God’s Way of Sending HOPE

to Where He Wants Us to Be

by Amanda Lynne Horsch

“God made me glad to be who I am” –Amanda Horsch

Sometimes you have to FEEL God’s presence and not just know that it’s there. Spending a year anticipating what things would be like and dealing with my own stresses between school, work and home, I could have sworn that the HOPE Conference wouldn’t come soon enough! College classes just weren’t going that well, I ended up fired from one job (reasons still unknown) and then didn’t get the summer job I had to audition for a month later. To top it all off, none of this was helping out my mom at home either. All in all, it was starting to be an extremely rough year.

But things started to look up. I was asked to be a small group leader for the upcoming HOPE Conference that I was so looking forward to! (So now we add to the excitement level…) Granted, it was nothing I’d ever done before, but I thought, why not! I can handle it! Besides, it would be good “practice” for me since I’m going to school this fall for Youth Ministry.

God ROCKS! HOPE ROCKS! All of us ROCK! Blessed by music from the popular Harvest Ministry Team at the HOPE/NAPF Conferences.

Well, let me just tell you that I had an awesome small group to lead! Besides the fact that they liked to joke around and pick on me for little things (like being able to point out where in Michigan I’m from on the palm of my right hand), they really helped me learn some things about my own self and my faith. They also brought me to the conclusion to NEVER paint with any of them! (Okay, so here’s where you laugh at my poor attempt at an inside joke…) But honestly, I’ve taken so much from my small group this year and I know that God “sent” them to be there for me! It was all about the love! HOPE 2001 made a major impact on me in many ways. My small group members, my roommate and prayer partner, our speaker, our time spent with the adults at their conference, and the fact that I could just feel God there made me glad to be who I am, to be doing work for God and living my life for Him! I know in my heart that God is “sending” me to where He wants me to be. God ROCKS!!! HOPE ROCKS!!! Bananas ROCK!!! And most of all: YOU ROCK!!!

Amanda Lynne Horsch belongs to Horton Congregational Church, Horton, Michigan.

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