The Beginning

I love writing about the feelings or ideas which rattle around in my brain from day to day, but rarely do I find inspiration to actually write about my day to day life. Considering however, the fact that I am four days away from starting an amazing journey that will most likely change my daily existence, I figured I should blog about it, and since I make the rules here, I think I will! : )

On September 8^th I will be boarding a plane which will take me to Durango, Colorado.  From there, I will take a van to beautiful Pagosa Springs, Colorado which is to be my home for the next three months. Once there, I will then meet people I am most likely destined to be friends with for the rest of my life, have my way of thinking challenged and stretched possibly to the point of explosion, delve into a deeper and sweeter relationship with my Savior, and maybe actually learn to play volleyball.  All because of two words-Summit Semester*. Well, Summit Semester and Jesus! So, three words.

Five years ago, God led to me to a wonderful and exciting place nestled in the magnificent Rocky Mountains of Colorado called Summit Ministries. I was eager to go, but the main reason I went was to fulfill the “worldview” requirement of my high school. However, the first time I set foot on the huge front porch of the Summit Hotel in Manitou Springs, there was something in my heart that clicked. I felt as though I had come home. At that moment and through those next two weeks of learning and growing, God planted a tiny seed in my heart- a love for Summit and everything it does, has done and will continue to do in the lives of young people all over the world. Basically, I was hooked!

Four summers passed and although with each one I wanted to go back, it was not until the fifth summer, this past summer that I was able to return to Summit.  Being back was, to be cliché, a dream come true. Little did I know at that point that God was planning something even bigger for me than just going back to Summit for two weeks in Manitou Springs. The little seed God had planted in me years ago had not only grown, but was going to expand into a whole new adventure! Simultaneously God was fulfilling a dream of mine to return to Summit, while sprouting a whole new dream; to attend Summit Semester. It was an exciting and scary prospect at the time, considering I had taken the past year off of school, and was uncertain if this was indeed the next step God was wanting me to take.  But the more I prayed and thought and talked about it, the more my excitement grew! I decided to take the first step and apply, and once I did the floodgates opened and Jesus wowed my socks right off with crazy blessings and provision so as to clear my way to attend Semester!

All that to say, God is wonderful, faithful, sneaky, gracious, hilarious, awesome, clever, glorious, beautiful and radical, and I cannot wait to see what He has in store for me these next three months at Summit Semester. I expect my mind to be blown by how God blows my expectations out of the water. In just under 105 hours, I start my great adventure, and will use this blog as a means of communicating all the incredible things God does in my life and the lives of my fellow students. Stay tuned!: )

*Summit Semester- A three month long academic program through Summit Ministries, located in the quaint and beautiful Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  Thirty students do life together while working, serving, learning and growing together in order to ground themselves in their faith in Jesus Christ, and become thoroughly equipped to defend that same faith in school, the workplace, relationships and beyond. Summit Semester challenges students in the way they think about themselves, God, religion, culture and the world in which they live.