Update #3 from #kaleo12!

First of all, I can’t believe that two weeks has passed since my last blog!  Sorry it has taken me this long to send an update, so much has happened at the project!  Instead of trying to go day by day (because that would make a pretty long blog), this time I’ll give you a few highlights of the past few weeks!

1. D-Group weekend

The purpose of D-Group weekend is for every D-Group to go on an adventure somewhere away from Gulf Shores!  A few of the popular places for groups to go are Destin, Savannah, or Atlanta, but naturally our group decided to break the mold for our weekend.  The girls in the group each made a few suggestions, but I decided it would be more fun to plan the trip and surprise them with the details as the weekend progressed!  We set out driving west Friday evening, and they finally realized that we were headed to New Orleans when we crossed the Louisiana state line!  The first night, we checked into our hotel room and got some (very) much needed sleep.  That next morning, I had planned on taking them on a swamp tour that morning, but a tropical depression brought a ton a rain to the entire gulf, so we had to reroute our plans!  We discovered a cute little pizza restaurant and went searching for a big, historic church to get some extended time with God. 

After driving around in the rain for a while, we finally decided to try out a Catholic church close to the French Quarter that looked pretty promising.  As we walked in, we were greeted by a nice Hispanic man with a name tag on, and we couldn’t help but think that was a little strange given that mass was still 3 hours away.  When we sat down in a back pew, we realized that the entire church was filled with many nice Hispanic men, and the priest kindly approached us and informed us that they were having their Spanish men’s retreat!  He so graciously offered us the side chapel to get some un-interrupted time with God. We knew that this would just be the beginning of a hilarious weekend!

We found our way to Bourbon Street and spent some time just walking in silence down the street taking in the atmosphere.  We explored Royal Street, and then decided that we would challenge ourselves by having spiritual conversations with people on Bourbon Street like we would back on the beach in Gulf Shores.  After some interesting conversations, we headed back to the hotel and went out for some delicious creole food that night and after topping it off with ice cream, we returned to the hotel and finished a great day with an episode of “Swamp People” to go with our culture-filled day!

Sunday morning we went to a contemporary church called Celebrations and headed back east through a huge rainstorm!  On the way home, Jordan wrote a song so we would never forget our incredible weekend together!

    2. Chopping off our hair

   This one only applies to Libby and I, although the entire group was present for the show. The past few weeks, Libby and I have been scheming about what it would be like to cut off several inches of our hair, and up until D-Group weekend we had never taken action on making it happen. On the way to pick Melat up from the airport, we had a sudden burst of courage when we saw a "Sports Cuts" by the Starbucks we were headed to. We knew that if we didn't do this spontaneously, we would never get it done, so that afternoon Libby lost about 10 inches and I lost 6 of our beautiful long locks! The best part was, Sports Clips usually only does men's hair, so they couldn't even style it for us. We were happy about the deal we got and were glad we brought along some hairspray and product in the car!

     3.    Kennon Vaughn (guest speaker)

Last week, we welcomed Pastor Kennon Vaughn from Memphis to our project to teach us more about Jesus’ heart for spiritual multiplication and how we can implement this in our lives. It was cool to think about all of the Biblical examples of men and women pouring into another individual’s life until they were ready to “disciple” someone else. Even applying this principle to my own life, I would have definitely not developed many of the deep convictions for sharing my faith regularly and making continual growth a priority if not for Bethany’s guidance in my life over the past few years! Kennon urged us not to make having our own disciples our god, but to intensely follow Christ like the hardworking farmer, devoted soldier, and competitive athlete in 2 Timothy 2 and we will get to see other’s lives impacted through our deep personal relationship with Christ.  Jordan, Libby, Cherie, Melat, and I definitely talked about Kennon’s remarks for days after the week was over.  

    4.    Energy Drinks

On our second training over inductive Bible study, I knew we could all use a little extra motivation to focus on some intense (but awesome) content, so I surprised the girls with their favorite energy drinks (notice Libby’s Sprite- she doesn’t drink pop)!  It was definitely easier for us to get more excited about what we were learning that night!

    5.    World Prayer

One of the biggest highlights of our weekly activities in our group is Tuesday night world prayer!  Each week after Bible study, we go to a different room in the StayBridge and pray for a specific group or religion in the world.  The past three weeks, we have been to China, Hindu, and International Students world prayer rooms.  Our favorite part is getting to learn more specific things we can pray for, and also knowing that the hour we spend trusting big things to God will be worth it as he answers our prayers!  It’s really cool to hear stories from older people at the project about how many of the people they spent their first summer or two praying with became the answers to many of their prayers as God had sent them to these places! We continually ask God to let our lives be used to impact these groups while we’re still in college and beyond!

   6.     Fire Alarm

Leave it to our group to be the first of Kaleo to set off our fire alarm!  Thanks to the dishwasher melting a plastic-handled spoon, it took us, StayBridge staff, and Heath 30 minutes to figure out how to turn it off!

   7.     Seeing the Hull’s

So this one is more of a personal highlight... but I was so excited to get to see my Aunt Susan, Uncle Wayne, and cousins Trevor, Haleigh, and Callie!  They graciously took me out for dinner, ice cream, and a fun evening at the park while they were here!  They also got to experience a TNT night with our group, which was a blast! Thanks for all of your love and support!

   8.     Relationships Conference

Who knew this would be a highlight for me? Actually, even though none of us girls are focused on relationships with guys at this season of our life, the relationships conference was a huge blessing in each of our lives.  We welcomed David and Lisa Burns, who are on staff with Campus Outreach in Indiana to speak on fellowship and also a godly perspective on singleness, dating, and marriage.  David actually led our StuMo campus director Joel to Christ while in college and has discipled him over the years, so it was really cool to welcome a very monumental individual in our ministry into the project! Some of the biggest highlights from the weekend were looking at developing deep, lasting friendships with other girls that would last for a lifetime, learning how to view our singleness as a gift rather than a waiting period, and that the purpose of dating and marriage is to make us even more like Christ! After staying focused all weekend, we finished off Saturday night in true Kansas style with a Hoedown Throwdown (dance!)

These are just a few of the many adventures of room 208 during the past few weeks! Here are a few things we would love your partnership in prayer with:

-That our group would develop deep friendships that will push us closer to Christ much longer than this summer.

-That we would each put in the discipline necessary to develop a deep walk with Christ so we can pour into others.

-That we would continually have application on our hearts so we can best prepare for maximum impact when we return to campus in the fall in the places that each of us will live.

(Specifically, Jordan, Libby, and I will live in Alpha Xi Delta Sorority, Cherie will live in West Hall, and Melat will live off campus!)

-That God would continue to develop our hearts for the world!

Thanks for your continual support and prayers! Until next time!

Week #2 Adventures

Week #2 adventures at #kaleo12 were characterized by fire, childhood, and nail polish! (Further explanations below) We focused on what it looks like to know God on a deeper level and surrender to His sufficiency. Check it out:

Day #7

Inductive Bible Study method changes lives. (Seriously, it definitely changed mine!) Monday night we learned the basics of the first step: Observation. Reactions to this new challenge in our group varied from “Holy cow, where has this been all my life?!?!” to “Why would you torture us like this, Sara?”, but the good new is that our group has adjusted very well and they are doing a phenomenal job tearing apart 1 Thessalonians 1 and learning so many new things!  So thankful for such a teachable, positive group to be encouraged by!

Day #8

Tuesday nights at the project are called “D-Group Nights,” which consist of cooking dinner together and later discussing our weekly 1 Thessalonians study and a chapter in the book “Be the Leader You Were Meant to Be.”  This week we enjoyed creating a Facebook profile page for Paul and the Thessalonians with the information we found in our 1 Thessalonians Book Overview, as well as writing down our insufficiencies and burning them right here in our room! The good news is: we didn’t even set off the fire alarm!

Day #9 

We have a little bit of free time on Wednesdays nights, and occasionally a guy’s group will invite a girl’s group over for dinner or dessert to chill for the night! This week we got to spend time with not one, but two guy’s groups! After work, we went over to Collin, Bobby, Caleb, Taylor, and Corey’s room, where they handed us delicious cupcakes to finish our dinner off with. These cupcakes actually had pieces of paper hidden in them that said, “Will you go on a group date with us?”, but I apparently didn’t get the memo and almost ate the paper in mine! Whoops! Later on, our group hung out with Andrew, Chris, Glen, and Tim and shared yogurt parfaits while we chatted about life, Harry Potter, and Kaleo. It is so much fun to hear what unique things other people at the project are learning too!

Day #10

Thursday night we attended TNT (Thursday Night Talk), which is a lot like StuMo weekly meetings back on campus.This week we talked about “Knowing God Deeper,” which outlined the difference between having knowledge of God and actually knowing him on a continual deeper level.  One of my favorite quotes of the night was: “You are as close to God as you want to be,” because it really describes the fact that the more you pursue God and strive to grow closer to him through studying the Bible, praying, and learning from others, the more you will grow! After a great talk, we hit up TCBY for some ice cream and came back to our room and took some crazy pictures together!

Day #11

After the last day of work for the week, we returned to the Staybridge and prepared to go on a group date with only the instruction of “be prepared to return to your childhood.” The guys took us out to a beautiful park next to the beach with a pier and a playground, where we made our own pizzas on the grill, drank juice boxes, colored, and played lava tag on the playground, all the while chatting about our lives! It was so cool to hear about what other people are learning at Kaleo and how they plan on applying it next semester back on campus!

Day #12

Saturday we started the morning off with spiritual leadership training, followed by an afternoon at the beach talking to the tons of people we met there about Jesus!  We had a relaxing evening complete with a Chick-fil-a run with Alyson, Hilary, Danielle, Stephanie, and Katelyn’s group, followed by a Disney movie and polish night back in the 208. 

I can’t speak entirely for the other girls in my group, but I know that God has already shown me even more how fulfilling life is when we rely more and more on his sufficiency and desire to be faithful with what he has entrusted with us!  I can’t wait to continue sharing what incredible things he is doing on our lives here in Gulf Shores!

Here are a few prayer requests for the week:

-That we would rely on God’s sufficiency in every circumstance.

-That God will comfort Melat after the loss of a great friend and use this for His glory.

-Focus on what we are learning and perseverance to continue going “all in.”

-That we would grow our hearts for unreached places in the world as we pray for them.

Thanks for your partnership in our life-changing summer!