Can I Bite Your Nose?

It has been three weeks since I've gotten back from my trip in Southeast Asia, and I miss everyone terribly. I've been reading through 1 Kings, and since being back, I have loved reading about the testimony of Elijah and the faith that he showed. It has been really exciting to read how God worked through him, and it's also been challenging to my own relationship with God. In fact, I was reviewing my prayer journal since I've been back, and I said to God, "I desire to trust You more." Well, these past three weeks have certainly been a trial in trust.

This summer I am working at a camp. In fact, I'm working at the same rustic, middle-of-nowhere camp that I worked at two summers ago. Since the camp is fairly close to home, I've decided to come home every weekend. The first week of work was "orientation." As a team of counselors, we spent the week cleaning the camp and brainstorming ideas for the summer. When I got back home Friday, I did not expect to have the weekend that I did. I got some bad news Friday evening that I was not expecting at all. I was so shocked and confused, not just about the news I received, but also about the way that I received it, that I just broke down. In fact, I was broken down all weekend, and I honestly didn't want to go back to camp this past week. I knew that I was going to be counted on to interact with a lot of kids, and I just wanted to be alone. I am so glad I was where I was this week, though.

This week, the kids began asking each other if they could bite each others' noses. It looks as ridiculous as it sounds, but apparently, it's "the ultimate question of trust." I thought about this as I reflected on the frustration of this still unresolved situation from the weekend before. In the frustration of my current circumstances to God, and the message I keep hearing back is, "Trust me. I know what I am doing. I have always known." It's a wonderful message, but it is so difficult to accept when you're upset. The campers were just playing a silly game that they made up, and there are a lot of other things more difficult to trust others with than their teeth around your schnoz, but the idea of trust remains. As silly as it sounds, you do not know if the person who is about to bite your nose is going to hurt you or not... but they know what they're doing. I have no idea what is coming in the future or how this situation is going to end up, but I do know that God knows what He's doing better than I know what's coming. I am learning to trust Him, just as I told Him I desire to do. It is by no means easy or even pleasant right now, but I also have hope in the future because I know He cares for me, even when I am frustrated and angry and don't want to trust Him.

God,

Thank You for listening to me, even when it is not what I expect to hear in return. I do not like the uncertainty of the situation I am in right now, but I am learning that You have known since before the beginning of time where I would be right now and where I will be in the future. Thank You for caring about the little worries that I have, and for desiring the best for me, even in those moments. I am sorry for not trusting You, but I truly do desire to trust You more. Please continue to walk me through the lessons You are teaching me. Thank You for Your patience. I love You.

Sow What?

I am back from Southeast Asia! Well, I've been back home for over a week now, but after a few days of combating the urge to go to sleep at 3:00 pm and wake up at 4:30am, my body is back to its normal routine. My mind, though, is still flooding with memories of the culture and conversations that my team and I experienced for just two short weeks. Being back home makes it all seem surreal almost.

I was so privileged to work with a great team of awesome people...

... try some great new food...

... gain some new experiences...

... and make some new friends.

I had a great time in Southeast Asia. But more valuable than all of the new experiences I now have, is the privilege of seeing God work in an area of the world that is numb to any religious belief. I wish that I could somehow just download everything I remember from my trip onto my computer one so that I could keep track of it all and two so that I could share them with everyone, because there is just so much that I could share. My team and I spent a lot of time in English classrooms in the local universities spending time with students and learning about their culture while we shared about ours. We learned a lot about local foods and festivals and we shared a lot about our hobbies and our interests as American college students. We were asked if we watch Desperate Housewives and Gossip Girl or listened to Lady Gaga as well as if we were familiar with any of their music or movies. Though there were certainly cultural differences to be found, I think one of the neatest things to realize and to share with the students is how alike we are. We like music and movies. We like to have fun with our friends and to be silly. We also understand what it means to be confused about our future and to have the "pressures" and "stresses" (as students there called it) of life. Unfortunately, unlike many of the students we met and talked with, we know Someone that we are able to turn to in those times of stress and pressure.

Before going on this trip, I think I would have said (or I probably did say) that I did not know what to expect. And part of that is true. But there were certainly things that I did expect from this experience. I have shared before the embarrassing fact that speaking about my faith does not come easily to me. One thing I expected was to be challenged in how I express what Christ has done in my life with others. I think, though, generally, I expected to learn a whole lot and to do a whole lot, which in a way, I guess I did. But really, I saw God do a lot more than I did. During our trip, I had a chance to read through scripture and pray with my lovely roommate in the mornings.

It was certainly some sweet, encouraging time that I cherished with her and with our great God and gracious Savior. One passage that we read I think sums up perfectly the message of the trip that I found most humbling and most encouraging: 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 says, "So what is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." I may have left America thinking about all the work that I was going to do, but I came back realizing how much God had done, even in the short time that my team was there, and how blessed I was to be a part of it. The opportunities we had to share why we behave the way we do, why we don't go to parties on the weekend, or what we think about controversial issues, how many people in America believe in God or even how we deal with sad times were more numerous than we expected. Some of us were given very direct questions about scripture and Christian beliefs. Some of us had the opportunity to share the gospel more than once, and some of us were able to see God grow out of that. Whether we saw fruit from our labor or not, we know that it is not us who brings growth, but God. We were called to be faithful in service to Him. This is a humbling fact but also encouraging to know that I am not in control and that I don't have to try to be. I don't have to force Jesus into a conversation and I don't have to pry for a spiritual response. I am called to be faithful and genuine and honest about who I am in Him. I can't help but express that. And as I do, perhaps He will choose to work in someone's heart. I had a great experience overseas, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time that I had with my fellow teammates as well as with the students and people that we met. It was a tiring experience, and trying at times, but I trust that God is still working in that place, even though our team is gone. I am glad to be back home and to comfortable living, though my heart still aches for the people back in SE Asia. But I am excited to hear how the God who worked so wonderfully in my life that I must share works in the lives of the students that I am now able to call friends. Mm. He certainly is good.

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

Such is the wisdom of Uncle Ben to his nephew, Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man).My friend and I were talking this past week about some similar experiences we have been through and some things we have learned from those experiences, and she asked me, "Would you have done it again if you had the choice?" Whether she knew it or not, that was a very challenging question. I do not enjoy all of the experiences that I have had, nor will I enjoy all of the things I have yet to experience. Not all of my un-enjoyable experiences are bad, but they certainly are challenging, and I find myself coming out of them knowing more than I did before, whether I wanted to or not. Yet, I am now responsible for what I know. A toddler is not expected to do complex math equations because he is probably still learning how to count. However, as this toddler gets older and is taught algebra and geometry and eventually calculus, he is then responsible for completing those more difficult assignments because he now has the knowledge to do so. In the same way, though sometimes I wish I could have stayed ignorant to many things, I have more knowledge than I previously did and I am now responsible for doing what should be done with that knowledge. This may be knowing how to complete a homework assignment or how to balance a check book. It also may be the knowledge of someone's need or of a spiritual truth. All of these things I am responsible for once I become knowledgeable about them.

Going on this trip to Southeast Asia in just over 15 days is a huge wake up call to what I am responsible for: the gospel of Christ. To be honest, I am not a bold person. I enjoy sitting silently in class and listening to other people talk. I am not an eloquent speaker. My brain has trouble processing information quickly (you think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not), so words don't flow like they should- at least not the right ones. To be even more honest, of all things that I am frightened to talk about, talking about Christ to people who don't know Him is probably the most frightening. I wish it was not the truth, but often when I have the chance to say something, I keep my mouth closed instead. I know the truth of Christ. It has drastically changed my life, and it continues to change my life! It gives me purpose! It gives me hope! It gives me joy and peace! It fulfills me and sustains me! Not only have I experienced salvation, but I know the need of others for salvation, and I am responsible for that knowledge as well. I am so excited to get on that plane in just a few weeks and travel across the world and get to work with such an awesome team of people and get to meet new people and experience a new culture, and I truly am excited about the opportunity to see God work. But I must remind myself of the knowledge (and the power) that I am responsible for, whether at school, at home, or in a foreign country.

God, Forgive me for not taking my responsibility more seriously. Thank you for allowing me to experience Your grace. Please be with my team and me as we travel in just a few weeks. Give us the boldness to share Your truth with the people we build relationships there. Provide us with moments to share how You have changed our lives, and provide us with the exact words to say in those moments. I trust You.

Financial Update!

Hello, everyone! I just wanted to take a little time to update you as to how I'm doing financially! I will be leaving for my trip in just over a month, and of right now, I have raised $3,216! It is incredible to think of how all of that money has come in! I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, saying that I signed up for this trip already with an idea of how God was going to provide the finances, and though He definately has provided, it certainly hasn't been in the way that I thought it would be. In fact, there was a lot of humbling on my part throughout this whole process, but now that the end is in sight, it is exciting to see how it has all come together! Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been supporting me, not only financially, but through prayer as well! I haven't reached the goal yet, though! With just over a month until the trip, I still have to raise just over $400. If you would like to be a part of supporting my team and I as we build relationships with the people of Southeast Asia, please visit the "Support Southeast Asia" page. Thank you again for all of your support, whether through giving money, through prayer, or even by visiting this blog! I really do appreciate all of it!

Passion for People

Perhaps it makes me a little bit of a dork, but I consider myself pretty youtube savvy. I just really like watching short videos. It's about all my attention span can handle. However, I had never seen this video until one of my friends showed it to me last night:



Seriously? This is an embarrassment to every sane person in the state of North Carolina... and the entire world. Honestly, it's hard not to laugh at some of the things these people do and say. Yet, at the same time, watching this video makes me a little angry. There are people DYING everywhere around the world! People- PEOPLE- are starving, they are being trafficked and sold into slavery (domestic labor and sexual). There are children being taken out of their homes to become soldiers. There are people in the world who experience more hurt and pain in one day than I could ever imagine experiencing in a lifetime. And these activists are screaming and wailing about cutting down trees and the life of rocks! Maybe I am just ignorant and inexperienced, but that is just ridiculous. Watching this video, though, got me thinking: what if Christians were that passionate about the things that really DO matter?

I was studying the word passion recently because it is a topic that has come up a lot this semester, and I learned that though it is defined today as "strong and barely controllable emotion," (OED) it comes from the Latin word 'pati' meaning "to suffer". It's kind of a hard concept for me to grasp, and I don't think I have a complete handle on it yet- the idea of passion and suffering going together. Yet, watching this video, it is obvious that the passion and the suffering of these activitst, ridiculous though they may be, go hand-in-hand. So, watching this video, there were two questions that came to my mind:

Question One: What if we cried out to God with the same passion? What difference would that make in how we relate to God? What if we sought Him out with such yearning and burning in our hearts? Trees don't talk back. I know that's such a silly statement, but I think that these people were crying and screaming to the trees more fervently than I sometimes do to a great, holy, yet personal, active God.

Question Two: What if we were burdened for people like they were burdened? What impact would that make on the world around us? Something that I've learned about myself is that, generally, I have a passion for people. Yet, I struggle to have a passion for persons. What if my passion was to see lives saved like these people wanted to see the trees saved? What if I acted on such a passion? Once again, you are not likely to get a response from a tree or a rock, but people are an investment. What kind of response would that bring? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to be consumed in passion for God and for worshipping Him through sharing with others. I don't mean that I want to walk around screaming and crying all the time, but I do want to have a sense of burden for things of eternal significance that mimics their passion for things of less importance. I want to have a yearning to know God and a passion for people.

God, Refine me of the selfish desires of my heart, and fill me with a passion for You and for Your people.