So I am currently in the car on the way from Lubbock to Dallas with my awesome aunt and uncle (Brent and Melody) who were so great to bring me back with them! Quick recap of the past week...
Had a great time at briefing with our team and other teams from the Red River region of Campus Crusade (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas). It was really cool to see 100ish? people in one place answering the call to take the Gospel to the nations, including Italy, Greece, Russia, East Asia, and Ethiopia. We did a lot of team building, last minute preparation, learned about conflict resolution and how to love our team. All of my team except 3 of us left Tuesday evening, and I flew back to Midland. Because of the fires, I wasn't able to drive back to Lubbock until Wednesday morning. At first I was kind of bummed/stressed about that, but then I ended up getting to meet this precious guy.....
This is Connor. His parents are in my aunt and uncle's (Shane and Kim) Sunday school class. Connor was just adopted from Moscow and got to come home last week!! I have prayed for him and his new family since September, so to finally see him and see how well he is doing was incredible. I have joked about bringing about 5 kids like Connor back with me when I finish in Moscow...I completely believe that I will someday, but for now my Dad doesn't find it too exciting. :)
I got back to Lubbock on Wednesday and began packing (which was more challenging than I anticipated...) Thursday family started getting there. We had a big party to celebrate Marlee's life and graduation on Friday night with family and friends. It was great and she definitely raked in some good stuff. Graduation was yesterday. Shout out to Marlee for being a baller at life and graduating with honors and getting to sit on the front row. :) I'm so proud of her and can't wait to see what the next chapter of her life holds! I finally finished packing last night and got up at the crack of dawn to say bye to Marlee and send her off to the state choir competition.
Our flight leaves at 5:50 this evening from Dallas. We will fly to London and have a layover there, and then London to Moscow!! I am not sure what time (Texas or Moscow) that we will be getting there, but I know it's a long time from 5:50. Haha. I'll update and let you know when I arrive! You can be praying for safety and smooth travel logistics.
Thank you for partnering with me as we make Jesus' name known in Russia. I'm grateful for you and your support!!
I don't know what to say, other than now that school is out and I don't have any of the stress from homework/lesson plans/small children everywhere/projects/etc..., I can't quit thinking about Moscow. I'm seriously so pumped. There is a lot to be done before then, and I am almoooosssttttt to my support goal. I find myself praying for the same five things over and over.
-for the little bit of my financial support that I still need to come in
-for my team's financial support.
-for the students we will meet.
-for our team to bond quickly.
-for our team to have a peace knowing the Lord has prepared the way and gone before us.
I would love for you to join me in praying for those same things in the next several days! I will leave to go to briefing the 22nd-24th (that's less than two weeks :o!), then when my team leaves for Russia, I will come home to be a part of Marlee's graduation and all the festivities that go with that. Then, I will leave to meet my team on the 29th. We are so close and I am SO EXCITED.
With Easter this week, I keep finding myself thinking of the cross. It really is the base of what my faith comes down to. Without the cross, without Jesus, there is no hope. There is no reason to persevere, to live, to move forward. But because God became man, and came to live a perfect life in a fallen world, and was crucified on a cross between two criminals for MY sin and the rest of the world's sin, and then rose from the grave 3 days later-because of that, I have a hope, future, and purpose. Because He loves me and you so much, He died a brutal, undeserved death so that we can be with Him now and for eternity if we choose. And He so badly wants us to choose Him and what He has. I am so thankful.
This song is on my church's media page that has several of the songs that they perform on Sundays. Check it out.
"When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:30
I think the song says it all. Love it. So true of my life. I had a horrible April Fool's joke played on me today, and this song came to mind during the 30 minutes that I thought so many things had changed and been ruined. Maybe I'll write about that next. Enjoy this song, I do.
So I was intending on this just being a short and sweet song crush post. But as I've listened to the song over and over, I've figured out I have more to say. I think you should listen to the song before I write, so here it is...
I've known and liked this song for a while, but we sang it at CRU on Thursday night and it evoked emotion in me. The chorus talks about being restless until we rest in the Lord. I find that to be so true in my life. So often I want to go and do and figure it out all on my own, and I exhaust myself trying to do that. Maybe you can relate. The Bible tells us that we can't rest without God. As I listened to this song and tried to decide if it was blog-worthy, I was immediately reminded of a couple of verses. The first one is Psalm 62:5-8:
"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God, he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."
The first time I ever remember reading that is when I was learning to be a rappelling instructor. As my camp friends know, I was a complete mess the week I was violently shoved outside of my comfort zone by trying to learn all of that. I couldn't sleep because I was thinking of how scared I was and how I was never going to be able to do that for the entire summer and how I hated it and how I could get out of it and thinking of how my partner, Bryne and my boss, Steve probably just thought I was a complete sorority girl sissy. (I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm not, buuuut...haha) I couldn't rest. I couldn't do it. That is not how I'm wired and I was terrified. Then my friend Kylee, who had done my job the year before, pointed me to Psalm 62. I am still incredibly grateful for her wisdom that day. She probably doesn't know that every single time I was on top of that tower, looking up the gap, about to rappel with 10 junior high and high school kids watching me, I was scared to death. Every time. It got easier as the summer went on, but I was legitimately scared at least 4 times a day. What she also doesn't know, is that every time I looked up the gap and dreaded what I was about to do, I recited part of Psalm 62. I would say to myself, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him." and I would take a deep breath and go. It didn't make it more enjoyable, but it made it manageable. I quickly learned that if I ask the Lord to quiet my soul and I look to him for my rest, that He will respond. And yet even after learning that in a big way, in my every day life I find myself looking to earthly things to give me rest. I'm looking to my own wisdom and my own ideas to find rest, and I can't do it. I am restless.
So I guess that is why this song touches me so deep. I am restless every single day. And every single day, the Lord desires for me to rest in Him. Some days I actually figure that out. I don't want to be restless. I want to wake up and go through my day and go to sleep resting in Him alone. He is so faithful to pursue me even when I am running.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." -Matthew 11:28
When I first started blog-stalking, I had only one that I read. It was one of my dear family-friends, and she is a talented writer. Here is the link to her blog. Anyway, Mindy does what she calls "Song Crushes". I like the idea, so I am going to start a Song Crush Collection. My best friend recently asked me if I even like music. I laughed. Because I do really enjoy it and whether it be Pandora (which is my favorite) or iTunes or just the regular radio. I wish I could be like her, you know, one of those legit hipster granola people who is super in tune with the cover bands and people that start in coffee shops and all of that. I WISH I WAS THAT COOL. But the reality is, I'm not. I don't spend time looking up edgy acoustic bands, even though I think it's cool. However, I do stumble across songs and I become obsessed with them and listen to them for about a week straight. So, here's to having those recorded somewhere!
The first time I heard this song, I saw it on a friend's Facebook wall. I thought it was cheesy. The next time I heard it was on one of my sorority sister's engagement video, which by the way is the most precious thing I've ever seen in my life. I've learned since then that one of my good friends and her fiance are having their first dance to this song at their wedding in a few months. Anyway, this song is precious and I happen to love Train. And maybe someday this song will mean more than other precious people in ridiculously cute relationships. But for now it just makes me excited for all of my sweet friends that are engaged and gives this hopeless romantic a glimmer of hope. ;)
I've been neglecting my blog. I find that I have a lot to say and not a lot of time to sit down and write it all, so I just don't. I'm saying to heck with it, I want and need to get back in the practice of it so I'm just going to do a little bit at a time.
I've been busy. I went to the Red River Region Campus Crusade Winter Conference in Dallas the first few days of the year...it was incredible. I saw some of my dearest friends the first weekend in February, a few that I haven't seen since August. That was fun and I'll post pictures later. I have been working a ton, which is fun but I'm borderline burned out. We had freakish weather for like a week and the way Lubbock-ites responded, you would have thought the world was ending. I've had an awful sinus infection. We had a "Famous Couples" date party, my friend Ike and I went as salt and pepper. My sister got in an awful car wreck and broke her foot but we are so thankful that, for all practical reasons, she's in one piece.
The latest, greatest, most exciting news as of lately is that I got accepted to go to Moscow, Russia on a Summer Project with Campus Crusade!!!
I am so excited. I never in a million zillion years would have thought that's where I would ever go. The way the Lord has completely redirected my plans in the last six months has been crazy. I guess it all kind of started when I got home from camp. I was really sad and borderline depressed for about a month. I had had an incredible summer with some incredible people and all I wanted to do was go back. I had told myself that no matter what, that's where I would be in the summer of 2011. God obviously had some different plans. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say this: I literally woke up one day and had a change of heart. No circumstances had changed. Nothing had happened. I woke up and thought to myself, "I'm not sure that I want to go back, and I'm not sure that I am supposed to." It was really sad for me to feel that way, and I even tried to talk myself out of it because of my relationships with people there. I couldn't seem to change my God's mind. So I began to pray about what the summer would hold. I should have prayed about it before I just subconsciously made a decision, but I am human. God has a funny way of reminding us of things, huh? Anyway, at CRU I kept hearing about these things called Summer Projects. As I learned more about them, I realized that they are all over the United States and all over the world. I have several friends that have been different places, and I've heard nothing but wonderful things. I kept hearing about Moscow. When I say kept hearing, I mean KEPT hearing. It seemed like everywhere I went someone was talking about it. To be honest, it was kind of annoying. Obviously it was a great experience, but look at all the other places you could go. You would choose Russia, really? And aside from that, I was planning to have to be in Lubbock for the summer, based on a position in my sorority I was anticipating. You can read about that here. When that didn't go as I had planned, I reluctantly looked into all different Summer Projects. I talked to my friend, the director of CRU at Tech, about a handful of different places, and he kept bringing me back to Moscow. I told him I would pray about it, but that there were some pretty major issues with dates for that trip, and that I wasn't sure I could pull it off. When I was at the Winter Conference, I met the leader of this project, and come to find out there are a few other people who would have to go a few days late like I would. I said I couldn't pull it off, but God can. So I drug my feet on filling out this intense application, but I did. Since doing that, I've had several people ask me, why Russia? My sister in particular has asked me why I don't go somewhere "cooler" like France or Italy or something. I can say with complete faith and honesty, that the only reason I am going to Moscow is because God told me to. If I'm being honest, I don't have a huge desire to see Russia. I would love to see New York or Chicago or Australia or Italy or Ethiopia or any of the other places that Campus Crusade has projects. But the Lord has just opened doors and completely directed me to Russia. How cool is that?? I can't wait to see what He has in store there.
So I am going to spend 6 ish weeks in Russia, building relationships and telling some of the 1,000,000 plus college students there about Jesus. Less than 1% of the population in Moscow are Christians. Moscow is the culture and educational center for most of the Asian continent. Students come from the Caucus regions (the "stans"), Eastern Europe, Siberia, and Mongolia. If you know what the 1040 window is, a lot of people from there come to school in Moscow. (If you don't know what the 1040 window is, you should google it!!) It includes places that would not be safe for us to go share the Gospel. What is so cool and hard for me to imagine, is that if somehow we God can reach some of those people in Moscow, they can take the Gospel to their country much easier than we can. I can't even wrap my mind around that, but I am trying to learn to have an eternal perspective.
If you're still with me....
This is a video that was showed at CRU a few weeks ago. It's powerful. Take 4 minutes and watch it.
I'm going because there are roughly 140 million people in Russia, and less than 1 million follow Christ. That is .642%.
"Therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:19-20
I am going to have to raise a lot of money for this to happen. I know that if God has called me to this, that He will be faithful to provide the funds to get me there. If you want to join my team and partner with me in fulfilling The Great Commission, please let me know. I would be eternally grateful.
If you have made it this far, bless you! That was LONG.
I am excited about what the Lord is doing in Russia and in my life. And hopefully I'll blog more soon.
