Over the Mountain and through the woods..

Wow, this week has been incredible. Well, today specifically. Yesterday was a little crazy..not bad, just, well, Monday. It's the first day we begin our project and that with our new groups, so we are just getting to know one another for the first time on Mondays. Anyway, it seemed as if God was blessing me around every corner today. Our group of missionaries have begun to study the book of James in our nightly study times (we've finished Ephesians and Philippians). So I began this morning digging into James 1 after last night, when I spent about an hour reading and studying. Several things in it stuck out to me, some very important things, like how the Lord uses trials to teach us perseverance, which must finish its work to make us mature and complete, not lacking anything. So first we see that God desires for us to be mature and complete and lack nothing. Then we see that the actual work is perseverance (perseverance must finish its work), and the avenue by which this is attained is trials of many kinds. And we are commanded to consider them pure joy. Like, hello! Crazy! We can, and must, rejoice when things are difficult or crazy or not what we want them to be or whatever (as if we truly know what it means to suffer), because that is our hope, as Paul talks about in Romans (to set our hope fully on glory).

So after my personal study and a delicious breakfast at New Blackwell BC, we headed to our site, which is about 45 minutes of pure beauty away from the church. The view on this trip is seriously beyond anything I've ever seen. And we get to see it everyday this week! But the cool thing today was when the leader of the youth group decided to spend some time visiting the "scenic overlook" on the side of the road on the way to the site. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And I said "who made this? God!" :) But I sat down and just looked out over the mountain, seeing the lower mountains and the huge lake with the fog and the tee-tiny little bridge off in the distance, and I began to sing. The song that goes "Your love is higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, wider than the heavens, and brighter than the stars, and I will sing how wonderful You are" is what I sang to the Lord first. Then the song "You are God" (the Charlie Hall one) came next. Then it was the Lord who spoke. And He quoted to me Habakkuk 1:5, "For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe if told." Wow, what an incredible moment!

This week we are roofing and laying flooring in a house that belongs to a couple in their 70s who have many medical problems and cannot get around much. While it is easy to get consumed in the job, especially when it's a roofing job, which I am convinced has become my favorite thing, the Lord has reminded me to slow down and not forget the people. The beautiful trip that is literally over the mountains and through the woods is also landmarked with small, humble dwellings that are at times a little shocking. There was one little house-thing in a curve where I literally said "does someone live there?" I feel like I am in a third-world country at times. But, I tell you, it is the most exciting thing! I'm reading this book called The Ragamuffin Gospel (by Brennan Manning, I recommend it to anyone) which talks about the religious barriers we many times put on people and upon who Jesus was, but how He many times hung around the nasty, "unclean" people. It has really changed my view of who Jesus was and is. Where I thought at one time I had pretty little lines drawn around who Jesus is, now there are only smudged gray areas. To think that the person of Jesus, who came in the flesh FULL of GRACE and TRUTH, the representation of God's love for mankind, is not at all confined to the small lines I drew for Him! He is far beyond my wildest imagination. And this has helped me to accept not only other people, but also myself. And to accept that there is no greater love than God's. ("Greater love has no man than this, but that he lay down his life for his friends.") Wow, the amazing grace and love of our God! And what a cool thing, what an honor, to be here and to use my hands and feet, to get nasty and dirty, sweaty and smelly, all in the Name of Jesus. That gets me excited! That gets me pumped not only about this week, but the rest of the summer, and, strangely, about going back to school with no major! It gets me excited to think of all the cool things God has planned for my life, that I may be "poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from our faith". What an honor, what a blessing.

I wish I could share all the cool things God has done just in this one day, but it's late and I need a shower! So God bless you all, and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you! :)