Wilder Project #1

The first night we were in Newport Beach (in the beautiful house God provided for us to stay in!), the team sat down and we had a really good devotional together to really focus on what we were there for. Jim McKinney, the XA director at UCI and the wonderful guy who sponsored us while we were on our trip, suggested that we look at Philemon, and that's exactly what we did. Here are some of the things we came up with in our bible study that first night that helped us remember what we were doing and why:

-Don't judge others- treat everyone you meet as a brother or sister
-Have the grace of Jesus with the people you talk to, and know that HIS grace is with us!
-We should go about what we do with crazy love
    -Sharing our faith should be natural! It's part of our lifestyle as Christ-followers
-Pray constantly! We're always looking for open doors to build relationships

Here is part of the first entry I wrote about our trip:

March 16, 2010

We're only two days into this trip, and it has already been one of the most memorable experiences of my life! As Travis puts it, we're out here exercising our spiritual muscles that really should be in use every day, in every moment of our lives! And the good thing is, what we're doing here- sharing God's love at UCI!- doesn't really feel out of the ordinary. The results of actually going out and talking to people and hearing their stories and seeings Jesus get planted in their hearts (or at least the idea of Jesus), however, are always extraordinary! It's so humbling to know that God is choosing to use us to do His work! There's nothing more rewarding, and quite possibly nothing more challenging, either! Sometimes I find it so difficult to completely go out on a limb and not even be sure that what you're saying to the person you're talking to is hitting home, but you just really have to have faith that you're doing what God wants and that seeds really are being planted!



Here's some more pictures from the trip.

The church in front of the neighborhood we stayed in!

Our house! Thanks Bill and Joanne!

The incredible view of the bay from our backyard

Pretty, pretty UCI and part of the team on our first day on campus

Catch-Up

There has been a serious neglect of my poor little blog here! Life has been so exciting and crazy, and this isn't really the appropriate time to be spending time on things other than schoolwork in light of that, but oh well :). I have been journaling quite a bit, so I suppose I'll transpose some of my entries here!


Something major that happened recently was the mission I went on over the week of Spring Break- I went with 7 of my friends from Chi Alpha to Newport Beach, California, and we did outreach on the UC-Irvine campus there. It was wonderful, and BEAUTIFUL, and challenging, and God moved in such exquisite ways! I'll tell more about it here later through the journal entries I wrote while we were on the trip and in reflection of the trip. For the time being, here is a photo of the wonderful team I was on!

On another note: I can't believe that it's already April!!

Merely A Complaint

For the record, and quite obviously might I add,

HAVING THE FLU SUCKS!!!!!!!


I've never been so miserable in my entire life. Thank goodness for antivirals, sleep, Sprite, and prayers!!

Sunrise to Sunset

I can't even begin to describe the amazing, amazing change that God has afftected in my life. I am a brand-new person, just as God promises to do when you take Him into your heart (again, in my case), and I am loving the person that I am examining myself to be. I hate to sound preachy or to have that holier-than-thou attitude that so many people do when they talk about their faith, but I have never felt such overwhelming joy or such overflowing peace before- ever. I've found true happiness, and I understand what it means for God to fill up the voids that are inevitable in who we are as human beings. I've really been able to see something so pivotally important recently- when you live your life in the world, you base who you are in material things: cars, money, iPods, books, houses, the people around you. But the thing about that is, those things fail. Always. Over time, upgrades come out, the economy gets flushed, ink fades, people change and relationships crumble. No matter what it is, everything in this world will eventually, in some way or another, fail. And that is why it is so so important to define who you are in God- because God is unshakeable, and no matter how many steps you take in the wrong direction, God is always there. And it is so indescribably FABULOUS to have these things be so real  to me. That's the amazing thing about faith- you can't see it or touch it or grab it or smell it, but for those people who reach out and take hold of that gift that God holds out to us all, faith is REAL. Nothing else matters, except that God is real. From sunrise to sunset, every day. :)
Psalm 5:11

Take My Hand

     I feel so incredibly spiritually overwhelmed right now!! (And always, really... God never stops working!) Christen has been working on her sermon for her guest speaker-ship (?... What do you even call that? Ha) for a WHILE... and there have been breakthroughs and I've been able to give her snippets of advice that have given her little spurts of go-ness, but in all honestly it's been quite stop-and-go! I'm not even the one speaking to a roomful of high school kids, and I was nervous!! We'd had notecard interventions, random thought marathons, and all other manner of idea-clusters, but nothing was clicking for her with this sermon.
      Until today. I went over to sit with her for a little while this morning by the fountain, and she was seriously freaking out! Ness ensued, and then we came up with this brilliant idea: stop trying to write the bloody sermon. God speaks through us to say the words He wants us to say... He always always always has a bigger plan for us than we have for ourselves, so why should we try make our own plans? It makes so much more sense to figure out what God is doing in our lives, and simply join Him. True, deep, meaningful human success is impossible without God--there is nothing we can do for ourselves that is better than the things God does for us, through us. Every single day, I am finding out more and more the extent to which I need Him so much. I have never in my life been more happy than now, than in this period of my life where I have completely opened my heart to His love and completely immersed myself in walking with Him. I am finding out that I simply cannot do, have, live, be, without God... there are always rough patches in walks of faith, but it is so easy to allow yourself to be pulled along on the path you walk with Him and be so sure that everything will work out, because why would God ever lead you into a situation that He couldn't pull you out of? I have never known so much about my life before... and all I really know at all is God.
     Amazing, the thoughts that pop up from simple things like giving a friend advice, eh?
2 Timothy 2:15-26

Chi Alpha...and the Amazing Things God Does to Your Life When You're Not Looking :)

     So, I finally decided to go with Christen last Friday, when XA was having a big potluck. I honestly didn't have very high expectations, but it's like I got sucked in. The people are so incredibly warm and sincere and welcoming, and I've always said that I've never felt the need to share my faith in a big community like that because I've never felt pulled or called there. I never felt the need to go to church and learn more about my faith, or to purposefully surround myself with people who share it. I always knew that it was what I should be doing, but I never felt called be in that place. I didn't feel like I needed to go to church to have my own personal relationship with the Lord, so, as soon as I had any say in it myself, I didn't.
      But XA feels so much different than any church or youth group or fellowship that I've ever been to (and indeed there have been many!). I feel so comfortable there, and I feel like God pulled me there on Friday night for a reason... that I really have so much to learn from and grow with these people. Tonight was the first time I went to EXP, and I was touched more deeply by the words that Oneida (who is one of the staff members at XA) spoke to us in that little room than by any sermon I've heard in a any big sanctuary in any big church, ever. I felt like she was speaking and teaching God's Word especially for me... it blew my mind. In those moments while I was listening to her teach about evangelism (which I've always been sort of shaky about) and about our roles as God's children, I felt such a profound sense of everything that has happened in my life since I moved to Tucson and I felt so aware of how God used it all to bring me to that one place that I found myself in tonight. It really is amazing. I'm not particularly sure how to clarify it, but it made me see that He really does have a purpose, and that I was always meant to come back to that place where I could completely, and without reserve, immerse my life in my walk with Him. For me, just having faith and just having a personal relationship with God has always been enough. Tonight, I realized that it isn't, and I am so incredibly excited about that :).
     It really is a wonder... how, if you allow yourself to be receptive to God's love, He works amazing things into your life when you never expected it. There are things that I've found to have fallen into my life recently that I never realized I needed... and in all of these things, it is so easy to see the beauty of hope and how far grace will go. And with that comes a peace that I have never felt anywhere but in the Lord.
  

Oy, With the Poodles Already! (v. 2.0)

     So many things have happened! Life has been buzzing by in a crazy blur... I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I'll just let it come out as it comes out... we'll call the rambling the creative license of artistic writing, yeah? ;)
     Well, my mom closed the deal on our new house! She re-decorating/re-modeling/rambo-cleaning the whole place as I type... she's become a painting maniac! The house looks really beautiful, actually. She's doing such a good job-- I'm so excited to move in in a few weeks! Granted, I won't actually live there until the summertime, but still... yippee! And my mama is so happy with all the work she's done... you can really tell that she loves the house. She's put so much energy, time, and money into it and I know she's going to be thrilled once she gets everything all settled in. I'm so happy that she's been able to do all of it... having such a big project that she's been so dedicated to, that she really wanted to get done (and almost has!) has been so good for her, I think. And Mike, of course has given her everything she wants... he really is trying, this time, and I think things are working out so much for the better now.
     Katrina moved out! Since we all know that I'm such an amazingly fantastic roommate and that no one could ever bear to leave my company (haha...just kidding), I suppose I should throw in that it was actually quite a good arrangement for her! She got a job as an RA in Parker House, an old sorority house that got disbanded, bought up by the university, and turned into an all-girls residence hall. She's doing quite a good job over there, and she really likes all the girls in her hall :). I'm really happy that she got presented with such an amazing opportunity, but I miss her like crazy! After she moved out, I lived alone for about a week and a half, which was a little lonely, but I rather liked having my own space! Then (and not for lack of the heavy use of my mind-powers to keep my room a single, might I add!=P) ResLife re-assigned a new girl to my room, Lisette. Things are going pretty well, I suppose. We get along fine, but she's not exactly an organized person, and that's a little frustrating sometimes... But you can't have everything! I'm just thankful that I didn't get stuck with some crazy psycho person! Can you imagine the horror? Ha.
     Another momentous thing that's come into my life just recently that I am SO jazzed about is Chi Alpha. Nooooo- NOT a sorority, people! (That ish is just way too silly for my taste...) It's this Christian fellowship community on campus, and Christen (with whom I have been spending unquantifiable amounts of time with lately! <3) has been trying to get me to start going with her since she started going, almost at the beginning of the school year. However, I have so much to say about XA that I decided to give it a post all it's own... it shall succeed this one. Stay tuned!
     I was going to continue my catch-up on everything that's been going on that I've neglected, but my mind is filled with things I want to say about the XA post that I feel like writing that one :). If I think of other important things, they'll definitely come in later blogs.
     For now, adieu.