Hello again, people who read this blog. I notice I haven't updated this blog in like two months, and those of you who are supporting me, I apologize that I have not been more up-to-date. Hopefully this blog will make up for it?
So I didn't publish anything in December-early January due to finals and winter break. I really enjoyed my winter break and definitely needed time to settle down from the busy-ness of school. Now that we've been back in school, my life has been... well, crazy to say the least! Not only do we now have to have weekly team meetings and getting prepared for leaving in May, but I also have my classes, wind ensemble, jazz band, and random other meetings. I'm not sure why, but I keep piling more and more into my life, which is great, but I need to start making some things an ultimate priority! Haha.
Alice, our contact in Poland, is in Denver right now. We met up with her a week or so ago. Recently, we discovered that we will not be returning to the same school or area that we have been going to. That was a little sad to hear, but there are some positives about this; we can reach a whole new group of people, and do things differently that we never got to do before. It's a blessing in disguise, really. Sure it does stink that we wont get to see the same kids, but at the same time, we still get to share the Gospel, so really, no complaints here :)
I'm in the process of writing my supporters thank-you notes at the moment. I am blessed that many people do want to support me, whether financially or just through prayer. Everything helps.
Speaking of financially, we are working on some interesting fundraisers at the moment. We also have bowl-for-a-buck coming up. Bowl-for-a-buck is this huge missions event that CCU puts on every year; basically, we rent a bowling alley and decorate our own lanes in accordance with the team we are traveling with, and ask people for a dollar to bowl for our team. If we win either the decorating contest or the total amount of points, we get 500 dollars towards our team, so that would be nice! But overall, we'll just have a fun time.
As far as personally, I have been feeling rather attacked lately. I know that I will definitely need lots of prayer about my feelings about inadequacy. I know that, for some reason, God really put Poland on my heart. I also know that spiritual warfare is extremely real, and I definitely want to do my best as I am co-leading this trip. I don't want to feel inadequate or scared, so prayer would be appreciated:)
Today, we had this leadership retreat where we got to hang out with our staff leaders and talk about our trip and go over the results of a survey we took. Kelly Nichols said something today that really got me thinking. We were talking about what "success" looks like as far as what we're looking for in a short-term missions trip. He put it very clearly; "success" isn't about the number of people we save, "success" is obedience. I really need to keep that in mind, especially when May 20th comes along.
Speaking of May 20th, that's 113 days away. That's less than two weeks away from being the 100 day mark. When I think about the days that we have left, it seems like an eternity. But when I think about the months, May seems just around the corner. I am so excited!
