A Weekend in Blacksburg, VA

 This weekend the CCP team met in Blacksburg, VA for some more team bonding and support updating!
We arrived around 7pm on Friday night and had dinner at the Stutzman's. Kait Rose made the whole team a delicious Baked Ziti supper with salad and garlic bread. We spent the evening hanging out with the Stutzman's and meeting individually with Doug to go over how we were doing in the support raising process. We were supposed to watch a documentary about South Africa, but the Rose's were unable to locate the DVD before our meeting. I'm pretty sure that was the Lord's provision, because we had an amazing time hanging out with Jen & Jake Stutzman! This couple is absolutely precious and their story of adoption is humbling!  They have 5 chilren (2 biological & 3 adopted siblings from Ethiopia). It was such a gift getting to hang out with them all evening and spend time with the CCP family.
  After dinner, we slept over at the respective VTech guy/girl staff houses and met at 9 am for a delicious pancake and egg breakfast at the Rose's the next morning. After breakfast we had a meeting and PB&J lunch at a ministry house near Virginia Tech's campus. At this meeting we spent time in the Word and discussed 1 Peter 4:1-2. " Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." - 1 Peter 4:18
Some Scriptures that were helpful and will be used as a constant reminder of the way Christ thinks about suffering and the world include:
John 4
John 6:63
John 12:24-25
John 18:36
Matthew 5:11-12
John 15:18-20
Matthew 16:24
Matthew 26:39
Romans 8:15-17
John 17- the way Christ even prayed represented what He was thinking.

This time was great and refreshing, the Lord really used it to show me that so far in this process I have been thinking about me and have left Him out of doing the work, proving my lack of faith and trust in the Lord's promises to provide.

In Judges 7:1-2 Gideon's army is shrunken down to less than 1% of what he started with and he goes to battle against this huge army (the Mideonites) and in the Lord's time Gideon and his army are delivered out what seemed impossible! The Lord brings us to a place where we are fully aware of our weaknesses so that in the end He gets ALL of the glory! God is able to take little and make it much!

Currently, I am going through a very tough season of  having to trust the Lord to make much out of little regarding the amount of time I have. This requires a faith that can stand the test! May I be a woman who puts my complete faith in Christ and is faithful to the specific tasks that He has called me to.

After, our brief meeting and PB & J lunch our group went on a 7 miles hike in Roanoke, VA.

 We finally made it all the way to McAfee knob after about 2 hours of hiking and then hiked another 1 hour or so back down the mountain. This hike was extremely exhausting but the view was worth it, not that I would do it again or anything! Haha!  We finished our trip off with a fantastic dinner at a local hotspot called "The Homeplace". Our team/family departed after dinner and I arrived late last night around 11pm.

I still have a long way to go in my support raising journey, but am trusting God to provide every penny and more for our team! The time that our CCP family spent together this weekend was so rewarding and I am so thankful for the way God is knitting our team together. Please keep our team in your prayers and be praying for Doug as he is in South Africa this week working on figuring out a lot of logistical stuff.

Things you can be praying for this week include:
-housing
-cars/transportation
-partnership details with COJ staff team
-partnership details with campus leaders
-schedule for summer
-mercy ministry opportunity


In His Glorious Name, 
-L 

Moving Into the Neighborhood

So, as many of you know...
I have lived with a very precious and dear friend of mine, Holli Almond for the past 2 years! We have grown and matured a lot together in our faith the past couple of years and because of that so has our friendship. We have laughed together, cried together, sang together, taken road trips together, went to SBP together, argued together, taken random cook-out trips together, stayed up in the wee hours of the morning chatting together, etc. We've spent a lot of time together!

This year Holli decided to follow God's will for her life and become an RA. She decided to use her position, of being an RA, as a platform to share the Gospel with freshman girls. Although Holli didn't get the position in a specific dorm that we had been praying for, the Lord knew the lives that He intended to use Holli to reach in Witherspoon Hall. Holli has freely given her life to minister to the girls on our hall and from her laboring for the sake of the Gospel this year we have seen 2 girls come to know Christ and several others who really notice something different about Holli and keep coming around to spend time with her.

I admire Holli so much for her willingness to lay down her comforts and give her life away for these girls. She is a prime example of what it means to "move into the neighborhood" as Jesus did in John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and DWELT among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."  

Jesus also makes a very powerful statement in  Matthew 9: 36-39 " When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

I just wanted to share with you a little bit about Holli and how her desire to live missionally by committing to live with freshmen as a junior and now rising senior has really challenged me. 

I am so very sad that my time of rooming with Holli during college is coming to an end after this summer after the CCP, but I am so excited for what God has planned for her next year as an RA in Moore Hall (the very building she lived in her freshman year and  we were praying for her to be an RA in!) It's amazing how God answers prayers! 

So who will I be rooming with next year?!

 I will be living with Morgan McDow in Holshouser Hall and hoping to continue our personal ministries in the nursing program and start a ministry on the 8th floor! Morgan and I met in high school as President and Vice President of HOSA, but really weren't friends until we met through a Bible study that was held in her dorm room our freshman year. Morgan is a nursing student as well, so we have lots in common. I am excited to live with Morgan and share the very vision and heartbeat of Christ with her!

Morgan, Amy, and Me at CO's end of year cook out in May 2010

What's Going On?!?!!?

  Well, I just wanted to update everyone about  what the heck has been going on in my life since Christmas (long time, I know!)

Shortly after Christmas, I attended CO's New Year's Conference in Washington, DC. This year the conference was called AL!VE and the Lord really showed up in a mighty way there! It was so awesome to be part of something so Big and Ultimate, yet having met so intimately with the Lord too!

On our free day, everyone who was at conference met up around lunch time on the steps of the Capitol Building to pray for our nation!

 It was such a unique & powerful moment! 

This is a picture of the Washington Monument as the sun was beginning to set, so gorgeous! 

After a dry (spiritual) season in the fall, I was yearning and thirsting solely for more of Christ. Not ministry, not Bible Study, not church. Nothing else. I just needed to be brought back to the Element of my Faith, Jesus Christ! At conference, God really showed me more of Himself and His commitment to my life! A fresh start had been washed over me, which is what I needed (and God in His Sovereignty knew that too!)  

I headed back to UNCC feeling pumped and so thankful for the way that God showed up at conference, but I knew what would lie ahead of me would be another tough season- J2! Haha! The dreaded J2 semester of nursing school. J2 is also known as "the devil". This is the semester where the professors kick things up a notch with assignments, completely packed schedule, you are in 3 different clinicals, sleep deprived,  and are expected to excel in your studies because there is chance that oh, wow, you may still be "weeded" out of the program after your already seamlessly ending efforts to try and get into nursing school! Yeah, J2...

  Needless to say, I am surviving! I am about halfway through with this dreaded semester! (It's actually not SO bad!) I have learned so much in these past few weeks and this time really will have a great influence on my nursing career in the years to come. I have a super crazy nursing instructor for my Illness & Disease Management clinical, but she's wonderful! I have learned so much from her and I really enjoy IPU. I have some crazy stories, which is super exciting! (I promise I will save you from the sickening details!) I have a super precious instructor for my Pediatric clinical, she is so wonderful and encouraging! I am very sad that next week will be my last clinical rotation with her, but I get to finish it in the NICU, which is the unit I have always said I wanted to work in! I have a big heart for little children and often have pondered (since the time I was 7 yo actually) if this may be an area that the Lord may be calling me to go into. After Spring Break, I will switch from Peds to Maternity! This semester has been emotionally draining and extremely exhausting physically and mentally. I feel sleep deprived most of the time, but somehow seem to truck on through each and everyday. The frustrating part, even though I know it is only for a while, is that I have to go to bed so early and get up before the crack of dawn everyday. I hardly feel like I am a college student anymore. Part of growing up, I guess... I know that there is pain only for a little while and that the Lord is going to use this to grow me, sanctify me, and allow me to use my talents for His ultimate glory! So it's worth it!!!!

  I wanted to share something exciting that the Lord is calling me to this summer! A lot of you have heard about my past two absolutely amazing summers at Summer Beach Project! My first year at SBP I was discipled by a young woman named Erica and then last summer I had the wonderful privilege of discipling 3 young women Rebecca, Julie, and Katy who are now laboring on each of their campuses for the lost world! Well, this summer the Lord is calling me to be part of something so much bigger than myself! This opportunity is one that I can hardly fathom that I am even getting to stand in the midst of right now. Myself and 11 other people are going to step onto a college campus in Johannesburg, South Africa staring May 16th- July 7th to share the Gospel!!!
  SBP was such an important part of preparing me to not only be a follower of Jesus Christ but develop and give me fundamental training to go to another country to share with others the One who gives Life! I am going to try to keep this blog updated throughout the whole process of my journey from the start of my support training (now) to returning home from SA!!! I would love for you to be praying for this and I will post prayer requests soon! Our team has met once before in Lynchburg, VA and we had an amazing time. This weekend we are going to Blacksburg, VA for another meeting to discuss support and to develop/unite more as a team!

I am thoroughly excited and humbled about being apart of this unique opportunity! I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to change lives and how my life is going to be so impacted from this whole process (as it already is). SA is such an influential area, it is considered the hub of all of Africa. It would be compared to the impact that a city like NYC, NY has on the whole United States! SO EXCITING!

That's all for now!
-L