Author: Sara Martin

If you read Emily’s post you know that we were in Florida this past week doing some prison ministry. This was the third or fourth year we’ve gone to Florida to sing in the prisons. I’m going to be honest, before this week, sure I was a christian, I knew God was there, but I thought he was distant, that he didn’t really watch what I did, he didn’t care about my everyday life. I found sayings like, “Well Jesus fixed it,” or “It was a God thing,” cheesy. I didn’t understand how anyone could actually feel like that. Before this year, I had liked the prison crusade because of the singing, and the travel, I hadn’t really noticed what God was doing. On Wednesday afternoon, as we arrived at the hotel, I was looking forward to this crusade for those same reasons, I didn’t really think about what God could do. Wednesday night, we went to the church for a rally, to get us all hyped about the crusade. A man came forward to preach, but before he started, he played the song, Lord I Need You, over the speakers. I felt something in my heart, maybe it was God telling me to admit that I really did need him. The man spoke about three things that night, Recognizing we have an enemy, and who that enemy is, recognizing who we are, and recognizing who God is. Throughout the service, I found myself, not bored, like I normally was in church, but really listening. At the end of the service, he played the song again, and did an altar call. I was crying. I really did need God, I couldn’t do life on my own. I realized that. After that, we sang a few songs. I don’t really remember what songs we sang, only that I did something I had never done before, I raised my hands and really worshiped God. I had always been afraid to do that, I was afraid of what my friends would think. I felt like I was too young for that type of thing. While we went into prisons, I saw, among the inmates and volunteers, people who were on fire for Jesus, and I found some of that same fire in me. I want to do whatever God calls me to without fear. With God inside me, I have the power to do whatever he calls me too.

So, last weekend, we went on yet another weekend trip. Our family went to Canada. We left our house at about 5:00 am Wednesday morning. We arrived at stop number 1, a few hours later, at 2:30 pm. Stop number 1 : Toronto. We visited a friends family, and that quite fun. We got the chance to eat some authentic First Nations foods, while we in Toronto. After that, at around 8:00 pm, we left for my cousins house. We got there around 10:00 pm. Thursday, we did school, and my cousins had some stuff to do in the afternoon, so we had their house to ourselves for the afternoon. Friday, we to the beach, of Lake Heron. What fun! We didn’t really swim, it was a bit to cold. Oh, my dad was preaching a series of meetings at my cousins church. That’s why were there. On Saturday, we just stayed at home. “We are going to relax, and do laundry.” My mom told us when we asked what we were going to do on Saturday. Me and my cousin played games, watched videos on YouTube, and went for a walk. Sunday, we had church, and just relaxed in the afternoon. Early Monday morning we left Ontario to go home. We got home around 3:00. It was an exhausting weekend, but very fun! I enjoyed it a lot. It’s good to be home though!

So, Wednesday morning, at 3:00 am, I woke up with horrible abdominal pain. The pain lasted until around 5:00 am, when I fell back to sleep. Right away in the morning, it was back again. Throughout the day, the pain stayed, sometimes better, sometimes worse. After we ate supper, the pain got much worse, I couldn’t sit down, or lay down. As long as I was walking, the pain was tolerable. But by 10:00 pm, I couldn’t handle it anymore. We went into the ER, we saw a doctor around 12:00am. Through the night, I got a CT Scan, Ultra Sound, Urinal Test, and a blood test. All that, didn’t take to long. About half the night was waiting for test results. Finally around 6:00am, we were finally done. We got home, and my mom and I both tried to catch some sleep, before an appointment with our doctor. At 11:30 we went to the doctor, and talked about what she thought the pain was caused by. We don’t have a lot of answers, but the pain has subsided, and I have some meds to take now that should help. Anyways, I hope that we finally found the problem and that these meds will help.

Last weekend was both the youth group cabin weekend (that Emily wrote about.) And the cabin weekend with the Kilmer side of our family. We arrived Friday afternoon, and left Sunday afternoon.

We enjoyed talking, singing, and oh yeah, and eating, around the campfire.

Saturday morning we were awakened around 6 am. (Courtesy of some of the younger boys who insisted on playing pool in the same cabin we were sleeping in.) Later that day, my cousin Jesse and I went for a “jog” really, we didn’t jog, mostly we just walked. We saw two deer, and discovered a natural fish pond.

On Sunday we were up around six again, the adults listened to a church service, and a few of us older kids played a game of Risk. We left the cabin around 2:30 that afternoon.

It was a fun weekend, other than the fact that my allergies went crazy, (The cabin was musty.) but that didn’t change the fact that it was a fun weekend. We bonded as cousins, aunts, uncles, ect. and also as a family.

Hello! This is my first post on our family’s blog!

The week of August 4-9 was Keystone Rubies Girls Camp. It was my fifth year going to Rubies, and was very fun! I enjoyed my self thoroughly.

The days were full of activities like swimming, team building activities, and singing.

It was a fun week, I grew a lot in my faith and got to know a lot of new people.