Thanksgiving

I meant to update over Thanksgiving Break, but that week just seemed to slip away from me.  Anyway, my last update left off with the end of my Bible Overview Project.  The rest of the week was full of class, homework, internship, costumes, football practice, and fellowship.  Needless to say it was Spirit Week at the Institute with themed costume days, powder puff football tournament, and a hoedown complete with an Institute King and Queen.  Such a blast!  It was definitely a crazy week, but it was all worth it. 

This past week was Thanksgiving Break.  It was so great to spend some time at home, get to go to FBC Collinsville, and to spend time with both college friends and life-long friends.  I loved sharing with people the things that God is teaching me during my time at the Institute.  It’s funny because you can tell when people are asking me about the Institute because they’re truly interested and when they’re asking me to be polite.  Needless to say, for those who really wanted to know, I got to share with them for quite awhile about just how great our God is.  Also a great time of being with the family at our cabins in Arkansas.  I got to enjoy the family that God has blessed me with and his beautiful creation.  Probably one of my favorite parts of break was having my family go to church with me at FBC Forsyth yesterday.  I loved getting to share that part of my Institute experience with them.  As much fun as I had on break and as much as I loved getting to be with my family, it feels so great to be back.  It has just been reinforced to me that I truly am where God wants me to be and I have a peace about where I am and even though I don’t know what the future has in store for me, I know that God is in control.  I’m so thankful for my time here at the Institute and the things that God is teaching me and the friendships that are forming and just being surrounded by people who are seeking to know Christ more.  I know that I have so much more to learn and God has so much more in store for my life and that excites me so much.  I’m also so thankful for everyone who has played a role in my life to help me get to where I am today.  I’m thankful for the support of family and friends that are making my time here possible.  I’m thankful for the salvation I’ve been given and the fact that I am a new creation in Christ.  I cannot get over how good God is! 

Anyway, we have two weeks until Christmas break.  Only two more weeks in the semester, weird.  I’m having a hard time imagining leaving my friends here and my kiddos at Forsyth again, and this time for 3 weeks!  These two weeks are going to be awesome though!  Please be praying for Winter Retreat for FBC Collinsville’s youth group this coming weekend which I’m so excited to get to be a part of.  Pray that God will work in mighty ways so that we have no choice but to give Him glory for what happens.  Please also continue praying for my financial situation and that I will continue to trust God that He will provide when and how He sees fit.  Also be praying for everyone that we will all remember the true reason for the season and that we will be willing to show Christ’s love to all those around us.  So thankful for you and your continued prayers! 

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Another week down.  Not even a whole week to go before it’s time to head home and then to our cabins in Arkansas for Thanksgiving.  Where has this semester gone?  I am absolutely loving each and every moment of my time at the Institute.  God is stretching me and teaching me thing beyond what I ever would have imagined.  I love the people that I’m here with and the friendships that I’m forming.  As much as I love it here, I’m excited to spend a week with my family and to get a chance to see some old friends and church family.  It will be so weird not being surrounded by 56 other people though.  Anyway…

This past week was a trying yet great week.  It is so cool to see how God provides and how His power is made perfect in my weakness.  I had my student speaker on Tuesday, it went pretty well but I was absolutely terrified, the fact that I was able to get through it at all was completely God.  Wednesday night I got to teach the 3^rd and 4^th grade girls at AWANA the song that I learned to memorize the books of the New Testament and just walk through with them what some of the different books are about.  It was a fun time.  It’s also been really fun just to see the relationships that I’m forming with these girls, even some that aren’t in my group.  It’s also really cool to see some of my girls memorizing God’s Word like crazy!  I had two girls say over 8 verses on Wednesday!  I am so proud of them!  Sunday was yet another adventure.  Pastor Jeramie is on a much deserved vacation so he wasn’t there and Jessica was spending some much deserved time with her family that was in town so she wasn’t there either and in case you are wondering, deer season is HUGE in Forsyth so many of our normal helpers were not there, so that left Abigail and I and a couple of helpers in charge of everything.  So again I say, Sunday was an adventure.  It went really well though, just another example of how God is good!  I taught the lesson this Sunday, yet another time of stretching, but God pulled through once again (like that is a surprise).  While some of the kids were a little crazy since Jeramie wasn’t there, there are always a few kids who are just such a blessing to me, in that they are hungry to hear God’s Word.  These kids are the ones that remind me that as long as there is at least one kid getting something out of it, then I’m up there for a purpose and I just have to let God speak through me.  God has used my internship as a great blessing for me, between the kids and the people that I get to work alongside I am blessed beyond my comprehension.  I could go on about how great my internship is for hours, but for the purpose of this update I won’t.

Yesterday we presented on the eras that we drew, bringing our Bible Overview Project to a close.  What a great assignment - developing a plan for teaching the Bible all the way through.  I presented on the Judges Era.  I can honestly say that I felt really good after my presentation, yet another God thing because I was so nervous going into it.  Keith and Jack were the ones that I presented to and they were such a blessing to me.  They just really encouraged me and how neat that I was sharing about how God used people we wouldn’t necessarily expect to be a Judge for Israel and got to tie it back in to how I felt so unworthy and incapable of teaching, yet God gave me the ability to do it.  I think God is just going to continuing beating that into me until I finally, truly get it and who knows how long that will take, but it’s been so cool to see Him working it out in my life and in the lives of those around me. 

The rest of this week is going to be busy, full of homework but also full of great fellowship.  Please pray that I will be able to find the balance between the two.  Please also pray for safe travels for everyone who will be traveling over this Thanksgiving holiday.  Also, Ben and Jennifer, two people from this Institute are getting married this Saturday, so great, but please be praying for their relationship because they will be the first to tell you that they want their marriage covered in prayer.  Also just be praying that we take every opportunity that God gives us to share the amazing things that God is doing in our lives.  Thank you all for your continued prayer and support!

Continuing to be stretched...

Another two weeks of the Institute done.  I cannot believe how fast time is flying!  Two weeks ago was Evangelism week.  Can you please say convicting and stretching?!  Evangelism is something that I have always been nervous about.  I am not a naturally outgoing person, I’m afraid of rejection, I’m afraid of not being good enough, and so many other things.  I know that God is in control and I know that I in myself cannot “save” anyone, but that its Christ working through me, and while I know all of these things, it doesn’t necessarily make sharing my faith much easier.  I think that is where some of my greatest frustration came, knowing the Truth but not having the Truth ease my anxiousness.  In fact I had a complete emotional breakdown Wednesday after class because I was so anxious about going out into the community in order to share the Gospel on Thursday.  But God is so good!  I’ve always been a firm believer in wanting to live my life in a way that is pleasing to God and through that hopefully people will notice there is something different about me and then ask me about it and then I am more than thrilled to share what God has done in my life, but I want people to approach me not the other way around.  Well Thursday I headed to the Branson Landing to talk to people and hopefully share the Gospel with them.  I had talked to a couple different people but those conversations hadn’t really gone anywhere so I decided that I wanted to buy one of the kiosk workers hot chocolate as a way to break the ice, I was going to take some to a guy that I had been talking to earlier but then I saw this girl at a scarf kiosk and God just told me that she was the one that I was to take the hot chocolate to.  So I took it over there and we talked for a little bit but not too much came of it so I went on to find more people to talk to.  Then as I walked past her later that morning she called me over to thank me for the hot chocolate and she told me that it completely made her day and that it was so good to know that there are people who still care in this world.  I just told her that I know how much God has blessed me and so I just wanted to be a blessing to someone else and then I got to share with her about the Institute and what I’m doing in Branson and it was just such a neat time that we spent together.  I found it amazing what God can do with something that only cost me $1.50.  I’m so excited because God really laid it on my heart to start passing out hot chocolate to the kiosk workers on a regular basis and so me and a couple of other girls went this morning.  It was such a great morning of just being a blessing and being blessed by the new people we met.  I cannot wait to go back and hopefully continuing to build relationships with the people there.  I have so much to learn from other people! 

This past Monday we talked about Spiritual Gifts and Personality.  Such a neat time!  It’s so neat to see how different everyone is, yet we are all made in the image of God and that each and every one of us plays a vital role in the Church.  I think that is a hard thing for me to remember at times.  I so often see the fun, outgoing people and I so wish I was one of them, but that is not the way God made me.  Yes, sometimes He is going to call me to be that person and He will give me the power to do that, but that is not me and that’s ok.  He made me just the way that I am for a reason.

Tuesday through Thursday Chad came and taught Church history.  Not a favorite subject of all, but I loved it.  I think everyone also got to see the importance of knowing Church history, plus everyone was excited to hear from Chad, especially on a topic he is passionate about.  Looking at what the Church as a whole has done right and wrong since the Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and seeing where the Church is right now and where it might be headed. 

Bible Overview Project is almost done.  We had our last checkpoint on Thursday, we will draw which era we are going to teach on this coming Thursday, and then we will teach them on the Monday after.  A little nervous about getting up and teaching, but I know it will be a good thing for me.  I also have my student speaker this Tuesday, I’m nervous about that, but I know that God will use me to speak Truth.  Please be praying for me as I prepare for my student speaker, that I will let God lead what I say and that He will speak through me.  Please continue to be praying for my finances, I know God will provide, the waiting is just hard sometimes.  I was so blessed and humbled this week by a donation that I received that I was not expecting at all, God is so good!  It was a reminder for me that God will provide even though I don’t necessarily know how and I cannot limit God and the way that He works.  Thank you for your continued prayers!  Please let me know how I can be praying for you, it’s the least I can do when I know how much you guys are doing for me.  Love you all!