New Addition

My friends and I have a new addition to our family here in Abilene! It is a three week old cat, and her name is Wolverine.

Josh and Joe came to visit last weekend, which was so good! We went to the zoo with Callie and ate alot.

Sam Solomon

Sam Solomon is the fake name given to a man that spoke at Summit yesterday. He was raised in a strict Islam community, and learned to memorize scripture from the Kuran at age 5. He lived his whole life as a religious Islam who would do anything for his God. A few years back, “Sam” got a copy of the new testiment and read the whole thing straight through. He began to wrestle with the words that God was saying, but eventually came to believe them.

He told his father what he was feeling, and he ended up turning him into the authorities. He was held captive for 17 and a half weeks, until one night he was going to be executed. As he sat there talking to the leader of the group, he prayed that if God was real, he would save him. Right at that moment, the leader said he was tired and wanted to postpone the execution until the next week. “Sam” eventually escaped and is now living in a different country. We were not allowed to take any pictures or video of him to keep his identity private, because it is now considered a deed of Allah to kill him.

After going through all of this, the man sat on stage for twenty minutes talking to us about how beautiful Jesus is. I was amazed to hear someone who has experienced such great challenges to keep talking about how God saves us.

Summit

This week at ACU is something called Summit. Most of the classes are cancelled, and instead we can attend optional lectures lead by different people.

Today we went to see Brian McLaren speak. He stressed the importance of seeing what we can do for the “church”, then what the church can do for us. It was interesting.

Afterwards, we went to see Rob Thomas speak. He goes to Watermark Church in Dallas and runs a media company, Igniter. He talked about the importance of video and images to get the point of Jesus across. This definately caught my attention and even made me look at a possible major for college.

Today was definately a good day. Callie and I went and bought maragarita mix, because tonight is One Tree HIll so we are having VIRGIN margarita Monday!

Velvet Elvis

I have a new book that I am reading! It’s called Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. This is honestly one of the most inspirational books I have ever read. He challenges people to read what he has written, then debate it. He stresses the fact that so many Christians just take the facts that they are given and never question them. Everyone should read it.

I went to an amazing Bible study this morning at Jacobs Dream. I love when you can tell that the hearts of the people around you are pure. I am blessed to have The Call to go to on Wednesday nights/Thursday mornings to wake me up from my routine!

Next week is lectureship, which will be pretty sweet. All of our classes are cancelled so that we can go to different lectures and discussions whenever we want to. The are also having a tent devoted to 168 hours of straight prayer. I signed up for an hour on Thursday, so it will be pretty interesting to lead people in their time with God.

What a great day!

Interesting

This week has been interesting, to say the least. Saturday we went to the football game, which was quite the dissapointment seeing as there are usually more people at a pee wee soccer game. They ended up winning 47-14!

On Sunday a few girls in my hall decided to drive to Dallas for the day to shop and get there hair done; two things that are pretty difficult to do in Abilene. It was definately nice to get my dose of big city and see my friends and family.

I came home and literally studied Astronomy until 1 in the morning. My body then decided to run a fever, which has still not gone away. This weekend should be good though, because my parents are coming!

I have class in twenty minutes.

Things Unseen

Last year in small groups, Sandra gave us a book to read called “Things Unseen” by Mark Buchanan. We planned on doing a senior girls study of this book, but it never worked out. As I was going through things in my dorm the other day, I came across the book and wondered whether or not I should go ahead and read it. After talking to Josh about it, and hearing how his parents love the book, I decided to read it.

Although I have only gotten half way through, it is unlike anything I have read before. The way in which Buchanan describes our longing for eternal life and the understanding that we lack really hit home for me. I think so many times people, including myself, get frusterated about not knowing exactly how Heaven will be, that they give up on looking forward to the idea all together. To me, that is incredibly sad. Sometimes I have moments of clarity when I can see the world as it truly is; temporary and broken. It is at these times I know that my desire for Heaven and my relationship with Its Owner will lead me to live the life worthy of the Calling I have received. This book has begun to stir the desire of Heaven in me once again. In the chapter titled ‘Who Wants to Go to Heaven?’, Buchanan says…

“We’re going to see God. We will be given eyes to behold what angels fear to look upon, and through Christ the boldness and priviledge to draw near. And however we conceive that, or fail to conceive it, it is a glory and joy beyond our wildest imaginings. Even if nothing else is true about Heaven, God dwells there in the fullness of His splendor, and that alone gives Heaven its worth. God alone makes Heaven heavenly.”

How amazing is that? Even if we don’t get to eat ice cream and magically learn how to sing in Heaven like i would hope for, we can count on the fact that God will be there. That makes me pretty darn excited for eternity!

New Piercing

Today my hall went to the tattoo parlor and everyone got either a tattoo or piercing! Here’s mine…

Birthday

So I went home this weekend, which was pretty sweet! When I got back on Sunday night, I was reminded what amazing friends I have here at ACU!

Matt Redman

We sang this song last night in The Call, and it has not left my mind.

“When we face up to the glory of God, we find ourselves facedown”
                                                                     -Matt Redman

Hurricane

I was just on facebook when I came across something that David Ake wrote about praying for the houses in New Orleans that we worked on two years ago. It is devistating to think that another hurricane could come through and ruin everything that has been rebuilt.

The people that we met there in 2006 had so much hope and love in them, despite all of the tragedy they had to face. That was one of the most life changing weeks for me, because I got to see that even when everything is taken away from us, it is still possible to rely on God.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
                                  Romans 12:12

I love Copeland. Man do I love Copeland. I have been studying for three hours, and the only thing that is keeping me sane is the amazing voice of Aaron Marsh. His lyrics are so powerful. I think everyone should listen to Copeland.