2013

Looking back on the huge year 2013 was, I thought I'd note the biggest events, the highest highs and lowest lows of each month.

Janurary-  the year started off with one blessed bang when we found a beautiful new van left in our driveway! The Lord just wanted to show us how He's our Provider, and can do things far beyond our imaginations.

February- I began to do classes with two special 6 year olds, and began fundraising for our upcoming trip to Romania.

March- God blessed Daniel with a job up with all the awesome GenJ crowd, which resulted in him relocating to NoVa.....that was a bittersweet time. Crazy last minute fundraising for said missions trip, in which the Lord provided all the necessary money!

April- Romania, Romanians, Romanian, Dominus. ;) Such a life changing, exhilarating, world-traveling two weeks. God worked in wondrous ways.  I also joined Facebook.

May- Well to start it off, a got a pretty major haircut....we also went on our first vacation in 6 years! Then Rach, Daniel and I were blessed to attend the Transfer conference down in FL. :)

June- I was very excited to finally go to an iGovern camp and had a fantastic week up in NoVa. Did a lot of volunteering with great people at AFP.

July- Went to the NCF Girls' Retreat with Anna and Leah. Also had lots of summer fun with friends.Gracie accepted the Lord as her personal Savior. <3

August- Helped pull of Maryanna's beautiful wedding. :)  I turned 19. Mom and Dad celebrated their 25th anniversary, and we kids made a musical.

September- Grieved with a family so near and dear to us, as the Lord took Jotham to be with Him. Continued my classes with the girls, but geared into 1st grade. County fair awesomeness with these people. Kept on AFP-ing and became a member of GenJ's Leadership Corp! Got addicted to Sharpie Therapy.

October- Led a whole bunch of great kids on Operation Shock and Awe, my first SAT as a leader. Went through the grief and confusion following a dear friend's death, and saw God's amazing grace and peace beyond our understanding. Directly after which, I spent a week in CIT training down in NC.

November- It started off with a week and a half of crazy, crazy, tiring, wonderful, time with VA Beach SAT and all those lovely people. Saw Thor 2 . A barn dance, driving hither and yon. Had a truly blessed Thanksgiving, enjoying a visit from some NoVa friends and finally seeing Frozen!!!

December- Bought a new and much needed DSLR, busy Christmas season prep, and midnight premier of the Hobbit movie! Long and enjoyable visit from Daniel, Saving Mr. Banks, and finally Christmas finished out the year!

Somewhere along the way I became a Fansie, fell in love with Cabin Pressure, made lots of new friends, got Instagram, became Hack5's number one fan ;), and saw many great films.

Well this has gone on long enough, but I thought it'd be good to recount all what 2013 held for me. God's mercy and grace were shown in countless ways, blessings and tragic losses grew and stretched me, and I come away from the year much changed. :)
-Sarah

NCF Girls Retreat Recap!

 The week of the 15th I had the pleasure of driving 2 hours to a Girls' Retreat held at a friend's church. The Lord worked all the details out so that I could attend it this year, after being invited by several friends. Mom, Anna, Leah, Levi and I headed out Sunday morning and stopped at a mall on the way just for fun. :) We arrived at the church in high excitement and I was ready to have an awesome experience.

First things first, I got all checked in, greeted all my peeps, and set up my bag and cup for the week. 

I was a designated member of Team China, and found my table and the rest of my team. :)

Wasn't our table amazing? :)

GO TEAM CHINA!!! :)

Some of the other girls were in teams Ireland, Israel, Thailand, Mexico, and a few others.

One of the many uplifting and encouraging sessions during those 3 long days. :)

Amber sharing her thoughts on Courage.

Our worship team was terrific. Meredith, Bethany, Amber, Josie, Amy, Michelle, and others-- you all were such a huge blessing and added a neat level to my experience.

Praising Jesus! :) 

Some of the favorite songs of the week:

Meredith helped us to understand more about the persecuted church in a very powerful way. Check out this video. And after the session we had the opportunity to write a note of encouragement to Christians in prison in several different countries. :) It was really neat to be able to do that.

Along with all this wonderful stuff, there were so many fun games to be had! Here's just a sneak peek into all the craziness there was. ;)

Give six blind-folded girls makeup, and this is what you get. 

\\WARNING\\  **This is a very disturbing image** ;P 

Told ya. ;)

On Tuesday Josie had done a wonderful job of setting all us girls up with a jewelry making session. :)

And there was........

NINJA!!!! 

I actually did a pretty decent job and came in 2nd of all the girls. :)

One of the climaxes of the week was the notorious shaving cream war! This was the most insane, mayhem of a game, but it was well worth the mess. :) I was armed with two cans of Barbasol and went out there to be turned white. :D 

The ante-bellum picture. ;)

After you were thoroughly slathered up, you got to go jump into the farm pond! 

And then there was the waterslide......

Bethany, Amber, Amy and I went out on the paddle boat......until we realized that it was "kaput". We had to be pushed back to the edge due to having no steering and only one paddle. :P

Monday and Tuesday zoomed by and we all were looking forward to the special evening prepared by the leaders. :)

All those ladies had totally done a make over to the church and transformed it to a banquet hall. :) 

I felt so overwhelmed by all the love and effort put into this night, and will remember it always.

Each team's leader prayed for their group and presented each girl with a pretty scarf. :)

There was a really great time of worship and prayer and then some icecream cake concocted by the awesome Tina! :) 

The rest of the night (til 2 o clock) was a blur of dancing, music, laughing, smiles, and altogether a very happy time! 

This retreat was a HUGE blessing and I really enjoyed how all the young women and ladies led us girls to our Lord and the AMAZING love He has for us. :) It definitely was a refresher and rejuvenated my spirit. I think it's terribly impossible to throw a bunch of fun-loving godly young women together and expect them to not have an awesome time. ;) 

It was so good to meet all those sweet girls and I look forward to all the friendships that will blossom from this week. (and it was also fun to finally put faces to all these names I'd heard around. :D

 

Thank you Jesus, for the blessing of this retreat and how you've used it to draw all of us closer to your heart. 

And to this ^ crazy-wonderful-awesome-group of girls:

I miss you all a lot and hope to see you again next year! :)

"I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer....For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." -Isaiah 56:7

{{{{All photos Copyright Krissy Hinton 2012}}}}} 

What is that drippy foreign stuff called? :P

I have a smile on my face because...

IT RAINED!!!

After probably at least three weeks since the last shower the whole earth around here was wilting. We were hoeing the garden, and raising enough clouds of dust to make someone think we were hosting a horse race! :) Really, it was pathetic. Then, along came some clouds, and behind the clouds the rain, and we all stood in the garden getting drenched by the liquid gold! :) It felt so good to stand for at least half an hour, and feel shower after shower sweep over us as we worked! What a blessing rain is! And we needed it sorely! It wasn't a real long stretch of rain, but enough to dampen everything round about and lighten the humidity in the air! Thank you God! :) -Rachel