Unfortunately, I have found myself to be the victim of a very unfortunate fate: the common cold.
I've been fighting and denying its existence all week but it finally caught up with me a couple days ago. Drat. It's not bad enough to put me out of action, just enough to make me a little hazy, weak, and tired. Not to mention preventing me from eating all the yummy things around here... Which is lame because I am SO craving brownies and cheez-its!!! I am too stubborn to succumb, though, so that didn't stop me form going to class (of course, being very careful not to spread the joy). For a few days, it was just a tickle in my throat and a sniffle and I was in total denial. As it escalated, though, I finally had to succumb to the reality that I was sick. Funny thing, though, somehow finally admitting and allowing myself to feel bad made me start to feel better. Giving myself the allowance to be a little out of it made it feel like I was already on the road to recovery. Fighting it did not make it go away and even though I can't discern any difference in my congestion levels, I do feel like something shifted when I let myself just rest. I'm so bad at just resting, but today I managed to not go anywhere or do anything - an actual accomplishment for me. I enjoyed reading my Bible and sitting around the house alone for the majority of the day, feeling altogether unproductive and yet somehow good about that. The weekends are the one time we as staff have to be productive outside of our class schedules, so it can feel like there is a pressure to do a lot in that time, but I knew that wouldn't help me get better any faster. And even though I don't feel any less sick, I do feel refreshed. Maybe even enough to do something tomorrow. =) What a novel concept: rest. God had a good idea when He put it in place and I always find observing it to be the best policy even though I don't get a lot of material work done. Turns out, He tells us to rest for a reason! Plus, it gives me time to dream about this place <3
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Today was the last day of week one. It's so real - I am one of 18 staff for a school with 42 students and I love it! Instead of bringing in a speaker for the first week, all 18 of us got a chance to share our testimony with the class. Then today Mike Brown, our school leader, brought a message on hearing God's voice and we got to reveal OUTREACH LOCATIONS!!!! I spoke on Tuesday, which at first I was really nervous about. I hadn't told my testimony in months and never had in front of so many people before, so it was quite a new experience for me! It worked out great, though! I got to share about what it was like growing up - how I had such a solid family and church background as well as my struggles in being demonically oppressed. It's not a story I've ever shared much, but I am done acting ashamed of my past. I got to open my heart up to my students and give them a taste of the petrifying fear and overwhelming depression I had struggled with before Jesus delivered me as well as the amazing grace that God poured out on me when He freed me from that oppression. It was a nerve wracking yet awesome experience opening up in such vulnerability to so many people I have yet to get to know, yet I am so glad I did it because I am so filled with joy in how God did such a miracle in my life and I truly love sharing that story with people!!! God is so good and I want to tell everyone I can about it!!!!! That was Tuesday, and today was the big day everyone's been waiting for: the announcement of outreach locations! We made a really cool video that showed all 8 locations on the globe and played video clips from each place, then gave the students an hour and a half to go practice what they had just learned - to go pray and listen to what God was saying and then come back and give us their top two choices for where they would like to go for outreach. Over the weekend, our school leaders will pray over the students' answers and hopefully by Monday we will know who is on what team. That's when we can officially announce details!! =D We're getting so close!!! Once we know who is going where, we start getting close as outreach teams, doing research on the countries we are going to, praying for those countries, etc. That is also when the schedule gets MUCH more busy, so I am planning on fully utilizing my work-free weekend. =) Quiet weekends are so nice! The anticipation has been slowly building to this point and now we are just a couple days away from everything being determined and decided. Praise God, I am SO excited for Monday and to see who is on my team!!! …Actually wasn’t the first day of school, it was more like orientation. But the students are finally here!!! We are still waiting on a couple, but the other 48 trickled in all day long last Thursday and now the glory can begin! =D The 20 of us who are staff have gotten so close over the last 3 months of training and preparing and now we get to welcome 50 new members into our wonderful family. Friday was orientation of everything from the base to our school to the island and our first class is early Monday morning. Aaaaahhh!!! XD One of my favorite parts of orientation is Aloha night, when the islanders welcome the new students with some amazing Island dances, each country on base is represented in a flag procession, there are dance performances from some of the countries, and we worship corporately for the very first time. It was such a fun night!! We took them to the beach on Saturday so they would get the chance to experience Hawaii before they dive into lecture phase, haha. The curriculum is pretty intense, so it was nice to take a slow weekend before everything really gets started. A big thing that all of the staff are looking forward to (nervously) is this first week. Instead of someone coming in to teach, the first week is when all of us share our testimonies on stage. Some of us are more prepared than others. For me, it’s been so long since I’ve shared my testimony at all that I had to first remember what it is and update it. I’m not scared to speak on stage, that’s something I feel more or less comfortable with in general, but I am a little nervous to see how telling my testimony to a bunch of strangers goes. They won’t be strangers for long, but still… I am so excited to be a part of this school! I can already tell this is an amazing group of people from all kinds of different walks of life, but the one thing we have in common is a hunger to know more about God and grow in our relationships with Him. How awesome is that?! DTS was such an amazing time for my relationship with God and I am so honored and thrilled to be a part of this process for these 50 people as well as to see what amazing things God does in and through this school and each of their lives. Go God!!! This morning was a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning came after a rainy last couple of days and I've been enjoying the afternoon and reflecting on how cool Jesus is. The service this morning was lovely and it got me to thinking about the holiday and the joy we have in it.
It's almost scary how easy it is for me to forget my own story! I don't know about you all, but I live in freedom thanks to Jesus and I know for sure the depths from which He has taken me. Yet when I look back at my life previous to His intervention, I feel like I have someone else's memories. I am such a different person now thanks to the work that He's done in my heart that I can almost forget how much I've changed... Thinking back to what my life was like when I was living apart from His active love, I find a very sad, lonely, hard-hearted girl who didn't have a bit of hope or joy. It's amazing to see what a complete transformation has been done in my life!!! How? I let the Jesus I had always known in my head touch my heart. I came to place of such desperation that I begged Him to save me from myself - and He did! I am astounded every time I stop and actually think about that. I had always known the story of Jesus. It was a name in stories I could retell in my sleep, but that name held no identity to me. I knew all the right answers, but I never realized what it was I was saying much less believed them. I believed that what I was parroting was truth because that was what I had been taught, but it was only head knowledge and a regurgitating of facts, not a true relationship or any personal revelation. The fact is, though, I was so wrong! Jesus was an actual person. Fully God and fully man. He walked and talked and ate and slept the same way you and I do today, but without any trace of sin. And He died. He was dead. And then He was alive again!!! The reality of that - if we truly believe it - should blow our minds no matter how many times we stop and actually think about it. Not only was He real and is now alive - actively, at this very moment, living - but then He looked down and reached into MY heart, which was twisted and broken, and fixed it! He actively changed the state of my existence and continues to do so every single day. He actually speaks, actually acts, and actually loves us more than we could ever image!! He's no myth, not just a story. It's not just something we say out of tradition on Easter Sunday, He REALLY IS RISEN!!!! He really does love so passionately and selflessly, more than we could ever fathom. And no matter what we do, that will never change for all of eternity. Every moment with Him is new and every day with Him another opportunity to see His love in action. It's so easy to just say these things or to think "Oh yeah, I know that. I've heard this one before." But if the reality of what we were saying truly hit us, we would be so flabbergasted that we would be unable to do anything but worship Him. Even now, I only have a fragment of the revelation of how real He is and one of my greatest joys is receiving even more of that revelation from Him. I can never know enough about Him. I can never love Him enough. I never get tired of talking with Him and falling more in love with Him. That is the eternal reality of relationship with Christ and it doesn't matter what happens to or around me - as long as I have Him, I have confidence and joy beyond measure! |
ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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