it's not about us.

It seems surreal that we only have a week and a half left here. I sincerely apologize for my lack of blog updates. They keep us insanely busy. The last five weeks have been exciting, challenging, tiring, growing, and fun all at once. Fort Collins is a beautiful city and I feel so blessed to have spent my summer here. As I told many of you in my letter and on my blog, my intent for going on this project was to get a feel for the operations side of campus crusade, but it has become so much more.

My job has been such a good experience. In the summers here at the CSU campus the Campus Crusade Staff Conference team takes place. I've served all summer on the Staff Conference Team, about 100 people who all work very hard at what they do. The conference itself is a 1 week event that kicked off yesterday, but for the 4 weeks prior to that different groups of staff must go through additional training.

I spent all summer working with the MTL (Missional Team Leaders, also known as campus directors, the people who are in charge of the movements on college campuses). I did anything for them that they needed done. I did a lot of ordering and calling for food and large group dinners. I wrapped welcome and thank you gifts. I ordered their daily snack and always made sure they had their water and coffee. It wasn't the most glamorous job, but I enjoyed being able to serve the people who spend the rest of the year faithfully serving students like me. I met so many amazing (and important, crulebrities if you will) people while serving with them this summer, which not a lot of college students get to do. How many people can say that the director of all campus ministry in the US knows their name? But that's not the important thing, the great thing was getting to spend time with these people and seeing God shine through them.

That's what I did for the last 4 weeks when only about 700-ish staff members were here in Fort Collins, but over the weekend over 5000 staff members have arrived for the big conference. There is so much to be done for this and it is amazing to see all of these people's talents and gifts come together to create something so cool.

With as large and as complex as this conference is, it is probably weird that I'm having trouble finding something to help with. The 4-week MTL training ended and so did my formal job, so for the next 2 weeks I could be able to help out where ever. However, the trend has been that no one needs help. I've done a few odd jobs but nothing steady. At first I found it pretty frustrating, here I am to serve and no one even wants me. But this morning as I sat in the first main session and saw everything go so flawlessly none other than Francis Chan reminded us about how IT'S NOT ABOUT US. I was so frustrated with not having a big job to do that I was dwelling on that. When all I should be dwelling on is how great it is that they don't need me. The conference is going smoothly... without me, because it's not about me. Praise God that they have more help than they need here!

I'm sure I will run into various things to do over the next couple weeks, but I am also blessed that I get to sit in the sessions and be touched by the same training as the crusade staff. This morning's session with Francis Chan was absolutely amazing and exactly what I needed to hear today. He had prepared an entirely different talk and threw it out the night before because he felt the spirit leading him in a different direction, so thankful he listened!

Okay, you're probably tired of reading and I want to thank you if you still are, and just ask for your prayers that the conference would continue to go smoothly, that the staff would be blessed, and that all the students on our project would continue to grow closer to God and to each other in these last days.

I'll leave you with this. All summer we've been studying Ephsians and one of the speakers today directed us to Revelation 2, a passage written to the church in Ephesus:
"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."
Revelation 2:4-5
Let us always pray that Jesus will be our first and only love, but even when we fail and we lose that love we had it is so freeing to know that his love for us is never shaken or changed.

In Christ,

Amanda

Adjusting to sleep deprivation and higher altitudes

Well I decided it was probably time for an update of my time in Colorado so far.

I've been here a little over a week (well sorta... but I'll get to that). The first week is always the hardest in my opinion. There's so much adjusting: to a new city, new housing, new people, a higher altitude... everything. There's also all the orientations and name games (even with the names, I am absolutely horrible with names)!

Project related things (aka everything not between the hours of 8-4 Monday through Friday) are good! Our project has only 8 boys, and who knows how many girls! Except its probably around 50. Good odds for the boys, ehh? kidding! It's also really cool meeting people because there are literally people from ALL over the country. I could look around and be at a table with someone from New Hampshire, Seattle, South Dakota, Florida, and New Orleans and it wouldn't even be weird.

My roommate (Kelly from Virginia) is great! We get along wonderfully. And I also adore my entire small group and our amazing leader Julie! That is really a blessing because the small groups end up being such a support system.

All the girls are living in the Kappa Delta house on the Colorado State University campus. Which by the way does accept mail from family and friends, so do that. The address is 412 W. Laurel Street, Fort Collins, CO 80521. The house is great and perfect for our project, another HUGE blessing.

Because of lack of time on my part and the attention span of my readers the next couple posts will cover what I do at work and what ministry things we've been doing!

Please be praying,
Amanda

Now Boarding

Well they haven't said that yet but it will be any minute now.

Today's the day! I am currently waiting at the Tyson McGee airport in Knoxville for my flight to board. I made it through security and weighed my bag. For those of you who know me and are wondering it was 50.5 but she didn't charge me! My first flight is delayed 20 minutes and that makes me nervous that I'll miss my next flight in Dallas, so pray that doesn't happen. I am sort of a nervous flier today because its only my 2nd time ever flying.

Once I arrive in Denver a shuttle service will take me to Fort Collins where I will spend the next 7 weeks. We are living in the Kappa Delta sorority house and I may just call all the girls my "sistas" all summer.

Some prayer requests right now:

• For safe travels for me and everyone on the project
• That my heart would be ready for everything that can happen this summer
• That God would renew a desire in my heart to know him more
• And that I can bond quickly with new friends on the project

Thanks for your prayers everyone!

Amanda

more than we can ask or imagine...

As another year comes to a close, my junior year in college to be exact, I like to reflect on how God has blessed me in the past year. This year I was lucky enough that I don't even think I could count all the blessings I've received, and if I tried to put them all in a blogpost no one would ever read it because it would be so long. Instead I'd like to share with you all the "biggest" blessing, or at least the one that always comes to mind first, and that is the house.

Back in February/March of 2010 when trying to decide housing for next year we decided to look for a house to live in instead of an apartment. What we found was an 8 bedroom, 8 bathroom house that was pretty rough around the edges. It was dirty and gross at the time but we decided we wanted it anyway. We started trying to find 8 girls to fill it with us, which was nearly impossible, but at last we had 8. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about living with SEVEN other girls, who wouldn't be? And to top that, I barely knew more than the names of three of the girls.

It's safe to say that we moved in as strangers, literally, some girls met others for the first time the day they moved in. We quickly started getting to know each other and there were always other people over first semester. The house became a huge blessing for Cru at UT too because no matter what there was always room for more, unlike in an apartment we could have a movie night and no one had to be excluded. I remember the first party of the year the boys (and some girls) made a 5 story pyramid in the living room. We also held the Cru Halloween party there which had over 80 people and there was still room.

This displays how large our living room is

The Rave-o-ween

The real blessing wasnt the extra space or everyone having their own bedroom and bathroom or anything like that, the real blessing was the people. I knew it was going to be another hard semester for me because all of my closest friends were in dating relationships. When you're surrounded with that its hard to stay content and patient, but God gave me something I didn't even know I needed, single friends. I'd barely knew Allix and Beka before we moved in, but they quickly grew to become two of my best friends in that time and I am so thankful.

Beka and Allix

The second semester started and we hardly ever had people over at first, probably because all 8 of us had become such good friends that if I came home and any of my roommates were home I was perfectly happy with hanging out with them. All 8 girls that lived there did for a reason and it wouldn't have been the same without them. I'd lived with Amy, Misha, and Brittany before and I loved getting to live with them again. Amber was the house masseuse and counselor, you could just go lay on her bed and she'd give you a massage and some wise advice too. Victoria, Vix, Vixie, Vixen, etc. always served as the comedic relief, and there was never a dull moment when she was around. Beka became one of my closest friends and she was our beautician always willing to do anyone's hair or nails. And of course, Allix... She became my partner in crime, whether it was bumming rides off everyone or terrorizing Vix by "saying Jan in a midwestern accent" millions of times. The ninth roommate was a male (not casey or scott, sorry) but Dooley, our little poopface dog. Though he peed on my carpet, my bed, and myself he was always so fun to have around. Last but not least, #hashtag, yes that's our betafish's name. I wouldn't have traded any of them.

If only #hashtag made it in this one

The perfect group

Half the house has moved out now and its not what it was a month ago, but I think that anytime I look back on this year or college as a whole I will remember how blessed I was to live there and all the good memories we had together. Like I said we moved in as strangers, but now that we're all moving out those girls are like my sisters. I didn't even know that was something I needed, but God did and he blessed me with them. Next year is going to have a hard time topping this one.

Paintings for Project

Hey Friends :)

I am going on an Operations Summer Project this summer to Colorado! There I will basically work with Crusade staff in conference and event planning during the day, which is a great way to figure out if that is what I want to do long term. I have to raise support for this project like any other, but I know as college students we don't have a lot of money to spare.

So I thought of something else. I love painting! And people tend to ask me for them... So I decided to work on Paintings for Project. I will take requests for color schemes and verses, and then paint for you on a flat canvas. You can think of things based on some of my past paintings or ask for something new. I'm not an amazing painter though so don't get too crazy.

Here are some pictures of some old ones I've done:

A suggested donation for a painting is $20 (keeping in mind the cost of the canvas and paint)

Also, I am deactivating my facebook on Wednesday for 40 days SO please let me know if you'd like one through email, phone, or by commenting here!

Thanks guys! Have a blessed week and Spring break!

Decisions, Decisions...

In everyday life i am not the type to be indecisive, as many of you all know. I am actually demanding about what I want (not one of my best qualities, and my friends love to call me Damanda for it). However, when it comes to big decisions, and I mean the big ones that effect your life, I am super indecisive.

Which is why the fact that I finally decided what I am doing this summer is a big enough deal to blog about it.

I've decided to go on a Operations summer project with Campus Crusade to Fort Collins, Colorado. It is similar to other stateside summer projects except that as our job we intern alongside Crusade staff members in our areas of interest. For me that means that I will get to work and shadow staff members who work in conference and event planning. Since this is something I am strongly considering doing after I graduate this is an excellent way to see first hand what I would be doing. If you want to know any other details about it please ask but I'm sure I'll talk more about it in future blog posts.

Its scary deciding to do this because it means raising support (ekk!). The cost of the summer is $3200, which means that I cannot pay for it myself. It comes down to trusting that God will bring in the money and provide for where he has called me. I should get used to raising support though sometime because wanting to go into full time missions means I will have to do a lot of it. I had to realize that its more than just asking people for money for a trip, its asking them to partner with you and provide for you to share God's love and word with the world. I realize I am not going to a third world country or helping cure diseases and translate Bibles, but I am still doing God's work.

One way I've decided I will try and raise some support is to do Paintings for Project. I love painting anyway, and I always have people asking for some so I figure why not use that to raise some support. I know as college students we are all pretty poor, but I would love to do a painting for you as a gift for a donation to my summer. If you want more info let me know, but I'll write another blog specifically about that soon.

Until then please pray for my summer and the support raising process.

"For the LORD your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the LORD your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing."

Deuteronomy 2:7

What am I doing with my life? (Part 1)

That’s the big question isn’t it? What are you doing after graduation? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Questions like this keep getting thrown at me lately because the scary truth is that I’m only a year away from graduating college and moving into the real world. I have loved practically every moment of my college experience; it’s like living in this little bubble between childhood and adulthood, where you have all the freedom, but without all the responsibilities. It’s a time when most people discover who they really are and what they are passionate about. We spend this time studying and preparing for “the rest of our lives” so that we may go on to be great and successful. College sets the direction for where the rest of our lives will take us.

But in reality all eternity can be represented by a movie, and our life is one one screen shot of the entire movie, there is maybe one glimpse of our face in a crowd. The Bible says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14) I want my life to count for the movie, not the one hundredth of a second that is my life. One of the things I see in college is all the worthless causes that our world stands for and how tempting it is to join them. I know that there is only one cause that is guaranteed to succeed and worth living for, and that’s Jesus Christ.

For many people this means serving God through their occupation and using the desires and gifts that God has given them, whether that’s being a teacher, doctor, politician, athlete, or anything else. But for me, I know that God has called me to a different path.

I believe God has given us our strengths, abilities, passions, and desires for a reason. He wants us to use them to serve him. It’s taken me a long time to realize this but in my life I don’t have many dominate passions or desires above just wanting to serve God. I never felt motivated to be a teacher, or to be in medicine, or to be a hugely successful businesswoman. Those things seemed okay to me, but never something I could see myself doing for my whole life.  I think that this is one of the reasons it took me so long to pick a major and that even now I don’t feel fully satisfied in it, because that is not what I am supposed to do.

Two things God has given me are a willing heart and a broken heart. One thing that moves and motivates me more than anything is hearing the stories of missionaries going out to the unreached people of the world. The biggest thing that breaks my heart is seeing all the millions of people that don’t know Jesus or that He is the only one that can satisfy them. I know that full time missions is what I want to do, maybe for the rest of my life, or maybe until God calls me into ministering in a workplace somewhere.

I’ve had this on my heart for a while now but some things always make me stop, and it’s the things I don’t want to give up and the things that I think I have a right to. I don’t want to give up my comfort or my desires for friendship, happiness, and the American dream. I don’t want to risk my health, my privacy, or my financial well-being. I want my family and all the other people in my life to approve of me and be proud of me; I want their recognition. I want stability, justice, and time. There are a lot of things I want and think that I deserve, but it’s a hard truth to learn when you realize that you don’t deserve any of that. Jesus never promised us that everything would be easy, comfortable, and what we expected. Jesus never called anyone to comfort, and he had to give up his rights too…

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
and being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:5-8

Jesus yielded his right to comfort, respect, honor, justice, to be understood, to live, and even to be in the perfect fellowship with God that He always had been. If He gave up all of this for us, how can I not give up my desire for comfort, approval, and a regular salary for Him?

I know I’ve said a lot of loaded decisions in this blog but its something I’ve been praying over and meditating on for over a year now. But in the end it still comes down to taking everything I’ve learned through this process, and taking a step of faith. Because after all, faith is not waiting until you are 100% sure.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.’”
Matthew 9:36-38

God is the ultimate pursuer of our hearts.

Often times I am not a fan of the dreaded Valentine's Day holiday. For those of us single ladies the whole day and week surrounding it is a reminder of just how single we really are. I have never had a significant other at the time of Valentine's Day so I have never experienced it as that, but every year it has always been the dreaded day where it seems like everyone has someone but me.

But this year was different.

I felt so loved all day, some love from friends and from family, but mostly I felt loved by my Savior. All day I was happy and content and full of joy. There is no earthly explanation as to why either, which is why I know it was from above. All day I was reminded of his love for me, through the weather and even small blessings like hitting all green lights. Overall I just had a great feeling of peace all day that I know did not come from me considering it was on my least favorite day of the year.

The verse Psalms 29:11 comes to mind.

"The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace."

God really did give me more than enough strength and peace throughout the day. One of my friends said to me "you know Jesus is the ultimate pursuer of our hearts". And how true it is! No one else can satisfy us, comfort us, care for us more, or love us more than he can. Not only that, he is jealous for our love. He wants our attention and he wants our time. He wants the best for us because he love us. It didn't matter that I didn't have a boyfriend or valentine anymore, I had the ultimate lover. No one else could love me like Jesus could, He loved us enough to die for us. And the best part is that we can never lose it.

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39 (New Living Translation)

Count Your Blessings.

I just love how God sends me little reminders of how I should be thankful for what I am given. Just this morning my teacher let us out of class late, I hit every red light on the strip, and the I couldn't find a parking spot at the place I was going to get my lunch. Just as I was getting very frustrated and practically angry, God sent me a reality check.

I was pulling out of the lot that had no spots and going to look for somewhere else. My car window was half down and I saw two people walking down the sidewalk towards me. I notice that it is a homeless man and woman carrying large bags with all of their belongings. At this point there is also a rare break in traffic to where I could pull out. I look to the couple, knowing that they have the right of way to go in front of my car. The man stops for me to get out and says "You better go when you have the chance. Have a blessed day."

This really touched me. This man with no place to call a home, clean clothes, or a car is telling me to have a blessed day. And that is just what I have, every day is a blessed day for me. I thought back to all the complaints I'd made that day and turned them around. I am thankful to be in college, thankful to have a car, and thankful to be able to go grab some delicious food before heading to the job that I am thankful to have. Its sad that it takes something like this for me to really count and appreciate all my blessings.


Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3

Eternal Perspective

I wish I was good at being a consistant blogger but I'm not, so please bare with me.

It would take me 17 blog posts to explain to you all the things that God has been teaching me lately, and I don't know if I can type that much so let me summarize.

To get a little background on how I've been feeling, just last week I had a conversation with a roommate about how I was in a very desert-like season in my walk with God. I did not feel His presence like I used to and doubts and temptations were really starting to get to me in this time. It was a horrible place to be and I desperately wanted out of it, but I did not know what I could do. I read the Bible and did my devotionals but I still couldn't feel God like I used to. I was so discouraged.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go on a free trip to Atlanta with Campus Crusade. Basically I thought all it was going to be was them convincing us to be on staff and I'd thought about what that would look like in the past but I was not considering it at all anymore. But hey, it was free and my best friends were going. I honestly had no expectations for God to work through this trip since I'd felt so far from him lately, but boy did He prove me wrong.

Friday night I realized this was going to be more than them just "convincing us to be on staff". The first talk was on our rights and expectations. As christians we should have two expectations in life:
1. Because he loves us, we can trust Him to provide for us and care for us
2. Because we live in a fallen world we will suffer and sacrifice and are called to yield our rights
I always found comfort in the first expectation but the second one got to me. He used the example of Jesus to compare this to. A very well known passage of scripture is Philippians 2:5-9. Through this scripture we can see just how many rights Jesus was willing to give up for us: the right to comfort, respect, honor, justice, to be understood, to live, and even to be in fellowship with his father. If Jesus gave all these rights up for us, how much should we be willing to give up for him. We cling to our rights of health, free time, recognition, respect, success, comfort, justice, and approval like they belong to us. But the truth is that they do not. This talk really brought back all the times I had thought about being in full-time ministry but ruled it our solely because of my "right" to have a regular salary, success, and approval of friends and family.

But my real amazing experience was on Saturday night. Every doubt I'd had in the past week about God orchestrating my life and being there for me was shattered. God showed up for me, big time. We had discussion groups all weekend and we were with our friends from our school but had a staff leader from another school. Michelle was our group leader and I'd never met her before but I know that God had put us together for a reason. The night's talk was on having an eternal perspective (easier said then done right?). But really it all comes down to looking at it this way, if all the eternity is a time line our life is barely a speck on this forever long line. Do you want to spend your life living it for the meaningless dot (yourself) or do you want to live it for the line (our creator and Lord)? I don't know about you, but I want my life to count for something bigger than me.

In our discussion groups after this talk we were asked what helps us have an eternal perspective in life. All that came to my mind was the sunday school answer of "reading our bible, spending time in prayer, and engaging in christian fellowship", so I said that answer. Michelle turned that completely around for me by saying that what gives her more perspective then anything is being "in the world but not of the world". Seeing how lost people are and how desperately they are searching for something to fill the void in their lives gives her more perspective then anything.

This completely humbled me. I was instantly convicted by how comfortable I was in my little christian circle I was. For a while our group discussed our problems in falling into christian bubbles, and some other girls said the nonchristian friends they had that they were praying for. I tried to think of nonchristians I was close to in life, and no one came to mind. At this point I am feeling horrible about how far I have removed myself from the lost who need God's love the most. Then Michelle begins to share a story with us, I don't remember why she even told us this long story but she did. Keep in mind she had no idea that I have an on campus job where I work with international students everyday.

Michelle's Story:
She began telling us about how she volunteered as a conversation partner one semester with an international student. It was a girl from a country in East Asia and I won't share her name for privacy reasons. All Michelle prayed was that she would have the opportunity to share the gospel with the girl before the semester was over. Turns out God knew better, their very first meeting the girl asked if Michelle was a Christian. Turns out she asked because she thought everyone in America was a "christian" and she actually had no idea what that term meant. Michelle got to tell her the gospel and her testimony in that very first meeting. The girl was an atheist and did not believe in God, nor did she change after the first time of hearing the gospel, but she continued to meet with Michelle for an hour a week every week. She would always ask all sorts of question about God, the bible, and religion. Six months later she told Michelle she was no longer an atheist and she did believe there was a god. Two years later she accepted Christ. She is currently considering going on staff with Campus Crusade even though she is graduating with a doctorate in engineering because she wants to help save her country. Michelle only prayed to be able to share the gospel with her once and God did this. Who are we to limit His power? Michelle gained a sister in Christ and a lifelong friend who joins her and her family for every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By the end of this story I am in tears. Just minutes earlier I was feeling horrible about my lack of influence with nonbelievers. Michelle told this story and had no idea that I work with international students on campus as a job everyday, and I was currently in charge of organizing conversation partners for the semester. I was suddenly slapped in the face with God's presence. I know He brought me on that trip and in that discussion group for a reason. God reaffirmed everything He is doing in my life. Having a job at the English Language Institute has been growing my heart for international students all year and I have got to have an eternal perspective there. The 3 months these students are in America may be the only time that they will hear the gospel, and God may use me to share it with them. I hope that he does.

Since coming home my entire perspective on life has changed. We have got to take advantage of every moment. I have even more to say but I will save that for another post and leave you with this.

"Why, you do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this'"
James 4:14-15