Always, Always

My foes are many, they rise against me, but I will hold my ground. I will not fear the war, I will not fear the storm, my help is on the way, my help is on the way. Oh my God, you will not delay, my refuge and strength always. 

A song that has been on my heart a lot recently is the one above, entitled Always by Kristian Stanfill. The song is a great example of something that I have to continually remind myself of: there is my perspective and there is God's perspective. Even when my obstacles seem overwhelmingly impossible, God is bigger and stronger. My God will come through always, always. My biggest challenge right now is looking at the amount I have to raise (49% to go!) compared with the amount of time left (only a few weeks til Aug 16th!) and just trust that God has got it all under control. Of course, there are so many details besides just getting the finances to come in and I have to daily turn over my worries/burdens/struggles to God because ultimately I have zero control over them anyway. I will not fear, His promise is true. 

Last week I took pictures for the Evening Bible Camp program at Chantilly Bible Church. I took almost 1,000 photographs during the course of the week! But not every picture was in focus, not every picture captured the moment, and not every photo forms an adequate picture of what it was like to actually be there and participating in the events. Part of my role as the EBC photographer, was to go through all the photos, delete some, and to organize the rest into a powerpoint slideshow so that the parents could see in 8.5 minutes what went on during the week. This is how it is with God, I see glimpses of how He is at work both now and in the past year, but I'm not sure how they all fit together. I'm not even sure that they will make a cohesive whole. This event looks blurry, this one might be upside down for all I know, and this one seems too good to be true. I waste rather a lot of time trying to tell God how to organize the slideshow. This would be similar to someone who hadn't even been at EBC trying to tell me that the photograph of the kids in the canoe should go under 'Bible teaching.' God is the one who is putting everything in its proper place at its proper time. It is so freeing to realize that He has only the best in store for me. Troubles surround me, chaos abounding. My soul will rest in you. God is always by my side and on my side. Always.

Archery at Evening Bible Camp

I've Been Set Free

My chains are gone! I've been set free! ~Amazing Grace, Chris Tomlin

It's so appropriate that on the day that America celebrates it's independence, I am celebrating my freedom from college debt! In the two years since I have graduated, I was able to work and throw most of my paycheck towards eliminating my debts before finally paying them off on July 1st. But really, this is all by the grace of God who provided me with a job and worked everything out in his perfect timing. If I had not had debts coming out of college I might have pursued InterVarsity right away without ever finding out about InterVarsity Link. Praise the Lord that he led me to Link and that it is such a perfect fit, it was worth waiting for! Jesus also came to set us free from bondage to sin and for that I am also incredibly thankful this Fourth of July. 

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ~Galatians 5:1

Storms of Life

On Monday, June 24th, our Link group joined the rest of the new staff who are going to be serving in the US at the Best Western, Inn on the Park, in downtown Madison. Corina and I got to stay being roommates and I got to see Jess and Alyssa again! Jess is the IV staff worker for my alma mater, the University of Mary Washington. Alyssa is a fellow alum from UMW who is now on staff with IV in New Jersey. Our hotel was right on the capitol square and very close to State Street where all the main restaurants and shops are in Madison. On Saturday, there was a farmer's market ten paces from the front door. Our group had free time to explore every afternoon in between sessions of studying scripture, and learning more about how to be a good InterVarsity employee. We also made numerous trips to the NSC (National Service Center), the headquarters for InterVarsity. From there, we made phone calls as well as got introduced to all the different departments for lots of fun goodies, including so many free books the bottom of my suitcase was lined with them!

On Sunday, it was time to leave. We were all commissioned on Saturday night with a great time of dinner, celebration, and prayer at a local church. Then, we all said goodbye. My flight on Sunday from Madison to Detroit went smoothly, but once in Detroit I had a 3 hour layover before I could leave for Dulles. Unfortunately, my flight was eventually cancelled! I believe due to thunderstorms, but I'm not sure.  I spent quite a long time talking to a customer service agent before it was confirmed that I could not get to DC that night. She did get me a hotel room though and booked me a flight for Monday. This meant that I had to miss work and that I didn't have my bag as they kept it at the airport, but I at least had somewhere comfy to sleep as well as free breakfast! I hung around in Detroit airport until Corina came through on a later flight to Reagan. She and I were able to buy dinner with the food voucher Delta airlines had given me and I watched her get on to her plane before taking the hotel shuttle to another Best Western.

This whole orientation we have spent a lot of time talking about cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, and personality types so that we are more aware of ourselves when we go to live in another country/culture. Yet, these things are valuable skills for coping in our own! A cancelled flight in an unknown city was just one more test on the path to becoming more prepared to live interdependently as a missionary. And similarly to when I studied abroad and had to get around England for the first time without my parents, I realized, I can do this! I can work to get a flight, to get a hotel, to leave my bag, to find the shuttle. When things don't seem to go according to the plan, I am never alone! As the song says, the God of angel armies is always by my side.

In a culture that prizes independence, we read in the Bible that dependence on God is what truly matters. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses was concerned about the details. Where am I going? How are you going to save everyone? Do you realize I am not a great speaker? And God didn't answer Moses' questions he just made a promise, "I will be with you." For Moses, it should have been enough that God was with him even if the details were fuzzy. For me, it has to be enough that God is with me. And God is faithful, he has never let me down. He protected me throughout this whole situation and I believe that even if more things go wrong, he will be there still.

Our hotel's welcome sign for us!

Dinner together at the hotel

Our Link group. In the front middle is Peter, the general secretary for Bangladesh who was visiting.

Renée, my coordinator, and me

Capitol building by night

Capitol building by day

Alyssa and Jess

State Street, Madison

My school's pennant in the NSC, every US school with an IV chapter has one!

The capitol dome from the inside.

Link group out and about in Madison

Alyssa, Jess, and Me, mini UMW reunion!

With Ingrid, getting commissioned. 

Thanks for the welcome Michigan, but I'd rather be at home.

Farmer's market on the capitol square Saturday morning

The stage!