Playin' a Little Catch Up

Yes, the last time I posted on this blog was more than a year ago. I was a senior in high school and now I'm in the second semester of my freshman year in college. So I suppose I should catch you up on my life quick.

Senior year was great. Complete with lots of ups and downs, lots of learning, and lots of fun. As cliche as that sounds, it's very true. I participated in drumline, where I had the privilege of being captain to a group of really fun kids. I performed with show choir and concert choir. I filled out scholarships and wrote research papers. I did lots of crazy stuff with my best friends. I decided on UNL for my college and Communication studies as my major. And then, I graduated.

Over the summer, I broke my wrist the day after receiving a letter from the UNL marching band letting me know that I had passed first round auditions for the drumline. I was devastated. I spent the rest of the summer in a bright red cast around my arm. Don't worry, I still had fun! My wonderful friends duct taped and plastic wrapped my cast so I could still swim. I got to go watch a Drum Corps International show with my best friend. I went on a fantastic mission trip to Mississippi with my youth group as always. And then, before I knew it, it was time to move into the dorms.

My first semester involved a lot of adjusting to college life. Meeting new people, actually having to study, and living away from home. Fortunately, UNL is only 45 minutes away from home, so I was able to see my friends and family often. I've grown in my faith and am slowly learning more and more that I just need to trust God with my future, no matter how unclear it may seem. The first semester flew by and the second one is flying by as well. Nothing too exciting has happened this semester yet. Just been buried in homework and studying. Yes, I know I'm lame.

So, there's the quick summary of my life since I last posted something. Look for a new blog post to come soon.

I am blessed

I am blessed with amazingly intelligent parents who love me more than you can imagine.
I am blessed with the most fun siblings on the face of the planet.
I am blessed with super encouraging friends who are there for me no matter what.
I am blessed with a youth pastor and his wife who would drop anything to sit and talk with me.
I am blessed with a church and youth group that has taught me about what's important.
I AM BLESSED WITH AN AWESOME GOD.

I am blessed with a God who loves me enough to send his only Son to come to Earth and take the beating that was meant for me. I am blessed with a God who cares about me so much that He wants me to continue learning and growing in my faith. I am blessed with a God who is willing to help me with that by testing me. I am blessed with a God who knows what's best for me.

The past couple weeks, I've been praying for patience. Yes, I understand that a lot of you are asking "Why on earth would you do that?" I had been told by many people previously this year that praying for patience is ridiculous because then God gives you plenty of chances to test it and it's not all fun and games. I didn't remember that AT ALL when I began praying for patience. But sure enough, they were right, and God delivered plenty of chances for me to exercise the patience I had been asking for. Easy? No. Beneficial? Yes.

Another thing I've been praying about recently is what career path God wants me to take. Lately, I've been kind of interested in looking more into psychology. I have been told by many people that I'm great to get advice from and I'm a super caring person. While that may sound all cheery and happy-faced and such, it's a lot harder than it sounds. Don't get me wrong, I love helping people, but wow, it's not easy to do. I'm the type of person who wants to fix everything for everybody myself, and if I can't do it, then I'm disappointed. Obviously, that's not the way it's supposed to be...God's there for a reason and He gives me all the strength I need to be able to reach out to people the way I do.

So anyway, I was discouraged this week because I had several people ask me for help on all sorts of different issues and I felt defeated. Defeated because I didn't have the answers to all of their problems. Defeated because I felt like God was putting too much pressure on me. But really, that wasn't the case at all. God gave me all of those opportunities and "patience tests" for a reason, I just wasn't looking at it the right way.

After talking to a couple of my really close friends and my mom tonight, I feel better about everything. God doesn't do anything on accident and this week was definitely good for me. I'm not expecting things to get easier, but I do think I'm ready for whatever God throws at me this week. Maybe He's showing me whether or not I could handle being a psychologist or counselor, or maybe He's just showing me more and more ways to simply trust in Him. I'm not sure yet, but...either way, I'm totally cool with it.

*Psalm 32:8 ~I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. (NIV)

Last Chance

This weekend I got the chance to witness to one of my co-workers. I had previously talked to him about my beliefs about a month before, and thought it was a good time to continue with the discussion. It was the last night I was going to work with him, and I felt like it was my responsibility to talk to him about it one last time.

He told me that he was an atheist, but that he used to be a Christian when he was younger because he was raised as one. I tried explaining to him that being a true Christian meant you had accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Being a very stubborn person, he decided to "gently" tell me that I was stupid for believing such a thing.

Feeling discouraged and at a loss for words, I quietly sat there and listened to him argue with everything I had said. Here's just a few of the comments he had for me:

I can't trust anyone but myself, so why believe in a higher power?

God didn't just show up out of no where and create the entire universe.

There's no point to life, really. Nothing happens after we die anyway.

If I was a Christian I would be unhappy.

The Bible isn't exactly a text book.

....Well, needless to say, I was a bit frustrated. I tried one last time to convince him of the life-changing news. Unfortunately, nothing I said registered the right way in his mind. I guess that's how it works sometimes. I can only hope and pray that someday what I said might come up again. Maybe he'll realize what he's missing out on. Maybe the only thing I was supposed to do was plant the seed.

Camp CCC

Last Thursday and Friday our church had an overnight Vacation Bible School thing for 4th through 6th graders. We were there from 1:00PM Thursday to 11:00AM Friday. As a "head cabin leader" I was in charge of 4 girl campers and a "junior cabin leader." Three of our girls were 6th graders and one of our girls was a 4th grader. When my campers first arrived to the church they seemed low key and quiet...but then we got back to our "cabin" (aka, a small room in the way WAY back of the church building). They went ballistic and got all excited about how they were going to decorate the room, ding-dong ditch the boys' rooms later, and stay up all night. Then the girls in the cabin next to us made it to their room, and apparently my girls were not the best of friends with them. Once they saw who was in the neighboring room they started plotting ways to annoy them and keep them up the entire night. As you can imagine, I was just a little nervous about what the next 22 hours would bring.

During the opening of camp, Pastor Sam showed the "Camp CCC rules video." One of the rules was "Always stay with your cabin leader." While that rule was being explained, two of the girls started giggling and whispering about how that was not going to happen. (Not real comforting, right?) Then after the video, Sam explained how lights out was at 11:00. Being naive, I thought the girls would be happy with such a "late" bedtime for their age...and boy, was I wrong. Right after Sam said lights out was at 11:00 the oldest girl said, "Pssht, yeah right." Uh-oh....

Being a leader to younger girls is always a bit scary at first. In order to have a good relationship with the kids, they have to like you. And if you don't always let them do what they want, that's not easy. When the girls asked me if they could ding-dong ditch the boys' rooms and I told them no, they were disappointed, but luckily for me they quickly got over it and moved on to other things. As young, energetic girls they were not stuck on one thing for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Fortunately, as the night progressed the girls seemed more interested in opening up and talking to me. My assumptions that these kids were completely crazy and wouldn't want to have anything to do with me was dead wrong. The more time we spent together, the more fun we had. My fear and worry of spending an entire night with these loud girls turned into excitement and eagerness.

During devotions we began to discuss salvation and how people become Christians. When I went around the circle and asked each girl if they were Christians and how they knew for sure, one of them responded with this: "Well I'm a Christian because I asked Jesus into my heart AND I got baptized a couple years ago." After that comment I had the opportunity to explain to her why baptism doesn't do anything to secure your spot in Heaven. At first she seemed very confused, but then after I told her all she needed was Jesus in her heart (which she had), she seemed relieved and shot me a cute smile.

Sometimes when I don't get the chance to witness to a non-believer at occasions like this, I get disappointed, and that's very stupid of me. I should be happy with simply getting to talk to these girls and be ready to help them learn more about their faith in Jesus. It also makes me realize that there's probably several people that I see throughout the week that need salvation. Whether I know them or not, they need to know about Jesus and what He did for them. Yeah, it's a scary thought, witnessing to people. But come on, we need to get over our own selfish fears. Believe me, I'm not saying I've gone pro at it yet, but I'm beginning to realize how many opportunities God slaps right in front of our faces. It's something to think about and work on.

Thanks for reading! Keep checking back in for more posts to come!

Dear Summer...

It's been WAY too long since we've last seen each other. I miss you more and more everyday that you're not here. The end of the school year is such a drag and does not get along with me well. School work and tests are getting ridiculous and it's stressing me out. All I can think about when I'm sitting in the classroom is you.

I feel sorry for Spring...I could be such good friends with her, but....I'M STILL IN SCHOOL, so I can't. Please apologize for me the next time you see her. She's so beautiful, and I feel bad she gets the shaft.

I have so many things to do with you while you're here this year and I can't wait any longer! There's Vacation Bible School, Drumline camps, family vacation, the fourth of July, conditioning, possibly YMCA boot camp, completing the Beatrice Drumline 100 things to do list, MISSIONS TRIP, band camp, and much more. Oh and by the way, I would totally love it if you could be extra sunny this year. I really need a tan! Speaking of tanning....I need a new swim suit. If you could talk to Mom for me about getting on top of that, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

I hope your break has been awesome and you're ready to come and stay for a while. We are long overdue for some hang out time! I'll see you soon. Love ya!

Yours Truly,
Kelsi KahleRae :)

P.S. Please hurry! Thanks.

And we're off...

To those of you who are professional bloggers out there, I'm going to apologize and say ahead of time that this won't be the most exciting thing you've read today.

I've finally decided to get myself into blogging because of how much fun I have reading my mom and older brother's blog (and because my younger brother started one, and I can't let him get ahead of me, right?). Everyday things that happen at my house are quite comical, and I feel like I'm cheating the world out of some kind of satisfaction if I'm not sharing these stories. You'll soon come to realize that I'm kind of a spazz, and my siblings and parents are not much better.

For starters on this post, I'll just share a few things about me. I'm currently almost at the end of my junior year in high school. The biggest activity I'm involved in at school is drumline, so obviously, I love to drum. My older brother got me hooked on it my freshman year, and now it's something I would hate to live without through high school. I love my youth group. That would be an impossible thing for me to live without throughout high school as well. The name of our youth group is FOOT, which stands for Fellowship of Outrageous Teens. The name pretty much says it all. I help in sponsoring JV FOOT and would not give that up for anything. It's a ton of fun and such a great thing to be involved in. I absolutely love all my friends and spending lots of time with them. I'm usually the crazy, loud one of the group, but they all still love me (I think! :P). My family is downright awesome. We have lots of good times having fun and making fun of each other. I would never ever trade my family for anybody else's in the world. We undoubtedly have the most fun household on the entire face of the earth. If you feel like challenging me on that one, come live with all 6 of us for just a week...

Yeah....those crazy people are my siblings.


So...that's me and a little about my life.

Look for more blog posts to come! Thanks for reading!