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.