My Brother's High School Graduation

{class of 2015]

9 May 2015 was an exciting day for the graduates of Faith Academy. That was the day that thirteen years of hard work would pay off and the day that they would graduate from high school. So many emotions were at the graduation. Some were anxious to graduate. Others were worried or scared because they didn't know the outcome of what they would be doing in the future. Others were excited to graduate. Whatever the feelings were, it was normal. 

  Here are a few pictures from graduation. Sadly our mother couldn't make it because she was sick.

  Right behind, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, there was a field full of wild daisies so we decided to take pictures in the field because we thought it would be pretty. 

Rose and I got a picture with the graduates (Jared and CJ) outside of the church before they walked across the stage.

 For some reason, we got this feeling that church really didn't want us in the building. Because the church is two hours away, we had to use the bathroom,, and when we walked up to the door, a security person was threatening to  call the police o people for trying to use go in the building and and another person was locking the doors preventing people from entering. After telling the security that we would leave the building right after we went to use the bathroom, they reluctantly let us use the bathroom. 
At the front of the building there was a line of people waiting to be let in to the church and as people were queuing up, the church was selling food and water, balloons and other things to people waiting to see their friends and family graduate. It was actually kind of shocking to say the least. 
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CJ ended up doing a "mini" photoshoot with Rose and myself so here are a few photos from that as well.

CJ's graduation was much, much better in my opinion as it didn't seem to last as long (no cowbells, horns, etc). The preacher was much better than last years as he was able to connect with the audience and  he brought in Forest Gump quotes into his message, which made it like ten times better. 

Best of Luck to the graduates of Faith Academy/s class of 2015. God has some amazing plans for you and  you will do great in these next few years of college or working, 

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

H12 Got Talent

Tuesday, 28 April 2015 was H12 Got Talent. H12 is the high school ministry at 12Stone Church and H12 Got Talent is a talent show that the ministry puts on to have fun and to allow students to invite their friends to church. This year, the talent show consisted of ten acts that danced, did a magic tricks or sang.

Because CJ, my brother, gets there early to help set up, we got there early to help prepare for the night. Did you know that every single chair in the main worship center was prayed for that night? What about every Tuesday someone prays over the chair that you sit in Cafe Theater? Well it happens because prayer works.

because i am no longer a student apart of H12, I was able to volunteer (even if I were still a student I would be volunteering for this event). I got to meet each of the acts and get a chance to talk to them before they went on stage and preformed for the audience. I had to make sure that every single person had a wrist band that was still in high school so that way we could keep track of everyone. Because not everyone showed up on time, it allowed me to talk with the students and get to know them. Once I did that, I came out and put wrist bands on the students who were arriving for the night. There were quite a few students as it filled up the entire lower section of the main auditorium.

Once i was done, I got to enjoy the show with the rest of the students and leaders. It was such a fun night and a great way to start my summer. :)

 Here I was reunited with the best friend who I haven't seen since her birthday in March

Joy, Rose and I enjoying H12 Got Talent during the intermission. 

The person who won that night was a boy named Andy and I think he did a great job. He was dancing to spoken word that he had recorded earlier, Because he won, he received 500 dollars in cash. 

CCF Banquet

{Christian Campus Fellowship} 

Love God, Love Others 

The freshmen of CCF

Last night was the CCF Banquet. It hit me really hard because well I realized that it was one of  the last big things I would do with these people.

They have taught me so much over the past year at West Georgia and I could never thank them enough. These people helped me create some amazing friendships and helped make me feel welcome when I first came to West Georgia. 

 BreAnna. This girl is truly amazing as she was the first person to introduce me to CCF. I met her at NTS Camp about three years ago and the summer before my freshman year, she mentioned CCF to me and I was like "yeah, okay..." but I totally forgot about it until August came around. God strategically placed this lovely girl in my life at the right moment because I was quite apprehensive coming here as I didn't really know anyone except her. Thank you for introducing me to so many people1 :) 

Abbie. Leah. Jordan. Amber. These were the next people I met coming to West Georgia. Brian had gotten me a ride to Midway through Abbie and I didn't even know who she was but she helped me meet so many people such as Leah and Jordan. Abbie also mentioned CCF as well and helped me adjust to being in Carrollton. This picture is the Girls Bible Study this semester. We had this Bible Study and it was great getting to know these lovely girls this year.  We experienced so much together from laughter and goofing off. 

Katrina. Olivia. Emma. Lindsay. Kelsey. Abbie. Elizabeth. (Missing Emily). These are a great group of girls. Over the semester and the year, I was able to create a friendship with them and I couldn't be more thankful. It was nice havung Lindsay in like 3 classes last semester as it was nice to see a familiar face in my classes.

Zina. Amy. These girls are hilarious. Thanks for being awesome and laughing with me. :) 

Thanks for a great year! I know that I will have to come and visit you guys! Thanks for giving me a wonderful freshman year! Love you guys! I will definitely have to come and visit! :) 

Outfit of the Day 16 April 2015

Because everyone says that the outfit I was wearing reminds them of an outfit that people would wear at a Festival such as Coachella,  I asked a friend to get some pictures of me with her camera. We spent about ten minutes taking pictures and here are a few of my favorites. :) 

I asolutely love this outfit as it reminds me of Springtime. This is one of the last days I will be on University of West Georgia's campus as I am transferring schools next semester so I wanted to get a few pictures as it's so pretty right now. Everything is blooming. 

What I am Wearing: 

Skirt: Rue21

Shirt: Rue21 

Flower Crown: Forever21 

Earrings: Charming Charlie 

Sandals: DSW

Passion City Church- The Grove

{ t h e   g r o v e} 

The Grove is an all woman's event at Passion City Church and it was amazing! There were so many women there. My first time going was on Monday, 13 April 2015. It was amazing because it was a great night to spend time with women who love Christ. 

Kristian Stanfill led worship that night and it was amazing as Shelly Giglio and a few leaders at Passion City Church talked about Proverbs as the church just got out of reading the entire book of Proverbs for a month. 

{The way we  l i v e  builds our character} 

the fear of the Lord is a desire to live in his standards and live in Harmony with him. 

{The way we  s p e a k  effects our words} 

we need to pay attention to the words that we speak as there is always learning as we don't know everything 

we can either take the words of what someone else says and let that unravel in our lives or we can look to our Heavanly Father to see what he says.

{The way that we  l o v e  effects our relationships} 

love doesn't keep a record of wrongs.

for me, of the most encouraging things was when someone told me that they love the way that I worship. Since coming to college, I kind of became self-concious of how I worship and I know that  I shouldn't be. But something came over me as I was worshipping at the Grove on Monday, that led me to nor care at what people think about when I worship. 

I started to dance and raise my hands as I did before entering college, but I held back as I noticed that not many people were doing so,. Something happened that night where I just could not stand still... let me just tell you worshipping is not what others around you are doing but what you are doing for God.  This encouaged me not to care about what other are doing, and just {worship our Lord and Savior}. 

if you are the one who told me that told me that they love the way that I worship, thank you. Thank you for reminding me thast I don't need to be self-concious about worshipping God and do what feels natural, even if nobody is doing it. Thannk you for everything. 

After the Grove wwas over, we were heading back to the car with Victoria as we were going to get food as it has been awhile since we last saw her was over a month ago.  It was pouring.  I had left my raincoat in Mary's car and all Mary had a small umbrelal that could fit two people. Well, this nice gentleman comes and runs up to me as I was not under the umbrella and walks with us all the way to her car. We later found out that he's from Douglasville and drove an hour to get to Passion City Churc h to serve us. The men serve the ladies who attend the Gorve and they aren't allowed in the main room but they clearly love God to do this just for us...

We ended up going to Chilli's for food after the Grove and we saw some lovely ladies who were t the Grove and we ended up inviting them to sit wih us and it was aamzing even though I just met them, we were talking about everything and anything with them. 

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” - Matthew 18:20 (ESV) 

Passion City Church: Community Groups

On 7 February 2015,  I had the opportunity to go to Atlanta for Passion City Church's College Community groups for the first time. It was my first time ever entering the church and instantly, I fell in love. When I first came to the building, there was really no sign to the building. The building is a pure white building with the address on the it. Passion has really no sign except a very small one saying that you are in the right place. Mary explained to me that Passion created the building that way because without a group of believers, the building is just a building. It has no significance until a group of believers of Christ are there. 

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. - Matthew 18:20 (NIV)

Once I entered the building, I was completely in awe as the inside of the building was not exactly what I thought of. It was completely beautiful and nowhere near what I thought it would be. It was completely open and there were large shipping crates in the hallway promoting things that were going on in the church. One thing left me speechless would be a large "Jesus is Life' sign on the wall made out of light bulbs, but the decoration wasn't quite finished as there were blank spaces in the in the wall. I learned that each light bulb in the wall of this sign equals one life that was saved. 12Stone has coined the term that "One Matters"; One life matters to God and by showing this on the wall, it's a visual representation of each life that gave their life to God. 

For my first time of community groups, they played "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars and we had a dance party. Then we broke up into community groups. How they broke up into community groups would be you go and find someone and then you two find two more people and then you go and find four more people making us a group of eight. We introduced each other and said where we went to school and something random about ourselves. We then went into saying what God has been doing in our lives and if you know anything about me, I can never listen to enough God stories. Once we shared our God stories with our group, we came together to share some God stories that is happening in the lives of others. 

Each time I come to the community Groups, there's always something new. For example, the most recent one that they had (on 24 March 2015), they separated us by school or young professionals. Because I currently attend the University of West Georgia, I would be under the group known as Other. Because Other sounded really bad, we wanted to be known as Team Miscellaneous. Then they split us up in to sub categories, within our large group. Once we were in groups of eight, someone in each group downloaded an app known as RapChat, so that we could create a rap to be played over for everyone to hear. Once we finished working in our sub-group, we picked the best one in our main group to be pitted against the other groups. Our group won. We got Ginny's Ice Cream that we shared with GSU because they were the runners up in the rap battle.

"We've got 99 problems but fitting in ain't one"

Once the rap battle was over, we all read John 12:1-20 by ourselves silently. When I said that it was silent, it was s i l e n t. Literally, it was so quiet that you could hear a pen drop and it would echo. If you know a thing or two about college kids, we are not quiet. There were about 300 people in the room and it was dead quiet. But God was speaking to us. If you have never read John 13:1-20, it is about when Jesus knows that he is going to die and instead of making it about him, he decided to serve the ones who have been with him for three years. He washed their feet and if you know anything about the time period that Jesus washed the disciples' feet, their feet were dirty. They wore sandals (not like the ones we wear but more like Old Navy's Flip flops) and the men walked everywhere so their feet were dusty and gross. To wash their feet was a job of a slave...not a job of a K I N G. Once we finished reading the passage, we went around the group and shared what we saw in the passage. The cool thing about this is that each person who read the passage, saw something different and it was really cool to see how just by reading the Bible, we each can get something different out of the same passage. 

Mary and Kelsie

Being able to attend Passion City Church's College Community Groups taught me more than what I had ever imagined. He has given me a group of people that I can lean on and trust. Being a Christian, you cannot do life on your own.You simply cannot.You will stumble and fall. You do life together.  You hold each other accountable and you share life together. Whether these people are at Passion or not, you must find yourself a group of believers that will hold you accountable. 

I cannot see where God is leading me in the future. He has already called me to be at GSU in the fall and I could not be more excited to be in Atlanta for school; I don't know if I will be at Passion in the Fall, but God has put some wonderful GSU students in my life and that I can't wait to be going to school with. :) 

Just a few pwople from a community group: Mary, Victoria and Stephen

Spring Break 2015

We can never take a good picture; for this reason, I love Daisie, Madison and Andrew.

{s p r i n g    b r e a k    2  0 1 5}

Thursday, March 12, 2015, was the start of Spring Break. Mom picked me up from Public Speaking class at 12:30 and then we went to Arbor Place Mall. I have been wanting Johnny Rockets for a few weeks and eventually I was able to get it. We also went shopping in the mall for me to get some new clothes for a trip that I am taking in the summer. After we left the mall, we went to the mall of Georgia to pick up Ariel and Alayna to get them for C12. Now, I was really excited to be able to go to C12  as it was a Night of Worship. A much needed night of worship; there I was able to see many C12 people that I hadn't seen since July of 2014 because of college. It reminded me how much I missed this group of people that I love.

It's been over six months since l last saw Alayna and Ariel at C12

On Friday the 13th, I went to Atlanta by myself and let me tell you this, I was totally afraid of going down there alone. I went to GSU's campus and as soon as I was called in for instant decision day, I was accepted into the school immediately. I am so excited to be going down there in the Fall and I know that God has some big plans for me and even though it scares the crap out of me, I know that I am following his wishes and that he got me on this. 

That Saturday, Mom and I took a trip down to Athens. Since Athens is roughly 30-45 minutes from the house, Mom allowed me to drive down there so that I can get driving experience. We spent the day down there shopping and spending time with my mother. It was quite fun as we went to Willy's for lunch and it reminded me of going to Chipotle or Moe's although it was not too bad. I quite enjoyed it. One thing  I love down in Athens would be that they have a Trader Joe's there. Trader Joes is fantastic and its so fun to be in the store even though it's a grocery store. We also went to Lifeway and I got a new Bible and I absolutely love it. It's a journaling Bible so it has places in the margins to take notes and such, It's a beautiful creation and I love it.

On Sunday, I was able to volunteer with M12 and it was amazing! Being able to see the girls grow in their walk with Christ and spend the time to get to know each and every single one of them, was an awesome sight. I also got to see the leaders and hang out with them after the first service . We went to Taco Bell and just hung out and get to hang out with them as not only are they my friends, but also some of the best people I could be with. After the second service, since it was a nice day out, I was able to Eno and I loved it! It was one of the post peaceful and relaxing thing I've done since I started spring break. I wasn't hot but wasn't cold out either. The wind was blowing making it the perfect day to be outdoors and experience God's creation.

On Tuesday, I went to H12 and helped them set up. We arrived at the Church at 2:00PM and let me tell you this, there is a lot of preparation that happens behind the scenes that many people don't know about and take for granted as it takes hours to make sure that everything is ready for H12. There's bulletins to be printed and put out, there's making sure that there is enough seating in Cafe Theater, there's setting up the check in area and making sure that the games are set up and that the signs are out for the night. Not to mention that we pray over the room and the night before students even arrive. Now there is student-led prayer that happens at 5:30, but there's also a prayer that happens before students even arrive. Let me just tell you this: prayer works. If you don't get anything out of this, know that prayer works. {you might not get an answer that you like, but he answers it: yes, no, wait}

Daisie and Myself

On Wednesday, Rosemarie was sick, so we went and visited her and took her a birthday present as her birthday was the 22 of March. It was such a great time as I got to catch up with her and I missed the laughter and she pointed out a mistake that I made on her birthday present. I gave her a shadow box with a hole  at the top so that she could put her travel memories (plane tickets, tickets to events,etc) in it and in the box I spelled out "Adventure is out there" in stickers as a reference to the Disney move, UP. Only I misspelled adventure by not including the 'n' in adventure....  oops.

On Thursday, I had C12 which I was stoked about as it was Alayna's birthday as well! :) I have known Alayna for almost seven years or so because we met in 6th grade and now we are freshmen and college. Where has the time gone? But It was the first time that I heard the new college pastor, Matt, speak because I've been in Carrollton and it was a little hard for me to come home to hear hm speak. The first time I was able to come to C12, we got free Starbucks and we were "speed dating" because they were coming out of a dating series. It was really fun because I got to meet so many new people that I will be hanging out with this summer and in the fall hopefully. The next time I came to C12, was a night of worship. I quite enjoyed his message because Matt talked about: "what right is right even if nobody is doing it and what is wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it."

On the final day of Spring Break, I was able to volunteer with M12 one last time before summer and even though all the leaders were tired because of prom before, it was still enjoyable and I got to spend time with the students who wanted to learn more about having a relationship with Christ.

Being home this week made me realize how blessed that I truly am and that I cannot wait to be home for the summer. Just four more weeks till summer :)