TeenPact Survival West 2012

Well....I'm not really sure how to write about the week...Here are some highlights and photos from the week:

• Getting to see Shelby again.
• Helping people carry luggage to the cabins.
• Seeing friends I hadn't seen since last year. 
• Having Shelby as the staffer for my team again and being on the same team as Joseph again.
• My team. Go Navy Seals! 
• Our team chant. 
• Eating chicken, eggs, pineapple, and apples all mixed together (it sounds weird, but it was really good).
• Getting our whole team across the rope swing (and nobody skinned their hands in the process).
• Feeding each other chili off of 2 1/2 foot long spoons.
• Finally figuring out how to use a map and compass. 
• Hiking in some beautiful mountains. 
• Funny comments while playing hacky sack.
• Having the best snowball fight ever! 
• Having quiet time in the mountains. 
• The "Hey There Survival" song and the other song I can't remember the name of that was also really cool.
• Playing the encouragement game with my team.
• "It was nice knowing you"  
• Getting "lost" in the woods (with around 90 other people).
• Friends that make you go sit down when you need to.
• New friends.

Dear Staffers, You guys are all amazing.
The worship during the week was amazing! Thank you Adam, for leading worship.
We serve an AWESOME God!

The sunrise Tuesday morning. 

Our team eating breakfast Tuesday morning. (Pineapple is hard to cut with a pocket knife)

My team. Go Navy Seals! 

The Still and The Turmoil

The waterfall

She stood and stared at the waterfall. It wasn't big, only three or four feet tall, and the water poured around the rocks that were in the middle of the stream. Everyone else commented on how pretty it was, but to her the beauty of it was gone. After what had happened only a year before, and even though it was a different waterfall, one she had never seen, she could only see it as water that roared and foamed and could take a life.

Everything in her wanted to give up acting like she had no sadness, fall to the ground and cry all the tears that had been locked up inside her for so long. She wanted to kick something and shout at the sky "God why did you have to take him?" 

But she didn't.

When they reached the lake she went and sat on a rock by herself, she needed a few minutes to get control of her emotions. She looked around her and saw the meadows with wildflowers, she had heard that Jimmy had liked meadows. It seemed that everywhere she looked she saw things that reminded her of Jimmy. She had thought that since a year had gone by the pain would have lessened, but it seemed to have gotten stronger. Her heart was still crying out "Why God, why did you have to take Jimmy?" The still lake seemed so calm in contrast to the turmoil of the pain she felt from losing Jimmy. 

That night when she was reading her Bible she came to Psalm 23.

" The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul..."

Right away she thought of the meadows and the lake. 

"He restores my soul."

She knew it might take a long time but God would heal her heart and "restore her soul." 

Psalms 13

Psalms 13

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts 
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, 
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him, ”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love; 
    my heart rejoices in your salvation. 
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

This is one of my favorite psalms. I know sometimes I've felt like God wasn't listening. And eleven months ago when I lost a friend, who I'd only known for one week, I had so much sorrow in heart. But lately God has been showing me how much I have to be thankful for. Amazing friends who have encouraged and supported me these past months, that I actually got to know Jimmy for that one week, and so much more. God truly has been good to me.

Ten months ago....til now.

The words brought shock and grief. The pain was strong and deep. At first she could not think, the only thing that came to mind was, no, not him, not Jimmy. A few minutes went by and her thoughts began to race. He can't be gone, I saw him only two days ago, and he was so full of life then. She began grabbing at all the memories she had of him. The first time she met him, that song he sang during team-building activities, worship up on the hill and when he signed her shirt "Jimmy O Jack". She had laughed then.
That night when she went to bed, she laid there and cried. Questions filled her mind, How can he be dead? Why did it have to be Jimmy? Why didn't I talk him more? Did I ever actually say goodbye to him?

In the days that followed she would sometimes find herself thinking, Was it just a bad dream? I know it's not but, oh, how I wish it was. She couldn't quite figure out why she missed him so much, she hardly even knew him.

The months flew by, and she thought still thought of Jimmy every day. Soon it was March, TeenPact was right around the corner she was excited to get to see her friends again. When they arrived at the capitol, and she first saw Rachel, she thought, oh, that's Jimmy's sister. The day drew to a close and they went to the barracks. When it was time for rendezvous she was in Rachel's group. When they had to "rate their day" she rated it a 5, she'd had a good day, but there was the underlying sadness of how the day had made her think so much of Jimmy, she still missed him.
Tuesday afternoon during free time she was walking around with Rachel and Shelby. At one point she noticed a picture of Jimmy on Rachel's phone. She wanted to talk to her, tell her how much Jimmy had impacted her life, and how she missed him. But how can I tell her that? I only knew Jimmy for one week, and Jimmy is her brother, she's known him all her life. She might think it's weird that I miss him. So she didn't say anything.
That night during worship she found herself fighting back tears. The last time she had been with a group like this and singing, it had been on hill in the woods and Jimmy had been the one leading worship. She looked over at Rachel and thought that she saw tears in Rachel's eyes. She wanted to give her a hug, tell her what she had been afraid to tell her earlier that day. But she was still afraid.

The next day went by fast and she had wondered all day if Rachel would tell the rendezvous group about Jimmy. Rachel did tell the rendezvous group about Jimmy, and showed everyone the picture of him that was on her phone. As she looked at the picture on Rachel's phone, her eyes filled with tears. She fought them back. Why does just seeing his picture make me so sad? Rachel prayed and as she got up to go to bed the tears started running down her cheeks. When she got to her bunk she was sobbing, she turned around to see Rachel standing there. Rachel hugged her, she stood there hugging Rachel and crying onto Rachel's shoulder.
"What's the matter?" Rachel said.
"It's just......your brother....I hardly knew him....but" she choked out between sobs.
"Do you want to talk?"
"It's late, we should probably go to bed....maybe we can talk tomorrow"
Rachel had to leave to get ready for bed. She turned around, Shelby had been standing there too. Shelby hugged her as she cried more. When she went to bed sobs shook her for a while before she fell asleep.

She didn't get to talk to Rachel, the next day was busy and she never got around to it. Soon TeenPact was over and she had to say goodbye to all of her friends. She found it painful to say goodbye to Rachel and Shelby.

Over the next month she thought many times about how she wished she would have talked to Rachel that night. And even though they kept in touch she never had the courage to bring it up again. As the days passed she still missed Jimmy just as much as before. When she was talking to one of her friends about it, one of the things her friend said was "cherish the memories". So she wrote a poem, about memories. It eased the pain to write her thoughts.


This is kind of a summary of some of what has been going on in my life from July 31st til now. I'm not all that good at writing. I found it was easier to write in third person. ~ Sarah

TeenPact Survival

Last summer I attended a camp called TeenPact Survival. It was an amazing week and it changed my life.

To start with I have to say Thank You Staffers! Austin, Aj, Brittany,Clay, Emma, Jordan, Jimmy, Katie, Shelby, Sterling, and Skyler, you guys were great. Thank you to the cooks Jenny, Rachel and Shelby Z.
And a big Thank You to Daniel Solid, the Program Director for the week. He gave some really good talks on Romans 12 and Team-Building.


I was on the blue team along with Clayton, Daniel, Emilee, Evan, Justin, Joe, Lydia, Macaela, and Olivia.

Shelby and  Aj were the staffers for our team.

The Blue Team

Monday we came up with our team name and team chant. Our team name was: The Storm. 

Tuesday: Team-Building Activities. 

Below are some pictures of our team doing some of the team-building activities.

Our team on the box. It's really hard to get ten people on a 2-foot square box.

The rope swing. Go Evan! It almost worked.

But the bright spot of that day was when our team was doing the activity that was similar to a three-legged race only, there were ten of us doing it (picture below). At one point we weren't allowed to talk to each other so we staggered our feet and instead of saying " one, two, one, two" we said "mm, ah, mm, ah"  to a beat. And Jimmy started singing a random song along with the beat. The two combined just sounded silly. It made me laugh.

Wednesday: The Hike


We spent six hours hiking Steamboat Mountain. It was probably the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen.

Our team on the hike. 

Thursday: The Obstacle Course

Definitely my favorite day of the week. The Wall, The Beam, Creek Crossing, The Giant's Finger and Island Hopping = extremely fun!

The Beam. Way to go Joe!

Creek Crossing

Friday: Survival Skills

We built a shelter, a dead-fall trap, a fire, a water-still and did a plant identification quiz. Just a couple of notes:

1. When judging our shelter, I don't think the staffers appreciated our clay pigeon decorations.
2. Peanut butter and jelly on tortillas gets kind of boring after having it for lunch four days in a row.
3. It's really hard to make macaroni and cheese from a box when you don't have butter or milk.

Afternoons
I think my favorite part of Survival was the afternoons. Whether it was playing Ultimate Frisbee or just sitting and talking, it was just fun to spend time with some really cool people.
One afternoon some of the guys were pretending to be bowling pins and a little girl (she was around 7 or 8 years old; her mom was there as a chaperon) would roll a ball at them and they would dramatically fall to the ground. It was hilarious.

The worship and sessions were amazing!


The hardest part was saying goodbye to everyone.

Two days after Survival we heard that one of the staffers, Jimmy Brazell, had died in a swimming accident. Even though I hardly knew him, he impacted my life.

Photo credits: Shelby Bennett, Jenny McVeda and the Survival website.

This Road

When thinking about what title to choose for my blog this thought came to mind:
Life is like walking down a road. Sometimes the road is smooth and paved. Sometimes the road is rough and rocky. But no matter where we are in life, if we stumble, God is always there to catch us. And pick us up when our feet hurt too much to walk.
This blog is for writing my thoughts and experiences as I walk down the road of life.

My Blog

Well, I'm starting a blog. I don't know how much I'll write on it, but we'll see.