On the brink...

Wowzer... almost done with Psychology...!!!!
almost.
I need to catch my breath.
Christmas with my family has been really great :) i love those guys. I'm sad to be leaving tomorrow... it seems like I just got home. :(
However! Exciting things are in store!
Dec. 29 ( i think... :D) i leave for Houston to do street ministry, which is going to be awesome!
January 11 ( i think... :D) we leave for Guatemala!!! *SO* excited for that :) and I'll be gone from home until sometime after Feb. 20th...back just in time for my Birthday ;)

Hope ya'll had a great Christmas! :)

Taking a break from decorating the dorm :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... :)

Hello Friends and Cyber-stalkers! :)

It's so good to be home and have a little time to relax!
I was able to hang out with the youth group on Sunday night and sing Christmas carols to some shut-ins in the area. I look forward to doing it every year :) It was really good to see all of my youth group friends and observe how well everything has carried on since a rather drastic student leardership shift... God is so good! :) He's going to accomplish His purposes in a group that is seeking Him, even when it seems like everything is turning upside down. :) Thanks for such a warm welcome home, into the cold weather, everyone! :)

A picture with my neighbors/boyfriend :)

Where has the time gone!?!

Wow! I cannot believe that two weeks from today i will be at home with my family! It seems like i just got here....
and three weeks from today I will be getting ready to leave for outreach!
We will be spending two weeks working in larger cities in Texas, mostly doing street ministry. Then it's off to Guatemala for a month! :)
So this week is ministry prep week. We've been having classes to learn to teach English, VBS, and to learn a drama.
On top of all the meetings and classes, I am pressing in on the deadline for my online psychology class! yikes!

Please be praying for me during this week, as many people are getting sick and starting to lose focus because it's almost break-time. Keyword: ALMOST. We're not there yet!
Please pray for:
- Focus and smart use of my time
- Good health!
- supernatural energy :)
- A good attitude

Me & Joel at a wedding at Dayspring

Happy December! :)

Okay... So, lately I've been feeling bogged down by all of the stuff I have going on. To the point that things that I would normally really enjoy have become just another thing in my schedule to get through.
Thankfully, that's not where the story ends.. praise Jesus :)
Today while we were praying as a class for direction for our individual futures, God spoke to me "Find joy in all that you do." it was that simple. How could i expect to get through the next few weeks alive and well if i was dreading everything i needed to do?
Sometimes God says just exactly what we need to hear, even if we don't recognize the brilliance of what he's saying to us, and how much it really covers all of what we need. :)

Me and Sarah... she's from the same state! :)

Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches!

Hands down, my favorite cold weather, comfort food! :)
And it sure is cold outside! and windy.

Well, this week we have the cutest old man (I think i say that about all the old men teachers....) teaching this week on the Father Heart of God. It's been really neat to hear all of his stories and how God has revealed His father heart through this man. What a neat guy!

It's also the week before ministry prep week...and for some reason, we're starting ministry prep this week too. Which is kind of stressful :(  I'm going to be a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Teacher, I'll be a demon in the Clincher Drama, and I'll be one of the dancers in a dance we're doing. PLUS! I have to finish my classes before Christmas break. ahhhh!!!!  So much to do. and so little time. We have special classes for teaching and for the drama, so i'm up and ready to go by eight and back in my room at 10.

I realize, that seems okay. But, it's really not. because, i have like, 2.5 hours in the middle of the day to do everything *I* need to do, because we're in class the rest of the time. kind of a rigid schedule. But it will be worth it!

Please pray that God gives me the grace, time, energy, and intellect to finish everything that I need to, on time!

My friend Maggie blessed me with a coffee mug that she said matches my eyes :)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! :)

What a fantastic weekend! :) I got to hang out with my best friend/boyfriend and my family, and meet new family members. It was really great! The food was wonderful, we played lots of games, and it was really nice to be in a real home with family again. Missing everyone back home....

Me and my new cousin! :)

Blessings

I am so blessed. Really. I get to spend Thanksgiving with family members that I don't get to see very often... such a treat! :) And with my boyfriend... and I really appreciate him.

Well, I had a lot of revelation this week. During a worship time this week, for the first time that I can remember, I felt whole. Without anyone else, without feeling like I needed to reach a standard, without feeling like I needed a person to lead/guide me... just me and God. I had a vision of me floating in this space and drifting away from other people, and it wasn't a scary thing... it was so peaceful. I just felt...complete.

Geek Day! :)

Spiritual Gifts

Hello friends! This week we have a prophetess here teaching us about Spiritual Gifts and fun things like that. :) We had an interesting discussion about speaking in tongues, and then she coached us on how it's done. I'm still not sure what I think about it, but it was a really good class time. :) And some of the people who were speaking in tongues put phrases that they were saying over and over into google, and found out that they were names for God in other languages, or phrases of praise and adoration in other languages. It was really neat!
And! yesterday, my throat was healed during class! it was the strangest thing I have ever physically experienced. My throat had been really hurting and almost felt like it was cracking and bleeding or something... really painful. and as we were praying in class saying that we were open to the spiritual gifts and that we wanted to receive them, the speaker just said, "...and God, we just pray for healing in this room..." and i felt the pain in my throat start to go away, like a circle getting smaller. I cleared my throat and swallowed, and it didn't hurt. I even talked, and my voice was normal and not pained. my nose was still stuffy though, so when she asked the sick people in the room to come forward for prayer, i went. the first step i took, my nose was completely unclogged. it was the strangest thing.

Today, my throat is still great, but i'm sneezing and snotting and my eyes are watering...pretty much all the time. not so fun, but i'm really grateful for having the opportunity to experience healing like that. It was so crazy, but awesome. :)

me and the kitchen clean-up crew

This week has been really great so far! :) Our teacher is brilliant... I heard a rumor that he has the Bible memorized in three translations! Anyway, he really knows a lot. We've been asking him all of our deep questions about what tough scripture passages mean, and he's had some kind of answer or explanation or insight into what the original text said, for every single one! Even stuff like, if dinosaurs or aliens are mentioned in the Bible... it's been really, really awesome.

I've been hearing a lot from God through the Psalms...it's amazing. I'll turn to a psalm and God will speak specifically about a situation that I'm dealing with, for that day. Today it was Psalm 69... God knows our hearts and our sins, and the things that we've turned to for comfort instead of him.
And this is my prayer from this psalm (vs. 6):
"Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel."

My work duty... Dinner clean-up :)

Rest and Relaxation...sort of....

Alrighty... Time to finish up thank you notes and get them out! I finally have enough information about the outreach I'm going on in January to put together a newsletter...hoping to get that finished and mailed next week sometime. 

For anyone who might not know.. I'm going to Guatemala! So excited! :) We're going to be working with all kinds of sweet Guatemalan people, and it's going to be so great! :)

What else... feeling really lazy today. Which is funny, because we had dorm clean-up this morning...which was two hours of intensive cleaning in the building I live in. Usually that would make me feel productive. Such is not the case today. :)

Joel & I with Mulan at Boo Bash! :)

(We were Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion)

Freedom!! :)

Wow...today was a ridiculous time of healing! I realized during this week of teaching that I have a tendency to manipulate people for love. And I found out where that came from... what part of my past I was hurt in. And I had the chance to walk through forgiveness toward the people who hurt me, and release them. It was so good! It was stuff that I thought I had worked through, but it was still really affecting me and how I was treating people.

I feel so much better!!!!
Freedom is amazing! :)
I went out to coffee with some of the girls here today, and it was so good! :) We just talked and laughed and chilled...it was really nice. Today was the sunniest, most fun day I've had in a long time :) Life is so good. God is so good. :D

Lumberjack Day! :)

Glorious Father...Eph. 1:17-18

One thing that I've really appreciated about DTS so far is the new perspective I've been given on many different verses. Even verses that I've heard all my life and not really thought about.

John 14:6- Jesus says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." My generation has been called "the fatherless generation."  We have an inability to relate properly to our Heavenly Father because of our earthly fathers, or because of their absence, so many of us will go to Jesus...and stop there. That's not how it should be! Jesus said, "I am the way..." not, "I am the destination." It is through Jesus that we have access to the Father, and we should run to Him! He is so much more loving and glorious than our earthly fathers (no matter how good or bad they are). 

This is where I sleep! :)

First Blog Post... :)

Okay, here goes. First blog post...hopefully, the first of many! Life has been kind of crazy lately... I recently moved to Texas temporarily, and I'm trying to keep up with the craziness of taking college classes and being part of YWAM! Hopefully this blog will be a nice, simple way to keep in touch with people.

Main points for today:
- We are in the middle of the most intense teaching of DTS... it's called Plumbline. Basically, you learn the ways that you personally deal with rejection, what the roots of your reactions are, and how that affects the way you treat people and the way you relate to God. So far, that's what I understand it to be. It's just been incredibly convicting and eye-opening. :S
- A few of the other girls and I decorated marshmallows with frosting and food coloring to make them look like faces. It was fantastic :)

- My shoulder is falling asleep from trying to type on my side...fail.

- We have lights out in 20 min...time for bed!