Week in the Life of a Campus Missonary....

So I did speak and it went ok! I was soooo nervous and I think Lisa may have been wrong! Ha! Not sure I want to speak in public like that for a while! :) I spoke about Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1 and the plans God has for us, how sometimes they take way longer than we would like and sometimes His plan is way different than our own. Then gleaned other points from their lives! I just love Mary and Elizabeth! What mighty women of God. I was thinking yesterday how I can't wait to meet them in Heaven! :)

This weekend was super fun! Friday night we had our girls connect group (Bible Study) Christmas dinner at my apartment. We made tacos, talked and then a few us watched Bride Wars! Then Saturday night a group of us watched the Help on campus for free! That makes the third time I've seen it "on the big screen" and I read it this summer too! Couldn't get enough! The message I took away from the movie all three times is how much women can make a difference with the talents they have in the life they are already living!!

Sunday night we had a meeting for all of our connect group leaders (Bible study leaders). It was so encouraging to be in a room full of peeps wanting to spread the Gospel and love on ECU students. These student give so much of themselves!! Look at this room of world changers!!!

So this week I have been making an eternal difference by busting out a Tacky Christmas Party for oh you know 100 or so people! ;) But I am def not alone in this, an awesome team of VCM ladies are helping me! Tomorrow is the big day all we have left to do is set out chairs, tidy up, and start crock pot cooking!

Here is a picture of the girls tonight posing as we decorated! (You can't tell here but the sanctuary looks amazing!!)

MIA

(The Only picture I took on Thanksgiving was this one at the end of the day! Oh well Jack is precious! :))

I have been MIA from blogging the past few weeks! I was so going to sit down and write something over Thanksgiving Break but I was just enjoying the break sooooo much and I was pretty lazy!!

Thanksgiving was a great time with friends and family. On Turkey day at my mom's house we had 17 people. The regular Thanksgiving crowd plus friends this year which was so fun! My childhood friend Suzanne, her mom Gala, and "Nana" came as well as my sister's friend Melissa, her husband Cole, and their baby Sarah Margaret! I only took pictures of me and Jack (my precious nephew)! That night Suzanne and I saw "The Muppets" movie which was super cute! It was nice to see a movie with no blood or sex! In the hotel room they even showed twin beds!! The movie was squeaky clean, cheesy, & perfect! It even included an 80's robot! I miss 80's movies!!

I did want to post about seeing the play OKLAHOMA on Monday night before Thanksgiving! I went with Praisy, Hannah, & Carolyn! We saw Emily in the play! She was awesome and played a little girl & Dream Laurie! The play was so fun! I Hadn’t been to one in years and ECU always does a great job!! We laughed soo hard at the way everyone in the production spoke! Their oldschool wester accent was hilarious! Example willow tree= willer!! Oklahoma is a funny play so we were laughing at it and these ladies behind us b/c they were rolling the whole time!!

It was definitely the most fun I had had on a Monday night in a loooonnnngggg time!

This week will be busy! We are decorating our Church sanctuary and we always do it up big! I am speaking Thursday night about Dreams/ God's purpose for our life. Please pray for me (all two of you!) I want to speak what God wants me to and I don't want to be nervous!! This semester I have been doing a Bible Study with the other VCM staff felines called "Lioness Arising." It was a good study but every week Lisa Bevere got up in our business (in a good way) about the dreams in our hearts, what God is calling us to do etc. I kept thinking speaking more and walking into that area of campus ministry more, so we shall see how it goes!!!

(I wanted to add a few pictures but will have to do that later!)

Lately!

Lately I have been into all things domestic! I am already pretty domestic so I'm not sure what is going on! :) I have cleaned my apartment and cooked up a storm!

Oh wait maybe it's because I started reading Farmer Boy in the Little House series (the 1950's copy from the local library! ha!). Seriously the copy of the book is soo old but I love the sweet stories. The quality time the family spends together. How they make everything from scratch etc. I could go on and on, but all I know is these little 4th grade readers are good to my soul and help me fall asleep with a clear head! (The book actually says grades 3-7 ages 8-12) :)

What I've been cooking:

poppyseed chicken

crock pot mexican chicken

peanut butter rice crispy treats

sweet tea (which I haven't made in forever, used to be a staple in my fridge that I started cutting out! but now it might be back in!)

and the kicker... amish friendship bread

I have been wanting to make amish friendship bread for a while and finally got around to it today! I isn't hard at all. I just didn't know what recipe to use because I have only ever made it before when someone gave me a starter.

(the first starter)

So tonight I made my own starter. I think it would be really neat to keep this going for a while. I have a friend whose family has had the same "batch" for a long time. I think it would be neat to start a tradition like that!

I love that this will be something I can share with neighbors and friends. I think I want to double the bread batches and bake them in the mini bread loaves, so that way I can freeze some starters and give a few away.

Let's see how it goes! :)

What you wanna know?

Hi I’m Laura.

I’m linking up today with Kelly’s Korner!

Here’s a little bit about myself.

I am 27.

I have lived in North Carolina my whole life (except for a two month stint in Nashville).

As a freshman at East Carolina, I gave my life to the Lord over Christmas break!

I felt called to campus ministry shortly after I got saved, but tried to ignore it…

I pledged Zeta Tau Alpha and lived in the house for one year! That was enough! Ha but loved the sorority!

Majored in Elementary Education with a concentration in Psychology .

I did my student teaching in 2^nd grade in Farmville, NC! I loved the kids but was stressed out the whole time!

So I decided to actually listen and did an internship in campus ministry after graduation.

Loved it!!

Went to Every Nation’s School of Campus ministry= 2 month stint in Nashvegas!

Meet awesome people, saw Carrie Underwood at Grand Ole Opry, learned much about ministry, learned how to raise support and grew closer to Jesus!

Grew even closer to Jesus while raising support!

Came on Staff at Victory Campus Ministry at East Carolina Fall 2009.

Feb of 2010 was blindsided by my parents separating.

Felt pretty “down” for months.

Cried.

Prayed.

Grew even closer to Jesus.

Learned that Jesus is there even when you think life sucks.

Learned that when you minister to others, your own heart is ministered to!

Also learned to laugh again!

Went on a mission trip to Baja Mexico and saw poverty and God do miracles!

Got my own little apartment and felt like a grown up!

My heart began to heal all the way and felt alive in Jesus more & more every day!

Remembered that I was silly! Cause I do like to be silly.

So I'm just a single girl living this life of mine for Jesus and enjoying every minute of it! It hasn't always been peachy but hey who ever said it would be!

Yay Finished Job!

Back in 10th grade English class I was supposed to read Job and give a report on it. I never read the whole book. I think I probably started and then found something on the internet. If I remember correctly, my report summarized the book and then gave a little lesson on faith even when we suffer and then I played some Jars of Clay song on my boom box!

Well I am proud to say that 11 years later, I finally finished Job! Learned a whole lot more this time by actually reading a using my ever so helpful NIV Personal Life Application study Bible from Ollies! It is burgundy with a hot pink cover from the Dollar Store and is the love of my life these days!

Let me just tell you that I am right there with good ole Job! Whenever I have gone through different trials (none as bad as Job mind you), I complain, lay around thinking "why poor ole me" and ask God lots of questions. Thankfully my friends are much kinder than Job's, but other people and acquaintances have given bad advice too!

When my parents separated, I couldn't listen to the bad advice, it sometimes would make my stomach hurt!!

Love Elihu, his advice was at least 50% right.

"But those who suffer He delivers in their suffering; He speaks to them in their affliction. He is wooing you form the jaws of distress, to a spacious place free of restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food." Job 36:15-16

"God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding."Job 37:5

When God answers in chapter 38, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. Wow, what a spanking!

Love Job's response: "I am unworthy- how can I reply to you..."

My Bible study notes say "Throughout his time of suffering, Job longed to have an opportunity to plead his innocence before God. Here God appeared to Job and gave him that opportunity. But Job decided to remain quiet because it was no longer necessary for him to speak. God had shown Job that, as a limited human being, he had neither the ability to judge the God who created the universe nor the right to ask why. God's actions do not depend on ours. He will do what he knows is best, regardless of what we think is fair."

Sometimes we really need to hear that, our society is all about self promotion and airing our opinions (even having blogs like this ha!) But oftentimes we need to be reminded of our smallness and God's greatness.

Job repents, tells God he is sorry for talking about things he knew nothing about. God restores Job above and beyond! Job's friends apologize, Job prays for them. ( I would want to slap them first but Job has a better heart..) All in all a good day Job died old and full of years!

I would love to interview Job years after he was "restored" and ask him about his life. I am pretty sure he didn't question God's plans anymore!!

P.S.

Soooo I haven't kept up my end of the baragin of blogging about reading the Bible. It got to be tedious and frankly I fell off of the wagon!

But Lauren, Brittany, & I have been reading together since the beginning of the school year! We started from scratch aka Genesis and are doing a one year chronological study Bible plan. So far so good! We are in Job and will finish that up next Tue. We figure out how many days we want to read each week and show up and talk about it. I may ask if they want to do the S.O.A.P method...

This time, no falling of the wagon! I plan to stick with it and think meeting with them each week will hold me more accountable than blogging! (Hate that I couldn't stick with blogging but I just didn't have the time to keep up with that!)

So that's that! Campus ministry is going great!!! Everything is in full swing!

Tonight I hung out with my friend Jayme and talked wedding stuff! She and Matt are tying the knot Dec. 18th. Here is a pic of there presh engagement pictures! So happy for them!!

http://brittanischultze.tumblr.com/(hope it was ok for me to post this)

Also, my sister, nephew Jack, mom, and Aunt Janette came Sunday for a visit. We all went out to lunch with my friend Kendall to Winslows downtown Greenville. While walking out of the restaurant my aunt asked where the downtown area was! Kendall and I were like "this is basically it!!" Ha! We walked in Catelog Connections and then headed to check out my apartamento. Carrie, Jack, and Janette hadn't seen it before! Then we did some more shopping! My mom bought me a yellow mum and a shirt from Target!! :) It was sooo good to see them and catch up!

Here is a cute picture of Jack (at a weird angle). I made him hold a twizzler, he didn't know what he was doing but it was good to me! (of course he didn't lick or eat so no children we harmed :)) Sadly this was the only picture I took that night!

Ps. Aldi has their version of Girl Scout cookies right now that are right on the money for $1.70 a box!! The Caramel Coconut Fudge Cookies describes the carmel delight to a T!! They really were delightful and I'm afraid to count how many I have eaten!

Going to bed and going to read some of Job! :)

3 things I'm loving right now!

Today was the best day in the world!!! Not because of anything big but because of a 1000000000 little things! Here are the def top 3:

3. The Weather was gorgeous today!! It was a nice sunny day, barely a cloud in the sky with a a nice breeze. Still shorts weather but not excruciating heat!

2. I have a new baby nephew!! Little Jack is one week old today!! He is precious and perfect. He looks just like his daddy but with "the Norman nose." The Norman nose is the nose my Granddaddy Parks, mama, Aunt Janette, Aunt Mimi, Carrie (Jack's mama) and I have! Mama, Daddy, and baby are all doing great! Hopefully I will get to see them again soon!

(this is what Jack's nose looks like :))

1. I love my "job." I love doing ministry at the school I love! ECU is a school that most people haven't heard of unless they are from NC! And I am totally ok with that! This is where I grew up! I came to know the Lord, grow in my faith, and mature into an adult here! I love sharing the Gospel and the same truths I learned with students, yards away from where the same truths were shared with me!! I love the legacy of our campus ministry! Yesterday I talked with a student about the Holy Spirit, the same thing I talked to my campus minister at the time Heather with, 9 years ago!! I called Heather and told her about it last night and she told me another story about a conversation we had back then about when I first wanted to go into campus ministry, second semester of my Freshman year! What a young buck I was back then! I had just gotten saved months before that at Christmas time.

Anyway, all that to say, the past two days I have had such good conversations about life and the Lord with such sweet girls! I am so thankful & humbled that the Lord had called me to speak into these precious lives! Lives I know the Lord treasures in His heart! 28,000 students can be a little overwhelming, so I love it when the Lord "drops" relationships in your lap He wants you to cultivate!

(one of the sweet girls Praisy that I'm friends with! She said, don't make me pose here like a freshman! :))

I feel like such a lucky lucky girl! I have a cute little apartment, an awesome support team, a great town to call home, an awesome church, family that loves me, a cute bundle of cuddleness for a nephew, and a Saviour who has seen me through the good, the bad, & the ugliness of my heart that He is constantly renewing, who still loves me!!

Boston Day 8

(Why yes this is a few months late, but found it sitting in my desktop folder and decided to post anyway :-) )

Day 8:

This was our last day of the trip! We started with devotional at the Whole Foods Market where we got our buffet breakfast! Yummy! Then we meet up with the Fishers for our Historical walking tour. Their little girls are precious and I am so glad the whole family joined us. Aralyn had a hard time walking for long, she kept saying “But I need to breath...” “But I need to rest.” Then one time she and Janna were taking a little while to join the rest of the group and Aralyn came around the corner with some daffodils that they bought from a street vender! :) Precious.

We learned a lot on the tour. One church we went in was the King’s Church. It became the nation’s first Unitarian church. Inside of the church the did not have pews that were long rows, they had pews that were boxed off. This was done as a way to make money for the church and so that the congregation could gain status. How sad is that!

We learned about a preacher who preached the Gospel with no amplification to a huge crowd of like 6,000. We visited a really old cemetery that Samuel Adams is buried in. Do people these days know he did more than “brew beer?”

We ended our tour at the Quincy market where we ate some Clam Chowder then shopped in a hurry. We said goodbye to the Fishers! (Excited to see them and the Mabrys at the Dream Conference this July!) Then went to to the airport and headed South!

Thank You’s:

Thank you Ten Days for a second great trip!

Thank you Mabry’s and Fisher’s for hosting us and teaching us about the city you love and serve!

Thank you for new close friends like Grace! So glad this trip brought us together even though we have known each other for years, our friendship really grew drastically over the course of this trip! A bridesmaid you will be! :)

Thank you Jesus for bringing me to Boston, for opening my heart to the city, opening my eyes to you, and teaching me sooo much! YOu love me more than I know, bring me to this city I could tell you were loving on my soul even through all the service and evangelism we did on this trip!

Memories I will have forever:

~ My fave part of the trip was really talking to Adam and Donny about God calling them to plant the church in Boston! Still can’t get over their selflessness to uproot their families and reach people “not in their own backyard” for Christ!

~Loved doing evangelism at Harvard even though the lawn guy acted like a security guard and removed us from campus! (Wow really!)

~Bonding with Grace and Lauren my roomies for the trip! We kept saying why haven’t we been close before now? :) (Love Miss Victoria too but we already pretty tight! :))

~“I will take you”= This is something one of the men that lived in the YMCA (basically a place for men to live while they get on their feet) said. I went through the hall and heard him talking to me and he said “I will take you...” well I didn’t know what he was talking about so I basically made a beeline back to the room to paint in b/c it sort of scared me. He ended up telling Nick the whole story. He wanted to take me to his parent’s house in Puerto Rico to paint for them. Still a little shady but not as bad as what I first thought he meant!

~“Pink Ice cream” Donny and Janna’s two little girls were precious, their baby girl Lilah was precious too. But the two bigger ones Aralyn and Elise said the cuttest things. They called strawberry ice cream pink ice cream.

~Trying to go babysitt for the Mabrys but once we walked about 30 min in the cold to their house, Hope calls and says baby Cole is sick! At least we got to visit for a short while, see their precious house, and ride back with Adam, Alanna, and Nora and her Adam as a daddy call his girls sweet names like “My love”...

~“Lion, otter, beaver, golden retriever” = this was a personality test Derrick told us about.

~Playing the “Amanda from Atlanta that sells avocados” game. A game where you go through the whole alphabet with your name, a place and something you sell or do..

Boston Day 7 :)

This was our fun day. We started the day with our devotional at the ABP. Then afterwards we went back to the hotel and were going to do the walking Freedom Trail Tour, the historical tour of the city with Donny as our tour guide. It was raining pretty hard so we decided to do the walking tour the next day. The ECU girls went shopping. We stared by going to H&M where after trying on oodles of clothes, I walked away with a scarf! Then we tried to walk to the Forever 21 store. The guy giving directions said we could take the T. Well we thought we could walk it, in the drizzly rain. We walked past Boston Commons, and even the concert hall where the Hillsong Concert was going to be that night. We would all loved to have gone, but the tickets were $73. So we opted out!

Our surroundings began to get slightly sketchy and we figured out we were in China Town. We redirected ourselves and ended up in a nice area. We walked past the really pretty park which I don’t remember the name of. Then we hit Newbury St. This was a really upscale shopping area. We pasted many stores: Chanel, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, & Vera Wang to name a few. Luckily, we found a reasonably priced place for lunch. At the Mediterranean place we ordered grilled octopus for an appetizer. I ordered a scrumptious pasta dish and we had a great time! I felt so under dressed and out of place with my frizzy ponytail but it was so much fun. Grace said we need to have a pack that we will be friends for life and not get married yet. She was the only one to put her hand in the middle! Ha! But really there are no prospects heading my way now anyway! :) Her point was that we needed to do fun stuff like this and travel etc. When I do get married I hope I can still have fun girls nights and weekends away!

After lunch we passed even more stores on our way to Forever 21. After seeing Kate Spade & Lilly Pulitzer I was nearly drooling. I had to tell myself, “It is good for me to not get what I want.” We finally reached Forever 21 and it was packed! After scooping out all 3 floors, my pile of clothes was weighing my arm down! In the forever long line to the dressing room I talked with 2 girls from Northeastern that were in a sorority! This is when I remembered these are my types of girls! :) (Not girls discussing Chilean pesos...)Lord as long as I work on a campus with girls who love watching tv, cooking, dressing up and eating out I will be set!

Lexie, our new friend that moved from Florida to help with Aletheia joined us for our girls day! Then after purchasing some cute jewelry we went to JP Licks for ice cream. We headed for the T and made our way back to the hotel where we freshened up. We meet up with our whole group and then went to the North End to the Italian District. We ate dinner at a restaurant the L’Esperance’s told us about. It was fun to watch the people who worked their b/c it looked like they were all related. I got lost looking for the bathroom and thought the waitress told me to go into the dark broom closet... she thought this was funny!

After a fun dinner Grace and I went out to go see her sister Dana. It took us forever. We had to ride on a different part of the T line we had never ridden before. We made it but then walked about 4 blocks further outside then we needed to, walked back and then eventually found Dana’s apartment. She goes to Boston University. Her apartment was a part of the school’s housing and was in a Brown Stone. It was really cute. It was really good to meet her and talk to her. Grace wasn’t going to see her in a while so I know she was really glad to see her and that made it special. Riding back on the subway I was surprised how non scary it was at night. All of the people riding the T looked like normal people just riding the train late which was reassuring. We got back to the hotel around 11:30 and I know papa Jones was happy.

Boston Day 6 :)

Today was Harvard’s day where the freshmen figure out what house or dorm they will be in for their next 3 years. Most Harvard students live on campus, it’s the exception when they do not. It is sort of like Harry Potter when, there was a lot of life, camaraderie, celebrations, etc going on outside of the Memorial Hall & Science Tech Building.

I don’t know if this had anything to do with it or not, but the people we talked to on campus today seemed more open to talk.

We walked towards a section of campus we were unfamiliar with, behind the science tech building, and came across a girl there. Lord I pray she will come to know you, I don’t remember much about our conversation. Then we tried to walk near Divinity School but got lost. We found a neighborhood about a block from campus with big beautiful houses. There we meet Kirk. He was a freshman from Northern California. We had a great natural convo with him. Then we talked to another girl. Lord I pray she will come to know you. Grace and I were able to share our testimonies with her.

Our follow up meeting with a girl went well. (I had some Yerba Mata, its a type of tea I saw on the Sarah Snow show on the Discovery Channel so I was excited to try it. It had a really woodsy taste.) She had some questions for us that we tried to answer. One I remember was “What part of the Bible are we me associate with the most “~tried to tell her that the God of the Old Testament is the same as New Testament... We also tried to explain the importance of Jesus vs just living a morally good life. My favorite part was when we were able share our testimonies. After we shared our testimonies she asked where the church was again. So we told her and gave her a card and then we talked some more. Lord I pray that Ruthe will come to know you! She really was really sweet and open to talk.

Then Grace and I ate lunch at the clover. It was uber modern, delish and super fun. I have never eaten anywhere like this before. After this we went back to the church and then set up to give out free candy bars and hot chocolate again. This was fun and a good way to invite people to the church and strike up conversations. One guy asked me why we had a name for our church and why we had to differentiate ourselves from the body of Christ. I was glad Donny stepped in to talk to him, b/c I didn’t know how to discuss that and kept thinking who cares, we have to have a name to idetify what body of believers we are in the community.

Then we all walked to the Fishers house for dinner. Janna and her sister made bbq, sweet tea, and dump cake! It was all delish. Aaralyn and Elise were super cute. They were being snuggly and sweet. Then we place the bowl game. This was fun and I wrote out instructions for us to play here in Greenville!

I am honestly relieved to not go back to the Harvard campus. It was really hard just to get people to stop and talk to us. I am definitely glad we did and think the conversations we had were great but, glad to not go back. Honestly, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I didn’t mention earlier, but the first day we did evangelism on campus, Grace, Calvin and I were asked to not talk to students on the Harvard Yard again. We were actually talking with the girl we meet with today for the 2nd time. They told us we could talk to student around the Science and Tech building. The guy who told us had a golden retriever with him. His shirt only said “Landscaping Services” so he wasn’t a real security guard but we got the message. Grace later said, she wished she would have said “what authority do you have to make me leave, you are just a landscaping guy.” Ha! Well ever since that altercation, I felt like a terrorist on campus. My mind went into overdrive and I even thought their was a school-wide email sent out to warn students not to talk to us. So Day 5 on campus was not fun! I felt like I looked suspicious and that people were looking at me weird. This was not the case but how I felt! So I was so glad that today went better! Thank you Lord for sending people our way to talk to!

Boston Day 5

This day on campus was hard. Calvin and I were matched to be buddies again. No one I talked to wanted to be my friend. So we ended up going into the Harvard bookstore a few minutes then ate lunch with Nick and JT. I felt really sick all day and didn’t feel like eating anything. If you know me, I love to eat so this says something. All i ate for lunch was a cup of white rice and a banana. Then after going on campus, we all came back to nap. After our nap we were going out again to pass out candies (as Madge says) near the Harvard campus. I didn’t feel good at all so I stayed back at the hotel. I made a run to CVS for medicine and Whole Foods for dinner. Then campus back and cuddled up with my laptop and the remote. Nothing does a body good like a little screen time. ;)

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I'm already home but I had this one waiting to post, still finishing writing about the rest of the week and am excited to post those as well! :)

I forgot to add that I did have a good conversation this day with a guy that worked in the dinning area of the Science and Tech building. Lord I pray he will come to know you for who you really are!

Boston Day 4 :)

Well today Lauren and I overslept! But that was the only hitch in our day. So I ate my fave breakfast of hardboiled eggs and Mussolini style oatmeal while we went over our Devotional about St. Patrick. Which was quite fitting for our first day of evangelism at Harvard. We learned about how St. Patrick went to the "Dangerous and warring culture of Ireland in the 5th century. The Druids dominated the nation, advocating witchcraft, pagan rituals, and child sacrifice." That is pretty scary, Harvard may seem an intimidating place to go preach the Gospel, but it's not as scary as speaking to be people who practice child sacrifice, just saying.

After our devotion we hopped on the T to the church in Cambridge. From there we got our game plan for the day together and headed out to Harvard. We ended up splitting up into groups. Calvin and Grace and I were together and we headed to stand outside of the library. We talked to several students and had some good conversations. Some people didn't know what they believed, some believed all sorts of things, some were open to hear more about Jesus!

Lunch was at Brattle Square. We just ate at a subway, but the whole area was beautiful. The little shops and restaurants reminded me of Chapel Hill or Nantucket! I loved walked the streets today. The history of the buildings and the culture is sooo good for my soul! :) would love to live somewhere with the cobblestone streets like we walked on at the Quincy Market earlier in the week! After lunch we had an awesome convo with a girl Grace and I are going to hang out with later in the week! :)

After doing evangelism we went into the Science center to sit and thaw out. I had the most amazing white hot chocolate of my life! While sipping this cup of delight, I was talking with friends and realizing even deeper my love of campus ministry. I told Grace and Calvin earlier today that I doesn't matter where I talked to students Harvard or ECU, I love talking to students about Jesus! Being on the campus today just confirmed the fact that no matter the type of student or the type of campus, all campuses need campus ministries. All students need to know Jesus, be involved in a community of believers, and actively reach others. Lord please sent out more laborers to the college campus, whether it's for a season or for a lifetime.

Around 3 we meet Donny back at the church, talked and relaxed. Then we passed out free chocolate bars and hot chocolate. It was amazing that some people really wouldn't take the free candy or cocoa. Some people thought there was a catch, some were skeptical, but the kids were hovering! :) I really hope that people will come to the church because of simple acts of kindness like this!

Dinner was at Brattle again. Flat Patties was a delish cheap burger place! Loved it! Loved talking to the cashier in spanish! So fun!

After this we did a prayer walk. Some of the Aletheia members came and joined us! We split up into groups, walked around the campus of Harvard and prayed. Loved doing this. Holy Spirit please fall on this campus that was founded on Christian beleifs and used to send out our brightest ministers to preach the Gospel. We sadly learned that all of the scriptures on the buildings have been etched off except for on Philosophy building which says "who is man that you are mindful of us."

Lord, we pray this campus will be a campus that sends out your best and brightest ministers to preach the Gospel. Lord we pray the city of Boston will once again be a city on a hill!

Harvard Facts:

-tuition: around $50,000 a year

-as of 2010, Harvard employs about 2,100 faculty to teach and advise, approximately 6,700 undergraduates (Harvard College) and 14,500 graduate and professional student

-Eight U.S. Presidents have graduated from Harvard

-75 Nobel Laureates have been affiliatedwith the university as students, faculty, or staff.

-Harvard is also the alma mater of sixty-two living billionaires

(thanks wikipedia!)

Boston Day 3 :)

So I have been writing a lot about the devotionals we are doing. That's b/c for Baja, shh don't tell anyone, but I really didn't spend a lot of time reading them or mulling over what it has to do with my life. I'm not even sure I read for every day. So for this trip I knew I had to read and get as much out of it as possible. So this morning we had a great discussion about Perseverance. It was on Mueller. The devotional talked about all he did for the Lord and how he prayed for 5 different individuals to give their life to the Lord. He prayed for them for yearsssss. One man even got saved at his funeral. Talk about dedication. Many times I write a list of people to pray for and my little slip of paper gets lost or thrown out. I want to be more deliberate to pray daily (sick or not, sunny or rainy weather) for people.

Today we did a service project for the YMCA where the Aletheia church meets. We painted two different rooms and we got our project for tomorrow ready. Tomorrow we will be going to Harvard and MIT to preach the Gospel. So today we taped some cool church business cards to the back of a ton of candy bars without eating any! Tomorrow should be super fun and cold!

Grace and I left the service project early to rest b/c we were going to go babysit tonight for Adam and Hope. Grace and I just came back, napped, I showered and then got bundled up to take the T back to the Y. We saw the completed paint projects which look great! Then we walked with Adam to his home. This may have been the highlight of my day. Grace and I picked his brain. We asked lots of questions about how he and Hope started helping with a church plant in Scotland and Boston. Basically the differences on how each started. For Scotland, they heard the voice of God calling both him an his wife there. (spoke to each individually) While in Scotland for 5 years and humbly realized they were good at church planting. For Boston there were many factors that lead them here. I was interested to know that they did research on the area, learning things like many of our country's presidents & leaders come out of Harvard...

On our walk to Adam & Hope's house, Hope called to say their youngest son Cole had a 102 degree fever and that we would not be babysitting. We arrived at their home, very cutely decorated I might add, and went in for a cup of tea. Coconut Chai was delish! Loved talking to Hope and Adam, amazing couple of God. Alana, Nora Badora, and Cole are their precious children. All in all great family!

We we meet up with our team and went to Davis Square for dinner at the Joshua Tree. The little shops and restaurants were def cute. We had a fun night with the team and ended playing Morgan and Katie's alphabet game on the T!

Boston Day Two

This morning we got up and ate breakfast at the Au Bon Pain! :) Then we met back with our team to do our devotional. We spent time praying and then we read over the Ten Days Devotionals. We read about Amy McPherson and Hudson Taylor. Then we spent time praying and repenting aloud. Repenting of our selfishness, fear, doubt, insecurity etc. This was really powerful. I felt the need to repent of being selfish and being too comfortable. Hearing about all Adam and Donny have done to start this church has really put things in perspective. I raise support to work on staff at ECU and totally love what I do. But each year raising support I begin to feel like a martyr. Donny and Adam raise support for their own families of 5 as well as for the church. Wow!

I'm not sure when they moved here to start the church, but the church has been meeting since Jan 30th. When we got to the YMCA where Aletheia meets we started helping do odds and ends jobs. Putting out signs, cards in chairs, setting up beverages... We got there at 9:30 am. Donny and Adam left their houses at 6:30 am to walk to the Y, getting there around 7. Their unending servitude is amazing. They didn't once complain or pull the martyr card. I keep thinking how yesterday they said they didn't feel like heros, they were just doing what the Lord laid on their hearts to do. I overhear Adam say he only got 4 hours of sleep last night. Wow! Not only did he preach, he played guitar in the band too. What can't he do! This is not meant to make these amazing guys out to be idols, it's just amazing to see their heart for the Lord and His people. This motivates me to do exactly what God wants me to do, with a smile on my face, & no complaints on lips.

Recap of the rest of the day:

I meet lots of really cool people at church. They needed help in the children's church so I helped with that. There were snacks, potty breaks, guinea pigs, crafts, & penguins. I was sad to miss the sermon on the Reason for God but glad to serve. I enjoyed seeing a different level of the behind the "sceneness" of church planting. They had to set up and tear down the church

Ate lunch at Four Burgers and got a veggie burger with guacamole and sweet potato fries. We had fun but we had to go downstairs to use the bathroom and it was quite scary. Then we went back to the hotel. Some groups went to H&M. Grace and I napped/ read/. Then we went out together at 5 to walk around. We went to Quincy Market. This was so fun and beautiful! We saw a statue of Samuel Adams and some other guys that we couldn't find the markers for :). There were tons of shops and kiosks. We found one of the Cheers locations. (Not the original where it was filmed but still cool.) This was fun!

We walked back to the hotel to meet up with the group and the group decided to go to Quincy Market too. We were happy to return. When we went the second time we walked through the actual Quincy Market seeing all of the restaurant stands. Then we walked through a Holocaust memorial. One quote from that that stands out to me said something to the effect of: "The United States knew about the concentration camps in 1942 but did not do anything about it." The memorial consisted of around 5-7 glass towers several stories high. On the inside of the glass, the numbers of each person killed in the holocaust here lithographed. There was an outer layer of glass with quotes from Holocaust survivors. It was really incredible.

Next we ate dinner at an italian restaurant where we made friends with the waitress and talked about the day. We are hanging out with our new friend Christy on Wed!

PS. I talked to someone today about the housing situation. They said that many houses are like that. That they houses are built to have each floor a different apartment. (Which I think is so cool b/c it is so much prettier than apartment buildings, but their are still apartments up here too...)

In Boston!

So it's the first night in Boston. I'm sitting on the hotel bed, Grace is reading her Bible next to me and Lauren is getting ready for bed. It's so fun to be with friends and serving the Kingdom of God.

We started today bright and early but not without a few delays. Lauren overslept so when we got to her apartment she was asleep and Calvin met us late too! :) Victoria said it wouldn't be a trip if someone wasn't late! She was right. The ride was fun signing old songs like "Sing, Lavish Him with Love... open up your hearts in the sanctuary..." Then we all said aloud the "virtuous woman" confession Victoria had on her ipod! Things like "I am a virtuous woman of God. As a righteous woman of favor I have a right to expect great things..."

The flight was great sitting next to Papa Jones. As we flew in we could saw snow and frozen lakes. I have never seen that from an airplane, it was really cool looking, no pun intended! ;) All of the little islands off the coast off Massachusetts were beautiful, some were just large boulders in the water.

Donny met us at the airport where we also met other new friends Darrick & Madel. We later met up with Adam as well. (Donny and Adam are the pastors of the Aletheia Church. Which in the greek means truth.) We made our way to the Holiday Inn which is really nice. Then had a blast picking out foods at the Whole Foods Market buffet for a late lunch. This is always a fave even though it's only my second time eating there. I have a feeling we will eat there a bit more since it's so close to our hotel.

After a short respite we started to make our way to Donny and Adam's house around 6pm. They live in a triplex? (One house where each floor is like an apartment..) We walked and took the "T line" their subway. We walked through Harvard's Campus which was really cool. Ps, when I was in middle school my family visited New England so this is my second time to Boston. I recognized the statue of John Harvard but can't wait to see the campus in the daytime! I Can't wait to take pictures of all of the brick architecture. It was really exciting walking through the campus. I was glad I saw the move the Social Network about Facebook. (Fb was started at Harvard.) It is so cool to think that this campus is where lots of our political figures, presidents, and other influential people study.

Walking through the old neighborhoods to their house was cool. I loved seeing all the old houses and thinking about who lived there over the course of history. It was so good to meet the Donny and Adam's wives Janna and Hope. They had the most precious children. Combined their were 6 kids; 2 babies and 4 little girls sitting at a small children's table eating pizza like little ladies.

Both wives are really nice but I immediately connected with Janna and felt like I had known her for years. I told her we could be best friends and she said we already are! ;) Can't wait to talk with her more and get to know her! Donny and Janna worked for 7 year I think in Florida doing Campus Ministry and Adam and Hope worked in Edinburg, Scotland. Hearing their heart for the city of Boston was incredible. Donny spoke about how he love campus ministry. His heart beats for C.M. so much that he felt God calling him to move is family away from their tight knit extended families in FL thousands of miles away, to another culture to advance the Kingdom of God. Nick told Donny and Janna something to the effect of don't thank our team of 12 for coming for a week, we thank you. Y'all are the "heros." Janna said "we don't feel like heros." Gosh that is so much their heart, that they have really laid down their lives for the Gospel. Not just in ministry but to ministry but to do it all humbly for Him. Not for themselves but for eternity.

They gave us pointers for evangelizing. As it turns out, I don't feel I missed anything for not reading those books. For one Adam is doing a 12 part series on Tim Keller's book The Reason for God. He also shared on how you don't have to get into an argument or debate on the theory of evolution. He talked about how people will want to pull you into conversations about their area of interest or specialty, but not to go there, to talk about Jesus and focus on talking about Jesus. At the end of the day Jesus is what everyone anywhere need to hear about no matter your background, IQ, or ethnicity.

They also talked about how the only thing that "works" in Boston to reach the people is the Gospel. Shocking I know.. ;) They said that cool graphics, slick advertising, strategically planned events etc don't "work." Only the Gospel. This was refreshing for my soul to hear. It is true the Gospel is the Gospel and is the only thing that will change anyone's heart.

BOSTON TOMORROW

I'm so excited about going to Boston tomorrow am. We have to wake up at the crack of dawn! :) We are leaving Greenville at 6am to drive to Raleighwood for our 9am flight. I am packed and ready to go. With a huge suitcase to check under the plane, a tote bag and a pillow for a carry on. Alex has been spending the night this week (she came down to help with the church children's consignment sale) so that has been nice. Except She got sick last night and still feels really bad. I hope she gets better soon. But it was nice for her to help me pack.

I got my hair cut today and ran a ton of errands so it's nice for all of that to be done!

We were supposed to post our expectations on the TenDays Facebook page, so here is what I posted:

Expectations:

-to be able to flow in the gifts of the spirit and for that to open someone's heart for the Lord. I think it would be so cool to pray for healing and see some healed or receive a word of knowledge etc.

- to meet some girls from political families or interested in politics themselves and for them to come to know the Lord I think it would be cool to meet someone influential!

-to bring more excitement for evangelism back to ECU. I love doing evangelim on ECU's campus so I am really excited to evangelize in another city- especially a northern city. I wanted to read all of these books to help with evangelism (More than a carpenter, the reason for God, I want to bear fruit...)before I left but haven't completed that! Will maybe take something to read on the plane.

-to learn about church plants and campus ministry plants This is something I am interested in long term so I really would love to learn all I can. This is also something I think that you would have to learn a lot about from hands on experience rather than just books.

-to have fun and bond with ECU friends! :) Super excited about everyone going.I'm sure there will be good times had by all! :)

PS:

-My endoscopy went well. The doctors found nothing!! They have me taking my medicine twice a day now instead of once!

-My car still has the big black smudge. Waiting on the check from OLD BAY Insurance to come in....

-FYI Ollies has many books, but no good study Bibles. Unless you want a Catholic one or one with Apocrypha. Not up my alley. Wasn't thrilled with Barnes and Nobles selection and when I wheeled into Gville's Christian book store they were already closed... So after break that's where I will be headed before 6pm :)