September Already!

Wow, I'm not really sure where to start! I think the last time I posted was literally hours before I left for Mexico so let's go back to that. Mexico blew my mind. I've gotten to talk to some of you about it so I'll try to keep this short. Remember Theology of Mission and how we discussed the downfalls of short term mission trips, and then decided on the positives... this trip was everything positive and then some. Our church has a great relationship with the pastor there, and has been working with him for 5 years now. We did everything from work projects (dry-walling, tiling, cementing), to VBS, to building fish ponds, distributing food... it was the busiest two weeks imaginable! The hike was quite the experience... Albert Edward now looks like a walk in the park! What did this trip teach me? Well since many of you know I've done a lot before, right, so I was heading into this trip rather last minute, and in somewhat of a leadership role thinking that I was pretty ready for this... then on the third or fourth day we were handing out food to people that was supposed to last them a month. This blew my mind. Out of the experiences I have had, none of them have been quite like that. To see people that poor, that unwanted by their country and government, that controlled by the drug dealers... it's hard to wrap my own head around the memory of it. The other huge thing for me was working with, listening to, and watching the pastor and the people that work with him. Pastor Thomas has been working with the Tarahumaran people for 15 years now. It started with hearing about these people that live in the canyon about 15hours from where his church is, hearing of their need and that they are going extinct and now it is a full blown ministry. Food is distributed once a month, there is a farm where people are brought out of the canyon for a season and taught agricultural skills... it's amazing! They often don't know where they're going with the ministry, but they follow, and as they take giant leaps of faith, God meets them in HUGE ways. There are so many stories of encounters with drug dealers, roads being built, government doing unexpected things... it's so exciting to see. Pastor Thomas spoke to us a lot about passion and vision. Find what you are passionate about, and serve the Lord wholeheartedly in it... so simple right, but when someone actually rises up with total faith and does what God wants them to, big things are going to happen.

After Mexico I was at the church full time running the youth events. This was challenging as we did not get many youth out, and also because I haven't had a summer at home in years and now I was leading groups on outings and day trips to things that were new to me! Summer was good though, challenging and stretching, yet also a good change of pace. I managed to visit camps a bunch of times, which was great.

Well there's catch up and so now I'm back at Columbia Bible and am officially the Director of Middle School Youth at church. September is such a crazy time, having classes for the first time and trying to organize those, parent meetings, leader recruiting and training, kick-off. It's quite something. I was pretty nervous about the amount of things I would be doing this year and all of the pressures and responsibility I would have. Then this past week as I started school I got a cold. I think this was God's way of ensuring that I did in fact have no strength on my own and so was forced to lean on Him. Good way to start the year and to serve as a reminder for the rest of it! Needless to say I now see that this year will involve a lot of obedience to God's call, even through the extremely hard, busy times, as well as surrender and reliance on Him. The only way this year will be possible is by the grace of God. If you could keep me in your prayers about this because I need to be constantly plugged into God and not forsaking my first love as the church in Ephesus did (Revelations 2:4). I also need a lot of wisdom as I lead about 25 leaders and the many Middle School Youth who will be coming... Our vision this year is for the youth to encounter the real Jesus.

Oh right, almost forgot... in keeping with the theme of going traveling last minute... I'm going to Israel on October 18th for two weeks with my church!!!!! My pastor leads a teaching trip there. This is going to be amazing to walk the land, and learn. It's more than just 'seeing the sites', we get to experience the culture and learn eastern vs. western thinking. I'm so excited for this opportunity. It looks like Prairie Bible will give me credits, and then Columbia will accept the transfer (what fun figuring that out was). Now I just need to meet with my profs and discuss with them my leaving for two weeks! Keep this in your prayers as well please! I can't believe the opportunities and experiences that I have in this church. This is definitely where God wants me to be for now and I am extremely thankful that this is regularly made clear to me.
That's about it all... Keep in touch