My, my, what an incredible summer it has been. Nine weeks ago, I couldn't have told you what to expect out of this summer, but thankfully, the Lord is sovereign and knew what he had in store for me. I am officially "back" from Charleston, although it will be a few more weeks before I am officially settled anywhere. I am currently in Charlotte, but between here and Chapel Hill I will also be making stops in Hilton Head, Morehead City and Wrightsville Beach.
Coming back from project has been a lot harder than expected. I was really stoked to be coming home, and (no offense to my wonderful roomies whom I love dearly) to be sleeping in my own bed again. I did not think ahead to how hard it would be going from constantly being surrounded by community, to having almost no community at all for three weeks. It has not been an easy transition, and I definitely need lots of prayer through this transition. The Lord has been good to reveal that in the midst of sadness and missing friends, he is still not done with me, or even with this summer of mine. Please continue to pray for God and his will to be revealed in these last few weeks of summer bliss. I am so thankful for what the Lord revealed to me these past nine weeks and how he will use lessons learned this summer for his glory back in Chapel Hill. As hard as it is to believe that I am about to start my senior year, I am excited to see what he has in store for me as I close out my time at the greatest school in the world. I have already started to feel nostalgic about my time there, and I definitely get a little teary every time I hear the James Taylor classic, Carolina in my Mind. Thank you to everyone of you who supported me through prayer and other means. I am so appreciative to all of you and hope to have the chance to share more of what God has been doing in my life. If you're interested in keeping up with me throughout the school year, then I will try to post on this blog a couple of times per semester. Knowing me, that may not happen so I won't make any promises, but I will do my best. Peace and Blessings, and prayers over the next year of adventures that are to come!
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So, the fact still remains that I am TERRIBLE at keeping up with a blog. Sorry for failing y'all. But as we say on project, "we're all in process." I fear that this may just be one of those things that I am never good at doing. God has been at work in amazing ways over the past month here in Charleston. Through the process of staff leaving and leadership transitioning over to the students, there has been a lot of "roll with the punches" moments to keep us on our toes. I am still so thankful for God bringing me here for the summer, and for the friendships and solid community that He has provided through this experience. Working at McDonald's would not have been nearly as easy without my 46 closest friends for the summer doing it along side of me. Here are some praise reports from the past month: Friendships with co-workers. This is a huge answer to prayer from before and during this summer. We've been blessed with co-workers who care to get to know us, and who allow us to also get to know them. Please continue to pray that we would be able to work in impactful ways throughout these last two weeks of project. Pray that it would be an impression of the Lord and not ourselves that is left with our co-workers. The existence of Skype. God bless technology which allows me to talk to people I love from hundreds of miles away. I got to speak to two of my favorites, one of who recently returned from summer project in East Asia. Thankful for her safe return home and for the chance to hear her voice. The fact that Charlotte is only three hours away. I was so so so blessed to have my parents come and visit for one glorious weekend, along with ol' Snowball in tow. We had a weekend filled with great food, fun, and family bonding time. Visits from sweet friends like this one. My sweet and beautiful Morgie to visit and I couldn't have been more thrilled to see her. ...and this one. My newly married best friend stopped by on the way back from her honeymoon with her sweet new hubs, Gabe. Having missed their wedding the weekend before, this was such a sweet reminder from Jesus that I am where I belong for the summer. Glorious 7 a.m. sunrises. We get to experience this view just about every morning on our way to work at McDonald's. This certainly helps to focus our hearts and minds on our work here and the Lord that we are serving. Not much else wakes us up well at 6:30. Eno dates with Big Momma. Brianna (aka Big Momma) is one of my roommates and best friends on project. The Lord has really blessed me through her this summer, and I am so thankful to know her. These three beauties. These are my lovely roommates for the summer. They've seen me through the ups and downs, the beautiful and the gruesome. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Without Walls. This Saturday was one of my favorite days on project so far, and it was majorly due to my interactions with these sweet faces. Our group was blessed to get to serve with a local ministry, Without Walls, which goes out to local neighborhoods to serve and interact with the people of Charleston. It was so exciting to get to be a part of the Lord's ongoing work in this city. These girls showed me how to dance, and also told me how they love to sing "God Songs." Melt my heart!! And Finally. Continued growth and daily affirmations of grace from my heavenly father. I am learning so much about his character and it is so sweet to experience his love in new ways! (Also for dirty chai lattes from my new favorite coffee shop, Kudu!!) That's all I've got for now. Thanks again to everyone who has been praying for me and supporting me this summer. It is so evident that God had me here this summer for a specific purpose, and I am grateful to those who joined in with my journey along the way. I hope that through my experiences here, I will be able to bless my friends and the new people I meet this year in Chapel Hill. A few final prayer requests as we close project out and as the new school year begins (woah! where did the time go?) 1. Unity with my fellow projecteers: As things begin to wind down, please be praying that we would continue to remember our purpose in being here this summer, and that we wouldn't be complacent as our time dwindles. 2. Incoming freshmen at UNC: My role with CRU this year will be in leading freshman bible study leaders. Please pray that everyone's hearts would be prepared for the Lord to work mightily in their lives this school year. 3. Decisions about the future: I am about to start my SENIOR YEAR!! WHAT?! which means that a lot of big life decisions will be coming my way soon. Pray that the Lord would provide clarity through these life transitions, and that I would be persistently praying about where God wants me to be. Thankful for the blessed assurance that Jesus is mine, and I am his. Peace and blessings, y'all. So then, since we have a High Priest who has entered Heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come BOLDLY to the throne of our Gracious God. There we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:14-16 In the past two weeks since project started, I've begun to recognize my own brokenness more and more. As I begin to see and recognize the weight of my own sin, my picture of Jesus also expands to see more of his grace, righteousness, and power as they impact my life and my walk with the Lord. Recognition of our sin leaves us with a deep and troubling question that must be answered. Once we are broken where do we turn? Once we begin to recognize our own flesh and filth, how do we find hope in our seemingly hopeless situation? Textbook church answer: Jesus. As simplistic as this answer may seem, it is one concept that I've really been struggling to grasp and apply practically in my life. How do we take the gospel concept of grace and put it into terms that we can understand and relate to? How do we take the almighty God and contain Him into a definition that we are able to understand. In all honesty we can't. All we can do is take what we do know of Him from scripture and through our own personal revelations from the Holy Spirit, and trust that he is all-powerful, all-knowing and absolutely in love with us. In bible study this week we studied the concept of passive righteousness. Though typically taken with a bad connotation, the word passive simply means that no action was involved on our part. This is the beauty of the gospel: while we were still sinners, and with no action or expectation on our own part, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). The weight if this recognition is huge! This takes so much pressure off of all of us and allows us to freely accept the God's grace as a free gift which we could never do enough to earn or deserve (Ephesians 2:8-9). This means that I don't have to pretend to have all of my junk together and I also don't have to perform to the best of god's expectations. I can do nothing more than passively accept the hand of grace that was extended to me by the Father. I am free to come before him, broken and needy, and to give all of my junk over to him. What a beautiful truth. One song that has been running through my head all week is "Brokenness Aside" by All Sons and Daughters (they are just a great band in general so if you've never heard any of their stuff go and check it out)! The lyrics are posted below. Will your grace run out Sorry it’s been a while y’all. Things are cra-zy down here in the Chuck-town. We are now entering our third week of project, which is super hard to believe. Though the messiness of our room proves otherwise, it does not seem like we’ve already gone through 1/4th of our time here. Last week brought all sorts of new challenges. We’ve officially started at McDonald’s and it is officially kicking our tails. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to work at a fast food restaurant, I can guarantee you that the work is a lot harder than what you would necessarily expect. In my first week at the ol’ Mickey D’s I was trained on the grill, line, drive through, and front counter. If you were to come in and order something (hopefully not something too complicated) then I would most likely be able to take your order, make your food, and deliver your bag to you out the drive through window. Right now, Morgan and I are working the 8 to 4 shift, which has been both exhausting and exhilarating at different times. **Funny stories from McDonald’s: Our first experiences in making dipped cones. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard. FALSE. It is so hard. Morgan and I both had several duds before we convinced our manager to show us how to do it at the end of one of our shifts, and then convinced him to let us take home our practice cones. They were both delicious and terribly messy (make sure you hold onto that upholstery cleaner that I bought at the beginning of the summer, Mom! I will be needing it again.) As far as “on the project” goes, things are really really great. I am beginning to really love my roommates in a deeper way than what I had originally expected. Each day I am blown away to see them demonstrate the gospel to me, and to see them show me so much grace by putting up with all my junk (both emotionally, and the huge pile of things I have going in my corner of the room). It has been so cool to see how God handpicked each of us to be in this room together, to see how our stories intertwine, and to see the ways in which we are able to encourage each other because of that. I also am genuinely beginning to know and love the other people on project. This is an answered prayer, because coming into this summer I was really worried about the size of the community, and the pressure I felt to get to know and love everyone within the first week here. God has been gracious to allow me to recognize that one of the beautiful things about project is that I have time. I don’t have to have major FOMO (fear of missing out) because I have time to get to know all of my fellow projecteers throughout our nine weeks here. As our community event this week, we had game night, which was thrilling, terrifying, and hilarious all at the same time. One of the things that we’ve been talking about over the past few weeks is placing a red dot on “where we’re at” coming into project. Like the mall maps that show you in bright red exactly where you are, our director has been challenging us to figure out where our spiritual red dot is at this point in time. I am not generally super in touch with my emotions or thoughts, so this process has been really hard for me. I want to be able to know what’s going on, but this is an area where I am going to have to just rest and let God reveal himself in time. Prayer requests for this upcoming week:
That’s all for now. I promise to try to be better about posting here on a more every-other-daily basis. I am sure that as our work week continues I will have more embarrassing and funny stories to share from the world of Mickey D’s. That’s all for now, folks. Enjoy these pictures for further explanation of my life as a temporary Charlestonian. As many of you know, I am spending my summer in Charleston as part of a summer project with Campus Crusade: here are some updates on what's been going on! Project has officially begun! After weeks and weeks of waiting, praying, support raising and nervous anticipation, it was so exciting and encouraging to finally gather as a group and to meet the 50-ish students that I will be spending my summer with. We are staying in a beautiful hotel in the Folly Beach area, and I am already loving my 3 other roommates. Our room has officially been deemed the happiness hub, and we’ve given ourselves the superlative as the room most likely to get in trouble for laughing too loudly. While the space is a little crammed, I am so so excited to be sharing a room with these three Godly women over the next nine weeks. It is so encouraging to know that the Lord has already gone ahead of us and intentionally placed us in the same room together for a purpose. Now that we’ve gone through some orientation, I have a better idea of what will be going on this summer and can finally answer the questions that so many of you have been asking. I have a job at a local McDonald’s, with another girl from UNC. Together, we will be serving the patrons of Charleston with our happiest of smiles and the best service we can possibly offer. If you’re in the area at all, be sure to stop by, pick up some deliciously greasy grub, and say hi! Another huge part of project are the bible studies that we’ve been placed in. There are 5 girls and 2 leaders in my study. As I was not able to be a part of a bible study this past semester at Carolina, I am stoked to have a community like this for the summer. The girls in this study are from all over the country (from Tennessee to Wisconsin). I cannot wait to dig into the word with these girls and to grow with them throughout the summer. Going forward from here, the rest of this week involves a lot more orientation. Our first day on the job is Friday, so wish us luck as we don our uniforms and set out to serve the people of Charleston. Here are some specific prayer requests for this week: 1. My roommate Emily had to go to urgent care as soon as she got here, and we think she has strep throat Be praying for a speedy recovery, and as we are living in tight quarters, that nobody else gets sick! 2. As mentioned above, we start work this Friday! Please pray that we would make quick and easy friendships with our co-workers, and that we would serve with the heart of Christ as our model. Philippians 2 has been a great point of reference here for how I hope to represent Christ to my co-workers. 1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Our “project passage” that we will be praying and working through together throughout the summer is Psalm 23. I pray that as a group and individually, we would recognize the weightiness of allowing God to be our shepherd. 1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Thanks so much for your continued prayers and support. I am so excited to see what God has in store for this summer!
Garin and I go way back to our days at South Meck (Go Sabres!). I was so happy to have the chance to spend the afternoon with him and his sweet pup, Cali. Congrats, Garin!
I had the pleasure of meeting Laura through a mutual friend of ours (y'all know her as Mrs. Shenk, and she's been featured on this blog many times). Laura and I had such a great time roaming around all over UNC's campus and taking pictures together. Her sweet smile and great lighting made for an awesome afternoon. Congrats Laura on being a college graduate! UNC will miss you.
Psalm 100 is one of UNC's premier a cappella groups, united not only by their love for singing, but even more importantly by their love for Christ. The ministry of the group is to spread the good news of who Jesus Christ is, and what he came to this world to do. Their concerts are designed specifically to tell the greatest story ever told: the story of a God who loved the world enough to send his one and only son to restore what was broken when sin entered the world. Apart from Christ, our sin condemns us to an eternity in hell. It is only through accepting the grace that was poured out for us on the cross that we can be reunited with our holy, perfect and loving God. To learn more about Psalm 100 (or to listen to their beautiful, melodic voices), you can check them out here: http://www.uncpsalm100.com/ This semester's change in venue (big thanks to the University Baptist Church) provided for some really sweet acoustics. They took the whole crowd by surprise when they opened the concert from the balcony. "Settle down, it'll all be clear. "Though the truth may vary "So glide away on soapy heels "The earth was shaking in the dark. "I am your anchor, in the wind and the waves "I am the comfortable secure "I'll take you as my own "And at once I knew I was not magnificent. One of the sweetest parts of every Psalm concert is when the alumni come up and join the group to sing "The Alumni Song." The words are taken directly from Psalm 100, itself! "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. "If to distant lands I scatter "Where you go I go "Be still and know that I am God. "And the walls kept tumbling down "When enemies are at your door Psalm also had two awesome intermission acts.. Friday was UNC's Cadence, and on Saturday, recent UNC grad, Lee Anderson. Thanks to both acts for making some sweet music! Thanks Psalm! Your ministry is such a blessing to so many! And just for kicks and giggles...
Caitlyn and I became friends about a year ago, when I met her and immediately asked if we could be friends. It was all WBR and Honey Nut Cheerios from there.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ivey last year on a CRU spring break mission trip to Memphis. Since then, I've had the blessing of counting her as one of my close friends. Love you to the moon and back, Ives! So I goofed here, and didn't realize until after the fact that we had put Ivey's cap on backwards (whoops)! We have a few shots to retake at the Old Well, it appears :)
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