Ending of the Beginning

Wow. Today was our last day of class at Link Year and I am so sad yet deeply appreciative of this time that I’ve had this year. This being the last day of class and nearing the end of our time here I just wanted to reflect and share a little about what God has been doing in my life these past 8 months.

When I came to Link I was callous, my heart was hardened to the gospel, and I was completely enveloped in a world of self-righteousness. Before I came to Link I assumed that when I got here I would be gaining biblical knowledge and perhaps growing in my relationship with the Lord in that, and I was excited for it. How did that affect me before I came to Link? I didn’t read my bible on my own, I never prayed or really made any efforts to have a relationship with the Lord. I didn’t feel conviction over my sin because none of my sin seemed “that bad”. (Hint, pride comes before the fall). So coming into Link I really didn’t think I needed it here, I just knew that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and that this is a good option to meet cool people and learn more about the Bible.

Oh my goodness did the Lord humble me. When I first came here I honestly took in all of the information and yet meditated on none of it and took none of it to heart. However a couple of months in I started to daily get into the word and begin to pray for the first time in my life. Months go by, around Christmas-time I saw the Lord begin to transform my heart. Daily I would ask for the Lord to soften my heart and give me one that desired him and desired to love his people. Praying Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” and Psalm 51 was huge in my life and it was seriously insane to see how God has taken my hard heart and changed me. Where I used to ignore meeting new people because I didn’t really care about them, now I love to make new relationships and hear how God is moving in others lives. Where I was formerly enslaved to living an apathetic life of mediocre Christian religion, I can now run towards the cross as a follower of Christ. Not being held back by the ways of the world but being armed with a greater knowledge of my faith, biblical community to support and challenge me in every way, and a desire to serve and follow the Lord for the rest of my life.

Link Year has been the most amazing experience and I can’t ever describe fully how much the people here mean to me or how much of an impact they have had on me this year, but I know that the friendships made here have truly been sharpening and uplifting in every way and wow am I so thankful for it. Looking back, I know there are so many things that I could have done differently but I have no regret for it because I know that the Lord has been working in my life in so many ways and it all has led to the person I am today and will continue to grow to be. I’m so thankful for every person who has contributed to helping me grow this year and everyone who has supported me being here at Link. Y’all are amazing and I can’t ever say thank you enough.

all things eleuthera

This post is going to be entirely about the Bahamas and how awesome God is, just preparing y'all. Soooooo if you couldn't tell by the crazy amount of pictures i posted, I and 30 of my fellow Link classmates traveled to Eleuthera, Bahamas for pretty much the entire month of February. Now Eleuthera is an island that is about 110 miles long and about a mile thin, with around 10,000 people there. We as a class had the amazing opportunity to be able to travel to the Bahamas and work with Caribbean Ministry Association and stay at their facility in Eleuthera for a month. I just want to quickly outline for y'all what we did as a group, what I learned throughout the month, and how y'all can be praying for the Eleuthera Bible Training Center. 

So while we were in Eleuthera during the weekdays we would do some sort of a work project and in the afternoon we had the option to go to a beach. For the first week while we were there we worked on taking the shingles and felt off of the building that we were staying at which was a super awesome experience and also cool to me because you can physically see a difference that you made on the building. (A group of professionals came and actually re-roofed so no worries, the finished project looked legit). The rest of the time while we were there we worked on 1) cleaning out the volleyball court by EBTC and 2) making a 4 foot perimeter around the EBTC basketball court and mixing sand, rocks, water, and cement to make concrete. I'll just talk a little about the basketball court and the heart behind fixing it up. I know going in to the trip I was expecting to meet a bunch of locals, tell them about Jesus, and possibly change lives (big aspirations, i know), but little did i know that God was going to use us in ways that might be less noticeable than i thought. We were working with the CMA missionary Bill Landers, whom is one of the coolest guys out there, and he was basically the one giving us all the instructions for the month. So Bill decides that while we were there we could begin to fix up the basketball court in an attempt to broaden EBTC's outreach. On the island of Eleuthera, there is lots of basketball going on and theres so much potential in the players there, but little to no good courts around. EBTC has one of the best courts as far as quality and it is located in a fairly central location on the island. So Bill's reasoning for redoing the court is that if there are stands, lights, nice goals, and a decent place to be at, maybe lots of games could be played there at EBTC, which is a HUGE ministry opportunity for Bill and his wife Teresa. 

Besides working we would hang out around EBTC, go explore the island as far as you could walk, and go swim and hang out at beaches. So needless to say, although we worked hard in the morning we definitely had plenty of time to rest and relax with good friends and with God. Eleuthera is freaking legit because one side of the island is the Caribbean and the other side is the atlantic and we got to enjoy both of them. The entire trip was filled with good friends, beautiful scenery, and a really really good God. It was not easy to say the least: I was sick within a week of arriving which wasn't fun, the work was difficult and when you try and rely on your own strength it was just impossible to be uplifting and encouraging to the people around you when you aren't fully relying on God. Another difficult thing was the entire trip i was waiting to hear back about college admissions and about summer plans, and for a while i really let the stress and worry about that get the best of me. I was worried and anxious a lot and not knowing what it meant to actually trust and lean on God in all circumstances. However, God is so faithful and continuously showed me that he loves me and cares for me which was awesome. That being said, i just want to talk about a couple things i learned while i was in Eleuthera: 

1) Mission trips do not always mean you need to go in thinking you are going to "change people's lives". One of our main focuses that we went into the trip with was to serve and not be served, and i hope and pray that even through a group of 30 people just redoing a roof and fixing up a basketball court the gospel would be made known to people through the lives of Bill and Teresa. Sometimes all you need to do is aid the people who have been called to full time ministry. 

2) Trusting God is hard. Trusting in a plan that you can't see a rhyme or reason to is hard. But in Hebrews it talks about how without faith it is impossible to please God, and throughout these past couple of months i have realized that just having faith that God will provide and take care of you is what you need to do, not sit and worry about everything that you can't control. The God who created the human heart holds my heart and he knows what is best for me and what is destructive. I have learned the importance and the magnitude of the common prayer we have heard since we were young, "not my will, but yours be done". CS Lewis says in Screwtape Letters, "Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." I'd encourage anyone who's going through a situation that they don't understand or feel like the Lord has abandoned them in to remember that the Lord requires faith of us and we need to trust him and pray that our hearts would be aligned with his will and our hearts desires would line up with His. 

I could seriously talk about the Bahamas and what the Lord showed me for days, but no one wants to read that much and i would be surprised if you're even reading now- so if you are THANK YOU for being awesome and listening to whats been going on in my life these past couple on months! I love y'all and I'm so thankful for everyone who has been praying and encouraging me along the way. 

healing

Hello friends!! Time for weekly review! This has most definitely been an excellent week and I am delighted to be back at Link Year and getting in the grind of things again. This week we had the awesome privilege to hear Jefferson Bethke (with guest appearance of his wife) speak to us. Jeff gave us an insane amount of things to think and to pray about and I most definitely felt convicted by what the Lord said through him.  I feel like every week I say this, but I could just write pages about what we learned about so I’ll just narrow it down to one of the subjects we learned about. In his last session of the week, Jeff talked to us about healing. While here at Link Year we have our “7 Pillars” and one of the most pivotal pillars is heart transformation. Heart transformation is a slow and painful process that sort of rests on the fact that we need to rely on Christ to transform our lives and that includes dealing with a lot of deep rooted sin issues that have become embedded in us as Christians. The concept that Jeff brought to us about healing sort of talks about the healing power of the gospel and how Christ can take our wounds and cleanse them, but this process doesn’t work if we hide from our sin and try to cover it up. He gave us the most practical example; a real wound. Whenever you are wounded you put a bandage over it, and you instinctively withdraw when someone gets close to it, you are sensitive to it. But once the wound is healed and turns into a scar, it’s a wonderful story that you can tell people. Scars don’t hurt, and you are stronger at that spot than you ever were. We are the same way, we draw away when we have a wound and try to cover it up, but when we clean a wound and deal with it immediately, it heals much faster and doesn’t cause problems for a long time. I felt very convicted by this message but encouraged to really dig in to issues that have been pulling on my heart and see how God can use my brokenness and my faults and make something beautiful. Thanks for reading y’all!