DIY Party Diva: Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday {Activities}

Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday Party

{Activities}

Theme: Alice in Wonderland; Guest list: Girls, ages 15-18

As you might see in the photos, one fun thing to do for a crazy party like Alice in Wonderland is to ask guests to come in wacky outfits.  I wore a prom dress with one crazy sock and one silk glove.  My friend Christa wore a t-shirt with a wide zebra belt, fur-lined wrap, and flower hair clip.

Crack the Cards

What you'll need: Last week's string of cards; cell phone(s); pencils or pens; scrap paper; prize (optional; I used a gift-wrapped bottle of scented lotion)

What to do: Give each guest a piece of paper and something to write with.  Make sure all the guests have a cell phone or can share with someone.  Tell them that there is a secret message hidden in the card garland and the first person to crack the code and write down the correct message wins.  Have fun!

Mad Hatter

What you'll need: Pre-made or bought foam top hats (my dad made mine, and I can't understand them well enough to make a tutorial - sorry!); flowers  and leaves from last week; various decorations (foam and/or felt shapes, ribbons, buttons, sequins, etc.); scissors; hot glue guns and sticks

What to do:  Lay out all the materials and give each guest a hat.  Let them go wild decorating!  The crazier your hat, the better.  (This also doubles as a great favor - I still have mine, a year and a half later.)

Pin the Grin on Cheshire Cat

I love this one!  The photo's not the best though, sorry.

You can see the cat on the door on the left, right?

What you'll need: Printout of the Cheshire Cat (I downloaded and edited an image from the movie, then printed it in two halves to make it large enough before cutting it out and taping it together - you can use any image, from either movie or the book illustrations); separate printout of his grin (that matches the size of the cat image - you'll need enough of these for each guest); scissors; tape; blindfold

What to do: Prepare your Cheshire Cat.  I tried to make my image about life-sized.  Tape him up where you plan to play, around shoulder or eye level high.

Cut out all the grins and put double-sided tape or make a tape loop for the back of each grin.

When you're ready to play, give each player a grin.  Blindfold the current player and spin her around however many times you see fit (I think we did five?).  Then point her in the direction of the Cheshire Cat and let her pin her grin!  The grin closest to the cat's mouth wins!

Tune in next week for food and favors!

Teaching a Bible Study (No Experience Needed!) {Part Two}

Miss Part One: Starting a Bible Study?  No worries!  Go check it out before moving on.

Part Two: How to Keep Your Study Group Alive

Nobody wants a Bible study group that's bored, grudging their time together, or doesn't get along.  Sometimes (especially with that last one) you do everything you can and it still seems to end in disaster.  However, there are ways to nurture a united, friendly group that has fun together.


Snacks - I take turns with the two college girls helping me in making snacks for the group.  We've made cupcakes, cookies, chocolate-covered bananas, and no-bake frozen Oreo cupcakes so far!  Everyone loves food and people definitely appreciate the effort put into a 'homemade' snack.  Hint: Cookies from a box mix totally count as homemade; Twinkies don't.

Games - Actually, my plan was to start the first day with a game that would help everyone get to know each other a little.  You know, break the ice and get things going.  But the girls really seemed to have fun and it made a good way to jump in to our meeting, so I came up with a different game for each time we met - and they love it!  For the first day, we played "Two Truths and a Lie."  Everyone writes down two truths and one line about themselves; then they read the three sentences aloud and the others have to guess which one's the lie.  Other games we played include a memory game (I had a tray of beauty products, and after a minute of looking at the tray, the girls closed their eyes and I removed an item.  They had to guess what was missing.  We continued, removing more items each round, until there were ten items missing total.  Then I told them what I'd taken off and the person with the most right won.) as well as "Would You Rather?" (would you rather live in an igloo or a tepee, have a chaffeur or a personal stylist, write a bestselling book or have a bestselling book written about you, etc.)

Prayer - This really does bring the group together!  I have personally seen how asking for the girls' prayer requests and then writing them down and faithfully praying for them - even if they don't seem like a big deal to me - has had an impact on our study and on those girls' relationships with God and with me.  Sometimes I think they trust and look up to me more than many actual authorities in their life, especially since many of them are in or entering that rebellious phase.  It's humbling.

Crafts - My group doesn't do this, but if I'd thought of it and we had time, I would definitely try it!  Lots of Bible study groups like to do crafts together.  They might get together on a separate occasion to hang out, or do it during a usual meeting before or after the lesson.  Projects I've seen include bookmarks, decorated notebooks, handmade magnet boards, jewelry, or picture frames.  Of course, there's plenty of other ideas out there on the internet!

Presents - I haven't done this yet, but I have thought about it and might in the future.  Think of your favorite teacher or Sunday School teacher.  Now, there's lots of qualities that make teachers our favorites, but think - did that teacher ever give the class something special?  Candy on a holiday, or a pack of pencils before break, something like that?  Everybody loves presents, and Bible study groups are a good excuse to have fun giving a little something to others.  What you'll give them, though, depends on the people in your group.  For my middle school girls, I might give them bookmarks, notebooks, travel bottles of hand lotion, or those little scented hand sanitizer bottles (they're all the rage where I live right now).

Points - This one I am doing!  The idea came from a Proverbs study program my whole youth group was doing.  You'd get points for different things like doing devotions, attending church, or volunteering around the church.  If you wanted a chance to make the mission team, you had to reach a certain amount of points.  Same went for the reward trip.  And the three people with the most points would receive various levels of scholarship for summer camp.  (Guess who wasn't planning on camp this year?  Me!  Guess who won first place, the full scholarship?  Me again!  And guess what happened when I did go to camp?)  Anyway, for your Bible study, figure out how you'll do the points and what will earn points (and how many.)  My group earns points for attendance, bringing the book, bringing their Bible, doing the Additional Study homework from the book, and doing the memory verses in the book.  The girl with the most points when we're done with this book will receive a Menchie's gift card from yours truly :)

PARTY! - This is my favorite part, and it wasn't even my idea!  One of the college girls helping me suggested it.  At the end of your Bible study - or, if this will be a continual study, at the end of that particular curriculum/book or season - throw a party!  What kind of party is up to you and your group; my group will be having a pool party.  We'll actually do the wrap-up to the study book and award the Menchie's gift card at the party.

Still have questions or concerns?  Here's another good article on women's Bible studies - or feel free to ask any questions below in the comments!

Teaching a Bible Study (No Experience Needed!) {Part One}

Isn't it funny, my lovely readers, how little of my real life actually makes it into my blog?  Sometimes that's because life is messy, and bloggers are notorious for avoiding sharing their messy reality online.  (Although sometimes, life's messes don't need to be shared online.  There's a fine line between being authentic and being a complainer/gossip/busybody/fill-in-the-blank.)  Sometimes, life is just boring.

There's the one that's usually my problem... sometimes, we bloggers just forget.  We forget to take photos while trying a recipe, or we forget about that big party last month, or we forget about all the cool real-life people we hang out with that the followers would just love to read about!

(Or our cameras break and our blog posting options are suddenly limited because a post without photos just isn't as good.)

Anyway, today I have a post based off a big part of my summer this year - Bible study!

Even before I went to summer camp, I was planning to lead a Bible study for middle school girls at my church this summer.  Then, with everything that happened at camp, teaching the study was the perfect way for me to jump into my new reality as a missionary-to-be!

While I'd love to take this post and share my Bible study group with you, my lack of camera doesn't really allow for that.  So instead, let's look at how to start and teach your own Bible study - for any group!


Part One: How to Start a Bible Study

1. Get the A-okay.  If you want to invite people from your church or even use the church building to meet, you'll need to get clearance from your pastor.  This may have to come after you know when you'll be meeting and what you'll be studying, but it's always good to keep people in the loop early on.  Make sure to check back with him frequently as you plan.

2. Choose a book (or curriculum).  For my study, I'm using The Girl in the Mirror by Michelle Gardner.  Other books I'd recommend include anything by Elizabeth George (girls, teen girls, women), by Jim George (boys, teen boys, men), or sold at the Wilds (link is for teens but they have adult books too).  Of course, this doesn't even scratch the surface of what's out there - check out the Bible Study section of Christian Book Distributors! Note: I once considered just writing my own lesson each week and working through a certain chapter or book of the Bible. I may return to that idea in the future, but I can tell you - don't try this as a newbie! You'll just end up frustrated, confused, and searching online for a book by someone a bit more experienced to help you.

3. Test the waters.  Via Facebook, email, text, or whatever else works for you, talk to people in your target group (for me, middle school girls) and see if they'd be interested.  If you're working with kids or teens like me, make sure you talk to the parents too.

4. Grab a friend.  This is optional but definitely makes things easier for newbies like me.  Find someone else who'd be interested in helping as a leader of the study - someone who can make snack, keep track of details (like, for my group, we have a points program that someone has to be in charge of), even teach some of the lessons.  You can share leadership of the group, or she/they can be an assistant(s) of sorts - that's what I and two college girls are doing for my group.  Whatever works for you.

5. Set the details.  It will be impossible to fit everyone's schedule, but figure out what days and times work best for you, where you'll be meeting, and at least several of those who want to come.  My group meets from 3-5 PM on Mondays and Thursdays at the church.  You might meet at church, at someone's home, at a fast food restaurant, at the library, in the morning, in the afternoon - be creative and try to accommodate the majority although it might not work for absolutely everyone.

6. Have a plan.  Have a schedule of how each meeting will go.  For my class, we start with a game, then prayer requests and prayer, one lesson, snack break, and the second lesson.  Work through the lesson personally ahead of time to make sure you're prepared.  Don't just do the book, though - look up meanings of words, the cultural importance of the setting, or whatever else comes up.  Try to think outside the box and search for things that are often overlooked (such as common words or phrases Christians have heard a million times) or don't make sense in the modern day (such as girdles!) - then look those things up.

7. Keep word out.  Those people you first tested interest with?  Keep them - and others in your target group - in the loop.  Make sure you tell people, more than once, all the details.  You'd hate to have interested people miss out because they didn't know when or where to show up!

8. Pray, pray, pray.  Really, this should be at the beginning and in between each step.  Pray before ever talking about this that the Bible study you want to do is what God wants you to do, and that the target group and timing you have in mind are also what God has in mind.  Pray about where, when, which book.  Pray for wisdom, guidance, unity among group members.  Pray before planning each lesson (something I tend to forget).  Pray with the group before doing each lesson.  Ask group members how you can pray for them, and encourage them to pray for you and each other.

Looking for more advice?  I found this article particularly helpful when I was starting out.

DIY Party Diva: Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday Party {Decor}

Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday Party

{Decor}

Theme: Alice in Wonderland; Guest list: Girls, ages 15-18

String of Cards

What you'll need: A deck of cards (I used giant ones my brother had); hole punch; ribbon; scissors; a cell phone


What to do: Figure out a short phrase, word, or message you want to spell out.  (I chose "Happy Birthday".)  Then, use the cell phone to figure out what numbers on the keypad correspond to those letters.  For example, "Happy Birthday" would be 42779 24784329.  Now lay out the matching cards.  Mix up suits and, if you have spaces or punctuation in your message, you can break up words into separate garlands (I did) or use aces, queens, jacks, and/or kings.

Now punch a hole in two corners on a short side of each card.

EITHER...

Weave ribbon through the holes on each card to make the garland, making sure to leave an inch or two of ribbon between cards.  Leaving a good six-inch or so tail on each end, cut the ribbon.  Tie off large loops for hanging on each end.

OR...

Cut a medium-length piece of ribbon and tie two cards together.  Continue until all the cards are tied together.  Cut a longer piece of ribbon for each end and tie in large loops to the end cards.

Hang with tacks, nails, Christmas stocking hooks, tape, or whatever else happens to be convenient.

Sideways Directions

No photo, sorry!  You can see one of my signs in the photo above, though.

What you'll need: Colored paper, markers, scissors

What to do: Cut and/or tear colored paper into large pieces.  Write direction words (up, down, left right, this way, that way, etc.) on the papers.  Now add arrows - but not in the right directions!  Have fun mixing and matching arrows with words, and don't be afraid to reuse words and/or arrows in new combinations.  Tape along walls around the party area.

The Flower Garden

Again, no photos :( I'm a very bad blogger sometimes.

What you'll need: Medium - large fake flowers (I used colorful Gerber daisies from Hobby Lobby); medium - large googly eyes (I actually used colored ones!); hot glue gun and sticks; strong scissors or shears

What to do:  Cut off any extra stem, leaving a few inches, and remove any leaves (but don't throw them away!  Save them for activities ;] ).  Hot glue googly eyes to the flowers.  Now keep about two flowers per guest aside and use the others to scatter around the party area, propped up on the food table or fireplace mantel.

Tune in next week for party activities - in which we'll actually use both the card garland and the flowers!

God's Little Surprises

Check out my interview yesterday at Zara Hoffman's blog!  I won third place in the story pitch contest at her shared writing blog, A Pocket Full of Pens. :)

There I was, sitting in church on Sunday, just like usual.  Picture it with me: second red-upholstered wooden pew from the front, in the set of pews on the right side of the auditorium.  I'm sitting in my new black dress with blue and green polka dots, if I remember correctly.  In my hands is a copy of one of the INSPY book nominations I'm helping to judge.  People sit or stand scattered around the auditorium, waiting for service to start in about 20 minutes, and the music of the orchestra practicing in the meantime combines with the chatter surrounding me.  I tune it all out and dive into a great story, at least for the twenty minutes I have.

You can see it now, yes?  As I sit there, alone and happily oblivious to the world, a young woman approaches.  I notice her standing in front of the front pew and lower my book.  She smiles at me, offers her hand, and gives me her name.

"Are you Emily?"

I stand and smile, a little curious, and affirm.  "Yes, that's me."  The first thing I notice about her is how pretty she is - golden hair pulled partly back frames a long face with delicately pronounced bones, in which glittering eyes are set under gracefully arched eyebrows.  Naturally, considering her youth combined with her beauty and boldness in introducing herself, I deduce that this is one of two situations: (1) she's with a traveling college group that will be spending the following Sunday School hour pitching their school to my youth group, or (2) she's fresh out of college and part of a traveling musical and/or evangelistic group that will have something to do with today's services.  Knowing my brother, she's probably just learned every detail about me and our family.  He does love to talk to the traveling groups.

"Emily from the blog?"

Wait, what?

"Um..." I nervously laugh.  "Well, I do have a blog.  Emily Rachelle Writes."

Her face lights up more than I thought possible - she is just radiating.  Man, I wish I was that pretty.  "I'm AnnaKate from the blog!  Remember me?"

Suddenly all the lights go on.  Of course!  That AnnaKate! - But no way!  "Oh, yeah, I know you!  Hi!  Hi!" I sputter.  What else to say?  All the guest posts and Hunger Games talks...

"Can I hug you?"  She laughs, and so do I.  I hold out my arms.

"Yes!  Yes!  Please!"

Sometimes God just throws you something totally unexpected and leaves you smiling all week.  Oh, and I can cross off 'have a meet-up' from that list of dreams ;)  Did I mention what a sweet, lovely girl AnnaKate is?

I'm participating in Melanie's Monthly One Word Linkup Party.  Join us!

Book Spotlight and Cover Reveal: Paradox by Brian McBride

Good morning, my lovely readers!  Many of you know by now of the Go Teen Writers group which I am quite actively involved in.  A good friend from there, Brian McBride, is gearing up for the release of his debut Christian fantasy novel, so today I'm doing a cover reveal and spotlight on his book!

    Paradox is a Christian fantasy novel aimed at the young adult audience (14-18).  It's being self-published by Outskirts Press and is the debut novel of seventeen-year-old author Brian McBride.

If you want to know more about Brian or Paradox, you can find him in several places online: Facebook, his blog, and GoodReads.  He also has a separate GoodReads page for Paradox.

When I Feel Left Behind

I know I promised a return to the DIY Party Diva series today, but with my week at camp and some other stuff on my heart, you'll have to wait one more week.

She was my age, played violin, wore braces and glasses, and was completely obsessed with turtles.  I was a scrawny, freckled ten-year-old with crooked teeth and Barbie glasses and a desire to just find my place in the world.

I remember playing in her room with her violin or making up complex stories for the Barbies that lived in the Dream House that was totally cutting edge because it had an elevator.  When we'd get kicked outside, we'd pack 'backpacks' with granola bars or apples and head off into the 'wilds' of the woods behind her house.  Traipsing around for hours, keeping my eyes peeled for ticks and pretending to be pioneer explorers or Indians out on a hunting trip, was the highlight of my weekends.

I called that girl my best friend, until the day she avoided me with some other girls at Sunday School and left me crying in the bathroom.  Now I remember that as when it all really started.


There was another girl, in those days, right up there as a bestie.  She was African-American, adopted, and living like an only child since her sister was off at college.  Star Wars and American Girl dolls were her things - I tolerated one and adored the other.  I look back on the day I learned she was adopted and laugh at little-kid me.  We were playing a make-believe game of princesses and galactic war when she stopped to go to the bathroom and suddenly announce "I'm adopted."  I wasn't sure if she meant for real or in the game.  (Duh, she's not adopted! I know her parents! She lives here with the Mr. and Mrs. that she shares the same name with!  Brown skin meant nothing at all.  It was like a friend with green eyes whose mom had blue, or a kid with blond hair even though his dad's was brown.)  It honest-to-goodness took me until I was a teenager to put the pieces together.  Let's just say I was a very simple kid.

This girl, adopted Star Wars geek, had another best friend.  I knew the girl and even hung out at her house and made up fake (and highly inedible) recipes in her kitchen.  I didn't know her as well, though, and sometimes I wished Star Wars Girl had more play dates with me and fewer with Kitchen Girl.  I also really, really didn't like it when my Star Wars geek brothers came with me to her house and we ended up playing some game where I didn't know what was happening.

I could give a lot of other, more specific examples.  There's the five-girl clique in my middle school youth group that sometimes resembled Mean Girls a little too much.  Or how about my actual church's complete lack of teen girls since the other two families with teen girls left for another church?  A less pointed and painful instance might be my middle school best friend's public school life that had next to nothing in common with my homeschool and church circles.  Most recently, I'd point to the high school best friend who got a boyfriend during one summer and practically dropped out of my life once the busy school year started.  That's the one that really squeezed my heart and snagged my attention.

That testimony about camp?  I wasn't kidding.  You don't have to have huge heartbreak or a great wrong done against you to have a whole awful lot of bitterness and anger to work through.  Like I said in my testimony, I recognized the issue over this past year and really did deal with it at camp.

But in the spiritual world, just because you kill a dragon, doesn't mean it stays dead.

I spend a lot of time online - partly for working on things like my writing, this blog, Bible studies, or school; partly just to chill and veg or chat with friends.  During my online time, I like to read a few blogs.  I don't read blogs as widely as I used to, but I do still pop in occasionally on ones I used to visit regularly.  Usually, I read a post or two, have a smile or a laugh, and then go on with my surfing.

Sometimes, I don't move on so easily.

I've helped newbie bloggers on more than one occasion.  I enjoy helping people, and I remember the days I started blogging and how confusing and overwhelming it could get.  Over 2+ years of any hobby, a person's bound to learn a thing or two at least.

Well, one of those newbie bloggers I helped - one with a great voice and sweet personality but not so great content and an awful blog design - has really made her way up the blogging mountain.  Now, with a lovely streamlined custom design, the right niche of content for her voice, and the opportunities available for bloggers who aren't minors... she has over 450 followers.

I don't think I have to explain my inner conflicts any further.  Anyone who's read this far has an idea of how this affected me at first.

Lord, I've been doing the blogging thing longer.  I helped her in the early days.  I've been studying blogs and doing all the right stuff.  I even run giveaways and all.  I mean, her blog address still has a hyphen, for Pete's sake!  How is this fair?


2 Corinthians 10:12 - For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

Galatians 6:4 - But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.

Matthew 20:14-16 - Take [that] thine [is], and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

God may have helped me whip that bitterness thing, but I've still got a ways to go.  Back to weeding my heart's by the roots.

The Wilds Summer Camp and My Big, Bold, Scary Future

As I mentioned last week, I just spent June 3-8 off in a beautiful mountain retreat in North Carolina called the Wilds Christian camp.  (P.S. - The fanfiction also mentioned in that post has a new chapter up!)

Green Team Rally

Well, my camera broke before we arrived, I got sick in the middle of the night, I almost broke my nose twice, and I went to breakfast and chapel in my pajamas one morning.

But overall it was totally, completely awesome.

Rebekah and I at the Cool Beans coffee shop

Alex (girl from my cabin) and I with our team for Spin It to Win It

I went to the lake.  I went on a hike to some gorgeous (and frigid) waterfalls.  I got a few bug bites and a sunburn-tan-hybrid... thing.  The lovely ladies at the craft shop saw me almost every day, unlike last year when I spent that time in the snack shop.  (It is sooo not worth the stairs just for snacks during free time.)  



Lots of other people went putt-putting, giant swing-ing, rock climbing... and my whole cabin did go tubing one day.  I did the water and the land ziplines, or trolleys as the Wilds calls them.  My umbrella broke on the first day it rained, so I had my fair share of free outdoor showers for the second half of the week.





I did intend to do the giant swing, but couldn't find anyone to do it with - which was actually why I ended up on the Land Trolley, since Shane and AnneMarie from church (pictured below) invited me to do that with them.  Naturally, the whole time we're walking from the line to the place you actually zipline, AnneMarie's talking about how it's not that scary and blah blah blah.  Then, it being my first time, I had a mini freakout before stepping off the platform into thin air, with nothing but trees and a creek under my swinging legs.

Shane and AnneMarie and I hanging out by the giant swing

My totally awesome cabin!  From left: Taylor, Shelby, Hallie, the amazing counselor Meg, Bekah,  Savannah, Chass, and Hannah; in front: Alex and me!

Oh, and the best preacher I have seriously ever heard in my life spoke to us twice a day for a whole awesome week.  This is probably one of the most personal things I've ever got up and said in public, but here's the testimony I shared during the camp spotlight at my church on Sunday night:

My camp week was really broken into two parts.  The first two days, I dealt with jealousy issues.

Hindsight is 20/20, and I know now I’ve always had problems with being jealous towards my friends - not because of material possessions, but because of other relationships they had with people that weren’t me.

This past year, I’d finally started to realize this problem.  On the bus to camp, Pastor Danny asked some of us to come up to the front and share how we were hoping God would work in our lives.  So that’s what I talked about - jealousy.

The very first message Dr. Ferrel preached was about attitude.  To sum that whole evening up in a few words, “Your attitude is your choice.”  Before I could let go of my resentments, I had to admit that the situations weren’t entirely my friends’ fault - how I handled and reacted to situations was on me.

The second Christian Life Seminar was about anger, specifically four types of anger in Ephesians 4:31.  In order to deal with my jealousy problem, I had to admit it was really an anger problem - specifically a problem with bitterness, which is defined as a smouldering resentment or grudge.

Halfway through the week, I realized that God and I really had worked entirely through my

jealousy issue.  I was actually a little worried I might be bored for the rest of the week,

thinking that I’d have nothing left to learn during the chapel services.  Clearly, that was

just me being stupid.

The last Christian Life Seminar was about missions, persecuted Christianity, and just a general worldview with specific statistics on Christianity outside of America and the distorted, selfish mindset of many American Christians.  Then, the Friday night message was about the man or woman God uses.

Growing up, during revival weeks at church or summer camps like the Wilds, I’ve previously surrendered to missions work.  Sometimes this was a vague idea that I was meant to do something missionary oriented.  Other times I surrendered to a more specific calling involving children, teaching, sometimes orphanage work.  But we’re all familiar with the what comes after the spiritual high of camps and revivals, and as things settled back into normal, time passed, and I started to push aside the decision I’d made. It was too soon for me to know what God’s plan was.  I was younger when I said that - now I don’t want that future anymore.  It was just an emotional reaction.

In reality, these were all excuses.  I knew God wanted me to be a teacher and I was already planning on studying Elementary Education at a Christian college.  But after that... well, I was still holding tight to the ‘after college’ with both hands.  So on Friday night I surrendered once again to what I admitted always was and will be God’s calling: He made me to be a missionary teacher.  As in full time service with children, outside of country, quite possibly speaking Spanish or eating mealworms.

To close, I’d like to read part of what I wrote in my journal during the Friday night fireside service.

“...I’m seventeen and a half years old and looking at serious future stuff like college.  This is and always was what God made me for.  My plans, my comforts, the people I want in my life may not figure in - but that doesn’t matter.  Wherever God wants me, future adult teaching me, it’s not America... I will not forget or forsake this.  It is the real and powerful working of a real and mighty God... [Who is] not letting go of the plan [He] had all along for me.”

Slavery Footprint

Good morning, my lovely readers!  Today I'd like to share a website with you: Slavery Footprint.  This interactive website is a place for people to learn about and begin to fight against modern slavery (human trafficking).  When you first enter the website, you can either learn about modern slavery and then take a survey or go directly to the survey.

The survey is eleven questions long, starting with demographics - location, gender, age - then getting into the specifics of your lifestyle and material possessions.  Topics include food, medicine cabinet, and kids.  Several questions have the option to "fine tune" your answers for more accurate results.

Once the survey's over, you'll see your slavery footprint - how many slaves work for you as well as a map with dots you can click to see location and material specifics.  I took the survey a couple times and got between 40 and 60 slaves each time - way more than I expected.  (Also, try to avoid retaking the survey or going back to re-fine-tune your answers.  Sometimes answers aren't saved... apparently.)

Now you can connect your information with your Facebook account or create a login.  That way, you can use the action center to send notes to brands you use, recruit friends, share your progress, donate to Slavery Footprint, send letters to government representatives, volunteer with one of Slavery Footprint's partners, and take other actions to work towards an entirely free trade world.  As you complete actions, you earn Free World Points and abolitionist badges.  You can also compare your stats with your friends'.  There's even an app to help you stay free trade while you're out shopping!

One feature I think is pretty cool is that a company, school, or any other group of people can make a Slavery Footprint group.  Anyone who takes the survey and makes an account can find and join a group.  I'm not sure yet what joining a group involves, because the only groups I could find were college groups.  But if you want to connect with other Slavery Footprint users (including me!), I've made us a special group!  Anyone who finds out about Slavery Footprint or my Slavery Footprint group here can join us.  Just search for "Emily Rachelle Writes Blog Group" and join!  You can be a fellow blogger, a reader here, or just someone who stumbled upon this post.

Go take the survey and come back to tell me your results!

Apologies

Apparently my friend Natalie is having a crazy life right now and didn't get the interview from Thursday posted.  It should be up now or sometime soon.  Sorry about that mix-up!

DIY Party Diva: Hiatus

Just a friendly reminder that DIY Party Diva is on hiatus this week, but will be resuming next week on June 15!

Author Interview at Reading, Writing, and Somewhat Profound Thoughts

Guess what, my lovely readers?  I know I just sent you off to Caitlin's blog last week, but today I have another interview!  Natalie Noel is another friend from Go Teen Writers (an amazing community, by the way).  She blogs at Reading, Writing, and Somewhat Profound Thoughts - and I'm her special guest!

WILDS Summer Camp and Narnia Fanfiction

Happy Tuesday morning, my lovely readers!  As you read this I'm off having adventures at the WILDS Christian summer camp in the absolutely beautiful mountains of North Carolina.  You should definitely stop by the website and check it out.  One of the best ways you can spend your summer, trust me. ;)

Anyway, another thing I've been doing lately is writing a Narnia fanfiction.  As some of you know, I've fiddled around with fanfiction before but not much.  With this piece I'm jumping right in to the fanfiction world - writing for one of the biggest fandoms and writing a piece longer than a oneshot!

For those of you interested, you can read the first installment (it's short) or stop by my profile.  I'm working with Susan The Gentle on a YouTube trailer which, due to her amazing Suspian (Susan/Caspian) video skills, will hopefully be amazing.  I also created a YouTube playlist for music that goes with this piece.

And, while some pins probably won't make sense until future installments, I've been working on a Pinterest board too!

DIY Party Diva: Hiatus

Just a friendly reminder that DIY Party Diva is on hiatus this week and next, but will be resuming June 15!