Your Love Never Fails.

This past weekend has been really fun, but has also been pretty hard on me.  It was the first time I have been homesick all summer.  I wasn't that homesick, just kinda sad that I haven't seen my family or friends for so long, also that it was Sturgis Falls and it was my first time missing it in my whole life.  But I got more phone calls and texts from friends than I have all summer and it was great to know how loved I am.  My co-leader for CHAOS called and left a message that really uplifted me.  I got to talk to my friend Alex, who gave me a positive outlook on the rest of my summer which was much needed.  I also think I was sad this past weekend because it kind of hit me that this summer is flying by and I am going to have to leave my new family at the end of the summer.  I am trying to prepare myself that it is probably going to be some of the worst days of my life thus far, but that I have made so many great friendships and have been so blessed doing the work that God has called me to do.  Alex helped me realize that I still have a lot of time left down here.  Now to the exciting part of my weekend.  I got a tattoo.  I know what your thinking, Sarah, is such a rebel.  Yep, I am.  Just kidding, we had girls night with the interns, staff, and wives of the staff, it was a lot of fun.  We went out for dinner, then went to an ice cream/candy shop (I sadly couldn't get anything there because I gave up sweets for the summer) and all of us decided to get temporary tattoos.  The rest of the weekend, we just hung out at the pool, talked and played games. 
Another week of camp is here and all of the staff and interns are ready for another set of campers lives to be changed.  We found out this morning that we have 30 churches coming this week and 3 of the churches have had major tragedies in the past weeks and months.  One of the churches had one of their youth leaders committ suicide in January due to a couple of psychological disorders.  He was a father figure to a lot of the guys in that group.  A couple weeks ago a girl who went to one of the churches died in a motorcycle accident.  And last week, a girl and her mom were hit by a drunk driver, and this girls mom died.  She decided to come to camp this week still.  I am sure there are a lot of other things going on in students lives that we haven't heard about, but I just ask for you to be praying for these three churches youth groups as they are at camp this week.  Help them to know that God is embracing them and is here with His healing hand.  Help them to turn to Him in their time of hurting and that He is their rock that they lean on. 
Please be praying for the staff and interns this week.  Some of us have been feeling sick and worn down.  Please be praying for perserverance through this week even if we are tired.  Please be praying that with every student or leader we come into contact with we can have a God led conversation that will make a positive impact on their life. 

You are the potter, I am the clay.

This statement has really been on my heart for the past week.  I had about an hour and a half of God time a couple days ago and He completely broke me of a lot of things going on in my life.  I have learned a lot about myself so far this summer.  For one, that I am a complete control freak.  I stress about everything and put so much pressure on myself.  I realize that this is the way that God has wired me, so instead of trying to act differently by not stressing or putting pressure on myself, I am trying to embrace it and trying to glorify God through the pressure that I put on myself so that the outcome can be completely for God.  I have also been thinking about my future a lot and what I want to be doing.  Right now, I feel like God is calling me to teach or help train teachers in a 3rd world country after I get done with college.  I have no clue what God has planned, but He has given me a passion for education and He showed me in Haiti how much of a passion I have for helping students in other countries get an education who don't have the money or opportunity to go to school. 
It has been another good week down here at BigStuf.  Louie Giglio and Jared Heard spoke again and many lives were changed.  A lot of students stood up to accept Christ in their life for the first time.  Tonight will be another good night of worship and church group time that will help many students connect to the King.  Yesterday I got to go up on stage infront of all 1,500 students with four other interns and we got to share an experience from Haiti and talk about our trip.  I was really nervous, but when I got up there, God gave me all the words to say and I got to talk about how students in America (including myself) take for granted the opportunities that we have for an education and how so many kids in other countries don't get to go to school unless they have the money for it.
One of the girls on my team, my old roommate Kelsey, got some news the other day that her step-mom had to be taken to the hospital.  She has been sick for 9 years with a disease where the ATP (energy) doesn't get to her muscles.  She was having heart pains, and many people with this disease suffer from heart attacks.  Please be praying for healing for Kelsey's step-mom and comfort and encouragement for Kelsey and all of her family. 
A couple of the interns from last year, Evan and Drake, are here for the week to hang out.  I got to talk to them a bit today and about their summer last year and what they would do differently if they could have the summer over.  They told me just to hang out with all of the interns every possible chance I get.  Also, to embrace every moment together and slow down and let everything soak in.  It was great advice and really what I needed to hear right now!  I am still loving every minute of being here and love seeing God work in all of my relationships here!

Well, if teaching doesn't work out...

I am excited to say that God has shown me a path for my life if teaching doesn't work out.  I am so excited to have a back up plan that I really feel like God is leading me towards.  I know you are all waiting in anticipation to find out what it is, so I will tell you.  My new back up plan if teaching doesn't work out is...Karaoke.  Yep, God has shown me a new talent in karoke.  For those of you who are worried for my future in karaoke, don't worry, it's not actually my back up plan.  BUT I do have a new love for karaoke.  Last night, the interns/staff did karaoke in the big room on the stage with lights and everything.  I sang Lucky by Brittany Spears and I Can Hear the Bells from Hairspray plus a few others.  My friends told me I was born for the stage, I won't lie I had a lot of fun!  We had another good weekend off this past weekend.  It was a fun just to hang out and relax as a group.  It is crazy how close all of us have become over the past month.  (It's our group's one month anniversary today!) Honestly, I never thought that I would be so close with all of the interns and staff, they really are family to me!
 Another group of campers come in today and I am excited for another week to see all that God will do.  It is one of the most beautiful things to see 1500 middle school and high school students worshipping God with all that they have and I can't wait to experience that again this week.  Louie Giglio is going to be speaking here again this week.  He really spoke to the campers last week, so hopefully God uses him to speak to the students again this week.
Like I have talked about before, BigStuf teams up with the 410 Bridge.  In the 410 Bridge, they started a choir with children from Kenya called the Daraja Childrens Choir of Africa.  The Daraja kids come over to the States and goes on tour to sing.  They change the lives of the people who hear them and open the eyes of the people who see them.  They usually come and sing at BigStuf once every week.  This year they are having problems getting the kids over here.  They were supposed to be here almost 3 weeks ago to start their tour but the ministry of education in Kenya won't sign their Visas to come to the United States.  Please be praying for the Daraja Children's Choir and that they can get over here so they can change lives.  Also, please be praying for the Daraja Children's Choir interns.  We have gotten to meet them and they have written us notes to uplift us, they are all super nice and have such a servants heart.  However, I am sure that they are frustrated because they aren't getting to do the internship like they were supposed to be doing.  We haven't heard any of them complain and that is so encouraging to all of us BigStuf interns.  Please pray for encouragement for them to know that God has a plan with all of this. 

Here's to you Connie Hansen!

Apparently, I am not updating my blog enough and Connie is worried that I have died and is very distraught when there isn't a new blog update.  I told her that the reason for that is that I have zero free time and if I do have free time it is spent with my eyes shut attempting to catch up on sleep.  [Fun Fact: you can never actually catch up on sleep]  On the topic of sleep, my high school days and college days have prepared me for this lack of sleep, meaning I can function on little to no sleep, hollla.  For anyone who knows me well, I still can't wake up to an alarm, good thing I have roommates right?!  WRONG, I am the one who wakes them up in the morning..sound like an issue?  Stay tuned, it will probably become one by the end of the summer!  Anyway on that tangent, back to BigStuf.  Week 2 (Camp 1) started yesterday, and the first two days have ran smoothly.  Last night I was the stage manager and tonight I was on one of the camers that roam on the stage!  Those two are my favorite jobs so far.  Tomorrow Louie Giglio is going to be here and I will be stage manager again, so chances are that I will get to meet him.  For those of you who haven't heard of Louie, he is a pastor and does a lot with Passion, a college conference.  Basically, he is kinda a big deal, and has many leather bound books.  (10 points for anyone who caught that anchor man reference)  *Sorry I am acting kinda weird tonight, its 1:00 AM and again, whole lack of sleep thing.  I thought I should put a blog up in fear of losing my job!  Just joking, but really!  Anywho, this summer has been so amazing and I know that I have said that a lot, but I honestly didn't know I could be so happy all of the time. Not that I am not not happy when I am back home, but it is just so different here and I love it so much, I am in my element.  Alright, that should be enought for one night.  I honestly will try to blog every chance that I get!  Love you all and Goodnight! :)
*SARAH ANN KORTE IS NOT HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY SPELLING OR GRAMATICAL ERRORS IN THIS BLOG OR ANY BLOG TO COME, BECAUSE SHE ISN'T GOOD AT IT ANYWAY, PLUS THE LACK OF SLEEP AND ENERGY IS GOING TO TAKE A TOLL TO HER ALREADY POOR ENGLISH HABITS.  THAT IS ALL.

Living the Life

Week one of camp is done.  All of us are exhausted, but it has been such an amazing week and are looking forward to another week of Konnektions.  (Konnekt is our theme for the summer, so you will probably be seeing the word "konnekt" a lot!)  As interns we have many different jobs from working in the room where the speakers and band stay, the info table, lights, cameras, stage manager, in the store, and rec.  I am the volleyball manager for the summer.  Which consists of making the bracket each week and refereeing volleyball during each day of the tournament.  My two favorite jobs that I have got to do this past week are stage manager and Camera 4 (which is a roaming camera which films the drummer on stage).  One of the goals of all of the interns is to make Konnektions with youth leaders and students.  I wasn't really sure if I was going to be able to get to know any students here or not, but it has been amazing how many konnektions I got to make last week.  There was one girl specifically who I got to Konnekt with and it was amazing to get to know her and am so blessed to be apart of her week.  All of us have learned so much the past week about how the summer is going to be running so it was a pretty stressful week but we are all ready to take on the next week of campers on Monday.  We have the weekend off to do whatever we want, so we slept in and went to the beach all day.  We played some beach volleyball and layed out!  Tonight the interns and staff are hanging out in the big room watching movies and doing karaoke!  It will be a great time to just relax and get to know each other better! 

Bonjou & Bonswa

First off, sorry that I haven't updated this in a while.  I haven't had internet and the past two weeks have been absolutely crazy!  Secondly, this might be kind of long or I will make it into two..still deciding. 
The reason for the title is because this was the ONLY thing that anyone in my group knew how to say (other than Zach who speaks fluent Creol), which means 'good morning' and 'good afternoon', it was pretty funny because we think the kids made fun of us for not knowing anything!  Going to Haiti was one of the best weeks of my life.  I got to experience things in my life that people can't even imagine unless they see it.  When we first flew into Port Au Prince it was a little nerve wracking, we had a police escort us through the walk way and to our cars, not because it was needed, just as an extra safetly procaution.  Our intern leader, Zach, grew up in Haiti and we decided that he basically runs the country of Haiti, he knows EVERYONE!  That made everyone feel better knowing that Zach knew what he was doing and where he was going.  We drove about 2 1/2 hours away from the capital to our hotel, and we stayed at an extremely nice place.  My window in my room looked out into the ocean, we had running water, and the food was amazing!  We worked about an hour away from our hotel up in the mountains.  We helped the community of Shadrack build a couple of latrines.  How the 410 Bridge works (the organization that we went with) is a push-pull philosophy.  We want them to pull us to where they want to be going in their community, not us pushing them to where they should be going.  We work along side of the people in that community to reach a common goal.  My favorite part about the trip was getting to work with all of the kids.  It was so amazing to hang out with them, hold them and love on them.  One day I got the opportunity to make a lesson to teach to a lot of the members in the community. In that lesson we acted out David and Goliath and the Good Samaritan, we got to reinforce God's love for them.  One evening we got to meet a Haitian pastor who has been doing ministry in Haiti for 52 years, he told us that we need to be praying for Haiti that they learn and don't forget God's love, and that is the most important thing that they need.  On our second to last day there we got to go to Port Au Prince and look around.  There is still so much devestation from the earthquake last year and it was really sad to see all of the tent communities. On the last day there we got the chance to go to the top of a mountain and have quiet time.  God is so amazing and spoke to me through a book in the bible that I have never read before, Habakkuk.  The verse said "Look at the nations and watch-and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe." Habakkuk 1: 5  I was questioning how there could be so much poverty and destruction in this country but God showed me through this passage and the people that we worked with that God is doing amazing things in Haiti that we can't even believe.  The people there gave me so much hope because of their positive attitudes even when they had so little.  It was one of the best weeks of my life and would absolutely love to go back for a longer period of time.