November 12- Sabbaths

Each week, I am grateful fro the discipline of Sabbath Keeping, but this week, especially. I did set my alarm this morning, only so G could get to school on time. I woke up at 7 instead of 5:30. I have a jammie/movie day planned with Caleb, and some extended time in prayer and journaling planned.

I am thankful that God created sabbaths. I am thankful that it is command from the Lord. I am thankful that as a student in InterVarsity I was encouraged to sabbath and now years later, I have established the discipline and can encourage students in the same way.

I am grateful that I am not a slave to work. I am grateful that I can trust God with a day off. I am grateful for the rest. Especially after this crazy Compelling Weekend.

Here's to sabbath keeping! If you are a Jesus follower, and don't take time to Sabbath, it is a great joy!!

November 8, 9, 10, 11 -- Compelling

I haven't posted in the last few days because I was without a computer and completely immersed in the planning and executing of Compelling 2012, InterVarsity's Fall Conference for Michigan. This blog post will not even begin to give words to the work that went on, but hopefully I can share just a bit of my thankfulness. May this post give glory to God for His work among college students.

1. Physical safety...easy travels, no sickness/injuries

2. 31 Albion College students in attendance, last year, there were 14.

3. 4-8 Albion students made a first time decision to follow Jesus. Total, about 36 students made a first time decision to follow Jesus.

4. I slept so well. I slept deeply, and had more sleep than I do at home. It is amazing when you don't have to wake up several times a night to deal with a crying baby.

5. One student in interested in leading the Albion chapter in starting a ministry with fraternity and sorority students on campus.

6.  7 international students attended from Albion (Indonesia, Mongolia and China). It is so sweet to see Jesus reign among the nations.

7.  Significant conversations with students.

8. My call to ministry was re-affirmed. The Lord knows I am needy and need to hear it about every 53 seconds.

9. I saw an old friend who was visiting the conference. She left staff with InterVarsity and I haven't seen her in a while. We chatted real quick in passing. She asked if she could pray for me and for our foster care situation. Tina my friend, the Lord is using your prayers. I was so encouraged and challenged to pray the things that Tina prayed for, in my own life, especially with G. I am so grateful that God allowed me to run into Tina in the hallway for a quick second.

10. Staff friends. Ya'll are my favorite people in the world. The only people that I can really be myself with. I love that my closest friends and staff. I love that we can be real and do the work of the Lord together. I love that I can come alongside you and work with your students and you come alongside of me to partner with my students. To God be the glory.

11. Excellent expositional teaching on the life of Joseph. I was fed well by the Word this weekend.

12.  My husband. I am literally bursting at the seams with love for him. Our marriage is so incredibly awesome right now. Trying times bring people together, right? That has totally been us. I enjoyed knowing that he was at home taking care of things all weekend. I loved the texts he sent me. I love that he cleaned (and tried to clean) the house for me. I love that he bought me flowers and told our foster son that I love pink.

13. Kyndall and Paiton-- two awesome girlies who came over on Saturday to watch the little boys while Jon did yard work.

14.  Lunch on Saturday with Albion students. I had such a fun time connecting with them.

15. Serving in a track/seminar teaching students how to lead on campus via intercession and prayer. I love prayer. It was incredible to have students walk in on Friday night, some with no prayer experience, a lot with "I pray for exams" and very few that actually intercede or pray regularly and to walk out Sunday afternoon with a deepened Biblical basis for prayer, tools, ideas on planning great prayer gatherings and actually enjoying prayer.

16. Obedience. This is probably a longer story, maybe for another post, or a conversation. If you want to know it's really cool:)) Anyways. I am thankful that God gave me the desire to be obedient this weekend. He allowed me to hear his voice and to clearly speak to me. It was a joy to be used by God, to be obedient and to see how my obedience changed the course of my Sunday morning (and all of those involved in my track/seminar).

17. Lofthouse cookies. They are my favorite. Jon had some for me when I got home today. He knows the way to my heart.

Compelling 2012 was amazing!

As an introvert, I love my job.

Many times,  my job with InterVarsity, requires me to be an extrovert. I can fake it, and rely on Jesus to be strength when I don't "feel like it", as long as I take the time I need to rest, refocus, refresh and sabbath. Not every day requires dramatic extroversion, but there times.

And then there are times like today, where I am in introvert paradise, spending time with Lord, my journal and a cup of coffee.

Today, I am focusing on evaluating this past year, and planning for next year. Here are some of the great questions I get to grapple with today!

• How am I doing in the midst of my current life stage and life circumstances? 
• What is my spiritual health? Am I growing? How are my spiritual disciplines? 
• How am I doing in my important relationships? How is my spiritual community? 
• What aspects of my character or what behavior patterns need attention? 
• What interests or involvements or subjects (outside of work) do I want to pursue? 

• In what aspects of my current job do I need to improve? 
• What strengths do I want to develop further? What weaknesses do I need to address? 
• What new skills, practices or knowledge areas do I want to develop in order to excel? 
• What career goals do I want to keep in mind? What might be a possible next role in IV? 
• What learning and experience do I need in order to be ready for future opportunities? 

• What broad aspects of my personal and professional life do I want to develop over the next few years? 
• What current circumstances might positively or adversely affect my work in these goals? 
• I n what specific ways do I want to grow this year? 
• For each goal, what concrete steps will I take? How? When? 
• For each goal, what tools, people or programs will I use? How can I access these? 

Please pray for me, for God to lead me as I jump into the next academic school year! 

Memes about Me

There are some days that I love my job.

Like really love it.

There are some days that I go to bed thinking about the amazing conversations I had with students, how they are walking closer to Jesus, sharing the gospel with their friends, and how I am so excited to be a part of what God is doing on campus.

There are nights where I go to sleep with a deep satisfaction of how God is working.

And there are some days where I wake up and see these all over facebook.

(I am 100% that I have actually said that students.)

My students are gearing up for Chapter FOCUS Week, perhaps our most influential week of the year. It is a week of great training for campus ministry, for students to focus on their relationship with the Lord, to build relationships with other InterVarsity students, to be in nature, to be with people, to be alone, and to be refreshed. This year we are hoping to bring 20 from Albion.

And they have a crazy recruitment strategy. As if my face could convince anyone to go to CFW.

Either way, I had a great laugh.

And I love my job.

Why Staffwork is Good for Your Kids

I work with InterVarsity as a campus staff member. I love my job. I absolutely love my colleagues and cannot believe that God allows me to be a part of the great mission of His.

One of the many things that I love about InterVarsity is that being on staff with InterVarsity is good for your kids. So good in fact, that I will be featuring this on my blog on a regular basis. Here is installation #1.

Apparently college students are way funnier than normal people. Staff work is good for your kids, because it gets them to laugh once in a while, even if there is food in their mouth. 

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 Staff work is good for your kids, because they see young people studying the word of God and excited to apply truth to their lives. (And excited about manuscripting. Do you have to be an IV geek to know what I am talking about?) Even if Caleb was distracted by the pumpkin muffins, he is still seeing a love for Scripture, a prayer that I pray for him every day.

 

Staff work is good for your kids, because it gives them someone to look up to. 

Staff work is good for your kids, because they begin to fall in love with the students. They love having them added to their family and seeing them around campus. 

Staff work is good for your kids, because they learn about mentoring relationships, how to disciple and help one other person strive to be like Jesus.

Staff work is good for your kids because of the array of available babysitters. When mommy and daddy get to go out, they come home happy. Happy parents = happy kids.

Yep, it's true. Staff work is good for your kids.

Gifts from around the world

I love receiving gifts. Definitely my love language.

You know what's great about working with international students and students who travel abroad? Gifts from around the world!!

In the last week, I have received:
-Coffee from Inodnesia
-Coffee from China
-Earrings from Kenya
-Kenyan Curry (ok..maybe it was for Jon)

As if I needed another reason to love my job.

November 13

My third favorite day of the year.

Today it was extra special. It was fun to celebrate with 700 of my closest friends. It was meaningful to see Albion students step out in God's call in mission. It was fun to hear my brother in law wish me "Happy Birthday" no less than 15 times. I am grateful for a dinner for 2 at Outback after Compelling with my husband--even if I did leave him there (we drove  separate) because I fell asleep on the table. I am grateful that God grants rest for the ones He loves.

I am grateful for the song that the Spirit won't let leave my heart, mind and soul today. "There is power in the name of Jesus, to break every chain." I am so grateful that through my tears, I have the hope in His power.

Preach.

November 12

How can I possibly explain what God is doing in the lives of 700 college students across the state of Michigan today? I am not going to try. I will never do it justice. God, may you get all the glory!!

Today, I am grateful for God's call on my life. I am grateful that He is teaching me how to teach, that He has placed great coaches and trainers in my life to help me get to the next step.  I am grateful for the men and women who have gone before me in this process.

Novemeber 2

IBS. No, not the bowel kind, the Bible kind.

Today I am very thankful for inductive Bible Study. I love learning the scriptures in a deep way.

I am part of InterVarsity, and by nature, we are scripture study-ers, studying scripture by manuscripting it. It is not uncommon for me to carry markers and colored pencils with me all the time, because I might just start studying the Bible, and would need markers and colored pencils.

The manuscript process...
1. Observe. What is the text saying? Act like a reporter, look for themes, repeated ideas and words, who are the characters, etc

2. Interpret. What did the text mean to the original audience?

3. Apply. What does the text mean to me today?

4. Integrate. How does this stand with the rest of scripture?

I am thankful that I have been taught how to study the Word of God. Though pastors and teachers are good, and needed, I don't need to wait until Sunday morning to learn on my own. I know that God has given me a brain and I can use it to study His word well. I am so grateful for that.

I am grateful that I get to teach students how to study the word. I am even grateful that I might be able to do more teaching of the Word at church (maybe).

Thank you Lord, for the study of Your word!

NSO

It is officially NSO season..(NEW STUDENT OUTREACH). I will be spending the next few weeks getting to know students, building relationships, doing a lot of publicity for InterVarsity, etc.

Tonight we chalked campus. For those of you who have not had the privilege of chalking, your back, knees and knuckles thank you. Sidewalk chalk may be fun as a kid, maybe even as a parent, but when you are chalking an entire campus, hoping that 2000 people will see your beautiful artwork (er.....publicity), well, body parts start to ache.

Here is how I spent my night:)

A week ago, Caleb and I ventured to Bowling Green State University for my Regional Staff (staff from Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania) for InterVarsity.

It was a G R E A T time. I loved being with other staff. They are my favorite people on earth, and I cannot believe that I get to work with them. It was an amazing place to hear from God, to be challenged and encouraged and to laugh. Regionals is one of my favorite "work requirements."

I would LOVE to share with you what happened during Regionals, in detail. We spent lots of time in prayer, and studying Hebrews. It was so refreshing in so many ways.

Last year I brought Caleb to Regionals and it was so fun to show him off to everyone. It was also hard, because we were sharing a dorm room together, which meant I heard every noise, had no bathroom and had to figure out how to make bottles and wash bottles out of the nearest water fountain.

Oh this year was going to be so easy. I could feed him whatever he wanted, he walked, he didn't require the huge travel system. Life was going to be easy. I could simply bask in the "oh, he is so cute. He is so big, I love his hair cut, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Don't worry. I hit reality really fast. About 25 seconds into moving into our dorm room, I realized that life can be harder with a toddler. I had a meltdown.

"Mom, it looks like you need some help. Mind, if I put up my own bed?"

"ok, so this is harder than I thought. Mom, why didn't we bring daddy.?"

"Got it. I can sleep like this all week."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just in case you were wondering what is going to be going through my mind in the next 2 months

Seeing New Life

About 3 years ago I was ready to quit. I hated my job. I was sure that I was hearing God's voice wrong. I was sure that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I would never see the fruit of my labor, the fruit of my prayers and see God be glorified on campus.

During that time, God used some prophetic words and spoke into me Isaiah 42. He didn't just bring this passage to mind, but He has someone pray that passage of scripture over me, and to speak into it. I was challenged to live out the truths in the passage and spent the next few months memorizing that chapter.

It was my hope, my drink in the desert, my rest in a dry and weary land.

"Behold, the former things have come to pass,
         Now I declare new things;
         Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you."(Isaiah 42:9)

I clung to Isaiah 42:9. The old things are gone!!! God is doing a new work, He told me! I may not see it yet, but He told me. He gave me hope, to keep going, to keep pressing on and to keep pursuing Him. He gave me excitement and encouragement. 

Today, I was able to see some of the things that God had proclaimed to me. I was able to see those things spring forth. Today we celebrated what God has done on campus in the last year and what He is going to continue to do. 

Today we planted plants together.

 We know that if we take care of the seeds, give them the correct amount of sunlight, water them, weed them, they will eventually turn into a plant---

We trust that, because people have done it before us. We trust that because we have planted before and have seen results.

So we planted.

As we part ways for the summer, we will spend it praying, fasting and preparing for next year. We are trusting that God will continue to bring the increase, that He will continue to let us see the things that He has proclaimed to us.

 These girls ----
  invade my house
    drink my coffee
      babysit my child
       borrow my car
          eat my food
             watch my tv
               challenge me
                  text me when I am asleep
                    are family

These girls, whom I have come to love so dearly in the past year are the answer to my prayers. They are the start of God revealing all that He had proclaimed 3 years ago on that cold November day. 

They get silly sometimes...........

And sometimes spill their soil

Did I mention, spilling soil down Lily's shirt?

Thank You Lord for Your faithful promise. Thank You for sustaining me through proclaiming what You will do, and giving me encouragement. Thank you for this year. It has been the best yet.

I Should Have Listened

This past weekend, 600 college students and staff gathered for our annual fall conference. It was an amazing time where God met each and every one of us. I wonder why I didn't have faith that God could move in such a way. I will share later about what God did at Compelling2010: Strong and Courageous. It is all whole other post. And it will be awesome.

When we finished the conference we had a staff meeting. In that staff meeting we were talking about how the Spirit was at work in crazy ways, in ways that some of us have never seen, or did not expect. We talked about sealing what happened in prayer and fighting the temptation that Satan will throw at us. Surely he did not want to see that work happen, so we needed to be aware that he was going to mess it up, tempt us to fall into sin, etc.

I didn't listen. I thought, "yah, I should pray for that, but...."

And sure enough, come Sunday afternoon I was angry, tired, mad at my husband, a grump, worried, not a good daughter/sister/mother/wife/friend/staff worker.

Bright and early Monday morning we had our finalization hearing, ending the adoption process!!! It seemed like everything that could wrong did....even though I know that is an exaggeration.
-my house was a mess
-I had no sleep
-I was upset in my marriage
-I couldn't find clothes to wear
-we had wrong directions, and everyone in our party was late
-We had wrong directions to the courts, to the place where we were going to take pictures, and then to the restaurant.
-I was TIRED. Really tired.
-Our photographer got lost and I had to take our family pictures
-The pictures were not good, not bad, but not what I would have done
-I was TIRED

And in the end, I took a nap.

And now, I am on my knees, shaking the gates, knowing that God has started a great work.

Orientation for New Staff, Continuation of Day 8

Day 8, EVANGELISM:

I realized that I have not shared the Gospel in a while and I need to practice so I can clearly articualte it. We learned more ideas about proxe stations, and conversational evangelism. I am really excited to give my students a heart and passion for evangelism as we reach the out to the campus.

We went in partners and practiced some conversational evangelism. My partner and I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is really close to our hotel. We had two really good conversations where we shared the Gospel. Neither accecpted Christ, but there were seeds planted. Pray for the man from Chile, and the two female students from UW, that they would come to know Jesus as Lord over their life.

Last night we played the chapter building game, which I have done before, but it was great to be reminded of how to be strategic with my time. The game is a series of things that you would do as a staff worker, and you have 48 hours to do it all in. Your goal is to figure out how to manage your time most strategically so that you will make the largest impact on campus. It is sooo important to have prayer, prayer for students and prayer for the campus. Please pray for me as I implement this into our daily lives on campus.

I get to see my husband tomorrow :)

Orientation for New Staff Day 7 and 8

Exhaustion is begining to take over. I have been here in Madison for 8 days, attending seminars all day long and becoming a tired :) I am plugging through though, almost done. We will be going hom on Wednesday.

Sunday:

On Sunday we focused on the value of building multi-ethnic witnessing communities. Before we could build multi-ethnic witnessing communities on campus, we had to know who we were ethnically and how that fit into the broad scheme of things. I am still wrestling with what it means to be white, and what I can offer to other cultures and what I can learn from other cultures.

I am also wrestling with what that looks like on the campus of Albion, being a mostly white school. How can I train students to reach out to every ethnicity and culture if the only ethnicity and culture they see is white upper class? I am jumping too far into this though, because I know that I have not spent enough time on campus to know what types of student groups there are. I need to get to know them better and find out who the student body is that I will be serving.

Today:
Evangelism......

Sorry guys, time for bed, more on that later :)

Orientation for New Staff Day 6

Sabbath continues!! I had an amazing sabbath today. I slept in. This morning, the capitol turned into a farmer's market. I went down to the lobby to go to the market and found Tina, the Greek Staff Worker at Central Michigan University. We decided to go look at all the vendors and go to lunch. We joined with another Kristin and went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It is a BEAUTIFUL campus!!! It is right on a lake. We spent some time there, reading, journaling and spending with the Lord.

While we were there, several bridal parties came and went, taking pictures near the water. It reminds me of being home in St. Clair and having everyone come near the water. I miss it. To me water is home, and it is hard to be away. Water is refreshing and where I meet the Lord.

One thing I have truly gained from my time in InterVarsity is the importance of taking a sabbath each week. I have always been taught about sabbath taking, but never before have I seen a group of people practice it like InterVarsity staff. I have learned that it doesn't have to be on a particular day of the week, but it is more of a time for rest, reflection on Christ, and what He has done and is doing. It is a time to do things that you enjoy, that bring you rest, when you may not have the time to do it during the week. I am not perfect at taking a sabbath, but I am learning and growing in this. It is definitely a habit I want to instill in my family!

Orientation for New Staff Day 2

I am an introvert and I get energized by spending time alone. Today I have been wrestling about what that looks like as a staff worker. There are areas of my job that will require me to be extroverted, that will require me to step outside of my comfort zone into a new place of discomfort. This makes me excited! Not the fact that I am getting rid of my introverted self, but that God is able to stretch me behind my selfish thoughts and desires to care for students.

Today was a good day. Sounds generic and boring but it really was. I got a great night of sleep last night. By the way, I have a great roommate from Virginia. She likes to sleep with the airconditiong on, a girl after my own heart. (Sorry for the tangent:)) Anyways, on to the day....

It stated with prayer and Bible study, specifically studying Psalm 1. We talked about the difference between the righteous and the wicked. Tom Boyle and Alec Hill (Alec is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's President) talked to up about the Heritage and Vision of IVCF. During lunch we were on our own, and I took advantage of having some time for myself. I went to lunch and spent some time at the Capitol, well at a bench and in the Capitol lawn doing some much needed journaling! The rest of the afternoon was about the Ministry of Fund Development. We had a panel of donors come in and tell us why they give. It was very helpful and encouraging.

Tonight was an emotional night. Two staff shared their stories about their parents disapproval and lack of blessing, of their desicion to go on staff with InterVarsity. After their time of sharing, they asked if we could pray for those staff who are having struggle with their parents. It was so emotional as I saw the real pain of my coworkers whose parents were ashamed of their call to full time ministry. I am so grateful that my parents and Jon's parents have supported me and have been an active part of my team. Please pray for these men and women. Pray that God would do a work in their families, as well as give them the confidence and approval in Him that they need to do the work that they are called to do.