Planes, Trains, and Automobiles... and Subways

Hey!  We finished a week a transportation training!! Woohoo!

So here's the story:

• Sunday. 12pm.  Arrived in Kansas City after Fall break.  Started packing for transportation training.
• Sunday. 10:45pm.  Met with everyone.  Received ten envelopes, each with a specific time to open it.
• Monday. 12am.  Went to sleep in the airport with my cohort. (It rhymes.  I'm sorry.  I had to point it out.)
• Monday. 4:30am.  Opened the first envelope to find out our first destination.  In all caps it said, DETROIT!!!!!!! and gave us a confirmation code to go get our tickets.  But, the problem was that the envelope did not give us our airline.  Therefore, we proceeded to try typing the code into every single airline kiosk in every terminal.  Of course, the code didn't work until the last airline we tried.  Oh, the adventures we have in airports...
• Monday. 2pm.  Opened the 2nd envelope in the Detroit airport to find out that we had to do some sightseeing.  So, I called up my grandparents (who live in Detroit.  what. a. blessing.) and they were excited to come pick us up and drive us around the area.  We had a good time visiting Comerica Park, seeing Canada across the water, and listening to my grandpa tell jokes (the same ones he loves to try out on new people whenever he gets the chance).  

• Monday. 7pm.  Took showers at my grandparents house, ate a homecooked meal (thank you grandma!), and slept in comfy beds. 
• Monday. 9:45pm.  Opened the 3rd envelope to find out that we had a bus ride to catch to Cleveland at 7am.  
• Tuesday. 5:30am.  My really super fantastically awesome grandparents got up to give us muffins and fruit for breakfast and drive us to the bus station.  THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!!!
• Tuesday. 7am.  Left on the bus to Cleveland. Slept the whole way.  mmm.  good stuff.
• Tuesday. 11am.  Arrived in Cleveland.  Our next envelope told us to visit various places in the city.  It was great weather and all of it was within walking distance.  We visited the Indians' stadium, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (just the really cool gift shop part) and we saw some circus elephant parade walk down the street... and another small parade of people followed them carrying homemade signs that wrote, "Save the Elephants! The Circus Mistreats Them!"  Awkward.

• Tuesday. 1:45.  Watched a movie in the mall because we were bored.  "Here Comes The Boom."  It's pretty funny.
• Tuesday. 5pm.  Spent 4 hours in Subway playing UNO.  In that time, we also opened our next envelope.  Our next destination was PITTSBURG!!!!... but not really.  That was just a stopping point before we had to take the next train to NEW YORK CITY!!!!!
• Tuesday. 9pm.  Hannah's friends (who live in Cleveland.) picked us up.  We and our backpacks made a very uncomfortably tight squeeze into the back seat of their car.  Then we spent another 3 hours talking in a coffee shop.
• Wednesday. 1am.  Our train was 2 hours late.  So at 3am, we took a 2 hour train ride to Pittsburg.  ...Coldest train ride I've ever been on.
• Wednesday. 7am.  Took a 9 hour train to NYC.  ...Much more comfortable.  We slept.  We took pictures.  We played UNO.  We went to the snack car.  We slept some more.  We opened our next envelope.  Apparently there was a place that was planned for us to sleep at that night.  But, we didn't have to be there until 9:30pm.  So, we took the evening to walk around Times Square, see Rockefeller Plaza, and eat NY pizza.  We also got to know the Subway system... fun times.

• Wednesday. 9:30pm.  We met at the place that we were going to sleep that night... unaware of future events that were meant to take place the rest of the week.  What were those events you may ask????  *PEANUTBUTTER*  (you will know what this means if you read my blog post about ground school)
• Thursday - Sunday.  We got a lot of opportunities to share the Gospel with people that we met along our journey.  God taught me (and every other student) SO much in that time frame.  

God showed me how much pride and judgement was still stored up in my heart.  He showed me that I was incapable of unconditionally loving people on my own.  My love runs out.  His love does not.  Here's the basic of what God taught me: 

I don't have the all the right words, fluency, or knowledge to share the Gospel.

BUT, God is the one who draws people to Himself, not me.

THEREFORE, I have nothing to fear or worry about.  

My delight and privledge is to be obedient to Christ.

I must share the Gospel.

God has undying passionate love for me and the rest of His children.

He loves everyone He has created and wants to give us His passion for the lost.

He wants us to understand Him more.

I have learned so much about God through letting go of my own desires and feelings in order to share the Gospel.

I am a child of the most high God.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

"I will proclaim His name without fear, follow Him without regret, and serve Him without compromise.

To Christ alone be all power, all honor, and all glory, that the world may know."

He is so faithful.

He is enough.

Psalm 103: 1-5 & 8-12

¹ Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

........

⁸ The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
⁹ He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Backpacking & I Need Prayer

Hey all you wonderfully supportive people!  I just want to tell you really quick... I love you.  Yep, I said it.  Now you know.

So, last weekend we went backpacking and it was strenuous, marvelous, and a learning experience... all at once.  We spent two nights camping in two different places.  The first was an actual campground with a complimentary firepit.  It was great!  The second place we camped in was... well... the woods.  After a good day of hiking, we came upon a small clearing (and by that I mean the trees happened to be father apart than the rest of the trees in the woods).  It was near a stream where we could purify water to fill our camelbacks.  But, putting up tents was the worst.
1. There were trees in the way, so it became a game to fit the tent like a puzzle piece into exactly the right spot.
2. I hadn't assigned myself to this tent (tepee) building task until now, so I only knew as much as the others did.  It took us 5 tries before we successfully put up that massive tent.

But once the tents were up and the fire built, we sat around the fire making dinner and hot drinks.  My cohort roasted bread dough on sticks... it was a delicious new experience for me.


The first day of hiking was fantastic because we got to take a lunch break at this really long waterfall (apparently the longest in Missouri).  It flowed down over tiers of massive rocks, which we gladly took the opportunity to climb.

The second day, we were already pretty worn out, so the nine miles we hiked were a bit strenuous.  But I took the time to get to know my friends better by exchanging testimonies and singing classic veggietales and disney songs.  Later, we found a tiny lizard which my friend, Jake, named Juliet.  Then our leader, Scott, ate her... ok, so he actually just put her in his mouth and pretended to swallow, but it was still pretty crazy.

Overall, it was a good time of fellowship, survival training, exercise, crazy pictures, and beautiful mountain views.  Praise the Lord for backpacking.



HOW YOU CAN PRAY:

1.  As I and other students are becoming closer to the Lord and actively living and sharing the Gospel, we're being spiritually attacked, distracted, and tempted by the devil.  I've seen it in myself and others have mentioned some struggles too.  Pray that God will deliver us from these distractions and temptations, and that He will build us and develop our patience through these trials.

2. Pray for Amanda and Jack and their kids.  They need Jesus, the true Gospel, to impact their lives and renew their relationship.  Jack says that their marriage needs strengthening.  And Amanda needs Jesus to be her joy.  Also pray that the Holy Spirit will give me and Jeremiah the words and wisdom to share the true Gospel with them.

3. Pray that we as brothers and sisters in Christ will remain strong in our faith in God and be devoted to prayer.  Some of the students here have families who don't accept their Christian beliefs.  And some students have friends they love dearly, but those friends won't open their eyes to see the truth of the Gospel.  We talked about it a lot today and committed to pray for each other and remain strong as a community in the Lord.  Praise God for these people I have here.

I praise God for the support and prayer I'm so blessed to have from all of you.

Thank you SO much!!