Lord Your Kingdom Come and Your Will be Done.

I feel so blessed to be a child of God. To have a Father, who is the creator of heavens and earth, is an amazing privilage and honor. I love my Father and I know He loves me. Because I love Him so much I want to please Him. I want to honor Him. I want everyone to know how Awesome He is. I have seen His love and goodness many times in my life. He has really shown me how much he cares by providing for my everyday needs, answering specific prayers, and it is all according to His will.

I pray the Lord's prayer very often and I really mean it. I want His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. I also say, "Lord I want to fulfill your purposes for my life. I want to do what you want me to do. I want to be where you want me to be." I know if I do God's will I will be the happiest and the most fulfilled.

I have been thinking more and more to return back to my home country. 5 years ago it was not even an option for me. I did not want to. I have lived in America for almost 11 years. Many times I thought it would be great to become an American citizen. Now, I have the opportunity to apply for a green card and stay here, but I am asking, "God, is that what you want for me? Do you want me to stay here and work with Bridges International, which can be good and comfortable or do you want me to return to my home country which can be hard and uncomfortable?" The question should not be what is better for me, the question is what does God want according to His will. Because I am follower of Christ, because I belong to God, because my life has a purpose in Christ, I need to always consider God's will.

So now I am asking and bringing everything under the Lordship of Christ. I want to do His will and I want to make His name great among all peoples. Because I want God's will to be done in my life and I know God wants the same, I don't worry about what will happen. I can see God's hand in the situation already. Him and I are walking together in agreement that everything will happen according to His will and in that I have full assurance. I will not be dissapointed.

Just Passing Through...

I just got back from our mid-year conference in Spain. As you can see, it is an incredible setting to spend 10 days during the month of January. (Not a bad incentive for those of you considering doing a STINT with us!!) :)

While I was there I helped coach some of our teams overseas and participated in all the aspects of the conference. It was amazing! I think I benefited from it in some ways more than the STINTers.

One thing that I walked away with was the fact that this is not our home. We are aliens and our life is but a brief mist in the large scope of things. It reminded me of a talk Bob Shirock gave last spring retreat in which he quoted some statistics on how the average life of 70 years...25,550 days was spent.

• Sleep - 23 years
• Work - 16 years
• TV/Movies - 8 years
• Eat- 6 years
• Drive - 6 years
• Leisure - 4 1/2 years
• Illness - 4 years
• Dressing - 2 years
• Religion - 1/2 year

While in Spain, I couldn't get over how much time I had to talk with the Lord & listen to what He had to say, read my Bible & focus on new & existing relationships. I realized that only a couple things had changed. 1) My mindset on why I was in Spain to begin with and 2) my lack of modern "conveniences". (or should I say inconveniences?) It wasn't like I wasn't busy at the conference, but suddenly I wasn't being ruled by my palm pilot, emails, texts & phone calls.

Now that I'm back, will I just jump into things like they were before? Will I allow my email to dictate my priorities or allow my cell phone to be my tether? It has already been a struggle but I intend to fight for the things that are ultimately important for all of eternity! I encourage you to do the same and choose each day who you will serve. The biggest asset you have is your life. How will you spend it & what will it count for?

Mary

P.S> This is for the staff team. (those who doubted) It is possible to travel to Spain with just a carry on & a back pack. :)

A song for each person on our great team!

Ann  Come On Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens Ann is proud to be from the Illinois. Also, she has a love for small town Midwest Americana and I think Sufjan captures that best…

Apostolos Hardaloupas The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks by the Eagles. Paul is proud to be 100% Greek. Paul and I share a love of Jimi Hendrix, but I could not pass up a song about Greeks.

Clair Darling Takin’ Care of Business by BTO. Clair gets things done like no one else. She is good at takin’ care of business… I thank God for that.

Jessica Heitz Turning Japanese by The Vapors. This song will take you back to the 80’s. Jess really has a great love for the Japanese culture.

Justin “Ozzy” Osborn Crazy Train by Ozzy. It had to be Ozzy, and I think that this is one of his best songs that also describes Ozzy best.

Kerry Nienhuis Money by Pink Floyd. Kerry is proud to be Dutch and is very good with money. Plus I like Pink Floyd…

Mark I Wish by Skee-Lo. Mark is my brother in music and I could think of many songs for him, but he has a history with this song, and it is the reason that he chose Brandon Inge as “his” Tiger.

Mary Lawrenz Anything by Dengue Fever. They are an indie band from L.A. so I doubt that you have heard of them. But Mary went to Thailand on a mission trip and was CONVINCED that she was going to get Dengue Fever. We will never let her live it down…

Nate Reynolds Easy (Like Sunday Morning) by the Commodores. Nate has the largest most eclectic music collection on our staff team. He probably deserves a more cool song, but he IS easy, easy like Sunday morning…

Nick Toth Nearly Lost You by The Screaming Trees. Nick loves trees and believes that they can speak to him. He graduated from MSU with a degree in Trees. This is a great song by one of the least known grunge bands from Seattle.

Rana Spariosu Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Rana literally seems to walk on sunshine. It is great to have someone like her on our team, but I do not think that her roommates appreciate it early in the morning.

Robin Langford Lovers in a Dangerous Time by Bruce Cockburn (live version). After 12 years this song still rings true. Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, you’ve got to kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight.

Jack Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones. Even though the song does not describe him, the title does…

Nick Step by Step by Rich Mullins. Nick loves this song and it is the prayer of our family.

Feel free to make comments. You can also pick a song for me if you want… Enjoy.
Brian

Upside down cake (and a bit of seriousness, too)

This is really random, but also (in my opinion) very funny. The other day, I wanted to make a pineapple upside down cake (PUDC) for my Life Group because PUDC is my most FAVORITE cake in the whole wide world. I had all the ingredients, and I was excited to share my favorite cake with my girls who are mostly from China.
After the timer went off, I checked the middle of the cake with a toothpick and it came out clean, so I turned the oven off and waited 10 minutes to flip the cake upside down. When the 10 min. were up, I flipped it. Much to my dismay, the middle of the cake was NOT done, and was about 5 shades lighter than the rest of the cake. Because of the instablity of the middle of the cake, the cake split down the middle. So I had a half-baked, upside-down, cracked cake on my hands. I momentarliy panicked before deciding to get the cake back into the pan to bake if for a bit longer. Do you know how difficult it is to get a half-baked, upside-down, cracked cake back into a cake pan, rightside up???
Anyway, I eventually got it back in, baked it for a while longer, flipped it again, and this time it was done. I just used an old trick of cutting the cake into pieces before taking it to Life Group, and nobody ever knew it had such a disasterous start...until now, when I posted this for EVERYBODY to read!!
On a serious note...something from Job really struck me this week. It's in the middle of Elihu's rant towards Job, sidenote-I don't think Job deserved that, but one thing he says is, "Why don't people say to God, 'I have sinned, but I will sin no more?' or 'I don't know what evil I have done-tell me. If I have done wrong, I will stop at once'?" (Job 34:31,32 NLT). It made me think of just how often I do (or don't) confess my sin-or am aware (or not aware) of my sin. It DID make me aware that I need to confess my sin more-and even practice Spiritual Breathing more.

What's going on!?

It's just astounding how life can come and go. It seems as though I live in a completely depreciating world. There is the moral state of the country that anyone whose lived more than 15 years can recognize as becoming more and more anthropocentric. Also, that the dollar is really losing ground on pretty much any other currency known to man. Pretty soon the beach combing jockeys won't be detecting for loose change, they'll concentrate their time on searching for wampum instead. Ha! Even the minute doesn't seem to hold the value it once did. I'm pretty sure that 60 of them used to equal an hour, but now it seems like time cuts itself in half.

With time playing its tricks on me, it makes my future almost seem far too near. How I'll use my time just seems really important. I've committed a year of my life in the Lord's service to Campus Crusade for Christ, but I've committed my entire life to Christ for all time. How will that play out for me??? As I've contemplated my future and where I'll go, I've thought about the entirety of my life to date.

People have been calling me to become a Christian since I was younger than I can remember, telling me about Christ, and I thought all I had to do was pray a prayer....but when Christ called me to follow Him, October 2003, it was a call to unconditional surrender. I now realize that God isn't satisfied with anything less than 100% of myself. He didn't call me to give 10% of my time, or 10% of my money, or for me to pray for my own well-being....He called me to be entirely magnanimous toward others and completely capitulated to Christ. We Christians have a very high calling. One that demands all of ourselves. If I follow after God with 99% of myself than I am not a disciple of Christ.

I'm reminded of the disciples...only 1 out of 12 even got to die comfortably. I truly wonder what my future holds. I'm just encouraged to know that, no matter what happens, I should 100% give my life to serve Christ because He 100% gave His life to save me....that's my life.....and that's my covenant.

The Beautiful MSU Campus

Summer is over, the wonderful labor day weekend has come and past, and now we are looking forward at the school year. I know that as a student you look at your calender full of exams and papers and already mentally planning which nights are going to be long study nights or even the dreaded "all nighters". However, don't forget to take a look around at the beautiful campus you have the privilege to be on. Enjoy this beautiful weather God has given us. MSU is large, but beautifully laid out to really enjoy the outdoors.

Michigan State always has something fun going on. There are the ultimate frisbee games, or feeding the ducks behind wells, or taking dogs for a walk from the Vet clinic, walking in the gardens or Well's hall movies. Also going for a walk on the path that runs along side of the Red Cedar is a lot of fun too! It's a lot of fun to go with people from your dorm too cause it is always a fun bonding experience! I remember once my freshman year my best friend Christy and I went and "rented" 2 dogs from the Vet Clinic. . . what they don't usually tell you is how large the dogs can be. They gave us one black lab and one very large German Shepard. These particular dogs were kept there so they can give blood to help other dogs. So they were, needless to say, in very good shape :). They pulled Christy and I all over campus, we had no control and only a prayer to keep us from falling down when they saw a squirrel. After an hour of praying that they wouldn't pull us to the ground and very soar arms we were able to return them. We laugh about it to this day.

Before you know it the trees will be turning colors and campus will be absolutely beautiful. It is truly a blessing to be at MSU. Don't forget to look up and around at the beauty God has created all around you, even at a college campus.

"The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." ~ Genesis 1:12

Clair
Psalm 148