Yesterday marked the end of the summer internship for 4 of the 6 of us. Everyone packed up their things and headed off their separate directions, some only for a few days as band camp starts on Friday. For one of us he headed home for a few weeks before heading back down to Tennessee. It was a long day for all of us and while tears were not shed it was definitely sad to watch everyone head off.

This summer has been an amazing experience with some incredible people and I am beyond blessed to have experienced it!! There have been changes to the team throughout the summer, but all have been good. We started out with seven, of whom five already knew each other. The two that were new to the team were newlyweds. They were welcomed to the team and we enjoyed getting to know them. Unfortunately, some things just didn't work out and they headed home. While this relieved some stress and made things run smoother, it also added stress to everyone's shoulders as we took on more work and shifted jobs around. This change also meant that some things that everyone thought would be happening didn't happen. While some disappointment was felt, we took it in stride and got excited about the things that were coming up! We ended up having a sixth team member for the past couple weeks and it has been absolutely wonderful!

Without further ado, here is a short overview of the summer via pictures...
(More to come in the coming weeks!!)

Intern Orientation at Streator Baptist Camp

This picture is from our first weekend together as an intern team in June. We were at IBSA's Intern Orientation at Streator Baptist Camp. Everyone in the picture served as an intern through IBSA in various parts of Illinois. The couple of days that we spent there provided all of us an opportunity to get to know these amazing people that were doing the same things as us for the summer. It was truly a blessing and I have enjoyed keeping up with many of them via Facebook. They are an inspiration!

Illinois Super Summer 2013

This picture is from our next big thing from the summer. We went to Illinois Super Summer and we were Family Leaders for the various schools. This was a challenging week for us as none of us had really done anything like that previously. We went into the week not knowing entirely what was going to happen, but we were excited none the less. While the week was stressful at times, this week was such an amazing experience for all of us! Sometimes it is experiences like this that show us just how much we have to left to learn. Speaking on a personal note, this week was definitely a huge blessing to me and really showed me some things that I need to work on in my life with Christ. It was an incredible week! (A post will be coming soon about this camp!!)

Hanging at the beach in Chicago  (...with Joel according to Facebook)

Just a day at the beach

One of our next big things happened to be having the IBSA All State Youth Choir come and hangout for a weekend. We took them to Chicago and took them on tours around the city, then we ended the day with an ultimate frisbee tournament at a sports complex here in town. They then sang at Journey on Sunday morning, followed by Auerlio's for lunch. You may be wondering what this has to do with the above pictures... The tour we took them on happened to be a bus tour. The tickets for the tour happened to be valid through Monday, so us interns took a trip to the city. We hung out at the beach for a few hours, grabbed dinner at Giordano's and ended the day on the night tour. It was a great day to just hang out and spend time with each other without having to do a bunch of work or be focused on other things despite being together. There's nothing like a long day in the city enjoying each other's company to make for a great day off!!

Kenan's Birthday

During the midst of the summer we got to celebrate two birthdays. Kenan's birthday and Kristin's birthday both happened to be in July within just a couple days of each other. Kristin and I, along with Rachel, made a birthday cake for Kenan!

Kristin's birthday was two days later and the guys made a beautiful cake for her!!

Kristin and her cake!! (Picture courtesy of Kenan Keller)

Getting to celebrate their birthdays with them this summer was awesome!! It is such a blessing to know them both and be able to share those special moments with them! Such an awesome time with amazing people :)

All 6 of us interns with the octopus!!

Our next big event came not long after. The day before leaving Bri came down to join us for the last couple weeks and to work with me for the next few. We left the next afternoon to head to Streator Baptist Camp for IBSA Co-ed Missions Camp North. Since Chad was camp director we were in charge of running the whole camp. The six of us were tribe leaders, we lead worship for all the services, filled various other roles from set up and tear down crew to registration and night time game coordinators, and Kenan ran sound and did tech for the week along with running recreation time. Prior to camp Malik worked with a lady from our church to fix and edit Bible studies and missions lessons for the different age groups at camp. The camp ranged from 2nd graders all the way up to those who just graduate high school. It was a long week that put us all in places that put us outside of our comfort zones. We were stretched in various ways throughout the week, some good and some not so good. Yet at the end of the week we had to say that it was an incredible experience!!! Personally, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. It was a huge blessing to share with the students and serve God in all of the ways I did.
Also, that thing that Bri is holding in the picture...that's an octopus. Yes, you read that right...an octopus. We played a variation of ultimate frisbee at camp using an octopus. It was quite hilarious!!

Kristin and I at Art Camp (Courtesy of Trent Walstra)

Our last big thing for the summer was an Art Camp that Journey hosted. It was a five day art camp with an art show this past Sunday morning. One of the ladies at church is an art teacher at one of the local schools and she taught the children this past week. They learned about various artists and were given the chance to imitate the techniques of the artists. We had 4th-6th graders in the morning and 1st-3rd in the afternoon.  It was an awesome week and a great outreach for our church into the community! It was tiring but a great experience!!

So there is a quick overview of the summer, some details were omitted and hopefully I will get a chance to share them in the coming weeks. I just wanted to right this post to wrap up the summer with everyone here. We are an interesting group, but we all bring different things to the table and that has been huge this summer. It was such an awesome opportunity to work with Andy, Malik, and Kenan again. Last summer was awesome but this summer was amazing!! I couldn't have asked for a better chance to get to know them better and spend more time with them. They continue to teach me new things and I am blessed to have them as friends, and as brother figures when they pull the card out. God knew I needed them in my life and He has continued to use them in positive ways. Such an incredible blessing to know them!!! And getting to work with Kristin and Bri has been awesome. Yeah, we knew each other at school but spending so much time together we haven't got to know each other in different ways. I can definitely say that they are both absolute blessings to me and I look forward to getting to know them better throughout the school year!!!

I can't say enough about each of them, as that would take forever, but I can say that I can't possibly put into words how much of a blessing they have all been to me! They have seen me on my not so good days and on the days where i'm just happy as can be. They have seen me be lazy and totally checked out and they have seen me pull crazy antics out of nowhere. This summer definitely proved to bring me out of my shell and they got the chance to see that first hand...whether they wanted to or not. :)

I pray that God will guide their paths and lead them to do more incredible things for Him! I pray that God has His hands on them through everything they go through this school year, whether it be good or bad. May He provide everything they need. May He give them peace in every situation and joy as well. I pray that He uses each of them to share His love and grace to everyone they come in contact with. May He bless them and use them to bless others.

While this post could go on for days, I will wrap it up on this last note. I couldn't have asked for a better summer with better people. I was right where I was supposed to be with the people I was supposed to be with. It was truly a wonderful blessing and I am glad I get the chance to share about it! My words are many but those that are spoken are jumbled at best. Like we've said all summer....Words are hard. Words are very hard.

Thank you all for an incredible summer!!

Sincerely,
Shelbi

Still Doing Office Work At 1am

Hey everyone!!
I know that I said I was back and would be posting more just a couple weeks ago, but then things got kind of crazy around here and all of us interns have been going non-stop for about three weeks.

I am definitely serious now about being back and posting about the summer.

This coming week will definitely be much slower paced and therefore allow me some time to work on writing.

I have a lot to share with you all and can't wait to do so!!

God has been doing some incredible things!

So as I am sitting in the office attempting to finish up the Worship Folder for today's church service, I will leave you with this lovely picture of the awesome intern team I have been working with!!!

I will be sharing more about them soon as well :)

Malik, Kristin, Bri, Kenan, Me, & Andy at Co-ed Missions Camp

Also, props to anyone who can figure out what Bri is holding in this picture!

I will share exactly what it is in an upcoming post!!

I highly doubt that anyone will guess, but you are welcome to take a shot :)

Anyways, it's back to work for me!

Goodnight everyone!

Number 1 & Number 2

Hey y'all!!

Sorry about being MIA the past week, week and a half or so.

I have been busy with the start of my Mission Internship with my church.

I have thought several times about writing a post but usually by the time I do I am too tired to do so.

So this post is going to be an overview of the past week.

Some of you may know that I am doing a Missions Internship with my church.

Well, the last weekend of May was the beginning of that.

I spent last week doing some prep work for the rest of the summer before the rest of the team arrived.

Andy also started the same time as me.

Everyone else arrived in town last Thursday.

We went to Aurelio's as a team with Pastor Chad & his family, as well as our Connection Pastor Kyle & his family.

We went over the basic rules & guidelines for the summer, as well as basic position expectations.

It was a fun night to get to know each other and hangout.

Friday we all left and went to Summer Missions Orientation in Steator.

We spent Friday evening hanging out with the other summer missionaries & getting to know each other.

On Saturday we had training, which consisted of several sessions of people talking about different aspects of being a missionary, leadership qualities, and discipleship practices.

It was a long day and we got restless by the end of the day, but we got to know a lot of really awesome fellow college students who are serving as summer missionaries across the state.

This is a group picture of all of the IBSA Summer Missionaries.

The seven of us our sort of spread out throughout the picture.

We got to talk with a lot of our fellow missionaries & I have to say that the above group is full of some amazing college students who really have a heart to serve God through missions.

I am blessed to have had the opportunity to spend a couple days with them!!

One of the highlights of the weekend was the spur of the moment jam session in the cabin lobby.

We had a couple guitars and a cajon.

One of the guys even had a small amp with him!
We played some random songs but the majority of what was played & sung was worship music or contemporary Christian songs.

We added our own twist to a few and they turned out pretty cool.

The jam session lasted a couple hours and it was definitely an awesome evening!!

To say the least, a lot of these college students are crazy talented!

Upon getting back the seven of us here have been busy getting into the swing of things.

We have done a lot of office work, which includes scheduling summer events, planning all of the details, and contacting the right people for everything.

I am working with Students (6-12th grade) along with Malik.

So we have been working on planning events for them and connecting with all of them.

We have really knocked out quite a lot the last couple days and I am excited for everything that we are working on!

I wish I didn't have to leave this coming weekend, but I know that Malik is going to do a great job of making sure that things get done and done well for our first big event of the summer!!

Overall it has been an awesome week with the team!

We have had lots of time to get to know each other and most of the time it seems as though we've been friends for much longer than this short week.

It is such an awesome thing to see how we are all working together and how God is already working through all of us both as a team and on an individual basis.

I have no doubt that this is going to be an awesome summer & that God is going to do some awesome things!!

I am getting more and more excited the farther we get into the summer!!

While I would love to keep writing about the amazing team that I am blessed to be a part of, I have to be up early in the morning, so I am going to end this post here.

I will try to post at least once a week with updates on what happens and hopefully some pictures!

But for now, Goodnight!!

Throwback Thursday & Summer Interns

Hey everyone!!
I feel bad for not posting much this past week but it's been a little busy.

There's been lots of prep work to get ready for the summer intern team that is here for the summer.

Today happened to be the big day.

All of the summer interns are finally here!!

I have been anxiously awaiting this day for weeks now.

With all of the rain and crazy weather we have been having I am glad everyone made it safely.

It was so awesome to get to connect with Kenan as I hadn't seen him in almost a year.

It was good to spend some time talking with Kristin since we haven't seen each other in almost a month.

It was even better finally getting to meet 'The Married Couple' as they have been dubbed at church.

Andrew and Anna got here this afternoon and it was great to get to meet them and talk with them.

I am really looking forward to getting to know them better!

We went over rules and guidelines for the summer, as well as what our responsibilities will be each week.

It is going to be very different from last summer but it's still going to be great.

I'm looking forward to everything that we have planned.

It is going to be awesome to see how God uses all of us this summer!

The fact that all the interns got here today made for a perfect Throwback Thursday post.

It was only about a year ago but so much has changed since then.

This was the mission team, plus a few others, from last summer.

This was an awesome group of interns, all of whom I am still friends with.

They were such a blessing and we all learned a lot about ourselves and each other through everything.

God knew exactly what He was doing when He put that group together and I have no doubt that all of us on the intern team for this summer where put together for a reason.

What that is I don't know.

However, if it is anything as awesome as last year (hopefully much more awesome), then it's going to be an awesome summer and a true blessing.

I have no doubt that God has big plans for this summer and I look forward to seeing what they are!!

Here's to an awesome summer full of adventures, relationship building, personal growth, and spiritual strengthening!!

Throwback Thursday & Summer Mission Team 2013

Hey there!!

So today is my first Throwback Thursday post and I am really excited to share with you!

I think this is the perfect time to start this because of what I am looking back on and the upcoming summer plans.

Today I want to take a look back to last summer. I know it isn't too far back in the past, but it seems like so long ago and I find it fitting considering that it is all going to be starting back up a week from today.

Last summer was full of long work days, crazy schedules, good days and bad days, as well as a ton of wonderful memories!!

I posted about the summer a couple of times and you can see one of them here!

For those who don't know, I stayed on my college's campus last summer and worked full time in the custodial department.

That was often days a lot of work, a lot of stress, and a lot of frustration.

Little did I know when I started working for the summer that I would end up also being an unofficial part of the Summer Mission Team that Journey was hosting through NAMB.

I got up and dealt with the long days of work because I knew that I would get to work and hangout with all of the summer missionaries.

From left: Andy, McKenzie, Patrick, Malik, Haley, Kenan, & Joel

This was the official team that started out the summer, but only the six guys ended up staying on with Journey.

I was beyond blessed to get to work with them and spend time getting to know them!

These guys are seriously some of the most awesome people I know!!

The connections have been lasting and we have been able to make many memories beyond the summer and throughout this past school year.

It has been such an amazing blessing to have these guys be a part of my life and I thank God for the friendship and all of the different aspects that it consists of on a daily basis.

While only three of the guys will be coming back, Andy, Malik, and Kenan, to be a part of the Summer Mission Team for this summer, it is looking like it is going to be an awesome team!!

There will be seven people on team this summer, five of which already have worked, are working and are attending Journey and all know each other fairly well.

As previously mentioned, Andy, Malik, and Kenan will be back for the summer.

Kristin Marshall, a fellow ONU student and good friend, will be on team this summer as well, along with myself.

That makes up the five of us who have already worked with Journey or have been working with and attending Journey.

In addition to the five, we will also have two others from Arkansas joining us, Andrew & Anna Bell.

They are (or will be getting) married and are coming to join us just ten days after their wedding.

I do not know much more about them, but I look forward to getting to know them and work with them this summer.

(Little do they know there is already going to be a blog post about them before they get here (:  )

Things are going to be set up a bit differently this summer but it is looking like it will be an amazing summer none the less!

From the sounds of things the team is going to be a really great fit for the church and as a team in general.

So many awesome things are already planned and in the works for the summer and it is going to be awesome to be able to work with this team to make everything happen!!

We are a mere 7 days away from everyone arriving (officially) and I am getting excited!

I pray that God will just work in the lives of everyone both before they arrive next week and while they are here for the summer.

I pray that He will work through us to accomplish His will through all that we do.

I pray that we will daily seek Him in all that we say, do, and think.

May we be so focused on Him that everything we do directly reflects Him.

May His hands be on us and guide us.

May we be a blessing to the church and the community through this opportunity that we have been given.

I pray that we will draw closer to Him both individually and as a team through everything that we experience this summer.

It's all in His hands!!!

~~~

On a side note, I found out some totally awesome news!!!

Olivet sent out a survey to the students asking about where they go to church, how often they attend, and so on.

Turns out that Journey Church is the 6th most attended church by ONU students!!!

How awesome is that?!?

While this does not give necessarily the most accurate count, it is still awesome knowing that we are one of the churches that ONU students go to most frequently!

I know a lot of the students who come to Journey and I see new faces quite often.

I just pray that we are truly showing them God's love in all that we do and that we are providing them the opportunity to grow closer to God through the worship and message on Sundays.

I pray that we are being the guiding light that they need to stay focused on God.

I pray that we are being His hands and feet to all those that are coming.

We serve such an awesome God!

He is doing amazing things even when we cannot see it.

Sometimes it is just little things like the results of a survey to be reminded that we are making a difference.

It may not be to a huge number of people, but we are reaching a lot of people.

We are making an impact and it is all because of Him.

By keeping our eyes on Him and continuing to do His work we will be able to see results reaped tenfold.

Sometimes it may be tough, but He never fails to show us that our perseverance is producing results.

He never lets us down or fails us.

We just need patience and a little more faith in His plan.

It always works out for the best for the those who love Him!!

A Final Goodbye

So the Summer Mission/Intern Team left this past weekend.

It was one of those weekends that i'll remember for the great memories made, but even more so for the goodbyes that were said (although somewhat reluctantly).

I managed to keep myself in check, but i'm sure it'll all hit me sometime this week.

I think knowing that there is a really good chance that we'll all see each other again made it easier.

However, I felt that I needed to say a few things to all of the guys.

I just couldn't bring myself to say it to them, mainly because I knew I didn't know what to say let alone if I would be able to hold it together while doing so.

So that is what this post is going to be.

My chance to share some things that the guys have taught me, how they've changed me, how God has blessed me through them, and how thankful I am to have met them.

I'll try to keep it short, sweet and to the point, but if I get to rambling please forgive me.

At the beginning of May when my summer began I didn't have a clue what was in store for me.

I didn't know what work would necessarily entail.

I didn't know what would happen in regards to church.

I didn't know that I would make any friends.

I didn't know what would happen.

I didn't know that God was going to bless me in more ways than I ever could have possibly imagined!!

The summer didn't start out so great due to a very negative roommate experience, but thankfully I got through it all with the help of friends and a load of patience from God.

I ended up with an apartment to myself after Block 1 and I was helping at church.

Yet I was still feeling disconnected from everything.

I was just going through the motions of work and going to church.

Then I found out that the mission team was coming for the summer.

I was excited about the possibility of having some fellow college students around.

Little did I know, but they were going to become a very big part of my life this summer.

I first found out that Malik and Andy were apart of the team, which was awesome.

It was good to have a couple people from school that I actually knew around for the summer.

I very quickly met and got to know the rest of the mission team.

The same day I met them we had our first college get together at the church office.

From that night on I became the +1 on the mission team and I spent a lot of my time outside of work with the guys.

In the next two months we made a lot of memories, had a lot of laughs, and spent a lot of time getting to know each other as we did things for the church.

I could tell you some of them, but I don't know that they would be as funny and make as good of a story as I think they would.

(If you would like to hear some details about the summer and what we did feel free to comment on here or message me in some way!! I'd love to share it with you!)

These past two months have presented many of awesome times, as well as some moments where I was challenged in my ways of doing things.

For the first time I was spending time with a group of guys who were chivalrous.

(This day and age it is very hard to come by, so I was kinda surprised I must admit.)

As I shared in an earlier post, the guys made no hesitation to give me shotgun in vehicles, hold doors, make sure I got served first at meals, and so on.

It took me a little while to get used to it all and I gave them a hard time about it for the first couple of weeks.

And then one night after they dropped me off I got to thinking about everything and realized that I was treating the situation all wrong.

I shouldn't have been giving them a hard time about it, but rather as a woman of God I was supposed to be encouraging them and supporting them as they were doing something that is not at all common in our world or culture these days.

By giving them a hard time I wasn't encouraging them and helping them as they are trying to become the Godly men that they are to be.

I was slacking on my job.

I didn't mean to be and it was only because I hadn't been exposed to it, but I very quickly realized that they needed the encouragement and as I was doing so it was helping me to become the Godly woman that I am to be, the Proverbs 31 woman that I desire to be.

I now have a new appreciation for the guys and their consistency in the chivalry department.

I learned a lesson through it all this summer and I couldn't be more thankful.

(Although I may be slightly spoiled now...lol. But appreciative none the less.)

Then there is the fact that I got to see them all interact with each other and see changes happen for all of them throughout the summer.

They may not have been hugely noticeable to others, but I noticed.

I don't necessarily know how to explain the changes that I saw, but I have no doubt that it was God working in their lives through their experiences with Journey, NAMB, and each other.

I saw them all get put into situations that they weren't the most comfortable with.

And in some cases they were just straight up uncomfortable.

They were pushed outside of their boxes, outside of their comfort zones.

But they all made an effort and stuck it out even if it might have been easier to let someone else do whatever it may have been.

They could have stepped back and said no.

They could have refused to do whatever they were supposed to be doing.

But I didn't see a one of them give up or take the easy way out.

It may have taken a lot of perseverance, encouragement, and a lot of faith in God, but they all did some amazing things in the midst of uncomfortable circumstances.

I commend them on their ability to step out in faith and take on whatever challenges that were put in front of them throughout this summer.

Whether it was doing bucket drumline, having tough conversations with people about faith, dealing with city officials, or figuring out how to react to stories/information about fellow college students.

The guys handled it all extremely well and it seemed that they all learned from the various situations and took something from them and grew from those experiences.

It was amazing to see God work through them.

I'm going to make this one of the last things, but it's the one that definitely touched me the most during their time here in Bourbonnais and at Journey.

I don't think that I have spent so much time with a group of young men who have such a desire to do what God wants them to and to share His word and His love with everyone they can.

It means a lot to see a group of guys, or even just one guy, be so willing to serve.

It was also encouraging to see watch them all when they were up singing or playing an instrument, or even watching them during worship at the beginning of service.

Watching them get so into the music and into worship is encouraging and a blessing.

It is rare to see a guy (let alone guys) get so into worship.

And I don't want this next thing to sound creeperish in any way, but I got a chance to watch all of the guys interact with children throughout the past couple months.

I have to say that it is awesome to me to see guys be so good with kids of varying ages.

Being someone who loves kids and cares about them immensely, it is always a huge blessing to see guys who are good with kids and enjoying spending time interacting with them.

And all of the guys were great with the kids at church, kids we met at block parties, and other kids that I only got to hear stories about.

It is such an encouragement to me to see that there are guys out there who know how to treat kids right and are so good with them!!

Overall I just feel extremely, extremely blessed to have been able to spend this summer getting to know this group of guys!

I wish I could put into words everything that is going through my mind right now, but I know there is no way that I can do so.

I just wanted to share a little about how blessed I have been this summer.

Had someone told me at the beginning of May that I would be trying to figure out a way to adequately say thank you to this group of guys for everything that taught me this summer and all the ways the have blessed my life...I would have told ya that ya were crazy!

And now i'm sitting here doing just that.

I don't know if I am even doing a good job of doing so, but I needed to do so.

I can't even put into words how blessed I have been by this great group of guys.

I feel like God knew that I needed these lessons this summer and my staying here and getting to know the guys was the best way for me to do so.

The way that God has worked in me this summer through the guys has been phenomenal.

God definitely knew what He was doing this summer, even if I didn't.

To the guys:

Thank you all so much for being such positive influences in my life this summer!

I couldn't have asked for a better group of Godly men to spend the last couple of months with.

It has been awesome to see all the ways that you guys have made impact in the lives of those at Journey, as well as the lives of many, many people in the community!

You have all been such a blessing!!

I hope that we will all stay in touch and hopefully be able to see each other again.

There have been rumors about a road trip at the end of this fall semester and i'm sure we will get a chance to see each other at various other times in the future.

I will be praying for you all as a new school year starts for almost all of you and wedding plans and job search kick into high gear for one of you.

I will be praying that God will bless you all immensely in the coming months.

I have no doubt that God has huge plans for all of you.

It'll be awesome to see how He does so!

Now that I have written one of the longest posts on here, I will call it good at this.

God has blessed me in more ways than I could have imagined!!

This summer has proved this in so many ways!!

I have no doubt that the coming year will prove to be full of more of His blessings!!