I'll Be Home For Christmas...

Hello Friends!

I am so thankful to be writing this post from beautiful, winter-laced Michigan :)

It has been fun and refreshing to be at home with some of my favorite people! We've played games, watched movies, celebrated birthdays, and laughed at/with each other.... quite a bit. I love my family :)

Today, I had lunch with a wonderful friend from church. I always feel so honored when people take time from their lives to ask about mine... I think getting to share life with people is such a beautiful privilege. :) I was so encouraged to hear more of her story and laugh together about the things God has taught each of us and brought each of us through. I really appreciate her heart. :) 

I also went on a beautiful, freezing walk with my dad and sister... Wanna see? :)

It was beautiful. :)

Praying y'all are enjoying this Christmas holiday as much as I am!  Blessings! :)

Justine

Mulching (an old entry I forgot to post... In October)

Last Saturday, we mulched.
In semi-monsoon conditions. :)

We are really enjoying our time in Minnesota!
This past week, we have been in Cloquet, MN working with a really awesome church, and with Volunteer Services in the area.

<font face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif">Fall Tour Update</font>

Hello Lovely People!

Greetings from Holdingford, MN!

We are staying at a sweet church, working with some genuinely-awesome people...

This week, we will be helping them rake and mulch around the church, and build a retaining wall. 

Also planning on bowling and catching fish to fry for dinner! Should be awesome :)

We have been so blessed on this trip so far... 

Our first stop was with a lovely family in OK... super huge family farm, but their hearts and hospitality were bigger. The family was super sweet and fed us well. :)

We stayed one night, then headed to Rapid City, SD!

Cedar Canyon Camp let us stay in one of their really nice cabins, in exchange for painting the ceilings in 16 of their cabin rooms in the mornings.

In the afternoons and evenings, we worked with He Sapa New Life Church, reaching out to the Native American. The pastors have a huge heart for the Natives, and it was really encouraging to hear the ways God has given them favor in their ministry. They purchased their adorable church building and property for $1, they reach 4,000+ people through their DVD ministry (by recording their Sunday services and sending them out to Natives on the surrounding reservations), and they have a gift for contextualizing the Gospel message for their people. Please be praying for He Sapa New Life, that God would continue to send people to encourage and strengthen their ministry! :)

Next stop: Sioux Falls, SD! We had the privilege of staying for a few days with my friend Ryan and his family... they were super kind and hospitable to us! We got to hang out with the Shalom CRC Youth for a night, which was awesome. We felt it was especially important to encourage them that their testimonies were super valuable, and that they had the freedom to be real about their struggles. Please pray for these students, that they would continue to walk in the light and appreciate the privilege of growing up in the church and in Christian education. :)

We spent one night in Minneapolis with our friend Josh (who did schools with me)... it was good to see him and hang out downtown. :) Please pray that God would continue to encourage Josh daily and surround him with people who would encourage him, too. 

Tonight: Kelsey came to visit! It's been so encouraging to meet YWAMers in our travels, and we love Kelsey. :) Super thankful for her. 

Super thankful for the 8.5 hours of sleep I'm about to devour. :D

Goodnight! :)

Back to the blog...

Sheesh...

I have been putting off blogging because I keep thinking "that's great! I need to blog that later..." And then I get busy and three different things stack up....and then I forget. Haha.

No excuse. :)

Anyway... I had the opportunity to come home this week! My family planned a memorial service to celebrate my grandpa's life, and because of some miscommunication, it was three weeks out and I still hadn't purchased a plane ticket! I started looking online, and they were ridiculously more than I was looking to spend. But I felt a strange peace about not buying one then. A week before I was supposed to be going home, I was coleading an outreach in Chicago, and realized my neighbors from MI were driving to Chicago at the very end of our outreach. They were more than happy to bring me back with them! So I looked again for plane tickets and miraculously found a reasonable one-way ticket into a small city near where I'm at in TX, which was abnormally cheaper than flying into the larger airport that's farther away! God is so good to me! :)

Coming home was super cheap, and it's been so refreshing and wonderful!

Because of the holiday weekend and the memorial service, I have been blessed with exquisite company this past week... Most of my dad's side of the family came, and some of my mom's cousins were up to visit, too!

Here are some picture snippets:

Because I went straight home from outreach in Chicago, I only had outreach clothes with me! You know what that means.... Shopping!! :)

I spent a lot of time admiring and enjoying how beautiful our house is! My mom does a wonderful job of making this space beautiful... 

I also enjoyed the significantly cooler weather and small town culture by taking walks and eating lots of ice cream :)

Tiny superman, complete with cape :)

Hanging out with my crazy family, of course!

My awesome "little" bro was center snare for the marching band in the parade!

And I was reminded again of God's promises. He always gives really good perspective. :)

I am quite thankful for this little visit home. :)

Stine

Home Coming.. *warning, it's a long one*

Hello Friends!

I'm back in the good old US of A. Glad to be sleeping in my own bed, making my own breakfast, drinking milk, driving my car, understanding street signs, breathing fresh air...

It's good to be home. :)

This may have been the most challenging trip I've been on so far, but not for the normal "outreach" reasons (comfort, relational issues, etc.). I think this past year, God has been stretching me and teaching me not to idolize my own comfort... which has been awesome and terrible. I'm still learning so much about sacrifice, but it's funny how kind God is... He teaches us a little at a time. Lately, comfort has not been my focus. I've been learning about living from the heart and relying on His grace. I want to speak a little into living from the heart.

I used to read passages like Galatians 5 (the fruit of the Spirit) and think, "I need to work on being loving/joyful/peaceful/patient/kind/good/gentle/faithful/self-controlled." And I would pick one thing to work on for that week, another to work on for the next week, etc.

And I couldn't stay consistent with any of them!!

Talk about insanity.

So during the first SST camp in South Korea, I was drawn to Galatians 5.
Verse 1: "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Enter Holy Spirit revelation [<<<<This is my favorite part about reading the Bible!!!!!]:
Jesus already did everything that was necessary for me to live in freedom. It is finished!
My responsibility is to *decide* to walk in that victory. It's my job to protect that victory. It's my choice to dance in the light of that victory or to stay in my closet of fear.

Enter my dilemma:
If the beginning of this chapter says Jesus set me free for freedom, then what am I to do with the rest of the chapter?
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."
Remember, I've tried to be diligent in all of these things and failed miserably. I've worked and stressed myself out and tried and failed to maintain each of these... feeling very burdened.
That doesn't sound like freedom...

However!!!

In between, we read about being led by the Spirit.
The next word to jump out at me was "fruit."

Enter the epiphany:
Fruit is something that grows.

TAADAAAA!!!!  genius, right? ;)

Fruit is not something that we can just ask for and receive. It's not something we can work at. It's not something someone else can give us.

The fruit that comes from our lives:
- Comes from within: It's the internal (good or bad) coming out for everyone to see. It's an external representation of the internal reality. Basically, exposes what's inside.
- Takes time: Fruit doesn't grow overnight.

Enter the application to my life:
I have been trying to fix all of these things EXTERNALLY. I have been trying to "manipulate" fruit/create fruit without dealing with my heart. Fruit naturally comes from within, so I should be more worried about the INTERNAL - my heart - if I want to see the external change for longer than a few days.

So that's a lot less stressful. Living from the inside out, instead of constantly trying to fix the outside.

Enter the conclusion:
All this to say, I am not perfect, but I am okay with that. I don't plan to sit on imperfection; neither do I plan to stress myself out trying to look like I have it all together.
I don't think God's plan for our lives is that we would look like we have it all together when we don't.

So I am in a process, but I am at rest in that process. And I'm really thankful to finally be at rest. :)

Oh Korea!

Hello friends!

I'm writing this from a really neat cafe in Yong-In, South Korea!

"Caffe D'ate: Roasting Coffee and Dessert"

Artsy-retro decor

Anyway, it's a super cute place. EVERYTHING in Korea is really cute. Appearance is very important here: people, gifts, packaging, architecture, decor, etc.  

This has been such an example to me of how giftings from God are so wonderful when they are redeemed and properly understood, and so devastating when they aren't. 

Koreans have a gift for making things beautiful and welcoming and perfect. Even their take-out food is wrapped beautifully... almost to the point where I don't want to eat the food and destroy the wrapping.... almost. ;)

They have really got a knack for creativity and creating beauty.

However, the other side of this is that they feel the need to be physically "perfect." In Korea, there is one standard for beauty: thin faces, big eyes, defined chins and cheek bones and noses, and a thin body. If you don't look like that, you're ugly and you need plastic surgery. 

Plastic surgery is huge over here... many parents pay for plastic surgery for their kids as a gift when they graduate from high school. Most people in America try to hide it if they get plastic surgery, but here it's pretty normal and people don't even try to hide it anymore. No one thinks it's wrong. 

I taught on Identity this past week, and it was interesting to hear feedback from the kids. One of the main points I make in the teaching is that our identity doesn't come from what we look like. Our worth doesn't come from our appearance. God created us with care and fashioned us individually, and He doesn't make mistakes... So how does that affect our thoughts about our appearance? What about plastic surgery? 

We asked God to come and give us new perspective, and it was so amazing to hear what He had to say to each individual student and it was encouraging to actually see the difference in how students carried themselves once they had a revelation of how God sees them and an understanding of their value apart from what they look like, what they do, what they have, their mistakes, etc. 

That despite all of these things (or lack of these things), the God of the universe loved them enough to freely give that which was most dear to Him: His only Son. 

What a mighty God we serve! He is so loving and kind!

And I am so blessed and encouraged each day as I get to see Him work in my own life and in the lives of others. What a privilege! :)

This is Kristin. Isn't she beautiful??
When she first came to the camp, she would barely look anyone in the eye. Her hair always covered at least half of her face, and she almost never smiled.
She has grown up hearing that she is ugly, stupid, and will never amount to anything.
This past week I had the opportunity to tell her everyday that she is beautiful, created with great care, and has incredible value.
In the grand scheme of things, it seems like a really small thing. But God has specific plans for the little girl's life, and it begins with her gaining an understanding of her value. That she really does matter, and she is not forgotten. She is not "less than." She is a daughter of the King!
By the end of the camp, Kristin was laughing and smiling with all of us. She had her hair out of her face, and she even walked differently. When I would tell her she is beautiful, she finally said "Thank you" instead of "No, I am very ugly."
God has begun such a work in her heart and her mind! Praise Jesus!

Please pray that this would continue! Pray that God would continue to meet Kristin while she's at home, and that as we continue God's work in Korea, He would be faithful to meet with His kids and change their hearts and minds.

Thanks guys! Love y'all! :)