BEST WEEKEND OF THE SEMESTER!! And Freeze Out always is.
It all started like it normally does: at 5am Friday morning! Here we are, ready to pack into the van for a nice nap on the way up. But, Jim was coming up, too, and asked me to ride part of the way with him so we could work on building the set lists with Isaac and Grant (who spent last summer with me at Lake Ann and was tagging along from Orange Team for the weekend). As much as I love Jim, it's hard to get any sleep when he's in the car. But it worked out fine; I was so excited that I had plenty of energy anyway! Halfway through we switched around so Jim could talk to Colin, Abby, and Ashtyn, and I sat in the van behind Caleb asking "Are we there yet??" every 5 minutes! Finally, we pulled in!! I'm not used to seeing everything covered in snow, but there's no way of mistaking Lake Ann for anything else. Dane and I could barely sit still!
Before long it was time to set up! My systematic setting-up of the keyboards was interrupted several times by Colin's requests to help set up the screen and trussing. Normally, that would have been a pain. But I told Colin later that there was no other place or thing I'd rather be stressing out about than setting sound and trussing at Lake Ann. And pretty soon I had a swarm of 3 teammates all helping me run chords to my keyboard! It was a miracle I could keep them all straight. :)
Then came dinner, and then the start of the first session! I ran into SO many people I knew from the summer!! I got to see Anjela, the wonderful high school senior that worked with me in the snack shack all summer, and met almost her entire youth group. And during the mixer game, I met so many other girls and ran into a bunch more people that I knew from last year's Freeze Out! This, is why I love Freeze Out so much: we connect with junior high and high school students in an incredibly unique way. Musically, the first session was AMAZING! Then, when the music part was over, I had another surprise: Ken Rudolph, the regular speaker at Lake Ann, was walking up to the stage. I knew I'd see him eventually, but this was the first time he saw me, and he was so excited that he gave me a huge hug right there on the stage in front of everybody! It was super awkward, but really cool at the same time.
Later that night, two unusual things happened: first, Jim decided that he wanted to join the slide-across-the-ice-with-your-boots game that the rest of my team was playing, and wiped out in front of all of us! Then, he picked himself up, and insisted that he compete with Ashtyn to see who could slide the farthest... long story short, both of them ended up in the snow, and Ashtyn ended up losing a boot. I have quite an interesting boss, to say the least. The second thing that happened is a lot more profound. For the past couple of weeks, I have been searching online for overseas missions opportunities for musicians, to see if being a missionary might be in God's plan for my life. Friday night when the 3 of us girls were talking in the cabin, I mentioned this to them, and they both reacted the same way. It's hard to describe; it was sort of an approving moan, like an "mmhmm," only with a more surprised or inspired tone to it. I'll never forget it, because that sound struck a chord in my heart, and suddenly I had an intense desire to go overseas and serve God as a musician over there, in one way or another.
The next morning during my God-and-I time, I was refreshed and pumped for the day ahead! The morning session went really well; I sat with Anjela and her youth group again during the message and also sat with them at lunch. With the afternoon came the Yeti games! The Yeti games are pretty much an organized way of running and falling in the snow and throwing snowballs at each other (for some reason this is always Dane's favorite part of the weekend). At the very end, the intern had the great idea of turning HeartSong into the target for the camp-wide snowball-firing contest. I was so proud of my team for being such good sports (even if I wasn't).
I had dinner with the LA staff before the evening session, which was a great flashback to the summer and anticipation for this next summer. This session was Ken's salvation message, which is always so good and moves kids to want to know Christ or to know Him more. There was a bit of time between the message and the HeartSong concert, so I took advantage of that time to talk to Ken and his wife Jinner about Europe. Oh, I forgot to mention that Ken and Jinner are starting a camp ministry over in Kusel, Germany! I had been wanting to talk to them all day about their work over there, when they felt called to go, and what kind of things I could do over there as a musician. That talk was very encouraging! Turns out there are so many more opportunities than I thought! It definitely gave me something to keep praying about.
The concert went really well; we introduced a few new songs and also played some classics from the summer (we didn't play Romans 16:19, but don't worry; Anjela and I got a bunch of her friends to sing it with us before the evening session started!). But the most amazing part was after the concert, when Anjela came running over to me with her friend in tow, telling me her friend had something to tell me. When I asked her what it was, her friend said, "I got saved tonight." YES!! THIS is what HeartSong and Lake Ann are all about; introducing Christ to the campers and seeing them choose to serve Him with their lives. I was so excited and grabbed every team member I could find to tell them the awesome news!
I know this post is getting long, but there are so many stories! Here's the next one: you may remember the girl I met last year who I latched onto for the weekend. Well, she was there this year, too, and somehow I passed by her several times and didn't even see her! Finally, when I did see her on Saturday night, I felt so bad for missing her that I committed to eating breakfast with her and sitting by her for the final session Sunday morning. And I did just that. If there's one thing I regret from this weekend, it was that I somehow missed this wonderful girl who was just a little to shy to say anything to me about last year. But I was glad for the time I could have with her; as small as it was, it was a meaningful part of the weekend for me.
After the last session, we reluctantly tore down our sound equipment and piled into the fan to leave. We said farewell to Lake Ann, but only for a few months! On the way home, we went around the van and shared our roses and thorns (one great thing and one not-so-great thing from the weekend). For most of us, the thorn was having to leave!
Looking back now, I'm remembering standing on the stage at Lake Ann. It was the place I stood all summer playing the keyboard, and this time I was back, surrounded by 6 new on-stage team members. It was a little weird at first, but it was so good to be back, and I felt so warm inside and so thankful every single minute I was standing on that stage. Literally, every minute, I could not stop thanking God. From stressing about trussing to getting pelted with snowballs, from hearing the Rudolphs talk about Europe to hearing a girl say she got saved, I could not stop thanking God. He gives me the indescribable and unexplainable grace that I need to live every day, and to lift up the shout of a heart He set free.
The concert went really well; we introduced a few new songs and also played some classics from the summer (we didn't play Romans 16:19, but don't worry; Anjela and I got a bunch of her friends to sing it with us before the evening session started!). But the most amazing part was after the concert, when Anjela came running over to me with her friend in tow, telling me her friend had something to tell me. When I asked her what it was, her friend said, "I got saved tonight." YES!! THIS is what HeartSong and Lake Ann are all about; introducing Christ to the campers and seeing them choose to serve Him with their lives. I was so excited and grabbed every team member I could find to tell them the awesome news!
I know this post is getting long, but there are so many stories! Here's the next one: you may remember the girl I met last year who I latched onto for the weekend. Well, she was there this year, too, and somehow I passed by her several times and didn't even see her! Finally, when I did see her on Saturday night, I felt so bad for missing her that I committed to eating breakfast with her and sitting by her for the final session Sunday morning. And I did just that. If there's one thing I regret from this weekend, it was that I somehow missed this wonderful girl who was just a little to shy to say anything to me about last year. But I was glad for the time I could have with her; as small as it was, it was a meaningful part of the weekend for me.
After the last session, we reluctantly tore down our sound equipment and piled into the fan to leave. We said farewell to Lake Ann, but only for a few months! On the way home, we went around the van and shared our roses and thorns (one great thing and one not-so-great thing from the weekend). For most of us, the thorn was having to leave!
Looking back now, I'm remembering standing on the stage at Lake Ann. It was the place I stood all summer playing the keyboard, and this time I was back, surrounded by 6 new on-stage team members. It was a little weird at first, but it was so good to be back, and I felt so warm inside and so thankful every single minute I was standing on that stage. Literally, every minute, I could not stop thanking God. From stressing about trussing to getting pelted with snowballs, from hearing the Rudolphs talk about Europe to hearing a girl say she got saved, I could not stop thanking God. He gives me the indescribable and unexplainable grace that I need to live every day, and to lift up the shout of a heart He set free.
No comments:
Post a Comment