What I'm doing with my life NOW...

Hi all!

The major plight that I keep running into with the blogging thing is "what on earth do I write about?" I want to to be interesting, maybe funny, but most of all I want you to get a glimpse of what my life looks like now that I'm getting ready to move to Germany. Here is my life:

It is a myth that I have graduated. Sad. I. Know. :( but DONT WORRY, I didn't do anything wrong. I had one last class to take before I get my Bachelor of Science in Theology and Youth  Ministry. I also wanted to walk with all of my best friends from Multnomah this May. Knowing myself pretty well, I thought it might be best to take this last class when I actually had time.  Its working pretty well this way and I love that this class has no tests so I can officially say that I will never take a test in college again. *happy dance*

I don't have a job yet, but I may have a lead on one. If you think to pray about it that would be awesome! It would be working at a Portland school as an educational assistant. Its better pay then I would get at any other job that I have applied for and its only part time which allows me to continue doing photography. Speaking of my other love... :) Photography is going well. God is blessing me with some jobs and I'm hoping for more. I'm also just taking a lot of pictures for fun. 
I can't help it haha I also got some good advice recently that before I leave I should take a LOT of pictures. 

I love combining photography and friend time 

My most recent craft/fix-er-up-er job

 (This lovely advice giver had no idea she was talking to someone whose camera is already {practically} her 3rd arm. I have taken her wisdom to heart and I'm trying to documenting everything. Oh happy life...)

While I'm not working, I am volunteering at an after school program in Portland for a few months (hopefully until summer). I'm loving it! I get to work with kids and some amazing people that I would had never met unless I tried something new. This is actually how I got the lead on the before mentioned job. 

"How is support raising going?"
...Oh, I can't tell you how many times a week I hear this question and it is so encouraging! God is blessing me with so many people who are interested and passionate about BFA and God's call for me to go. My reply: Its going well. Slow. But God is showing that He is faithful. 

I'm in a Bible Study Fellowship group right now and we are going through Genesis. Who would have thought that I would be learning about support raising in Genesis, but I am! My most recent and profound lesson was this: God wants us to ask, bring things before him that we need/want/are worried about and lay them at His feet. THEN (here is the key) leave them there. We don't ask for them back. We don't continue to worry (How to really do that is still a bit of a mystery to me). We give them as a sacrifice and then allow Him to do what He has promised to do: love us and provide in His best way.
So thats how support raising is going. I'm learning a lot while I find the balance of being proactive and leaving it in God's hands. Please pray that I would be able to do that and that. God will bring in all the things I need for this move! In. His. Timing. 

30 Years

This week I had my last group project presentation of my undergrad career. Yay! It was a good feeling to complete it, but the best thing was what I learned in that 100 minute class period. All four of the groups presenting had to cover two things and we could do it in any way that we wanted.

1. Why is Jesus a leader you would follow?
2. How did He manage His time on earth?

It was amazing to see how every group brought up different points, awesome qualities about Jesus that all describe why we love Him so much. But the one thing that stuck out to me, that put words to everything that I have been thinking about for the last 3 months of college was this: Jesus used  the 30 years before He began His ministry to learn everything He could and prepare for what the Father had in store for Him. To prepare for what the Father had in store for Him!

I am asked every day what I am going to do after I'm done at Multnomah in 10 days? My answer is a little different every time, but it always consists of spending time with my family, support raising, working, doing some kind of ministry...and all of those things are good, but there is more to it. Actually, I think there needs to be more purpose and mission to everything we do. Right now, for myself, I am looking ahead 9 month to when I embark on what God has in store for me. Not to say that what lies in between is not important, it is crucial to how I will do ministry in Germany. I am in my hypothetical 30th year and its almost time to go!

I have a million things to do, places to see, people to talk to, meetings to plan. Its going to make these 9 months go really fast. I am setting the goal for myself to not waste this time, but to learn everything I can to prepare myself for what is coming. God knows all the things I'm going to face when I get there and along the journey. He will provide some lessons ahead of time and some I will learn when I get there, but so long as I remain humble and open-handed to His leading I'll be ok. He's got me covered :)

And thats what I'm thinking about tonight. Have a good night!

-L

From the Beginning

I think it would be a good plan to make sure that everyone knows the broader story behind why I feel called to move to Germany. To some the job of living with high school students 24-7 sounds crazy and exhausting to say the least, and it probably will be some days, but for me it is a dream come true. 

Even while I was in high school I wanted to be involved with youth ministry. I counseled at numerous camps for church before I graduated. After graduation I started doing Jr. High ministry at Gateway Church, where I had grown up. I was in the middle of my first year of doing this when I applied to Multnomah University to double major in Bible & Theology and Youth ministry. I was accepted and started in January of 2010. A week after I arriving there, while sitting in one of my core classes I heard about an organization called Royal Servants International. The founder, Loui Inks, had attended MU and was recruiting college students to go on one of the trips that the organization sent out. He started listing them off and I will never forget when he said "Ireland". I just knew I had to go and spend the summer leading American teenagers. I remember going home that night and telling my mom that I was going to Ireland that summer. A few months later I was there, loving American and Irish students. It was the most challenging and most rewarding thing that I had done up to that point in my life.  But I walked away knowing that I wanted to do it again because, even through the challenges, there was such amazing joy that came from seeing students come to a deeper understanding and love for God. 

My "D-Group in Ireland 

The following February I went to Germany with a group from Multnomah to help at a middle school camp for Military kids. We were helped Cadence Student Ministries to put on this four day long camp and I was a photographer as well as a mentor and all around handy-woman. It was an amazing trip for me because it was the first time that I got work with TCKs (Third culture kids). I loved listening to them and hearing their perspectives on life and the world. I was challenged to be a better leader and youth worker when I was with them. Little did I know that this was planting the seed for my future ministry passion. 

Some of my team with the band from the camp

That following summer I went back overseas with Royal Servants, but this time it was to Nepal. I had no idea why God was calling me there,  but I am always up for an adventure and I am learning to trust that He knows me better than I do. It was an amazing trip filled with challenges that I never could have prepared myself for. God brought me to the place where I had to lean on him and completely surrender my goals for the trip. I have never reached the point of complete exhaustion before that trip and I'm so glad that I had to go through it because I think it was preparing me for what I could go through in the future. 

Playing with a little girl whose mother escaped from the sex-trade

Now, as I mentioned in the first post, it was at the end of this trip that I was talking with one of my team leaders, Bethany. I was processing through all the thoughts that I had had all summer: I want to work overseas longer term, I want to work with high school students daily, and I would love to live with them. This was when Bethany suggested that I look into Black Forest Academy. The idea stuck and when I got home I looked into it and as the weeks of researching went by I became more and more intrigued. 

I was very interested, but it was still just an idea. I was in a class that semester (fall 2011) that was focused on helping us find our future career opportunities. Part of this was taking a test called the IDAK. This test combines our innate skills, and our passions to help you find the best possible fits. I loved this because when I got the results it said that I should look for a "job overseas, full time, working with English speaking students". Then the test gave me a code to look on a job finding resource and when I put that in BFA was at the top of the list! I have to admit I was a little surprised and thrilled at the same time. From that point on I started talking about the potential of going and being an RA there with a lot of random people and God used every one of them to encourage me to look into it further. I kept meeting people who had just gotten back from there and could answer all of the questions that I was building up. 

In January I started looking into what mission agency I should go with and after a lot of prayer and researching of various organizations I settled on TeachBeyond. I started the interview process with them and was accepted in mid-April. Simultaneously, I was applying with BFA and once I was accepted by TeachBeyod I went through and interview with the former. A week after my interview in late May I was accepted! 

And thats the story. I have learned so much through the process that I have been on in just the last few short years and I can't wait to see what is ahead. If you are reading these posts I want to thank you! My prayer is that this journey not only builds and encourages myself, but also many of you. He is a God with huge dreams for us! Dreams that are so much bigger than we can ever have for ourselves. I'm learning to continually surrender my own to Him so that His can work out in my life.