I am so excited about the retreat in Michigan!!!!!!!!! Man, I can't believe I haven't even put anything about that on here yet! I guess my mind was taken up with other stuff. Yesss!!!!! I loved the reteat last year! It was just like camp, except in the winter....and in Michigan!! AND we (sarah and I) might hang a left after the retreat and go see my Uncle Dave and Aunt Jocelyn!!!! yess! and their three awesome and RAM-bunctious kids!!! YESS! they are the BOMB! (i must use that word alot.....haha) But yeah, the retreat is the BOMB! This year the "theme" is God's Faithfulness! I love it because all of the people there (or like everyone that I met last year anyway) are so interested in the Lord and they really take their relationship with Him seriously. It's a great place for christian youth to get together and praise the Lord and worship Him and fellowship together and enjoy awesomely fun winter stuff like iceskating and SNOW (snow snow snow! ch-ch-ch! "wonder what it's like in Vermont this time of year? all that snow!!!") hahaha! I love snow....ice is ok, um...no ice is a bummer, SNOW is the bomb!!!! BOMB bab-ay!

AWWW!!! Susan just came over here (the class is over *SNIFFFLE!*) and she gave sarah and me these beautiful drawings that she did of flowers!!! They're so pretty. She said that she sells them! I'm so gonna put that picture on my wall!!!!!! I might post it on here if i am efficient enough to scan it on the SLOOW computer in my parent's room and then email it to myself and then go on the other comp. and upload it. hm.....yeah, I might not get to THAT. haha. i feel so rushed! It's december already! I have so many things to do. I need to get presents for alot of people, pack for the reteat (haha! not yet...I'm not nicole!) lol, i have like 9 days left of schoolwork to do! (wah.) which will bring me up to the 20th!!! ahh! and there are only....16 days til the retreat!!!!! ahh! (i had to check nicole's countdown thingie on her aim profle! haha.

ok well. I better go! Lots'a work to do! hehe! have a blessing of a a day y'all!
I love you in Christ,
rachel ><>

p.s. oh yeah...I was reading in Luke 22 about the Lord's Supper yesterday and it was so cool.....I remembered that we had gone over how that relates to olden-er times (like jewish passover custom) in one of those Beth Moore studies and so I looked up the stuff in Exodus about it and it was so awesome! There are so many things about the passover that so clearly point to Christ!!!! like even the little things like using the hyssop to spread the blood on the doorposts. There are only 3 mentions of hyssop in the Bible (ok there might be more...but in my concordance, there were only 3 on there.) Two of them refer to the passover and how the jews were to set the sign of blood up so that their houses would be passed over. And the last one is mentioned in John (i think) where they put sour wine in hyssop and offered it to Jesus Christ on the cross right before He said, "it is finished", breathed His last and gave up His spirit.! I was like whoa....just thinking about that....I can't wait to study this further. I wish I knew more about the passover though....that would be helpful.....maybe some Jewish history kinda books would help. God's word is so true and the old testament just shows how EVERYTHING points to the Lord Jesus!!!!!! ahh!!!! He is all in all. Oh! I love Him. There is nothing on this earth that could ever compare with Him! We humans get so wrapped up in our lives that we forget (or fail) to see the eternal and ever-present majesty of our Lord! He is what our lives are for. Love = God = Jesus = Life.