Newsletters!! :)

My newsletters have finally come back from the copy place! :) I'm a little sad, because they're a little darker than I would have liked, but they'll accomplish their purpose :)
This is how they start:

Hello Friends!

That's the important part. I wanted you to see the picture... because that's really the only part that didn't turn out so good. :)

Anyway, today is the last lecture day! :(
It's been so good, I don't want it to be over yet! But today was the best day, by far! We had my favorite teacher!!! Her name is Heather, and she's just a really energetic speaker, and she knows a lot about historic Jewish culture.
And!!!
This afternoon, the one and only Joel will be teaching! Because his school is all about the Bible, and teaching. So he will be coming to teach my school :)

It's gonna be good! 
And to top it all off, we're having a Dwell night (worship service) tonight!
Hope you're having as wonderful of a day as I am! :)

So close!

So close to the end of my School of Evangelism! It's so crazy... I don't feel like I've been here for very long, but at the same time, I feel like I've been here forever. But definitely not long enough to almost be done!

So many thoughts...
It'll be nice to be home.
I will miss all of my incredible friends.
I'm excited to go back to college.
I would love to stay here and learn some more!
I'm excited to play on Kuyper's volleyball team.
I have had so much fun playing sand volleyball and soccer here every Saturday....
I really do miss my family!!!

It's going to be really good to be home, but I have learned so much from these amazing people! I really have appreciated the deep friendships and the openness and honesty we've all shared. It's been awesome. Wouldn't trade it for the world. :)

Anyway, this is the last week of lecture. Next Monday we will be starting to prepare for SST's (the high school summer "camp" programs..... they are basically very mini-DTS's (the first school I went through: Discipleship Training School) with a week of lecture and a week of outreach). I'm so excited!! :)
Please be praying that God will speak to students to come this summer and step out in faith to raise the support to be here this summer. He wants to change their lives! :)

Oh! I got a really awesome package from my parents! :)
I'll post pictures as soon as I can! :)

A small prayer with consequences...

It's a funny thing. when you ask God to humble you... he'll do it. sometimes by putting you in a community living setting. Sometimes by putting you under authority that gives you a curfew. sometimes by having you clean toilets.

And sometimes, by doing all of these things at once. :)
But the cool thing is, if you ask for it, you can't really complain when it happens :D

But you know what! God is faithful, he wants my highest good. So i know that if I'm scrubbing toilets, i'm serving him, blessing his heart, and learning humility. :)

Psalm 113:7-9
"He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy fromt he ash heap, to make them sit with prices, with the prices of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!"

My daily work duty: cleaning the girl's dorm bathrooms

My small group leader's baby shower! :)

Baked goods I helped package for a fundraiser for our school :)

Urban Missions Week!!

Happy May everyone! :)

Our school just got back from a week in Chicago, Illinois! Our focus for lecture this week was Urban culture and how to share Jesus with people in cities, so we packed up into three, 15-passenger vans and drove 16 hours to Chicago. It was such a cool experience!

I've been to Chicago before, but I had no idea there was such cultural diversity clustered throughout the city! There are literally complete cultural centers every few blocks... you can be walking along in a Pakistani district (they all speak the language, dress the same, have their cultural shops and restaurants), and cross the street into an Israeli district. The street names change and everything!

Needless to say, we got to eat a lot of really good ethnic food, and talk with some really neat people.

One day we went downtown and were just asking the people walking by if we could pray for them. We were rejected numerous times, but we were able to pray for over 300 people in just one hour! Imagine how many people were encouraged that day! :) I was able to pray for healing in a woman's back, recovery from a cancer operation for someone's sister, healing for a man's wife from crohn's disease, several court case rulings, the security guards of the plaza we were walking around in, and many other awesome people.

We also visited a nursing home in the city and met some precious little old people who were really lonely. Most of them were from India and had moved here to be closer to their children, but their children didn't visit them anymore. It was so hard to leave them! :( But we got to sing to them, pray for them, and hear about their lives. One little old lady told me to call her Nani (the word for Grandmother in her language) and asked me to sit and watch her soap operas with her :) they were all in another language, so she explained them to me. It was precious!

Our last day in the city, we visited the a "temple"? of krishna consciousness and a muslim mosque... The point of this time was to examine both religions and try to see what attracted people to them, and what they were clearly missing that Christianity addressed. It was a very eye-opening time for me, and really made me fall more in love with God, because of his love and his greatness... no other god compares! :)

Some awesome quotes from this week's teaching with Brad Stanley:
- " The enemy doesn't waste his time with things that aren't a threat to him...Where is he working overtime to steal, kill, and destroy, and what treasure is buried there that he's working against?"
- "It's more important to understand the redemptive gift of a place than the spiritual strongholds... We shouldn't be out chasing the devil and fixing things after he's made a mess. We should be taking hold of God's purposes and helping cities to realize their giftings as a city."

All in all, this was a really neat week! We were engaging in hands-on, applicable-to-the-moment learning, and going out to bless a beautiful city. I would love to do ministry in Chicago again sometime, and I might actually get the chance to lead the summer camp outreach there this summer for my outreach as an SST Staff person. :)

As always, thank you for being interested in my life! Love you :)

 Photo taken at "the bean"... by Kaitlin G.

My mohawk! :) Taken by Jake M.

Chicago at night! Taken by Meganne S.

The Krisna Conscious place taken by Meganne S.

 

Pizza at Lou Malnati's! Taken by Kaitlin G.

Unfortunate Mishap...

So. I had a fairly nice camera, a Canon something or other that had pretty neat features and settings. And over outreach in Guatemala, I learned how to use it and what most of the settings were for.

The weekend that I got back, my purse and all of its contents (including my camera) were soaked in brake fluid...

Alas, my camera is ruined. I don't think that it's still under warranty, since I've had it for three years. The lens won't even open. it's really sad.

So! If you hear of someone who's selling a fairly nice camera for cheap, or upgrading their camera and needing someone to take the old one off of their hands, please let me know! I would like to be able to take pictures so I can communicate better with you, since you're not here with me. Thanks! :)

Love you!

Justine

Huge Update! :)

Sorry for the long wait, ya'll :)

This past week of class was Financial Seminar. We learned the biblical basis on why it's okay for missionaries to ask for money and how to best go about that... we are to view it as "friend-raising" instead of fundraising. It was a very insightful week... God really spoke to me about tithing and really holding the money he gives me with an open hand...ready to give it when he asks.

Anyway, really busy, full week.

Last weekend I helped staff a mini SST (this used to stand for Summer of Service in Training, and now we just use the acronym... it's not called that anymore :D). It was really neat! I had the chance to get a taste of what I'll be doing this summer for my outreach, and I didn't really hate it, so I'm encouraged! It's going to be a good summer!

Maybe you're thinking, "wait... I thought she was going to Germany for outreach." well... I thought that too. But I realized that I hadn't actually taken time to ask God where he wanted me to go.

When I got back to the base here in Texas, I just felt uneasy about going to Germany, and then I heard that there were only 3 girls helping staff SSTs... so I thought I would take a little time to talk to God about it.

I had a little time of worship by myself, and then I just felt peace... that I knew that no matter where I decided to go for outreach, God would use me and provide for me, and it would all work out. I was outside, and as I began to look around at the ponds and sunshine and trees, I got more and more excited about being in Texas for the whole summer.

One of the many ponds on the base :)

Okay, here's the important part. Bear with me, because maybe you won't think this makes a whole lot of sense, or that it's a very solid reason to change my outreach, but I have to tell you... I *know* God spoke to me.

So I was sitting on cement that's got all of these little rocks in it, and there were two dark rocks, one closer to me than the other. And as I looked at them, I started to think that the one furthest from me could be a penny. It looked like maybe it was... calcified? or something... there was that white/teal stuff on it... in the shape of a head, i thought.

So I was thinking, okay. this is what we'll do. If it's heads, I'm going to Germany. If it's tails, I'll staff SSTs. And if it's a rock, then I'm a moron and I'm done with this whole thing. And I stopped and asked God if it was okay, and he said yes.
So... I walked closer, and it *was* a penny. and it was definitely tails up. So I flipped it over to look at the other side, and the whole other side was completely white, so you couldn't even see the head! :)

So... I'm going to staff SSTs. :)  And I'm actually really excited about it! I really enjoy working with youth. Rightly so, since my major in college is Youth Ministry :) And I love being able to speak into their lives and share my life with them and encourage them, because High school and Middle school can really suck. And I've had really bad experiences every time I went to camp, so I want to be moral support for those kids! :) haha.

So... I think we're up to speed now :) If there's anything that I forgot to cover, or something you would like me to write about/you're curious about, shoot me a message or an email or something...

Praying for you as I fall asleep... may God bless you this coming week!

Justine

So much!!!!

Hello Everyone!
Long time, no post... I know. very sorry... it's been quite busy here lately...
Quick updates that I will get into later hopefully:

- I received a very generous gift toward my school, which was totally led by the Lord! Thanks to everyone who is praying and supporting... you are all amazing! I'm so grateful that God has blessed me with you!

- I have changed my outreach... I'm going to staff the SST's this summer (high school summer camp program). We will be leading the students through a very condensed mini-DTS, and an outreach phase, which will be to Chicago, Houston, or Haiti. (I'll try to write about how God spoke to me about this change next week sometime...).

- I'm helping staff a mini-SST for a youth group this weekend, which is why i'm so pressed for time right now  :) I have to pack still, and i have class in 15 minutes... haha :)


Well, more later! But I wanted to write a quick overview so everyone knew what was going on! Love you all!

Justine