Kendalalley’s Blog

(written yesterday…)

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since the Chapman Family’s adopted daughter, Maria Sue, passed away. I remember on May 21st last year when Kristopher called me and we were talking and by the end of the conversation he asked, “so are you doing ok?” and I was just like, ummm… yes?? I didn’t know what he and others knew. I had managed to not get online or around a TV or radio to hear the tragic news of the accident. And little did I know that my mother and Ashley had decided not to bring it up to me. I got off the phone, and began watching news clips online. Have you ever been so devastated and shocked that you can’t even cry? I just felt hopelessly overwhelmed with pain for the Chapman family like so many others were feeling. As time passed, there is no doubt that the Chapman family has held tightly to their faith and promise from their Lord to be reunited with their little Maria. As SCC has said, their future with Maria is for eternity and how blessed they are to know that this little girl came to know the Lord as her Savior at such a young age. The Chapman family has had a busy year as well with Emily’s Wedding, Caleb’s Wedding, the SCC/MWS tour, Maria’s Big House construction, and I’m sure so much more. They are such an inspiration to us all, and “us all” is now including more than just the CCM fans… with their appearance on Larry King and Good Morning America, they have expanded their witnessing field to those around the world suffering and dwelling in pain instead of trusting in the Lord, Jesus Christ.

A year later and I still have to turn the radio when I hear “Cinderella”… and I still look at this beautiful and adorable little girl and get teary eyed. Let’s make a special effort to lift the Chapman family up during this week for them…

… so what else would I do but blog? Ha. I am ‘contradiction’ personified.
(Romans 7:14-25)

ANYWAY…

I am currently printing out TONS of research that I must read, comprehend, create an opinion, (a scholarly thoughtful opinion at that) and write 2 research papers that are due on Thursday. Oh, and tomorrow is Wednesday… as in… Church day.

Normally this is where I would allow everyone to fuss at me about procrastination and how its my own fault- but I really am not feeling guilt as much as I am exahustion- so don’t waste your breath. I have been too busy cranking out dozens of papers in the last month- I have not had time to worry with these.

As I wait for these papers to print one could argue that the best use of my time would be to go ahead and start reading the research that has already printed. But I really don’t think my brain can take any more information tonight. I must get on here and vent some of my thoughts out in order to make some room for more information I will read about after about 4 hours of sleep. Don’t judge me. lol

The end is near. I just have to make it 3 more weeks. I am looking forward to having my sanity back. Everything is going so well- if only I had some mental capacity to trully enjoy as God is unfolding such awesome stuff right now! haha! Anyway, I’m blessed to have such awesome people surrounding me as I deal with this school stress. I have had a lot of the coolest people in the world come into my life… but right now I am feeling even extra encouraged by the people in my life now. Like never before I feel myself being raised up by friends and mentors of a higher level than myself- and I just long to be in their presence, on the phone with, or texting them all, all the time! ha! I love that after six hours of being with someone one on one I left feeling like a better person… like I had just experienced the actual love of God. have you ever just been so overwhelmed with the love of God? Man… I feel like I am getting to know God in a whole new way— I am loving this season in my walk with God… If I could be so bold to quote the greatest artist of them all, “Its all about love, love, love, love, love”- Steven Curtis Chapman

In a message written between 3-4am on Saturday, April 18

“Its officially 3am. I am sitting in a not so comfortable recliner in an absolutely beautiful mountain house that is full of absolutely beautiful sleeping young ladies (and one smoking Beth-a-roo! (wait she doesn’t really smoke… I just mean she is beautiful too! Hah!)) I am tired; just finished some much needed time power pointing for church on Sunday (Since I’m going to be a tad on the busy side on my Saturday night! *wink*) and I feel like I have nothing left to give as far as mental capacity goes because my school load has been un. real. ugh.

But… I sit here tired, drained, uncomfortable, and happier than ever before. Earlier today Addison came in my office at church, laid down an iPod with headphones and said, “I brought you something to listen to.” I put the headphones on- hit play- and said, “You have got to be kidding me!” I was listening to the first finished track from their recording session.

Words cannot describe how extremely proud and moved I was. Before I knew it I had a handful of people watching me crying at my desk. Mind you, our youth’s band is a hardcore band with screaming and everything- so crying at it really makes no sense- but it happened before I even realized it. I hope the boys forgive me for crying at their hard rock song… it certainly wasn’t the song that made me cry… it was the amazing talent you possess and that you recognize it as being a gift from God and you use it for good and not evil. I’ve said it before but I will say it again- they rock my face off

Now, I am here with my girls, and as muuuuuuuuuuch as I love my boys (They all know I am crazy crazy crazy over them I do believe!) there is just something so special about spending time with my girls. We have had the best time with Beth’s big surprise plan to take us all up the mountain for our retreat! We’ve played the coolest games and had the coolest discussion sessions… it’s so nice to talk and laugh and be real with each other. Its times like these that I will never forget.

As much as I want to be a mom and as much as I already love my little girl from China that God has for me- I already am starting to feel like a mom. Not that I act like one to the youth or that I am some good role model or anything for them- but in the love that I have for them. I guess I am just experiencing my heart growing more and more like a new mother’s heart grows to love her child.

I have always been close to my youth group- and I have always enjoyed planning events and taking an active leadership role even when I was a youth myself sometimes… but something has changed… *gasp* maybe I’m even growing up myself some. But, I’ve always heard new mothers say that you begin to realize and become overwhelmed with how much God loves you once you finally have kids yourself. Not that I think the youth are “kids” actually, they know I strongly feel the opposite especially when I am only 22 myself. (whoa… I just realized when I typed that- that I told someone yesterday that I was 21. Man. lol)

but it’s more of the WAY I love the youth now. I am protective of them. I am possessive of them. (and boy are they protective and possessive of me… maybe even more than I am of them!! Hah!! (which I love by the way!)) I care about them more than if they were just my friends, and in a different way than if they were just my brother or sister. I care about equipping them for the real world, and about laying some foundational stones in their life that they can continue to look to as they grow older and their faith is, undoubtedly tested. I want to know about their relationships, their family, their plans, their pet peeves, their hobbies, where they are going, what they are thinking (or not thinking! Ha!) I want to know everything. I even told my girls as I was talking to them tonight that I often catch myself talking about the youth with my friends and family as if they are my children and I am bragging on them and am all but obsessed with them. creepy? yes. thank you! lol.

Working with youth is such a blessing. I have always loved this group of people and found it almost easy to be able to create relationships with people in this age group and have been blessed to have had the chance to connect with tons and tons of youth throughout my life. Who knows, maybe youth ministry will play a bigger part in my future than I would have guessed.

One thing is for sure though— I love my CVBC youth and I am so so so so so so so so blessed and humbled by the fact that they love me in spite of the times I can be unlovable. Youth: if you happen to be reading this… I want to thank you for teaching me more about how God loves me and for being real with me. Your friendship and love is truly treasured by me… and I will never ever stop believing in all the wonderful things that I see God using each of you for. If nothing else, I will always love you (cue the Whitney Houston song)- and you can bet that if it’s a new day… you have been prayed for by your “momma K”

-Shalom Out

I normally am horrible to skip the forwarded messages I get as emails… sorry… I mean, some of them are cute and I know that most people who send them to me actually do weed out the bad ones and only send me the good ones- but I normally just don’t have the time. I certainly don’t have the time to read them now- but my brain is triggered to notice the word “clay” because of the significance that word has had in my spiritual life.

At the crucial time of a young lady’s life during my teen years I found great comfort in the Jeremiah passage of how God is the Potter and I am the clay- so I need to stop my complaining and let him mold me into the person He wanted me to be… that verse had a profound effect on the teenager that I was. Later, as a young college student who was not at peace with her career choices and strongly, strongly convicted with a call into the ministry but felt no hope for getting out of this life that had been established for years as a musician- Another verse had a profound affect which was the 2 Corinthians passage about how we are earth clay vessels with a treasure inside which needs to be shared with all… When reading this verse… the conviction to go into the ministry became stronger- then Pastor Mike spoke on it, then it came on the radio, and finally at a mission trip to Gulfport, Mississippi it was used as a theme for the mission trip- the overwhelment of the Holy Spirit moving in my life became too great- and here I am today!

SO- you can see why “clay” sticks out to my eyes… and I got this email from my dear friend Beth… and I knew I needed to stop and make the time to read this forwarded email. It did not dissapoint. The power of God’s word is alive… are you noticing it in your own life?

CLAY BALLS:

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him.

As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock . Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It’s like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel. Pass this on to another Clay Ball!!!

If I seem a bit MIA, here’s Why:

April 4- Children’s Easter Party

April 4- Community Choir Rehearsal

April 5- Palm Sunday

April 8- Community Choir Rehearsal

April 9- Biblical Interpretation Exegesis Paper Done and Handed Out (25 pages)

April 9- Maundy Thursday Service

April 12- Easter Sunday

April 14- Day off School!

April 14- American Judaism Paper Done and Handed Out

April 15- Youth Fun Day

April 16- Biblical Interpretation Presentation

April 16- Political Philosophy Reflection Essay (4 pages)

April 17 & 18- Retreat

April 21- American Judaism Presentation

April 21- Political Philosophy Essay (10 pages)

April 22- Youth “Fun!Raiser” Meal

April 25- Valmead Yard Sale Fundraiser

April 26- Tammy’s Wedding Shower

April 28- Philosophy Paper (8 pages)

April 30- Reading Day

May 1-6- Final Exams

May 7- National Day of Prayer

May 8-9- Youth Guy’s Retreat

May 10- Youth Mother’s Day Party

May 12- Children’s Play Dress Rehearsal

May 13- Children’s Play Performance

May 15-16- Youth Girl’s Retreat

May 17- Tammy’s White Bible Service

May 27- Children’s Messy Games

May 30- Saturday Night Alive!

May 31- 5^th Sunday Music Service/Fellowship

June 5- Tammy’s Wedding Rehearsal

June 6- Tammy’s Wedding

June 12- 13  Youth Summer Retreat

June 13- SonFest at Carowinds

June 14- Youth Sunday (AM Service)

June 22-26- Kids Camp

June 29- July 3- Hosting Youth Group from Raleigh

July 4- July 4^th with the Tuttles!!!

July 4-?- Kristen and James Home!

July 12- 16- Vacation Bible School

July 22 Youth Fun Day and Meal “Fun!Raiser”

Aug 1- Youth Worship Service

Aug 2- Youth Commissioning Service

Aug 3-8 Youth Mission Trip!

Oh, and I’m sure nothing else will come up between now and Aug 8, right? hahaha. right.

So do not worry about tomorrow;
for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34

-May He Be Glorified-

What do I do most in my spare time? Google Image Search! It has become a useful, addicting hobby of mine! This is the sign of a very successful google image search night! (no I don’t leave my desktop like that.. haha)

We have been blessed at Crest View to have an AWESOME AWESOME Screen/projector/computer program and I get to make all the slides that we see each time we use it! I learn more and more about it all as time goes along- and I couldn’t love it more! It takes some time, but I think its too cool that the members of our church are embracing this new technology— so I am more than happy to keep it all updated! We run announcements so those normally are more fun to make! One of these days I am going to put Bunny ears over Pastor Mike’s head… lol mwhahaha Especially for him to have sent the Chic-Fil-A cow to attack me… grrr!

So- if anyone ever comes across some good backgrounds or powerful pictures that would be good for the screen at church (like that you get in an email or something) please please please send it my way! Or if you ever need something announced at church or anything like that- let me know!! alleykn@appstate.edu

hehee- Tim Hawkins is a riot! This makes me think of my version of “Ms. Oseni Take the Wheel”

Ok, so, I had this genius idea that our youth would have a retreat for every season this year. Well, Winter is BUSY, did anyone know that? We managed to spend the last official weekend of winter together- and I couldn’t be more thankful for this time that we all had together!!

Have I told you all lately how AWESOME our youth at CVBC is?? Cause they are. They blow me away all the time! I love them more than I thought it was possible to love someone… which has been really good for me right now! And maybe good for them? haha

This weekend though really was great. It is fun to get together and laugh and hang out. The great thing about our youth group right now is that they all genuinely really like each other! They make coming to church a priority- so planning more and more things for them to come to has become my priority too! What a wonderful problem to have- thank you Lord!

This weekend was spent watching some AWESOME Christian Comedians (Tim Hawkins, and Mike Williams), Preparing for our Saturday Night Alive performance (its going to be hysterical… everyone MUST come!), and honestly, the best part, was our discussion time! I had a lot planned for us to do on Friday night, but after dinner and watching Tim Hawkins who was side splitting, we were to break up into our small discussion groups and then come back as a big group. I have started doing this thing where I prepare hand outs with a bible study and some questions and put our youth in to groups of 2-4 people and have them prepare a presentation/lesson/discussion to lead the big group in. I have been pleasantly surprised to see how our group has taken to this. For one, anything they hear and learn from their peers is going to stick with them rather than me tell them. Two, it gives them a chance to be leaders and listeners. Thirdly, it has opened up more discussion based learning rather than sit/listen/be bored learning like I know is so easy to happen with youth groups. This weekends discussion was… wow… well, lets just say God was using this youth and speaking through and to them!! We had “circle time” (Where we sit in a big circle and talk) and hit on some tough issues. This time it was different though. The youth were sharing and we were all having the best time- no side conversations or anything. I don’t know- maybe I’m weird- but when we all laugh at the same thing… that just never fails to make me the happiest person in the world.

Man oh man… I know its tough out there for them… and I know there are a lot of troubled teens in the world today- but some good stuff was accomplished in our youth group this weekend and to God be the glory! Trust me, I’m not oblivious to the fact that our youth group has some problems and quite frankly some big issues that we need to work on… but after this weekend we seemed to get real with each other and put some stuff out there that needed to be.

God is good… God is moving and working. If you aren’t involved or can’t see how He is… open your eyes and your heart! He wants and needs to use us all!

So… every year I have been that girl who gets pinched because either a) I forgot it was even St. Patrick’s Day or b) I didn’t have any green to wear… but this year I have several things in my closet that are green! And I was excited to wear my cute little Green top and Green socks and a big green ring I have! lol

soooo…. I go to my classes…. and  find that as I walk to class… not many people are wearing green. No one in my class as green on. Apparently… its not cool to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day in college. Someone should have told me.

Oh well.  At least I got to see this totally awesome St. Patrick’s Day Tin Man picture. Gracias Kevin! Be careful on the roads everyone!! (sorry… but I will be up all night worrying about everyone… its my motherly instincts kicking in…lol)

me? ha.

thats right. the least qualified person in the world. But I am looking forward to it!

Check out our website now at www.crestview4jesus.org

The basic skeleton of the whole thing isn’t so bad. It’s managed by Dreamweaver which is pretty impressive. I guess its just a lot to keep updated- which is where I come in In all honesty, it really does make the most sense for me to do it. It fits nicely into my title of “Youth and Special Ministries” and I get all of the announcements anyway to put up on the screen. I’m really, really excited about it- and I’m ready to get this show on the road! Until then, my youth can check out my second blog I recently started for all things youth related:

http://crestviewbaptist.wordpress.com/

PS… any suggestions/tips/ideas you can give me on this are all GREATLY appreciated. Its going to take a whole village of people for me to get this started- because I have no previous knowledge on things like this— Super Huge thanks to Kevin for all of his hard work on this already! He found us a really cool Church Theme to use– and I’ve already pitched the idea to our Pastor! ah, so thankful for a tech savy Pastor!