Pictures!

This past week has been filled with lots of fun adventures, so I thought I'd post some pictures. Enjoy!

This is from the first few weeks... we had a table where we reclined... like Jesus! It made us feel so holy :) Don't worry, we have all our furniture now.... finally.

These are from the retreat we went on. It was a great time to get to know people... but the best part was that I got to sleep up in a loft!! My friend Meg is in the top picture, we met the first night when we both were not able to go into our apartments.

On Wednesday it rained. Can you tell? We had been hanging out at a Pablo's (my next door neighbor pictured in the top photo) and then Jean (who I'm next to in the bottom photo) suggested we go play in the mud. Amazing fun.

I was delighted to learn that people DO dress up for Halloween here! Wahoo! Costume party!

My roommate, Abbie, and myself. It's been great to have her as a roommate!

Seeing God at Work

Going home this past weekend was a blessing. I could spend the whole post raving about how great it was to reconnect with friends, see "my" kids, attend Cherrydale's missions conference, and visit with family.
I think the most awesome thing in it all, though, is how when being removed from a situation and then visiting you are able to see God at work in so many different ways.
I have had this privilege in small ways with  friends in Indonesia that I met while I was serving there. These friends were in town and I was able to see them the Thursday before I left for home. I love getting their updates because when I was there I was able to see so much need and now I hear of so many ways that God has moved and worked in Indonesia. It is exciting to hear and to think that God may have used some of the prayers I prayed for the Indonesian people now in advancing his kingdom and changing lives.
At home this weekend, I had similar glimpses. I got to hear how God is at work among the Azerbaijani, but more than that I got to see how Cherrydale has grown in their heart for the Azerbaijani people. I got to connect with friends and just listening to their stories was able to hear clear evidence at how God is at work in their lives.
I don't love being away from friends and family. I miss them terribly at times. But I am delighted that God allows me these glimpses into their lives - to see how they have changed and grown, to see and hear how prayers I may have prayed months or years ago have been answered... and how he's allowed me to join in the work he is doing here and around the world.

Never Done

After having that interlude of silence, I wanted to get on the blog post as otherwise I would likely go another long week plus without writing anything. Not that it would be awkward for any of those reading, but it would again be a blog post about awkwardness in silence, and that would be boring.
This week I was reminded of the fact that we are never done - never done working through our stuff, never done with the hurt and pain, never done learning and growing. It's a scary thought for me in some ways to realize how much progress I have yet to go, how deeply some things I learned growing up are ingrained into the fiber of my being, and how much God simply want all of me; he's not content with just part of me.
I am constantly amazed at the different situations God allows in my life to grow me and make me ever more his. And usually they're quite painful. I usually don't realize the full impact of what's going on in my life until I'm a good way into the middle of it and it doesn't always come as a fun realization, more of an "oh, God has a lot more to teach me <big sigh> ok... I think."
But there is so much hope. As a friend said to me "The hard times are the growing times" and that excites me. It really does. It excites me to know that God isn't done with me, and that he's not happy to just leave me where I am. It excites me to think that he's intimately aware of and involved in every aspect of my life.
So though there may be some pain, there is promised so much more joy. Keeping my eyes on Jesus, I can walk forward in confidence, knowing his gracious love will be with me wherever I go.

A Little Awkward

Silence on a blog is awkward. Really awkward. It should be that I've been SO busy doing so many amazing things that I haven't had time to blog and NOW I'll come through with something amazing. But that's not really the case. When people have been asking me how my week is, I've just said "long." There has been nothing horrid about the week and nothing too spectacular; it's just been long.

I have passed the halfway point of being at CIU - I took a midterm last week and a test the week before. They weren't very scary. But the bulk of the school work is yet to come.

I took a personality test a little over a week ago and have had a lot of fun delving into what I tested as and what my roommates and friends are. On the Myers-Briggs test I'm an ENFJ and I've discovered that it pretty much captures my interactions with others and how I think and process things.

I've been thrilled to continue working on the World Christian Week task-force to help plan the World Christian week which is the first week of October. I love being able to meet with people and just talk missions and what not. It really makes me happy.

I guess that's the gist of what's going on. The awkwardness has been at least partially broken. Which makes me laugh, because it's SO true in various situations in my life - there is this obvious awkwardness that is evident to all, and someone just has to do SOMETHING to stop the awkwardness and usually that makes things much better and puts people at ease. 

So here's to the awkward situations in one's life.

Theology Proper

Yesterday night and all day today I was in my Systematic Theology class and we were talking about God. It was good, scary and convicting. All things one would expect from time spent talking about God, his character, attributes and works. One big thing that hit me was the concept of his mercy, grace and judgment. We watched a video in which R.C. Sproul stated that we are so used to living under God's mercy and grace that we are surprised when his just judgment comes into play. We are so used to his grace that we forget that daily, if not hourly or minute-by-minute we do things that deserve eternal condemnation. God extends his mercy and sustains us for our every breath, extending his mercy and grace in sustaining us instead of his justice.

And I take it for granted. Daily. I whine when I don't have something. I don't think about my sin as deserving eternal punishment. I don't think of the fact that God's grace sustains me. Wow. He loves me. As someone in my small group said after we watched the video, "It makes me want to fall on my face in prayer." We serve a mighty and gracious God.

The other thing that slammed me in the face is the truth of hell and God's wrath. Other things that I regularly avoid thinking of. There is a real hell where people who do not know or accept Jesus will go. And God is just and right to have such a place. 

We all deserve to be in hell, but God in his grace and mercy sent his Son to take the punishment of my sins. Of the sins of all who will believe.  Do I pray for those who don't know Christ as I should? I don't. I avoid thinking of hell and talking about it because it makes me uncomfortable because then I could be saying those words to someone, and I'd really rather not. Shouldn't I be warning them, shouldn't I be loving them enough to share the full counsel of God's truth? I need to care much more of what God thinks of me then of what others think of me. I need to remember the reality of hell and talk about it to be reminded of the reality and power of the good news.

It's a small world...

At CIU... at least in terms of missions. Tonight I went to a great concert by Spasenie a Christian band from Belarus. During the night they mentioned work that they were doing in Az... After the concert I went up to talk with them a bit more about the work they were doing. It was exciting to hear their heart for the world and what they have seen happening in Az. Then the man introduced me to someone else who had connections with Az, and she immediately introduced me to a guy who had spent the summer there in 2009. Now this guy was there when I went and the guys in our group stayed at his apartment! It was craziness! I even remember meeting him in passing while in Az. It was one of those "whoa" moments that just sort of took me by surprise. Awesome to have these random connections.
On other seminary notes, I've gotten to pray with people in the past two days and that makes me very happy. I miss so much praying with my friends from home, but it is so nice to be in a place where there are so many people who are passionate about prayer and willing to engage in prayer. It's especially nice to have days set aside which are dedicated to prayer. Always happiness for me.

Lunch and Learning

Friday I had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Murray, former president of CIU and current chancellor. I had been recruited to be part of the planning committee for World Christian Week (WCW) at CIU and as Dr. Murray is speaking at WCW all the people on the planning committee, along with a few others, met Friday for lunch and to discuss more aspects of WCW. It was awesome. Largely because Dr. Barnett (the head of the intercultural college) was also there and I got to listen to these two amazing men talk MISSIONS!
It was awesome and got me super excited. They talked about the slack of understanding of what missions and mission is and some of the current things happening in the world of missions. I was on the edge of my seat and I'm sure there was a big, silly grin on my face. Few things could make me happier.
The awesome thing is that I will get to meet with students who also have a passion for missions to help plan the WCW. We will get to figure out ways to get people involved and talk about what is important to try to teach people through WCW. So, on a regular basis I will get to talk with fellow students about these issues which are near and dear to my heart. I am really ridiculously happy about all of this. Excited to be able to pull upon my past experience, but mostly excited that I'll get to have at least one more meeting with Dr. Murray to hear him talk about missions more. It's basically amazing in every way.