finally

The last month or so was completely filled with finishing projects for school, thus accounting for the absence of text on here.

I’d like to submit that God is more faithful than I could have imagined and that these past few weeks have given me a little glimpse of what giving God control of a situation looks like.  The enormous amount of work that I had to accomplish was frankly, near impossible.  Taking 18 credits from my regular college and 6 credits of distance learning classes.  And working 15-20 hours per week. Plus…more.

But really, no one reading this cares all the things that I had to do.  The point I want to make with those facts and figures is the mighty way God worked in my life to allow me to finish and with finishing honor Him and give Him glory for that accomplishment.

I leave for two weeks in Romania tomorrow.  I hope to be able to journal the trip here, but who knows.

Here is a little but about our trip:

From May 22 until June 7, 2009, I will be travelling with a group from my home church to the countries of Romania and Hungary.  We will be spending a week in each country doing various construction projects for the organization Friendship International.

We leave Baltimore Friday, May 22 at 9pm.  After a quick stop in London (LONDON!) we will continue our journey to Budapest, Hungary.   I don’t really know what will happen then.  Some how, some way we are going to make the long journey from Budapest to Debrecen.  I tried to map quest the distance from Budapest to Debrecen, but apparently map quest doesn’t have Hungary in their system.  Go figure.

We will be spending out first week in Hungary in the city of Debrecen, near the Hungarian/Romanian border.   Once there we will doing doing renovation to a FI conference building.

After our week in Hungary we will travel to a children’s camp in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania.  Our second week will be spent here building covered wagon style cabins for future campers.  We will also have opportunities to do other acts of service while visiting this camp.

Finally, sometime between June 6th and 7th,  we will make the trip from Romania to Budapest, Hungary and begin our trip back to the United States, complete with another stop in London (LONDON!).  We should be back in the US sometime June 7th.

Please keep our team of 13 people in your prayers!  Our team members range in age from 11-50+ and it is our prayer that as we serve God and serve others, our team is united in faith and love for the Lord.

am I the only one going crazy?

My life has been flying by my eyes the past few weeks…

school

people

work

It all seems so out of control.  Probably because it is slightly out of control.  Out of my control, at least.

Many times in life events and people fly by…

your babies growing up

your children getting married

your parents growing old

death

None of these things are inside of my control.

So many things to do and not enough time to do them.  Things…I hate having to prioritize things over people.  I guess that is the problem with me trying to be in control.  When I focus on me and my problems I  DO have to put things first. But when I put Christ first and trust in His control over my life, it all gets a little easier.  And then I don’t have to worry so much about the things in life and I can concentrate on the loving God and loving others.

fighting with myself

Today I woke up around 9:45.   I had woke up a number of times before that but decided to stay in bed because, hey, it’s spring break and I can.  However, my mother feels that 9:45 is way too late to still be in bed and before 10:00 had given me two guilt trips about the fact that I had yet to get up.

This was a bad way to start the day.  I know for her there is much deeper meaning then just sleeping in.  To her it means I am staying out too late, it means I am not getting work done that I could be, it means I’m being lazy.  To me, I was thinking, this is my last spring break, my family spent two weeks in Florida on vacation without me, I am going to take one day and sleep in.  It seemed reasonable in my mind.  Arrogantly, I want to be right.  But the fact is what makes me the most upset is that I know I’m not.  I should have gotten up earlier no matter how late I stay up or when my family went to Florida.

I spend most of my time fighting my pride and bending it into not my will, but the will of God.

So now I am awake and making a plan for the day to accomplish a number of things today.  I have nowhere to go and nothing few things to distract me.  Maybe the accomplishments today are to prove to her something, I don’t know what.  Most times that’s how accomplishments are, to prove yourself or your skills to another person.  Does God look at these type of accomplishments?  No, I don’t believe He does.  The Bible does speak of rising early in the morning, so there is something for being said to waking up at an earlier time.  God measures our lives less in our earthly accomplishments and more in our effort to bring Him glory and point others to Him.  After accepting in faith that Jesus is your only way to an eternity in heaven, we don’t do anything to get our faith.  We just need to be living by the faith that we say we posses and having actions that reflect Jesus and the way that He lived and taught.

After thinking about that, my goal list for the day needed to be altered some.

• Read Luke 13
• apologize to my mom for stomping down the hall when I did get up
• Make a conscious effort to suppress my pride and look at others’ needs before my own.

• Make copies for PHEAA grant
• Pay bills
• Clean room and do laundry
• Work on two online classes I am taking
• Work on my philosophy of education (that’s going to be ugly)
• Write 4 math lesson plans
• Organize myself to start school next week

leftovers

There are very few foods that I actually enjoy eating as leftovers.  Fried rice is one of the few that is almost as good reheated as it was the first time around.  For a lunch at work or dinner at home and alone, leftovers are perfectly acceptable and part of life.  However, for company I wouldn’t be caught dead serving two day old rice.

I was sitting in church the other day, thinking about what songs the praise team will sing next week and when we will practice.  Then, it dawned on me.  If this was a school project, I would have started it ages ago.  But since it’s just for church, it’s ok if I let it slide to the last minute.  I mean, God understands that I’m busy and He’ll work it out in the end.  But really, this attitude of mediocrity is dangerous.

I’ve been working for most of my life to be the best I can be.  Have I succeeded?  No, not really.  It often happens that I can get away with just doing about half, yet my about half is still above others’ best.  Is this part of the reason that I tend to not work my hardest?  I know that in school I could do so much better.  Some of it is a lack of motivation and time.  Being an education major requires that you do 2.5 meaningless projects per week that take approximately 3.25 hours each.  So much wasted time.  I’m convinced that these mundane projects contribute to the lack of motivation.  They are not enjoyable or even beneficial.  So am I practicing doing my best?  Or becoming outstanding in something rather than merely getting by?

So part of me thinks I should just suck it up and do the work to get the grades to graduate to be done.  But frankly, and often wrongly I’ll admit, it’s frustrating to put effort into something that is meaningless to me.  Learning how to teach elementary math for instance.  Driving me nuts.  I like teaching, really, I do.  But most of this feels so worthless.  The mundane projects that we will never use.  The lesson plans that are not worth the paper they are printed on.

So how do fried rice, God and my school relate?  Well all of these things demand (or should demand) a certain level of our time and effort.

Fried rice takes time to make the first time.  Cooking the rice, cooling it.  Chopping all the different veggies and meat in the stir fry.  Heating the oil and adding the ingedients in the correct order.  But microwaving it takes about 2.5 mins, if you have an old microwave like I do.  The second time, nothing is really given or sacrificed.

School requires mere time, but little mental effort.  Should I just give in a give it the time or condemn it as worthless and continue to give it 15% of my effort, time and brain power.

Finally, church.  I can get away with serving day old rice, but since my day old rice is pretty good and better then most peoples’ fresh, I’m still seen having making a good effort.

In the end, I come back to the fact that striving towards giving my best is the right thing to do for God and for others.  Does school fit into that?  Yes, in a way it does.  But I still grow frustrated and I lack motivation to give anymore that is required.  Part of giving the best is learning that we can’t always be the best at all things.  I have to pick and choose what I want to give my time and talents to.  Right now teaching elementary math just isn’t one of them.