El Salvador: Part Two (Written on Monday, June 20th)

I apologize for not posting the next day like I said I would.  For ease of travel as well as focus-oriented purposes, I didn't bring a laptop with me to Florida.  I am therefore required to strike a beggar's pose for access to a computer.  If I do come across a generous soul with a laptop, I have to go up to the other end of campus, to the conference center, in order to use the Internet.  (The campus is divided into two sections, the youth camp [where I am being housed this training week in a cabin with the other girls from my trip] at one end, and the conference center at the other end [where the boys are being housed and where we have all of our Student Fusion meetings]. It is about a twelve minute walk from one end of campus to the other.) It all gets kind of difficult to work out with the borrowing and the walking and the writing and the posting when I'm trying to fit it into the already fairly strict schedule for Student Fusion.

Ergo (is that really how you spell that?!) I don't have a lot of opportunities to use a computer and/or post.  This whole post is being thumb-typed into a note on my iPod touch.  I'll post it when I go up to the CC (conference center, that is. WOL runs on acronyms...) in a little while for practice.  This way, I can write whenever I get a few spare minutes, and not try and find time in my schedule for borrowing, walking, and posting to all happen at once.

Have I clarified Student Fusion yet?  That is the name of the WOL program that runs short term mission trips.

And speaking of schedules, I'm sure you're all dying to know what a day in the life of a typical Student Fusion member looks like during training week. Right? Right. Well let me tell you.

7:45--8:45am ----------Breakfast
8:45--9:15am ----------Quiet Time
9:30--10:30am ---------Bible Hour (I'm not sure what happens in the fifteen minutes between Quiet Time and Bible Hour...anything is possible, really.) (Oh yeah. Bible Hour is actually part of summer camp. We're conveniently located in a cabin, while camp is going on...so we take advantage of the opportunities to hear the Word of God taught. Fist pump, it's good stuff.)
11;30--12:30pm--------Student Fusion class
12:30pm----------------Lunch
1:00--2~3:00-----------Student Fusion class
2~3:00--4:00pm--------Free Time/walkingborrowingbloggingtime/devo-planning time
4:15--5:30pm-----------Student Fusion practice
5:30--6:30pm-----------Dinner
(The rest of the evening is full of camp activities--an evening meeting, a rally, a game--in which we generally take part...because we can. :) )
11:00pm----------------In dorms/Devos
11:30~12:00pm---------Lights out

And there it is.  With the exception of Wednesday, our day off, that is what our days will consist of all week. In our classes we get to know one another, discuss and prepare ourselves for the cross-cultural encounters we'll have in El Salvador (because you know how annoying those uninformed, loud Americans can be in a foreign country...), go over a daily group devo that prepares our hearts for the trip, and learn how to implement the tools we'll be using to share the gospel.  Today we started working with the Evangecube...the Gospel message displayed in unfolding boxes of universally understood, colorful pictures. Huzzah for crossing  language barriers!

The practices are where we learn our songs and skits we'll be performingin El Salvador.  I can't tell you much about those yet because I...haven't yet experienced one.  However, the first one starts in about twenty minutes.  I had better get going...after all, I've got a twelve minute walk up to the CC.

Continue to pray for us! I will post again as soon as possible.

Consumed

I've not posted in a bit...we'll all just have to deal with that our own ways.


Here's what I'm thinking tonight. I'm thinking about my life. I'm thinking about...my blog, at the moment.

Do you know why it's called By the Word? The answer is multi-faceted actually. The answer which might be the most obvious is that I love words. I do. I love the power of language. I am ever fascinated by the fact that each word is wholly its own...so much more than just a dictionary definition is attached, and therefore one tiny little word has the ability to speak volumes, to change the temperature of a statement entirely. I love literature and poetry and communication...and Boggle, Scrabble, Upwords, and Letter Getter. I really love words. I live by words.

But there's another side to "the Word." In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Bible, the manuscript to my life, that is the Word. I am particularly fond of the blog's title because it is a message to me, a reminder that I want to live my life entirely "By the Word."

I know that I have a bit of a reputation for my love of words. But do I have a reputation for my love of the Word?



A sense of urgency has been on my heart lately. I am not of the opinion that a Christian's life is "wasted" if he or she does not go in to full time ministry; working a nine to five with a briefcase and tie is not a sin. However, I am convicted with the thought that a Christian life can be wasted. All of mankind was created to glorify God...it is my special duty to glorify God. My life can be a showcase of His glory whether I punch a clock or preach to the tribes...and it can likewise be a pointless waste of time in either endeavor.

Every moment, every thought, every decision, every word...it can count for eternity and glorify God,


or it can be a moment, thought, decision, or word that is lost for eternity.


A moment, thought, decision, or word that glorifies...something other than God.







I am overwhelmed with a desire to be overwhelmed by a passion for the work of the Lord. A friend of mine wrote a song a few years ago...to be honest I only remember two words: consume me. I am pleading with the Lord now that He grab my heart and fully consume me with a desire to glorify Him. People are lost. God is being mocked and cast aside...taken in vain.





Oh God, let me not forget that You are my purpose. Let me not be taken with my own vanity and desires; allow me to be all consumed by a fire for You. I yearn to be with You, to live a life that is pleasing to you, to not waste my moments. Keep me far from those things which will keep me from Your purpose, don't let me stray. I love You. Consume me.

Sort of Sorting

If you haven't noticed, I decided to spruce things up around here a bit by visiting this site. Give it a go, Chels.

I've got a laundry list of things to do, including sorting through all of my belongings for our upcoming garage sale, cleaning and detailing three of our vehicles, preparing things for my friend to move in, running to town to apply for any jobs available, working out (but no laundry, interestingly enough)...all while dancing to the various and sundry different songs that will present themselves to me today.

Yes...that's how I function.




Despite my busy day, I'm here to sort some things out in my head. Or perhaps the sorting needs to go on in my heart...I guess it depends on your opinion of where my spirit makes its home. Regardless, here comes the sorting.

I am a Christian. If you're here and you're reading this and you don't know exactly what that means, allow me to explain. I believe in one God, a God that came to earth in the form of a man, Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus lived a perfect (yes, wholly perfect) life in order that He could be the only person deserving the glory of God and Heaven, and that He sacrificed His perfect relationship with God the Father, taking on the sins of the entire world and sacrificing Himself. I believe that His sacrifice on the cross makes it possible for you and I to enter as those who are blameless into a relationship with God, and that belief in this is all that is required to spend eternity in Heaven.

There is really...SO much there that I could write on and on and on and on and on about...but for right now I'm going to focus on the fact that I have a relationship with God. A relationship. We are not friends on facebook, or in a campus society together, but nonetheless, He knows me. The thing with relationships is that I am forever inconsistent. I have shifted in "best friends" since I was a little girl. I'm not good about keeping up with my friends which are not directly in front of me. Neither am I very good about spending time daily focusing on the relationship which I have with the Lord.

This lack of attendance to my Savior leaves me frustrated and yearning. I am frustrated because I know things are not as they should be. I am yearning because I have knowledge of how things should be, I've been there, and having strayed from the point of contentedness in the Lord, I long to go back.

I long to once again come boldly before the throne of grace, knowing that I belong.
My spirit yearns to again be sensitive to the whispers of the Holy Spirit as they move the strings of my heart.
I love the Lord. I miss running to Him as my Father and best friend. It's been too long.



Far too long.