Every road that leads to God leads to awe.

Hi everyone!

I am so sorry this update has taken so long! It's been a crazy and rough couple of weeks. The weekend of Father's Day I headed home to visit my family for the first time by myself! Two hours south of Dallas I got a flat tire. Booo. So that was no fun. But it was super fun being home and seeing my family! We got to hang out and go fishing. :) And then I got notification from the financial aid department that I will not have everything covered financially like I have the past two years, I'm not going to go into details, but I am having to figure out living situations and job situations and that's no fun. Then I locked my keys in my car. but that was my fault, so I can't blame the universe. And finally, this past Monday, my car broke down in my job's parking lot. My fantastic Uncle was able to fix it on Saturday and I drove it all weekend, and then it broke down again today. We'll get it figured out though. Needless to say, I am so over being an adult right now. :) 
 
Anyway, all that to say that I'm really sorry that this update has taken so long, please keep me in your prayers, but I'm excited to fill you in on the happenings of Teen Ministry! :) This is a long one!

Our classes have been going so well! The title of this post is actually something Ronnie says during class frequently that I love and has stuck with me. Thanks Ronnie! :) Two weeks ago, we started thinking about and preparing sermons that we gave this past Monday. They were short, at just 5 minutes, but it was an amazing experience. We each were to pick a section from Mark to talk about and give some points on. We had a certain style of formatting that we learned that was so helpful. We all came up with three points that we gleaned from our text. It was an incredible growth experience. I chose to speak about Mark 11:20-25. Go read it! It's so good. It really demonstrates the power of Christ and what He's willing to do for us. I'll give you a little outline. I gathered three action points from Jesus about what it takes to have "Prayer that Moves Mountains,": 

1.  Have Faith. Do not doubt. Trust in the Lord with your whole heart. Understand that what happens is in His control and out of your hands. Trust in his plans for you. Whether the answer to your prayers is a yes or no. Just have Faith. 

2. Believe that you will receive. Don't believe that God is a wish-granting fairy that will give you everything you ask. But believe that you will receive His Best. Because that's what He wants for you, the best. Not your every whim and desire. I could only imagine what my life would be like if everything I've ever prayed for came to be. Thanks be to God that He knows what is best for me. 

4. Forgive. Forgiveness isn't something that I typically think about every time I go to pray, and I need to think about why that is. Everyday I should ask myself, "Is there someone that I need to forgive today? Do I need to seek forgiveness today?" Forgive one another is what The Lord commands of us. It's not optional. God granting our prayers when we haven't forgiven others is like a parent rewarding a child for bad behavior. It just doesn't make sense. 

These are all things that I have learned from analyzing scripture and putting together my sermon. It really gave me a new lens through which to look at scripture. Instead of just reading in my quiet times and not absorbing much, every part of scripture that I read I can ask my self what three points I could gain from this. Everyone else did so fantastic with their sermons! Hearing everyone coming from so many different places with so many different points and ideas was an invaluable experience.

During my Sermon. It was a rough day, excuse the weird face. :)

John's classes have been equally as impactful, We've continued to go through our book. I love that we get to talk about super practical things, such as budgeting and being Christ-like in our workplace. John has such a vast wealth of knowledge when it comes to Teen Ministry, it's so great to hear him speak and get advice. John does this really neat thing where we go over some leadership axioms. Here are just a few that we've discussed: 

Be a fool for God, not cool for God

Ask the question

Think Pastorally 

People won't always live up to your expectations, but they will almost always live down to them. 

Our Sunday Night Teen Group has been so fun! One week we played a hilarious game called "Rock, Paper, Scissors Battle" and the week before last we played this equally as hilarious game that I don't know the name of. Basically, everyone got a balloon and had to try to pop everyone else' balloon. Last one standing won. Joseph Carothers, the Youth Minister for our Wylie church, spoke one week about the importance of Silence and Solitude. Emphasizing the importance of creating a quiet area where you can go to connect with God. He showed a really neat video that I'm going to leave a link to here. It's a little long, but it's SO worth watching! Also, there are Spanish subtitles, but it was the only one I could find! :)

Rob Bell "Noise" Video on Vimeo

The Sunday before last Brianna Marble, also at Wylie Northeast, talked to the teens about Surrender. it was super powerful. She talked about the 3 P's that we need to surrender to God: Plans, Possessions, and People. She gave us a challenge to pick something of value to us and give it away to someone else. I haven't figured out what that is for me yet, but I'll keep you guys updated. 
As always, we go to Wendy's together after group! I got to sit with three of our Teen girls Katelyn, Dhelia, and Madison. It was so fun. They are all in the 12 -14 age range. We talked about everything from camp to pinterest to summer and school. Speaking of camp, I'm so excited because....

We leave for Teen Camp in less than a Week!! 

The week before last was super awesome because I got to spend some 1-on-1 time with one of our girls, Crystal Machuca! She's so wonderful. We went to sonic and got some Ice cream and just spent some time talking about everything. Crystal is going to be a Senior in High School this year. We bonded intensely over our love of the same TV shows. I'm not sure how healthy that is yet.... 

We've also had super fun events since my last post like a Board Game Night that Matt and I put together and this past week we all met together for a rousing game of "Murder in the Dark," which is so much safer than it sounds! Raquel and I car pooled and picked up some other girls for the evening. And, honestly, the car ride was one of my favorite times. We sang and talked about some of our favorite movies and shows, and talked about camp. It's amazing how well you can get to know people when you're in a car together. 

Back: Priscilla, Crystal, and Katelyn Front: Me and Raquel

I've definitely realized how blessed I am to be a part of this beautiful church family. This past Sunday we had group, which was fantastic as usual. Kale talked about Prayer and it was really powerful because he had some activities set up after his talk that were meant to get us used to prayer at any time and in different settings and positions. It was really neat and got everyone out of their comfort zones. We prayed laying face down (prostrate), we prayed on our knees with our head bowed, we prayed out loud walking around outside, we prayed with our arms raised. It was a super cool activity. 

We ended group early that day so that we could all attend The Northeast Churches Pool Party and Ice Cream Social! Every church in our family of Churches was invited, so we got to spend time with our friends from Wylie and Denton as well. It was so fun! And for the first time ever I truly felt like a part of this church family. I've gotten to know so many new faces this summer that I would most definitely consider family. And I've never had a church family before. It was really special. I also got the privilege of driving a few of our girls from Teen Group to the party. It was a blast. Just the drive there we were cracking up the whole time, these girls are crazy goofballs and I love them to pieces.

Katelyn, Genesis, Madison, and I at the pool party!

 Thanks for reading again! Thanks for sticking it out through this long post! As always, please keep the ministry and these teens in your prayers! Please keep camp in your prayers! We leave bright and early for the mountains of Colorado at 4 am Sunday! I'll have so much to update you on upon my return! I'm going to leave you with a prayer that Sirak Asfaw read during worship last Sunday that I think the world of. It speaks volumes.

Love,
Mercedes