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| I don't really know what all the colors are in this photo, but I do know it looks really cool and that my God is amazing and creative and beautiful. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork..." Ps 19:1 |
Hello All!!
I know it has been more than a month, but last week was our ministry's "Seek Week" in which we all gather for concentrated time seeking God. I figured it would bring about things I would want to share with you, so I decided to wait.
I'm glad I did. :) So here are some things I know, and some I don't.
1. I know that God delights in me. I often don't know why because I give Him plenty of reason not to, but He does and I am abundantly grateful.
2. I don't know what the future holds, but I know He has a good plan.
3. I know that I am in desperate need of learning to pray fervently. On Tuesday, our meeting that was supposed to last from 9:30am to 12:30pm ended up running til 3:00pm with the last three hours simply being prayer and praise through song and more prayer and more praise...I have never experienced such a strong and recognizable outpouring of the Spirit on an entire group of people and it was incredible. God used this time to break down some of my walls and show me how persistently He has been calling me to pray. I don't know what it will be like, but this week taught me that I have been called to have a passion for prayer. I'm working on it, and I know God is even more committed to this than I am.
4. I know God is committed to this because He has been waking me up in the middle of the night or early morning to meet with Him in prayer for the last four years (and probably more.) To my shame, I usually ignored Him. I would turn over or just pray through my list of people not because I was so "spiritual" but because I knew that was the fastest way to make myself go back to sleep. It humbles me to no end to know that He still continued to love me and long for me to spend time with Him (even if it is only for a few moments) for years of me ignoring Him in that way. God is good! And I am learning.
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| We had Team Competition last night. We are Blue and we were up against Silver and Red. We came in 2nd and it was a blast! |
5. I don't know what God wants to do with this crazy group of people, but I know it's going to be awesome. I already have found so much joy in them and I'm actually feeling impatient to get on the road! We leave in ten days for Greenville, Texas and I can't wait! Two of our team are missing from this picture - Caity and Ethan - but I look forward to the time when they will join us: Caity when we get to TX and Ethan in January. We will leave here on Wednesday, Sept 5th and be in TX by the 7th. Set up will be Saturday, and services will start on the 9th. We will be done there the 16th and be in Van Buren, Arkansas on the 21st with services starting the 23rd...and so it will continue until Thanksgiving.
6. I don't know how in the world I thought this pile of logs was a trashcan and then a mailbox, but I did. If you saw my Facebook post, you know I was just as flabbergasted and tickled as you probably are right now. |
| I went to my desk one day and found a thank you note from Cameron and Bradley with this giant deck of cards. Totally made my day!! |
7. I know that I am going to enjoy being the home school teacher quite a lot. In fact, I already do. We've been up to the full schedule of subjects for a couple of weeks now and I like it. A friend of mine gave me a book before I left called Teaching From Rest and it has been a huge help in reminding me the purpose of teaching and the goals I should be looking toward. The boys I teach, Cameron (15) and Bradley (13) are such fun to be around. We've had hard days and sickness and we've had to change our school room location three times, but we always try to start with prayer and end with our good attitudes in tact, me included. These two young men have hearts of gold and they work to make sure they are glorifying God in what they do. That's all I can really ask.
8. I know that stepping in a mud puddle is not always fun and bending down to wipe the mud off your feet is only wise if you have closed the water bottle in the bag on your back.
9. I don't know how many people I have reintroduced myself to in the last few days, but I know it's an embarrassingly large number.
10. I know that I will continue to do embarrassing things my entire life and it's okay. Dan Cathy (CEO of Chick-Fil-A) spoke during one of our sessions this week and he reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously. We all have an inner goofy kid, and we should not be too serious to let it out. So, when we were in service at a nearby church today and the pastor was talking about the upcoming men's "only meat" meal, I didn't even blush when I accidentally blurted (rather loudly), "I want meat!" I just laughed.
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| just the same bunch of crazies |
Well, there are more things that I know and even more that I don't, but I will end it here. Thank you for all the prayers and texts and calls sent my way. I love y'all!
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| It really is a beautiful place to live and I live on the opposite side of camp from the place we eat, so I get lots of exercise. (Those buildings in the distance are not where we eat, they are at about the halfway point between where I live and the Lodge. I had already been walking a few minutes before I stopped for this picture. LOTS of exercise. I love it... though I do tend to eat breakfast in my cabin.) |
Anna
P. S. Check out some other pictures from the last few weeks!
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| This is our band. I love them! |
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| One day, I helped pack these bags up for returns. This was one of several days that the people working on team clothing had to do returns. Some days, they had more than 100 bags of stuff to return. |
