Adieu, A2

Hello friend!

Today was my last day in Ann Arbor.
I am officially gone and driving to Madison, Wisconsin. It has been a great four years spent in A2(Go blue!) I wanted to make a blog post dedicated to my time in Ann Arbor and to say thank you to everyone who made my time here great.

I am going to miss the campus, who were all my first friends in Michigan when I was a little eighth grader before school started. I learned a lot from them about college and life and friendships, and have made lifelong friendships with the campus girls! I studied the bible with campus girls and I'm so grateful for Amy and Sandy who studied with me and baptized me freshman year woot woot! Without this move, I don't know if that ever would have happened and I'm so grateful that God moved me and my family so that this could happen.

I am going to miss my friends from church who have been kind and welcoming and loving to me since the first day I was at church. I love the teen ministry in Detroit and I'm so grateful that I was apart of it for three years! My first friend in Detroit, Danielle, is still one of my besties forever and I'm so grateful God put her in my life. I got to watch her and Joselyn and Caleb become baptized the time I was there! I learned a lot about leadership and about myself and my convictions in the teen ministry. I could literally name every teen girl and say how they have changed my life for the better in the past three years, they've all had an impact on who I am today. The church in Detroit is forever in my heart as home and family.

I'm going to miss my field hockey friends!! Ahh field hockey was the best sport that I ever played even with coming from Chicago where no one played it (everyone called it lacrosse haha). The team that I was apart of taught me to always work hard no matter what and to push myself to go farther than what I thought was my limit. I made so many memories with the wonderful girls on my team playing field hockey together and I am so grateful that I was able to play(thank goodness for that no-cut policy freshman year). Best of luck to them and the rest of their season!

I am also going to miss of course my friends from school who, some have come and gone as high school friendships do, but I feel like I took something from every friendship that I made. I will miss the best English table I was ever at! I learned a lot about what it means to be a true friend, and I definitely made lots in Ann Arbor.

I just went to dinner with a bunch of friends from the Chicago church(woot woot!) and now we're heading into Madison, with a great sunset  to enjoy. I got to see one of my best friends Abby who just got baptized this morning! It's funny how my family drove from Ann Arbor this afternoon to Chicago, where I lived last, and now we're driving forward to Madison- our third and final stop(for now! Haha). I am excited for the journey ahead.

Cheers Ann Arbor!
Joy :)

HYC in Mexico

Hello friend!

Recently, as you probably know by now, I was in Baja California, Mexico for two weeks on a mission trip called Hope Youth Corps with amazing people all over the US, and even two gals from London! When we were there we built a three bedroom house and we also spent time with orphans at the Door of Faith Orphanage, which is where our group stayed. The orphanage itself is painted bright, fun colors and home to approximately 100 children. It's a wonderful place that incorporates family-ideals into the kids' lifestyles. I felt humbled and blessed to be able to go and serve the orphans and their orphanage, whether it was stuffing letters into envelopes, pulling weeds, or hanging out with them! Here's a picture of us the day that we finished building the house. We're on the roof(ROOF CREW)!

Above the orphanage there was this walkway to a cross that overlooked some of the town, and it was a calm and relaxing spot to have a quiet time and read the bible at, especially during sunsets and sunrises. You could see the ocean if you looked far to your right. 

They had scriptures all the way up to the cross!

Here is a picture of the house before we put the walls up! We were always listening to music and laughing while working with one another.  Building the house with everyone was such a cool accomplishment and experience that I've never done before.

Frame of the house

This cat would watch us as we painted/built the house!

 On Wednesday, we finished building the house and the moment that Nora walked into the house was so surreal! We built THAT house(with God's help for sure) in a little more than a week and she was walking in it to live there... Say whaaat? I will never forget how she kept saying that the house was beautiful. God was definitely moving in that moment!

Giving them the keys!

When we were completely finished with the house, we spent some time with the orphans and my friend Aina brought face paint materials and the kids loved it! What's interesting is that most of the kids had parents, but their parents weren't capable of taking care of them. By looking at the state of the orphans, however, you could see that they were taken care of really well! The kids loved playing soccer and looking(loooo) at the pictures that we had on our phones.

Facepaint central!

Naomi and her buddies :)

Chloe and I and a pirate! Arghh!

One night when we were building the house we went to a soccer game and accidentally cheered for the wrong team for half the time we were there, sooo I guess you win some you lose some. But it was still so fun to see how the community gathered and cheered on their teams!

To backtrack a little, we took a break from house building on Saturday and went to the beach! Everyone loved going into the water and just hanging out with one another. People bought pina coladas and souvenirs there. We also rode horses on the beach which was a really cool experience, I'd only ridden horses in mountains and fields before! 

Burying Peter

Horses on the beach!

Another random thing that happened but that God totally blessed us with was four puppies that Ferran found on side of the road. They were super tiny with big tummies and they loved being held. 

Pups!

On Sunday, we went to church in Tijuana. It was awesome seeing how the church there was exactly like ours in America except in a different language! I could definitely feel God's love through the church members there and their warm hugs. After church, a brother actually invited us over to his house for lunch which was so kind of him, considering that there were 28 hungry teens to feed!

Asian squad in Mexico at the brother's house!

Here's a panorama of where we stayed at the orphanage, this was taken the morning that Olivia and I woke up from sleeping outside in our hammocks! We survived the whole night outside.

Overall, this trip was amazing. I felt like we got to live out James 1:27 by building the house for a widow and spending time with the orphans, along with not having internet for two weeks: 

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I have also gained lifelong, deep spiritual friendships with many people on this trip, and I feel so grateful to have been able to go. I learned that if it is God's will for something to happen, God will make a way! 

Gal pals at the banquet!

As fun and spiritually refreshing that this trip was, I realize that now it is time to bring what I've learned about serving and God's love back to America, and now, Madison, Wisconsin as my family and I are moving there in about a week, and my parents are going to lead the church there! I will probably make another more in depth blog post about that later, but anyways,
thank you so much for reading! I hope that you have a great week!

Joy :)
ps. My friend Mariah started a blog, so check hers out!! thelifeofboges.blogspot.com

San Diego, California

Hello Friend!

I'm already in San Diego before my Hope Youth Corps trip in Mexico, and I'm staying at my friend Rachel Reyes' house. It's really funny because we had never met in real life before when I asked if I could stay at her house! We met over a prayer phone call that my friend Gwen set up. Then I met her at Reach - the conference I was just at with 18,000 disciples, and now I'm staying at her house with her wonderful family! 

The first day that I arrived in SD (*note I survived my first plane ride by myself), Rachel and I started catching Pokemon and then made fresh squeezed lemonade.

 It tasted so good and refreshing on that hot day! After dinner, Hannah, Rachel's older sister, drove Rachel and I to the beach and we all painted the sunset.

AMAZING.

We climbed down between some brown crumbly rocks past the "Stay Back" sign and there was a fantastic view of the sunset when we reached the bottom. Then we drove home and their sweet dog Cali slept at the end of my bed. She is so cute.

On Friday, Rachel and I woke up and had a quiet time together and a fruit bowl for breakfast! I played guitar for a little bit. Rachel knows how to play the banjo! How cool is that?! We then got ready for a day at the beach which included more painting! 

We went hiking at the beach and walked at least two miles. Then we went into the water and splashed in the sea green waves. When Rachel and I came out of the water we decided to paint! Above are our paintings. Rachel's is the one with the beautiful sea foam color, mine is the one with the imaginary clouds(note* not often are there distinct clouds in California, only wispy things and overcast). We spent almost seven hours at the beach!

Hannah picked us up and then we came home and talked about surfing the next morning. For dinner we had this awesome meal that Rachel prepared, it was vegan pesto with spaghetti noodles and black beans. I added a little bit of Parmesan to it, but the pesto itself was really good. I had never had vegan pesto! 

Rachel suggested that after dinner we visit Mount Soledad, a high place in San Diego that has a giant cross up on it and lots of war memorial plaques to people who served. It was really beautiful to see, especially at sunset. There were a lot of pretty lights and Pokestops.

This morning, Rachel, Hannah, April and I woke up early and went surfing! Well Hannah and I went surfing, Rachel and April, a friend from Texas, painted on the beach. It was my first time surfing and I was able to stand up like four times! It was sort of like being on a never ending penny board until the wave stopped. Crossed that one off my bucket list. 

There's me on the surfboard! I'm farther back to the right. Great Photo Creds to Rachel! 

When we got back from surfing Rachel made vegan waffle mix and I put them into the waffle maker. They tasted delicious, they were light and fluffy and I added blueberries to some of them, which tasted really sweet. 

Then it was nap time after brunch! After Rachel and I woke up, Rachel's mom drove us to UCSD(University of California San Diego). They have amazing sculptures there and the library building is really pretty. There was even a Dr. Seuss room dedicated to him since he gave a lot of money to the library. Rachel and I walked past a giant rock bear and took some pictures in front of it! It was so cute. 

Later that evening we went to Old Town, which is this really cute touristy place with lots of good Mexican restaraunts! There was an extremely gifted guitar player/singer at the restaraunt we were eating at, and he played the song, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel on the guitar, but I think he changed a few words because he was playing on a guitar. It sounded so good on the guitar! 

It was a great way to end the night. I am so grateful that I got to visit San Diego before my HYC! 

See you in two weeks,

Joy :)

Believe Camp

Hello, reader!

I am currently sitting in Panera missing camp and wishing that I was still with all of the wonderful teens from the Midwest. I just came back from my very last church camp in Polo, Illinois. I have gone every year since I was in 5th grade, so this was my final and 8th year of camp!

Of course, when you do something over and over again like that for eight whole years, it can get boring and repetitive, but this camp has been amazing and different every single year. This year's theme was Believe, and I learned about believing in God's will for my life and how to deepen my faith and trust in Him.

There were fantastic lessons by great speakers who had amazing stories and testimonies to share with us. We had separate guy/girl classes that also made a huge impact on my experience at camp, and it was fun discussing what we learned with other people around the camp. For instance, in the picture below, Lexi, Abby and I were discussing what we had just learned from a girl's class and how we were going to put the lesson into practice in our lives. Then Bob Dignan gave us a selfie stick so of course we had to take a selfie!

Me, Abby, and Lexi after the Women's Lesson on friendships!

This week we were also split up into teams, and coincidentally I just so happened to be on team China(thanks to whoever did that). I was on the media team and 6 of us made vines all week during team challenge time to get points for our country. Here's a link to our vines. We had an awesome team that finished first(or so we thought?) in the relay race on Friday, but then apparently something happened so we tied with Egypt for second! Oh well!

Anya holding our flag ya!! Go China!

The rest of camp was just filled with spending time with God and friends. I could tell that the camp leaders/staff put a lot of heart into the week; it was the best year I had ever had! Thank you to everyone who sent me mail, I really appreciated it :).  I'm so grateful to have been able to experience eight years of camp!

Annette, Lexi, Bella, and Me!

Sabrina and I having a uke session!

Ren, Kaylee and I recreating this photo-

WOW that transformation!!!

I've met so many of my best friends at camp, and it's so crazy to think that we are all going into college soon! Some of my friends were counseling this week, and I hope that I will be able to counsel next year too. I'm about to leave Thursday for San Diego to go on my mission trip that starts Sunday in Mexico! I will write a super long blog post about it when I get back!

Have a great week,

Joy :)

Reach 2016!

Hello fellow reader!

This past weekend I had the ability to go to my church's nationwide conference St. Louis. It was AMAZING. I could not have been more grateful to go and see 18,000 disciples worshipping God, learning, and fellowshipping with one another. I am apart of the Detroit Church of Christ,  which is apart of the International Churches of Christ. We have a region here in Ann Arbor and a region in Livonia that we drive out to every so often! If you want to find out more about my church, be sure to text me or email me at joynuel@gmail.com.

Here are some pictures from the conference:

The big screen! 

There was amazing worship and many inspirational lessons on that stage. It's very nostalgic just thinking about it right now. The first night my brother Luke and I saw this musical, Upside Down, and it was about the book of Acts. That was really fun to watch with my brother and it helped that I just so happened to be reading Acts in my quiet times!

For food, when there wasn't a line out the door I ended up going to this place called Porano's Pasta. It was a make your own pasta bowl, sort of like Chipotle burrito bowls. Very yummy!

Ren and I at Porano's Pasta

Tina Crawley, she's amazing.

On our down time when we didn't have too much to do after classes and such, I would walk around with friends from our ministry and we would hotel-hop, and of course, visit The Arch!

Classic

Dani and I enjoying the sun.
Check out her youtube channel: DefinitelyNotDani. 

Lauren behind the PIZZAAA! It was so good.

On Saturday, Lauren and I went with a bunch of Cincinnati teens to the City Museum in St. Louis! It was so cool, you could walk through all of these tunnels, go down really long slides, and run up ramps that were probably made for skateboards.

We are above some buildings at this point! 

Me, Olivia, Nadya, & Lauren

This is a panorama I took of the Saturday night worship, everyone had their phones out!

At the end of the conference, I definitely felt like my voice was becoming more hoarse because of all the singing and talking there was that weekend! I got to meet some of the people going on my Hope Youth Corps trip in a couple of weeks to San Diego/Baja, Mexico.

One of the biggest things that I took from the conference was that the world really needs us, and God needs us to be able to go anywhere to serve Him and to spread the good news everywhere. We need to view the world differently, as a chance to invite people to know God.

This is just the beginning of many church events, next week I have my church camp and then when I get back, I'll be here for three days and then it will be time to go to Mexico! I will definitely keep you updated on all of that and try to blog as much as I can.

When I did get home from Reach, I finally put together a video of my vacation trip that was two weeks ago, and uploaded it to Youtube!
If you want to check it out, here it is: (oh and if you change the settings to 760p that's a lot better quality)

I filmed it using my GoPro and my iPhone. I really enjoy making these videos and hope that I can continue to make more in the future of the places that I've been!

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you have a great week.

Joy :)

ps. gotta catch em' all