up with the spiritual focuses of the week, talk about them at camp, get speakers, and create a free and loving atmosphere for the campers- Oh boy!

There were brief moments that i thought I had to do it all on my own, but then I remembered how impossible that was.  I can't do ANYTHING on my own!  God is with me and He will give me the ideas, the strength, the energy and the peace.  Once I surrendered to Him and recognized that I wasn't alone, there was so much joy and freedom.  I was starting to get excited about this position because I knew that it was a chance to get to know God better and trust Him more.  :)

Once I surrendered the planning of this camp to Him,  my job was easy- to follow Him.  He gave me clear direction on what to talk about.  The topics I spoke on were things I had dealt with/ am learning now.  At every FCAV camp the weekly focus is to play with God and each day there is a daily focus within playing with God.

Day 1: Who we are with God (identity)
Day 2: Taking Risks with God (Trusitng God)
Day 3: Loving others with God (Joy)

This camp was a little different than most of the camps we go to.  This camp was outside, co-ed, 5th-8th graders, and most of the kids had never played volleyball and didn't care to be there.  It was awesome seeing all the coaches adjust and love on this kids.  Some of the kids were harder to love, but the coaches never stopped loving them!  It was so amazing to see how God worked this week!

Long story short: "God does not call the equipped, He equips His callers."

Other than camp, the second best part of the week was the training we had this morning at CDM.  John Winder and Andy Hein (US national players) came to train us in sand vb.  We have been playing quite a bit, but it was such a cool experience to be lead by Christian US National players who applied their faith to their sport. 

Check out the video from our camps!
http://vimeo.com/44987652