Today I was praying through the prayer requests from my high school girls last night. As I was praying for one girl in particular, I was praying that the Lord would just grow her up and mature her in life and faith and specifically in her ability to love the Lord more than the world. As I'm praying this, I come across her next request on the sheet... "pray that God would help me to love Him more than I love my friends." Hmm... the Lord just got me with that. Here I am praying for maturity for this girl thinking that I am walking so many steps ahead of her when I realize that I am, in fact, just like her.
It's people. I could leave a place in a second. I don't get attached to places or get nostalgic about my first guitar. I don't name or personify my car or show great allegiance to my alma mater, the good 'old Blue Hose. Its people and relationships that get my heart every time. It is maybe my greatest joy and my biggest downfall. I love people, which is why I want them to know the Lord and it makes ministry such a joy for me. And yet, I love people and I have a hard time trusting that the Lord is enough for me even if it takes me being lonely before I really get to see what it means for Him to sustain me. And recently, it's even been the anticipation of a person I don't even have yet... sometimes I think I love the idea of my future marriage and family more than the Lord. How is that possible when I don't even know if the Lord is going to give that to me? I don't know... but somehow I manage to do it.
My mind came back to this Caedmon's Call song...
You know I ran across an old box of letters
While I was bagging up some clothes for Goodwill
But you Know I had to laugh at the same old struggles
That plagued me then are plaguing me still...
I'm so thankful that I'm incapable
Of doing any good on my own
'Cause by grace I have been saved
Through faith that's not my own
It is a gift of God and not by works
Lest anyone should boast
As a good friend reminded me tonight... thank the Lord that He isn't done with us yet! By His grace I will continue to grow and trust Him. And I can see how far He has brought me... He loves me too much to leave me where I am! And I'm thankful for that.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
75 trees and counting...
Back in good 'ole North Carolina and finally some warmer weather :) I had a fairly uneventful trip home from Belgium and I've been spending my time getting caught up with family, friends, students that are also friends, and taking high schoolers snowboarding! It's been a wild week at home. I'm starting to settle back into a schedule again with different priorities than before I left. Priority number 1... support rasising. My goal is to have all my support raised by the end of April, that means all the pledge cards sent in and recorded so that MTW agrees with me that I'm at 100% :) 
As of right now I have 75 of 100 trees! That's 75% of my monthly support! What a blessing! I need 25 more people to pledge $41/month to be fully funded. After my training, I am so ready to be in Honduras doing ministry hands on. Please consider joining us in our ministry by supporting me!
Here's some Honduras updates for you:
1. We have been able to provide sponsorships for four children from Armenia to attend high school in 2010. To read more about the new scholarship program click here.
2. Erin Pettengill, a team member, was able to serve as a nurse in Haiti for one month with MTW's disaster relief teams.
3. Thanks to the generosity of dozens of people in the U.S. we distributed over 20,350 school
supplies to over 400 extremely poor children in Armenia Bonito.
4. In 2009, the team was able to medically treat 1150 of the around 3000 residents in Armenia Bontio in their free medical clinic.
5. Earlier this year the team hosted a training conference for pastors entitled "Jesus in the Old Testament." This kind of training for church leaders is rare and much appreciated in the community.
That gives you just a glimpse of the many things that are going on in Honduras as well as property being purchased for a health clinic and ministry center, new teammates starting to raise support, discipleship, esl classes, kids club, and more. There is so much going on... I can't wait to be another set of hands to help.
Please continue to pray for my preperation and support raising as well as my team in Honduras. Thanks!
As of right now I have 75 of 100 trees! That's 75% of my monthly support! What a blessing! I need 25 more people to pledge $41/month to be fully funded. After my training, I am so ready to be in Honduras doing ministry hands on. Please consider joining us in our ministry by supporting me!Here's some Honduras updates for you:
1. We have been able to provide sponsorships for four children from Armenia to attend high school in 2010. To read more about the new scholarship program click here.
2. Erin Pettengill, a team member, was able to serve as a nurse in Haiti for one month with MTW's disaster relief teams.
3. Thanks to the generosity of dozens of people in the U.S. we distributed over 20,350 school
supplies to over 400 extremely poor children in Armenia Bonito.
4. In 2009, the team was able to medically treat 1150 of the around 3000 residents in Armenia Bontio in their free medical clinic.
5. Earlier this year the team hosted a training conference for pastors entitled "Jesus in the Old Testament." This kind of training for church leaders is rare and much appreciated in the community.
That gives you just a glimpse of the many things that are going on in Honduras as well as property being purchased for a health clinic and ministry center, new teammates starting to raise support, discipleship, esl classes, kids club, and more. There is so much going on... I can't wait to be another set of hands to help.
Please continue to pray for my preperation and support raising as well as my team in Honduras. Thanks!
Monday, February 8, 2010
2 more days...
Its hard to believe that my time here is almost over. Tomorrow I will have been in Belgium officially for 4 weeks. I have learned so much, seen so much, and gotten very tired:) My brain is on overload, compounded with the learning contract and paper that I am writing plus the presentation I'm working on! We'll be busy to the bitter end! Processing time is much needed however, and these things are the tools for that. It would be a shame to spend four weeks here only to get home and realize I hadn't processed any of it or taken the necessary steps to make sure that I take what I have learned home with me. I'll probably be posting other things from my time along the way... but for now I just have this.
Community Shifting. What is that going to look like? As I was writing my learning contract today, this was one of my topics. What does it look like to "leave and cleave" if you will from my current culture to my new culture. I will be leaving a place where there is an occasional snowfall to a place where 80 degrees feels like the dead of winter! I will be leaving English to go to a place where I'm not allowed to puff air out of my mouth when I say p,t, and k. But more than that, I am leaving people that I love dearly to go to a new country full of people that I don't know. Scratch that, two new countries full of people I don't know. It starts in Costa Rica. How do I not waste my time there? I don't want to depend on my home community, I want to be lonely enough to get out of my house and find people in my new culture. Oh the blessing and curse of skype/facebook/email... oh how I love and hate you. :) Seriously though, it's a challenge with communication options galore at our fingertips to leave our community behind in a healthy way to invest where we are. I've seen that in myself this month... the tendency to check email all the time to see if I've heard from home, to try to respond to emails immediately so people will know that I love them, etc. It's hard. I'm working on thinking through what that balance will need to be.
Let me just end by saying... what a blessing to even have to worry about this. I have been given the gift of a loving family, friends, church, and extended community. I have people to miss and that is a blessing. :) I'm thankful for you all!!!
Community Shifting. What is that going to look like? As I was writing my learning contract today, this was one of my topics. What does it look like to "leave and cleave" if you will from my current culture to my new culture. I will be leaving a place where there is an occasional snowfall to a place where 80 degrees feels like the dead of winter! I will be leaving English to go to a place where I'm not allowed to puff air out of my mouth when I say p,t, and k. But more than that, I am leaving people that I love dearly to go to a new country full of people that I don't know. Scratch that, two new countries full of people I don't know. It starts in Costa Rica. How do I not waste my time there? I don't want to depend on my home community, I want to be lonely enough to get out of my house and find people in my new culture. Oh the blessing and curse of skype/facebook/email... oh how I love and hate you. :) Seriously though, it's a challenge with communication options galore at our fingertips to leave our community behind in a healthy way to invest where we are. I've seen that in myself this month... the tendency to check email all the time to see if I've heard from home, to try to respond to emails immediately so people will know that I love them, etc. It's hard. I'm working on thinking through what that balance will need to be.
Let me just end by saying... what a blessing to even have to worry about this. I have been given the gift of a loving family, friends, church, and extended community. I have people to miss and that is a blessing. :) I'm thankful for you all!!!
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