Monday, September 19, 2011

Philippians 2:5

"Have this attitude in yourselves which is in Christ Jesus..."

This weekend I had the privileged of spending the weekend in Serbia with the MTP students. It was a weekend filled with challenges, frustrations, laughter, and covered in God's blessings. One of the churches we visited has been going through a really rough time. We where told that a girl, about 15 years old, had been in the church alone and someone came in and "hurt" her. The guilty man was caught and arrested. His friends, angry that he was being punished, decided to take action against the church. They broke in and vandalized the whole property, breaking windows, stealing things, and (the worst part) going to the bathroom everywhere. The pastor, Pastor Tibor, had to start sleeping at the church because they kept coming, causing more destruction if he wasn't there. We came and simply cleaned up. Most of the work had been done before we got there, but the attic still needed to be done. I'm not gonna lie, we did amazing work!


We packed everything up and filled the van, inside and out and took everything away! Later, we fit 10 people and all our luggage. It was a tight fit to say the least. 


Taken from our car...the old and new meet. 


I still bite my nails...

The kitchen sink. 



Our wonderful Chef. 








My friend Mana loves me!






When you go on outreach with Lisa, she makes sure you don't go hungry! In her own words, "There are enough things in life we can't control. Why not take the things you can control and make them great!" 






We did an outreach in a Gypsy village...it was hard but I think God used us there. I could tell the devil did not want us there! The speaker died the in the middle of our drama, cars blared music, crazy people yelled in the background, I fell out of the car and got a really bad bruise, someone hurt himself during the skit, but Jesus was faithful and we shared the Gospel. The van started without hesitation the only time the whole trip...the enemy couldn't wait for us to get out of there! 


Weenie roast! It was soooo yummy!




<3




I love Europe. I want to ride a bike to the market when I am an old lady.


 



We tried to fit all eight (just the back seat!) of us in the picture, but we just couldn't do it!

I still need to get more pictures from friends, but the whole weekend was amazing, but hard right down to the end. Our van broke down and we ended up getting rides home from some very amazing friends. In the car I was in, we had four ladies (all with big birthing hips) squeezed into three seats. It was a 3 hours drive, and typical of the weekend, uncomfortable but very blessed. We all shared testimonies, laughed and just enjoyed being united in Jesus.    


Friday, September 9, 2011

Pathetic attempts at blogging...

Every morning for the last two weeks I have began the day with one thought..."I really need to blog." Multiple times I have gathered my belongings and headed up to the coffee shop with the intention of tell the world about my life, but somehow, I have managed to get sidetracked every time. Maybe blogging was just a phase in my life that is slowly fizzling out. There was a time when I had two or three post running through my mind everyday, but now when I sign into blogger the only thing I can think to blog about is my failure to blog. It's more than a little sad...but today I have decided to persevere and write an update! I hope that makes someone happy.

This summer I was all over the place. I served with a church in a neighboring city for a month, came back to the school campus for two weeks, went on a amazing camping trip with the AVFL students (one of which was my little brother), came back to Vajta again for a few days, then took one of the AVFLers on a weekend outreach, then came back to school again this time to stay for the rest of the summer.

I feel like I lived three summers in one.
































(Some pictures from my crazy summer.)

But now summer is over and Monday morning marks the official beginning of the fall semester. Over the last few days new students have been trickling in...last spring there was 54 students including interns. This fall, we have 85, but if you count the children of married couples and interns we have over 100 students living on campus....

(Now is the time when you see just how crazy my life had become. I wrote all of the above last weekend and right now it's Wednesday afternoon...so five days later and I am finally back to my blog.)


Three days into the week and I am already feeling the stress. Maybe stress is the wrong word...because I am also feeling so excited. I am thrilled to be "back" to school. I love having people everywhere...

(Ok, this is totally serious. It's been another afternoon since I wrote the last thing about it being two days since I started this blog. I think rate it will take me two years to finish this blog post. I really want to try though. I have to finish. I have thoughts and I think you should know them.)


I could erase everything above and start over, but I feel like it adds to the character of my blog.    

(I really might have a problem. Right now it is Friday afternoon. I feel conflicted about even keeping this blog. I am not doing this on purpose, but what I am supposed to do when I am in the middle of blogging and something comes up...)


This blog really has to be over now. I am just going to post it. I really don't even know what I had planned for it to be about anymore. Here's a little taste of semester life.