Cal posted something on his blog the other day that I find to be incredibly true and incredibly interesting. He said: "There's also Jenny who somehow seems no longer a Nebraskan while she's wearing purple, but is certainly not somebody I would consider a "Wildcat" yet. But she's a friend, so the color doesn't matter."
That attitude captures the essence of the transition I have faced- not in wearing purple and cheering for the purplecats :) but in identifying with K-State Navs at Main Event and feeling the tension in general between not being quite a wildcat but not being quite a husker. Sometimes it feels like I don't belong anywhere but sometimes it feels like I belong everywhere. It is an interesting experience.
Anways, that is random but I wanted to post it. :)
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Main Event
I got back from Main Event a couple of hours ago (yes you read that right- Kansas is a stinkin long way away from cedar falls) and I wanted to let you all know that it was amazing. It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord uses the Main Event conference in the lives of students. I talked to many students who made some serious decisions about following Jesus this weekend and it was REALLY exciting.
I want to share more but I am dog tired. Please be praying about where I will go on my EDGE summer missions experience. There are 6 options: Indonesia, Bulgaria, South Africa, Estonia, East Asia, and Central Asia.
Thanks! May God's grace fill you!
I want to share more but I am dog tired. Please be praying about where I will go on my EDGE summer missions experience. There are 6 options: Indonesia, Bulgaria, South Africa, Estonia, East Asia, and Central Asia.
Thanks! May God's grace fill you!
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Good stuff
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:35
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Really neat day
You guys, God has really blessed life and ministry the past few days. To give you a small snapshot of life- I have probably had 5 good one on ones since I have lived in Manhattan. Three of them were yesterday.
I feel like I am trying to minister in a wilderness. I have never in my life spent time with so many nonbelievers that are so uninterested and not hungry. I feel like a lot of what I have been doing is developing an overwhelming amount of relationships, developing trust and breaking up very very hard hearts. I have shared the gospel many times probably on average 2-3 times a week and had little positive response.
But yesterday was a different story. God gave me a lot of encouragement. My first appointment was with a girl who just came to Christ a week or so ago. We hung out, had fun and talked about the Lord and how to grow. It was cool.
My second appointment was with a girl who is Native American and has those religious beliefs. She has been coming to an evangelistic Bible study that I am doing on campus and she frequently makes comments about how COMPLETELY lost that she is. Her concept of God and well everything is different from mine. So, I took her to the mall and as we are walking from store to store I undfold the gospel story from Genesis to Jesus. It was so neat to share with someone who had not heard it before. I told her about the sacrifices that God demanded in the Old testament and she responded in shock and then when Jesus entered the scene she responded with awe. We ended our time talking about how she is moving from not interested at all to interested so she can "learn more." You can pray for her and for me. What a neat time though.
Finally, I have freshman bible study last night. It was rough because the girls had a stressful week but I hung out with a girl afterwards and it was really great. I felt like she was vulnerable with me and that I got to help her fight through stuff in her life. I was so excited to hear about the things the Lord is teaching her.
Anyways, that was sweet. I am really learning that God is going to have to work if he wants me to have a ministry.
Tonight I had a conversation with a girl who is adimately (how do you spell that?) disinterested in pursuing God with her college career. I invited her to Main Event and she said possibly 10 times that she does not have time for or interest in "something like that" in college. She wants to have a life and party on the weekends and do rowing team and everything else. It made me really sad. We have a good friendship though so I hope that goes somewhere.
Anyway that is a more detailed snapshot of "life on the edge." I am going to NE this weekend because it is KSU's fall break. I want to see whoever wants to see me. :) I CANT WAIT!
I feel like I am trying to minister in a wilderness. I have never in my life spent time with so many nonbelievers that are so uninterested and not hungry. I feel like a lot of what I have been doing is developing an overwhelming amount of relationships, developing trust and breaking up very very hard hearts. I have shared the gospel many times probably on average 2-3 times a week and had little positive response.
But yesterday was a different story. God gave me a lot of encouragement. My first appointment was with a girl who just came to Christ a week or so ago. We hung out, had fun and talked about the Lord and how to grow. It was cool.
My second appointment was with a girl who is Native American and has those religious beliefs. She has been coming to an evangelistic Bible study that I am doing on campus and she frequently makes comments about how COMPLETELY lost that she is. Her concept of God and well everything is different from mine. So, I took her to the mall and as we are walking from store to store I undfold the gospel story from Genesis to Jesus. It was so neat to share with someone who had not heard it before. I told her about the sacrifices that God demanded in the Old testament and she responded in shock and then when Jesus entered the scene she responded with awe. We ended our time talking about how she is moving from not interested at all to interested so she can "learn more." You can pray for her and for me. What a neat time though.
Finally, I have freshman bible study last night. It was rough because the girls had a stressful week but I hung out with a girl afterwards and it was really great. I felt like she was vulnerable with me and that I got to help her fight through stuff in her life. I was so excited to hear about the things the Lord is teaching her.
Anyways, that was sweet. I am really learning that God is going to have to work if he wants me to have a ministry.
Tonight I had a conversation with a girl who is adimately (how do you spell that?) disinterested in pursuing God with her college career. I invited her to Main Event and she said possibly 10 times that she does not have time for or interest in "something like that" in college. She wants to have a life and party on the weekends and do rowing team and everything else. It made me really sad. We have a good friendship though so I hope that goes somewhere.
Anyway that is a more detailed snapshot of "life on the edge." I am going to NE this weekend because it is KSU's fall break. I want to see whoever wants to see me. :) I CANT WAIT!
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
twice in one month...doing good
I can't believe that I only blogged twice last month. I now understand why people don't post as frequently as I would like them to. I was without internet for 2 weeks and just plain forgot. Such is life.
Life in Manhattan has been ROUGH. I have gone through a tough faith time and have really battled a little depression and loneliness. I had a real short "I love everything about Manhattan" stage and then the reality of life after college set in.
I really think that I am starting to come out of it though and that even in the midst of it I am clinging to God. Sorry this is so short but the library guy just asked me to get off the computer.
Next weekend is fall break!
Life in Manhattan has been ROUGH. I have gone through a tough faith time and have really battled a little depression and loneliness. I had a real short "I love everything about Manhattan" stage and then the reality of life after college set in.
I really think that I am starting to come out of it though and that even in the midst of it I am clinging to God. Sorry this is so short but the library guy just asked me to get off the computer.
Next weekend is fall break!
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Spiders and intruders and bears oh my!
Hey all!
Sorry about the radio silence on the blog. I spent the last week at Meredith's host families house and their internet was broken. Thus, blogging became a low priority. All in all, life in Manhattan is going alright. I am finally starting to have some relationships that are deepening and I am starting to get to more spiritual topics with the relationships that I have. Woo hoo! But, what I want to blog about is a funny thing that happened on Saturday.
First of all, to comment on the spiders portion of the title, I want to say that I am NOT afraid of spiders in any way shape or form but last night I got home about 11:50 to a hairy good sized spider on my doorstep. How gross! I am not afraid of spiders in general but I just get a little freaked out when they are large enough that you can see the hair they are covered in. Ick!
Enough on that, the funny story happened at Merediths house last week. Picture this, two women staying alone in a huge house for a week. Well Saturday night was the end of that week and we had just had people over and were up chatting. Well, I went downstairs at 1:30 a.m. to grab my purse and head to bed when I noticed that the door coming inside from the garage was OPEN and neither of us had opened it. I bolted upstairs and in a broken voice told Meredith that the door was open and I had no idea how it got that way and that I was freaked out. She was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and he responded to our fright by laughing. Well we were not laughing. Meredith made me baracade and shut her door while we developed a plan. Seh let Ryan (her boyfriend) go and told him that if she didn't call him back in 5 minutes to call her back and if she didn't answer to worry. Then, we proceeded to call all the guys numbers meredith had in her phone (all two of them). We couldn't get a hold of anyone so we braved it on our own.
We decided after about 5 minutes had passed that we needed to go shut the door and check the house and that we needed weapons. So we grabbed her 5 pound weights and left the room. we searched every room and every corner of the house often yelling as we opened doors to scare the intruders. We discovered nothing and decided to leave all the lights on the main level on. We went back upstairs to complete the search and call Ryan back. Well... 20 minutes had elapsed.
In the meantime Ryan (in an act of protection) had called the Manhattan police department and when he got their answering machine decided to call Jen and Joel. CRAZY!?? We felt really bad but in the end got quite the laugh out of it!:)
In other news, this weekend is K-States big evangelistic camp out. It is called Burly Girly. I can't wait!
Sorry about the radio silence on the blog. I spent the last week at Meredith's host families house and their internet was broken. Thus, blogging became a low priority. All in all, life in Manhattan is going alright. I am finally starting to have some relationships that are deepening and I am starting to get to more spiritual topics with the relationships that I have. Woo hoo! But, what I want to blog about is a funny thing that happened on Saturday.
First of all, to comment on the spiders portion of the title, I want to say that I am NOT afraid of spiders in any way shape or form but last night I got home about 11:50 to a hairy good sized spider on my doorstep. How gross! I am not afraid of spiders in general but I just get a little freaked out when they are large enough that you can see the hair they are covered in. Ick!
Enough on that, the funny story happened at Merediths house last week. Picture this, two women staying alone in a huge house for a week. Well Saturday night was the end of that week and we had just had people over and were up chatting. Well, I went downstairs at 1:30 a.m. to grab my purse and head to bed when I noticed that the door coming inside from the garage was OPEN and neither of us had opened it. I bolted upstairs and in a broken voice told Meredith that the door was open and I had no idea how it got that way and that I was freaked out. She was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and he responded to our fright by laughing. Well we were not laughing. Meredith made me baracade and shut her door while we developed a plan. Seh let Ryan (her boyfriend) go and told him that if she didn't call him back in 5 minutes to call her back and if she didn't answer to worry. Then, we proceeded to call all the guys numbers meredith had in her phone (all two of them). We couldn't get a hold of anyone so we braved it on our own.
We decided after about 5 minutes had passed that we needed to go shut the door and check the house and that we needed weapons. So we grabbed her 5 pound weights and left the room. we searched every room and every corner of the house often yelling as we opened doors to scare the intruders. We discovered nothing and decided to leave all the lights on the main level on. We went back upstairs to complete the search and call Ryan back. Well... 20 minutes had elapsed.
In the meantime Ryan (in an act of protection) had called the Manhattan police department and when he got their answering machine decided to call Jen and Joel. CRAZY!?? We felt really bad but in the end got quite the laugh out of it!:)
In other news, this weekend is K-States big evangelistic camp out. It is called Burly Girly. I can't wait!
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Blogging: A summer thing?
I have noticed recently that many friends of mine who blogged faithfully this summer have tapered off in their blogging. I have also noticed that I have as well. Interesting. Maybe it was a good means of communication in the summer but now that the majority of us are back in our comfort zones with our friends we don't feel the need to keep up a description of our lives. Or maybe we are just doing more productive things with our time. Hmm... Something to ponder.
To let you know why I have been slow at blogging this year, it is because of my distaste for using the dial-up internet at my host family's house. Not only do they have dial-up but they also have a limited number of hours of dial-up. Thus, I don't check my email as often or post to my blog for fear of using all their hours. So, I apologize if this has been disappointing to some.
BUT I am in Omaha this weekend so it seems a good opportunity to keep you posted. I had this whole weekend off. I spent Friday afternoon/ evening in Lincoln hanging out with friends that I miss SO much. I spent the afternoon with Tracy, ate dinner with some folks, went to Navigators and then stayed up until 5 a.m. chatting with Sonya. It was really really fun. The trip hurt my heart a bit because things are different and will continue to be and that is sad as much as it is exciting to move onto a new stage.
To update ya'll on campus life, it has been a tough week again. I am starting to understand why I find it tough though and that is helping. I find myself having a tough time with the pace that the friendships I am forming are moving at. They are moving much more slowly than I wish they would. I want to have tons of people who want to be my friend, spend time together, talk about deep stuff and Jesus - NOW. But, I am reminded that takes time to form. I see my impatience SO clearly and have been forced to ask myself if I believe in the gospel enough to perservere. It was good to go to church in Omaha this weekend and see that I am the only one who is putting that much pressure on myself. None of my suppporters I talked to back here think I should have really deep relationships yet. I seem to have the biggest expectations of anyone.
The other stuff God has been doing in my personal life is in the form of teaching me deep things about trials. If you check out 1 Peter 1, it discusses how trials come so that our faith may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed. Later in the passage it goes on to tell us to set our hope FULLY on the grace that we will be given when Christ is revealed. As I have been facing various trials and insecurities related to ministry, I have been forced to set my hope fully on Christ. In and of itself, moving to Manhattan has forced me to set my hope on Christ and not on my friends, people who "need" me, people who enjoy me, my family, knowing the campus, having plans on the weekend, etc.
SOOOOOOOOOOO.... that's the news. I have been meeting lots of folks and trying to be patient to watch the relationships form that God wants to work in.
Have a beautiful Sunday.
To let you know why I have been slow at blogging this year, it is because of my distaste for using the dial-up internet at my host family's house. Not only do they have dial-up but they also have a limited number of hours of dial-up. Thus, I don't check my email as often or post to my blog for fear of using all their hours. So, I apologize if this has been disappointing to some.
BUT I am in Omaha this weekend so it seems a good opportunity to keep you posted. I had this whole weekend off. I spent Friday afternoon/ evening in Lincoln hanging out with friends that I miss SO much. I spent the afternoon with Tracy, ate dinner with some folks, went to Navigators and then stayed up until 5 a.m. chatting with Sonya. It was really really fun. The trip hurt my heart a bit because things are different and will continue to be and that is sad as much as it is exciting to move onto a new stage.
To update ya'll on campus life, it has been a tough week again. I am starting to understand why I find it tough though and that is helping. I find myself having a tough time with the pace that the friendships I am forming are moving at. They are moving much more slowly than I wish they would. I want to have tons of people who want to be my friend, spend time together, talk about deep stuff and Jesus - NOW. But, I am reminded that takes time to form. I see my impatience SO clearly and have been forced to ask myself if I believe in the gospel enough to perservere. It was good to go to church in Omaha this weekend and see that I am the only one who is putting that much pressure on myself. None of my suppporters I talked to back here think I should have really deep relationships yet. I seem to have the biggest expectations of anyone.
The other stuff God has been doing in my personal life is in the form of teaching me deep things about trials. If you check out 1 Peter 1, it discusses how trials come so that our faith may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed. Later in the passage it goes on to tell us to set our hope FULLY on the grace that we will be given when Christ is revealed. As I have been facing various trials and insecurities related to ministry, I have been forced to set my hope fully on Christ. In and of itself, moving to Manhattan has forced me to set my hope on Christ and not on my friends, people who "need" me, people who enjoy me, my family, knowing the campus, having plans on the weekend, etc.
SOOOOOOOOOOO.... that's the news. I have been meeting lots of folks and trying to be patient to watch the relationships form that God wants to work in.
Have a beautiful Sunday.
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