The Hills: Summer Update...

It has been a while since I have been able to update you guys on what is going on...my apologies! The past few weeks have been rather eventful...to say the least! We wrapped up our week at Lee University and headed to the Georgia Baptist Conference Center in Toccoa, GA to spend a week with Ed Newton and the Jeff Johnson Band. This was a very small week of camp, but still God did huge things in the lives of the students who were at camp that week. It is pretty refreshing to have such a small group sometimes...it is a time for the staff to truly pour into the students and spend quality time with the camp pastor and worship leader. We celebrated the 4th of July that week and what started off as picking up the worship center after worship on the 4th, turned in to a 2 hour dance party with BT09 and the Jeff Johnson Band. So fun! Nothing, though, topped Graham carrying on his tradition of singing, "God Bless America," during celebration on the morning of the 4th...

What a proud moment. .....

It was a great week...but unfortunately ended with almost half of my team being sick. Very, very sick... The next week of camp was at the Georgia Baptist Conference Center again with Adam Robinson and Matt Papa. This was a wonderful week for the students...the feedback we heard was so encouraging...but for our staff, this week was pretty tough. With 8 people being out due to being sick, the rest of our team had to step up and take on two or three extra jobs in order for the week to run smoothly and hopefully not allow the kids to realize that anything was different. It was a challenging week, but a good bonding experience for our team as we realized that in order to get through the week we had to lean on each other, and most importantly God to have the strength, energy, and health to carry on. It was funny because the week before everyone got sick we had Jeff Johnson as a worship leader. Jeff has a song called, "Ruin Me." Our team LOVES this song so while he was here we sang it constantly. Funny how that played out in our team over the next week..! Still such a great song though :) I don't believe any pictures were taken this week...

By the time that we finished at Georgia Baptist, everyone was feeling much better as we headed down to our largest event of the summer...Student Life @ Daytona. This is the event that has consumed most of my time in the office leading up to the summer. With 7,000 people attending the event, there is much preparation involved!! It was, however, definitely worth every second of work. Our camp pastor for the week was Louie Giglio and our worship leader was Chris Tomlin. We had concerts on two nights with Leeland and David Crowder, as well. It was great being back with these guys and getting the chance to learn more about our Father through them. Praise God for the gifts He has blessed them with! I can honestly say that there is not one that I walked into the worship room and did not get chills or tear up. 7,000 students worshipping the Lord....7,000 students learning more about Christ and who they are in Him....7,000 students sitting on the edge of their seats as they learn what it means to live for Christ and ways that they impact the world for His glory. Amazing. During our time in Daytona, we had 753 Compassion children sponsored! That means that 753 more children around the world are now able to be released from the chains of poverty and introduced to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Praise God! Here are some pictures from this incredible week...

We are now back to where we started the summer off at Covenant College. It is good to be back! I can't believe we are on our 10th week and only have 3 more to go. This time has flown by! Our camp pastor this week is Sam Bhatt and our worship leader is David Odom. I am looking forward to a great week with them!

Here are some other pictures from the summer that I just haven't had time to put up...they are in random order, but regardless...here they are.. :)

Ashley Turner, a precious girl on my team, was baptized one night of our first week at the Georgia Baptist Conference Center. This girl is amazing and has committed her life to the mission field. Praise God!