Olive Grove

So Olive Grove has actually been over for quite a long while now. I saved this post as a draft a while ago, and even after I finished it I kinda forgot to post it :P So here it is:

We came back on July 4th at 7am. So now I will explain about my OG experience with several pictures:

FIRST WEEK:

^^Serra is extremely happy that I kept her ‘Official Camper’s Photographer’ sign :D

^^Our group for the first week, the Wild Women :)

  ^^Bible Study at the beach

^^Naomi & Konnar – so sweet :) <3

^^Serra’s Drum Set (Carissa, Naomi, and Mason)

^^Tye-Dye

^^Molly is taller!!!!! hahahahaha xD

^^Are Jamie and Jamie cute, or what??

^^At the Eternal Flames

^^Dance Elective

^^Serra’s doing :P :)

^^Cassidy & Me

^^What happens when you give a bunch of highschoolers markers

^^I love my brother very much :) <3

^^Um, Tommy? Is there something you would like to share with us?? lol xD

^^Station during Bonkers

^^The Bonkers!!

  

^^We took pictures of each other taking pictures :)

^^I have noticed that people seem to go a little crazy on the last day of camp (*cough cough* *Josh* *cough*)

^^(Left to Right) Josh, Ashley, Troy, Carissa, Aaron, Naomi, Ben, and Alexis.

^^Those crazy High School Girls!! lol :)

SECOND WEEK:

^^Carissa & Suzan

^^Cassidy & Natalie (my awesome roomies :D) 

^^Leila the Dinosaur, scary, isn’t she?? scary awesome!

^^lol xD Leila and Serra

  ^^Ashley & Cassidy

^^Boat Trip!

 

^^(Left to Right) Leila, Caroline, Lizi, and Tori.

^^Carissa & Molly

^^Luke & Me :)

   ^^Cassidy, Luke, and Me :)

^^Luke falling off the boat….. lol :)

^^Luke and Me again :)

^^And again :)

^^Luke, Me, and Cassidy

^^My Rockin’ Roomies from the First Week :) <3

(Me, Carissa, Allison, Molly)

^^Freshman and Sophomores!! :)

Ownage :)

^^The People Getting Baptised (Left to Right) Ashley, Katie, Suzan, Talya, Anna-Kate, Paulus, and Joe.

^^The Amazing View

^^Roman the Gnarly Narwhal

^^The Drama Group :)

 

^^Leila’s Frog – George

^^Joe “the Nerd,” attempting to hide from Josh, Konnar and Noah

^^My Coolio Roomies Ready for the Par-tey :)

^^Molly in all her Cuteness  :)

^^A Bunch of highschoolers that stayed up all night on the last day of camp (I did it but I’m not in this picture)

And that concludes my two weeks of camp :) It was fun, have lot of memories, and have great friends :) My Favorite Quote of the Week:

“I wonder what altitude we are at…."

-Cassidy Stecklein

(Note: This was stated when we were on the boat trip, on the boat.)

Summer Time

So…… it is not yet summer, but I considering we only have two days of school left, it is close enough. This school year has definitely been the best school year of my life….. so far :) Even though there are many people I miss dearly *cough* *Harim* *cough*and many other people. On the bright side, Harim and Sevda are coming back next year! It’ll be great to see them again :D So the last two days of school are coming up, but they are both half days. This weekend had been the best though. Now that exams are over I have absolutely no school stuff to have to worry about, which is the best feeling in the world, actually it isn’t the best feeling in the world, cuz that feeling probably also happened this weekend :) but either way, it is cool to have no homework or studying to do :)

So this weekend I hung out with Luke a lot, which has been cool :) Friday night our family was at the Bruton’s and we watched Sherlock Holmes. And Saturday, we were watching the World Cup, we watched USA vs. England, it was a good match, but the goal America got was kind of cheap :P I gotta say I feel really bad for Green, England’s goalie. And actually I fell asleep sometime during the second half…. oh well :P At least no one scored that half, it was 1-1. Yeah, it was a really awesome weekend over all :)

So our last day of school is Tuesday, Monday is the Senior Luau, and then Tuesday is Graduation. It is gonna be fun, but also sad. On the bright side, I probably won’t be crying my eyes out, because thankfully not too many of my good friends are leaving this year. That is the one bad thing about going to an International School….. people leave :\ But life goes on, things happen, and over all, like I said, this year has been one of the best of my life :)

Summer is almost here, which means first things first – OLIVE GROVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah!~ :D It is gonna be awesomeness :D I so totally can’t wait till camp, cuz I have a feeling that it is just gonna be awesome this year, although it is pretty much awesome every year, so yeah :) I wish we could figure out our summer plans for sure though, not knowing is kind of annoying……

Just An Update.... Ok, Maybe A Pretty Cool Update :D

Ok, I'm pretty sure I did not mention this before.... well actually I know I didn't mention this before; it was intentioanlly not mentioned. So way back when, in my blog post titled "March Madness" (which was actually published in early April :P, well hence the March 'Madness.' I was busy!!). So anyway, I said that somethin exciting happend on March 25th as well as our first soccer game, and that I would save it for a later date. Ok, so I'm guessing you might want to know what that is?? Well if your name is Grace Kim and you happen to be my best friend, then chances are you already know ;) lol :) but I'll just say it anyway. Ok, so basically, I have a boyfriend :) Yep, its pretty awesome is it not?? I mean generally I would probably say not, except this is different. I mean I really like him, and he apparently really likes me too :) Therefore, it is pretty awesome :)

Trust – Part 2

Your love is amazing, steady and unchanging. Your love is a mountain, firm beneath my feat. Your love is a mystery, how you gently lift me. When I am surrounded, your love carries me! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Your love makes me sing!

My bad if those lyrics are slightly messed up, because that was just from memory. But those lyrics mean so much to me. God’s love is huge. It is so much more than we will ever be able to comprehend. And we have a direct link to our loving God, through prayer. I think prayer is greatly underestimated. Prayer can literally change lives. In Daniel, as soon as he realized that Israel’s exile in Babylon was soon meant to be over he prayed. The Bible says that the minute Daniel began to pray, God made the decree to start to bring Israel back to their homeland.

I have been praying for a very long time now, daily, that God would give me more time in Turkey. I had been having many issues with trusting God because of the uncertainty. I prayed daily for as long as I can remember having trouble over this issue, my prayer group at my Youth Group had been praying about it for a while now, and countless close friends have told me they had been praying for me. This past Thursday (May 28th) I arrived home from Youth Group like any other fun Thursday after Youth Group. Later that evening my dad came home and came up to my room to talk to me. He told me that he had found out when we would be leaving Turkey, and he asked me if I wanted to know. This scared me, because I wanted to know, but I did not want the news to be bad. Because of this, I was pretty much speechless. Finally, I managed to say ok. He made it very suspenseful, which made me even more nervous, but finally he told me that we would be staying in Turkey until at least the summer of 2011. As soon as he said this, I started to cry. This is one of the few times in my life that I had been happy enough to cry. This is my testimony to prayer: God listens to you, so pray! God knows the desires of you heart, so ask him for them! And best of all, God knows what is best for you, so it is guaranteed that it all all turn out well no matter how bad it may seem at first.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”    ~Proverbs 3:5-6

Think about it. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, do not lean on your own understanding, but lean on God’s understanding. Do all of this, simply acknowledge God’s sovereignty and he will make your paths straight. God promised to never leave you nor forsake you, so why do we not lean on God? Because he also promised that if we do that he would make our paths straight? And that is something most of us would not mind having. It takes faith, but there is so much around us that can strengthen our faith, and God blesses us so much that I, for one, feel the need to praise him for it! God has made me extremely happy through so many people and so many things.

I want to end by re-stating something that I want to emphasize in this post. Prayer works, so do not doubt it for one second. God always has an open ear, and God listens to persistent, longing people. God knows if you care enough about it, and he knows what is good for you. Pray often. God listens to those who serve him whole-heartedly. God always listens.

Even though this all stands true unconditionally, I want to emphasize putting God above all else. What are we living our lives for? The answer should be God, but chances are that is not 100% true. An easy way to answer this question would to be by asking another question: How do we spend our time? This is so huge, I know that I have major issues with this, so I am definitely not pointing a finger, trying to judge anyone here, but I do want to emphasize this. Also, I want to credit these thoughts and questions to my Bible teacher, Mr. Meyer. He has taught me a lot that I hope never to forget, and God has truly blessed our school with such a great Bible teacher.