sweet summer time

*originally posted 5/19/10

So, unfortunately, it has been a while. Since the last time I wrote in January, alot has happened.

I have finished my junior year at Appalachian and it makes me very sad when I think about only having one more year there. But life goes on and I’m just trying to make it less and less about me. God has blessed me with a love for photography and I take pictures any chance I get. I love it when I can just go out and take pictures of God’s beautiful creation, my family, and my friends. Next semester will be filled with photography classes that will hopefully push me to see this world in a way that I have yet to see it through a viewfinder.

This summer I have gotten the amazing opportunity to work with a group of youth and children at Calvary Baptist Church in Reidsville, NC. I started last week and will be here until August 11th. I am staying with an amazing family. I met Amy Butler, who just graduated from ASU a couple weeks ago, when I came to visit Calvary last month. She is working with the youth at Sharon Baptist Church in Reidsville. Amy, her dad, Eddie, and mom, Deborah, opened their beautiful home to me for the summer. They have already been such a blessing to get to know and live with. The youth and the whole church family here at Calvary are amazing and I could not have asked for more. They have opened their arms to me and made me feel so welcome and loved. They are an amazing church family and I’m so thankful for them.

I am so thankful for this opportunity that God has given me this summer to work with the youth and children. I know it will be an unforgettable summer. But I also know it will be the hardest summer I have had to go through yet. The past several months have been a struggle for me and I feel that the struggle will only continue through this summer. But, as I’m going through this “wilderness,” I know that God will never give up on me and He will never leave me. I find peace in words that I have heard from amazing friends through the past few years: God asks me for obedience not perfection, God never intended for our faith to rest upon what’s going on around us, who I am is everything God needs, that I really matter for the reasons that God says I do, that God is really with me, and finally, that when God says He forgives me, He does.

I would ask that you would please pray with me this summer. Please pray for the youth: as they are finishing up this semester. Pray as they will be participating in World Changers (Rockingham Co. and Ottawa, Canada) and Caswell. Pray that God would open their hearts as He is inviting them out of their lead roles in their small stories and instead, to a supporting role in His big story this summer. Pray for the amazing adults that love on these youth and give everything for them. Pray for me: that I won’t get in the way of what God is doing in the lives of the amazing people here at Calvary. Pray that I will continue to find my strength, hope, peace, and comfort in God. Pray that God would give me the words to say to these youth. And finally, just pray for the relationships that I’m making this summer…that I would continue to love God, love people, and live love.

Thanks for reading and I hope to write ever so often this summer to update everyone and to share what God is doing.

Love,
Morgan