Josh Wilson - I Refuse - SPIRIT 105.3 FM

This is song by Josh Wilson has fantastic lyrics. God has been teaching me lately that it is not about me and what I want to do, but about what he has in store for me. People have always told me being a Christian is not about doing, but about living in Christ and following him. Until recently that confused me. I thought "Well I can I do Christ's work without doing anything?". My Bible teacher said it clearly: By dwelling so close to God so consistently you will know exactly what he wants you to do. All we need to do is wait patiently for God's instruction and THEN act, not the other way around. It's good to know that all I need to do is spend time with God and his word and he will show me his will. This is probably one of the only easy parts of Christianity. Spending time with my Creator? What a blessing! I should look forward to those times I have with Him.

I've been wanting to post on this awhile, but I didn't really know what to say. I will do my best now. On Thanksgiving day my teacher Jonny Williamson passed away. He had been fighting a battle with colon cancer and finally won by getting the opportunity to be with Jesus forever. I did not know him very well, but it was so obvious that all he wanted was for God to be glorified- that's what he talked about all the time! Some people say, "Wow, thanksgiving day. That must be tough." Well, yeah, it was, but to a certain degree it's appropriate. He spent his life dedicated to God and spend the past year fighting this battle. We can now be thankful for his life and that he's in no more pain. Praise the Lord! We will miss him dearly and class isn't the same without him. He is an inspiration. I hope to someday have the faith he did.

Coach, I know I didn't know you very well, but thanks for you example. God has used you to being a change in me.

Thanks be to God.

Nearing the End

Tomorrow is a very important day in my life. It marks the last mouth surgery I have to have! yayyy *applause*
I am simply having 2 screws put in my lower jaw where I am missing some teeth and then it will be stitched back over to heal for 4-5 months. Assuming nothing gets infected, after those  4-5 months I will get them uncoverd (opened back up) and little pegs will be put in. Once the gum heals around those pegs then it will be time to put the fake teeth on and I'll be done! In this case it will actually be 3 teeth on 2 pegs as a small bridge. And done is assuming nothing goes wrong, which it shouldn't and I'm not at all worried about. It's just a disclaimer.
Often when you hear someone is having surgery you think "Oh poor little Suzie. She's having surgery. She must be so scared" and maybe say a prayer. Well feel free to say a little prayer, but unlike little Suzie, little Leah is not scared. So instead think "Oh little Leah. She's having surgery....YAYYYYY for Leah!". But don't worry about me cause I'm not worried. :)
I say all this seemingly random stuff to really say...
1. Surgery tomorrow.
2. Pray it goes well.
3. Rejoice with me that it's the last one. Praise God.

3 days-post return

The England Odyssey trip was amazing. You may have noticed that I started updating less towards the end of the trip for certain reasons but now I will give a more complete overview.
We went to London Thursday and and stayed through Sunday. We went on many tours and learned soooo much history. It was way too much to soak it, but it was incredible to see the history come to life in these buildings and artifacts. History first person is so different from history on a page in a book. We went to the Tower of London and had quite a funny tour guide. Some people thought he was mean, but I just thought that he was stern when necessary and made sarcastic almost mean jokes. So naturally from that description I loved him. He told us what is and isn't true about the tour including some common misconceptions. For example: about 5 minutes in the tour he told we had been in the Tower of London longer than William Wallace ever was. Thank you Mel Gibson.
We also went punting one day in Cambridge. To be honest, I didn't want to go. But it was actually quite relaxing and fun. Since we were in London we of course went shopping and got a bunch of cool stuff.
Soon Monday came and it was time to go home. We said goodbye to our much loved Christian Heritage representative and went to the airport. If you have read the news there have been some terrorist threats focused in Europe targeting Americans. So let's think about this. Airport security+terrorist threat+plane to America+plane coming from Europe=security checks BEFORE we even got our ticket. It was painful, but of course necessary. Obviously we are home safely now so all is well and I have no room to complain.
I am so glad to be home. However some ask if I miss anything in England...
Yes. One thing: English tea. It was the only food/drink that I considered wonderful and I miss being able to have it whenever I want. I love England tea.
Moving on though I do not regret going on this trip in the slightest. I did get homesick, but it was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot. If there are any students from my school reading this, go on an Odyssey trip. It's worth it. :)

England 12-13 10/5-6

The past two days we have been doing lots of school work, some shopping, and we've been listening to some Christian Heritage lectures by the man named Ranald. It was been quite thought provoking. He's talked about why he believes that Christianity is in such decline in the Western world and also what we can do about it.

Tomorrow we head to London. Please pray that we have getting there safety there and that God guides safely back to the United States as our trip winds down. I realize this is a short post, but that actually sums it. :) Please keep us in your prayers!

Song

We had about 12 hours or so with no internet and I got so frustrated that I decided to write a song about it.

Yes, it's badly written but funny.

Sing it to "Oh Christmas Tree"

Oh internet

Oh internet

How awful is your signal

Oh internet

Oh internet

Why are you never working?

 

I try to do

Some Calculus

But all you do

Is die and die

 

Oh internet

Oh internet

How I so despise you

Why won't you let

Me do some work

You are being

Quite a jerk

 

Oh internet

Oh internet

How I so despise you

 

England 9-11 10/2-4

Saturday we went to Edinburgh, Scotland. We sent to the Castle of Edinburgh which was so beautiful and fun. Also on the streets of Edinburgh there were bagpipe players EVERYWHERE. It was so cool. I was freaking out. I got a picture with one of them. It was great. We also had a tour guide of Edinburgh by this pastor who gave us a Christian history tour. Did you know that the grave of John Knox is now "parking spot number 23". They put a parking spot on top of his grave! There is this little square box which is left from the memorial that used to be there for him.  The memorial is now in the church that is next door. That's a prime example of how Christianity is viewed in their culture.  Just build something on top of it and soon it will be forgotten. I hope and pray that we can prevent that from coming to America.

Sunday we went to church in Lancaster and then shopped there awhile which was fun. I bought a scarf. :)

Today has been mostly a homework day, but some Christian Heritage people came today and will be teaching us some. About what specifically I will say later when I know more.

Now the best for last:

Friday on the train ride back from Scotland we met this Muslim family.  One of our boys decided to talk to them and for the whole two hour trip he and mainly the father were debating the Christianity and Islam. As the trip went on more of us joined and there were about 6 of us talking with this family. The beautiful thing was that it was completely controlled by God. A prime example would be that he said something about 9/11 that we did not agree with at all, but the Holy Spirit held ALL our tongues and we did not let our politics affect our witness. We moved on and had a very friendly discussion.  He asked us questions and we asked him questions. The funny thing was that they kept trying to change the topic and we would follow that for awhile, but then ask another question. We could not be wavered. Thanks be to God. We learned a lot and I hope he did too. I praise God for the training we've had at my Christian school to be able to talk with him the way we did and for the opportunity to do so. I think we would have made our Bible teachers proud, but most of all I believe we made God proud for we were his vessels in communicating truth in love while unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That was probably the highlight of the trip so far. If you want to know details you can comment or email me and I'll tell you more in depth the conversations we had.

Tomorrow we start the Christian Heritage stuff and continue with school work. Thursday we leave for London. Once Thursday hits I think this trip is going to fly even faster than it already has.

Those of you praying: Internet. internet internet internet. We have to finish all our school work before Thursday because after that point we will have very little time to work on it. In fact as I type this the internet just went away again... (probably the 3rd time this has happened today)

Pray that we will finish strong, learn a lot and enjoy the last few days we have here.

 

England 6,7,8 9/29-10/1

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. We've been busy and are continuing to have internet problems.

Recap of the past few days.

A few of us went to a missions outreage on Wednesday evening.  It is a ministry for unchurched teens and it was so fun. Basically, we just played with kids for 2 hours. It was great. Also on Wednesday before all that, we went to Kendal to shop. :) I got a new dress which I am quite excited about. We did another missions outreach that day where we helped with RBC ministry which is a Christian radio program.  We stuffed about 1700 envelopes for them. I believe we also did school work Wednesday. That was quite a busy, but good day.

Yesterday we went to 3 classes at the Bible Institute we've been attending. When we got back we did school work. Are you noticing a theme? Oh and let me just say that me and my AP Calculus buddy are 14 pages ahead of the class back at home. :) We are on top of things. However there are some classses I have done close to nothing on because my teachers haven't posted anything. :/ Missing a whole week of AP classes is not good. We'll work it out though. This trip is going very well so far though.  Tomorrow we're going to Edenborough, Scotland. I am so excited. I know my mother is jealous.

Well, guess what I must go do now.

Think...think... you have three guessses the first two don't count.

that's correct! School work! Great guess.

Now it is almost midnight my time. We went to an outreach today that not many people except the volunteers came to which was kind of disappointing.  But I have a nice conversation with 3 of my friends and this british guy about politics. We talked about the President, healthcare, guns, knives, prisons, terrorism, capital punishment and so much more. We solved all the worlds problems.

Anyway, time for sleep! Good night world! Scotland tomorrow!

England 5 9/28/10

School. School. School.
If anyone is worried that we're not going to get any schoolwork done on this trip, you can dismiss your worries. We are definately doing school. And a lot of it. I never valued the 5 minutes we have between classes until now.  Working a straight 4-5 hours on school work with no brake is quite stressful. Friends at home, value those 5 minutes. They're heavenly.
However we also had a morning devotion and went to a session on transforming friendships. It was a neat class. We're going to follow that the rest of the time that we're here.
Please pray that we not only keep up with our school work, but also that we don't stress too much.
This sounds a little strange, but also please pray that our internet starts miraculously working consistently.
Thank you people who are praying! It means so much!

England 4 9/27/10

Today was a much more chill day.
We went to two classes today.  One on transforming friendships and another on prayer this morning.  Then four of us and a chaperone went back to attend the next session on prayer. It was very neat.  The speaker was born in Papau, New Guinea and lived with her missionary parents for all her life so she lived many places. This has given her a very unique accent.
We also worked on school work between those morning and evening sessions. We got a lot done. It was great! One of my friends (Courtney) is in AP Calculus today so we quickly went through the teacher's videos on derivitives. Quite easy. :)
Tomorrow should be a little like today. Please keep praying that we keep up with our work and enjoy our time here and with each other. Even though it is so beautiful here, I do miss America and my friends and family.  However this experience is so amazing and I'm sure I'll continue to learn a lot.

England 3 9/26/10

Today has been incredible. One of the coordinators of this trip lived in England for 4 years.  So today we went to his church service which was outside today. Outside is cold. The sun was in my eyes. I was tired. Yet none of that matters at all. It was a wonderful service and the people are so friendly.  They had a delicious lunch and I tried English tea. It was very good, but even more than the flavor I loved the satisfaction I felt from drinking this tea. I felt so proper. Silly, I know. Then we came home and started working on our studies like the studious students we are. We weren't even required to, but we did anyway! How's that for motivated?
Later on we had dinner and then went to youth group with the kids from that church. That was absolutely the highlight of my day.  It was so amazing to talk to them. We had them try to talk like us and we tried to talk in a British accent.  Did you know that they don't know that we think their accent is cool? That completely shocked them. (Side note: I just realized I'm starting to think in a British accent. funny.) Apparently they think our accent is kind of cool.  I let them hear a southern accent with too many syllables and drawn out vowels.  They agreed that was wierd. We also learned about phrases and words that refer to the same thing, but are different. For example when they say "biscuit" that is a "cookie" for us.  And while we sleep in, they lay in. It was neat to get to know these people.
Well, it is late here so I will conclude for the day. Tomorrow we start attending classes at a Bible college. :)

Blog 2 England Odyssey 9/25/10

Today we hiked a 5 mile trail in the Lake area. On the way there and back it was beautiful to see all the mountains. I’ve never seen so many beautiful mountains.  They are everywhere. It’s actually kind of funny to see all the goats with blue and red spray paint on them.  It’s some form of keeping up with….something. But I’ve never seen a goat with a blue spot before. Haha.
                Right now we’re all trying to get the internet to work. (I’m typing this in a Word document) We’re all in a room with our laptops.  Apparently Safari is better at receiving an internet because the people with Mac’s are on the internet, but the rest of us with Firefox are stuck with nothing even though we did what we changed what we are supposed to.  We all miss our families apparently because we’re frantic to reach our world in the USA because I think we’ll be here until we get a connection.
                Every time someone gets lucky and gets internet, the rest of us yell at them because we don’t have it.  It’s quite entertaining.

Blog 1 of England Odyssey 9/24/10

  Sorry this is late, It's been difficult getting certain sites.     

We landed in the UK at 12:25 PM UK time.  I was apparently really tired because I slept right through breakfast on the plane.  According to my friends I didn’t miss much though. We were able to see some really Old Manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments as well as other historical documents.  It’s amazing to think about how old those manuscripts are and how they managed to stay around until now. When it comes to the Biblical documents specifically, I would definitely say that is God’s hand at work.
                One of the first things I realized when I got here is that even though we got the international plan AND I have an international phone, I don’t have a signal. But let me tell you, this place is so beautiful that I don’t even care about that which if you know me is saying a lot since I’m usually glued to my phone. I have connections home through my computer which is enough.  The architecture and historical significance of this place is mind-blowing and it’s only the first day!  I just found myself staring in awe at everything around me. I feel like I’m in a Harry Potter or Narnia movie because of everything around me.  The British accents, the shops, the English terminology, driving down the left side of the road, the constant rush every just shows me that I am absolutely not in America anymore.  Everything here is so different and I am completely fascinated by the difference in culture and society. As a people watching, i love seeing this. This is already a great trip.  Right now we’re heading to where we will be staying.  We sure have been on a lot of trains today! But I’m okay with that cause I never get to ride trains in the US.
Random thought of the day: Why are pounds so much cooler looking than dollars? Really, we have these green bills and we got all excited when we added pink to the five! Oh gee wiz how exciting! [insert sarcasm] And then you look at this European money and it has all this fancy colorful, shiny stuff all over it. It looks more like a work of art than money! A few of my friends and I actually had a conversation about this after getting our money converted. J
Anyway, I love the trip after just one day.  I can’t wait to see what else I can see and learn about the rest of the week! Please pray that we continue to have safety, that we don’t get behind in our work and that all our plans go smoothly. Thanks!

50 Hours Till Take Off

In 50 hours I will be close to boarding a plane to take me all the way to London in the UK. I leave this Thursday the 23rd and return Monday October 11th. I will be going with 4 sophomores, 7 other seniors and 2 adult chaperones. I have no doubt that this will be one of the most unique experiences of my life.  I will be posting updates on my blog throughout the trip with pictures and possibly some videos. We'll just see what time allows for because I will still be keeping up with my Providence school work while in England! That could be a little nerve racking, but it will all work out I am sure.
I am going to miss my family, friends and boyfriend very much but I know that this trip will be such an enriching experience and I am super excited about going.
If you could be in prayer for me and this trip that would be truly amazing. Please pray that God gives us safe travel, for us to keep up with our school work while enjoying our time there, and for us as Christians to be shining beacon of Christ's love.
I'll keep you posted on what happens next!
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Be joyful always; pray continuously; give thanks in all circumstances, for this God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

In the Words of Satan

Warning: don't watch this with younger kids around.

This song will make you think. I know it's long, but wait it out.

I

UGA game

I'm going to the first UGA football game of the season tomorrow! I'm so excited. Hopefully I can successfully avoid too many drunk people, but this is UGA we're talking about. I can have fun with my family and enjoy the game regardless of that.
The only thing that could make me not in enjoy the game is that I'm not feeling so great. I'm feeling a little sick.  There's some virus going around my school and I'm hoping I did not get it, but there is a chance. I'll just have to pray for the best.

Random Fact:
Favorite Verse:
"Be joyful always; pray continuously; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

Our church today?

I hope not... How can we be different?

Food For Thought 1

“Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” Matthew 6:6 MSG

Everyone wants to find God’s sense of grace, but how?

What does it mean to be?

Be: to exist, have presence, or live

Okay, so now how do we do this simply?

simply: in an uncomplicated, straightforward, or plain way

And how do we BE simple and HONEST?

honestly: really and truly

So in order to encounter God we need to
EXIST
And TRULY
Be STRAIGHTFORWARD
Is that it? Why does it seem so hard to exist and truly be straightforward.
Seems simple.
So why does this not happen more often?

If those of who are Christians started doing this and encountering God’s grace on a daily basis, how much easier would it be to communicate God’s grace when we’ve experienced it just a few hours before?

Food for thought





Encarta® World English Dictionary[North American Edition] © & (P) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

What is love?

What is love?

Is it...

A touch?

A glance?

A kind word?

A hug?

A note?

Is it...

Emotional?

Spiritual?

Rare?

Fake?

Superficial?

Or maybe....

Patient

Kind

Pure

Faithful

Encouraging

Forgiving

Selfless

Everlasting

*loosly based on 1 Corinthians 13

Beginnings and Endings

Where does the beginning end and the end begin?
Who defines that?
Or even where is the line where the end ends and beginning begins?
What makes something the end of the path?
Do we just have to go off the trail a little to get where we need to be which would make it not really an end, but the means to something potentially better?
Or when we reach a "Dead End" are we just done?

There is a beginning at the end of every end.
In fact, the beginning and the end can sometimes be the same thing.
When one thing ends, it's really just a turn.
Or if it seems like a "Dead End" we just need to make a detour.
So maybe the end is not the end.
Maybe the end is just the means to reach a new beginning.