Personal Prayer Retreat

Hello Prayer Warriors!

I want to share with you an experience I have had recently. One of the requirements for my Prayer and Discipleship class is to do a Personal Prayer Retreat, which I did recently. I spent eight hours in fasting and prayer and it was an amazing time with the Lord. I want to share with you some of the things I wrote in my journal that day:

I got up this morning excited to start my day with the Lord. I got ready and started out this day by taking a walk with the Lord down to the Pointe [a beautiful spot just down from my house that looks over the city and countryside]. It was such a beautiful morning. It is really cold out, you can see your breath and I saw people looking for something to scrape their cars with! It feels like home. J When I got down there, it was really foggy and I couldn’t see out at all. However, there was this spot off to the right where the clouds were low and you could see the tall buildings of Columbia rising up above them. Also the sun was shining and there was a pink hue to the clouds there. It was really quite amazing and spectacular! My first thought was that it looked like a city of God. So I spent a few minutes praying for the city of Columbia, that it would be a city of God. Then the clouds rose up and covered the city again. I feel as if God gave me a special look at how He sees this city. Even though darkness is trying to cover it, He sees a city that He wants to set apart for Himself.

Isaiah 61 is talking about Jesus (Luke 4:16-20). This is what He was sent to do so that we could be the kind of people it talks about at the end of that passage. However, it is also what Jesus has sent us to do. John 17:18 Jesus is talking to His Father about us. He says, “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” After Jesus’ death and resurrection, He appeared to His disciples. John 20:21 tells us that, “Again Jesus said, Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’.”

[Reflections on Psalm 9] God, there are people in this world who are lost without you and going to hell. There are people who are oppressed and need to hear about you so you can be their refuge. Yes people may persecute, harm, even kill me, but you will never forsake me and what you have done must be proclaimed among the nations – all nations.

As you can see, the theme of the day seemed to be God’s heart for the nations. As you know, God has laid on my heart the nations and the need to tell them about Jesus. I feel like during this day of prayer, God renewed the fire in my heart and the passion to reach the lost was revived.

It's About That Time

Hi friends!

Well, it is about that time again. Time to write to you and fill you in on my life as of the last month. It has been a good month. I have been keeping busy as usual. The birthday parties still haven't ended - one more tonight, another one next week and then one or two more later in November! It is fun to gather with friends and celebrate them.

Classes are going well. I finally feel somewhat caught up this week. Last week was Fall Break and I was able to catch up on homework as well as relax a lot and spend time with friends. We went to the South Carolina State Fair which was a convenient 10 or 15 minutes from campus. This is only the second state fair I have ever been to and it was lots of fun. We ate good food (I got cotton candy - yea!) and we got to go to the Casting Crowns concert that night. It was held in the grandstands at the fair and was amazing. I felt more like I was in a church service than a concert. It was encouraging and the music was great!

What else have I been up to? We had something called Formal Open Dorms a couple of weeks ago. That was fun. We all get together and decorate the guys dorms. Their sister floors come over and they really go all out. This years theme was "classic board games". The grad/seminary students did Risk - the game of world domination! Some of the other floors were Life, Mousetrap and Clue. For our hall we decorated each room as a different continent. We decorated the hall as if they were walking through the ocean. Then we had actors in each room who were dressed up as people from that continent. As teams came in, they actually played the game in each room. I was the actor in the North America room and was a soldier! Yes, I was all decked out in camo and got to yell at people as they came in. It was a lot of fun! Our hall didn't win, but we declared ourselves third place winners!

Besides that I have been registering for classes for next semester and planning for my trip to North Africa this summer. This week we are doing round one of applications. Please be in prayer with me for these next couple of weeks. They will be a crucial time in developing our team and determining who will be a part of it or not. None of us are "in" for sure yet and are all seeking the Lord and His will for each of our lives and the team.

I pray you are all doing well. I would love to hear from you - what have you been up to lately? Until next time...

In the Trenches

Here is my long overdue update. Sorry I have not written in a while. Life has been busy for me as I'm sure it has been for you. First of all, I want to thank you for your e-mails. I have heard from many of you and it has been such an encouragement! I am sorry I have not been able to personally respond yet.

Things are going well here. I have a ridiculous amount of school work to do and I often feel as if I am barely keeping my head above water. It is such good stuff though. It makes me want to do my homework and I wish that there were more hours in the day! The picture above is of our back porch where I spend many hours doing homework! What a beautiful place God has given me to learn about Him in. I have been learning so much about who I am in Christ and my relationship with the Lord. I agree with Erik (if you get the Wahlen's update) that I have learned more this past month than I have in the past year. It is amazing the things that God is teaching me. It is hard and it is good. I have had many walks with God in the past month! I find that as I am doing homework sometimes I need to just get up, go on a walk with God and talk about it for a while. Then I can come back and continue reading or whatever I had been working on.

Life outside of homework is good as well. I am making some really good friends and that is such a blessing and answer to prayer. The girls I live with are wonderful and I have great neighbors! We have been having lots of birthday parties lately and that is fun. We have another one this weekend! I am so grateful that we are not allowed to do any homework on Sunday's. They have become very special days of rest for me and I have come to see how much I need them. In the future I am going to be very intentional about keeping a Sabbath (be it Sunday or some other day) as I have seen the importance of it. We hear over and over how what we do flows out of who we are. I am learning how to focus on being and it is wonderful!

Another exciting thing in my life is that I am planning on going to North Africa this summer. I am super excited about this and I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about that in future blogs!

Please continue to pray for me, that I would have deep relationships even though I am only here a short time. Also keep my studies in prayer. I have a lot of homework and it is hard to balance the discipline of study with the rest I need with time with my friends. I have a large amount of work due for my on-line class next week - please pray that I would get it all done! Thank you for your prayers. I covet them and would not be doing as well as I am here without them. Thank you!