Fun in Florida

Hi friends! Are you all busy making plans for Thanksgiving? I pray you all have a marvelous time with your family and friends and find much to be grateful for.

One thing that I am grateful for is my team. As you know I am going to North Africa this summer, Lord willing. Last weekend some of my team took a road trip to Florida for a conference. It was amazing! I learned so much about North Africa and how to minister there. God burdened my heart for these people in a new way. It is amazing how much you can love people you have never met. We went to lots of meetings, had lots of fun and got little sleep.

Five of us drove down together in one car and it was a great team bonding time. I got to know some of my other teammates much better and am so excited to be able to minister with them this summer. Of course we had to go to the beach since we were in Florida! Saturday night we drove to the coast and got to wade in the Gulf of Mexico. It was about 11:00 at night so we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. It was still warm out! (Sorry, I know most of you are dealing with snow and cold right now, but for this girl, it was great!) It was my first time on a beach that I can remember. I went to the Sea in Latvia, but there was snow on the ground so it wasn't quite the same. This was a fun first experience to share with my team! The picture above is of us at the beach.

Thanksgiving Break starts on Wednesday. I am looking forward to the much needed rest. Actually, I need to catch up on lots of homework! It is crazy to think that the semester is almost done. I am really looking forward to seeing most of you at Christmas! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!! (Then I get to come back where it is warm!)

I covet your prayers as this semester comes to an end. It is difficult to stay motivated when I am tired and know that I won't see my friends for a month when we are all on break. I want to hang out with them instead of doing homework! Please pray that I would finish well and keep a balanced life as I finish up these next couple of weeks.

“When God’s finger points, God’s hand will open the door.”

~Clarence W. Jones

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...