Language

I have been training my replacement at my current job. It is interesting to see the places communication fails. I am speaking everyday with a vocabulary he is still learning. Acronyms abound at my job. We even go so far as to reuse acronyms, in which case the meaning can only be determined by the context. In the two years I have worked at this plant, I have learned the importance of communication. I've made my share of mistakes. Things that make sense to me can be incredibly confusing. For example, asking someone to increase the vacuum in a process seems clear, but to INCREASE the vacuum you need to DECREASE the pressure. =)

My senior year of college I was taking a Portuguese class to improve my reading, grammar, and writing since I learned the language almost entirely orally from my mom. I had a Portuguese Bible that my uncle had given to me, so I started trying to read the same passage in English and Portuguese. The first thing I learned is that biblical language is difficult, but as I struggled through my Portuguese Bible, I was surprised by the things I had taken for granted when reading my Bible in English. Reading the same story in another language gave the text more depth and beauty. I had to slow down. I had to struggle through the words. I had to read the words deliberately, not just glancing over the words in expectation of the next familiar words.

I am looking forward to learning new languages in Sudan. I will make mistakes. I will be misunderstood. But that happens even when I speak English. I also hope that I will continue to be surprised by new perspectives.

Graduating from Bible Study?

A friend recently asked me if I would still go to Bible study if I had memorized the entire Bible.

For me the answer to that question is a resounding yes. I will never 'graduate' from Bible study. Even if I had obtained a degree in some sort of Biblical studies, I would still go to Bible study.

For me, Bible study is about so much more than studying scripture.

It is about sharing in the lives of women, holding each other accountable, praying for each other, hugging each other in times of joy and in times of sorrow, making happiness kabobs (don't ask), asking questions without fear, encouraging each other, learning about the character of God, praising God when he provides and is faithful in our lives, confessing our sins to each other, thanking God for his many blessings in our lives, making new boyfriends fumble awkwardly for words when they meet us all at once, learning from each other, acknowledging our unique gifts, having wonderful potluck dinners, claiming the truth of scripture, renouncing lies that are told to us day in and day out, and so much more.

I don't want to minimize the actual studying of the Bible that happens at Bible study. If you come, you would find us reading and studying the visions of Daniel, the plagues in Exodus, a perfect love described in 1 John, the acts of the apostles, and so much more. You may think we are strange, laugh a lot, and don't always make sense, but that is our Bible study.

And the Bible is so much more than I could ever describe. Even when I read verses that I have read and studied previously, I continue to learn more about God and what is true. I could say more, but I am repeating words, so I will stop. The conclusion remains that I will never 'graduate' from Bible study.

Psalm 119

Just for Fun

This is one of my favorite pictures. I was walking with a friend back to our dorm, and this is what we saw. Good thing I happened to have my camera with me. I just got around to playing with the photo in picnik this week (years after I took the picture).

Belize

It has been over three years since I went on a missions trip to Belize City with my college fellowship over spring break. This week I pulled out an old journal from my week in Belize City.

I was a mess that semester. I copied some lines below from my journal specifically relating to the anxiety I was experiencing at that time and my need to control my life.

Day 1 - "Sitting in my last class before leaving for Belize, I was nearly in tears. I didn't want to go to Belize. I needed to do homework, to sleep, and to have a week of personal reflection. Today I felt like a spectator. Things were happening but I wasn't really in it all. I was completely self-involved. I was concerned with how serving God this week would affect the things I have going on at Penn State. I still am not sure why I specifically am here."





Day 5 - "I think if I weren't so anxious about all the work I have to do when I get back, I wouldn't have panicked so much because of the lightning storm. It was a terrifying experience. I'm just not sure of a lot. I don't need to be sure because God has a perfect plan, but I want know and have some control."

Day 8 - "I don't want to leave yet, but I'm excited to tell people at school about my experience and how God showed up at the Burial Grounds in Belize."

Day 9 - "We got back to the dorms at midnight. I did my work and even got about two hours of sleep. When I was actually back and doing work, I wasn't anxious. I didn't do any of my kinetics homework, and I didn't turn it in, but I was okay with that. Belize was worth it."

For most people two hours or sleep and not turning in a homework assignment may not seem like trusting God, but that was a start for me. That semester went on to get much worse leading to staying awake for 50 hours straight, but God met me there at the point where I had lost total control, and I surrendered to Him.

I can hardly describe all the different ways that God loved me during that week in Belize City. That single week was an integral part of God’s sovereign plan to have me appointed as a missionary to Sudan.

I am still learning to trust God, and I will continue to learn to trust God and rely on Him. Good thing that missionaries are not all perfect people who have everything figured out. =)

Beauty

I have been raising support for a few months now, and it has been a blessing to be able to share what God has been doing in my life and hear about and pray for the things that are on my friends hearts and minds. Many of you have heard about and seen pieces of the ways that God has been working in my life in the past year and the ways God continues to work in my life. After a perfect day hiking Mt. Nittany with Bekah last month and sharing in each others lives, I thought about the times in college I had spent an afternoon in the mountains with a close friend or alone. I missed it, so I took a day to just pray and be still before God. So much has changed since last summer, and I needed to get away from my apartment and just listen. I spent the day at Maymont, and I was once again amazed by the things God has done for me and the reality of the gospel. There is so much that I don't know or understand about God and creation, but the one thing I really appreciated that day was the beauty of it all. I had written down the lyrics to "In Christ Alone" and some thoughts I had in my notebook at RUF one night, and reading those lyrics again with no music, slowly, and quietly at Maymont, well it was just beautiful. And yes the women in my Bible study will tell you that I think fractals and elegant solutions to problems are beautiful, and the flowers at Maymont pictured above are beautiful, but the truth about Jesus just beautiful on a different order of magnitude.

Lost and Found

This weekend I took some time to give a much needed cleaning to my apartment. While I was cleaning I found a ceramic jug that I had painted with stars and moons. After removing the cork, I discovered several folded pieces of paper inside. And then I remembered. My senior year of high school in a girls Bible study at church we had written letters from us to God and from God to us and sealed them up in these jugs. I had been a Christian for less than a year at that time. I couldn't remember when we were supposed to open them, so I decided now was a good a time as any, so I broke open the jug. The words on those pieces of paper were bold, filled with awe at the creator and creation, and joyful. Finding the jug and reading those words this week in particular was a beautiful and perfect gift to me from God. Today I read the words I wrote six years ago about the truth and power of the gospel.

It has been an interesting week. My phone collapsed due to exhaustion most likely. I had fixed it three times recently and this time I resorted to duct tape. I went to my service provider to review my contract and see if they would replace my phone. The best option they could give me was to buy a new phone (the cheapest one they had was $200). After asking some questions about my contract, praise God, I got a new phone for free! So now if I call you to talk to you about God and Sudan, hopefully the call won't be dropped.

This week was hard, and I am still somewhat in the middle of everything and processing. I have felt more under attack this week than I have a in a long time. But God has provided mercy, encouragement, and truth in the most beautiful ways including the words that many of you have shared in Bible study, in blogs, and by email about your trials and doubts and about God's grace and mercy.

I know I have been posting a lot recently. I hope that those of you that are a part of my life and ministry to southern Sudan are encouraged by these two stories of how God has met me in the midst of support raising. I pray that you will also see God at work in the found objects and free cellphones of your life.

And now for prayer requests. Pray for Sudan. Read the recent news online. Pray for me, that I would keep the truth of the gospel central in my life.

DISCLAIMER: Current posting frequency may not reflect future posting frequency. =)

Pray for Myanmar

PRAY:
If you have been reading the news the last few days you have undoubtedly read about the cyclone that hit Myanmar and the death and destruction that resulted.

The headline today read "Dead are thrown into rivers as the living wait for aid". The situation is complicated by a political situation which I don't pretend to know much about.

It hurts my heart to know that people are suffering, asking why, and waiting. It hurts my heart to know that people don't know where to turn.

Pray for the people of Myanmar.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1215_6_ways_to_react_to_the_cyclone

ENGINEERING MISSIONS:
Last year I attended a missions conference where one of the breakout sessions was specifically to discuss the role of engineers in missions. A lot of the conversations were focused on disaster relief. Many have a limited view of what engineering missions might look like, but the opportunity for engineers to serve in disaster relief is tremendous. Logistics, organization, and transportation are just a few of the areas that engineers would be able to serve an area after a natural disaster.

Parabéns pra mim

My birthday is always a good time to reflect on the last year. This year I have learned (or relearned) many things. I thought I would share a few of them.

First of all, I have great friends. I have friends that tell me the truth. I have friends that love me even when I am at my worst. I have friends that listen to me when I am wrong. I have friends that encourage me. I have friends that know me well enough to not need words. I hope that I can be the kind of friend that my friends are to me.

Second, God has good plans for me. Those verses about waiting on God's timing are right. I have been praying about serving overseas for a lot of years, and God's timing is good. The path to this point may not have looked straight at the time, but in retrospect God has been working in my life in specific ways to lead to this place at this time.

The third thing is something that I am continually relearning. "O Lord, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." ~ St. Augustine. I continually fail to rest in Christ, rest in the promises of scripture, and rest in my identity as a child of God. But the joy and hope that I have when I rest in Christ is one of the best evidences that God is real and that He loves me.

This year I couldn't be with my family for my birthday, so I celebrated my birthday early with three wonderful chemical engineering women in NYC. We walked around the city, played spades in Central Park, and had a great dinner together. It was a beautiful day with friends.

Troubleshooting

I love how God can use the fact that I'm bored and can't get the "5 Why" method out of my head to show me something about His character and convict me.

Last week at work we had several pump failures. So the troubleshooting began. One of the of the quick methods I have learned is the "5 Why" method. It is pretty simple. You ask the questions why five times to get to the root cause of the problem. Essentially you just have to act like a two year old.

FICTIONAL EXAMPLE
The pump won't pump. Why?
The is no flow coming into the pump. Why?
The supply line is plugged. Why?
The polymer got cold. Why?
The heat tracing circuit is broken. Why?
Heat tracing is not on the preventative maintenance schedule.

We could have just replaced the pump...and then the problem would not have been solved. The pump would still not pump, and a pump that doesn't pump is just an expensive piece of metal.

During the week I decided to start using the method other broken things in my life. Some of the results were just ridiculous, and others were thought provoking. I decided to use the method with my "broken" Bible since for a few days the Bible had really become just a book in my life. Where I ended up really surprised me in a great way.

I will leave the details out, but the part I wanted to share is that I love how God can use the fact that I'm bored and can't get the "5 Why" method out of my head to show me something about His character and convict me.

Homework and the Power of Words

I thought I was done with homework in the traditional sense when I graduated from college. I was wrong. Recently I have had homework associated with support raising. I have a book to read and essays to write. Well when I found out that I had some writing assignments to do, I mentioned to Dave, the assigner of the assignments, that I am not a good writer. He was quick to challenge that statement. When he asked why I thought that I wasn't a good writer, it only took a moment for me to say that my 10th grade creative writing teacher told me I was not a good writer, but it was okay because I was good at math and science. Nearly 8 years later I still remember what he said. Then I got to college and they have writing for engineers and speech communication for engineers , which were the easier versions of the classes. The power of words is amazing. I believed for a long time that I couldn't be a scientist and believe in God because of the words of teachers. Praise God it took less than 8 years for someone to challenge that belief.

Over the last few weeks I have really enjoyed writing, mostly because I am excited about the topics and it isn't being graded. Writing about what God has been doing in my life has been a great experience. I usually write in my journal weekly, but writing an essay and keeping to one page has forced me to thoughtfully consider what God has done in me, how He has been faithful, and what I learned about His character. Writing these things down will hopefully help me to remember these truths when I am in the middle of trails. It is astounding how quickly we forget, which is probably why God keeps telling us to remember.

As for my writing, I am not too concerned with the quality, but I hope that it communicates what God is doing in my life, in the lives of others, and in Southern Sudan.