Coming Home... musings

 It’s difficult to put into words how I see the Lord moving sometimes – until He’s already moved and changed things. It’s also startling to look back to what was less than a year ago and realize that these past months have held some incredible changes. I thought that I came here just to prepare for missions – to understand better what being a missionary means and what it would take. What I learned was that the Lord cares more about what’s really on the inside than what these hands are doing for Him.

As I prepare to finish the program here, I barely even recognize the girl who arrived in January. Over this year, through classes, homework, outreaches, and living in a family environment with people from so many different backgrounds, the Lord has opened me up, done some “heart surgery,” pulled things out, put things in, finished with some reconstructive work and then repeated the process as many times as it takes to bring me closer to Him. On the outside I look pretty much the same. But more has changed on the inside that I even understand.

Let me interject here that I’ve by no means become perfect – and the true changes remain to be seen by those who know me.

But there are a couple of things that help me trust that God is not done with me, just because I’m leaving what we call “the bible college bubble” and going back to “normal life.”

The first thing I’ve learned is that if I stubbornly refuse to let God work in my life, I probably shouldn’t yell at Him for not changing things around me - because much of what needs to change is in how I respond to what’s around me. 

And the second is that there is not a single thing in my life that God cannot take and use for His glory. He can use challenging things like iron sharpening iron, scraping away at a dull edge to make it a useful tool. He can use uncomfortable situations to reveal what’s really in my heart. He can allow pain to draw me close. He can use things not working out the way I want to show me what He’s been planning all along.

It’s an oft-quoted verse, and awfully annoying in the heat of the moment, but true that “God works all things together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). But as C.S. Lewis said “Good is what we ought to prefer, quite regardless of whatever we happen to like any given moment.”

With these two things in hand and in my heart, I think I can say that Bible College has been a success… and that God can keep working on me anywhere.

I have some plans that are slowly coming together for “what comes next,” but I’ll save those to share at a later date. What comes first is that I’ll be back in Central Oregon at the end of next week and I am excited to see people from home again!  

Jemma and me on a walk after our first snowfall of the season

Rome in pictures

Rome... in pictures

Thanksgiving Break 2010

we had a long weekend, so we decided to take an outreach and visit the Calvary Chapel in Rome....

our outreach team at the Vajta train station

Italian food for thanksgiving dinner

at the Calvary Chapel in Rome... we cleaned, fixed some things and spent time with the believers there - it was a great time of mutual encouragement...

visting the church plant in Frescati (in the hills outside Rome)

we did the Set Me Free drama (from the Split outreach) and shared in the service

 Rachel with Lidia ~ who was very excited when she heard my name

(the pictures from Frescati are from Thereasa Bocca at the Frescati Church)

we played some soccer in the pastor's neighborhood

Sarah's 21st birthday

Rachel praying with a friend she made at the metro station

~a visit to the Vatican~

a treasure-trove of architecture and antiquities

this is a way cool floor... my brother actually brought up mathematical properties of the design when I was telling him about the visit

 should I look up or down?

 sorry about it being sideways

 this one too...

...somewhere in the Vatican Jason, my museum buddy, and I took a break to look at this huge painting of Constantine's conversion - can you find us?

St. Peter's Square - that's the basilica behind us

The forum

The Roman Empire at it's largest

 The colosseum!

Jemma's excited to see the colosseum.... 

and we even traveled back in time to take a picture with a real gladiator! (just kidding)

and we finished it off with gelato at Trevi Fountain...

 

 The end... and back to finals!!

Split, Croatia

Split, Croatia

I went with the 10-day outreach team to the coastal town of Split, Croatia in October. Split is a city with 2000 or more years of history. The cobblestones – slick from rain and so many years of constant foot traffic – attest to the way that things don’t change as much as they do change. People still love to walk the Riva, or boardwalk, along the ocean. The palace of Roman emperor Diocletian is still there, somewhat. There are still buyers and sellers out on the streets with food, jewelry, and music. And people still need to hear about Jesus.

This area of Croatia is known as Dalmatia and as we walked through I wondered if when Titus was here he was doing the same thing (2 Timothy 4:10) – or whether he came for the beaches.

(we missed our bus stop and ended up here - "oops!")

Street witnessing in a nominally Catholic country is an interesting thing. To be Croatian is to be Catholic – so you might just as easily find yourself talking with a devout Catholic Croatian as a Catholic atheist or Catholic pantheist or a young Catholic desiring to be a priest – but who has no idea what the Bible actually says because his priest has assured him that there’s plenty of time later “to get to that.”

The message we came to share was that Jesus came to bring us into a relationship – that He is our high priest – who came to live and die for our sin and rise again - to bring us out of sin, which leads to death, and into resurrection and life, so that we might come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Much of our time was spent either in the Global Café, a coffee shop ministry run by the Calvary Chapel in Split, or on the Riva doing street drama and talking with people.

Here are some pictures from two of our dramas (different people may be playing different parts each time) ~

"Everything" - playing the role of Love of Money with 8 year old Skylene

"Set Me Free" (my favorite)

I tried to post a video but blogspot wouldn't load it, so if I’m able to get a youtube link I will post that when I can. The videos are also on my facebook page – and they are worth seeing.

While there certainly weren’t thousands flocking to hear the gospel, the trip was an encouragement to the church, a stretching and strengthening experience for each of us on the team, and many people did watch the dramas and were interested in talking with us. Please pray for the people of Split, especially a couple of high school age guys who spent a lot of time with us, even coming early to the open mic night we had at the café and playing music with us. Please also pray for Travis, the intern who led our team - he will be moving to Split in January to serve at the church and coffee shop there.

(credit for the pictures belongs to Esther Han, Rachel Woodcock, and Mark & Katrina Ramos)

A few highlights of lately

After putting up the last post, I thought it would be good to add some photos and such of some of the fun things of the past month. :-) So here's a little glimpse... 

A couple of weekends ago I went to the Vajta Wine Festival, an autumn gathering where people dress in traditional costume, serve little desserts, drink last year's wine or juice from the grape harvest (for us from the college, that would just be the juice), dance, and go on a procession through the town in wagons and carriages. The guy at the beginning of the video isn't whipping anything in particular - I think it's just to make noise.  After I finished making the video, Lilla (one of the Hungarian students here) and I went and danced with the ladies. The whole thing was pretty fun!

 

Serbia

This was the post that was hard to write (and the reason I didn't update the blog for a long time)... maybe it was the depth of struggle that I saw there with the church or maybe it was because of the interesting mishaps I "fell into" ...like accidentally walking into an open sewer or having my camera stolen or coming back to the school with a bad cold. There were high moments too - like getting the churches storeroom put into order: 

 During

 

 

Before 

 After (Tiffany did the bulk of getting it to look this pretty as we got the boxes ready)

Seeing the food cooked outside was neat

(and scary but we all lived)

Anna and Rachel are posing with the rice as it is cooking

Eating together under a tent

the guys poured concrete

 and we did some drama with the kids

On Saturday of the outreach we split into groups and visited several gypsy communities to sing and pray with them. The group that I went with was about half from the church and half from the school - so there were some who were very familiar to the people we were visiting and we were welcomed warmly. One of the men there made coffee for us and brought out soda. The children and some of the young women gathered with us, while some others stayed a little back. For the others from the school, it was their first time being to a place like that - with such obvious poverty - and it was a good reminder for me that it is a shocking sight. One of the young women stood out against the landscape of tiny, broken down houses. She was wearing strappy high heeled shoes in a place filled with dirt and mud, where walking to the road in tennis shoes is difficult. She reminded me of the girls from the summer camps in Romania - grasping hard for something in the midst of difficulty.

The gypsy villages were a stark contrast to the night before, when a group of us had gone to Belgrade for a bible study and then to a concert afterward. It may seem like a strange outreach activity, but the Belgrade Dixieland Orchestra had made a cd with the Budapest Gospel Choir (from Calvary Chapel Budapest) and the pastor who does the bible study there had helped arrange it, so we were just there to be friendly. It was quite a good concert - if you like Dixieland Jazz - but also felt a little weird... I mean seriously... Dixieland Jazz in Serbia? I have a video but uploading it takes forever. Sorry!

 

Tomorrow! 

Well, in the morning we leave - bright and early! - for Split, Croatia for ten days. I don't have a camera anymore, so I can't guarantee that I'll take a lot of pictures but I will do my best to get some on here sometime in the next century so that you can see a little of what we were up to.  :-) 

 

Please pray for our team - for health, for unity, for safe travel, against accidents, and most especially please pray for those who will be hearing the gospel perhaps for the first time.

Life is weird. But God is good.

So… the blog has been quiet for a while - a lot longer than I meant for it to be. Some of you may be wondering, if a thought of me crosses your mind, “How is life there?”
 
Well... Life is weird. But God is good, gracious, overwhelming in mercy.

This semester – now finishing the sixth of 15 weeks – has come in roaring like a lion. I feel like it is a semester of pruning, where the Lord is revealing more and more in me that needs to go - or needs to grow. Sometimes the revelation comes clearly: “(fill in the blank)’s time is done.” And then comes the choice – because God tends to let us make a choice about it.

Release. Surrender. Submit.

And sometimes it’s not so clear… all I know is that something is not right between me and the Lord. Those times may be harder, because they start with confusion and pain.

Reveal. Release. Surrender. Submit.

The lesson that seems to be consistent this semester is that God doesn't waste anything, but that “all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose” So what is that good? It’s spelled out in the verse right after the more famous one: it is to be conformed to the image of Jesus. I have lots of conforming to do. But it’s been encouraging to me – and I hope to you also – that if God is for us, who can be against us? Not only is God “for us” in general terms, there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, because the only one who has the right to condemn is the one who gave up the glory of heaven to take on our sin! And not only does He not condemn, He stands at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. (See Romans 8)

Wow.

Think about that for a second – Jesus didn’t stop at trading His purity for your sin. Yes, He bridged the gap of sin between you and God with His own body (which He took on for that purpose) and yes, if you believe and accept that gift, God sees you as sinless. But even then, we are not on our own – Jesus stands and makes intercession for us. He goes to God on our behalf.

I don’t deserve that.

But because of it, there is nothing – not even the weirdness of this life – that can separate me from His love. (See Romans 8 again.)

So how is life? Well… it’s not separating me from the love of God… and God uses it all to conform me into the image of Jesus. So it must be alright. :-)

Until next time -- May the Lord bless you and keep you all – may He make His face shine upon you and give you peace.

Prayer requests:
*for me – for good health and sleep! Both have been hard to come by.
*please also pray for me as the Lord is teaching me a lot in this time
*our 10-day outreach to Split, Croatia leaves next Friday
            -we have 16 people going and we’ll be doing street drama
            -please pray for our team, for unity and health and for the Lord to be glorified
            -and for the people in Split

Thank you to all who pray!

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work."
-Oswald Chambers

september update from Lydia

Hello to you from Hungary! I hope that you all are well and enjoying the first few weeks of a new season. With the changing colors outside and the new beginnings we are experiencing here, it seems like the right time to send out an update. My summer has been officially over now for a few weeks and even before Fall semester started the weather was changing. I love the crisp feeling of autumn, so it was a welcome change for me. The month of serving at "the castle" during conferences this summer was a time of rest and transition that I rather needed after a two-month outreach. After being able to process what I saw and learned this summer, I am excited to be in the second semester of the missions program at the college - and yes, I found rest even in the middle of cleaning bathrooms and stairwells for a month. :-) The Lord is good and has many ways to recharge us and draw us closer to Him. This semester I'm enjoying greater discipleship and fellowship with the people here. Having spent a semester and part of a summer here already has made friendships here much deeper and sharing life and struggles and joys that much easier. Also this semester, I'm putting more of a focus for my own growth on reaching out and taking part in weekend outreaches and ministry learning. The first one is this weekend, so please be praying for us to keep the focus on Jesus, showing His love and reflecting Him to the people we will meet. We are doing a hands-on ministry project in a very impoverished community and some of our group will be running the service to give the local church leaders a restful Sunday.  My classes this semester (it is still college, after all) are Biblical Missions, Missionary Leadership, the book of Acts, Inductive Bible Study through the Gospel of Mark, the Life of Paul, and language study in Romanian. It seems to me that after getting a taste of missions practice over the summer, I'm more able to understand the issues brought up in missions classes now - and more able to ask the questions that will help my learning. Today we were blessed to have a visiting speaker, who spoke in two classes and our evening service - John Dekker, who was a missionary from 1960-1981 to the Dani in Papua New Guinea, a people that he describes as being still from the stone age. It was fascinating and challenging and encouraging to hear how many of the Dani people received the gospel in its simplicity and depth, without the complications that "modern" people try to put on it - the simplicity that we are made in the image of God, to reflect his glory, but our sin broke our relationship with God and so Jesus (the Son of God) became one of us to live as a human but still fully God and with the power of God to not sin, and even more amazing, he then took all our sin upon him at his death so that we could be restored to a right relationship with God. But death couldn't keep him, because he is still God and it is the same power that brought him back from death is the power that works in our lives if we allow him to work in our lives. We make it so complicated... but it doesn't have to be.     So, that's what I'm up to lately.... I haven't updated the blog in about a month, but I plan to write another one sometime next week with details about this weekend's outreach. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement! God is working. Please keep praying for the work that he is doing here. In His grace, Lydia www.glo-worm.blogspot.com

Longing for the city of peace

"Heaven is calling out to me...

my soul longs for the city of peace

i will walk with my God

i will touch His face

i will ever know His sweet embrace

i will cast down my crowns before His throne

as the angels are singing 'worthy are you Lord'"

We SoS'ers (Summer of Service volunteers at CCBCE) had a bonfire last weekend and we sang this song (among many others). The way that it reflects the intertwined desires in my own heart with the worthiness of God leaves me reminded that I'm not home yet and I am really longing for that city of peace and true rest - where distractions are gone and every tear caused by life's pain and struggle and sin is wiped away in the overwhelming presence of the One who made me. It's been a challenging summer for me, but as I pour out my experiences to others in stories of the summer and for myself in thinking of what has been and wondering what will come in the future, the reason for all I experienced comes clear. I don't know all the whys and hows or even all the whats of those experiences, but I know that this world is not home. Though I do want to see this world be a better place, the world is not the ultimate goal. Social change is great, but change of lasting value happens in each person as they are reconciled with the One who made them through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the one who makes the lasting change... and it seems to be change that is as much or as little as we allow Him. And as He changes me, I desire Him more and more. He created each one of us for Himself - to need and desire to walk with Him closely and be filled with Him and nothing else we use to fill that need will satisfy. Have you ever had a really nice hug? Someone gave me one today and it made me think of this... I bet God gives incredible, amazing hugs... and I'm looking forward to the day when I will ever know His sweet embrace. And when everything we do in this world, hoping to bring glory to His name, will be rewarded with the chance to give glory yet again - casting a crown before His throne.

Worthy, worthy, worthy are You, Lord.

Summer Traveling

The past two weeks have been full to the brim with changing places and traveling and seeing friends from last semester and a friend from when I was in Europe two years ago.

I'll begin this photo blog at two weeks ago: 

The wedding in Budapest

It was a joy and a cultural treat for the three of us (from left: Jemma, me, Esther, and the bride and groom in the photo in the back) to be able to go to the wedding of our good friend and roommate from last semester.

Slovakia

Early the next day I took a bus from Budapest to Bratislava (about three hours) to visit the city. It was the first time I've traveled alone (on purpose anyway) just to sightsee and have a little bit of a vacation. I had to be my own map-lady which was not the simplest thing for me.... here's a lovely fountain in a lovely park that isn't quite in the direction I was intending to go.

Eventually I did find the right direction and made my way to the city center. The sculpture behind me is of St. George and the Dragon. It stands in the courtyard of the Primatial Palace where the Treaty of Bratislava was signed between France and Austria in 1805 after the Battle of Austerlitz.

Bratislava has an interesting sense of humor. I'm not sure if this single-pylon bridge was designed to look like a UFO over the city or not...

...but the view from the top is incredible - both of the castle and the surrounding area.

The city has statues scattered around the Old Town area of notable people from times past, which add to the humor it seems to have as a small city that had a few moments of importance in European history. Roz and I had to pose with a few of them.

Roz and I also enjoyed a visit to the Natural History Museum, which I mostly went into for an exhibition that turned out to be in a different museum and had in fact been over for a month... sometimes knowing only English leads to confusion while traveling - especially in somewhat off the beaten path cities like Bratislava. But I did enjoy this museum and the guide who wanted to make sure I understood regardless of the language barrier. 

Germany

From Slovakia I took a bus to Berlin where I would be meeting up with Kristin, my German friend who has been telling me to come see her since we met two years ago. I had a day in the city by myself and went walking through a street art exhibit and then on a walking tour.

The tour covered old history and recent history... I took lots of photos, but a couple I want to share here are of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in WWII. 

It looks almost non-descript. Stone blocks, all the same length and depth but different heights over a city block. The guide described it as perhaps a bar graph of antisemitism showing the increase and decrease over the first half of the century. He said others saw the blocks differently. I don't know why the second photo evokes strong feelings in me, but walking through the memorial is a vastly different experience than walking around it. Perhaps you will get a similar feeling - or maybe you had to be there. 

 

The tour also focused on the Berlin Wall - division of East and West for forty-some years. This is at the East Gallery.

And this is at Checkpoint Charlie - probably one of the most photographed by Americans spots in Berlin. 

Berlin also has beautiful buildings - a few left after the Allies bombed the city or reconstructed from what was left. This one is on an island in the city that is full of museums... some that I'd like to see if I have the pleasure of visiting Berlin again. 

And this is us, taking a break along the river Spree... me with Kristin and her friend (now our friend) Uli, who graciously hosted us for the night.

...and I wasted a bit of their time having them help me find a very special but not terribly interesting street... 

After Berlin, Kristin and I spent a little time in her hometown of Halle, Leipzig, Dresden and then we crossed the border into the Czech Republic to do some hiking.

Dresden is an incredibly beautiful city.

You might say we were on top of the world... haha...ok, bad joke... but look closely. 

Going to the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in the Czech Republic was an unexpected highlight of the trip.

Vajta, Hungary

....and now I am back at the castle in Vajta, serving at the conferences that will be taking place for the next three and a half weeks of summer before school starts again.

Prayer requests - 
Please pray that I will be able to rest and recover my energy before school starts. I came back much more relaxed and mentally ready to start a new set of challenges, but I also pushed myself too hard physically while traveling and came back pretty much exhausted in that regard. I'm trying to rest every time my body says it's time to, but so far that's almost ALL the time.

PS - If anyone sent me anything here at the castle over the summer, the office sent it back because I wasn't here to pick it up - I had a little misunderstanding about what they would be doing. Please let me know if you received something back.