final thoughts, reflections, quotes, lyrics, and rantings.

i just wrote my support thank you letter...it's a rough copy, and 3.5 pages. i tried really hard to keep it short, and i referred them to check out the blog more than once. i've been packing and cleaning all day, but after a week in FL, hanging by the beach and walking around Disney, i have most all the summer processed with a few thoughts and such...

*God continued ruining my life this summer...if you haven't experienced a life ruining yet, just wait, it's coming. and it may be hard...no, it will be REALLY hard, but if you put your trust in HIM, a ruined life is a beautiful thing.

*God works everything out...every little detail of everything. so many times i saw God in the tiny details, putting groups at certain sites, putting specific people at certain sites, speaking through people. even small bits of encouragement that may not have been meant to be an encouragement, but God used it in a mighty way. just reminds me of the feeding of the 5,000...using some saltines and sardines...and Jesus, can work it out, Jesus, can work it, work... :)

*you can't love people unless you love God first.

*everyone is prejudice. no one is exempt. because we all feel superiour to other people, and can find some fault in someone else that makes us judge them and elevate ourselves. whether it is because of the color of their skin, or that they have a mental disability. we label people and judge people like it's our job. and i am preaching to myself. i am sinning every time i judge someone and do not show them love. this summer God woke me up. a speaker named Larry had a sign from a homeless man that said i love Jesus as much as the person i love the least. ouch.

*loving my neighbor as myself does not mean that i give my old pair of Nike's away and go buy a new pair for myself. i love my neighbor as much as i love my old pair of Nike's. if i really loved my neighbor as myself, i would give them a new pair of Nike's....not saying that i need to go buy a new pair of Nike's for everyone (i wouldn't buy Nike because they use slave labor, but that is another blog), it would be niice, but i need to examine my reasons...my motives.

*i'm still working on the suburban church. we talked about the Beatitudes...blessed the poor in spirit. suburban church could be characterized as the poor in spirit...so Jesus calls us to help the poor. so do we help the 'financially' poor or the 'spiritually' poor? in our early sessions with mike bowling we talked about how he thought it would be difficult to preach in the suburban church, because they pain and brokenness are hidden in a nice looking package of a person, but in the city, everything is out in the open, the broken and hurting know they are broken and hurting...that is partly why i 'like' the urban church more, why i struggle with the suburban church...but it doesn't mean i should run from the Burbs. we wrestled with this alot in our debriefing times, and it was hard because i don't want to run, but at the same time my heart breaks for the city and feel God molding my heart and i want to be there, but, again, check my motives...is it because i feel God calling or because i want to be there...then someone said that it was good we were wrestling with the question, but it's about where God called you and what place He put in your heart....i think it's the city...but the burbs still need help...

*i love the other interns. they are my family. i never thought i would become so close with people so quickly. God work it out...and not only did we learn about community, but we became a community. they are some of the most amazing and gifted people i know.

quotes:

"you know you are a servant, when you are treated like one." -ann or elizabeth

"i love Jesus as much as the person i love the least" -larry
"it's not that i think less of myserlf, but that i think of myself less and that feels like Heaven to me" -larry

"the real you showing up, meeting real needs, in the right way, for the right reasons" -chip ingram
"Jesus' mission: comfort the distrubed and disturb the comfortable"

"living to love means giving up all you have for love" -wk. 3 speaker

"every drug dealer and prostitute knows Jesus and can tell you about Him, but they don't know Him" -jim

"love people and use things- not us people and love things" -jim

"justice is found when we find Christ, can't be found until we find Christ" -jay height

"i have to bear burdens of peole i don't like...i can pick and choose whose burdens i want to bear"- jay height

"when we follow Jesus we have to acknoledge that it will cost something" -wk 4 speaker.

"if we want to put the poor at the heart of the church, sometimes we just have to literally get on with it and invite them in. Our wealth can sometimes feel like a barrier...God calls us all to be obedient to his word -to care for the poor- it's a responsibility that none of us can shake off. if i spend my whole time feeling guilty at not having moved to Calcutta, i ignore the opportunities that i have around me living in london...like the words Micah gives in 6:8, we need to get active with our mercy -to love it, but not passively from the sidelines. the way we show that we love mercry should result in lives being transformed and nothing less." Art of Compassion -Tim Hughes

"the point of the gospel is not that we love the 'good people' and hate the 'bad people,' but that we love as God loves, inclusively, extravagantly...the fear deep within us rebels as such love, balks at such indiscriminate grace, recoils at such wholesle forgiveness. such love appears to cut across the grain of our soulds, appears to rip out our ver core. such love refuses to take sides, refuses to play the power games, refuses to simplistically see on class of people as 'good' and the others as 'evil.' such love, we come to see, is no the syrupy sentiment, but the hard work of self-sacrificially fiving for the true good of another, who desperatly needs to be loved. the forces of hatred cannot be conquered by yet more hate. the revelliousprincipalities and powere will not be undone by us tring to play their game. victory comes only through love." -lee camp

i could go on for pages...make sure you check out the books below.

check this poem out: Light in the Asphalt Jungle

http://www.unoh.org/light-in-the-asphalt-jungle

books to check out:

from brokenness to community -jean vanier

mere discipleship -lee camp

the art of compassion -20 christian musicians (i'm almost done with this one, so GOOD!)

irresistible revolution -shane claiborne

compassion, justice, and the christian life -bob lupton

a heart for the city -john fuder

i'm going to work on:
the careless society -john mcknight

Jesus and Community -gerhard lofink

plus a long list more...

songs:
God of the city -chris tomlin

greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city...

God of justice -tim hughes

we must go, live to feed the hungry, stand behind the broken, stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action...

beautiful feet -lecrae

In Luke 4:16 on down to 21/ Jesus says he's messiah, says he's the chosen one/ But more than that he quotes Isaiah/ That shows our Savior targets oppressed, captive, blind and the broke I'm saying/ Had a heart for the poor had a heart for the low/ And 1st John 2:6 is way we should go

Scripture:

the Psalms (especially 1-14, 46)

Ezk. 16:49
Hab 1:5

Zech. 4:6, 7:9

Micah 6:8

Matt. 25

Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35

Romans 12:9-13; 15:4-7

Philippians

James (2:1-5)

1 John

i could write more, but its almost 2:30AM and i'm getting some ice cream and going to bed. please ask me about the summer. i know a wrote a novel and it seems like i wrote down EVERYTHING, but there is more, and i would love to talk and hear responses...i LOVE coffee and chai. :]

peace.

...you hold the truth that saves so run and shout it to the world /They can't believe in something they ain't never heard /Go, go, go and run with those beautiful feet -lecrae

for MI video's done by the AMAZING jenna: http://missionindy.blogspot.com/

http://www.missionindy.com/

the final week...

so, i was just going to cease to write more of the blog...but my dad said it would be good to refer people to in my support thank you letters...so i thought i'd give a little update.

DAMAR week: MI week 4.
so crazy. it needs it's own post.
the prep week before DAMAR was busy; getting alternate crafts ready, taking inventory of the summer...we made intern gifts the WHOLE day Friday, which was quite fun, but tiring. and. I RAN 5 MILES!!!!!!! i made my goal of running 5 miles by the end of the summer a week early. 54 minutes. i could not have done it without my dear running buddy, andrew. :].

i'll be honest that i didn't have the best attitute about DAMAR the whole week and it got worse over the weekend. DAMAR is a facility for mentally retarded kids. it is a really nice facility and they do a good job of making it not seem like an institution...so, going into Sunday night, i was praying HARD for an attitude change, and asking others to pray for me to. we met our group saturday and they were AMAZING. a few of the girls knew about sex trafficking and we were able to chat about it, and i was SO encouraged by bethany's passion. it seems that everytime i get discouraged about wanting to work with trafficking victims, God always brings me some kind of encouragement. it was so cool.

well, after our orientation day monday, i got that attitude change i was praying for. all the kids needed so much love. some didn't have families, many have been abused, physically and sexually, and had horrible things done to them. we went on a tour of the facility and met some of the kids we would be working wtih (13-18 boys and girls- 2 seperate groups). one boy didn't want to come to VBS. the lady in charge then told me it was because he had participated in an exorcism where someone stuck their fist down his throat and beat him to try to beat the autism out of him....how would someone do this?! i was seriously speechless over this...how? why? ...and i am supposed to love my enemies. mmm...

i was ready heading into tuesday. meg and andrew and i prayed that night. tuesday. in all my time at mission indy, i never wanted to quit...after this day, oh, i was struggling bad. to avoid bashing on DAMAR and ranting on for a few paragraphs, let's just say, our schedule got switched and it was chaotic and stressful. but praise the Lord for the interns. at our debrief, they all sat and listened to me gush about the day and then each one prayed over meg, andrew, and i. it was so encouraging and i was so thankful. i prayed alot this week.

wednesday ended up going really well. meg, andrew, and i went out with our group to jimmy john's which was delicous and south bend chocolate ice cream followed! :] God worked it out that night. andrew ended up coming to sit with me and two other girls from our group when we got to talking about politics and one of the girls said very negative things about homosexuals...not seeing them as people, creations of God. oh, i had to watch my tounge and hold myself back a few times, but we ended up having a really great conversation with her and God gave us both words to say.

thursday was hectic again...and i started writing my VBS evaluation of the summer, which took up all the free time i had. we did tie-dye as the craft, so we had to leave early...it was just go, go, go from wednesday night until thursday night. i was worn and stressed...the DAMAR kids came on thursday night to dinner and worship. it was great to be able to just hang with them and not worry about anything...one of the boys was an amazing dancer and walked it out to Lecrae. they all went to the front during worship and danced. it was beautiful. then one of my favorite guys told me i could come to his band practice and i started crying...because, i won't ever be going to his band practice. i won't see him anymore. oh, this is where i struggle so much sometimes. is it worth it to be there for a week, when you won't see the kids again...are we just more people who walk in and out of their lives? andrew says that we are planting the seed...and i get that. at least for a week they were hoepfully shown the love of Christ, but it's still hard.

by friday, i was ready to be done. i told the group that we would get starbucks on friday since they did an AMAZING job. my motivation became starbucks...so i kept having to remind myself to do everything for Christ, to show Christ's love to the kids... the debrief was great. it was amazing to see how much the group changed from the beginning of the week, and they changed because of the DAMAR kids. it was so cool...so encouraging.

it took me over a week to process...im still working on it...and to see the good that came out of DAMAR week, because honestly, i struggled so much. God worked it out. i sang the song...'Jesus can work it out, Jesus can work it, work it' He was present in every area...from the people in the group, to the kids we got to work with....even in the chaos. i let the tears flow during our debrief time...our final one. oh, i miss my new family so much.

there is more to come...final thoughts on MI and how God ruined my life.

peace.