Youth Choir

The youth choir at my church has been part of the music ministry for a veeeery long time. I can't say exactly how many years because I really don't know, but I'll round off to about 20 years. I participated in youth choir from when I was in 7th grade until my senior year of high school. We would go every summer on a mission trip. That was something that I really looked forward to. In 2002, my sister and I became the directors of the youth choir. She handles the music direction and I assist her in teaching the notes with the piano and coming up with the choreography. We pretty much work together in picking out the musicals and just organizing everything. It's been great seeing our little brother participate in and enjoy something that we also participated in when we were his age (it wasn't that long ago). I really enjoy being a part of it for many reasons. One of them being that music is such a big part of my life and always has been. God gives us gifts and we have to use them. For the past six years we can really say that we've been blessed. Even when there have been times that we lose motivation. It might be because someone made a comment we didn't like or a youth decides not to participate, but we are quickly reminded why we're doing this. We are allowing God to use us to minister to others through music. On Tuesday, the youth choir is leaving on their annual mission trip. At the beginning of the year we had decided that we were going to New Orleans, but God had other plans. He wanted to keep us here in Florida. We will be going to Tampa, Sarasota, Naples, and Gainesville (not necessarily in that order). I'm really excited to see what great things God is going to do this coming week. The youth will be doing some community service along with evangelism and they have a concert in every church we stop at. They've really shown a lot of excitement about sharing the gospel. I know God is going to use us and I just ask that you pray for every youth and adult that will be going on this trip. That God may start preparing our hearts and preparing the hearts of each and every person that we will be meeting. Also, that He may keep us safe and give peace of mind to the parents that are letting their kids go out without them for the first time. I would like to have all of you pray for the youth, therefore if you're willing to spend some time during the days July 31 - August 6 praying for a youth choir member, let me know and I will give you the name of a youth that you can pray for. Thank you for reading. God Bless!

Hairspray

For those of you that don't know this already...my sister and I are musical junkies. More her than me. We'd probably go bankrupt living in New York because we would want to see every Broadway musical over and over again. So you can imagine that I've been counting the days until "Hairspray" came out. Finally, last night, we were able to go see it and I absolutely loved it! It was so much fun. An absolutely, incredibly talented cast. The worst part of the movie was the pre-teen girls sitting next to me. Every time Zac Efron (Link) came out they would giggle, clap, and scream a little. It was cute, but at the same time annoying. So if you like musicals, you should definitely go see it.

I Love My Friends

I can't believe I'm actually writing on this from time to time. Feels nice to write what I'm feeling. It's no coincidence that my favorite bible verse is Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. Look it up. Ok..fine I'll tell you what it says. " Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up.But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" Let's see.....to start off, growing up, I loved having friends and making new friends, but I was never the type of person to maintain friendships. Weird huh? How could someone who loves having friends not be able to maintain them? Mostly because I have such a big mouth and I like to say things like they are. Those of you that know me well and have stuck by me through this, I love you guys! As I've gotten older, I've learned how to hold back a little. Not as much as I would like, but I am really working on that. I would like to thank Chris for letting me know when it's time to close my mouth. I've also learned how to appreciate my friends more. Anyway....after going through so much drama in my teenage years (girls love drama), I decided, I didn't want that in my life anymore. I would much rather have only a few people I can call my close friends instead of trying to make the whole world my friend. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have friends, the more the merrier, but because I'm such an emotional person, I prefer to avoid getting hurt. Yes, I have trust issues when it comes to friendships. And...it really hurts me when someone was calling themselves my friend 2 weeks ago, but today they won't even say hello. The worse part is trying to figure out why. A lot of people don't actually have the guts to come up to you and tell you what you did wrong. If you're reading this, and you consider yourself my friend...please tell me if I've done anything to upset you or hurt you. Don't just stop talking to me. I want to know. That's how relationships grow. You say things...and you say them with love. That is one thing I definitely have to learn. I have so many things to work on. I know. But mostly when it comes to relationships with people, here's what I want to be able to accomplish: 1. Forgiveness. I have a really hard time forgiving people who have hurt me in the past. I want to be able to let go and just move on. 2. Love. I want to be able to show love to EVERYBODY. It's one thing to think you love someone, one thing to say you love someone, and it's a totally different thing to actually show it to someone. Even when someone has hurt me, or someone just doesn't talk to me, I want to be able to show love and compassion towards that person. 3. Silence. I want to be able to say things only when it's appropriate to say them and I want to able to say them the right way. If I can't say it the way it's supposed to be said, then I need to stay silent. So those are 3 things I want to work on. I really want to take this blog and use it to let some of you know that I love you guys and I really appreciate you. If I leave you out, don't get offended. Just think of it as a way to start working on our friendship. Starting with....of course, God! #1 in my life because He is the only one who has never and will never let me down. Next...Chris, I love you! You've been my best friend since before we started dating. My sister and brother...Marien and Danny...I know I don't say it enough...but I love you siblings. Naty and Bryan. I love you guys and appreciate you letting me vent with you sometimes. You just sit there and take it. :) Yesenia. Really appreciate your friendship. Don't forget I got all 10 questions right at your Bridal Shower. Leo and Itch. Yes....believe it or not, your names get mentioned too. You think you're only Chris' friends, but you're mine too. Kristine...even though we had a couple of years of distance...I am really thankful to God for bringing you and Jose back into our lives. So....I love you guys. And again, if your name wasn't mentioned, don't feel bad. I'll work on mentioning it in the future. :)

Girls and Guys

Well...I'm trying to think of a way to express my thoughts without coming off too critical or judgemental or even too mean. I'm not even sure if anyone reads this, but hopefully someone will understand what I'm trying to say. Lately....well, I guess for the past year I've noticed the behavior of certain girls in the church. I like to call it, the "body massage." There are many single young girls in the church. Most of the ones I'm talking about are in their twenties and what I've noticed is the way they say "hi" to the guys at church. It's almost a full body massage. They get very physical. Sometimes they even sit on their laps. They hug for a large amount of time. As they talk to them, their arm is wrapped around their waist. They don't even do this with just the single guys. They act this way with guys who have girlfriends too. It's kind of disturbing. What's worse is that the guys actually allow this. Yes! Even the ones with girlfriends. I don't know about everyone else, but I sure wouldn't want a girl to come up to my husband and put her hands all over him. I know we need to have love for each other and a lot of us have been raised to say hello with a hug and a kiss. I just think these people are taking it a step too far and it doesn't seem right. Some of these girls at times serve as leaders to some youth activities and what kind of example are they setting for the younger girls? It's like I was taught as a youth .....one little thing can lead to much worse and I really want to urge the girls who read this to watch the way you treat men or guys or boys. Whatever age you are. Have some self-respect. It is so precious to wait for that special someone that God has saved for you. Please be aware of what you're doing. Remember that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's in the way you dress, it's in the way you speak, it's in your actions with the opposite sex. Again, I don't want to come off too judgemental, I just need to vent.

My First Post

So I've started a blog. Knowing me I'm not sure if I'll keep it going, but I'll try. Good things are going on right now. I have a new job which I'll be starting on August 15. I'm really excited about that because I'll be dealing with two things I absolutely love, music and children. I haven't worked for 7 months, so I have to start getting used to waking up early again and not at noon everyday. The little girls dance team at church is such a blessing. For the past couple of months I've been teaching some girls from church a couple of worship dances. There are 8 girls ages 3-10 coming every wednesday to class. The younger ones like to call it "Ballet class" even though I barely have a clue as to what ballet really is, but I love watching them learn and pay attention and just watching the excitement on their faces every time they dance. Youth Choir is going good. We are leaving on our annual concert tour in a couple of weeks. We will be going to Sarasota, Tampa, Naples, and Gainesville. They will be presenting a concert and going out into the cities presenting the Gospel and doing community service. We've encountered a couple of obstacles, but we know that God is in control and He's going to use these youth to bring people to His feet. So I guess that's all I have to say for now. Check out Chris' page www.thecrivas.blogspot.com. Until next time.