While I'm Waiting

A few days ago, each member of the LowCountry Ministries team for 2010 received a confirmation email with some questions, topics of information, and (most exciting of all!!) a list of the other team members. I think it's safe to assume that we're all pretty much as ecstatic as we can be, especially considering the immediate friend requests that bounced around Facebook and the groups that were formed in preparation for the quickly approaching adventure! As excited as we all are, we want others to be just as eager to support God's glory and mission this summer in Beaufort and Jasper counties. It is my hope that you will take maybe one or two of the names of the students to pray for as we prepare and go about God's service. We are broken up into 4 smaller teams, each serving in different ways. The Community Ministries Team travels to local communities and neighborhoods to hold short day camps. The children will spend a week playing games, singing songs, making crafts, and hearing a Bible story. The Sports Ministries Team works in various Boys and Girls Clubs teaching kids how to play different sports and also about Christ and His love for them and how they can know Him. The Performance/Resort Ministries Team has a more difficult mission, in my own opinion. As hard as it may be to learn music and create dance routines, as nerve-wracking as it is to perform in front of large groups of people or walk up to complete strangers on the beach to share a Christ-like gesture, these missionaries live in Hilton Head for the summer among people who are well-off and find no real need for a God. To live and serve and witness in such a community that is so confident in themselves is a struggle indeed. Lastly, but the most recent addition, is the Kids Connexion Team, which will be working with children similarly to the Community Ministries Team but will be serving primarily with local churches doing Vacation Bible School. I'm not exactly sure what all that entails, but that's the description as I understand it. Either way, I'm sure it's going to be great!

Now that you have a little background on what each team does, I ask that you would pray for each team member. We will pray for each other of course, but I know from experience that, as we pour ourselves into the children we'll be working with and loving on, we will need to draw from other Christians as well. Your encouragement and support is so dearly desired!

Community Ministries:
Jessica Welborn
Jessica Walton
Elizabeth Legendre
Rachel Ivey
Diamond Black

Sports Ministries:
Anne Crane
Tim Laurent
Kurt Rogers
Blake Johnson

Performance/Resort Ministries:
Cynthia Wagner
Erica Malo
Nathan Ogle
Lainey Wilson

Kids Connexion:
Tola Akinsola
Zach Jordan
Patrick Kelly
Haley Vickery
 
So, this is my team! 17 students whose primary mission is God's glory. We would love to lead children and teens and adults to Christ, but if God is not seeking to expand His kingdom through us and rather has something else in mind, then we are all for it!
 
I feel like things since I've been home have been slightly hectic, although I know that they truly haven't been. It's as if time can't make up its mind about what pace it prefers. Some days seem to drag on forever, but in fact, I have already used up my second of three weeks! Today I heard a song on the radio, "While I'm Waiting" by John Waller, and it sort of struck me.

"I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, LordAnd I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting
I will serve You

While I'm waiting
I will worship

While I'm waiting
I will not faint..."

I am in a state of waiting. And I will be waiting all my life, for different things throughout it of course, but waiting nonetheless. As I wait for my mission to begin at the end of this month, I will serve God, I will worship Him, and I will not grow faint or weary or restless or impatient or doubtful. I will put my full hope and trust in Him, to use this last week that I am at home for His glory, and I will find my joy in Him, whether I am singing his praises or crying out to Him. If I have to wait, which I do (and we all do), then I am going to wait on GOD and no one else, boldly and confidently.

Trust and Obey

I received my official email stating that I am going to Beaufort, SC, again this summer to work with LowCountry Ministries. It is quite exhilarating! However, it's simultaneously nerve-wracking. My biggest mission trips, even the small ones for that matter, have been with the support and prayer of my church family. And now I have less of that. My friend and I have gone on summer-long missions for the past several years, but we have both always been with the same church, and this year neither of us are there anymore. I know that God's presence with me is not dependent on my presence at a particular church or the amount of prayer support that I have, but it's going to be different leaving home not knowing how many prayer warriors are committed to praying for the LowCountry over the next few months. Everything seems to be changing, and I suppose that is a huge part of this "growing up" business, but I am so excited to see my unchanging and unfailing God act in ways that only He can! Please keep Beaufort and Japser counties, the mission teams and myself, the team supervisors and coordinators, as well as my friend and her mission team in Texas in your prayers.

Themeless

I don't want this to be a diary; it's a blog. So I'll just mention that I'm going back to Beaufort this summer to work with LCM, I have two days of my freshman year of college left, and life is a strange thing.
I've been reading a lot of blogs and such lately, just from different people, and they have been so interesting and full of information and passion!
I am excited to return to Beaufort, but my parents came up to WU today to help me pack up and I realized that I am, in fact, only going to have about 5 weeks with them. I am a suitcase girl. No, Winthrop is not a suitcase school, and nor do I have a difficult home life; I am simply a suitcase girl. Does this indicate some correlation with my lack of commitment to things? I'm not sure, but it sounds like something a therapist would say, so I'm going to go with it.
I also decided today that leaving my old church was a big deal for me because it was always my constant amongst so much change; so for my constant to no longer be a constant, well it kind of shattered my world then. But I think I'm okay now, for the most part anyway.
I went to my first "show"/"concert" (still not sure which it qualifies as) on Friday night. It was one of those places where you have to answer the question "Over or under?" and of course my answer is "under" (holding out my wrist for an appropriate armband). It was a blast, and an experience that I treasure. I had only heard of one of the bands beforehand, Sequoyah Prep School, but now I am familiar and in love with two new ones: Sing It Loud and A Rocket to the Moon. I have been listening to ARTTM almost nonstop since Friday.
Tonight, I cannot sleep. My plan was to awake at 5 this morning so I could spend a couple of hours studying before my 8 am exam, but I found myself up and restless at 3:30 this morning. It's already after 4 and I still cannot sleep, so I'm deciding to go ahead and be up for the day.
Our room is becoming emptier. It is sad to some extent, but thrilling at the same time. I am so used to moving around, being somewhere different, experiencing different environments and roles all the time. Short term mission trips will do that to a person.
Speaking of mission trips, I miss Canada and all of the people I met there. Everyone was so unique and precious, especially the people I was able to closely work with each week. Few people have experiences like I did there in their lifetimes, so it is hard to find someone to share that with, to express myself and have someone fully understand and empathize. Even with Beaufort I find this to be so. Sure, other people go on mission trips, even summer missions, but I have found maybe one person with whom I can share these experiences, and by share I mean form a common, mutual experience on the basis of our individual experiences, not just talk about the trips.
There is a song that I have recently fallen in love with, You Could Be Happy by Snow Patrol. I am not entirely sure why I like it so much, but I think it mostly has to do with the music and the fact that I feel like someone is speaking those words directly to me. Who? I don't know, but it's as if someone is addressing me personally, not that I have the sort of relationship with anyone where that song would even be applicable.
The trash trucks are outside now. They never come at the same time anymore. At the beginning of the school year, they arrived each morning at about 3 am; why 3, I do not know. I think it's stupid to send a loud, obnoxious machine to a college campus, where college students are attempting to rest during their crazy lives, at THREE IN THE MORNING!!! So then I noticed at the beginning of this second semester that they come around 5... but then it was 4. Today I heard them at 4:26 am, so I guess they're a little confused about when to start their route. I used to take the sound of the trash trucks as my cue to hit the hay if I had been working a long night. Today, they must be my cue to hit the shower and start my day. I don't want to, but what else can I do? If I attempt to sleep some more, I will spend half an hour trying to fall asleep only to hear my alarm go off at 5. If I sleep past 5, I will not study for a sufficient amount of time and risk my GPA and scholarships...
Oh, the life of a college freshman!