Tournaments Begin

I apologize for not posting sooner, but I've been rather swamped. In fact, come to think of it, I'm pretty much always swamped. So we may have to get used to this :)

Last wednesday I drove down to Medford with the Davis family for the Clarion tournament. We stayed at the Eddy family's house, which was a great blessing as I had the opportunity to re-unite with my old friends.

The tournament itself was a lot of fun, but it definitely felt different for a multitude of reasons. Change is always very strange, but God is always good.

I competed in my very first speech event with a persuasive entitled "The Crisis of Christian Teen Relationships." Drawing from personal experience and insight, I reveal how damaging the relationships that we allow in our Christian culture can be.

In the three times I shared it, dozens of teens and parents came to hear the message. I'm forever grateful for the opportunity to share, what I believe, is an incredibly important message. In addition to the people that came to listen, a couple very dear friends stopped by to hear it, which was an incredible blessing, though it was a bit nerve-wracking at the time :) It was a gratifying reunion, and some of what was shared was both surprising and encouraging. I'm grateful for friends that never give up hope :)

As I prepare to take the speech to other tournaments, several of the speech coaches at the tournament told me they were very shocked that it didn't break, and felt that, with a few minor tweaks, that it will be headed for Nationals. And while this is definitely encouraging, I pray that God will allow me to focus purely on sharing the message and not on the success of competition.

Now, I'm preparing my reformatted persuasive, a humorous and dramatic interpretation, impromptu and debate for the Idaho tournament that I'll be leaving for in exactly a week. Should be fun :)

Hope everyone is doing wonderfully.