It's Almost the End...

Less than a week left on project?! When in the world did that happen? I literally cannot comprehend how I've already been here for a little over a month! Catch up time...

I'm discipling 4 beautiful girls! Lisa, Ashley, Marie, and Kelsey. (I'm in the white, the rest of them are in order from left to right by how I just named them)

They are all so sweet and I love them all a whole lot. It's hard to think that I'm going to be leaving them in 5 DAYS! It's been a journey, but it's been great to get to know them and grow closer to God with them. God has been blessing our summer beyond belief! They have all grown so much and it's been such an incredible experience to see them be shaped this summer.

In other news, it's been a really hard summer. Every day God seems to dish something new at me. He's been so gracious every day with it though. Even though it's hard, He's blessed me with such a great community in my staff team. They have literally become my family in this past month. They have been there with me through all of the spiritual warfare and tough situations. We have worked through them together as a team and have been lifting each other up since the day we got here. That's going to be the hardest part about leaving project- leaving my staff team.

^ Up there is most of the intern team and a few of our full time staffers at hollywood studios on one of our days off. ^

I feel like God gave me best friends for 6 weeks and then is dispersing us all across the country again. It's not fair, but I'm so excited to hear about how they are serving back at their campuses in the fall. Plus, we all have to come back to Disney for a reunion right? No sad faces here.

^Up there is our entire intern team with our two project directors the day we all went indoor surfing before the students got here. Our first look at what surfing every day looks like. Plus, it was a great team building exercise. ^

Other than the staff team, the students here are phenomenal too. We just picked the students who are going to be taking over leadership when we leave and I couldn't be happier with who God placed on our hearts. These men and women are going to be challenged so much these next 5 weeks, but that is going to be so cool to witness. I'm going to be staying in Orlando all summer working at Disney alongside of them. I won't be leading this project anymore, but I will still be able to witness the work that is going on through this project. God is doing some majorly crazy things.

He's leading us to broken people who are teaching us so much about life and what it means to be completely broken, He's raising up new Christians every day, He's helping us love other people and serve them in the best way we can, but most importantly- He's moving in everyone's hearts here.

This has possibly been one of the most encouraging, rough, hard, tough, difficult summers I've ever experienced. From hearing stories of people being led to Christ to having interventions, this summer has been a roller coaster. I wouldn't have it any other way though.

I've seen God do the impossible this summer. I'd love to tell you more about it.

My Summer Was Kind of Spontaneous

WHOA for some reason this didn't post last summer. I wrote it as I was leaving Florida last year!









So, this summer has been absolutely crazy. Apologies for not keeping you up to date.


For instance, Papa John's? Yeah, don't work there anymore. That trip I was taking to Disney World with my friends? Well, you see, I ended up loving it so much that when I went down there I had to go back and spend, you know, the entire remainder of my summer working for the mouse and hanging out with friends.

Today's just a day that I'm missing those friends terribly. I guess it's been since last night that I have had this overwhelming feeling that I just want to see them, hug them, just BE with them.

These are my two dear friends Luke and Jackson (Luke on the left, Jackson on the right). 

Luke is my adorable British friend. I only knew him for 3 weeks before I left Florida for home for good this summer, but the night before I left, we stayed up till 4 in the morning, just us, and talked about how hard it is to leave. He also has to go home to England because his program is over. And while we were having this talk, we both came to the conclusion that even though we only knew each other for 3 weeks, we had no idea what we were going to do without each other. I definitely fell in love with him (absolutely 100% best friend material right here). There were tears involved, huge alligator tears on his end. And then we took him back to his apartment the next morning and I had to have my last Luke hug and we both cried. We've been texting and I called him on my way home and starting crying. Waterworks galore.

Jackson, I only knew for 1 1/2 weeks. We had sooo many adventures in those two weeks. We talked about collar bones, met princesses, watched all 3 night shows in one night, made chocolate covered strawberries and other delicious treats with Stev, worked crazy hours together, and had some really great talks about life. He has definitely changed my view of what a good friend is. When I dropped him off at the airport when he had to go home, I helped him get his suitcases out of my hatchback and after I did we had the most magical hug. Then he grabbed my hand and told me how much he was going to miss me and that I was his favorite person that he had met this time around at Disney. Can you say heartbreak? I've known this guy for only a week and a half and I'm about to break down in tears because I'm going to miss him so much! Now every time I drive down Jackson St. I'll think about him.

Far From Home

So it's been a wild ride so far. Not gonna lie. I've experienced spiritual warfare of all sorts since being here and I'm not alone.

Satan does not want us here. It's so evident it's scary. One of the guys on project broke his arm and needs to have surgery and cannot work at Disney this summer, Satan has tried to break apart condos of men and women through conflict, he's tried to scare people out of sharing their faith, etc. Even though it's terrifying and discouraging when we first face it, God encourages me in all of it. Satan doesn't want us here, which means God is going to be moving through this project so much this summer and I, for one, am most excited to see those things revealed.

My number one source of spiritual warfare has been through my nightmares, which isn't really much of a surprise. Satan continually uses my dreams to scare me away from God. It never works, but he sure does try to get the best of me. So, if you could be praying for me, that would be awesome.

Enough about the negative, let's talk about how God is using this summer for His Kingdom. I am discipling 4 girls. They are precious and God is already using them to challenge me on a daily basis. This is by no means a bad thing. They are an absolute light to me and to everyone around them. It has been so encouraging to see them grow so much in their faith already (they've only been here for about 2 weeks). I've also had the privilege of leading a Bible study alongside two other interns. We had our first study this morning and the Holy Spirit was moving in incredible ways. He was truly speaking through me. Almost nothing I said I planned and I could tell that God was challenging the students who were there.

God's Kingdom is going to be changed for eternity. And even though I feel so far from home at the moment- even though things are rough and I'm battling every day to get through, I know that God is constant and he is going to continue to provide me the strength, courage and boldness to go surfing some gnarly waves alongside my girls every day.










(If you have questions about that last wave riding comment, ask away... it's a project metaphor)