Hurray, catch up day!!

Hi

I am going to catch everyone up to where I am right now! Get Excited!!

This post will be about Thursday - Monday. To finish off the month of September!

So without further a do, here I go.

Thursday

We had class in the morning and we learned about how to do a scripture memory box. This is just a tool that we can use to help memorize scripture throughout the year and for many more to come. All you need is five supplies to do this assignment.

1. Bible

2. Sharpie

3. Notecards 3x5

4. Notecard file dividers 3x5

5. Notecard box holder (from Walmart or hobby lobby)

On the notecard file dividers you will put these file names. Everyday, Monday, Tuesday, etc., 1, 2, etc - 31. By having these file names you have covered everyday of the week and the month. The object in having this scripture memory box is to continually be looking and refreshing yourself on the scripture you want to memorize. You should have no more than three verses in each section. You start by putting it in everyday and then will move it to once a week, then move it to once a month. You can go at your own pace. If you need to focus on three scripture everyday for three weeks then do so or if you can work on them one week then move to only saying them once a week and you do remember them do so. You have the freedom in that.

After talking about how to use the box we went straight into learning about our FIRST ASSIGNMENT. We were give a 4" binder and told by the end of our time here it would be filled with all of our assignments. I got so excited but really overwhelmed because of how big it was. That is going to be a lot of assignments. Then I took a step back and reminded myself that these really weren't assignments but us digging into the Word of God and having clear beliefs and vision and ways to teach what it is saying. I LOVE THAT!!! Okay, now to talk about our first real assignment that was graded and will determine if we get graduate credit and graduate from The Institute. Our assignment was to write our FIRST BELIEF STATEMENT!! I was so so pumped. We were to write about conflict resolution.
A belief statement is a statement that states your belief on any issue or concept. A belief statement is fully backed up by Scripture. This means for every thought written down on your belief statement it must be backed up with at least two verses. This is biblical-based and not opinion based. On my finished belief statement I have a paragraph of nine sentences and three pages worth of verses to back the nine sentences up with. This assignment took me quite a few hours to complete. We were given time in class on Thursday to work on it. Then I finished it up Friday afternoon. The belief statement was not the only piece to this assignment. After writing our belief statement we were asked to write a teaching outline for when we are going to teach on this subject. I chose to relate my teaching outline to middle school students. The outline had to go through the biblical way to resolve conflict mainly Matthew 18. Having your belief statement already written truly helped with this assignment. I walked through the belief statement and can teach middle schoolers how to resolve conflict. The last part to the assignment was to develop five discussion questions for a discipleship opportunity on conflict resolution.

Thursday lunch we had JBU come in and cater Danna's BBQ and afterwards talk with us about the opportunity to partner with them and get a masters program while here at The Institute or even afterwards up to five years later. Dan and I decided we will not be pursuing that avenue at the moment. We would rather be all in for what The Institute offers and its community. However, we will definitely be talking about it the next couple years again. After their talk we all went through serve safe training with Gina Hinch. This training is for us to all work in the dinning hall throughout the year. We each have a dinning hall duty that is around 3 hours a week and is apart of our tuition that is paid for us. The evening was ours to do whatever we wanted and I worked on my belief statement.

Friday
We had class in the morning and it consisted of a longer worship time of almost an hour, and us discussing our class declaration. I can see why churches struggle so much in laying the foundation for a new church. This is because of the different personalities within the body, the people pleasers, the over thinkers, the outspoken, the soft spoken and so on. It was very apparent during the two hours we worked on making a single sentence who are going to be leaders in our class. Here is our Class Declaration
The Kanakuk Institute Class of 2014 Declaration
"In order to fulfill the Great Commission, we as the KI class  of 2014 commit to God through humble submission, commit to others through sacrificial love and service, and commit to ourselves to godly discipline and the unity of believers, so that He may do immeasurable more for His glory!"
The rest of Friday consisted of finishing up my belief statement assignment, eating leftovers, and playing games in the lounge with fellow Instituters.

Saturday
Sleep in day!! It was glorious to sleep in. I had breakfast at 10 and then lunch at 1. During that time I was researching supplies for a Wedding Shower I will be putting on on October 21st. After lunch I searched the stores here in Branson for supplies. I was out in the rain with no umbrella or rain jacket so it was quite an adventure going from store to store. Once I got back I had dinner and played some card games with a girl here, named Hannah. Then honestly went to bed.

Sunday
Went to FBC Branson 9:35am service and then to a newly married Sunday school group afterwards. We have been to the class twice now and really have enjoyed it. We just started a new series and it being week two it was all about Having Fun in a marriage. The lesson has us each doing something fun, exciting, and meaningful to our spouses as a surprise each day! Super fun for Dan and I to enjoy the fun planned events with each other.

Monday Today!!
We had class this morning with David Lawson. We will have him as a speaker until Wednesday. He is teaching us on how to Inductively Study our Bibles. While we are here at The Institute we will go through two precepts, one each semester. So David is setting us up for success in those. After lunch we had a short one hour talk with Chad Hampsch about Finances. He gave us the 7 principles of Dave Ramsey on living a debt free life and challenge us to start working on that this year. This evening we had fun field games with the Link Year Students. These students are just out of high school and are doing a gap year program that focuses on Biblical truth and equipping them for college. So we needed to get to know these guys and gals so why not have dinner together and then some healthy competition. Luckily, I had bug spray so I didn't get eaten alive when we went to the lower fields to play. It was a great time and my team got progressively better at each rotation of a new game. And there weren't any major fights about sportsmen like conduct or how competitive people can get.

All in all these past two weeks have been jammed packed but so great! I have learned a lot about myself and really look forward to the rest of the 8 months here.
Excited to keep you posted on what is going on here in Branson MO. My plan is of right now to post either Wednesday or Thursday and Saturday or Sunday. Thanks for your support and prayers and I hope my long posted don't make you tired or bore you. Have an amazing Tuesday and Wednesday! Talk with you soon!

Lazy Day

Hi everyone,

So I have had a great lazy day here in Branson, MO. I have not given myself enough time to write out a full post, but didn't want to leave anyone hanging. I will post tomorrow evening and we will all be caught up then. I hope this doesn't disappoint anyone. I really have really just enjoyed a full day of church fellowship, institute fellowship and a wonderful nap with my husband. Therefore, I didn't give blogging a second thought. I pray your Sunday brought rest and seeking God in that. Have an incredible Monday! Talk to you all soon!

Three Incredible Speakers in 3 days!

Hello blog followers, family and friends!

Today and tomorrow are going to be yet again long posts but then you will be all caught up! My hope and plan is once I catch you up to post twice a week. So let's get started!

Monday - Todd Wagner, Tuesday - Braun Brown, and Wednesday - Timothy Ateek.

Todd Wager came to speak on conflict resolution. Todd Wagner is the pastor Watermark church in Dallas Texas. He is a long time Kanakuk Guy. His daughter goes to OSU and we did K-Life together. However, I had never heard her dad speak. So it's awesome to finally hear him speak here at The Institute. His topic was a fun one for Dan and I to hear about. Conflict resolution actually was one thing over the summer that Dan and I worked on in our marriage. Hearing what he had to say, and the steps he has placed in his church to resolve conflict was so cool to hear about.
Our main focus for the class was to review over the verses Matthew 18:15–18. This is where in the Bible Jesus talks about how to resolve conflict. First go to your brother who is in sin in private. Second take a witness if your brother doesn't listen to you. Third if your brother still does not listen to you or the witness you take it to the church. Watermark church has a field guide on how to approach these three steps if need be. Todd Wagner gave us the field guide and we walked through it together. There was time to scripture and we dug deep into them. As well as the helpful hints the field guide provided. Todd Wagner and his church believe that the reason why we resolve conflict is to glorify God. Through that we must look at our own sin first before approaching our brother. And then we are to be reconciled with God and to others.
We are called to be peacemakers, Matthew 5:9. Because of this we should see conflict as an opportunity. An opportunity to glorify God and become more like Christ in being a peacemaker. To be a good peacemaker like I said the first thing in resolving conflict is to look at your own sin in your own life, Matthew 7:5. Todd then gave us the step-by-step process that he lays out for his church in confronting a brother. He calls it the 7As to become a peacemaker.
1. Ask the Lord and others for help in self awareness.
2. Address everyone involved as soon as possible
3. Avoid the words if, but, and maybe
4. Apologize
5. Ask for forgiveness
6. Accept the consequences
7. Alter your behavior
Todd then talked about how to avoid minor offenses and what was a minor offense. He gave us four questions to ask ourselves to see if it was a offense we needed to approach your brother on or one that needed to not bother us.
1. Is the offense seriously honoring God.
2. Has it permanently damage a relationship
3. Is it seriously hurting other people
4. Is it seriously hurting the defender himself
Todd concluded his talk with talking about reconciling. We are to be reconciled by God and then to others. This is what it takes to be a peacemaker.

Braun Brown came to talk to us about student ministry. He is the head of the full student ministry at Watermark church in Dallas Texas. Yes, that is correct if you've read the post from yesterday and the section right above this, we've had three speakers from Watermark church in Dallas Texas. The staff here at The Institute truly believe that it is a church following after Christ and has biblical teaching for its members. His talk consistent of telling us key things to know about being in ministry. Here are the high points.
-Ministry is a great privilege. God doesn't NEED you to do ministry He wants to use you to do His work.
-Be teachable and passionate. Make room for God to teach you through other people. Proverbs 27:9. Always assume the best when people are teaching you.
-Live in the light and Foster living in the light. John 3:19-21.
-Relational, spiritual, and professional trust are three keys to team leadership. Own your own stuff. Prayer, accountability, sharing what God is teaching you are ways to provide a team atmosphere. The ability to get stuff done, follow through on and projects, and being all in in all aspects shows you want to be apart of the team. Having short accounts, an open door policy for confrontation, and asking forgiveness with every team member allows it to be a smooth and productive team.
-Keep the Sabbath rhythm to your life. This means to have rest. Physical, spiritual, and emotional. These are all part of keeping your Sabbath restful. Know the signs of when you're in a stage unrest, and need to take some time for yourself.
-Trust God it's writing the story. Examples such as David and Joseph.
Braun Brown concluded his talk by talking through things that have changed in student ministry throughout the years. This was very enlightening and great to hear about. He talked about how parents are more involved today than ever before. And that small groups are the entry points to bringing new kids to join a small group, not the big events anymore.

Timothy Ateek is from Waco Texas. He has a ministry called      and it focuses on college ministry. On our schedule it said he was coming to talk to us about how to make amends with a friend. However, when he came up on stage to talk with us he told us this, "I know your schedule says I'll be talking about making them into different. However, on Sunday I really felt like I needed to talk about something else. So on Monday I called Chad Hampsch and asked if I could switch what I was talking about. We decided to pray about it till Tuesday. And now I'm here on Wednesday and our talk is going to be different. Today I'll be walking us through verse by verse of one book of the Bible and that book is Song of Solomon."
The whole class giggled and got a little scared. Let me just say this, there are two married couples out of the 76 people here. There are six engaged people. Four of them are couples and are both here attending the Institute together, two their future spouse is not here. Hence, there are a lot of single people in the classroom. I can say now I was very glad we had this talk. I was a little apprehensive at first with how our class was responding to what he was saying. The atmosphere got better as they realized this was a book for everyone no matter the status of our relationships. Timothy was quite funny with this intense subject we were talking about. If you don't know Song of Solomon is all about LOVE. The love that God gave us here on earth to enjoy as a married couple, one man and one woman. I am not joking when I say that we went verse by verse through this book. However, we did not make it through the full book, because of time. We only got to chapter 4. Even though we only got through half of the book it was so enlightening and so cool to see how God has given us a full book on relationships. Tim titled his talk Finding, Making, and Maintaining love.
These are the highlights of what I got out of Tim's talk about Song of Solomon.
Chapter 1 verses 1–7, is section 1. It is titled, who you're looking for and who you want to be.
1. Verse 3, is the girl talking about Solomon. His oils and fragrance, and how she compares that to his character and reputation. Tim challenged the guys and asked, what do you smell like? Is your character something to be proud of, smell good or not.
2. Verse 7, is the girl talking about how she wants to meet Solomon, but that she won't go out wondering like the other girls for men. She will wait for him to pursue. She will stand firm and her beliefs. Tim challenged the girls and asked, are you wondering for you waiting for God's man in your life?
Chapter 1 – Chapter 3:5, is section 2. It is titled, how to date well.
1. Verse 11, is the girls friends talking about helping the girl get ready for a date. I loved this verse because that is still true today. Whenever a girl gets out on a date the first thing she does is call her friends and they ask her what she is gonna wear and then they help her get ready.
2. Chapter 2:2, is Solomon affirming the girls beauty after she states she is just common. I loved this verse and how Tim put it. Guys are here to affirm and push us to believe that we as girls are beautiful. No not for us to find our security in them but just like friends to speak truth when we listen to lies. Tim put it like this, "guys if you let a girl wander in her beauty then she will wander in her security."
Chapter 3 - Chapter 5:1, is section 3. It is titled marriage and sex.
We did talk through this section, however I am not going to write about it on the Internet.
I loved hear Tim talk over this book of the Bible. I love how it is still relevant today, such like the rest of the Bible.

The speakers were the main activities that happened in those three days. There were a couple other things I would like to share about which happened during that time though.
While we are here at The Institute we will serve in an internship here in Branson. On Monday, we got the chance to talk with different ministry opportunities to intern with face to face. Just yesterday we were given our internship placement so I would like to share about mine now. Mine is not with a church, or K-Life, instead I will be working with Kanakuk Kamps in their kamp kitchen and food department. I will be working along side Gina Hinch in developing a new way to keep track of every food item served at kamp and its ingredients. There will be a version online for parents to see as well as a hard copy in every kitchen so the cooks have the knowledge as well. I am SUPER PUMPED about this project and can't wait to start and tell all of you how it is going. I really believe this will benefit kamp and help with the process of offering different foods and having allergy food kids be able to enjoy the amazing place of Kanakuk Kamps.
The last thing we did in these three days was go to chapel on Wednesday. Shay Robbins, one of the men directors for The Kanakuk Kamp K-2 spoke. He spoke about Justification. This means to be set free from sin. His focus was on how we are in bondage because of our sin and that the belief in Christ is the only way to get out. He finished with talking about a heart change to follow Christ. No this isn't mandatory, however if you believe In Jesus Christ then you should be compelled to change. How a heart change comes from repentance. How repentance is to agree with God about my sin. And how our reaction to this repentance it heart change,

I hope yet again you have been encouraged in some way from reading my blog. I do take this seriously. My faith, my walk with Christ and how I portray it to others. I pray The Lord brings you to repentance because we all need it daily, and through that we decide to make a heart change. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day or night (to cover whatever time you are reading it at!)

Recovery and Service in Branson

Friday was set up to be like a regular Monday schedule day. So we had worship, class, lunch, class and then dinner. We had our first out of town speaker and it was phenomenal! The speaker was John Elmore from Watermark church of Dallas Texas. He came to speak with us about recovery. He heads up the recovery program at Watermark church. This subject was an intense subject but a fun one to dig deep into. We walked through his 12 step process to bring recovery. 

1. Nature of man

2. Nature of God

3. Salvation

4. Old self

5. Confession

6. Turning from/to

7. Follow Christ

8. Forgive

9. Amends

10. Short accounts

11. Intimacy with God

12. Great commission

The first 3 steps talk about salvation

4-9 talk about repentance

10-12 talk about abiding and walking with God. 

We proceeded to go through all of the steps in-depth and talk about scripture that correlates to them. Steps 1-3 were easy to talk about. They were things that we've all heard about growing up in church about our sinful nature and God and His salvation for us. Step 4 is where it got interesting. We were given a huge Excel sheet document, and it was to be our inventory of all past. We were asked to start filling it out by remembering sins we had committed. There were six categories to fill out were these Resentment, Fear, Harm to Me, Harm by Me, Sexual, and Recovery Issue.

 Here is an example. 

After spending some class time on filling parts of this inventory out we proceeded to step 5. Before starting step five we took our break for lunch. So when we return from lunch to start step five we broke up into boy and girl groups. This was a good thing because what we're about to do was confess our students to our peers. This was such an incredible time. I say incredible not that it was easy but that was very hard there were intense sins that needed to be confessed and also the need to be prayed over for each group. This made our community so much closer. That we could confess sin and be forgiven and be held accountable to continue to stay away from such sins. Step 6 turning from/to is what John Elmore like to call repentance. This step also had an Excel worksheet to fill out.

This worksheet was to help us see the sins that we do over and over again. After completing the worksheet we could see why we fell into the same sins continually. I have not finished this worksheet yet but I do believe that once I do I will be able to see the sins I fall into over and over again. Not only does this worksheet show you the sins you continually falling too but it gives you a way to stop and repent from then to no longer do them again. It does this by showing you what allows you to fall into that soon. The areas that are sinful nature over turns for spiritual walk, and once you recognize this you're able to battle our flesh and live in the spirit. Steps 7 and 8 where are self explanatory. When we got to step 9 he gave us an anagram to be able to remember how to seek amends. The anagram is RUT-ABC. R-recognize the wrong, U-understand the hurt, T-take responsibility, A-ask for their forgiveness, B-behavior, C-change. The last 3 steps he had to go through quickly because he was running out of time but he gave an amazing scripture if you're wanting to know more just let me know. That concluded our time with John Elmore and we were all very grateful for it. The evening was ours to do whatever we wanted to do with. Dan and I decided to clean up our room and get everything put into its rightful place.

The Institute staff had planned our first Saturday of being here at the Institute. We were to help with the FBC Branson church in their service project for the year. We all got up and went to the church at 8 AM in the morning. We were given teams and we went out to different houses and helped paint. My team got the privilege to paint the whole outside of this widows home. Her colors were a grayish blue for the wood and white for the accents. We had lunch in between working and we finished around 3PM. After that the evening ours to do whatever. Dan and I decided to do dinner here at the Institute with leftovers.

Sunday, I got to do something I have never done before. I got to volunteer at a triathlon. All Institute students were to volunteer on Sunday. There were different time slots and I got the amazing time of 5 AM to 9 AM. It was freezing. I had on three layers for my whole body. I had gloves and a hat and my big winter jacket. I felt like I was going snow skiing. It was 46°F outside when we woke up and didn't get above 50°F by the time we left so therefore it was cold. Like I said this is something I've never done before, volunteer at a triathlon. So I had no idea what I was doing. This was contrary to what my personality wants me to do, know everything that was going on. Dan was very eager to get started when we showed up so he volunteered for the first placement of volunteers. Guess what that was, parking cars. We had no direction and we had no idea where the parking lot was. So with that said, it was quite an adventure. The task ended up being quite fun we got to meet athletes and encouragement them and then meet the fans as well. We were stationed at T1which means transition one. This area is where they swam and then got on their bikes. So we watched them from the parking lot swim across to the other side of the lake and back and get on their bike and take off. Once they got on their bikes I had my next job. It was to tell the bikers which lane they were supposed to use for the rest of the bike portion of the triathlon. I am not for sure if this is for every triathlon but for this triathlon the bikers were riding into the oncoming traffic however traffic was stop so no worry of collision. As I was facing the bikers as they were passing me. I was pointing with my right arm for them to go into the left lane. Therefore the next day my right arm was quite sore. By 9 o'clock all the athletes had done the swim portion and were on their bikes. After our eventful morning Dan I decided to go to FBC Branson and attend there 9:35 worship time. After main worship we found the young marrieds Sunday school class and decided to join in. The only problem was neither one of us and had breakfast and we were starving. Luckily there was zucchini bread provided by one of that wife's and it was delicious. Sunday school was quite fun and we look forward to going while were here in Branson. For lunch Dan and I decided to eat pizza. We had a Domino's Pizza gift card that given to us as wedding gift and we hadn't gotten to use yet. So we found a Domino's and used it. Thank you very much Sharon Boydston. After lunch I took a nap and then woke up and continue to work on the recovery inventory Excel worksheet that John Elmore had given us. For dinner we had Domino's as leftovers, it was still so good. After dinner it was uneventful I continue to work on the recovery inventory Excel worksheet. It was nice to have a more relaxing day and be able to get the inventory worksheet done.

That concludes our first full week at the Kanakuk Institute. Wow, we have learned so much already. The community is growing and we are excited to see what God does. We have learned about vision, purpose, expectations are while were here, confession, how to write an effective testimony, how to recover from sin, about truth, about discipleship, and character.

Hope you enjoyed and be encouraged to reflect on your sin nature and seek God to reveal ways to turn away from and go to Him more.
Romans 8:5 "For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit."

Vision and Purpose

Tuesday 9/17 was a BIG DAY!

We got into class, had worship then were given our charge for the day. I say charge because it wasn't an assignment but a charge to search your heart and listen to God to tell us about our self.

We did a Cleansing and Filling packet and it was full of scripture and questions to search our hearts of sins that we might be committing and need to be reconciled of it.

It was so cool how God gave us all the time and spoke truth to us through the packet. It was an amazing reflecting time to focus on God and repent of sins and start afresh and encouraged.

We then headed off to a camping site on Table Rock Lake. I got the privilege to spend time with girls while putting up our tent and hammocks for the night. After everyone was all settled in we had sloppy joes for dinner. They were so good, and I got to share how Dan and I met and our engagement story to a group of girls. I love doing that!

After dinner the fun really began. We all had written our testimonies out the night before and knew that we would begin to share them in front of everyone starting tonight. It was so cool. We spent two hours listening to testimony after testimony and just to hear God get bragged on in every life story. Yes, we are all broken but we have the opportunity to share how God was for us and what He taught us through it. My Testimony is going to be attached at the end of this post. Feel free to read it if you would like.

One thing I loved in writing out my testimony was the helpful tips from The Institute on how to do it well. I am going to share them with you and challenge you to write out your testimony so you can be ready at anytime to share how amazing God is and prove it through your life.

Four parts to a Testimony

1. What my life was like before I met Christ. (Least time)

2. How I realized I needed Christ. (More time)

3. How I committed by life to Christ. (Even more time)

4. The difference Christ has made in my life. (Most time)
By answering these four questions you have your full life story, and guess what you can make your testimony around 5 minutes long. That is so great to share with anyone.

Wednesday morning we started with breakfast and straight into listening to testimonies. Lunch was a community picnic on the K-1 upper fields. It was fun to see all the different Kanakuk Kamps office works and families that live in the community. They welcomed us to the community. The next part of our busy day was going around in a smaller group and talking about different parts of campus that relate to student life or our campus jobs. The four rotations were internship description, mail, kitchen, and champ cabana (which is what they call the competition with cleaning our dorm rooms). Following that we got to have some recreational fun by playing games of whiffle ball, softball, and kickball. After having friendly competition and becoming all sweaty we headed to the Chancey's home (president of Institute) to have a ice cream social and finish up the rest of the Institute.

Thursday was one of my favorite days so far. I am going to give the high points then focus on my favorite part of the day. We started by doing a campus job draft and then training in that job. We have an amazing opportunity to spend this year here in Branson and going through this program for $10,000. That is not how much this program costs but through having campus jobs we are working for our education. It is so fun. My job was predestined as we're a lot of peoples, and mine is Kitchen Manager on Thursday. So, I help cleaning the kitchen after lunch and dinner on Thursdays. For lunch that day we went on a little trip to Springfield, MO to my favorite restaurant Chick-fil-A! I was so excited!!! Following that we had the awesome opportunity to spend the next four hours outdoors and with The Lord! Our charge was to write out a vision, philosophy of life, and a purpose. This was great but so hard. This was my favorite part of the day and will expand at the end of post. After our time with The Lord we went to Incredible pizza and had there buffet to eat and had a fun time doing some karaoke with old 90s music. It was hilarious! After that we got back in our cars and headed back to our Hawaii retreat home.

Now to expand on the charge we were given for the day. Our vision, philosophy of life, and purpose. As I said this was great but hard. It was a wonderful time with The Lord but hard to really pinpoint what I really wanted mine to be. Our afternoon consisted of two locations to reflect and dig into God's Word to answer these questions. The first location was a cemetery. Now don't freak out, it wasn't morbid or weird. It honestly was very respectful and eye opening. We were told to think about what would you want written on your tomb stone once you leave this world? What do you want your legacy to be? As you walk around look for the vision, philosophy of life, and purpose written on the tomb stones of these people you don't even know. This was a very hard time for me. I am an emotional human being so I did cry reading the names of people and hurting for the people they left behind. And along with grieving for the people and searching the tombstone of the people who have left this place I was encouraged to not take thesis charge lightly. This was a cemetery that was for the military and there were many grave that were marked "Unknown Soldier". Looking at all of them I struggled with a lot of hurt. I hurt deeply for the families that didn't get to say goodbye to their loved one and through that didn't get to write their purpose of life on their tombstone. Instead these soldiers gave their lives and they are unknown to us. I started to reflex also how I want my charge to have an eternal mindset and not just for this world. How yes I want to be a respectful and encouraging wife, an incredible mom, a teacher of music, and so much more, but through all of that I want to be a disciple of Christ and spread His name. Our second location was a park and this was more of sitting and listening and searching through God's Word to put the words together for each statement. 

I have not finished this charge still working on finalizing all the words and flow of each statement. I want to leave you with this. If you haven't thought about why you are here on earth then you will perish. Proverbs 29:18 says just that "Where there is no vision the people perish". With that I encourage you to definitely think if not also write out your vision, philosophy of life, and purpose. This is how they explained and the question to answer for each part.

Vision = WHAT you want to accomplish

Philosophy of life = HOW you expect to be able to fulfill what God has called you to do

Purpose = WHY you are bringing these dreams a reality

I hope you have been encouraged and truly reflect on your story God has given you to share His name and what is your vision and purpose for this life here.

Arriving & First Two Days

When Dan and I arrived in Missouri from our 5 hour long trip with no stops and packing the night before, I was beyond excited to finally be in the town of Branson. When we arrived we were given our room and told to get moved in and meet for dinner at 6 o'clock. That didn't give us much time since we had arrived at 3 o'clock. Furthermore, we packed up a van and my car full of things to put in our small hotel style dorm room. I look at it now and really have no idea how everything fit. We didn't get full unpacked because we couldn't decide where to place the furniture for the longest time, but finally got somewhat organized and headed to dinner. That night was food and fellowship with the Institute class. We played games such as fish bowl and picture telephone and tried to learn all the names of our fellow class mates. And that was really it for our arrival.

Our first full day we got straight to it. We dug into God's Word and had some fun building our community. We had two amazing speakers that day. One being Chad Hampsch, he is the Vice President of The Institute, and he talked with us about the first core value for The Institute TRUTH. The other being Joe White, he is the president of Kanakuk Kamps. Both very knowledgeable and gifted in speaking but have two different approaches.

The high points of Chad's talk were these.

There are four factors of how people make decisions

1. Tradition

2. Reason

3. Experience

4. Emotion

And these factors rein true throughout history and by know what factor your generation uses to make decisions is huge to help you be able to share the gospel. Our generation believes that tradition is old fashion and silly so don't follow the traditions. Our generation believes that reason is nonexistent to the point of irrelevance. This is why you have the statements like, it feels right to do this, it may be right for you but not for me. He focused on two scriptures after this - John 18:28-38, which states that Jesus is the truth and then 1Kings 18:20-39, which asks worshippers of idols how long they will hesitate between two opinions?. It was powerful to think about if I am hesitant to take truth lightly and not seek it out. He left us with what his prayer is for us here at The Institute "to move away from opinion which is based on you and go to conviction which is based on truth." Powerful huh. 

The high points of Joe's talk were these.

He quoted the full book of Ephesians to use from memory. It was incredible. He then gave us a quick overview of the full book.

Chapter 1- to the saints - chosen by God

Chapter 2- saved by grace for a poetic mission

Chapter 3- a mystery fulfilled: designed for worship

Chapter 4- gifted to equip: set apart for Godly living

Chapter 5- filled with the spirit: a marriage designed

Chapter 6- fully armored to flight and overcome

He then encouraged us through these things.

Effective Bible study, Read it like...

1. A Love Letter

2. It is the First Time

3. Imaginatively

4. Prayerfully

5. Studiously

6. Intimately

M&Ms of the Bible are Memorize and Meditate

Walking in the Spirit is like breathing

Exhaling is confession and Inhaling is where Christ takes the thrown again.

After the speakers we spent the afternoon at Moonshine Beach on Table Rock Lake. We played recreational games at the beach and then had a cookout there with burgers to eat.

On Monday it yet again was another packed day.

We had Keith Chancey talk to us at two different times of the day about the nest two core values of The Institute - discipleship and character. We went over our full handbook and set great expectations for the year. We had an 80s skate party at the Branson Skating Rink and then had dinner at Fudruckers.

The high points of Keith's talk over discipleship were these.

Matthew 4:17-19

The first word Jesus says in his ministry is "Repent" - verse 17

Then come discipleship in how Jesus asks men to follow him - verse 19

Follow Me in Greek is "Deute" which is to come here or come now or to perform a certain action.

The high points of Keith's talk over character were these.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Galatians 6:7

Philippians 2:3-11

Our character is worth so much more than our personality. He compared it to an iceberg analogy of your personality is the part that you can see and your character is the big part you can't see. Your character is what makes you a great follower of Christ so be aware if it.

Well gang that is it for this post. I know it is long and they will be long until Sunday when I get everyone caught up with what I have learned so far. I will share about the next three days tomorrow! Be encouraged by the truth we live by and the example that we can follow and that He wants a relationship with us. 

Philippians 2:3-11

The Beginning

I don't even know how I am suppose to start up a blog, I am learning every aspect right now. I am just going to go straight to it. 

First and Foremost this blog is to keep friends and family in the loop with what I am doing this year. I am not a professional blogger. This actually is my very first one ever! I am very excited about that, but just to give you a good expectation of what to expect from it. I am not an English major and it is actually my worse subject. However, I will try my very best to make complete sentences that are written with correct grammar. Luckily there is spell check when I am typing up my post.

With that said I am very excited to post how my life at the Kanakuk Institute is this year. So I will get straight to finishing up my first blog post!

Wow, I have been on the Kanakuk Institute Campus for 11 days now. It literally feels like I have been here for months, in a good way. My Husband put it this way when we were talking one night after class, "We are standing in front of a fire hydrant with the water just shoot out at us. The information is great, however, it is coming so fast we can't absorb it all or even begin to process everything we are learning because the next day it is exactly like the day before." This was a complement not a negative thought of how that particular day ended. I am really enjoying what they have taught us so far but we all are in the process of learning how to process with how fast pace the program is.

Here are some of the basics of this program if you do not know.

We are living in Branson, MO on the family camp campus for Kanakuk Kamps called K-Kaua'i.

This is an 8-month program focused on "Equipping young men and women with biblical skill for a lifetime of ministry". 2 Timothy 2:2 which states, "And these things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also." is another way to say what we will be learning here. To hear from the teachers that come to teach and be entrusted the gospel and then we can then be able to teach others also. There are many other parts to this program and will explain them throughout the rest of this week in different posts.

I will be posting again tomorrow and catching you up on what we have done the past 11 days and by next week I hope to have you fully caught up so when I post it is current.

I am very excited for the year to come. I hope you enjoy reading about what I am doing and learning here. While you read be in prayer, be challenged, and be encouraged to seek God more in your stage of life as well.

Talk with you each tomorrow!

2 Timothy 2:1-7