Continuing The Journey...

Hello everyone! As you may know, I have spent the past 4 months in Garden Valley, Texas in a year long Christian internship program called the Honor Academy. In just these past 4 months, I have fallen in love with God and have seen His love and grace poured out to so many around me, including myself. Before I came to the Honor Academy, an aspect of God that I never understood was just how loving He really is. In these past 4 months, I have watched God lovingly pursue me in my moments of sadness, joy, pain, and the unknown. God has never failed, He has always been there to lovingly show me the next step.

While I have been at the Honor Academy, God has continued to shape the dream He has placed in my heart of one day getting to Brazil to do full time missionary work there. It is a hope of mine that I will one day live there full time to help do ministry work to the orphans in Brazil who don't have anywhere to go, no mother to love them, and no love and support. Sometimes I wish I could just jump right into Brazil! But God is teaching me that smaller steps come before the big ones! For me, my next step is continuing my growth at the Honor Academy and growing a stronger foundation in Him. These past 4 months have been incredible, so I can only imagine what the next 8 have in store!

Please continue to partner in prayer with me! The entire internship costs a total of $8,400 and by God's grace I have raised $3,690 already! The financial schedule is on a month by month basis, meaning I need to raise about 600-700 a month in order to stay at the internship. Right now I need almost a thousand dollars to be caught up with the current financial schedule. If my account stays in the negative too long, I will be unable to stay in the internship program. I know God will provide! Please be praying for me that God will continue to provide financially and emotionally as I continue this journey in my life! If YOU would like to partner with me financially, you can do so by going to www.honoracademy.com/donate and entering in my ID# which is 2677255. Thank YOU so much for the continued prayer and loving support you all have given me. I couldn't have made it at the Honor Academy this long without all of you. Merry Christmas!

Obedience: Not Just When It's Easy

To My Dear Friends and Family,

I know it has been awhile since I've really written a letter to really share anything that has been going on here at the Honor Academy. For that, I really do apologize. God has been taking me on quite the journey, but unfortunately, I have been being grown and stretched in so many new ways that I have not been keeping all of you involved! It is my hope that this letter would help that and by the time you are done reading it, you would have more of an idea of what I am doing here at the Honor Academy.

For some of you, it really must seem like I was randomly sucked up in some vortex and disappear from Colorado! I mean, really. In just a few short months God placed the Honor Academy on my heart and everything just really quickly changed from there! But it has been good. It has been really good. I have spent long hours thinking and trying to figure out what exactly I would share with you all about what God has been doing in my life. I decided to start with what God is currently teaching me. God is teaching me this little thing called obedience. For me, I have always been pretty strong willed, so always being obedient has not been my strong point. It is even harder to be obedient when you are sometimes out of your comfort zone, stretched, and growing in the way that I am. To be completely honest, the Honor Academy is hard. It's not all butterflies and rainbows. I get homesick, cry, and just have days that I want to go home. In fact, after Thanksgiving Break, I was very close to coming home for good at Christmas break. But I didn't. Why? God asked me to stay.

This letter must seem like a long list of ramblings by now, and if so, I am really sorry. What I'm trying to say is God has been teaching me that obedience isn't always about doing what He asks when it feels good, when it's fun, or when you are always comfortable. Being obedient to Him means listening to Him even when things get hard, even when I am homesick, and even when I want to go to college. I have been learning to trust God and to lean into Him in those times of fear and worry. He is faithful and I am witness to that. I know my God is a God of love and is a Provider. In trusting that, I am being obedient to Him by staying and continuing to press closer to Him and His love.

Please continue to keep me in your prayers as I continue to walk through this season of obedience in my life. Some days are a real struggle but the days of struggle are a reminder that I have a God who is bigger than my problems. If you would please keep me in prayer financially as well. My donation record was recently charged for this next month of January. Just to give an update on where I stand financially, I am $4,900 away from having my entire internship paid off, which is completely incredible. Thank you all so much for your support. As of right now, I need $1,150 to have my account caught up by January 18th. If you could financially support me at all, it would be greatly appreciated. Anything helps, even if it is $1 or $5. If you would like to financially support me, you can do so by going to www.honoracademy.com/donate and entering in my ID which is 2677255. Or you can also mail me a check made out to Teen Mania Ministries at my mailing address at the bottom. Either way, whether you can or cannot donate, I just want to thank all of you for your prayers and support. You all mean so much to me and I am about a week away from getting to see some of you at Christmas Break! I hope you all have a very happy holidays and I will look forward to updating you all soon!

With Love, Angelica

My Mailing Address for Letters: Angelica Shook PO Box 2000 CPO#604 Garden Valley, TX 75771

Alive and Well!

Dear Friends and Family,

In just a few short days, I will be able to officially say that I have been here at the Honor Academy for two whole months. Keeping that in mind, I decided that it would be a wonderful time for me to update everyone on how things have been going and what my life is like currently. If I were to think of a word that would describe what things are like here, one of the first words that would come to mind would have to be busy. Things are very busy here at the Honor Academy, but I’ve had to learn that is not always a bad thing. But here I am getting so ahead of myself. I guess I should update you all more often so my update actually makes sense!

I came to the Honor Academy in response to God’s calling to be here. In the middle of my Junior year of high school, I went to a youth retreat. While I was there, I prayed a seemingly simple prayer to God. Little did I realize how much such a prayer would change my life. I prayed and asked God to show me what it meant to put Him first, and to show me what it meant to fully rely on Him. A week after I prayed this prayer, God dropped the Honor Academy in my lap and asked me to graduate a year early from high school and attend.  So, for me, coming to the Honor Academy is not just because I saw something that interested me. Coming to the Honor Academy is not something that I thought just looked like an exciting thing to do after high school. Coming to the Honor Academy is a direct act of submission to the Lord’s plan for my life.

The first week I was here, I was placed in a temporary core. A core is a group of girls around my age that all live in the same room, go through life together, and are sisters. We can have a total of six girls in my room, myself included. There are two triple bunk beds and then…well, then there’s everyone’s stuff. God has taught me a lot about patience and being flexible without me even having to leave my dorm. After the first week, I was moved to a permanent core who will be my sisters and family for the entire year. After around the first month or so, I got introduced to my brother core, and together we are a family core. The atmosphere of campus is amazing and it is something that I really appreciate here. On a typical college campus, everyone all has their own goals and ambitions. Here, everyone has gathered together for the same goal: to spend one year in a passionate pursuit of God. It’s a goal that has unified the campus in a way that I have come to believe will never be able to be duplicated.

While we are an intern here, we have what is known to all the interns as a ministry placement. A ministry placement is a place within the Teen Mania Ministries that an intern works within to help support the ministry and impact other young people their age for Christ. This has been an amazing opportunity for me. My ministry placement is in the Honor Academy Call Center. I get the opportunity to work with a group of about twelve other people and call other prospective interns, like myself a few months ago, and see where they are at in life and if the Honor Academy would be a good fit for their future. Sometimes this position hasn’t been an easy one, but it has taught me so much about being there for others and what it means to have perseverance in God. I spend thirty-one hours a week in this ministry placement. It has been an amazing opportunity to pray for the individuals that pick up the phones. It reminds me that God has a plan for every person I talk to, and sometimes we let things like fear hold us back from the plan God has for us. Part of what I do is help the people I talk to identify the things that could be holding them back, and pray with them to find direction to see if this program fits into God’s plan for their lives. It has been an amazing growth experience learning professional skills at such a young age.

The classes I have had so far this year have been good and have helped me not only learn but also apply concepts that I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise. I am a visual learner but I also like being able to put the things into practice that I learn. Here at the Honor Academy, I am in classes such as Character Development, Pursuit of God, Leadership Lab, and Risen(the women’s only class). These classes have started to help me become the woman of God that I not only desire, but am also designed to become.

The total cost for my entire year at the Honor Academy is $8,400. This cost covers my tuition of housing, books, meals, training, and transportation to the Aquire the Fire youth conferences. I will actually be attending the Cleveland, OH Aquire the Fire to help set up an event that will potentially bring thousands to Christ. I will be participating in that event from October 30^th through the 3^rd or 4^th of November. I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider supporting me in prayer and financially as I continue to progress into my Honor Academy year. Your support, especially in prayer is key to my own personal growth and the growth of others here at the Honor Academy. If you decide to become a member of my support team, please let me know. I will be sending out a monthly newsletter to update you on my year. You can donate online by going to www.honoracademy.com/donate and entering my Honor Academy ID number which is 75771. Or, you can mail me a check and make it out to Teen Mania Ministries(for a tax deduction). All donations to Teen Mania Ministries are tax deductible. You can choose to sponsor me monthly ($25, $50, or $100) or just give a one time donation.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me and I would be glad to

answer your questions. Thank you so much for your consideration in supporting

me in the Teen Mania Honor Academy. I look forward to hearing from you!

 Sincerely Yours,

Angelica Shook

 PO Box 2000 CPO # 604

Garden Valley, TX 75771

angelica.shook@teenmania.org

903-330-0136