"See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not percieve it? 
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland." 
~ Isaiah 43:19

     There have been so many things happening lately...I almost cannot believe what I am seeing.  God has moved amazingly on our behalf (and what I mean by "our", I'll explain shortly).  As one of my friends said: "I've been living in this awesome dream, and sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to wake up and find that it's not true."  It feels like I am always saying things like this, but the truth is, whenever I see God working, I can't help getting excited about it!

    This summer, our sister church lost their senior pastor.  He handed in his resignation in June...I don't know all of the details, but there was some kind of conflict in leadership that caused him to pull out.  Now this is sad enough, but he was also the youth pastor, so when he left, the church not only lost a leader, but many of my close friends did as well.  There is still quite a bit of hurt and confusion, though the first sting of it has passed, I think.

    The pastor in July, a week before youth camp. 

    I want you to know that in and of itself, our church youth camp is not extraordinary.  We come together, play, eat, worship together, and there is teaching.  The amazing part is that often the people who come are so hungry for God, that the place where we meet literally gets soaked in His prescence.  Mmmm...I can't even find words to describe what it's like. 

     But looking back, I see God's perfect timing in bringing all of us there.  He sent a fire back with us.  God has raised up youth leaders from the people who went, and ignited a new passion in the youth through them.  He has also released prophetic words, and there were a couple people who have recieved tongues for the first time.  Last week, the Spirit prompted me to call one of my friends (this makes me laugh), and she was terribly excited because God had just shown her something, and she really wanted to talk to someone about it!!  As it turns out, a couple of the remaining pastors at the sister church were prompted by the Holy Spirit to have several of the youth campers pray over them. WOW.

    I could go on like this for the rest of the day...God has poured out a tremendous blessing!

    I'll only add a couple more things:

    Firstly, God blessed me with an awesome first week at college.  I ran into so many people I new, and have a couple of new friends now. 

   And an ending thought: God has done so much already, but that doesn't mean that there's all that there is.  He comes when His people are desperate for Him.  So I pray that our desire for Him would not be satisfied through what He has already done, but that it would only make us more hungry for His presence. 

     I know this update was mostly for my benefit, but I hope anyone who reads this is encouraged.