Write Hard and Pray Harder!: June 2023

Friday, June 16, 2023

VBS!

Sailing through the Bible is one of my favorite themes! Especially when we get to dress like pirates and sailors!

And what a great lesson on Lazarus! Silas was a great Lazarus.

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Grand Canyon Movie | Scarred Earth

And, our group leader, Eric Hovind, made this great 28 minute movie about the Grand Canyon, evidence of the flood, and why it matters.

We started at the Glen Canyon Dam, and rafted 15+ miles to Lee's Ferry. Rafting down the canyon was incredible! It was hard to believe just how high the walls of the canyon were, until you saw a person up there, and they were just a tiny dot.

We also got to visit some authenticated dinosaur tracks.

And if you get the chance to go in the Colorado river, don't be scared off by the cold water temperatures, it was great!

And Indian Petroglyphs.

Where is my next adventure? Well, on Saturday, I'm heading to New York to work at Longview Bible Camp! I am excited to see my sister out there, that I haven't seen in over a year and a half, but truthfully, I wasn't planning on going out there this year. I had other plans. I'd filled out a fifteen page application for a missions trip to Honduras to work with a Christian school, and I had the application all ready to mail when I got an email from Longview, asking me to consider helping this summer.

I responded almost instantly with a "no"! But I agreed to pray about it, and as I prayed about it, I just didn't feel at peace about mailing in my application, and God kept bringing Longview to mind. Long story short, I emailed back several days later, with a "if you still need me" kind of thing, and as soon as they confirmed they still needed me, I knew that was where God wants me this summer. So, I'm off to see what God will do this summer in the ministry there!

The Grand Redemption

So, back when my sister and I were in Rome, I enjoyed going on a few tours, but was disappointed that the tours about the early Christians weren't even from a Biblical point of view. So, we talked about how cool it would be to go somewhere with a Biblical worldview tour.

We also talked about how many places in the states we'd love to visit, and the Grand Canyon was on that list. Then, my mom sent me a link to a Creation Tour group going to the Grand Canyon. It was a mix of two different groups that combined to make an amazing group, and an incredible Biblical worldview. I wasn't sure if we could squeeze it into a busy month, but Mom and Dad both thought we could wing it, so we gave it a go!

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I had never really thought about how huge that canyon is! Over 280 miles is impressive enough, but you throw in the fact that it's up to eighteen miles wide at parts. It was so massive that it almost looked fake. Like a painting. With my poor depth perception, looking that far across a canyon it was hard to capture the depth with the eye.

I grew up on the creation series by Kent Hovind, so having Eric Hovind and the rest of the Hovind kids leading the group was an awesome experience. I was super excited to hear where their ministry is at today, and how God's Word has been spread through their ministry.

So many words went through my mind when I looked across the canyon. Awe. Beauty. Incredibleness. But the one word that stuck, was the word Redemption.

The Grand Canyon is the result of Noah's Flood. A result of God's judgement on man's sin. A result of human's failures, and God's righteousness.

Yet, despite the fact that this scar on the earth is a sign of God's judgement, it's also beautiful. God took his judgement and punishment on sin, destroying a beautiful world, and yet the reminder of that judgement is such a beautiful place!

That is Redemption. God taking our sins, our scars, and the judgements in our lives, and weaves them into something beautiful. It's never the same, but it can still be beautiful.