Art Life 2011

Art Life is a camp for youth that focuses on the arts and how to use the gifts that God has given you to glorify Him. I heard about it through my pastor and his wife who invited me to come and be a counselor this year. Their good friends, Bob and Teressa Nix,  from the Abiding Place Ministries are the ones who started the camp and put it on each year. I didn't know what to expect and was unsure exactly what I would be doing at the camp but I really felt that God wanted me to go. The camp was in Waxahachie at Southwestern Assemblies of God University (SAGU).

We stayed in the dorms. I shared a suite with Terri and her two daughters. Terri goes to my church and is a teacher at Central High School in Beaumont. I just love her so much and her daughters are the sweetest girls. They were so excited to get to come to Art Life.

I was excited to find out that as a counselor I could take any track classes that I wanted. They had a dance, music, drama, and media track so I decided to do the dance track. I love dance and took ballet, tap, and jazz from 3-14, but I haven't danced since then. My pastor's daughter has praised danced for us at church before and it was so beautiful. Ever since then I have wanted to learn how to praise dance so this was really exciting for me. Teressa's daughter, Jessica, owns a Christian dance studio and is a dance instructor in Humble and taught the dance classes along with some of her instructors. They are all such beautiful dancers and amazing teachers. Click here to read about all the teachers. All of our classes started off with prayer and Bible study. We studied what the Bible says about dance and who danced in the Bible. They taught us that through dance we can worship and glorify God and minister to others. We learned to dance for an audience on one (GOD)! It was so much fun! I literally took dance classes all day long and haven't been that sore in a VERY long time! I couldn't move my neck to the right for a whole day :)

I tried to take as many pictures as I could so here is a look into Art Life 2011.....

Hannah, Terri, and Rachel dressed up for Super Hero Night. Each night was a theme night.

Hannah and Rachel helped dress me up as Super Teacher!

This picture cracks me up! This was Mission Man (my pastor) and Drama Queen (my pastor's wife)...it was appropriate since she taught Drama classes and he taught about Mission's at the camp.

Drama Queen's cape

Some of the kids dressed up as Super Heros

One word...Adorable!

Mission Man and Bible Man (Bob Nix)

Some of the kids at Nerd Night

For nerd night I wore a t-shirt tucked into my shorts with knee high socks and flip-flops. Check out Kathy's fanny pack :)

Some of the boys at Nerd Night

Nerd Night costume winners

This is a picture of the Hip Hop class. The guy in the green shorts flew in all the way from New York to teach at Art Life and is such an amazing dancer. He does different forms of dance like Hip Hop, break dancing, and pop and lock which is so amazing to watch! I plan on posting a video of it later.

Kathy dressed up for twin night with Teressa

Playing games

Katie on the right taught the drama classes and is such a sweet and very talented girl.

The cutest twins by far in my opinion :)

There was one set of triplets at twin night

Teressa and Bob Nix have four kids and all four of them came and helped out at Art Life. Here they are doing the flash mob dance for us all. Yes, they taught us a flash mob dance and we did it at Chic-Fil-A on Friday. It was do much fun. I have a video of that too :)

Dance Class

Hawaiian night

Learning a Hawaiian luau dance

How low can you go? This is Will, the dancer from New York, and he made it under that with no problem..amazing!

Getting ready to play a game where each team had a pair of sweat pants and a bucket of water..they had to soak the pants in the water and then put them on, hula hoop three times, and then run to an empty bucket and ring them out. the first team to fill the bucket wins.

It wouldn't be youth camp without a water balloon fight. 

What can I say about this...she is so adorable :)

Doing the flash mob at Chic-Fil-A

Me, Rachel, and Hannah at the performance on Friday Night

I was put in the beginners/intermediate dance group and this was us performing on Friday night for the parents and campers.

On Friday night, all the different tracks performed for the parents what they had been working on all week. My dance class danced, the advanced dance class danced, the drama track did a play, the music track performed worship songs the kids had written and recorded, and musicians played. It was so moving and beautiful to see the kids using their gifts and talents in a way that glorified God. That was the whole focus and point of the camp and I feel so blessed to have been a part of it. I was prepared to go and help out and empty trashcans and was surprised to find out I would be able to take classes myself. It was such a refreshing time for me spiritually. I will miss all the wonderful kids and adults I met.

Change

After Art Life Camp I decided to come to my brother's house and stay with him instead of driving back to Beaumont and then back to Dallas for girls weekend this weekend. On Monday Glenn and I went shopping for his birthday at the Outlet Mall in Allen and as I was changing in the dressing room I got a phone call from the personnel office of Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD offering me the third grade position at the school where I interviewed. I was so excited to get the call and of course I accepted it. I have been praying that God would shut the door and not let them offer me the job unless it is His will. I love the scripture, "He will open doors no man can shut and shut doors no man can open" Revelation 3:7. I definitely feel like this is an open door and I am excited about this change and new adventure!

I feel like I have been in a whirlwind since that phone call. There is so much to do now before the first day of school, but I know with God's help it will all get done. When they called to offer me the job they needed me to sign my contract the next day if possible so they could enroll me in new teacher orientation and training. She asked if I would be able to come to the administration building the next day and I was able to do it because I choose to come to Glenn's instead of going back home. I have already signed my contract and attended new teacher orientation. It has worked out so perfectly...I see God's hand in all of this which gives me such peace.

 It's funny how we pray for change and when it comes we freak out. I have had so many different emotions about this move...excitement, a little scared, and sad about leaving my friends, family, job, and church family. Sometimes change can be scary but God has been preparing me for this. My pastor has been preaching about the Israelites in Numbers chapter 9 and how they moved when the cloud moved. The cloud represents God's presence and sometimes the cloud would move in the middle of the night. Can you imagine how much energy and effort it took to unpack and set up camp and then pack it all again and move in the middle of the night? But they knew that if God was moving they had to go because where the cloud is there is provision, security, protection, everything God is. I feel like the Israelites and the cloud has moved. When God moves you just have to follow...

Watch This!

I am at Arts Camp this week with a group from my church and words can't express how grateful I am that I was able to be apart of it! I am excited to share this week with you soon but for now I want to share this video titled, "I will wait for you." I have been blessed to be able to take dance classes while I have been at camp and also be a counselor and we danced to this video today...it was a class called, "Moving on Truth." I thought it was so unique and beautiful to dance to a poem and not just a song. Anyway, this video speaks to anyone who is waiting on the mate that God has for them...

Fourth of July Week

Fourth of July week ended up being a fun surprise! When Glenn moved to Rockwall a few months ago and we went up there to help him move in it made me miss the Dallas area and want to move back up there again. I thought about staying with Glenn for a few weeks in the summer and applying for a teaching job. The thought quickly became overwhelming when I thought about where to apply since there are literally hundreds of schools and so many different districts to apply in. I prayed about it and felt led to apply in Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD. I filled out the online application one day and that was it. Then came all the state budget cuts and I decided to stay put where I am. I have seniority on my campus and didn't want to move to another district with all the teachers layoffs happening. I love my school and the people I work with so I just gave up the whole idea of moving to Dallas, but I continued to pray about God's will with moving to Dallas.

Last week I got a phone call from a principal in Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD asking me if I could interview on July 5th. I was shocked that she called because I never applied at her school. She had found my application on the district site where I had filled out the application online. I told her I would be there on July 5th. The plan was to stay with Carrie and then drive home after the interview on Tuesday. Mom was going to ride with me and we were going to meet Glenn in Frisco for dinner on Monday night. He was supposed to go to work on Tuesday, but on the way up there we got a call from Glenn that he had just heard from his boss and he had the week off. So, we decided to stay with Glenn and he would drive me to the interview on Tuesday. We drove to Glenn's on July 4th and got there in time to go eat dinner at Culpepper Steakhouse.

The restaurant was near the lake so after dinner we walked around and enjoyed the views of the lake.

Later that night we watched fireworks over the small lake in Glenn's neighborhood.

The next day we drove to Carrollton for my interview and met one of my best friends,Carrie, for lunch before the interview. Carrie is a first grade teacher and the school where she works is only ten minutes away from the school I interviewed at :)

The next day we went to the lake and rode jet skis. Mom and I had only planned on staying one night at Carrie's so we had to get swim suits, flip flops, etc.. We spent a good part of the day after my interview on Tuesday running around trying to find a swim suit. My dad ended up getting off work unexpectedly and met us at Glenn's so that was another great surprise! He was able to go to the lake with us. We couldn't have planned it better!

It was my first time on Glenn's jet skis and we had so much fun! I really like the lake Glenn likes to go to. It is Lake Lavon which is about fifteen minutes from his house and smaller than Lake Ray Hubbard in Rockwall. It has a great beach area that you can see behind us in this picture. There is also a roped in area where you can swim.

After jet skiing we relaxed in the hot tun for a while to ease our sore muscles. I am not kidding....my muscles were so sore. I guess you use muscles that you don't normally use or I am really that out of shape :)

What started as just as a quick one night trip ended up being a very fun and unexpected week. Like I said earlier we really couldn't have planned it better if we had tried. It  reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures, "We can make our plans, but the LORD determined our steps " Proverbs 16:9 (NLT). So true!!!

I am so excited to see if God is opening a door for me in Dallas. I truly just want to be right in the center of His will for my life. I love my job here in Beaumont and we are moving into a brand new school next year so it's win/win either way. I guess I will just have to wait and see :)