Challenge 2014

This year, my sister Erin and I went on a trip with our youth group to Kansas City, Missouri for a week. It was amazing, life changing, stretching, and moving. I loved every bit of the trip and seeing how God used everybody to do His work and to reach others about his love and mercy.

5,300 + teenagers
1,000 + leaders / youth pastors
39 states + singapore & austraila
7 fantastic speakers
2 incredible bands
vans, buses, and planes

...and we all came together to serve our amazing Jesus, learn about his restoration, reach the community of Kansas City, worship Him with our praise, and come together as the body of Christ to His work. I can't begin to describe this trip to you...It was a "had to be there experience". We did service work like painting houses, picking up trash, and landscaping. We met new people from different states and exchanged jokes about accents from Minnesota, Nebraska, and Texas. :) It was an unforgettable trip because it involves unique opportunities that you can only experience at the Challenge Conference. It's an unbelievable time.

So instead of me continuing to blabber on about it, here's some pictures for you to look at and see if you can gather why you must get yourself to a Challenge conference before you graduate high school. The next one is in Louisville, Kentucky in July of 2016 so make sure you talk to your youth pastor and get you & your youth group there. You won't regret it.

Service projects, playing card games, late night girl talk in our hotel rooms, j-walking because we're too impatient for crosswalk lights, worshiping Jesus with an Irish band, learning new songs with a band from our home state (MN proud), taking too many pictures, swimming, doing prayer walks around the city in 102F heat, meeting new friends, tweeting #ChallengeKC 5 times a day, long bus ride memories, growing more in my faith, and learning more about my restoration in Christ...would not even sum up Challenge but it's close enough. :)

Our youth group also stopped at Adventure Land in Des Moines, Iowa for some amusement park fun after a crazy week and it was awesome!

We serve one amazing God and I'm so excited to travel to Louisville in 2016 as Challenge staff!

Restored.
Live the story. Tell the story.

xoxo,
~Michlyn

2012 Year in Review

Well this year sure has been an adventure!!!

It started out really great and there were some definite bumps in the road.

God pulled me through and lo and behold - a new year is just 12 hours away! :)

Here's my year in review for 2012!

January - I had one of the best nights of my life! Our school's annual Snowdaze Dance 2012 was a hit! You can click here and here to read more.

February - I enjoyed the Valentine's Dinner at our church and then one of our youth group's favorite conferences EVER; Dare2Share!

March - I ventured on an 8 hour drive (each way) with my choir and band from school. We made our way to Chicago for 3 days. Which you can read more about here, here, & here.

April - I took a little blogging break, but still brought you a few pictures from the morning sunrise to showing you Polyvore and my best friend.

May - My family and I celebrated the 8th birthday of my angel baby sister and my other sister turned 14. Another fun youth event was our end of the year party w/ inflatables!!! (school year)

June - In the beginning it was rough. This was probably the worst part of 2012...I shared that we had lost our youth pastor, but were preparing to leave for one of the biggest youth conferences EVER in 4 days!  This trip ended up being soooo amazing! God really pulled through, and I'm super excited to go back in a couple years. I REALLY encourage you to watch the video of our trip right here! :)

(Some clothes I was loving [still am] from Pinterest)

July - This month I finally got a Pinterest! Wooohooo! I absolutely love it! If you want to follow me, you can click on that button in my sidebar. :)

August - I celebrated my 1st blogiversary & my 200th post! My blog has come a long ways, and now I have 44 followers! It's been a great ride so far and I hope to keep blogging for a long time!!

>Here's volleyball, school, and instagram all in one!< :)

September - It was the first full month of my Sophomore year! I love school & seeing my friends! I just hate homework and presentations. haha :) I also started playing volleyball and got an Instagram. Some of you have asked, but I haven't wanted to share yet...Anyway if you want to follow me now you can at michlynk_fisher.

October - This was definitely a break month for me, and I got a lot of sweet comments that people were missing me. So I brought you some pinterest faves, school moments, & a little of my life.

November - I turned 16 this month! I did share though that it wasn't exactly a sweet 16. Since this is also the month of Thanksgiving, I started "Insta-Week". So through Instagram for a whole week, I posted a picture of something I was thankful for. Here is day 1, and then you can just go to the next one from there if you want. I also decided I was going to get a haircut.

December - This month was soooo busy! I can't even believe that it has gone so fast. I'm kind of glad it did though. My sister and I played some powder puff & volleyball ended for me. I also told you some stuff you didn't know about me and welcomed you to the northpole. Since school projects were due, and I had numerous things to do...I took a little week vacation until Christmas break arrived. My best friend Beka & I have been best friends for 2 years. Then I brought you my crazy blessed Christmas!

Here's to another great year ahead! May God bless you in many ways!
~Michlyn

New Orleans Day 7

We traveled through the night, driving through Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We arrived in Missouri at about 7 am. Many of us still sleeping on the seats, laying on the floor, talking to our friends, or staring out the window. Our eyes still looking sleepy and our bodies not ready for a busy day yet.

 

Matt wearing 8 pairs of sunglasses - Fun times! :)

Once we ate some breakfast, we met back in the bus for another 4 hours drive to our next destination... Six Flags!! For those of you who have not heard of Six Flags, it is an amusement park. There are several throughout the United States, but the one we got to go to was in St. Louis. The thing was... Friday was 106F outside, with strong humidity. We all had to drink one water bottle before we headed in our small groups. We also had to each have a water bottle, be checking on each other for headaches or nausea, put lots of sunscreen on, and drink even more water.

 

 

*Thanks to Kayla for the Six Flags pics*

It was a great day enjoyed by all, and tomorrow we would all arrive home to our families. God had worked on every single one of our hearts, and we couldn't thank Him enough for the amazing opportunity we gave us. This trip was incredible! A video coming soon of our fun trip... it's just not quite ready. :)

~Michlyn

New Orleans Day 6

It was the last day of the conference. :( It had been one of the best and amazing weeks ever! We learned so much, and grew closer to God in our faith. It was Thursday, and the night before we had been busy packing.

Our room was sooo messy... *ahem* hint: 3 teenage girls.

Erin hiding from the mess :)

Everything had to be packed, and ready to go before we left for the Convention Center Thursday morning. Our rooms had to be checked over, and clean. It was a pretty hectic morning. Even though it was our last day - The gatherings, huddles, food, music, and speakers were all still amazing!!!!! We spent most of our day outside, and we weren't quite ready to say goodbye to New Orleans.

We heard Shane Stacey that night, and he was such a good speaker. He talked about really good topics, and it was a great way to end the week. Plus we got to sing our praises with Kristian Stanfill one more time too.

*Photos by Challenge Staff*

Thursday night, we all gathered in a conference room to go over the plan, and then head on the bus for home.

Good bye New Orleans, we'll miss you!!

Bus adventures and Six Flags tomorrow!
~Michlyn

New Orleans Day 2

After an entire night on the bus... we stopped at 7 in the morning to get a McDonalds breakfast. :) Then it was on the road until about 10:00 am. At about 10:30 am we finally reached New Orleans!!!!!

They were pretty excited, we were finally there! :)

River Walk - A very popular place, we went there about 3 or 4 times on the trip.

After we got all of our luggage to the hotel safely, we did some site-seeing at River Walk and also had lunch there. We couldn't get into our hotel rooms until about 1:30 pm. As soon as everyone met together after lunch, we made our way to the convention center to register for the week.

Once we registered, we all walked back to the hotel. Some of our friends got their hotel rooms at about 2:00. Unfortunately there were many of us waiting for 4 or 5 hours for our hotel room. It was not good! We've been on a bus for 26 hours, we haven't showered since we left, and we're exhausted and tired - Please just get us a room!!

We were so tired of waiting, and really needed to get a room. :(

So finally at about 4:30 we got our room, and made our way to the 14th floor! It was such a great room and it had a balcony too!

A drawer in the hotel that was full of our snacks! :) We brought a lot.

We all showered, got ready, and then walked around the hotel a bit. At about 6:00 we all met in the lobby to leave for the first conference that night!

Lots of people (including us) making their way to the convention center!

Everything is NEW! :)

The conference started out amazing, and we couldn't wait for this trip to really begin! 

~Michlyn

New Orleans Day 1

Hi everyone! Since the New Orleans trip was for a whole week, I decided to write about my trip day by day. We did so many exciting things, and really grew closer to God and to each other as a youth group. We got to know each other a little better, and really enjoyed our trip. Our amazing God couldn't have chosen a better time for this to happen. He knew that this trip was exactly what we needed!

We were supposed to leave at 7:00 am but our bus got a flat tire, and we didn't leave until 9:00 am.

As soon as the bus left, we would stop every 4 hours. It would either be at a gas station to get some snacks and gas, a fast food restaurant to eat, or a rest stop to stretch and take a break. 

In the evening on the first day we stopped at a small town in Missouri called Hannibal. We all did some site-seeing, ate at Subway, and then a group of us went to see the light house. :)

After our stop in Hannibal we would be driving through the night. Some of us slept on the floor, others on the chairs, and some people stayed awake all night. I definitely slept, because I knew that it would be better for me. I brought a blanket and pillow, and slept quite comfortably on the bus floor. :)

Stay tuned for tomorrow! :) That day we arrived in New Orleans!

~Michlyn

**Picture credit goes to my friend Beka.**

New Orleans Trip

Hey all my faithful readers! :) 

You all knew from my last post that I would be on yet again, another awesome youth group trip! :)

Well it was for a whole week, and we went to New Orleans, Louisiana!

It was seriously one of my favorite trips of all time, and I met so many amazing and super funny new friends!!

More details and pictures coming soon! I've missed you all this passed week! And yes we road tripped it - 26 hours each way; whew!

Glad to be home, but yet I am already missing all my new friends and New Orleans so much!
~Michlyn

New Orleans!

Hey all my faithful readers! Just wanted to say that I've missed hearing from you. My blog has been a little quiet these days. I just couldn't think of anything to write. Well no worries, I'm here today to give you an update about my youth group & an upcoming trip all in one. :)

So every 2 years there is this conference called "Nationals". It's for youth all over the United States to gather as a whole. There are sermons, classes, service projects, worship, sports to play, sites to visit, you meet new friends, and most important we come together as the body of Christ to learn more about Him. And this year... it's in NEW ORLEANS!

We've been planning this trip ever since January, and we're all kind of excited. We were all getting pumped about last month... There were countdowns, meetings, and fundraisers in order for everyone to make the trip.

You see... just about 3 1/2 weeks ago... we lost our youth pastor. :( We got letters that he had left, and now he won't be leading our group on this awesome trip. We had our final meeting last night about all the details, and now it's reality.

We're leaving in 4 days! 

It's for a whole week! We leave on June 30th & return on July 7th! We are taking a charter bus down there, with our group of 50 people, and are traveling for about 24-28 hours. Oh boy, please lift us up in a few prayers when you think about it. That's a long time in a bus. But don't worry we're stopping every 4 hours.

It's going to be a fun and interesting trip. We're staying in a hotel and on the way home we get to go to SIX FLAGS (a huge amusement park) allllll day. Yay!

Please pray that we grow together as a youth group, come together before God, and grow to know more about Him. This trip is going to open our eyes, and we all need prayer and guidance as we prepare.

The title for this year's Challenge conference is Everything Is New! Sounds like a perfect title for us right now.

Thanks everyone!
~Michlyn