saturday night

jeremy camp is amazing!!! last night i went to the jeremy camp, bethany dillon, and the afters concert with dan, keith and sarah... it was soo much fun!!! the afters were awesome! i love Jesus! :)

dan and keith... so crazy are they!

sarah... what are you looking at? and kara, calm it down a bit.

awesome story!

so today i was thinking about discouragement. i've been struggling with disappointment alot lately, and this is the story i found in my bible today... enjoy!!!!

ps... this is how i wrote it in my journal. enter the thoughts of kara burkey. don't you feel special??? lol.



disappointment. i experience this a LOT in life. i think it's because i get so excited about things and so pumped that when plans fall through i feel like i'm on a ship that's just sunk. i feel so defeated - like there's nothing i could have done to make it work out. so disappointed.
so there's this guy elijah. (1 kings 19) and elijah's worked so hard for the king - so hard, prayed that God would just break through and ahab and jezebel would just repent! but they don't. even more... jezebel decides that she wants elijah's head! so he runs. and when he gets deep into the desert he finds this tree, (not sure how that worked... are there trees in the desert?), sits under it and says "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH ALREADY, LORD! WILL YOU JUST TAKE MY LIFE!"
i feel like that sometimes. there's no use going on, what more can i do? so back to the story...
elijah goes to sleep and he wakes up and twice God has an angel give him food. then elijah keeps running and he comes to this cave. God says to elijah "What are you doing here?" twice, and twice elijah states his complaint. (as if God didn't get it the first time, didn't he KNOW why elijah was here?) and then- God comes to elijah! not in the whirling wind, not in the massive earthquake, not in the scorching fire, but in a still, quiet, gentle whisper. but God doesn't answer elijah's complaint. he doesn't strike jezebel down dead. rather, he sends elijah back! but only after God fills elijah up with himself.
like elijah, God knows what i'm doing here. he knows i'm so disappointed. but he doesn't want me to give up. he wants me to seek him out so he can sustain me and give me the power to keep on going!!


"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, even young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint."

-Isaiah 40:29-31

how sanitary is eating icecream out of a gutter?

so i am SOOO excited!! this year i have the opprotunity to be a big sister to two freshman and i got to meet my little sisters tonight at a pajama party. (i borrowed alli's tiger pants and they're totally rad!) so we played a game to find each other... and then.....


we ate ice cream out of a gutter!!! (this is after it was gone, i forgot to take in-the-process pics.)

and these are my sisters. the one on the left is danielle and the one on the right is maggie. i love them already!!! i'm so excited!!! :)

school's going great... i love olivet!!! i miss lima still, but i love the people here at the sametime. and my roomies are awesome!! we made spaghetti for dinner last night... mmm!! so good!!! and i just love it here in our little apartment!!! have an incredible day in your place! :)

some verses from a friend...
joshua 21:45
not one of all the Lord's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was faithful.
2 corinthians 3:17
now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

so today was my day of being scared! first i burnt some french toast but the smoke alarm didn't go off and the toast was still really yummy... but then i took a shower and when i came out of the bathroom the smoke alarm went off and freaked me out. i put my shirt on backwards!! so i run out of the apartment, and then it goes off. and i'm like hmm... that's weird. the water from the shower set the alarm off. isn't that crazy??? what is it with me and fire detectors!?! i think it's cuz we don't have one at home so they like sense that i'm anti-close to smoke detectors.

then i'm walking to class and wonderful bret sayre like pummelled me... and it was hilarious... but i so didn't see him coming and i was so scared and then i couldn't figure out who he was for a while!! isn't that crazy?

then i was sitting on the couch doing my homework (which is where i need to be now) and i looked up and rach is standing right in front off me... WHOAH!!! :)

so tomorrow i am going to be way more aware of my surroundings and not scared!!!

the picture is of me and alli... isn't it great!?! it's from ollies follies this weekend. i love alli!!!

i love my family!

this is almost all of my mom's side at my cousin steven's wedding. i was born on his birthday, isn't that neat? i just love my family! :)

pictures of the summer!

Mission Work

after i went to honduras, i felt like God was calling me to possibly organize a local mission trip for TRUST, lima community church of the nazarene's college and career group for singles. so i started by going with alisha to an intown mission to paint at a lady in our church's home. it was a lot of fun and i talked to some leaders about possibly doing a separate mission with just the TRUST group. so this is like step #1...

Royal Family Kids Camp

each year i help out with a camp for abused and neglected children of allen county. i do the music and jump around and act crazy and silly. the sunday of camp was also father's day, so we went to a reds baseball game in cinnci before camp. here we are at the game. and i don't have any pictures of camp, sorry. but it was awesome!

General Assembly

linz and i are in gospel choir, and we were invited as a group to sing at general assembly in indianapolis the friday after/of RFKC. so as soon as the closing ceremony was over, linz and i took off and we brought tara and alisha with us. it was great fun, although we were all exhausted and moody. but that's ok. gospel choir was so much fun!

tara braided my hair in the car! dangerous, aye?

linz and i... and the gospel choir...

i got to see alli, one of my two new roommates at olivet! look... it's 2:00!

this guy, josh i think, was hilarious! we sang in a huge choir and i brought jonathan and tara and alisha with me and we sat by mid america... this kid was hilarious! he cracked me up soo bad!

Leading Worship

jonathan and i got to go to mark and holly's church and lead worship one sunday. it was a lot of fun, and oh, so good to see mark and holly again! this is their new complete family... mark, Holly, ella grace and ayden wesley. he's adorable! Fireworks!

for the fourth, sandie and i went and met tara, alisha, brian, nathan, tytus and bekah and watched the fireworks together. it was awesome. oh, and we ate popcorn that was delicious!!

Great Grandpa Burkey

grandpa died in july, and we went as a family to the funeral. this is many of my immediate burkey family at the funeral. grandpa lived to be 96 and went water skiing for the last time at the age of 92, i think those numbers are right. he was such an awesome man! he sure left our family a legacy. he loved Jesus with all of his heart and his greatest desire was that his whole family would come to know Jesus.Candace and Brandon

my cousin candace got married, i think July 15th. it was so beautiful! candace is gorgeous and brandon is just awesome! i'm so excited for them! i got to be a greeter, and it was amazing. i just love my cousins!

Vacation Bible School

VBS week kristi ball came to visit me for a week. it was great fun. she went to VBS with me each night, i helped lead kids worship and dressed up as if i was from the 5os. i also told the story a few nights because dad was sick after getting back from a mission trip to new york city with the youth group and jonathan. VBS was awesome... and then the boys won, so michael remole, our children's pastor intern for the summer, got to slime miss sheri! talk about totally rock out! miss sheri had never lost!! :)

Doug and Katie

doug and katie got married and we all went to the wedding. it seems so unreal. no more katie windau... now it's mrs. katie shannon! how weird! my friends are getting married!! aahh!! dancing at the wedding was awesome! well, kinda... i had dropped a huge can of lentil beans on my foot earlier that day at lazeza's, so i hurt but i danced for kristi's sake. and it rocked!!! i love my friends! if only i could dance like a fried... lol! :)

here all of us are... heidi, brian, megan, jordan, jenny, me, tara and kristi. we danced the night away!

TRUST

these are some of my trust friends. we love to go to arby's after tuesday night trust, and kristi got to meet my friends. this is brian and nate and caleb and kristi.Grandma's House!

we took kristi with us one day and went and visited grandma. this is emily foxworthy. her grandma and mine were like best friends growing up, so we had like a 2-family reunion. emily goes to olivet too, so that was really kewl. i had to leave early to go to work, so that's why i have my lazeza shirt on. i'm not really that big of a dork! Roadtrip to Marysville!

well, it was really to dublin... jonathan and i decided out of the blue one saturday to go and visit chris and amy just because we could... and then it was even awesomer because jimmy was there too! it was a blast. we hung out and talked, went and got pizza, then the boys got icecream and we got coffee, and we talked more and went back to amy's house and took some pics. i just love chris and amy and jimmy!!! i miss them when i'm not at olivet!

Mission Work

so this summer, i kinda piddled around and didn't put a trip together until the end of the summer... i don't really know why, i think i was just afraid and i totally shouldn't have been! look at this group! there were around 20 college kids that came out and helped me... we went to this community center and helped clean up in and around it. we painted and cleared the sidewalk and helped the staff out. they're short staffed at the moment as many of the staff are struggling with health issues, so it was just really kewl to go and be the hands and feet of Jesus for a few short hours. lima is our mission field. i'm excited at the possiblity of missions in TRUST's future.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!
hello my wonderful family of bloggers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so i'm back!!!

school's started... constant computer acess... and the pictures shall fly!

this is me and my bubba this summer... isn't he so big and handsome!! i had a blast leading worship with him. God taught me a whole heap this summer about learning to be more like him and I'm so exctied about this school year and all that i know He's gonna continue to show me.

so... soon, i'll have lots more pics of the summer for you. until then i love you... and if anybody knows if tommy bailey is leading worship at olivet revival... i'd LOVE to know for sure that he is or not. :) thanks y'all rock my socks right off! :)