Dominican Trip

For the past several weeks, as many of you may know, I have been frantically scurrying around preparing for an upcoming missions trip to the Dominican Republic.  Well, finally the day has arrived!!!!  Tonight, at around 10PM, a group of 18 youth and 7 adults from my church, including my mother and myself, will be leaving on a plane for Monte Plata, in the Dominican Republic.  

Rebekah Holbrook, the sister of our high school pastor, has been a missionary with Kids Alive in Monte Plata for the past two years, so we'll be working with her over the next week.  She is heavily involved not only with an orphanage which she runs, but also the school and church in the town, so we'll be doing a lot of work with all three: orphanage, school, and church.  While there, we have planned...one day VBS program, Speechless presentation (in Spanish), door-to-door outreach, kids/youth outreach, work projects, Date Nights for house parents in the orphanage, church involvement, school involvement, and more.  So as you can see, it will be a extremely busy week.

I would greatly appreciate your prayers as we prepare to serve the Lord through loving others.  If you would pray that...

-our team would draw closer together and show that we are Christians by our love for each other

-the flights would go smoothly and no luggage would be lost (we're bringing 15 extra suitcases with food and props/costumes)

-the Lord would give us the strength to fight the spiritual darkness

-each of us would grow spiritually

-that we would share the love of Christ with others by developing relationships with them

I will be sure to give an update (complete with pictures!!!) when I return home.  While I am gone, though, you can check out our group blog www.dominicanupdates.blogspot.com as well as Rebekah's blog www.web.mac.com/tiarivka/Site/Blog/blog.html 

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support!

Under the mercy,

Elizabeth 

Baptism

Exciting times!!!  Last night, my dad, mom, brother, and I were baptized...in our jacuzzi in our back yard.  Probably one of the most unorthodox baptisms I've ever heard of, but it was an amazing experience.  Pictures will be coming shortly, as soon as I can get them here on the laptop.  But here's a little something I wrote in my journal this morning...:)

"Baptism...last night, in obedience to the commands of Christ, Mom, Dad, Josh, and I were baptized.  It's weird though, how dunking someone underwater can come to be such a profound symbol of the Christian faith.  IT's as if, when we go under the water, we're dying and being buried with Christ, and then being resurrected again, as he was.  Not only that, but our old natures, full of sin and pride, are dying and we are raised again new creatures.  New creatures with new hearts.  And this is what I want.  Through my baptism, I want to publicly declare that "I once was lost but now am found."  I am a fully committed, born again believer.  I know, that I can not be righteous by my own works.  And so, I want to give my life anew to Christ.  Not my will but HIs be done in my life.  Here I stand, so help me God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,

Amen."

Soundtrack to my Life-Part 5

Hello all,

Sorry this is late, yesterday was a pretty busy day/evening :)  Thank you lovely Faith online kids for letting me sit in on your class!!!

1) Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto-:)  That's pretty much all I can say...so beautiful.  Must listen again.

2) Soli Deo Gloria-new worship song we're learning for this Sunday, very pretty esp. with the latin

3) Eye of the Tiger-fun song which we're using for a David and Goliath skit in the Dominican

4) Breath of Heaven-Amy Grant...yes I know it's a Christmas song, so what?

5) Viva La Vida-Coldplay

Under the mercy,

Elizabeth

The Last Hero

Today in class, Mr. Bartel read us a very lovely poem by Chesterton which got me to thinking about a lot of things.  Below is the poem, and below the below will be some of my thoughts.  

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,
You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.

The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,
More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;
The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.

The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,
They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose,-
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.

Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,
To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.

Beautiful, yes?  This picture of a man abandoned by country and lover, pursued by enemies, fighting, falling, dying.  And all the while, he rejoices.  He finds more beauty in the rain, in the abandonment, in his death, than we can find in light and life and love.  Chesterton shows us an amazing picture of the relationship between beauty and love here perhaps.  This man sees the true beauty that is in the world, and loves it all.  Perhaps...do we need to see a thing as it truly is before we can truly love it?  

So maybe you read this and say, "Beautiful?  What?  This girl has a pretty twisted of beauty if she thinks that a lost and lonely man dying alone in a fight is beautiful."  But are you looking at the world properly then?  There is beauty all around you, in the light and in the shadows, in the sun and in the rain, in the smiles and the frowns, in life and in death.  Look around you!  See the beauty in the world!  Love more truly!  Rejoice!

Soundtrack to my Life-Part 4

First off...I know this is late.  :(  I'm sorry everyone...but life happens, and I couldn't get to this yesterday.

Secondly...I know this announcement is also late, but I want to celebrate the last post as my 25th on this blog!!!!!  Hooray!!!!!  *balloons and confetti fall*

Alright, and now for the songs...

1) We're So Far Away-by Mae...thank you thank you thank you Amy for getting me into Mae, they are so beautiful, and there are so many of their songs that I could put onto this list :)  But I will show restraint and only do two.

2) Bach's 2nd Fugue from the Well Tempered Klavier-I have more of a love/hate relationship with this song...it's a very good fugue, but I'm having to learn and memorize it for Certificate of Merit this year, which tends to make me hate perfectly good songs :(

3) The Cure for Pain-Jon Foreman

4) The Ocean-by Mae

5) Awesome is the Lord Most High-Christ Tomlin; and actually yesterday, I just read the psalm that inspired this song...Psalm 46 or 47, I believe.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Suffering

Last night during family devotions, we read the first chapter of 1 Peter.  One verse that especially stood out to me was verse 7.  

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed."  (1 Peter 1:6-7, NIV)

I think it's interesting that frequently we as Christians pray to God that our trials may be taken away, and that He would take us out of the valley of the shadow of death so that we may go on our way rejoicing and be merry little Christians for the rest of our lives.  But Peter counters that view very effectively here.  He makes it quite clear that we have to suffer trials, in order that our faith may be proved genuine, and that God may be glorified.

Sometimes yes, we suffer because Satan is tempting us as he did Job.  Sometimes, we will suffer because of our own human stupidity and fallen nature.  But always, these sufferings are meant to make us grow, to purify our hearts and burn away everything that is not of God.  Therefore, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!

What is love?

...baby don't hurt me.  A rather commonplace trivial answer to one of the most important questions that this inkblot has ever sought to wrap her head around.  

Yesterday in Foundations, Mr. Bartel read to us 1 John 4:7-12.  Love...does this passage reveal something to us about what it is, how we should show it, why we do it?  

God is love...what does this mean?  When I love, does that mean that I am giving God to someone?  If I love, then God abides in me, and His love is perfected in me...how can God's love be perfected in me?  If God's love is perfected in me...perhaps that means that the more I love truly, the more I will be able to love truly.  But, how do you truly love?

Is love self-sacrifice?  Is it sharing?  Is it God?  Or something more?  Love is not merely an emotion, yet it is not merely actions devoid of all feeling.  It is a choice, but sometimes we don't want to love.  

Love requires not just our hearts, not just our hands, not just our heads, but all three in combination.  Love is a feeling, a decision, an action...love must be an act of the whole soul.

Love...is an amazing thing.  Often, it hurts to love others.  When we give someone ourselves, they will hurt us, they will fail us, they will reject us.  Yet God still commands us to love one another.  Sometimes we love out of selfish motives...we think that if we just show enough love to this person, they'll love us back and we'll be accepted and safe.  Sometimes what we think is love is really shallow emotions or trivial affections.  

But still...we love.  Because when we do, something beautiful happens.  When we love one another, God is made manifest in us.  When we love, God's love is perfected in us, and we are able to love even more.  I don't know what love is, or what it is like, or why or how I am able to love.  But this I know..."Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 

-1 John 4: 11