Day Seven of Thanksgiving: Embracing Church Families

Words cannot even begin to explain how thankful I am for my church family. I am surrounded by support and love when I'm with my church family, and they have helped my faith to grow so much in the past year. Now, my "church family" is not your average church community, but so much more than that. My family is more like a network: it is made up of multiple churches, multiple denominations, multiple locations, but one solid faith in God.

I am so blessed to have my home church, where my faith has grown tremendously, and the community has supported me and taught me so much within the last 14 months. My best friends go to Hope, my church in my hometown, and they have been with me every step of my journey with Christ since last year. I honestly don't know where I would be without them. I certainly wouldn't have faith like I do now! Not only my friends are there, but several of my biggest mentors, whom I look up to the most in my life. This environment has completely surrounded me with faithful followers of Jesus, which has fostered the Christ-follower in myself as well!

Over the past few years, I have also been able to create a network with people at churches all over my hometown of Des Moines. I have many Christ-centered friends that I have made through various Bible studies, events at my church, or just from school and work. Not only do I have these people in Des Moines though, but I also have an amazing network in Minnesota as well! This past summer, I spent a week completely submerged in God's creation and His Word at a camp just north of Duluth, MN. I met some truly amazing students there, who have really become some of my closest friends, but I also was able to meet youth directors from all over Minnesota. Since this wonderful experience (despite the major flooding, which flooded us into camp, destroyed our shower area, soaked our tents and belongings, lost our canoes, broke our dock, etc!), I have become so incredibly close with many of the other campers and leaders, and I am so, so thankful that I have them! Some days, it doesn't even seem like we live so far away from each other, because we visit one another, support each other all the time, pray for each other, and still talk often! Who knew camp could form such strong bonds in just a week?!

I am so blessed for my home church family and my network of Christian friends all over the Midwest, but I'm also very thankful for my church family here at school. Being involved with campus ministry has gotten me so involved, and I have met so many new people with the same love for Jesus that I have! It has truly been a blessing to be involved in events such as retreats and Bible studies through campus ministry here, and it has already been a great support for me. Wednesday nights, with Bible study, Eucharist and fellowship, are by far the highlight of my week, and I anticipate it for days ahead of time! I have felt so much love and support from my friends here, and the campus pastors are absolutely wonderful. I am so enthusiastic about the next 4 years with my newest church family, and I now can't even imagine spending my college years without them. :)