Love God. Love People.

Love God. Love People.

The theme of The Greatest Commandment seems to keep popping up everywhere I turn. “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37)

So then you break it up into three areas with which we love: mind, heart, soul. Mind is easy. You make a conscious decision. Heart is more difficult. It is usually pretty easy to love God because he is good and loving and forgiving. But when I think about loving other people with all my heart, I’m much more challenged. Even unwilling at times. And what about with all my soul? That’s it. He has taken everything. What is left of me if I have surrendered my heart, my soul AND my mind to loving God and people? That’s the point. So... I’m surrendering myself. I’m going to forgive people who have insulted me because God forgives me even when I insult Him. I take advantage of His love and patience. I ignore Him. I insult Him in all kinds of ways and He forgives me. So I can forgive, too. I can love people as if they were a part of me. God sent His perfect son to die for us while we were still sinners, while we were still insulting Him. I can’t imagine that kind of compassion and love. But it lives in me. J

As a side note, I’ve been sick for about the last week with a chest infection (bronchitis). I was really frustrated because I am always getting sick!! I was asking God, “WHY do you allow me to get sick all the time? How can I possibly serve You when I’m always in bed trying to recover from an illness???” One answer is that sometimes I let my schedule get so busy that I don’t take time for God until He takes me away from all the distractions. When I’m bored to tears in my room, I remember that this is actually precious time I could spend with Him. I don’t remember the last time I’d had 30 minutes of silence until I got sick. Another answer is to teach me reliance. I can’t do anything on my own, no matter how hard I try. But I can do ANYTHING that God asks me to do, as long as He gives me the strength. I was reading Hudson Taylor’s biography on one particularly gloomy day. It was cloudy outside and I was feeling sick and so very sorry for myself. Interestingly enough, when he was young, Hudson Taylor wasn’t even able to go to school regularly because of his “continued delicacy”. He would miss a day or two A WEEK because of illness. And God was able to use him in absolutely amazing ways. So who am I to question why God lets me get sick sometimes?

So praise God for taking me away from my distractions and giving me some much needed time for rest, reflection, and renewal. Those all started with an R. haha. That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks!

busy busy!

Whoa… I can’t believe how much has happened since I last wrote. I am DEFINITELY settled in now. My schedule is insanely busy, but good.

Here is a rundown of a typical week:
Monday: 9am Staff meeting
10am American staff meeting
11am Another random meeting
12pm set up for evening
630-11pm Older Youth Bible Study and Games (my favorite part of the week!)
Tuesday: 9-11am Prep Time (preparing lessons, games, etc.)
12-2:30pm Lunch Club at the High School- also really fun!
3-7pm Work at The Gate Art Centre (writing weekly emails, press releases, and next term’s brochure)
Wednesday: 11:30am Meet with my mentor Anne (She’s awesome. She and her husband just retired from working in Sudan.)
2-6pm Gate Art Centre again
8-10pm Bible Study with people my age
Thursday: 9-5 Class (I have two classes, the first one is on how to teach the Bible and the second one is about Youth Work)
Friday: 10am Youth Worker meeting
Afternoon free! Yay!
9:30pm-3am Living Water (We give out water bottles, hot chocolate, and hot tea to the students leaving the Student Union, which is like College Station’s Northgate. It’s really fun, but exhausting.)
Saturday: MUCH NEEDED FREE DAY!
Sunday: 10am Church, leading youth every other week
5pm Girl’s Night with Youth (once a month)

So, as you can see, I’m staying pretty busy. Any free time I get, I use to go grocery shopping, prepare lessons, hang out with people, etc, which explains why I haven’t updated my blog in over a month.

Right now, I really need prayer for my health. I’ve had a cold for about 2 weeks and now I’m getting a deep cough. I think I might try to go to the doctor tomorrow.

Also, you can pray for the youth group I’m working with. They are really amazing. The older youth are my favorite. We have 4 girls and about 15 boys. It was so cool to see the older girls reach out to the younger ones when we had Girl’s Night last Sunday.

This past weekend, I went to Bath with the other American girls. It was beautiful. We saw the old Roman baths, the Jane Austen Museum, the Bath Abbey and the Pulteney Bridge. Then, we had about 4 or 5 hours before our train left so we decided to walk up this huge hill to find a castle that we saw in the distance. We ended up walking for about 3 hours and never found it! It was a lovely walk though.

And for our half term break at the end of October, I’m going to Ireland!!! Jenifer, Jesslyn and I are going together. We are flying in to Dublin, then probably renting a car and driving east to Galway. I’m so excited. We’re spending two nights in Dublin and two nights in Galway.

Well, I think that is all of the updates I have for now. Thank you for your prayers. I’m looking forward to coming back to Texas in December!!!