June 29 :(

Yesterday, Thursday, I went swimming in the pool our site has, and I thought the kids were going to kill me! They like dunking people underwater. Worship last night was the best worship I've been to since 2009. It was really emotional and surrounded by prayer and love. Mr. Tim painted a picture that was just awesome. Watching him work was even better than the finished product, and I would pay all my money for the finished painting. Right now it's friday night/saturday morning... Whatever you consider 1:00. Site was really sad today saying goodbye to the kids. I painted faces today and one of them, when I was done, says, "I'm gonna pay you money!!!" And he laid down a penny for me. It was cute. Sean Marie took us to eat tonight after mega. Now we're in the dorm and I have to take a shower, clean my room, and pack hopefully before I have to be up tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is my last day. I've been really emotional since Tuesday night. I've cried every night since then. I just don't want to leave all my best friends. We were all forced to hang out pushing 20 hours a day at the beginning then it was just something we wanted to do and we got so close so fast and now we are all best friends but we're leaving tomorrow. I hope we can plan something for maybe next summer and see eachother again before we see eachother in heaven. This week was just a really humbling week and God showed me some of the stuff he can do inside me. He broke me so many times until I was shattered and I know he's going to rebuild me to be more like Him but it's really hard to just cope with all these emotions. We have to be out of here before 11 tomorrow. I will be sleeping all day when I get back because I don't see any sleep in my near future. I came into this second week with a really cold attitude like I wasn't going to get that upset when I was leaving but He started working on that Tuesday. He laughed at me and did what he wanted regardless of what I felt and I'm not gonna lie it kind of felt like a slap in the face. But I know it's what I needed. I needed these relationships with my fellow slayers and with my staffer, and I needed to be even more humbled. The slabies are doing a surprise for us now, I'm not really sure what, but I'm a little nervous. PRAY for me please.

Crazy days

Yesterday (Tuesday) was crazy. It was really good at the beginning and I had a lot of fun at my site but then we went to worship and I was really upset and couldn't stop crying. Fun fact: the preacher that is preaching this week and next week when I'm here was here in 2009 when our church was here. I remembered his story and he told it again last night and I kind of broke down. Then I was better today and the site went good. I'm getting to go with my church group tonight. we are going to downtown nashville and I believe we are going to try to convince them to go to hard rock. I really super recommend looking up the band "They Came Running." They are our worship band and I absolutely adore all of them. I have to leave soon. More blogs to come.

AH!

I just realized how to post pictures on herrrrrrrrrrre! More to come tonight (:

Sunday Night Monday morning

I got my staffer last night! Her name is bekah and she does games and rec so I'm pretty excited about that. And Bekah was off last week so she spent a lot of time with us, and I love her! She's extremely crazy and loud which is good for me, it will definetly stretch my comfort zone! On the way to sites last week we played a game where you "pogoed" off stuff and you had to figure out how to pogo, and I won't reveal how to pogo in this post but I was the last to learn how to pogo. She said she was going to pogo to all these different places and the last one was a place to take awkward pictures with fake people, because there is statues off people in weird poses sitting on a bench or waving to someone, and we got the text and sprinted all the way across campus to try and find her and found her and when she said go we had to find the paper with our name on it and when I found mine I didn't recognize her picture but then I saw it was her and was super pumped... I think I got the best staffer out of the girls, I'm not gonna lie! We greet the fugers and the slabies today, and I'm on team excitement, so I'm pretty excited... ;D I'll be hitting cars and vans with noodles and telling our slabies where to go. We are also making their room signs to put on their door (: I already found like four on twitter and stalked them and tweeted them. Is that weird? ...

Sunday

Been a pretty fun weekend with the SLAngers. We went to Opry Mills last night then to wal mart to get breakfast stuff and anything that we wanted. We ate at burger king at the mall last night so I tried the bacon sunday and I'm not gonna lie it was pretty amazing. We went to a church this morning, Mosaic. I wasn't really like a huge fan of the preaching, just because I didn't agree with a lot of the stuff he said. Then we came back and ate lunch. They ordered pizza but I ate a pb&j. We played a lot of games: look up look down, killer eyes, mafia, and hide and seek, which was way super fun. Tonight we are going to eat at like a taco place or something. I was planning on buying three pairs of fuge glasses from the store but ended up only buying one and Jon stepped on them, so I have to wear my Ray Bans and hope they don't get messed up. I'm a little depressed that me and Malik missed church this morning :( I miss my friends. I'm super ready for our campers and slabies to get here though. We're about to go eat soon though, expect another blog tomorrow.

Friday Night and Saturday

We won Mega last night!!!! There was three heats, two where campers competed against eachother and one where slayers competed against staff. Staff was cowboys and we were indians. They even admitted that they cheated and we still beat them (: It was lots of fun, lost my voice a little though. All the second week slayers left this morning :( after everybody left we went and helped set up for next week. We made run through banners and church group signs. I did run through signs and made them all cutesy, of course. I'm going to attempt to get them to let me do my church group sign and run through banner since we come the week after I leave. The band wore multicolored mustache belts today, it was pretty fabulous. But I've been doing laundry and such. We are leaving around 5 for Opry Mills mall, which is fairly exciting. #polooutfit. just saying. When we get back we're gonna play card and board games. Our whole group is all like best friends and last night and this morning made me think about next week. I didn't want to though. I cried a lot. But I know we'll all be best friends for a long time <3

Friday

So today everyone is a little edgy. It could be the lack of sleep or just the fact that we're all around each other so we know we won't hate eachother if we snap a little. We fixed a tomato plant for this woman today. Learned a little about missions in my own backyard. I don't remember anything from last night after I got to the dorm. I was walking with the SLAngers and then a camper I have talked to came up and I was talking to him and walking with them. Then I got to my dorm and Brice walked off and I looked back and all the SLAngers were gone. I was like well I'm too tired to look for them. So I went up to the room and passed out like face down on my bed. My roommate told me she came in and was like "Lauren you have your tennis shoes on and your name tag, you should probably take it off so you don't choke and die." Then I took it off and she said she went out to the hallway and came back and I was completely under the covers and she found me and checked for breathing. Once she realized I was alive she took a picture. Its on my twitter. Then she said I sat up and started beating my pillow pet and flopped back down. I figured all this out this morning. adventurous night. Now I'm ready for worship and we have mega relay tonight! I'm about to go hang out with the SLAngers before worship now.

Wednesday and Thursday

The high ropes course was Wednesday. I was partnered with my PP. (Prayer Partner) We did really good but just got caught up on one part of 5. There was one where we just walked across and held onto a rope, another we walked on like loop type things; the one we got caught on was just a wire to walk on and ropes hanging about 10 feet from eachother. Another we climbed up a rock wall or rope ladder; I did the rope ladder. It was pretty easy. Then we did a zipline. Thursday we went to a homeless shelter. We got there and she said something that sounded like "food clinic." So we go up there and theres a sign on the door that says "foot clinic". Yeah. Thats what I was thinking. She told us that only 18 year olds could do feet and the rest could socialize with the homeless people. Then she was like "nevermind, all of you can do it!" And the whole time I was thinking there is NO WAY. Then I was like, wow. I'm really selfish... Jesus washed the disciples feet and they walked barefoot like all the time, and these people had shoes. And plus the fact that I'm not any better than them. But the whole experience was really humbling. Sean Marie knew about it and didn't tell us. But it was totes worth it cause if I had knew I would've gone into it with the wrong mindset and a bad attitude and might have hated Sean Marie. (I'm totally kidding.) But worship was the best on Thursday in my opinion. He talked about serving. The Lord revealed to me that I have to go to Ukraine. Should be interesting to see where He is going to take me and what He will do with me!

Tuesday June 19

Sooooo today was pretty much like one of the best days anyone could ever have in their entire life. I woke up late. at 6:40, and had to shower and be at breakfast by 7. So that kind of stunk, but my roommate is getting a taste of what the rest of the time is going to be. Then we went to breakfast and had eggs and orange juice. Not gonna lie the food isn't as great as I remember. But then we went to Bible study, which was really cool to do it differently than all the other tracks. They play a game but we had more of a discussion type and I love the discussion type Bible studies! Joel and all of them know that (: but then we left for LIFEWAY HEADQUARTERS! Thats right. Be amazed and our awesomeness. We stood in the exact spots where adventure now, the opening film for fuge, anddddd lots of other cool stuff was filmed! So that was awesome. But even better, we went on a prayer walk after that and walked all around Nashville. We were completely silent and prayed while we walked to ourselves. The only thing that put a damper on that was that someone told me to wear jean capris to Lifeway then I did then we walked like 5 miles through Nashville. SWEATTYY! But then we came back and had our "So You Want to be a Fuge Staffer?" session. Which I do. So that was cool to find out how to become fuge/centrikid staffer. Then I went out and made friends, Brice, Jimmy, Jade, Maryah, and Nolan. They were pretty cool but I don't think Jade and Maryah wanted to talk to us. Partially because they didn't really talk to us. But then we went to worship and received an awwweeesssooomeee message while sitting completely by ourselves so it was just me and the Lord. The band is amazing. Almost as good as Grant Harbin ! Had some time to talk to Paul and Michael. I do <3 them. And then we went to Leadership training and nightlife and now I'm back in my room fixing to shower so I'm not late tomorrow morning. Again. Sean Marie, our leader, is pretty amazing to tell the truth! I adore her. I feel like I've known these people forever because we have had so much time to bond and now we're all like best friends. I know these friendships will last forever.

Monday again

I'm settled into my room with nothing to do until 5 when I head to the bell tower for I guess dinner and worship maybe. Me and Malik played tennis. Like the boss I am, I beat him twice. On our way to play, we met some of the staffers for fuge: Katie, Hunter, annnnd a bunch of other people that I don't remember, but I do remember what they act like and they're all pretty crazy. It should be an interesting couple of weeks :) I've seen Paul Goble and Michael Seale. I've already had a prank pulled on me. Someone put a piece of tape that says stinks over the word princess on my bama princess tag. If I had to take a guess on who it was, I would guess Michael. Referring to my first blog, my roommate isn't crazy! She's actually friendly and I don't think she'll rip Malik's earrings out or try to kill me. We seem to have stuff in common. It might be the fact that she brought snacks as well, but she seems to be pretty likeable :)

Monday, June 18

It's the first day of SLA !!! I'm at Lindsay and Jason's house, car packed up, ready to go to registration. AH! This seems extremely crazy. Three weeks is a long time. Continue to pray for what God is doing in my life and Malik's and everybody else participating in SLA and at m-fuge. I'll be blogging all throughout the next two weeks and I would love if everyone would keep up.

Saturday, June 16

Today is the day I leave! I have not finished packing yet and I'm leaving in less than two hours. SLA won't start until Monday, but I'm staying with family in Nashville until then. I'm starting to get nervous about it. I'm not really sure exactly what I'm nervous about, but I am. Maybe its meeting my roommate... My biggest real life fear that isn't an object, such as clowns, is having a roommate like the one off of "The Roommate." That girl was crazy. But either start or continue to pray for my experience please! That I get the leadership training I need out of it, my relationship with God could use a little work (couldn't all of ours though?), and a safe trip there and back! Thank yall!