Faith like a mustard seed

For the past couple of weeks, faith has really been heavy on my mind and I really have no idea why. During the trip Twenty-Four Seven had a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend, Alex, came to me after a worship night with a word from God. He showed me Matthew 17:14-21, which talks about Jesus's disciples and their lack of faith to cast demons out of a boy. This passage made no sense to me until the latter half of the trip where the ladies of Twenty-Four Seven had an awesome opportunity to grow closer to God and to each other. Slowly but surely God has been revealing to me the meaning of faith and how the Matthew passage applied to me. I'm still not sure of the entire meaning, and after going through my hermenteutics course I am excited about looking into the deeper meaning. This morning during team prayer, I also found Hebrews 11:1-12:3, which is almost exactly what Tanner prayed over me without me even mentioning it to him. Hopefully God continues to show me His truth.

The second year

Twenty- Four Seven as a second year cadre,

is a totally different experience from my first year. I am blown away by how much God blesses me by allowing to lead and mentor a great group of first years, especially the girls.

This Weekend we returned from our first trip of the year; going through it again from a different perspective made me realize that trip is my favorite one from the whole year. No one really knows each other, but we all pull together and lift each other up. Watching how all of the first years pushed themselves and carried their teammates through common struggles was such an incredible experience. I was reminded of how God carries us in our hard times, but He's given us people in our lives to support us as well. Last week was a great way to start off the year, and I loved being on the other side of the experience to help plan and lead.

As a second-year cadre, I have a lot more responsibilities. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I began training before the year started for first-years. I knew this year would be hard, but learning how to balance everything and prioritize has been a huge lesson for me so far. Planning events, being in charge of everyday events, and mentoring and leading first years is going to give me so much valuable experience to use for the rest of my life.

Another beginning

FIRST OF ALL, 

I want to apologize for my very poor discipline to blog over the summer. God provided me with so many opportunities to serve and glorify Him during my time away from Twenty-Four Seven School of Ministry, and I didn't share any of them with you. I could easily write several posts discussing everything that happened; this was probably the best summer I've ever had. Rather than dwelling on the past, however, I look forward to the future of this year and the years to come.

(This is my new team at Siesta Beach for Orientation Weekend)

Finally, my second year in Twenty-Four Seven has come around! Honestly, coming into training I realized that I had no idea what I had gotten myself into; as usual, Twenty-Four Seven has been a bit rough, but totally worth it. After a week of intense physical and mental preparation, second years, third years, and staff put on orientation weekend. The new first years are finally here!

(I made this sheet of information for my team members)

After a lot of deliberation, prayer, and several meetings, myself and three other cadre (Noah who was on my team last year, Chris, and Tanner our third year) decided on the name Anaiah. Finding team name ideas was way harder than we anticipated, but God answered! Then shortly before Orientation day, each cadre learned the first year members of their teams. God has blessed me with the best possible team (other than Eklektos from last year); each member is so incredible and has great potential. I am so excited to see everything God uses us for this year and how He grows each of us!