Prayer Request

Hey ladies,

Its been awhile! I have a need for prayers for my dad. He was hit by a car last night when he was biking. He's alive thank God! But he shattered a lot of bones in his right wrist and hurt his face and leg. We're not sure whether he will be able to write again. So if you could please pray for his recovery I would appreciate greatly!

Betsy's Post

Please pray for Dave.

He leaves for China at 6am tomorrow morning and he will be there for 2 months.

China is a spiritually hostile environment where many Christians are persecuted for their faith. Pray that he grows and that God rocks his world during his time away, even though it may be difficult for him to read his Bible, hear sermons, or speak about spiritual things to anyone at all.

Please pray for our relationship as well because there will be a 13ish hour time difference for the next 2 months. I need to learn to be more patient when we communicate and need to find a way to be encouraging to him on a spiritual level now that spiritual conversations may be monitored and restricted by the Chinese government. I know that God is watching over us both, but I am still struggling with anxiety, and I know loneliness is going to be a big issue too. I'm trying not to be a big baby about it, but we just talked on the phone for the last time before he goes (neither of us know when we can talk next), and I cried when we hung up. I need some serious peace, friends.

Please pray for us.

Thanks.

Ashley's Post!!

Hey, I'm not sure if anyone saw that last post but I have a job now! I'm super excited!! I'm supposed to start on Monday and will be mostly working with 2 year olds for the summer! Should be fun!!

Interview

Hey everyone! I hope that your summers are going great! I was wondering if you could all pray for a job interview that I have tomorrow! I'm really nervous/excited! This job looks like so much fun! I'd be a teacher's assistant at a children's summer camp! I just found out a couple of minutes ago about the interview so I'm kind of jumping out of my skin. I just really want this to work out! Please pray for me!

Prayer

Hi ladies.

Let's talk about how we can pray for each other this week.

Comment below, please.  :)

I'd love to hear it and to be able to pray for you.

im finally here

hello ladies 

how are you all doing? i hope your summer is going more awesome than you thought it would. i'm doing pretty ok myself. sorry it took me so long to get on the blog. i feel so behind. well this was just a short message to let you know that i had finally joined you all. it's my birthday and everyone is at my house so i had better get back to entertaining. God bless Peace Out :) Toni

So I just realized that gmail does not give you email notifications when you all add new posts and I was wondering why on earth isn't anyone updating the blog?! But you all were and i was just out of the loop =P

Anywho...its good to hear from you all and it's truly inspiring to hear about your ever growing relationship with God and fellow Godly women. At the beginning of summer when I first got back home, I started this thing that I like to call TWG (aka Time with God). During my TWGs I spent time praying, journaling, and reading the Bible. I also have been keeping track of my TWGs on a blank sheet of paper and decorating it using my colorful Sharpies and writing down prayer requests and verses or lyrics that I stumble upon and would like to remember.

Well lately I've been feeling preoccupied with work, trying to get volunteering hours in, and trying to stay in touch with people from school that some days I neglect to spend time with God. It's always been a struggle for me put God as my number 1 priority. There's always something that my mind goes to first whether it be family and friends or my personal needs and wants. Good news is is that a friend from high school and one of the youth leaders from the church that i attend here at home want to start a bible study or weekly get-together with college students. I think thats something I really need right now but I'm not quite sure when thats going to kick off...hopefully sometime soon :)

Other than that I have also been reading the Twilight series...anyone into those? My friend from school let me borrow her books for the summer and i must say they're not that bad. But everyone who read the books say they're amazing...in my opinion they're "alright" lol....i'm planning on watching the movie soon...i wonder if that is as good as everyone says it is :P

Alright enough from me. Sorry for getting back to you so late! I'll make sure i check this blog more often. Take care everyone :)

Mmmm... summer

Hey ladies!

Sorry I've been so late in posting - our apartment doesn't have internet and my laptop is being fixed right now so I only use the internet/computers for about 30 mins every few days or whenever I decide to hang out at a computer lab, which tends to be not super often with spring-time ann arbor as beautiful as it is! It's also been kind of nice not to have internet at our apartment (though at first it was super hard and annoying) because it makes me spend more time reading and journaling and talking to people which I really wanted to do this summer anyway. Also, if you want to talk, always feel free to call me since I will probably be way faster at responding to that than anything on the internet.

On that note, my summer thus far has been really great and truly blessed. I'm living in an apartment with Paula, Lillian and Bridgit and it's an AMAZING place, like it shouldn't even be considered college housing it's so nice. And so far the four of us have already had lots of time to get to know each other, bond, and just live our lives together as we try to honor Christ with our summers. And the hilleast boys live about 4 houses down and right behind us so we spend a lot of time doing things together with them like watching movies, soming together for special events, or our weekly family dinners. I've never lived in such a strong Christian community like this, or even really a community, and it's already been a really great experience for my life, just to know that I am surrounded by people who love me and who will be there for me, whatever I need. I can't even imagine what LT will be like, but if this is only pre-LT, it's going to be AWESOME!!

As most of you know, my job search was pretty much a complete failure for this summer - after filling out around 40 applications I heard back from all of 2 employers and neither ended up working out. In my frustration/freaking out one day I decided to pray about it and God brought up the idea of doing an internship with New Life to work on one%matters full time (unpaid volunteer of course). As I thought about it more, there were so many reasons why this would be a really great thing for my life, I decided to commit myself to working on one%matters and not making any money this summer. It was a really tough decision since a huge part of me feels the need to work and make money, but I also know that money has always been one area of my life I have pretty much refused to give up to God so I know that he will use this to teach me a lot, especially how to trust him with that (which will be really important if I do end up going on staff). Already I've felt so refreshed by doing this "job" that I love (I'm still having a hard time calling this a job since I actually enjoy doing it and that's never happened before), and by really focusing on getting one%matters ready for when I leave in December, whatever I end up doing and thinking more about this general field that I want to work in no matter what. And it's teaching me to be super frugal which is also a really good lesson to learn.

I've also been feeling really refreshed in having more time to journal and read my Bible, to the point that for pretty much the first time I look forward to it as my first choice for relaxation (besides hanging out with people). Our apartment is doing our own weekly Bible study in addition to Summer New Life Team and bible study and last week we read through Hosea which spoke to me in so many beautiful ways. If you haven't read it you totally should! It's only 14 chapters and it is all about God's unfailing love.

This weekend I'm going home to see my family which I'm actually really looking forward to. And that's about everything that's happening in my life right now. I love and miss you all! If you are ever in ann arbor, feel free to call me and you can totally come crash at our amazing apartment or I'll at least cook you a nice home-cooked meal!

love!
angie

So spring is here and summer begins.....

Hey ladies!

Let me just say that this is a really cool idea Meredith!

Spring has been going good for me so far. Coming home I thought this break would be the same as the years before. I'm at the same home and it's my third summer at my job. But to my surprise this summer has been so much more different already.

My job has been an unexpected struggle. I took on a new position this year and its taking a longer time than I thought to be fully trained. Plus, with the economy so slow its hard to get a lot of hours in this year. But I really don't want to get two jobs, because I did that last summer and that was not such a good idea. I've been really praying hard about my job situation because my feet are hurting a lot. They hurt after just 20 minutes of standing so working at my job where I could be standing for 4 to 12 hours without a break is really hard on them. Already a couple of times I was at the point of tears because it felt like I was walking on glass. I'll have to go back to the foot doctor soon and see what I should do next. Maybe they'll give me more shots or a different pair of inserts. Til then I'm trying to baby them I much as I can, which I'm not doing good at because I love to go walking around my home, especially with the gorgeous summer flowers!

On a brighter note, I've really enjoyed having more time spend with my family, God, and high school friends. And I'm planning a low cost adventurous summer. I've already made plans to skydive, go horseback riding, learn how to kickbox, and learn how to sail. I'm hoping I'll be able to do all of them without work or moving disturbing them.

Meredith's Post

I figured out how to change my name so it would really be my name and not the title of the website so that's exciting. :)

Life is going well for me. Spring semester has been suprisingly relaxing - even though I'm still in school :)

I am taking 3 Spring classes at Eastern Michigan University - Children's Literature, Geography 110 - World Regions, and Microeconomics. It's a busy schedule but the classes at Eastern are so EASY in comparison with U of M. One of my classes has no exams at all and the only work we have to do for it is answer a question of the day for every class and write a summary of an article every week. Seriously? It's been really refreshing though for me so that is really good. And I understand everything in economics, which I was worried about so that has been really great. My classes and teachers are both nice so I'm enjoying myself.

I'm working at the hospital in the Department of Neurology. It's super easy and low maintenance, which has also been really nice. Basically, what I do all day is go through old alums folders and throw out stuff we don't need :) It's really interesting historically because we have files back to like the 1920s! I also get free food sometimes when they have conferences!

I also am suppose to be working at the School of Ed on a research project, but that job hasn't started yet. So life will get more hectic when it does, but its nice to start making money, because i need to pay for LT. :)

Life at home has been nice but also crazy. I'm living at my Dad's house for spring semester. I haven't really gotten to talk to Amanda [my 15 year old little sister] much but I've been hanging out with my little sister Drew a lot. It has been really great. I'm really enjoying getting to know her better and her personality. It's been hard though too because she doesn't realize I have homework, and wants to play games all the time. It's hard to let her down a lot when I can't.
Leah and my Dad are gone a lot on jobs so I have a lot of household responsibility, which is harder in mix with everything else. But overall, it has gone a lot better than I was thinking it would.

So that's an update from me.
I am enjoying hearing about you all!

I figured it out... and realized I need to check my e-mail more often

Hey girls! Miss all of you!! And lifegroup!

Hope you are all having great summers so far. I like this blog idea, but I am very bad at blogging (and apparently computer-illiterate) so maybe I will do better on this attempt :)

I've settled in at home here in Rockford and I've been enjoying spending a lot of time with my family and friends and Joe. God has provided for me in a really cool way at the beginning of the summer. I have a full-time nannying job starting June 3, but I was looking for something part-time that I could do in May and maybe after. Well the job that I thought I had lined up fell through and I spent literally a whole day trying to find another one without any luck :( So that was discouraging- but last week I actually got another babysitting job for a woman who just needs someone for a few weeks. So it worked out pretty perfectly. The kids are 5 and 7 and very cute!

I'm reading John as per the Hilleast reading plan. Through it God has been showing me how he provides and just his sheer power. I mean, this guy walks on water, multiplies food, heals, cures- it's showing me that no problem is too great for God. I think that's one of the lies that I had been believing about myself and the world "I'm too messed up, this is TOO far gone, God can't fix this". John points to some things Jesus did that defy explanation and precedence and show he CAN. He can do anything, and by extension, through him we can do anything.

What are everyone's plans for Memorial Day weekend?? I'd love to catch up with any of you via phone too so if you ever feel like chatting :-) I'm going to get to work on the Cedar Point plans too so expect an e-mail from me. This photo is from last weekend, I ran the 5K Riverbank run (and nearly vomited at the end but hey I'm still proud). Emily and I are going to try to do a 10K next. Intense!

Ashley's Post!!

Hey Everyone! This is Ashley! I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell that from my post, probably, but I thought that I'd clarify anyways! I've been kind of bored here, I haven't had a car most days, so I've been stuck at home. I had a job interview today at Bath and Body Works, so hopefully that works out! I'm really nervous! I could tell that I did better than most of the people in the interview (it was a group interview), so hopefully I'll get the job. I really haven't been reading my Bible this summer. Its just so easy for me to fall into my old habits when I'm at home, and go back to the way things were in high school. So, I'm going to work on that this summer. I hope that everyone here is doing great! I miss all of you!

How's Life?

Hello Girls!

I miss you all and hope you are all having great summers so far!

I thought a good way we might be able to stay in contact with one another and keep each other updated on what is going on in our lives - would be a blog that all of us are authors too. It's kind of like a journal to pass around except minus the cost of postage. I thought it was probably the closest we'd come to finding the magical pair of pants to send around and wear for each of our adventures.

Too, this will be great for planning get togethers, like Cedar Point! Anyone can post all the information or questions they have. People can feel free to not write if they don't feel like it, I just thought it might be a good outlet for keeping in touch.

So how are you all!?