Weekend Activities

Hello it's Saturday here in Longwood, FL. I'm currently sitting in the green room at the church awaiting our service at 5PM. Yesterday we went to Wekiva Springs, one of the many natural springs here in Orlando. Despite the extremely hot conditions outside, the springs was quite chilly, 72 degrees chilly. My breath was taken away when I stepped in. It was absolutely gorgeous though. Katie and I didn't last very long in the heat, so a few of us headed back around 2PM. Last night Anna, Katie, and I babysat Pete's kids, the most precious 2 and 4 year old little boys EVER. We ended the night with a hang out time at Katie's house, and I ended up spending the night over there. Today, not much has happened besides preparing for tonight's worship service. I painfully sat through the playing of my announcement video I recorded this week for the services this weekend. I'm not a fan of watching myself on video, haha! Anyways, I'm excited for the rest of the weekend of leading worship. If you haven't watched a service before, just go to www.northlandchurch.net to watch live. Services are Saturday night at 5PM (ET), Sunday mornings at 9AM and 11AM, Sunday night at 6PM, and Monday night at 7PM. Have a great weekend! Thanks for reading. Here's some pictures of Wekiva Springs.

LOVING it

     Wow, I cannot believe an entire week has gone by without me blogging! My time here is going by very fast. I've been here two weeks now! I can't possibly think of everything that has happened the past week, but I will share a few cool things that I've really enjoyed.
     Every Monday we have a class with Teresa, the sweetest lady you'll ever meet, on spiritual gifts. The first three weeks are on the gifts and the last three Connie is teaching on personality. I've become so interested in this study! We took a test last week and then discussed this week in full detail the gifts of prophecy, mercy, and giving. My underlying gift is most definitely prophecy. The main characteristic of prophecy is possessing and extreme discernment between right and wrong. A prophet bases everything off of whether it is right or not. They long to see the pursuit of Christ-likeness both in themselves and in others. It's really cool discovering how God has created me and what motivations He has placed within me to carry out His work. It can get pretty complicated though when you begin to think about personality with gifting. We are extremely layered and complicated human beings, so I've learned.
      Another really neat thing about this past week deals with my personal devotions and learnings. Every Tuesday night the worship interns have a bible study at Pete's house. He has given us the book, "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer to be reading this summer. This book is all about the attributes of God and the importance of learning just how holy God is. I've been amazed realizing just how complex and incomprehensible the Lord is. He truly is beyond anything our creature-minds can imagine, and my very thoughts of God that are unworthy of Him are considered idolatry in His eyes. To think that I can contain Him in my own mind and self is ridiculous and offensive to God, wow! So this bible study has been extremely encouraging and fulfilling.
      There is so much more I feel I could talk about, but I know how boring it is to read super long blogs. Other than this, all the interns are just continuing to grow together, hanging out almost every night. It's been great! Oh, and Sabrina is in Orlando now and I'm SOOO grateful to have hung out with her a few times already. How funny that my best friend is doing an internship in the same town as me this summer!
     Well I hope to update this more often. I really don't want to slack off as the summer goes on, so add a comment and talk to me people! Thanks for reading.

Unexpected Visit

Well, I got a surprise visit this morning by the Casselberry Police Department. Apparently I'm supposed to turn the alarm off before opening the door to outside. I already had a sticky note on the bathroom door to remind me, but I guess I need one on the back door as well. I woke up around 8:30 this morning to use the bathroom, planning on going back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so. However, Snickers was begging to go outside, so my plan was to let the dogs out and then go back to bed. As soon as I opened the door I regretted my decision. The security alarm blaring, I ran to try and turn it off, attempting random access codes but nothing worked. Finally, after about 3 minutes of panicking I remembered I have a remote on my keys to turn it off! Just as the alarm shut off I began to hear sirens outside from a distance...oh great! The police didn't arrive for another 15 minutes for some reason, but we got everything figured out. The poor father-in-law had to come over too because the security people called him, how embarrassing! So lesson learned...I need another sticky note on the back door. Needless to say, I haven't gone back to sleep.
       That incident aside, we just completed worship at Northland for the weekend last night at Monday's service. Today begins a new week of planning and scheduling. We're already onto this weekend and the next two weekends! Today is a relaxed day where we're just preparing for the songs for this weekend. Tonight we have bible study with all the interns at Pete's house! I'm super excited to meet his family. Something the Lord really showed me this weekend....we cannot contain God. We can't limit him in worship or any other area of life. Northland uses every resource available to worship Christ. I was really encouraged to worship with them this weekend and truly experience everything coming together. I feel right at home and a part of the family already!

Ending Week 1

helllloooo. Today was a great ending to my first week here in Orlando. All the interns plus some other really cool people loaded up this morning and headed to Universal and Islands of Adventure theme parks! In other words, a REALLY fantastic day! We began our journey in Harry Potter land, which not being a fan of Harry Potter, I probably didn't appreciate it as much as others. Then we rode just about every ride in Islands of Adventure. Later we headed over to Universal, which I had never been to come to find out. My favorite ride there was the Mummy. It was completely unexpectedly more intense than I was thinking. So, pretty much the entire day was great. Of course there's always the downsides to theme parks...long lines, sweat, disturbing smells, blisters, and the blazing sun. But the adventure of it all greatly outweighs the downsides. I counted about 2 mullets and surprisingly zero fanny packs (besides mine, j/k):)
    Tomorrow begins the first weekend leading worship with Northland. I'll be singing Sunday morning and Monday night this weekend. I'm excited to observe kid's worship tomorrow night during the service! I can't wait to get into the flow of the schedule and really be involved with the planning and preparing of worship services throughout the week! Tomorrow also begins a week of living in my host home alone because my host parents are taking a cruise! This means lots of partying and playing of catch phrase at my house with the interns. I also get to take care of my cute little doggies at the house, Bella (thencutest yorkie you'll ever see) and Snickers (The Schnoodle). Until then, I'll be sleeping very long tonight and enjoying my morning off tomorrow. Goodnight and God bless!

Day 2

     I just finished my second full day here at Northland Church in Orlando. I am already amazed by the people and community of believers a part of this church and the relationships I've made so far. The Lord is sooo good! Yesterday consisted of lots of orientation time and information shock. Our fun outing surprise together...drum roll please...GO KARTS! We had some pretty intense competition on the "slick track" at the Lil500 go kart track! The rest of the day consisted of more information and sitting in on the Monday night service. I sat in the video control room for last night's service with two other interns, completely astounded by the work and creativity that goes into the video production for just one service. I've never seen any church use media and tech like Northland does! Every ounce of creativity and work that goes into a worship service is purposed to create the best atmosphere to help people truly engage in worship and experience the brilliance of the God we serve. It's also really neat to see how the Northland staff works hand in hand to achieve this!
     So today began with an interview, meeting time with the three main guys taking care of us interns: Sarah, Pete, and Sean. The rest of the day consisted of lots of time spent with the worship interns. Pete went through a typical week in the life of the worship department. Around 2PM we all met with Tim, the main worship pastor, and Teresa and Laurie, two of the sweet ladies over vocals. Each of us sang for them and answered lots of questions, getting to know them better. After that, anna and I headed back to my host home to rest after a LONG day. For some reason I've been really exhausted today. I guess I'm still recovering from the travel and getting used to the new schedule. So far, I have been blown away by everything that's happened in only two days. I'm so blessed.

IT'S HERE!!!

I'm finally settled into my host home here in Orlando, FL! William and I drove about six hours this morning and arrived here around 1:30 (Eastern time). My host family is a very sweet young couple, been married for about four years. He is a fire fighter/paramedic and she is a physical therapist assistant. I'm already loving my new home. Within the first hour I knew how to open the garage and set the security system, ha! After unpacking and becoming familiar with my new home, I headed to Northland (which is only 5 minutes from my home) at 5PM to meet with the other interns and a couple of staff before the Sunday night worship service at 6PM. There are around 15 interns total I believe, divided between worship ministry, children's ministry, and student ministry. After the service, we all met together for dinner at a Mexican restaurant and got to know a little more of the staff. I've already enjoyed getting to know and talk to just a few of them! I'm so excited about the next eight weeks and all that the Lord has planned to teach me and grow me. Tomorrow we gather at the church at 8:45AM for more meet and greet and "information overload." And now I think i'm going to head to bed at 9PM, possibly the earliest I've gone to bed since middle school. I am EXHAUSTED from the drive! Can't wait to see what God has in store!