Father, I Want to Be Close to You!

So we start our 4th church, as Mike said, in Ringgold. We are all so thankful for what the Lord did in Richmond Hill. The relationships we formed were incredible!! The kids are so hungry for the Lord!!! One of the girls just texted me yesterday and told me that we had no idea what kind of impact we were making and she was closer to the Lord than she has ever been!! I am just amazed by the Lord and the way He is choosing to use us! My favorite part about Richmond Hill was when we took communion with the kids and then blindfolded them. We played some "soaking" music to allow them to just rest in the Lord's presence. We told them that if they needed prayer, to give a thumbs up. We got to pray for a bunch of the kids, and then I had the opportunity to dance up and down the asiles as I prayed over them and proclaimed truth over that place and those kids. We then moved into a time of praise and worship. Mike and I lead worship the whole time we were there. Mike had never done that before where he could hear himself through a monitor. For me, it was the first time, I was really bold in singing and giving it all without being worried of being perfect. I was amazed by the things coming out of my mouth...the holy spirit was definitely singing through me!

As the kids were blindfolded, it really allowed them to let go and worship the Lord in incredible ways. They worshipped with their whole heart and it was absolutely beautiful!! There was one time that I looked at the youth and just started crying because I could tell that thier hearts were so engaged and that the Lord was capturing their hearts.

The next day we took a day trip to St. Simons where we had a great day of fellowship. Before we left, we got to worship on the beach! It was absolutely incredible!! One of the girls and I started dancing and spinning around. It took a great deal of boldness to do that in such a public place, but it was so cool when I looked up and saw a bunch of people watching us worship and wondering what we were doing, and apparently they had been there for a while. Apparently they came up right after Mike prayed that we would touch the people on the beach and it did without some of us even realizing!

Well it's time to go prep and pray for River of Life! I love you all so much and hope that the Lord is blessing your summer!! Thank you SO much for your prayers!!!

Abide in His Love,
Payton :0)

6/16/09

well, we head out in about an hour to head up to ringgold for the river of life we get to serve as a part of there. we're all really excited to have jack back with us, as we stayed at his house last night and will be leaving from there in about an hour. we stayed up til 3 last night watching indiana jones: last crusade, because ginger had never seen it and we all just felt like chilling and resting. from about 215 onward ginger and i were the only ones awake, and she actually fell asleep around 230. it was the rest we needed after such an amazing, intense, spiritually and emotionally charged week at richmond hill (all in a good way). this week should also be very physically draining with all the outside work we'll be doing, though in a different way than the lock in from last week. in either case, though we barely had 24 hours to rest between richmon hill and ringgold, the Lord has provided good rest, and we even got to stop by riverstone church where a bunch of their staff prayed over us. God is good!
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mike

Well, we leave Richmond Hill tomorrow afternoon and head for Kennesaw to stay at Jack's for a night, then on to Ringgold the next day. I forgot my pillow in Cordele... probably the saddest thing ever. Much love all

Justin

2 Down

Two down, some more to go... I can't wait for the next one! So many good times have been had, and it's only been a week and a half. God has done some amazing things. Just finished Cordele, tomorrow starts Richmond Hill. Sweet Jesus time for all! Yay!

Much love,
Justin

One of my Favorite Stories!!

So I was super pumped because the Lord really wanted dance to be a big part of Blakely. It amazed me because the Lord provided so many times for us to lead dance with the older girls, younger girls, and even the boys! It brought me soooo much joy! We taught them dances to worship songs, line dances and dances from Restoration (our praise and worship dance performance in April). In my cabin alone, there were several girls who were dancers. I had such cool opportunities to teach these girls about God's heart for dance and His purposes for dancers! We also had the opportunity with all the girls to talk about God's desire to worship Him with our passions. It was absolutely wonderful and one of the girls, Maggy, sent me a text yesterday telling me that she danced all day to praise and worship music!!!! She told me she didn't want to leave the music, so she turned on the Christian music channel on all of the TVs in the house! It was so wonderful to hear that the Lord made a huge impact in her heart. My heart was to teach these dancers and all of the campers that God created them to expereince intimacy with Him through dance and through their passions They seemed to really soak it in!!

On the last full day, a little 8 year old girl came up to me and I asked her if she wanted to dance for Jesus with me. She shook her head. I then asked her: "Do you know why we dance for Jesus?" She didn't know and so I told her about some of the things I had just learned. In Zephaniah 3:17, it says "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." The hebrew word used for this rejoice, is the word giyl. Giyl means "to spin violently under the influence of a wild emotion." When I told Samantha that Jesus spins violently under the influence of a wild emotion over her, her eyes got HUGE! I then asked her if she wanted to go spin for Jesus, just like He spins over us and she got really, really excited!

Several of the younger girls! Samantha is on the top left!! :0)

We went and danced around the outside Chapel and I have never heard a more joyful laugh! I asked her if she could see Jesus dancing over her and she said yes with a big smile on her face!! We danced around for a long time, spinning and jumping and skipping. Later on, I got a picture of us walking down the aisle in wedding dresses. I asked her if she had ever imagined herself in a princess dress or a wedding dress and she said yes. I told her to picture herself in a dress like that now and that we were going to walk down the aisle and Jesus was at the end. When we got to the end, I was in my own world and lifted up my hands to Jesus and when I looked down, Samantha was doing the same thing. I told her, Jesus is reaching out his hand to you and is asking you to dance. We both took His hand and danced. My iPod was on random, and this whole time the song "Beloved" by Tenth Avenue North was playing. This song is essentially Christ's wedding vows to us! It was absolutely beautiful!

After we were done dancing, I asked Samantha what her dress looked like. She said "It was white with pink hearts! :0)" I then asked her what Jesus did when we got to the end of the aisle. She said "He put His soul in me and He put His heart in me!" Trying to hold back tears in my eyes, I asked her, did Jesus say anything to you? She said, "Yes! He said thank you for praying to me and loving me." My heart absolutely melted! I was absolutely amazed by the Lord and the intimacy that He just allowed this 8 year old to have with Him through dance!! WOW!!!!!!!!!

We love Lindsay, Daniel and Katie!

And so it Begins.....

We love Lindsay, Daniel and Katie! They did an incredible job getting us ready for the summer!!!

Click here to view these pictures larger

This link will take you to our new SHUTTERFLY account! This is where we'll be posting all of our pictures from the summer. So far, we've been to one camp and we took 428 pictures. WOO! So go check them out and see what Crossfire is all about. :]

Back at Mike's

Today we got back to Mike's from our first stop of the summer Kolomoki Camp in Blakely, GA. It was a ton of fun, and somebody else will probably post more about it. I just put this here to give ya'll the schedule update. Next up is Cordele, GA. We've got a couple days to just chill here at Mike's before we move on, so we're gonna be resting up. Actually right now we're watching Star Wars because Ginger has never seen them. Much love all.

Justin

Camp Kolomoki, We Miss You Already!!!!

So we finished our first church and we were sad to leave, but thankful to get some rest! The church camp was in Blakely - a small town in south Georgia (not too far from Albany). Many of us were excited to be at this camp because it reminded us of camps we've been to in the past. We played lots and lots of games, taught lots of dances and songs, held Bible studies, and hung out and poured into the kids. Many of the things we taught were also things we needed to hear and learn. We had incredible opportunities to teach the kids

• about being fully present in where God has you
• that it is our job to BE LOVED by God
• that God doesn't choose the prepared, but He prepares the chosen
• what Godly relationships look like
• about different ways to worship God
  
• about being the light of the world when we leave camp

The kids, the counselors, and the adults seemed to get a ton out of how the Lord used us at camp and didn't want us to leave. Many of the campers asked if we would come back next year!

Our team had an incredible time working with all of the kids and it was incredible to see each team member's strengths as they spent time with the kids and led in their prospective areas! :0) Our team has had lots of laughs and a few struggles already and Jesus is teaching us SO much! I know we are all so incredibly thankful that we get to spend our summer this way!

We will post pictures a little bit later and maybe a few specific stories! Love love love!!!! :0)