Out Of This World

Hello all! As you've probably already figured out, I'm back at camp for the summer. For those of you who don't know, I've worked at a bible camp for the past 2 summers and am now back for my third. And I'm loving it! God's doing such cool things here, you cannot even imagine! I'm actually just so pumped to tell you guys about it.
Camp for me in a nutshell has been this: Week 1-Food Prep, Week 2-Dishes/Program Help, Week 3-Ropes Assistant, Week 4-Dishes/Program Help/One on One, and this coming week, Week 5 is Ropes Assistant again. The theme this year is Out Of This World from the verse "Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world.'" (John 18:36a) It's been such a blast. I've noticed this year that the staff are being put in a lot of roles that we wouldn't normally be put in. Like people who've been counseling mostly are being put on dining hall or custodial. Stuff like that. I counseled the majority of the summer last year, and this year I've been in the kitchen a lot. It's been cool to see how God's used this to his glory even when I couldn't see how doing dishes could possibly further his kingdom. I've gotten encouragement notes from countless people telling me how they think it's so awesome how I continue to be willing to serve God in any position, and always with a smile. All glory to God! My smile is from him, and it's to bring him glory.
I want to tell you guys about week 2. Ha, oh week 2! It was absolutely crazy. I have so many stories, so here we go!
It was Thursday night and my friend C, who just so happened to be my "boss" as the Dining Hall Coordinator that week, was having a rough night emotionally and physically. All week she had been having problems with her foot and had been limping. Thursday she messed it up in chapel by jumping and had shooting pain every time she took a step, so instead of limping, she hopped. So she came back to dorm, and we were talking, and J comes to our room and says that God was leading her to talk to C. We ended up praying for her, and J prayed for her foot, and C got up and started walking around...normally! I had not seen her walk normally all week. Then she started jumping and dancing! It was incredible! We went and told the connectors who were in the lounge in dorm, and they said, "C, you need to go pray for B's knee!" And so we went into another room, they had their lights off already, and we told them that we had to pray for B's knee. Prayed, healed, bam! Then we prayed for K's leg which had been giving her almost unbearable pain all week. Healed! This was all on Thursday evening from about 11:30-12:30 at night. It was so random, but so, so, so good!
I thought that Thursday was like, the cool day of the week where God was working and that things were just gonna be done the next day. So on Friday morning at breakfast, R's feet were giving him a lot of pain since he's not on his feet that much normally. A group prayed for him outside, and as I was walking down the road, I heard yelling and screaming. First thought: He's healed!!! Yeah baby!
This other girl who hurts herself a lot had almost broken her toes that week and was on crutches. A few people prayed for her, and she walked out of the chapel without crutches. People were going nuts! We were so excited! She went outside and her campers were like, "Where are your crutches??" Her response, "Guys, I don't need them, God healed my foot!" The campers were so pumped.
At lunch we were sitting at a table talking, and I heard about this one on one camper who lead 4 other campers to Christ! What?!?! God is so crazy!!!
There was a camper who broke her elbow that week and couldn't make her arm go straight at all. She was prayed for at archery, healed! She was blown away. She had full movement of her arm. Insane!
At the next activity of archery, there was a group of boys there. One boy had an ear infection, and so the other campers started praying over his ear. I saw them walking back from archery, about 5 boys, laying hands on each other and praying while they were walking back to their cabin. I ran into the Cove and was like, "You guys will NEVER guess what I just saw!!" This was honestly the coolest thing ever, because at the start of the summer, the summer camp director was talking about how cool it would be if this summer, campers were praying for other campers. And then, BAM! God shows up!!
This other staff member's wrist had been messed up for about a year, she was prayed over, healed!
Another girl, N, sprained her wrist. Prayed over, healed!
One of the coolest things I have ever witnessed was this: at one of the last chapels, the speaker went up to dismiss them, but first he said, "Okay guys, in a few seconds, we are just going to let out the biggest cheer we have for Jesus!" He counted down, and then whole chapel just went nuts! Usually when they tell the kids to give a shout for Jesus, it lasts like, 10 seconds. This time, they would not stop! I kid you not, they were just screaming for Jesus. And it was awesome! It was a glorious sound.
We've also had so many kids accept Jesus as their Savior. It's so sweet! During week 1, the count for kids who became Christians was 21. Week two was 18. We're now half way through summer camp, 4 weeks down, and in those 4 weeks, 70 kids have accepted Christ! How incredible is that?! And we're only half way in!! God is so good.
Please continue to keep camp in your prayers, for both the campers and staff. I know that God is going to continue to work in awesome ways. If you guys have any prayer requests, shoot me a comment or an email (xo_arial_xo@hotmail.com) and I would LOVE to pray for you! I've got a prayer list on my iPod, and I would be more than happy to add you to it.
Huge blessings! Love you guys!
Ariel

Our staff t-shirts!

Do You Remember...

I cannot stand it when adults say to teenagers, "You don't have any problems yet, just you wait." Or, "Oh, being a teenager isn't that bad. It gets worse once you get older." Or, my personal favorite *eye roll*, "You don't even know what stress is yet." Being a teenager may be one of the most difficult points in your life. Do I know from experience? Of being a teenager, yes. Of being an adult, no, however I have talked to adults who've confirmed this. I understand that adults often forget what it's like to be a teenager, to be in high school, to try to figure out who you are, to have the stress of school and jobs and thinking of the future and saving money and having a social life all at the same time. And if that's not enough, what about the family problems and drama with friends. If that's all not enough to stress a teenager out, what about that teenager who was beaten as a child and is still dealing with the stress of being terrified of going home? Or the teenager who was raped and now has to try to heal from the damage that was done without letting on to anyone that anything is wrong? Or the teenager who made one wrong choice and is now pregnant and has to give up her education and possible success to raise this child. Or the teenager whose mom just got diagnosed with terminal cancer, yet he still has to go to school and work and pretend to be strong. Or the teenager who has been made fun of so much that he needs to cut himself every single day just to be able to wake up the next morning? Or the teenager who looks in the mirror and sees only fat, fat, and more fat, so she starves herself to be accepted. Or the teenager whose parent's just announced that they're getting a divorce and they now have to decide who to live with, what town they want to live in, whether or not to leave their friends and all they know. Or the teenager who feels like they're walking on eggshells at home because their parent is an alcoholic and will snap at the smallest thing. Or the teenager who has so many secrets bottled up inside that they just might burst. Or the teenager who is friends of people who are going through stuff like this and they feel the need to be strong for their friends, meanwhile they're breaking inside for their friends. We, as teenagers, have incredible things and opportunities in our lives, not gonna lie. But we also have so much to deal with, and it really does not help when the adults around us have no sympathy whatsoever. As an adult, think about what you went through before you entered into adulthood. Were you sexually abused? Were you bullied? Were you going through family problems? Before you speak, think about what the teenager you're talking to might be going through. For some, an adult telling them that they don't know what stress or problems are might just be the breaking point between life and death for them. Teenagers are at this raw, precious age where we're figuring life out. Who we can trust. What we like to do. What we want to do for the rest of our lives. What we're good at. What love is. Who we are in general. What we need is godly men and women coming along side us and mentoring us, loving us, and being there for us. Please be that for a teenager in your life, we need it more than you know.
Blessings,
Ariel

Picky Eater

You know what bothers me? Picky eaters when it comes to the bible. They pick and choose what they like and talk about how good the food is and are so thankful and satisfied with it. But then they see food in front of them that they don't like. So they push it to the side and continue on with the other food that they do enjoy. Maybe this food they didn't like was too spicy. They didn't want to try it out in small helpings at first and then keep escalating when their tastebuds could handle more heat. It was too hard, too much work, so they just push it aside.
  So many people do this with the bible. They love the stuff where Jesus is performing miracles or when Paul is telling the church in Thessalonica that through their perserverance and faith in their suffering, they have become examples and are spreading the gospel in 1 Thessalonians 1. But wait, then they get to chapter 4 and they get a different taste in their mouths, one they're not sure of they like. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says: God wants you to be holy and to stay away from sexual sins. Pretty straight forward right? But then they start thinking, "But...if I stop having sex with my boyfriend he might break up with me...plus, I like sex...it'll be too hard to stop now...and we're going to get married eventually anyways...ah, I'm sure it's fine. God won't care. It's just sex. Everyone has sex!" And so they push the food aside. They still love food, just not that food. This, of course, isn't a problem with real food, but when it comes to spiritual food, you can't just pick out the parts that you like and leave the rest for whoever wants it. You need all of it to stay spiritually strong and healthy. Will some of the stuff that God tells you to do be hard? Heck yes! Will you always want to do it? Nope! But does Daddy know best? Always. He's the author of the world, do you think that just maybe, just maybe he knows what he's talking about?
Blessings,
Ariel

Fight

I think that many of my days lately have started out with the thought, "God, you are absolutely insane!" And he is! But that's obviously why I love him :)
My friend Julie and I have had the incredible opportunity to help some friends of ours out with a petition asking the Canadian government to create an action plan to combat human trafficking. I heard about the petition about 2 weeks ago, and a week and a half ago started working to get signatures. So far I have spoken to 3 high school classrooms, individuals and 6 grade 8 classrooms about human trafficking. WOW! God is crazy. Absolutely insane!!
"One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth; a servant completely divested of freedom and personal rights." This is the dictionary definition of human trafficking. So, in simple terms, people are bought and sold against their will, they have no rights and no freedom, they are treated horribly and forced to do work with no pay. These jobs can include working on farms, in factories, in the drug trade, in the sex trade, as housekeepers, in restaurants, etc. As you can see, there are both physical labor and sexual labor. Unfortunately, a large percentage of human trafficking is sex trafficking.
The thing that I hate about sexual abuse in general is that God created sex as a good thing. A really good thing! It's where two married people would become one, glorifying God, and be intimate. But go figure, Satan uses God's gifts and twists them to hurt and disgrace people.
Most people assume that human trafficking is not an issue in North America. We usually think that it's only an issue in India and other places overseas. But it's not. It is a very at home and real issue in Canada. In every single grade 8 classroom we went to, we asked the question, "Do you think that human trafficking is an issue in Canada?" and the majority of the answers were a very strong, "No." When we told them that people are trafficked into Canada from overseas, out of Canada to other parts of the world and that Canadians were trafficked inside of our own country, they were all absolutely shocked. They could not believe it.
The Canadian government has taken steps to combat human trafficking. They've signed a number of treaties with the UN. They have agreed to create a National Action Plan (NAP) to deal with human trafficking in 2007 and the House of Commons agreed. However, today, 5 years later, they still have not created an action plan. In fact, they don't plan to. The organization (IWGTIP) that they were working with to create this action plan no longer has orders to do so.
This is not okay. Canada made a promise to its citizens that they were going to combat human trafficking, and that they would create a national action plan to deal with it, but they have not followed through. By signing the petition, basically what you're saying is, "I'm a Canadian citizen who knows about and is concerned about human trafficking in our country. I want to help and protect the victims and see this form of modern day slavery abolished. As a citizen of Canada, I care about this issue and I want to see the government create an action plan as you promised." The approach that Canada would take is the 3 P's: Prevent [human trafficking from happening], Protect [the victims of human trafficking], and Prosecute [the traffickers].
I told the grade 8's about a specific story of human trafficking in Canada. A man trafficked a 15 year old girl for 2 years. He was caught and went through the courts. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison, however they reduced his sentence to 14 months. That is less time in jail than he spent trafficking this young girl. Another man trafficked a 17 year old girl for 2 years, got caught, went through the legal system and got sentenced to one week in jail. This is where the kid's jaws dropped. They know that this is not okay, that it is not acceptable, and that it needs to stop. This is where the "prosecution" part comes in.
The government must reply within 45 days of us sending the petition in. Since they have already signed treaties with the UN and have said they would create a NAP, it is likely that they will respond to the petition by following through with this promise after seeing that their citizens care about it.
Our goal is to get 100,000 signatures. So far, from 2 weeks, we have 1450 signatures! We have such power to create change in our world, you guys! Please, if you live in my area, ask me about this petition!! I would be more than happy to talk to you about it.
Stats:
27 million people are held in slavery world wide
Human trafficking is growing, faster than weapons or drugs
Every 30 seconds, another person becomes a victim of human trafficking
Children as young as 4 are sex slaves
This affects both men and women, boys and girls
They are forced to service up to 40 men a day
[Source: A21campaign.org]
We can be the change, you guys. We hold power.
God bless!
Ariel

Surrender

I had the privilige to go to YC Manitoba this past weekend. Let me tell you, I didn't really expect anything extravagent out of the weekend, but God had other plans! He just absolutely blows my mind. Blows. My. Mind!!! I find that when you expect something to happen, it usually doesn't, so I am so glad that I didn't expect this! This weekend was just a time of total healing and restoration for me.
We were listening to the speaker, Elijah Waters, on Friday evening. We had just finished worship with Unhindered, which was amazing as per usual. As I had said before, I hadn't really expected anything that huge out of the weekend. I went through a really hard month in April, and I was pretty much done for. And God knew that. Ha, he's sneaky, let me tell you! I had been struggling with a really difficult past event in my life just pounding me down this month. So Elijah, in the middle of his message, out of the blue says something incredibly specific to my situation, and says that there is hope and there is healing. (I'm trying to be as detailed as possible with still keeping my private matters private, I would really love to tell you the exact phrase, but this is personal, after all.) Funny thing I realized later was that he was actually standing on the side of the stage nearest me. My heart stopped. I kid you not, I swear it stopped, even if just for a millisecond. Tears came to my eyes, my jaw dropped and I just froze. I could not believe what had just come out of this stranger's mouth. No one else was really reacting to this except me. And the weird thing is that it felt as if he was speaking directly to me, I just had this gut feeling that what he said was said to me. I had never experienced this before, I was just so baffled by it. Go figure, God decided he was gonna grab my attention on the first day of the weekend. I love him :)
On Saturday afternoon I went and found Elijah. I knew that I needed to talk to him about this. I told him the quote, and he said he remembered saying it. I told him that I just thought it was completely out of the blue and asked if he had planned on saying it or what. I just wanted to get down to the bottom of this. He told me that he hadn't planned on saying it, and that it was probably about as random for me as it was for him. He said that God told him that someone in the crowd needed to hear what he said on Friday night. Again, just complete shock overwhelmed me.
Isn't it so amazing how God loves me and cares about me, ME, so much that he chose to, out of over a thousand people, single me out to tell me that one thing. Isn't that AWESOME?!?! Man, I still cannot get over it. I can't believe that he could love me that much. Ah!
After 3 workshops I went back to the hotel. I was going to change so I went into the bathroom. Apparently changing my clothes was not all God had planned for in that bathroom. The theme of the weekend was Surrender, but I really hadn't expected to surrender. I mean, yeah, it would've been nice, but I just didn't think that would be me. But man, in that tiny, cramped little hotel bathroom, I just started worshipping God like never before. I was raising my hands, praying, ultimately, I surrendered. I surrendered my life to my Lord in a tiny hotel bathroom. Ha! And who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? I noticed a complete 180 in me. All of a sudden, worship with Unhindered was...changed. I have never worshipped like that before. God's spirit just washed over me. I gave it all to him. I heard his voice more clearly and felt little nudges from him. I had the courage to go up to someone and pray for them when I never used to pray for people. I just...changed. And it was and still is amazing!! God is so good! Wow. Praise the Lord!
When I was surrendering in the bathroom (ha :) ) on Saturday, I told God that if I saw this one guy whose workshop I went to at YC again that I would ask him to pray for me. In Trevor's session he had talked about something that was, again, very specific to me. So I wanted him to pray with/for/over me. I was expecting to see him on Sunday because he had another workshop then, but no, of course God had other plans and I saw him on Saturday evening before the Group 1 Crew concert. I was like...God...? So eventually I got up the courage to go talk to him. I told him my story and told him what I wanted him to pray for. He got this volunteer to come pray with us and also his daughter. Before he prayed for what I asked him, though, he led me in a prayer of forgiveness for the people who had hurt me in the past. That part I was not expecting, but it was totally and completely part of God's plan for me during that weekend!! This provided so much healing to me I can hardly believe it. I feel forgiveness for the first time in years. I feel freedom. I am free!
On Sunday, there was a girl sharing her testimony at the last worship concert with Unhindered. Her story didn't connect with mine, but she did say one thing that just totally broke me. And when I say broke, I mean broke. I hadn't gotten so emotional to the point of crying all weekend. Sure, I had tears come to my eyes, but it wasn't hard to blink them back. So here I am in the middle of this huge crowd of teenagers, with no friends around me, and I just started bawling. I couldn't stop. The floodgates opened, and the tears just flowed. Through the rest of her story, through her prayer, and through the rest of worship, I just cried and prayed and worshipped God. But you know what? It wasn't a bad cry. It was a cry that I needed. A cry that healed me.
God is amazingly good. He worked this whole weekend together for way more than I could've ever imagined. Three days later and I am still just blown away by what he did, how he cares and loves. Like, wow!!! God is so good. So, so, so good!!
And by the way, I didn't just "surrender"...it was a SURRENDER. I am just craving God and thirsting to learn more about him. I'm leaning on him. I want to read my bible all the time. I just want to be with him. I love him more and more every day!
God is incredible!! I truly have the best Daddy possible :)
God bless,
Ariel


Little tidbits from the weekend :) Top left-Rapture Ruckus; Top right-Sean Quigley; Bottom left-Pat Barrett from Unhindered; Bottom right-Group 1 Crew

I have a mustache!! :) Top left-The Panic Squad (notice Andrew using my hair as a mustache! xD); Top right-Mike Love (creator of YC); Bottom left-Pat Barrett (his face!! xD); Bottom right-morph suits!!

It Is Finished

Thanks to youth I've made it a tradition for this year and last, and in the following years to watch Passion of The Christ on Good Friday. Last year was the first time I had ever seen it. I was pretty overwhelmed, to say the least. It made the crucifixion real. It made the sacrifice real. It made the pain real. It made the abuse real. It made the suffering real. It made Jesus real. It had never registered in my mind that Jesus being persecuted and brutally beaten and killed on that cross was all real. That it really happened. I could never comprehend it. I always knew that it happened...but it was just head knowledge. Kind of like knowing that a family member is going to pass away soon, you know it's going to happen, but it doesn't really click until they're actually not there anymore and you see them in that casket.
So last night, I watched it for the second time with the same youth. Let's just say that this time around there were many more tears I had to attempt to fight back. There wasn't even a point in fighting them though when he was up on that cross. The flood gates definitely opened then. And you know what? That's not a bad thing either.
As I was watching Jesus get beat, whipped, his flesh get ripped from his body with the cat of nine tails, his red blood replacing the color of his skin, being spit at, being laughed at, being hated...I yelled at him and said, "You shouldn't have done that! Why would you do that?!" It's just not fair. I was actually so mad at him. I'm the type of person who hates watching other people go through hard stuff. I would much sooner say, No, I'll go through that, give it to me, I can handle it...but that person, they don't deserve it, let them be free. And there I was, watching my Lord being treated like dirt. Taking all of my sin onto himself. Past, present and future. He knew that I was gonna screw up bad, he knew that I was going to need a lot of work, he knew everything that would become apart of me and my life and he still went through with it. If I was the only person on this earth, he still would have gone through that torture. He still would have died in the most painful, humiliating, disgraceful way imaginable. He wanted me. This just blows my mind. How the God of all the earth, who made everything and everyone, who knows all my thoughts, troubles and temptations, who could have easily said, "Nope, they're not good enough for me anymore," wanted...me. Me! Of all people...wow. Just wow. Personally, I think he's absolutely insane...but I don't mind. :) I wouldn't change him for the world!!
At the end of the movie, I again said to him, "You shouldn't have done that." This time, in a quiet, sad voice. And you know what he said to me? "I already did." And there's nothing I can do about it. No matter how much I want to fight with him, no matter how much I wish he didn't have to go through all that horror, he already did. It's done. It's finished. It's accomplished. He's already bought, wrapped and given us this gift. This gift of salvation. This gift of himself; his love, his peace, his joy, of life. He took our sin. All of it. He carries it now. And you know what? It's not a burden to him because he's defeated sin. Now comes our part. We have to decide if we're going to open this gift. Some people just take the wrapped gift but never open the wrapping paper. They just let it sit, unopened in their hearts and lives. Some people will take the wrapping paper off and open the box but are too hesitant to take the gift out. And then there are those people who really use this gift. They rip that wrapping paper off and they tear the box open and they use that gift. They talk to God, they read their bibles, they witness to others, they go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Who do you think has the more fulfilled, joyful life? The one who puts the box in the corner of their room, hardly touched or even looked at, or the one who dives into that gift? It's your choice. He's waiting for you.
God bless,
Ariel

This Is Me

I don't wear a lot of makeup. I don't have big boobs or a butt or any curves for that matter. I don't wear bikinis in the summer. I don't let my back show when I bend over. I don't wear low cut shirts. I don't wear shorts so short that they could easily be mistaken for underwear. I don't let my bra show, not even my bra straps. I don't give the middle finger. I don't swear like a truck driver. I don't pose seductively in pictures. I don't let my cleavage hang out. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't party every weekend. I don't do drugs. I don't go against my parents. I would take a Friday evening of feeding and hanging out with a bunch of homeless people over going to a party any day. I don't flirt with every guy I come in contact with. I don't say yes to just any guy. I don't hang all over guys. I won't take pictures of me and my boyfriend making out. I won't let him take advantage of me. I won't have sex with him until he puts a ring on my finger. I won't even give him a chance if he does not love God more than he loves me.
And if all that stuff that I do or do not do makes me undesirable, then so be it. I am sick and tired of seeing the girls who wear layers of makeup and not enough layers of clothing having all the guys wanting them. I'm not like those girls, and I don't want those guys. But does that mean that I don't like to feel wanted? I'm still human. I'm just sayin', this is me, this is who I am. I am the daughter of the most high King, that makes me a princess. So if all these qualities I have makes me undesirable or not attractive or unwanted, then so be it. One day, my prince will come.
God bless,
Ariel

I'm not the prettiest, I'm not the most fun to be around, I'm not the coolest, but hey, I'm not changing for no one. This is what we've got, and God doesn't make any mistakes. This is me.