2021 NWFR | Beauty for Ashes | Rondon Family

when we're talking so if you have 10 tips and that's what god gave you then you share that those 10 tips but it's going to be at the end after i say that okay so it's going to be when i okay who's gonna who wants to introduce the first song i'll introduce the first one okay is this one muted too good morning everybody it's time to start singing our first song is number 64. rejoice you pure in heart number 64. rejoicing your heart rejoice giving dancing [Music] the cross of christ your king rejoice rejoice [Music] rejoice give thanks and sing with voices full and strong as turning praise said forth the starting hymns of the psalms of ancient days rejoice rejoice rejoice give thanks and sing with all the angels [Music] of joy and bliss true rapture [Music] rejoice rejoice rejoice give thanks still changing as we go from youth to age by [Music] rejoice rejoice rejoice give thanks and say praise him who reigns on high the lord we adore the father son and holy ghost one god forever [Music] our next song is number 79. this is my father's world number 79. [Music] this is my father's world and to my listening ears oh nature sings and round me rings the music of the spears there [Music] of skies and seas this is my father's world the [Music] make us raise [Music] grass i hear him pass speak to me everywhere this is my father's world [Music] god yet this is my father's world why should my heart be sad the lord is king but the heavens let the earth it's time for our opening song let's stand as we sing faith is the victory for conflict by the light you christian soldiers rise and press the battle through the night to gain the cherished prize we know that christ brings strict relief faith is the victory we know that goes beyond belief faith is the victory faith is the victory all glory is victory that goes beyond [Music] determined to destroy let selfish ease be left beyond and rest our cause with joy salvation's helmet on each head is truth secured in place the earth [Music] faith is the victory faith is the victory all glory is victory that goes beyond belief through him that overcomes the foe white raiment shall begin before the angels he shall know his name confessed to him [Music] in jesus christ faith is the victory faith is the victory oh glorious victory that our beliefs thank you you may be seated good morning dias for those that speak spanish and i'm sure there's a lot of them come here we are the rivera family my name is david my name is kayla i'm rachel i'm rachel and isabella and we are the hosts for virginia family retreat which will be held in september 8th through the 12th and we want to give you a good work and welcome this morning and also for those that are live streaming audience that are seeing us this morning and we want to make sure that you guys are very comfortable that you guys are relaxed and those that pretty much make it last night a little late if you haven't raised her last night uh this morning we're gonna have the uh the registration table ready for you guys to register later after uh the first part of the meeting so we wanna remind um every parent to please keep close contact with your children do not let them roam around without not knowing what they are no place is a safe place so please keep them close to you at all times and we also want to remind you that the resource table is right there on your left we're there to help you in any way that you think you can um get the new t-shirts um the girls are wearing and you see all some of us wearing it though um and we can share resources with other people as well and you know some of the books that are there you may say oh i've read it before but you can bless someone else by buying it for them and share that for them with them so it's going to be pretty hot today and the rest of the week as well and so there's going to be water or refreshments out by the front during the day so that way you guys can be refreshed and hydrated and along those lines we want to keep in mind that this is a very nice floor we want to keep it nice so no water cups we don't want any water cups in the gym for you know around in the seats because we don't want anything to be spilled on the floor and also there is a lost and found back at the registration table and back at the registration table there's also a children's activity bag yes that was left oh that was with craft so if your child is missing that bag just come and see we have it there yes um we need what happens afternoon i know that this is like the best part and what the youth waits for on saturday afternoon who knows what happens on saturday afternoon we have what youth what panel but we need questions we need those questions in so we can put our youth on the spot don't we like to hear them what they have to say do we have a box for the question it's on the registration table so please bring your questions um to the registration table and um drop it in before the three o'clock meeting okay for tomorrow all right so men's um who love to sing yeah even though my wife doesn't let me the thing but this is the opportunity for you guys to uh be leaving some service today and that we actually will be tonight uh for some service all men will report here to the stage and we're going to be leading some service this evening so in the back i think by the booth yes there is a box or something that you guys can write a little note or your names to the petty family they were the hosts previously and just write them a note or something and the photo booth how many people have taken pictures in the photo booth oh wow more people than yesterday so good job by taking photos and if you haven't taken a photo you can take a photo back there and the photo booth will be open 15 minutes prior to every meeting and 30 minutes after every meeting and keep the pictures coming and remember you guys can tag on facebook to restoration international and if you don't have facebook or you can't share the photo on social media you can text it your picture to this phone number 928-821-6315 that's 928-821-6395 you just forgot to welcome the people that are in live stream we appreciate you wherever you are and um please share the stream with other people as well that want to be seen so our special music today will be brought by rainey and jordan mcdonald our prayer will be by the lund family following that we'll have a special featurette video and our message this morning will be done by the rondo family call beautiful ashes jesus [Music] the market places empty no more traffic in the streets all the builders tools are silent no more time to harvest sweet housewife sees the labors in the courtroom no debate work on the earth has been suspended as a king comes through the gate [Music] the king is coming the king is coming i just heard the trumpet sounding and now his face i see oh the king is coming the king is coming praise god he's coming for me happy [Music] have been faces broken homes that he has mended those from prison he set free little children and the agent [Music] the keys is coming the king is coming i just heard the trumpet sounding and now his face i see oh the king is coming the king is coming praise god he's coming for me [Music] trumpets spells the [Music] is to see an amazing grace the king is coming the king is coming i just heard the chopped sounding and now his face i see oh the king is coming the king is coming praise god he is coming for me [Music] praise god he's coming for me [Music] [Music] i'm so glad that jesus is coming for us soon amen and it's time for our prayer if you'll kneel with us dear heavenly father thank you so much for your word and for your promises that you are coming for us soon thank you that we can have this weekend to come together and learn more about how we can get ready as a family and be an example and how you can make beauty from ashes please help us to remember what we learn and to share it with our family and those around us in jesus name i pray amen we are the clay [Music] you are the potter [Music] we are all works in your hands [Music] you have a plan for our lives a purpose [Music] a future [Music] you promise you won't leave us [Music] and when we face the tests and trials you are there [Music] for i know the plans i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future [Music] all right good morning everyone so we're the rondon family i'm oswald this is my wife betty and these are beautiful children amedeo it's just yeah that is true we don't need that anymore all right thanks all right it is it is amazing from that featured video it's amazing how god is always forming us like he's always you know just like the pot just like the the potter and the clay and his hand is always there like it's us who sometimes decide to to not to forget or think that oh i'm just going to jump off the potter's wheel knowing that that jesus is always there and that that leads us to our that leads us to our message 2020 was a was a tumultuous year for you can say for the whole world and and definitely for our family and many times it looked as if all our plans were were going to turn into ashes and it ended up being that the that the theme for us in 2020 was is jeremiah sorry it's isaiah isaiah 61 verses 1 through 6. can you bring that up okay the spirit of the sovereign lord is on me because the lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our god to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes the oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair they will be called oaks of righteousness a planting of the lord for the display of a splendor they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated that will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations strangers will shepherd your flocks foreigners will work your fields and vineyards and you will be called the priests of the lord you will be named ministers of our god amen we found hope in remembering god's plan for us but before we go into what how 2020 what 2020 did for us did to us or what how 2020 was for our family there couldn't be a 2020 without a 2019. so we're going to take a step back and we're going to start we're going to start in 2019. so the beginning of 2019 seemed very prosperous for me at that point i had signed up to go on young disciple ministries mission experience to go to the philippines and i was very very very excited but there was one thing in this mission trip that did catch me and it made me a little bit scared you see for the first time ever in my life i would be away from home most people's first night away from home typically you know at a cousin's house or a family friend's house but my first night away from home would be 5 000 miles away and i'm serious i've never been away from home i mean we've always been together my parents are great i don't think you've gone like on an anniversary trip or anything not too much we've just always been together i mean maybe when i go to the bathroom by myself maybe maybe maybe even then i don't know um yeah but after that i've never been apart from them so what my parents and my sister did help me to help to prepare me emotionally so that i can make it to the philippines one thing that we forgot to address was my absence in the family we never addressed that because never in the history of our family has one of us been gone my brother came back on fire for god but from my view i was struggling his absence in our home was was a very difficult time for me and being apart from him was like part of my heart practically gone we never discussed the consequence of his of him being away from me and all of us so tensions arose as amadeo was on fire for god i felt like i didn't care for god anyways and like the children are saying and stating it we failed to prepare for his absence amid those absence and so at the beginning of every year we sit down as a family and we really enjoy to go over what we want to do for the year so we we knew he was going to be gone at the very beginning of the year and um things changed throughout the dynamics of our family changed because he was gone but one thing that we had in mind was what we want to dub as our cockroach plant and we call it the cockroach plan because it obviously didn't take very thorough thinking on the parts of the parents um amedeo had expressed that he wanted to be a dental hygienist or he was thinking about dental school and in the city that we used to live at at the time billings montana they did not offer that program at the school that he was at he was actually enrolled in and while he was there they they showed him that the only prospect of him being able to do that program was him being away two hours away which would be shared in wyoming so we thought the parents that we are sure will be with you honey because he didn't he was 15 he didn't want to leave from home once he started the program and so we said we will go with you and the plan basically was myself the children would be living in sheridan wyoming two hours away from fillings montana while my husband would stay in montana and work and then he would commute on the weekends so the reason why it's a cockroach plan is because the road from billings to sheridan is not a very fun road in the winter time and for those of you who have lived in montana shellenberg it could be july and you can have snow and the road is closed yeah sharon and wyoming the 90 if they they always close so we we play we make fun of it and we say okay what do we think about but amadeo went ahead and told us literally sat us down in september and said this is 2019 and he said thank you son it's so good to have people that fix you is that good is that better can you guys hear me it is on okay half of you are saying it's on and the other half is saying it's not okay perfect all right i speak louder i only know two volumes all right so that's why it was a cockroach plan because it really wasn't very well thought out and so that's what was what we had to to start out with so oswald would lead us in okay so what happened next yeah so so here's what's happened yeah medel you know status down told us hey you know is this plan century is this plan gonna how can this plan work and yeah we're like oh yes you're right this isn't this wasn't this wasn't well thought out so providentially at so backtrack so when he told us this do i realize all right this whole commuting thing that's that's not going to work that's crazy so we're going to have to move around then this is this is the hand of god around that same time in in the summer i was getting i got two unsolicited job offers and when i first got that i was really like no my no i'm i love where i'm at i really we had prior to living in montana we had lived in miami florida and when we came to montana i really believe all right lord you finally you know you were here it's going to be from montana to heaven that's that's what i thought that's it so so i have no desire to have no desire to to leave like i really i really really like my job and i i'm a i'm an ophthalmologist i'm an eye surgeon and i really i felt like man like i'm doing what it is i want to do the type of medicine i was practicing in miami it was more like cattle medicine i kind of felt hey maybe that was preparing me for montana but it's not it's it's not the kind it's not the kind of medicine that i dreamed of practicing when i was in college so so here we are in montana i love my job the first job offer came from stockton california no offense to stockton california but i was like no i'm not going to stockton we might as well go back to miami if that's that's where we're going to go so i immediately told that first job no the the second job was a job offer in anchorage alaska and yes thanks to thanks to andrea right so yeah it was was the anchorage alaska and i'm being honest i my immediate answer mine was like no i like i like montana but i wanted to act like like i was going to think about it so so i told them you know i'll get back to you i'll get back to you in about and in about a week well during that week interval was when we had this conversation so that i saw that point i'm like oh okay i mean they had looked up okay what other and what other places in america these dental hygiene programs available and there was one with a bachelor's degree level that was available in anchorage alaska so at this point i'm like okay all right so what was supposed to be a phone call to tell them no is now a phone call all right let's let's talk so i call up the i call up the i call up that job and they they told me well actually we don't we don't need you in anchorage alaska we have a we have a position available in in pascal washington no sorry in kennewick washington and then um they'll happen to look and he's like hey there's a there's a program in pasco washington so i didn't weren't too familiar with that part of washington like pasco kennewick how far are they you know we look it up i'm like oh it's it's right there so so we i so i go ahead and all right so let's start talking um it's it's awkward when you're at one job and you're trying to interview for another job and i the timing it was a short window of if you want to interview me in person it has to happen literally like i only have this one weekend in october and they made it happen they flew betty and i there we interviewed we went over to the school every everything just was like god opened the way everything went perfectly so we go ahead all right that gets that that gets set up and now we're all right yeah now we get back now we get back now we get back to montana so we get back to montana we're like all right we're moving and we we know we need to move and you know how when you when when god is showing you something and i'll be honest i was a little bit hesitant i'm like all right this is happening but but i really wanted to stay in montana but i knew all right but this is where this is where god has taken us and you know sometimes god has to kind of push you more we get back to montana and we find out our we were renting a house or our landlord passed away in a tragic accident so once so that was sign of like oh even if we didn't want to move we have to move because now the estate is gonna yeah yeah it's not gonna be available anymore so we know all right okay so that's that's okay that's obstacle because obstacle number one um also no lie shortly after that my parents had moved from florida they were living in billings montana with us i found out my my dad had open heart surgery about seven eight years ago and we found out he's gonna need another open heart surgery he had had a valve replaced and that was going to be scheduled for about january february of 2020. and we didn't know it was like what else what 2010 was going to bring so we know all right now we have all right so now we have these two obstacles and and we need to go ahead and move and remember when i said i thought we're going to go from montana to heaven now all of a sudden whoa now we got all these little projects that were supposed to get done and all these things are supposed to get packed oh we'll do it later we'll do it next year now no now we got to get this all now we've got to get this all ready to head to to head to canada with washington we learned one very important thing through this lesson of all of us if you want to make god laugh tell him your future plans all right okay so now we're in 2020 and we fast forward okay it's march 2020 and it's the beginning of the pandemic and i'll be honest i wasn't really i wasn't really taking it seriously you know i was watching the news he was going on i saw what was happening in seattle i saw what was happening in new york city and i really felt you know this is going to be a big city problem you know we live in montana you know this is god's country no we're gonna we're gonna be all right you know this is gonna be you know as long as the cows don't get covered it will be you know we'll be you know we'll be fine no there's not enough of us here for this for this to really spread so i said you know so so after having that thought no lie the next day i i go to the office and and the boss he has he holds an emergency office meeting i had been there four years and we had never ever had an emergency office meeting so i'm like okay this is kind of odd and he goes ahead and and tells us where the office is not going to close but 20 out of the 20 out of the 30 employees got sent home that day so that's him oh my now i'm like oh this is this is real so we have we have the skeleton crew that's left and i really felt i was so grateful because i'm like wow because i i knew many people in other states had lost their jobs and i was thank you wow thank you god this happened but i still i i still have a job i felt i felt so blessed so it's now the it's now the end of march and i'm keeping an eye and keep an eye on what's going on in washington because my my last day in montana was supposed to be april 17th and i was going to start my new job in washington on on april 30th so i just kind of kept going on and finding out what's happening i wasn't tri-cities it's not close to seattle but in following the news and following following what was going to happen on march 28th the governor of washington went ahead and shut down all non-emergency health care facilities in order to in order to save more resources like face masks gowns all you know ppe protective personal protective equipment so once i saw that i'm like oh i literally called up my called up my woolsey new job and yeah they confirmed yes we're you know we're eye surgeries not considered an emergency an emergency facility we're closed and that question of so when are we gonna go and they're like no we have we have no there's nothing we can tell you of when you can come when you can come here to washington and that's the best they can tell me so i'm like all right okay so go talk to my talk to my current boss and let him know what was happening and in a heartbeat he's like he's like no stay longer he says you can go ahead i told them can i stay two more months and he says yes go ahead you can stay you can stay two more months so once again i'm like i dodged another bullet hey i still have right right we're still working so i was grateful i was grateful because i'm blessed there's this is an unprecedented time in our country's history and and i still have a job i'm still working so a week goes by and then i hadn't thought of i had lost track that my employment contract was still scheduled to end in the middle of april so my boss tells me hey you know we need to you need to sign in a new contract and a new agreement to so we're legally doing this correctly and that'll take you through the middle of june so i said okay sure and he says tomorrow the contract will be on your desk i come in the next day tomorrow and the contract is there i'm looking it over it looks just like what i previously signed except for one one big detail and that's that my salary was going to be cut by 66 percent so yeah yeah i i felt the same way i'm like oh okay i'd i felt angry because mind you it's almost like a tale of two cities things were shut down in washington but we were already getting busy again like the business we were almost approaching our pre-pandemic level of productivity mind you a month had passed and they only paid they didn't have to pay 66 of the employees because they had been furloughed uh you know mind you the federal government had had given payroll assistance to practices of our same size but the the offer essentially was take it was take it or leave it and i felt so i felt so hurt i you know i felt i was taken advantage of and and this is this is my weakness as men as men as being the like the leader in my house as far my i look at myself as i'm the pro i'm the provider right i'm the one that's supposed to like to be there for my family and especially for you know for homeschool families when there's one income it's not a prep it's a pressure of sorts but it's that it's like this is what defines me like this is what makes me part makes me what makes me who i am and i looked at myself as the provider but i'm i'm not the provider god is the provider amen but but i didn't see it that way i didn't see that way i panicked and without discussing it with my wife i went ahead and signed that contract i signed it um i told my wife what what the job what the salary offer was but i but i didn't tell her that that i had signed that contract and i basically i lied to her i told her that she told me don't worry about it god's gonna provide you can always find something else to i had told them don't sign the contract but i didn't know he had already signed it right as he got it so he basically looked at me like oh okay i won't sign the contract and um go ahead um you know she's god is good now she she forgave me and my lord forgave me but but i didn't forgive myself so i started to you know when the enemy is always there right to start putting to stop putting negative thoughts in your mind i started to i started to isolate myself so when you start isolating yourself what ends up happening is you don't you don't start thinking rationally like when you start to isolate yourself you know in my mind i'm like wow i'm such i'm a poor provider you know this isn't the first time you failed and on top of this you're you know you're you're a liar you're a terrible husband and and you don't start yeah you don't start thinking rationally and and here's the and here's the and here's the reality there were tons of people in this world that didn't have work that that were fired and even if you go outside of america because we have unemployment and things of that sort but think about the rest of the world like there's tons of people out there that's it like there's no income it's gone there isn't a government safety net to help you and here i am drowning and like oh i'm taking i'm taking a pay cut right but it's but it's easy to just to just fall in like okay i'm just going to look at at my own problem but but god is good there with these voices yeah i i literally fell into a like a depression and thinking look i'm not i'm not worth it like i'm not worth it i should just go ahead i should just end it that's it i just go ahead and just end my life and i just want to interject if you don't mind during this time he's telling the story we're actually not with him we have moved because our stuff moved right the weekend of the pandemic so we had moved february 26th to take our stuff remember our plan was basically we would move we didn't discuss it exactly like that we didn't tell you but our plan had been that we were going to go ahead and go forward and move so that medel could start college at cbc columbia basin college and then we would go between that time we would go back to montana so that we could help grandma and grandpa while he was having his open heart surgery so the weekend that we moved the 26th cove it happened and we did not know we were not aware that covert had happened or in seattle that there were deaths because we don't have a tv we had just moved our [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] and [Music] it is [Music] immediately [Applause] [Music] apartment [Music] to know that we [Music] and in the darkness of fear and anxiety you know or and you know contemplating things like suicide there is always someone you can talk to there is always someone you can talk to god gave me god gave me betty we have parents and we have godly friends most importantly we have god anytime that idea is there's no one you can talk to no no that is that is an absolute lie so we're gonna go back like two years back to 2019 so about two years ago when my brother left to the other side of the world like i said i was really sad and kind of depressed a little bit but then i started to reroute myself i was like okay i don't really need god anymore i want to try something really new so i rebelled against god and i thought it would be fun and exciting so i decided to take the straight gate and little did i know that this new path would slowly bring me to destruction i started to change slowly but surely i started to work in modest clothing watch movies listen to secular music and i avoided my parents counsel and everything that i did like seriously soon my character changed into a dark teenager that nobody would ever want to be around with i hardly ever smiled and i never even laughed and and finally 2021 came i had my year pretty planned out i was planning to enroll in a community college and try cities because we were going to move that year and and also in the summer i would also rebel some more but instead it was the most challenging year of my whole lifetime so while covert was happening my family and i were stuck in a two-bedroom apartment that was actually my grandparents living quarters coveted started to get even worse and i got very anxious and i started to believe satan's lies that the world was coming to an end and that i was never going to be able to ever turn it back from my old ways and that god was god purposely made covet to have happen to destroy me i couldn't sleep or hardly eat for three days i had a lot of anxiety attacks from that week i didn't tell my parents what was going to happen what i was feeling so at night my whole body would tremble kind of like if you're like really cold or something like kind of like the chills like that and i just i was just extremely scared so the next day my grandma and i went to the hospital to visit my grandpa because he just got his open heart surgery done and i was like okay i'll just tag along because you know there's really nothing to do besides blow your brains on tv so i was just like okay i'll just go and i would so i went ahead and got in the car and we went to the hospital and i was like look it's just getting so hard for me might as well just get some medications and anxiety medications because i was really really anxious so i told the nurse to get a psychiatrist for me and she told me to go to the emergency center so that's where i went and i went to the emergency center and they gave me a psychiatrist and they told me that i should go ahead and give my cell phone number but i don't have a cell phone so i gave them my mom's phone number and i wasn't thinking because when you're anxious you're kind of crazy so honestly i gave her the phone number and then she called my mom and then my mom was like um why is she at the hospital i thought she's supposed to visit her grandpa well that's not true so anyways um that's what pretty much happened and my mom told me she i spoke to her on the phone in the hospital she's like please come right back i need to talk to you so my grandma and i left the place and the nurse was like are you okay i'll just call you every so often to make sure you're okay and then they i went back with my grandma back to the house and i um my mom came running outside and she was like are you okay like you don't ever have to keep anything away from me you know that i'm always gonna be with you and no matter what you just you don't have to keep stuff away so later that night my dad came back from came back from his job and um he was telling me like you know anxiety medications are not really healthy for you i mean they change just how your character is and what you look like and everything like that and i was like well i really want it because i didn't i didn't want to make the choice to stop anxiety i just wanted a pill just to just block it whatever but yeah so i think the best thing that i ever did was to make the choice not to take the anxiety pills i'm so grateful for listening to the holy spirit i'm so blessed that even though i had anxiety and stress that i got strength through jesus christ and he set me free without anxiety i'm not saying it's good i would have never come to realize how desperately i need god each day and i know for sure i wouldn't be here right now god works in very mysterious ways and here are some tips he works and we're going to save that for later go ahead so while amity was getting his part i just want you to know that we're just going to be as vulnerable as we possibly can be we're a very close-knit family as you can tell the young men still wear clothes that are similar we like to try to match we're very close-knit we really love each other and we want to be able to just show you how vulnerable we are so um not to show all the problems because it's not about the problems it's to show how god works throughout all those problems so we really believe when we keep on telling you guys hey the merch is not about the merch it's about the message behind the merchandise we believe in the restoration that god does and we believe in god's mending and so we're going to continue with our message so 2020 as we pretty much hit on doesn't bring back like oh that was the year where everything just went fine the complete opposite of anything but 2020 for me before the pandemic was supposed to be the best year of my life you see adding up to 2020 by 15 years old which that's how i started out 2020 i had already passed both college exams and have been accepted into a college i was taking medical school level prerequisite classes and passing them very well at the age of 15 i'd already taken one semester of college passed it and finished it with a gpa of 3.9 and i was very impressed with myself i was like well at 15 i've been able to do that and then my church elected me as youth director and as a 15 year old you're going to the philippines and i turned 16 i was like wow what more would i need i've got everything until covert happened my new school in washington and covet completely shut down now i do not like online classes it drives me crazy i'm the type of person where i need to be at the lab i need to be doing things and for those how many of you have ever taken science classes in college right okay yeah quite a few of you you know it's a physical subject that's not something you can go ahead and learn online so microbiology and animal physiology and all these other nerdy geeky things you can't just do it online um but then all of a sudden like i said covet happened and it just got worse and worse and worse not only were all my classes online that quarter but the thing is that quarter that i'd signed up for i'd purposely overloaded my classes so as a running start student the quarter system is not like semesters there's three quarters in a year and you can only take fit is three quarters in a year you can only take 15 credits as a running start student now i was able to get some permission to take 17 credits which when i asked them i want to take 17 credits they looked at me and they're like you're crazy right and i was like i'm homeschooler i can do whatever i want i can do it um and that was before online i was i had it set down to do it but then online all of a sudden i had chemistry statistics nutrition pe and basketball all online yeah basketball online basketball online how do you do that yeah yeah the basketball got cancelled that was the only class that i was really looking forward to the other classes i was looking forward to but i knew that was fun but it was cancelled funny enough pe was not canceled we logged on we did our classes we did our like workouts online but then things started to get worse with online you see because i wasn't at my home i was at my grandparents place and they have very slow internet so then all of a sudden all the activities that i would log on for pe they wouldn't get in on time so i get all these points discounted and discounted and discounted even though i was doing my best to submit them on time um in chemistry even though i had an amazing teacher we weren't allowed to do any labs the labs were filled by were filmed by a teacher who hated filming he was filming with the gopro and it was like glitching everything and i'm like look i can tell you're blowing something up yes thank you very much but what are you doing i couldn't understand it and it was super hard and with the internet we had all our classes through zoom my zoom kept on failing and i wasn't able to learn very well in my nutrition class my teacher literally mocked me for being a vegetarian and because the class wasn't in person i couldn't defend myself i had students bullying me and i never at home school you don't really experience you know cyberbullying and stuff but my parents told me hey you know if this happens you know what to do so the students that didn't hurt too much but to have your own teacher bully you is a lot finally in statistics our teacher was so frazzled by the kova 19 situation that he forgot to give us all our exams and quizzes he did so you know we go for the first 12 weeks of the actually the first 10 weeks of the quarter and we have no exams no quizzes i'm like this is the easiest statistics class ever the last two weeks he's like oh man i forgot you guys i'm here you go four exams six quizzes and ten weeks worth of homework do it in two weeks half the class failed the other half couldn't get better than a 1.9 nobody got above 1.9 so what he did was okay i'm gonna go ahead and extend the class for four more weeks so you can get you're gonna get it incomplete so you could do it again so i got okay you know this is my second chance let me try it again so as i'm studying studying and studying i attended i decided you know let me just try to see if my internet can work for the first couple of times i ended up going to a bunch of libraries that were open going to starbucks don't worry i didn't actually drink coffee i got a water or something going to starbucks using their wi-fi and going to this teacher's zoom class but the thing is this teacher he hated teaching he ended up telling me that he hates statistics that he is a physicist but because he does not have a phd he can't teach physics so when i go to him and i'm like teacher how do you solve this he's like i don't know guess and i'm like well what am i supposed to do you're the teacher and he's like yeah too bad at the end of the day nobody got better than a c plus in that class one person did end up getting a b minus but that's because that was their second time taking this class and it hurt me to receive a c plus you see as a perfectionist the lowest grade i would ever accept really is an a that's it um yeah before i had received an a minus maybe a b plus on some test and that was okay because you know with college you can kind of even things out and i was at a minus average but when i got my my scores for the end of the quarter to see a c plus on statistics hertz my grade dropped from a 3.8 to a 3.3 and i was mad i was like god why did you allow this i am a smart kid i'm very bright and now you've just ruined my future because i want to go into dental hygiene and dental hygiene is a very competitive field if you show up with a 3.3 they may not even consider you they accept they will consider you if you got a 3.5 or above so throughout this whole time i decided let me look to the church for help i guess because there's nothing else i'm angry at god let's see what the church can offer unfortunately i went to the church for help and most of the messages i were listening to from people saying that jesus is coming he's coming he's coming but i wasn't excited because i was like you see all this work that i've put towards for all this schooling it can end because if jesus comes i'm not gonna need any more school so why do it in the first place and i kept on hearing messages of doom and gloom and i kept on getting angry at god i was like why would you let me go through this galactic craziness if you're gonna come so soon and it's going to go to waste my mom at this time told me that i should look on the bright side and keep on smiling but i felt like i had nothing to smile for i had nothing to look forward to and all my dreams were crashing down but you know god is great amen because even when i did a full 180 on him and turned away he still looked for me he still looked for me he was still there for me and he still helped me in college because my dad's salary had been cut down and because we had to end up paying for our my grandpa's open heart surgery i owed a lot of debt in college for a little bit debt that i could not pay debt on textbooks dead on things and i was like oh no to the point where i got a bill saying pay this by this date or you will be kicked out of your classes that's a hard feeling to feel for a 16 year old but then all of a sudden my school sent me an email saying like hey we're offering scholarships for kovid you know and i applied for one and then i got a response back saying you're not eligible because you're running start student and i was like god how dare you i turned off my computer i went away skipped my devotions the next morning when i went back to school to see what i can do i got an email going like you know what even though you're not a running start student our cpc president personally has given you a scholarship and i paid all my debt and then things even though they were tough god was able to help me see the light at this point another huge struggle for me was that i had a pc that i was running my running all my classes on it was a tiny little dell laptop but it kept on overheating it was supposed to be the top-of-the-line dell laptop from what i thought and it kept on overheating and it kept on losing internet and i needed a better computer but i didn't have money for a computer well all of a sudden um one thing that my dad didn't mention but during the time with coburn and his celery got getting cut he was still taking call now for those who don't know what that means that means that when you take call you are as backup doctor for any emergencies that happen so he was taking call on the hospital because he was a front line worker gave him a bonus and that bonus was able to help me get a brand new computer a brand new mac the mac we're actually running this entire thing on right now and i was able to get that and man that mac has never overheated once maybe apples is better than windows but that that's for another time that's another time no promo no we need to wind it down yeah we have so much to share with you as you can tell it's been a lot but we're going to go ahead [Music] and [Music] so [Music] [Music] is [Music] god can and he will and i just said i'm saying but if i do this it will give is and praying for them what do you need me to pray with them [Music] we are not completely free of all these things [Music] [Music] on my end it's the it's the following the only the only absolute is that god loves us and he has a beautiful plan for us all the other apps absolutes meaning i'm not good enough this is this is terrible my parents are going to kill me all these other absolutes they're all lies that's the oh that's the only true absolutely so i have a couple tips on how to you know get rid of anxiety without medications so i have like about 10 but i'm gonna only do five because i don't want you guys to be bored out of your brains so so number one is have morning devotions and then number two is stay productive because when you're busy and you're not thinking of yourself i mean the anxiety seriously just goes away practically and also when you have a positive attitude it really impacts everybody around you and yourself also um to exercise and stay on a healthy diet because if you're like a couch potato you know that's not going to work out really and also if you have a terrible diet and you're just eating potato chips and soda yeah it's just not going to work out yes this one you didn't say that one okay and also serve others and don't think about your situation this one you said you didn't say this one oh yes and when a negative thought comes replace it quickly with the bible verse or him or with a positive memory that you had with your friends or family or something like that also this also helps with stress anxiety and depression and also never be alone because that's when the devil gets you because he knows you're weak except going to the bathroom you know and sleeping in your bed unless you're married then forget about it and and doing your morning devotions yeah you said that and be and be aware not to listen to the devil's lies sometimes it's very difficult to surpass whether it's your thoughts or saying whispering because when you're thinking whatever i don't know um the devil really it sounds like it's your voice but it really isn't your voice that's telling you all those bad stuff okay so i don't have as many tips as my sister does it's funny many of you know me as very talkative i am but i can't write for the life of me so if you've read my no one can read my notes okay um i can't spell so i only have two quick practical things that help me overcome hopelessness one thing was like i might just touch on earlier but i found in the same thing that you're struggling with help somebody else out in that area so for example i was struggling with school so i went ahead and i became a tutor for school later on that ended up working out a lot because while helping other students i was able to learn myself some things that i needed to work on and it's kind of nice when you're involved helping with people because you actually do more good for yourself the second thing is be grateful for the small things in life that helped me turn around because even though i was in online school i was doing all these things i needed to look at you know what i'm still doing school i got to see but i passed i didn't fail being grateful for the small things because at the end of the day it builds up to the big things and by god's grace last weekend i actually was able to graduate with my associates of science finish all the classes and able to graduate with a good enough gpa all because i was grateful for the very tiny things in life [Music] [Music] [Music] godly wonderful people and say what do you do in this situation have you experienced this wonderful dear friend [Music] and they can tell you where it is and remember once again god takes everything that it is oh you know this is just a little bit you don't of a going on in your life but know that there is a god so focus right now during this time [Music] so [Music] so [Music] will you knee with us as we pray lord thank you so much that no matter any problem we have that you've given us families and people that we can turn to and most importantly a god who's always there and who will love us in spite of what we may think and what we may do thank you for coming back to reach me and my mom and my dad and my sister and coming down to reach everybody here touch our hearts in different ways this retreat lord so that we may leave as new people ready to face on anything not because of our power but because of yours this we ask in jesus name we pray amen got everything let's see wonderful

Channel: Restoration International

Views: 153

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: Ve5QE-jIYbY

Length: 74min 15sec (4455 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2021