I never imagined my life would be the way it is now a year ago. I didn't know where I was going to be lead as an individual or where I was leading myself. I didn’t know if it would be a good or bad path.  I didn’t know where I wanted to be in life as an adult. I want to be faithful, optimistic, and reliable to myself, my friends and family, and most importantly God. I didn’t have the best “role models” that helped me down the right path. I looked back and I saw that they did things that could get someone into a lot of trouble, like taking drugs or drinking alcohol. If I were to continue to be friends with them,  I would be dragged into that mess too.

July 16th, 2015. The day that changed me forever. That day, around 8 p.m. in a small log cabin filled with around 140 high school students all piled around a small stage is when I realized I wanted to have God in my life. I finally was able to accept him into my life all because of Pastor Jim’s sermons that changed the way I saw everything. He gave a sermon on July 15th where he made me realize many things about myself.  I learned not everything will go my way, not everything is going to revolve around me and my wants. The first thing I ever noticed about Pastor Jim is that he spoke very loud, and he does that quite a lot. He likes to make sure that everybody hears him loud and clear. He also walked around that cabin frantically, like he was in search of something. I think he’s trying to find and dig God into other people's hearts. As he stood on that stage in front of all the students and drilled all of these mind boggling thoughts into my brain that I knew were true and real, I had never really paid any attention to it, until now. He made me see life for the better, who I should surround myself with, he said “not to let the decisions we make take away your own dreams, not to make a decision where you would hurt somebody that you love, and not to make a decision that dishonors God.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Every year in mid July the church I have been attending since last October called Faith takes as many high school students they can fit on the busses (even if we have to have 3 people to a seat and there’s people sitting in the aisles) and drive up to New Life Camp in Rose City just over two hours north of here (but in our busses it feels like it can take the entire day to get there even though it only takes just over 3 hours just because our bus reaches a top speed of 60 mph). The youth leaders take us there for around a week to help us become closer and experience God in our lives. I went there knowing very few people, I often debated on going because I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in with anyone there.

“I don’t know if I should go, I don’t feel like I even belong here since I don’t know anyone.” I hesitated. 

“You have nothing to worry about, you’ll make a bunch friends there and meet so many new people.” This was my family’s promise to me. I probably heard this exact sentence over 100 times leading right up to when I left.

I was hesitant of that whole conversation I had more than once, that is until I actually realized a few days later that they were actually right. Little did I know that those people that I met at this camp would be some of the most important and closest people in my life today. These people are friends that will last a lifetime. I’ve been able to experience so many new things like meeting new people, understanding new concepts about my life, playing new games, going to church every day and being surround myself with the people I love, and being baptized with all of these people surrounding me.

July 16th, 2015 is when I went up to my pastor standing in the doorway of that small log cabin and said “I accepted Him.” The very next day, We walked down the hill and made our way to the lake,  I walked into the frigid cold water and stood next to my pastor.

 “Kelsie was really cool, last night she came up to me and gave me a hug and just said this, ‘I accepted Him.’ and that’s really awesome.” And I was baptized right then and there by my favorite pastor in the world, Pastor Jayson.

I realized that I wanted and did believe in God, that this is the new me, and that this is who I want to be for the rest of my life. When I realized that the path I was going to go down wasn’t the right path for me, that these people at this camp are the people I need to surround myself with in order to be the person I now know I want to be. I want to be content with who I am, and I think that this is it, this is where I am going to be my happiest. These people that I met can help me get there and so much more, they can help me in my walk and lead me down the right path. 

“I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people who dream and support and do things.” -Amy Poehler