The Overcomers

December 8, I will be running a marathon relay with four other members of my Core family.  We will each be running 5.2 miles to complete the marathon as a fundraiser for our internship at the Honor Academy.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to run with these amazing men and women of God (team pictures to come later)! We began training last week starting at about 2.5 miles for our run.  Yesterday we ran our first 3 miles stretch, and it was amazing to experience God using a painful thing like running to draw us closer to Him.  As we ran, for the last 1.5 miles we prayed and quoted scripture to each other which empowered us to run when we wanted to stop.  It gave us extra breath and life when we felt tired and dead.  God is using this training and will use this race to bring us closer to Him and to remind us that it is not by our strength that we are going to finish but by His. That is why we are calling our team THE OVERCOMERS.  Because through this year, and through the rest of our lives, we will constantly have to OVERCOME adversity in order to do all that God has called us to do.  This race is just a symbol of the battle that we are being called into.  And just like this race, the only way we will OVERCOME is by calling on the name of Jesus and understanding that on our own we are nothing, but in Him we can be anything!

Please consider joining the race with us by sponsoring our team!  You can click HERE to go online and donate.  Just select our team, THE OVERCOMERS.  All donations will be split between the team to go towards our internship.  But it's not just for us, it's for every person God is going to impact through us.  It's for every dream we are going to come closer to as we pursue God through the Honor Academy.  We need your help, please consider becoming a sponsor. 

 Also check out our facebook page: Dallas Marathon (Overcomers) 

Women's LTE

This weekend we had our Women's LTE and to be honest I wasn't that excited about it.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the girliest person in the world.  I'm a tough, rough, get your hands dirty type of girl so something like this is so far out of my element.  This year has been a year of embracing womanhood and realizing that I can the fierce woman that God has designed me to be and still not be a girlie chick.  I love it!  The Woman's LTE was honestly such a blast for me.  Yes I painted my nails, yes I had to wear a facial mask, yes I played with makeup and wore lipstick, yes I took lots of girlie pictures, but I enjoyed every moment of it because of the amazing women who wer beside me.  I got to spend the entire weekend with my core that I have been blessed with.  These women mean the world to me.  Through the weekend the Lord was really showing me how to be in community with women, which is a stretch for me.  Growing up, I always preferred to spend time with guys.  They are less drama, they get dirty, they don't cry, it was always my preference.  This weekend my eyes were opened up to other women, how we need each other regardless of whether I think so or not.  

One of the best parts of the weekend was Damsel in Distress.  During this, the women are role playing that we have been captured and imprisoned.  We are taken to the top of a hill to scream and holler for help.  In the meantime, our brothers have to run up the hill through paint balls and weeds to rescue us.  For me, this was absolutely amazing to see the man come out of each one of my brothers.  As I have mentioned before, we have a huge family, we have 7 brothers and 18 sister, those 7 had to come and rescue each of us one by one.  They were exhausted but they did it anyways because to them, we were worth it.  To be valued like that meant so much to me.  I also learned how important it is to let a man be the hero.  We very easily could have ran off the hill ourselves and have been fine, no big deal.  But the point was to call the man out of our brothers and trusting them to get us to safety.  It taught me a lot about being a woman, we have to trust that a man will do what he needs to do even if we can do it ourselves.  I was so proud of each of my brothers, they struggled and pushed to save us and they did it well!

Honor Week

Last week we had what we call Honor Week for the January class.  This week consists of reviewing the different pillars that Teen Mania is founded on and seeing how to apply those in our lives as we are getting ready to graduate.  Along with our leaders teaching us about these pillars, five interns are also selected to speak at each session about the pillar that they best exemplify in their lives.  I had the honor of being selected to speak before the last session on excellence.  I was able to share to my fellow classmates about how the Lord has taught me to do everything unto Him and to do see it through to the very end.  

Along with that incredible honor, I was also given the opportunity to be recognized along with three very close friends of mine as our classes Carrier of the Flame.  This is an honor given to four women in each class who best reflect the pillars and vision of the Honor Academy.  It was such a pleasure to carry the flame along side of my sisters and to be recognized as such a woman by leadership.  The same night that I was honored as a Carrier of the Flame, I was also awarded with the Directors Award.  

It is very humbling to look at these different honors and to see what God has done in my life.  I would have never been in the running to receive any of these when I first got here, or even a few months ago.  I can honestly say that God has done an amazing work in my life since the day I arrived at the Honor Academy, but in these past few months God has taken me to a whole new place of intimacy with Him.  That intimacy has opened the door for all kinds of heart changes.  I am so thankful for all that He has done!

The A.N.V.I.L. LTE

     A week ago, I was taking part in a brand new LTE that was created at the Honor Academy.  This was called the A.N.V.I.L LTE.  The ANVIL is a four day event that is created to break you, challenge you mentally physically and spiritually, and to unify you as a team.  We were all assigned to teams based upon family cores.  Most teams were made up of two family cores, but my team was just my family.  We have a big family, we are made up of two sister cores and one brother core so we were large enough to make up one team.  In those four days, each team had to run all across campus to different physical and mental elements to complete them as a team.  For example, my second day of the LTE consisted of a 3 hour scavenger hunt all across campus, two obstacle courses, pulling kiddie pools across a soccer field, and a balance beam.  Each of these elements were in different places all over campus and since this LTE is a competition between teams we had to run to every element.  On average we probably ran a good 3 or more miles a day.  This LTE wasn't as much of a  physical challenge for me as it was a mental challenge.  Since my team was only my family core, it provided a lot of grace on my part and a lot of passion to see them succeed.  I am absolutely crazy about my family so God used that to bring out the leader and encouragement in me.  I wanted to let me family step on my back if needed to overcome an element, I would have carried someone on my back if I needed to.

     When the LTE was over and done with, God had shown me how to be selfless.  There were so many elements throughout the weekend that I wanted to run as fast as I could on or I wanted to go off and do my own thing.  But if I had done that, there were people in my family who needed me and they wouldn't have had me to help them.  God showed me how to lay myself down for others and how to become more prayer minded about others.  At the end of the LTE, we had a ceremony banquet where awards were given out to individuals and teams.  I received an individual award of the ANVIL woman of the year (2013).  My team placed 7th out of 8 but we were proud of how we had done because we were by far the most loving and unified team in the entire competition.  We started as one, remained as one, and finished as one!

My New Family

One of my all time favorite things about the Honor Academy is the fact that we are not only placed in a core with sisters, but we are also given a brother core.  This semester I was blessed, once again, to have not only a brother core but a second sister core.  This means we have a BIG family!  We spent our Saturday spending time with each other and getting to know one another as brothers and sisters.  I am completely blown away by these incredible young men and women that God has placed me with this semester.  I honestly could not have asked for a better group of people to have as my family.  We all get along so well and genuinely love to spend time together as if we truly were family.  We spent the day in water/ paint fights, pizza eating contests, movie watching, and story telling just sharing those little moments and memories that will last a life time.   

Mountain LTE

A week ago today I concurred Hallots Peak in Colorado!  I had the awesome opportunity to hike a 12,000ft+ mountain with a group of people that I love and cherish.  As many of you know I am a January intern here at the Honor Academy, but what you may not have known is that I am 1 of about 30 January interns.  We are a very small but close class and we had the family vacation of our lives!  We drove about 18 hours from East Texas to Colorado and spent two nights in the mountains.  In that time we had fellowship, worship, elk burgers, ice cream, and a lot of fun.  Things on campus have been rather hectic so the idea of going on the first ever January only Mountain LTE was an amazing vacation for many of us (at least it was for me).  Throughout the weekend I was able to build closer relationships with most of the Januaries that went with me.  I am so very blessed to have spent the past 8 months with these amazing men and women whom I consider to be my brothers and sisters.

A New Season

August 16th began a new season of my life.  I have been joined at the Honor Academy by a fresh and new group of young people who are eager and ready to change the world and impact their generation!  To be honest, this season has started out great but difficult.  Part of being a January intern is going through a huge transition process. The way things are now, are completely different than they were a few weeks ago.  My core, ministry placement, friends, and daily life are all totally different.  At times I find myself wondering what will change next or thinking will this ever feel normal again.  In the midst of all of this, I am so excited to be in this challenging season.  Is it hard, yes, but in my life I have learned the most from challenging situations and times.  So my answer to the rough season is bring it on because it produces growth.