Wow! I seriously can't believe that the month of May is gone already! It seems like just yesterday it was May 1st. As some of you may know May is my very favorite month of the year. As sad as I am to see it go though i am still thoroughly excited for June to be here as it is my second favorite month of the year. Yes summer is finally here! Campers will be arriving soon and homework and classes will be done soon for a few months.

The theme for the month of May was humility. What more can i say on this? Except that God has certainly guided the themes for the months and May has been no different. I wouldn't say that i have learned or been through anything exceptional on this subject but God has certainly been giving me many quiet reminders and subtly teaching me the ways of being humble, though i still have so far to go as humbleness is a life-long journey.

On May 16th through the 17th we(many of the staff at Bair Lake plus the outfitters) had the opportunity to travel south to visit the creation museum. We drove the six hours and spent the night at Potters Field (a local Christian camp) in a Tepee while it rained all night. That was quite the fun and memorable experience. Then the next day we got an early start and spent the whole day at the museum before returning that night to camp. It was a long day but well worth how tired it made us. At the museum we saw a planetarium that was awesome, did a walk-through a vast amount of knowledge and walked through their botanical gardens and petting zoo. My favorite part of the museum was the Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eve section. Thinking about the first marriage and family and how God had originally designed it to be. How the world began so perfect and how Heaven will be perfect as well.

Life has been busy and i fall into bed exhausted every night but life is good and i am so happy to be living and working for God every day here at Bair Lake Bible Camp. He is truly so good to me!

The theme of April was intersession, and it has been quite a month of learning. Our pillars book was, "Reese Howells, Intercessor" and it has probably been my favorite pillars book so far this year despite how convicting it has been. It is a biography of a welsh man that followed God's specific calling to the life of an intercessor and all the great things that happened in the world because he followed God. I have recently been enlightened on the difference between a prayer warrior and an intercessor. A prayer warrior can start and stop praying for things at their will, whereas an intercessor prays for what God tells them to pray for and they don't stop praying until God gives them the victory or tells them to stop. Also they often live the life of the way of the people they are interceding for. Then in a sermon i recently heard on intersession i learned how Jesus' whole life and purpose was and is interceding to the Father for us. Therefore if we are all called to live a life like Jesus then it is reasonable to say that we are all called to a life of intersession. True our life will not look like a carbon copy of Reese Howell's, but we need to be continually abiding with God and giving Him utter and complete control of our lives so that He may lead and guide us in the way He has planned for us. It is so hard to truly live like i have given God complete control of my life but it is a continual prayer of mine that i will die to self and God will live through me. This is no easy prayer as God is slowly starting to test me and teach me how to die to self.
Intersession was not the only subject in my life for the month of April though. I have also been studying a precepts course on Genesis 3-11. the last few lessons have been specifically on the serpent, sin and death, and what Jesus did to save us from the results of our sin which is death. It has been both interesting and eye-opening to match and compare scriptures all over the Bible that come together to give insight on a subject.
Also this past month i with the other outfitters had the opportunity to visit Adam Reid's (a fellow staffer and BLBC) family and the campus of CMU. We got to meet a woman that worked with campus crusade who lead a ministry that specifically reached the Greek inter-varsity groups. We went on a prayer walk down main street with all of the Greek sorority and fraternity houses. It was exciting to see and hear about a ministry that God has been working in and opening long-closed doors to.
The above has been just a small taste of my month of April. I wish i could expound more on it but that would take pages upon pages to cover. Thank you all for your prayers i have been so blessed by God in this program thus far. I am greatly looking forward to summer and am excited to see the things that God has for me in the coming months. I am praying that your summer will be as great as i am sure mine will be!

It's NOT about me!

It seems that God has been starting to open my eyes a bit more to how much i make life about me! It's sickening how much i think about myself on a daily basis! I am often thinking about what my needs are and how they will be met. I have made life about me for so long (my whole life really) that it is first nature to me. I often do it subconsciously! God has been hitting me a lot lately with the concept of dieing to self. Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24. I have been trying to picture/define what it is to deny oneself completely. What does it realistically look like in my daily life to deny myself. I recently read an example a friend wrote about when things in life get unclear we are tempted to pull out our own plans or "road maps" to follow rather than God's better plan that He has for us. So with that concept in mind, would denying myself be giving up my self-made desires, plans, schedules and dreams, and not fall back on them when God has decided to not show me the next step in front of me? Living examples of how this might look in my life are: getting up earlier to be able to have longer quiet times, giving up comforts that mask as daily essentials, possibly giving up areas of volunteer work, changing my schedule to make room for more reading of the Bible rather than socializing, not going back to college, laying life-long ministry/career desires and dreams on the alter of God and not filling the new empty space with new dreams and desires... I'm sure the list could go on. This is just my thoughts on denying myself in relation to God. I also wonder how does it look for Hannah Parcher to deny herself daily for the sake of others? Could it mean: letting my roommate keep the house the way she rearranged it because she obviously likes it that way, letting people be right and not arguing with them saying their wrong(whither they are or aren't), not altering my physical appearance simply because some of the people i love prefer me not to and because i love and respect them so much i should respect their desires and wishes, working harder or perhaps longer so that someone else won't have to do it(whatever it may be) for a change, changing my schedule so that others don't have to change theirs, letting someone else lead an area simply because they are better at the leading or just to let them lead that area for once even if i love working in that area... again the list could go on and i am still just beginning to discover what it means and looks like to die to myself on a daily basis. I simply pray that God will continue to be my great teacher in this matter. Will you pray with me on this? Thank you, and please feel free to let me now what God is currently teaching you and how i may pray for you. "But encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Hebrews 3:13