America.

When I was young, I lived in what you could say is the boon-tillies. It is known as Cincinnati, Arkansas and I did indeed grow up on a farm. On the few occasions that my parents did take me to church we went to the Cincinnati Methodist church. This church is what you can imagine being in the middle of a small farming community. Small, white building with a steeple, the smell of old hymn books, a yellow tint to the air from the old windows, all the attendees (barely over 20 people) in their Sunday best including their nice pair of cowboy boots, and warm hearts.

Today, I was looking through a hymn book that I have and it reminded me of this little church and Chub Baer up there singing with only a piano and giving everything he had to sing praises to God. When I was younger, I had no appreciation for this, all I remember is this old guy up there singing in his raspy voice; it was honestly a bit scary when I was really young. Now I look back and have so much appreciation for him getting up there and leading the small congregation in singing praises to God and not caring what he sounded like, what others may think, or anything but bringing glory to God. Before coming to Christ, I used to be so self conscious about sounding bad in worship that I would just mouth the words. To all of you who are blessed with a beautiful voice and use it to lead others in praise, thank you, but to all of you who have not been blessed with a beautiful voice, I respect you for putting yourself so out of your own view that you can sing praises to God, no matter what anyone thinks. If you are timid when singing to God, stop and lift your voice for all to hear that you love your Creator because that is beautiful to Him.

This is the song that made me think of this, it is titled He Lives and we sang it when I was younger. It is only the chorus.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

Since my return to America, I’ve been pretty emotional. I’ve never been so broken by God like I am now before in my walk. I spent the time when I was home with my family to just get used to the culture again and then I returned to Jonesboro for school and finally identifying what God has done in my heart when I was in Bulgaria. I won’t go into much detail because otherwise I would be writing a novel, but here are the basics.

• How to really love someone and invest my life.
• The fact that God can do whatever He wants, even that mystical stuff that we don’t think can happen anymore.
• Concentrating on Jesus and not being concerned about things that I try to make sense of with my faulty logic as a human.
• How valuable a brother or sister is.
• The basic History of Christianity up until Protestantism.
• That God does NOT fit in a box. (box=my understanding)

“Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have lodging places, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” –Matthew 8:20

This verse bears so much truth to what I’ve been going through lately. In my sophomore year of college, I had a lot going for me at ASU, so much that I turned down the thought of studying abroad immediately, I couldn’t leave my comfort. Then….. it kept coming up in head and I began praying, then it seemed as though I was going to Bulgaria for a semester. I spent the summer at home with family and a few good friends working, but it still wasn’t exactly comfortable. Then, I went to Bulgaria, not knowing anyone and although I made some amazing friends who have impacted my life, I still wasn’t comfortable. I was so excited to come home and back to ASU, where my comfort was, but now I’m back and wait, I’m not comfortable? I am now trying to pursue God’s purpose more than I ever have before and it has definitely strengthened our relationship, but it’s also shown me how little this world can make me happy. Now, it has left me broken. I have beautiful relationships in my life and people that I love and who give it in return. Hopefully one day in my life I will also have a marriage relationship as well. Even though I truly see that the only things in life that make me happy are relationships, none of the compare to what I have with God. It’s hard, it’s stressful at times, but what I have with Him is the most beautiful treasure in the world. So, although I’m not comfortable, frankly that doesn’t matter because I find comfort with my Creator.

I feel as though I have learned and realized so much in the past few weeks though, through conversation, the book of Matthew and a book that I am reading, Radical. I’ve spent many nights on the floor with a blanket praying and weeping that God will open my heart to everything He intends me to do. I want to be witness in this world for His wonderful and glorious plan. I want to give everything I can towards being His servant and be obedient to His word. In Matthew 4, Jesus says “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Not that he might do it, but that He will.

When I was eating in the cafeteria earlier, all of the young men and women came in with their uniforms on for some dinner. These individuals have enlisted themselves to be in the U.S. military to protect this country that I am a part of, America. I am so grateful for them, for putting their lives on the line for me to have what I have. In Bulgaria, I met plenty of people who had a corrupt home country where they don’t have some of the luxuries that I have. But, my question is, why aren’t Christians willing to lose it all for God? It’s amazing to me that someone can have more faith in their country, so much as to they would die for it, than someone has for their Creator. Sure, soldiers get training to help them survive, but a Christian has the power of God behind them! Do we belittle His power so much that we believe that He couldn’t save us from a dangerous situation? Do we put so small of value on what God can truly do that we let Satan put fear in us from following God’s plan? It is heart breaking that I fall into this category. I confess that I do not have this much faith in God, but I want it. I hate Satan for cursing me with fear and I’m trying my best to fight it with God on my side.

I have recently decided to begin praying for Indonesia. I saw it and I read about Christianity there and I know that our brothers and sisters over there are risking their lives in true persecution, that they need help in staying faithful to believing that God will keep His promises.

What do I know? I know that God deserves every bit of my love and life and there is no excuse for giving less.

Elder Wand

After crossing the border into Serbia, the bus stopped for the familiar smoke/bathroom/long coffee break. We cruise into the parking lot and as soon as we exit the bus, a couple of dogs are having a welcome party for us. It’s normal for dogs to just be chillin anywhere because a lot here are homeless. I couldn’t stand waiting in the warm restaurant because of the smoke. Side note, everyone smokes over here, the grannies, the business men, the teenagers and babies. I stepped outside into the cold and had this amazing ice cream bar bearing the Nestle Crunch name and walk around a tid-bit and see one of the welcoming party dogs that is a light colored dog. The dog’s radar goes off that someone has actually noticed it and comes towards me with a slight limp and I can’t do anything but bend down and give it a loving pet and talk in a stupid tone to it. The second dog comes up and I notice that even though it’s a dark colored dog, it looks just like the inverse of the first dog, but cowers to the offer of love.

I know that my personality is more like the first dog. Even when I’m hurt, I try to get the love that I can and open myself up. Before this life altering experience that we call college, I was the second dog, cowering from accepting that people really loved me, which ultimately led me to desperately reaching for Christ. It’s interesting how God can send us little messages that we would normally miss unless we just look a little deeper. I love verses about illumination in the Bible. To be illuminated by God’s presence and Christ’s death and know that we have light in this world of darkness, the lighter dog was illuminated by love, while the darker was scared to accept it. Wouldn’t you rather be illuminated by a Perfect Love?

As I have mentioned, I’m taking a History of Christianity class here in Bulgaria with a professor that I was super skeptical about. I have learned a great deal, not only about the history of Christianity, but also about non-believers. According to the most recent census of Bulgaria, around 80% of the country claims to be Orthodox Christian. If 80% of Bulgaria is truly Orthodox, I certainly do not see that statistic ringing true. Not everyone fills out the census though which makes it more like a sample and people may have simply checked a box to move to the next one in the form. Bulgaria seems so secular, especially among the younger people from my view. It’s a whole different ball game here than it is in the Bible Belt of America. A typical person, even sometimes an educated person, has a completely skewed vision of what Christianity is.

I have forgotten about the severity of hell until my dear friend Whitney posted a video from Hey Arnold about a ghost train and after viewing it, it kind of reminded me of having faith and the hideous doctrine article, and I remembered why we evangelize. Sometimes I get so caught up in…… everything else, I question or forget what the use of evangelization is for.

Predestination.

That’s been my semester focus, both personally and for a grade. I have to write a 14 page paper for class and have my presentation prepared Wednesday. This has been a very challenging thing for me to research, not because I can’t find information, but because both of the main ideologies/theologies associated with this topic are strongly Biblically based but very different. I only have to have the more heard of and familiar topics research finished for the presentation, which is Calvinism. The other part is Arminianism, but I haven’t done a ton of research on this doctrine yet. The paper will not be an opinion paper, but based on facts. Hopefully, I’ll do a decent job and if you would like to read this paper when I’m done, I have no problem shooting you an email. This is truly a difficult topic to explain, but all things in Christianity are not to be explained, which is where our faith in the Father comes into play.

I went to Macedonia this past weekend with Kelsi from Montana and Cody from Indiana. We decided to stay in Ohrid the whole weekend, which is on Lake Ohrid and one of the oldest lakes ever and Ohrid is also one of the oldest European settlements. I cannot even describe the beauty of this place. They’ve got a good share of Byzantine era churches and breathtaking sunsets every night, the ones that are pink. Unfortunately, there are some screaming birds and a creepy Skipper running around calling you a liar.

We set out Saturday morning to sight see and went up to an old church where they were digging around. Then we notice that there is a whole set of bones that they uncovered and a man that could speak English and very friendly asked us a few questions and came to find out that Kelsi is an archeology major and Cody is a minor. This man was the head of the dig and basically gives us a private tour of what’s going on in the dig. The excitement in their eyes was priceless and that will be a memory to never be forgotten because we saw a lot of great things. The reason for telling this story was because it’s incredibly convicting to me. God is the thing that I have the most passion for in my life, but has that been evident? I don’t feel like I’ve shown as much excitement about God to unbelievers as Kelsi and Cody showed about an old pot this whole semester.

I want to shine God through my life, but did I put a screen door over my life? Why isn’t everything easy in the Christian life? When I turn away from sinful things, I do it to show my love and dedication to God, not because I’m afraid of the consequences. If it was so easy to say no to everything, how could I really prove my love to Him?

Summer Plans!
Will it be CWE or internships with the Navs, Wycliffe, YWAM, WGM, or OM? I’m not sure, but I could use some prayers about this! Pray that I would finish all my applications soon and trust God in this decision.

Randoms:
-I saw HP7 in IMAX in Sofia, Bulgaria on opening day. I might have teared up and gotten scared a little.
-I have a Web Design test on Monday.
-I have Japanese roommates next semester.
-I have great roommates now from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
-I’m thinking about cutting all of my hair off. Thoughts?
-I need more music on my iPod.

I wish that I had kept my blog more up to date, because I just have so much that I want to say, but I don’t want to make this too long and unbearable to read.

Cold Hands

Back in Blagoevgrad.
Back in Class.
Back in Business.

If you ever go to Istanbul, be prepared. Prepared to spend money. All the little shops had beautiful things, beautiful little keepsakes and perfect presents. I liked Istanbul, but it wasn't stunning to me.

I did get to celebrate Halloween in Istanbul though, how many people do I know can say that? I was a "workout girl" due to lack of costume and trying to be creative. Everyone said I looked like someone from the Call on Me video even though I was totally wearing clothes haha. I enjoyed the night and the weekend and the girls I was with. On the bus back I met some kids and we were practicing my Bulgarian at 4 a.m. because they knew little English and I know little Bulgarian.

It reached freezing a couple of nights ago. It's cold in the morning, nice for about 3 hours in the day and then freezing at night, mountain life. I would like to maybe live in North Carolina or Colorado at some point. I enjoy this scenery.

Struggle. Being a Christian is a struggle. Being a student is a struggle. Not being in a familiar environment is a struggle. I love this experience and what God is showing me, but it isn't easy. I'm 20 and only lived a quarter of my life. To sit and think of how much more life I have to live is just crazy! I have so much more to experience and learn.

Recently, I heard about the site Total Frat Move and I started reading. It's sad to read, the fact that it's okay to treat girls like that and the girls don't mind and wear it proudly, the term "sorostitute". Apparel, money, cars, houses, etc. are everything on that site. Sometimes I take a step back and realize what world I'm in and man, I've really got to keep myself from being depressed or something. I pray that God makes my heart bigger for the people who don't know Christ, but sometimes it's too hard. Luckily, I know that it's not in my hands, but in His hands and what a burden I have released from me.

This post is rather scatterbrained in my opinion, but I'm having a rather scatterbrained day.

This is old news, but NEEDTOBREATHE and Lecrae released some pretty awesome albums recently. Go. Listen.