Farewell nonconforming teen

Somewhere deep deep down I knew I would not be a teenager forever. And now with only a little more than a month left it is time to say good bye to this blog, so difficult considering its been more than 6 months since an update. I will no longer be updating this blog, instead I will be updating my new blog focusing predominately on ministry. carismissionsblog.blogspot.com

Feeling Fickle

I had this teacher along the way who would say one phrase repetitively, "Feelings are fickle". Said teacher was only trying to teach us that we cannot rely on our feelings because they will awesome lead us astray. This is true. I have noted that if everything I did was based on feelings I would make a total mess of my life. We live in the a "live for the moment" culture and often it sounds so good. Who doesn't like hearing things like that, especially when it comes to the feelings of being in love or feeling excited. Had I chased after every boy I "fell in love with" I would have lost a lot more than a friend or two in tenth grade. Not that feelings themselves are evil, just misleading. How you respond to your feelings is where we often run into problems, but I am straying just a little from the original intention. I was talking to a friend of mine recently about how her relationship with God was doing. She said that she was tired of going to church, singing songs, and reading the Bible because she didn't feel what she used to anymore. She still believed in God, but she didn't feel anything. Well, I started thinking about it this week quite a bit. You see there are some very high points in my life and also some very low points and last week on Tuesday was one of those low points. However, I see God's faithfulness in the midst of my trials because even though I was hurting I very much felt His presence. Ultimately it boiled down to His asking if I trusted Him, but before I digress again let me get to the point. It is very easy to "feel" God's presence in the hard times because He is compassionate and walks with you. It is also very easy to "feel" God in the super high points. However what about right after those times, when you come out of the valley on to the plain or come down off of the mountain. Suddenly, "feeling" God's presence is a lot more of a challenge. This is either a very good thing or a very bad thing. It is bad because we are tempted to give up, we don't "feel" like reading God's word, so we don't. It may be a very good thing as it gives more opportunity for growth or maturity. So this is the challenge I give to you (and myself). When you come out of some spiritual/emotional high or low and suddenly you are in this place where you cannot "feel" God like you used to, will you continue to pursue God? Will you work on your relationship even though the passion has diminished some?

Acción de Gracias

Today at Bible study as for the past week we have been meditating on Philippians 4:4-9 (4:8 is the whatsoever things... verse). We were instructed to pick two character qualities, look up the greek, study them, and be prepared to share. I chose prayer and thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is where the conviction came. If you note the title again is in Spanish and for a purpose. The reason is that the Spanish word for thanksgiving, the way it sounds at least, is practicing actions of gratefulness. This post however is not about Spanish etymology so that is as far as that goes. The Greek word for thanksgiving is where we get the English word, Eucharist. Literally eucharist means giving thanks to God for grace. After my brief talk, the professor asked us how much of our prayers were spent in giving thanks to God. Ouch! Considering all that God has done for us you would think we would be more grateful. So that is the question of the day. How much of your prayer life is devoted to thanking God?

Este es mi problema

I went to a Spanish speaking church tonight for service and it was fantastic, absolutely love worshipping there because in worshipping in a different language two things often take place. First, I break down the structure of the sentences and make sure I understand completely what I am singing (same happens in sign), and second worship moves far beyond just a sing along because I am actively deciphering the song and my own response to God. We broke into small groups and of course I went with the women because I want to be stretched. So as the lady is teaching I am understanding the majority of what she says, but I have an issue. The issue is that I will not remember things if I do not take notes and when I take notes I cannot focus on what she is saying, translate, and write all at the same time so I often miss things. I decided the happy medium was to go and take notes because understanding all of it does no good if I flush it.

Tonight we talked about attitudes. Somehow we accidently said that an attitude with God is contaminated, but we all discussed our responsibility. If we live in the moment our attitudes will look like a seismogram after a large earthquake. There was a fair amount more and I do remember, it is in my half spanish, half english notes. Not spanglish, but legitimately half and half. So in the mean time as I work on my ability to understand Spanish I will have holes here and there from the bits and pieces I missed.

The Magic of the Oven

Now many of you are aware that I swore I could not cook, but apparently I was mistaken. This afternoon I had a rather late lunch and enjoyed one of the sides which was potatoes that were frankly too amazing that I did not stop long enough to take a picture, but tonight for supper before I devoured my tomato I paused to take a picture because it looked pretty. Originally I had planned to follow the recipe, but due to lack of specific ingredients and not feeling like washing the measuring cups/spoons I eyeballed it. Nothing blew up and it is edible so I consider that a definite victory. So here is what I did. I had half a tomato as seen. I grated some cheese on top (mild cheddar, though the recipe called for parmesan and perhaps when I grocery shop again I'll get some), oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper. Just eyeballed it then put it in the oven preheated to 450º and took it out when it looked right to me. Ok so maybe there might have been a better way to go about it, but I will worry about that on more complicated recipes. Sometime this next week I plan on making banana bread or something. Perhaps I will consider entertaining guests, though frankly the majority of the people I would actually allow to come over live 30 miles away. Oh well perhaps if I am decent I will lure them here.... MUHAHAHAHA. jk.

On a completely different note, officially next Sunday I should be a member of the First Baptist Church. After much prayer I will be baptized again. Oh formalities, how I loathe thee. Hmmmm... don't recall anything else happening.

Adventures in baking

So nothing spiritual or deep, just a blurb. After much fiddling and playing around I finally figured out how to work my oven. I am telling you the blonde hair is a curse, it is not a state of mind, rather a lack thereof. I am the type who will eat the same thing for breakfast every day so long as it is quick and something I can enjoy on the way to class that way I can sleep in as long as possible. So I decided I would experiment with fruit turnovers. I have neither the time nor the patience to go and learn how to make dough so I got some pre-made stuff and apples and decided to give it a try. After about 30 minutes total of prep and baking I have my breakfast for this next week.

First Sunday Home

Its great to be home it really is. First Sunday back and I was interpreting for the service, definitely awesome because I find that I remember more of the sermon that way and it is just so much fun. Difficult? Yes, especially when the pastor gets excited and starts talking fast. The excitement is that either next week or the following I will officially be a member, something for which I am incredibly excited.

First week home has been somewhere between exciting and uneventful, but not mundane. Started school this past Wednesday, witnessed God's strange sense of humor. Much has transpired this past week, but alas World Civ beckons rather commands so I will write again later.

God's humor and a blog title

Every now and again I have to say God has a sense of humor. Let me rephrase, I have nineteen years, one month, one week, and six days of proof that God has a sense of humor. I suppose I am saying I think my life is a comedy sometimes, I have to ask does anyone else find it that way. Let me tell you what happened. See yesterday was the first day of my Daniel fast (going vegan for 40 days) and there is lots to pray for right now. One of the things is a situation in my life that frankly is hurting me a bit (if you have no idea what I'm talking about don't worry about it). I had been praying for healing and such and God's answer was to not bottle it up, not keep it to myself, and, when my religion professors asked for prayer requests in class, say it not vaguely, but in its entirety. A frightening concept that I neither entertained nor fancied. This morning I woke up and started praying ironically for us not to do prayer requests in my New Testament class today. Surprisingly we did not, but then again God has a sense of humor and I should not have thought that I would escape quite so easily. I had several questions to ask the professor after class regarding the computer, writing assignments, and the exams, which made me have to follow him to his office after class, should have seen what was coming. After my questions were answered he inquired about a few things and then proceeded flat out ask the very thing I was hoping and praying I would not have to say. It was all I could do to not say, "Seriously, God?" Instead for once in my life I kept my mouth shut and conceded. So all this is to say that God is merciful, but also has a rather interesting sense of humor.

Now as far as a blog title is concerned some of your are aware that I only have ten and a half months left of being a teen and am therefore on the market for a new blog title. One option is something to do with formerly knitting and crocheting like a chain smoker... I would love some feedback and I want to know what you think a good title would be. Let me know

Reflecting on the past 7 weeks

It has been nearly a week since I have been at camp, so, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my time there and offer you a recap. From the very first day of the trip I knew God had something crazy in mind for the summer, and a reason for having me personally there. That first day (see the post from June 28th) I had little doubt that God wanted me there. I missed my plane because I misread the reservation, I know it does not get much blonder than that. I did not know why that was important immediately perhaps for humbling before camp started, but on the last plane ride I found out why. There were two hurting people going to Saskatoon they had lost a family member and another was missing. I had the opportunity to pray for them. An opportunity I would have missed if I had not missed my flight. Staff training I was reunited with some old pals and got to see the beginnings of an awesome staff that was truly hand picked by God. Teen week was well a stretch at best, but interesting. We (my co-counselor Brittany and I) had some great conversations with our teen campers, though they were not convinced completely about why dressing modestly is important. I also got to have a continuing conversation with a girl who I had as a repeat camper. Teen camp was, hmmm... unique. The first week of kid's camp was stressful, but definitely a worthwhile week. Halfway through the week I prayed that God would give me a heart like His, I did not fully understand what I was getting myself into. When our girls wanted to all accept Jesus into their hearts I found myself giddy with excitement, however, when two of our girls left that Wednesday I cried over them (even though one of them had been a nuisance). The next week was what I hoped would be a welcome break, but it was quite the opposite. The first morning three of us prayed dangerous prayers. I prayed for our faith to be strengthened, Brittany prayed for an amazing and unforgettable for the kids, and another girl, Julianne, prayed for God to show His power. That afternoon God answered. A storm came there was a funnel cloud, hail, and lightning, but after we gathered in prayer again, we saw God remove the storm from us. Sounds like an amazing day, but it was not over. One of the girls also on the dish washing crew wanted to go home, but when we offered to pray for her she turned and ran. We followed her in the car, eventually I got out and walked with her, and what can be only attributed to the fear of God (no joke) she got in the car only to go home the next day. The third week I was unwillingly placed in a cabin, but it was an awesome week. The last night our girls came to us asking for us to show them how to become Christians, not all of them accepted Jesus that night, but I know the ones who did were sincere. The last week of kid's camp was stretching in more ways then I could imagine. That was the week I spoke for chapels, and the week that God decided to really teach me what reaching the unreached people groups would be like. There was a deaf boy there who knew no American Sign Language, apart from the alphabet. Worse still was that he knew nothing about Jesus, a few of us got the opportunity to work one on one with him via pen and paper (as he could read and write) and teach him about God. He did not accept Jesus, but our job as Christians is not to "save people" our job is to sow seeds. The last week was discipleship week where God shoved me out of my comfort zone yet again during devotions. The girls went to the basement for devotions and God put it on my heart to share with them about my 4 and a half year struggle with purity, that was the first time I had ever said the entire story out loud in front of anyone. I am still not entirely sure why that needed to be said. On the way home, reflecting on the trip, God revealed an issue that I think many of us have whether we know it or not. The issue is tunnel vision. Many Christians are so caught up on a small perspective, a narrow view if you will that we miss important things. We may be stuck in the current circumstance that we fail to ask, "How can God use this for His glory?" or we may be stuck focusing on our own issues that we fail to see the hurting people around us. If I may be blunt with you I would like to point out that our current hurts, struggles, and sufferings are minimal in comparison to eternity Paul wrote on that nearly 2000 years ago. God gives us the opportunity to love other people fully by allowing what we are going through to matter less. This is something I struggle with daily. I find myself saying, "Because of this hurt I am incapable of loving someone else." In essence we are self-absorbed at times. I have found that often times God will allow us to go through some tragedy and gives us the opportunity to share with others the good news because we have not lived perfect lives. A recent event in my life should have been traumatizing, and I suppose at first it was, but because I have not and will not allow it to define the rest of my life , and there is crazy joy that is still in my heart despite it, I have been able to reach out to other people going through the same thing. I still wish it had not happened, but I am grateful for the opportunities to share God's love that have come from it. So this is my challenge to you, a challenge given to me this summer. In the morning as you are going through your routine, perhaps having your alone time with God, pray and ask for an opportunity to share God's love with someone. Also look beyond your circumstance.

Missions

So often we find ourselves overwhelmed by missions. “Save the heathens!” We try and become the Holy Spirit and try to convert people to Christianity, but that is not our job. We look at the numbers and become overwhelmed. What happens when the masses are concentrated down to the face of a little boy, a little boy who has no home, does not speak or hear, a little boy who feels alone in the world? When we focus on numbers, we do nothing, but when we focus on each individual soul, lives are changed.
I know I have been called to foreign missions, to go into all the world, but it has always been me thinking of it being my responsibility for people to change. It’s not though. A few weeks ago I asked God to give me a heart like His. I found myself torn up by campers who went home, and I found myself overjoyed when just one camper came to Jesus. This week missions hit me hard in the face. Meeting the little boy, and having to learn how to communicate to him is just a small picture of what reaching the unreached will likely be like. Having to learn how to communicate, build relationships, and teaching them little by little. I have seen such amazing things this week. Some of us were talking and it became evident the work that God had from the beginning. All of us put together we cover all the bases as far as relating to kids, if we took even one person out we would be less effective. Truly God put this team together.

It would be this week

A year ago Thursday I felt God calling me to deaf ministry. I had no idea where or what would happen next. I started learning sign language and fell in love with the language. I far from fluent, but able to have a decent conversation with someone. One of the things I love about sign language is that it gives me the ability to reach one of the largest unreached people groups and it gives me the opportunity to worship with my hands in church. When I moved out to Texas I started interpreting services and worship for the deaf man in the congregation which was great. This week in one of the boys cabins there is a little boy who has a tragic story that I am not going to go into, but it is really sad. He does not know sign language, but he can read so praise God for having the ability to communicate with him, but we are going to write to him today during swimming. Please pray for him.

Week # 3

The summer is flying. I cannot believe that next week I am speaking and I only have two weeks left here. This past week I was in a cabin, and I was not too excited about it. However, this is not my first summer and I have learned if I go in with a crummy attitude then my week will follow likewise (okay so that is not just at camp). So I prayed and started reading Philippians over and over again, and I came across a passage in the first chapter where Paul is talking about people preaching with the wrong motives and how to him it doesn't matter because Jesus is being preached. Anyways with that in mind I decided it was time to stop judging some of the others for their motives and rejoice that God is using even them to preach the good news. This week was awesome. Energy was found in God, and I discovered that actually spending time with God on my breaks helped. This past week was awesome and the best was Thursday night when a few of the girls asked to accept Jesus. Neither my co-counselor nor myself asked them, they came to us. It was so sweet. This next week I am speaking in the chapels so I would greatly appreciate your prayers.

Dontcha love Mondays

I have no idea how to describe what exactly just happened. I know that God is good and huge and mighty and we are all so in awe of what happened. Let me give you a breakdown of what happened today. The forecast called for sunshine and warmth all week long, and that is how we woke up, sunny and warm. Midway through the morning dishes a storm rolled in, which put a little bit of a damper on things. After supper it started raining like crazy then hailing, first about the size of marbles then it got bigger. I am not entirely sure how long that went on, but after awhile everything calmed down and we thought it was over. Jason came in and herded the 53 campers and 18 cabin leaders into the basement. The rest of us formed a circle outside and started praying over the camp for protection and praying that God would send the storm away. This is where it gets awesome. At first it was just a small break in the clouds, the slightest sliver of blue is what we could see. As we waited and watched it got progressively bigger until there were clouds all around, but blue sky above the camp. After that the entire staff was praising God and some of the campers too. It was a pretty awesome ordeal. The crazy thing is that there was a tornado touchdown about 2 miles (around 3km) from the camp. The damage done by the storm was minimal and fixable so praise God for that.
Unfortunately last night right about 11:30 it was just about bedtime. One of my LIT girls was talking to Anita about going home. We were walking back to the cabin trying to find out what happened. She could not put it to words. About the time we got to the cabin we were staying in Anita asked to pray for her, and she refused. Shortly thereafter she turned around and started walking quickly towards the road with the intention of walking home. We followed in the truck. About ten minutes after she started walking another storm had started. The wind was blowing like you would not believe, lighting every which way, and we are pretty sure there was a bear knocking around. We finally convinced her to come back into the truck. We phoned her grandma who said she would come in the morning. We both ended up spending the night in Jason and Anita’s basement. I do not know what all was happening with this girl. Perhaps I am just a bit wimpy, but it strikes me as odd that a girl of 14 would willingly walk out in a thunderstorm after a tornado touchdown a few miles away and a bear on the loose. Please pray for this girl.

Staff training... or lack thereof

Transitioning from teen camp to kids camp is no walk in the park. For years I begged for a young cabin (ranging 7 - 10), but I always managed to get the older girls (11 and 12). This first week of kids camp I had mostly eight-year olds. Quite the change from mostly fifteen-year olds. Suddenly the understanding that they did not quite grasp really huge concepts or words was a bit unsettling as I attempted to change the way I communicated. How you communicate to an eight-year old is so completely different than the way you communicate to a teenager. In teen camp the biggest challenges were getting them to sleep, then getting them to wake up. With the group of girls I had everything was a challenge. With the group of girls I had in week one of kids camp everything seemed to be a challenge. I had two relatively quiet girls, an energizer bunny, a love bug, a slightly older attitude, one who got sick Wednesday, and one who was “homesick” at first then we realized that she was just an attention seeker. The week was not made easier by the injuries I received last weekend. Saturday in a failed attempt at walking on the seesaw I managed to bruise and scrape up my legs, it looked like I had been beat up or something. Sunday when we first got the campers, one of them wanted to do this balance beam partner log walk and I did well until it came time to get off when I sort of rolled my ankle. It hurt Monday morning but then it stopped causing pain, eventually I put ice on it later on in the week due to unnecessary swelling and such. It is more or less back to normal. I will say the coolest part of this past week was Tuesday night, my co-counselor, Kassy and I got the privilege to lead our cabin to Christ, they all wanted to make the decision. So, despite being exhausted, without patience, and beyond drained I have to say it was an incredible week. This next week they are giving my a break of sorts and making me LIT (leaders in training) leader which means lots of dishes and bathrooms and pouring into just two young ladies who will be LITs.
I will say this in regards to the kids accepting Christ. From what I understand the whole cabin accepting Christ is not terribly uncommon, what is uncommon is when just one will. The girls were all from the same reserve so it is not terribly unbelievable they all wanted to do it. A couple years ago I had one girl who accepted Christ and that was a rather uncommon occurrence because in the cabin were a couple others who were from the same reserve and they actually did treat her noticeably different and not in a good way when she made the announcement. Perhaps it is rather cynical of me, but I wonder how many were sincere, if nothing else my prayer is that the girls will at one point remember something from this week later on and lay the groundwork for a decision.
Strangely Monday night seemed to be the night that Satan attacked our cabin. First it was the “homesick” girl, then another girl went to the nurse, and by the time we got back to the cabin it seemed just like this heaviness had settled on the cabin. I laid down and hoped it would all go away, but it didn’t, and I felt the strong need to pray. So I got up and started praying protection and safety over the cabin. After about half an hour of that I knew I need someone else to pray, so I went to the LIT cabin and had them pray and then to the program director for the same. I went back and prayed some of the psalms over the girls and finally at about midnight I slept. It was incredibly strange and frankly tiring.

Lessons from Kayaking

I thought about writing some deep thought provoking post on the past week of camp. Instead I would give you a little something to make you smile. Tonight after the campers went home, the work was done, and we were done with supper, a few of us went kayaking. We got in and went out and it was so peaceful and beautiful. It turned out that my kayak as well as one of my friends had a slow leak, no big deal. We started heading back and I kept my balance it was all good. I made it back to shore last because I was sitting in the middle of lake enjoying the beautiful scenery. I got back to shore and there came the difficult process of getting out of the kayak. My leg was out of the kayak and I was more or less ok, until the mud started slipping from underneath and my kayak tipped, it was hysterical.

Surprisingly a fair amount has been accomplished in breaks and free time and such. Learned to play 5 chords on the guitar as well as a blues rhythm. Finally finished a song that I'd been working on for a long time. Regardless, teen week is finally over and it is rather bittersweet while I miss the campers I am glad that next week is kid's camp, and that I have a couple of days to recover and study. I wonder what God has for all of us this next week. Please

Teen camp tomorrow

So much has been accomplished this past week. We re-carpeted the stage, cleaned the boathouse, mowed the extensive grounds, and so much more. It is great being up here and seeing everyone again, like one insane/dysfunctional family we are.

Tomorrow begins teen camp and I am bunking and leading with an awesome chick named Brittany. Craziness because five years ago we were in the same cabin as teen campers. Now so many years later we join forces as leaders. I cannot wait for church tomorrow and for the arrival of campers.

Please pray for unity in the staff, open hearts for everyone, and though it may get me into trouble later, patience. This summer will be awesome. Next week I will post pictures.

Tanning beds, airplanes, and the good God

Today is the day to depart to Canada, and not exactly a good start. To say the least I am not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. I managed to completely misread the reservation and figured out that my plane left at 11:15am today at about 11:08am at my house... whoops. Called the airline and pleaded for mercy while silently pleading with God to somehow make something out of this predicament I managed to create. After about a year and a half on hold (okay 15 minutes) I got a hold of an agent who managed to get me on a later flight getting in a couple hours later. Also by the grace of God it was inexpensive and painless. I now wait in the airport for my new flight and all I can say is praise God it worked out.

Feedback requested

I was talking to a couple of my advisors (yes multiple because multiple degrees being pursued = multiple advisors) about missions, curious for their feedback. One of which is a foreign missions minded person, and the other is a "let's tackle the home front first," kind of gal. So i want to know which way do you swing.

As I have said before, God is calling me to foreign missions, but I need to explain where I stand in the whole scheme of things. There are many churches in my town, 1 church for every 100 people, yes the math was done correctly, roughly 30 separate Christian denominations, and 3000 people. I know OF a single person who does not attend church at all, but she has "heard the gospel". Everyone else is at church at least semi-regularly. Here is the crazy thing the majority of the churches do not support foreign missionaries. There is another town 65 miles east of here that for the 1200ish people that live there, about 300 go to church. So there is still a lot to be done there. I believe that churches need to be active in there community to not only reach out at home, but also to send people out into the world. We have the man power to change the world, but we need stop warming pews and actually do something. It starts at home, but there is also a great deal of work to be done in the rest of the world. Christ called us to deny ourselves, not to be a part of a religious sect.


Please provide your thoughts on missions, and the current state of the North American church. It is always fun to hear what your church is doing so please comment.

Missions

I do not know how many times I have posted about missions. If you have not guessed it is something about which I am passionate. Up until about 45 minutes ago I believe that after I graduated from Wayland I would spend the rest of my life in missions in Nicaragua... Oh no, see tonight as I was sketching the life cycle of bread mold I was only about halfway focused (I know) because I was thinking and praying about Nicaragua and missions. Then out of nowhere I felt God saying, "I have a much bigger plan for your life then what you have planned." Well ok initial reaction (please no judgements) can we please save the epiphanies for after I am done with biology, a little irreverent? yes. Minorly sarcastic? have you met me? Of course I thought about what had just happened and started to realize, yes I will be going to Nicaragua, yes I will be ministering to the deaf, but that is not the rest of my life, that is just the beginning before going to the "ends of the earth" Not entirely sure where else God has planned, but I know that His plan is a lot more elaborate and a lot more extensive then just one place.

Nicaragua... again

Not sure how frequently I have told you about this, but I will say it again. I know that I am called to deaf missions in Nicaragua likely to church planting (sort of new still praying it out). After much email communication I finally got to "meet" (via skype) two missionaries who live there and are part of a school for the deaf there. Not only that, but in March there is a possibility that I may get to travel there and meet them and work with them for an entire week. How incredible would that be?!?!? I am consistently in awe of the ways that God works things out, assuming of course that the outcome will be what I am anticipating, which it likely won't because God is so much more awesome and bigger then I am.

I have also decided that I want to be fluent in 5 languages by the time that I graduate from Wayland. English of course is at the top of the list, followed by ASL, Spanish, and ISN (sign language of nicaragua). Well that is only four, so I want to toss an idea out there and get feed back. Through one of my amazing advisors at Wayland I have the opportunity of getting my hands on a Swahili Sign language book, which includes the pictogram of course, the Swahili word and the English word, so of course that would mean I would learn the two simultaneously. Just a possibility that I am tossing out there. Let me know your thoughts