Tuesday, February 22, 2011

blessed to be a blessing.

This is a phrase we've been hearing over and over in our teaching the past few weeks. Sunday was my birthday, and it seems my friends have really taken an effort to live this theory out. I have never been so spoiled: parties. cakes. cards.  presents galore.  Just remember that these are DTS students that don't have any money.  Yet they still went to great lengths to make my birthday so special. It all started on Friday. Sadie and I had a little combined party with some of the staff girls.  We ate junk food for hours and they all gave me the sweetest cards and a couple gifts.  On Saturday Silvia took some of us to the art studio and then up to the lookout at night over the city of Aalesund.  It was beautiful and the moon was huge! These pictures hardly do it justice. After that we all turned into werewolves.








On Sunday I was woken up by Caroline with breakfast in bed! After that I went over to Gabby's house where I got another amazing breakfast of banana pancakes, eggs, coffee, and oranges and then I got to relax  and use her awesome bathtub. At supper I got a cake  and a card signed by everyone at the base.


Usually your roommates plan your birthday here, but mine were gone since it was winter break.  This means I got 2 birthdays! On Monday when I woke up at 7 to do my morning chore my roommate Anne Marthe told me that someone else was going to do it for me! Then she made me a french press with Starbucks coffee (The coffee we usually have tastes like dirt) For lunch they got me McDonald's. After dinner they did my dinner dishes for me (the worst chore ever, that  I get to have this week) Then they surprised me with a brownie cake! Just when I thought the spoiling was over they gave me an envelope with the exact amount of money that I needed to finish paying for my DTS! I was so excited I actually made myself dizzy and had to sit down. God is good.


My point in all of this is not to brag about what an awesome birthday I had, but to show how simple blessings can make someone feel so special.  These friends didn't have to do anything for my birthday, but so many people went above and beyond to make me feel special. They have truly learned how to be generous. They have inspired me to be more generous.  They have learned what it is to be a blessing.  And of course I'm not forgetting about my friends and family at home who also sent me love on my birthday! I am a very blessed girl...now I hope I can pass it one to someone else!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

hmm.

"The enemy is not afraid of us praying, as long as we're not praying what the Father wants" -Jonathan Helser

Saturday, February 12, 2011

I can tell it's gonna be a good day.

Yesterday was so sunny and beautiful! It's been a long time since i actually felt the sun on my face. We went to the art studio and I just sat on the floor by the window and it was glorious.  Our assignment yesterday was to make something new out of something old.  I found a beautiful tablecloth and decided to make a skirt out of it. I like to sew by hand, which is impractical, but there's also something so personal and beautiful about the process. Must be the fine artist in me.

next weekend is winter break. It's also my birthday.  I think I'm going to spend some time preparing for Mexico. Brushing up on my Spanish, maybe do some drawing to display at the gallery in Colima, and researching ideas for my official job title as "fun coordinator". I'm also going to learn how to make things out of paper (aka oragami). Our leaders thought it would be a good thing to share with the children in the orphanages.  If you know anything simple to make, please pass it along my way!

23 days until Mexico!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

how can you support missions?

Pray: for missionaries, intercede for a specific country, pray for unreached people groups who have no access to the gospel, etc.
Council others
Spread awareness
Help mobilize
Be generous (with time and money)
Sponsor through finances
Use your talents to raise money (concerts, events, sell art work, dinners, auctions, etc.)
Invest in the kingdom
Run a business and give the surplus 

Facilitate for others to go
Short term teams
Be wiling let your kids go

Go
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2/3 of the world's money is held by Christians. The number one reason missionaries come home is because of lack of funding.

0.5% of all offerings go to work among unreached people groups (Countries with most unreached people: India Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bangaladesh)

make a difference!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

PTL

Today I'm thankful for financial blessings.  First of all, thanks to my Mom for buying me a plane ticket home! I fly from Oslo to seattle on June 7th. Secondly, thank you to the US government for the $270 tax return that I will receive next week(and thanks Dad for doing my taxes!). yay!  I'm so close to having the school paid off. Only about $500 to go now (it would have been less, but the exchange rate has gotten worse, so pray for that!)

Monday, February 7, 2011

letter from the bad guy

Remember that creative project I mentioned a few weeks ago? Well here's the letter that goes along with the cage sculpture we made. It's modeled after the screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis. 

My dearest Jr. Deceiver,

I must congratulate you on your continued diligence to this most important war of disconnection. You have done a wonderful job so far in keeping people at odds with each other and drawing them into our trap. Although the Enemy has undoubtedly more strength then we, I fee l our race to draw people apart is on a steady increase.

Your installation of the Jantelov (a law in Norway) has done miraculous wonders for our side. It has caused a wave of generational dysfunction, convincing the men and women of Norway that they are of little or no value to the world. It has taken form like an invisible plague, infesting their minds so deeply. We now have parents teaching their children for us, that the best value is to keep quiet, cut off all ideas of self worth and stay as a ghost in the background. These beliefs are a great tool in our pursuit for separation. The humans think they have nothing to offer and therefore no reason to contribute and connect. Continue to press into this most ingenious virus. Rot their minds with voices of doubt, too busy to hear the Truth of the unmatchable worth He has given each one of them, which we only have the power to twist.

The business of living, lucky for us, has become just that: busy. So often you find the creatures running this way and that. Good! Loneliness can so often be found in this sort. Constantly scurrying to meet eternal deadlines they are caught up in their own abilities; making it, doing it, surviving on their own. Keep them believing weakness is the sin, that they themselves are powerful, and that they don’t need anyone else. And be sure to bring up doubt when He plants seeds of His strength and power. It’s most favorable for our side if we can just keep them too busy to notice His greatness at all! Ah yes, what great victory we can have!

When they do have a bit of what they call ‘free time’ make sure you emphasize the toll of their busy week and their need to be alone. But take care; while an empty head can be filled with trash, it also leaves room for our Enemy to speak and be heard. Fortunately for us, you need only to distract them with a single one of the million things they have filled their lives with: a trashy magazine, the World Wide Web, or the television where they will sit for hours, goggling at “reality”. This is a great opportunity to send in comparison and bathe the little vermin in self-pity driving them into further isolation. Point out how she doesn’t have golden locks like hers, how his six pack refers more to a bag of roles then chiseled abs and if they only worked harder and had more money, they could be just like those people.

But if on the other had He reminds them of their innate need to connect with a real person, which He has the power to do above anything we may prevent, and they manage to squeak in a dinner date or weekend hangout with friends, I suggest the application of these simple ploys to keep their mind fixated on alone-ness. For one, you can fill their mind with a frenzy of worries. Along with comparison as mentioned above, insecurity is a great friend of ours.  You can highlight the stupid thing they said, or the fact that they picked a horrible shirt to wear that makes them look fat and oh my what their friends must me thinking about them. Yes, they really are the small and pathetic. Or on the contrary, you can stroke their pride. Point out the nasty state of that mans teeth, the horrible fashion of that girl who thinks she’s so cool and the lowly furnishings of a shaggy house containing even more pitiful conversation. Use their verbal skills to cut into friends with sarcasm and arrogant remarks. In this way, you can knock out two birds with one stone. You have the ability to make your subject believe he deserves far higher quality friends than this and that he’s better off alone. His spiteful words can in turn reinforce his targets own insecurity: he really is as bad or worse then he thought.

However the path is fashioned, whether by too much noise or not enough, once you massage the pain of living and coax them into the cage, make sure to point out the comforts of being alone. Although a portion of them will inevitably be longing for further contact and relationship, strike on past hurts like a knife into warm butter. Such wounds remind the being that even though they feel disconnected, being alone is much safer then risking further injury and deeper scares. Not only do they avoid injury, they are liberated from the limitations they believe others put on them. You can then have the sheep believing the trap is a morphed nest of freedom: free from disappointment, free from complying with others demands, and free from meeting others needs. Note that one doesn’t have to appear alone, as a loner would, to feel alone. The social butterfly can feel the sting of loneliness just the same amidst a room full of her busy friends. Be attuned to the individuals state of mind more then their physical alone-ness.

Once these are clearly established, your job of enforcing what has become in their mind, a desirable comfy habit, is all the easier. The sex drive, most favorably exhibited in the one night stand, is one of my favorite cycles! Conditions have already been arranged in our favor: a world flooded with sexuality, ‘everybody’s doing it’, and, especially in the younger ones, an animal-like drive to pursue pleasure. Encounters such as these let the pitiful human think they are connecting with another on a ‘deeper’ level when in reality it is a not even a hint of what their Father has planned for them. But if you can keep them in the dark and catch their souls when they once again become weak with insecurity and longing for something more, you can convince them next time, always next time, it will be enough.

Oh, how easy our work has become! They can practically do it themselves! I can’t for the life of me understand the un-dieing love our Enemy has for His beings, but keep in mind He has wired them to discover it if they choose to open the door. This is why our work is so important. To the untrained human eye, our Enemy is hard to see, so we must put weight on the importance of physicality. Being alone, feeling alone, that’s where we want them, where they are most vulnerable and weak. From the very beginning He designed them to be in relationship with Himself and others, so we must do our best to taint, mutilate, and abolish all possibility of such relationships. If we do our work wisely, and install the right conditions, it can breed and fester like black mold on the human heart. And no one wants to hang out with smelly black mold. So keep up the good work!

Yours truly,
Master Deceiver

Living from the heart.

Hei Hei

Sorry I haven't been so motivate to blog lately. Here's another update: Last week our teacher was Ken Helser from North Carolina.  You may have heard of his son, Jonathan Helser. He's a worship leader from the states. Ken is just the sweetest old man who lives a life of servanthood better than anyone I have ever met. During one of the teaching sessions I spilled my tea on the floor and he stopped teaching and insisted that I let him clean it up for me! After meals he was always taking everyone's dishes and helping clean up. He is so in love with his wife that he's been married to for 40 years and he love's to talk about his children and grandchildren.  Their ministry in North Carolina is called "A place for the heart" He truly has a heart bursting with love for others.  The reason he's like this is because He's allowed his heart to truly become one with God's heart.  He kept telling us all week how he would love for us to have the life he has. It was so inspiring. here's just a few of Ken's wise words that I wrote down in my notes:


-We don't always get what we want, but because God the father loves us, he gives us what we need.
-Anything that does not flow out of a heart of worship comes from the flesh. Worship is giving my whole self to God for Him to enjoy.
-You cannot understand yourself, by yourself.
-Our greatest weapon against the devil is rest "When we work, God rests. When we rest, God works" rest=trust
-would you want someone else to be you? If not then the words coming out of your mouth don't have any power.

there were so many other wonderful things that he taught us, but most of all what he taught us was to learn with our hearts.  To not just store information in our mind,  but to really learn it in our hearts by doing something about it. To take action! So, that's what I'm trying to do right now.This week was really life changing for me.  I'm still wrestling with a lot of things that I learned about myself and God. A lot of things in my life came into the light.  But that's what I'm here for and God is continually reminding me how precious this time is and how blessed I am to have this experience.



*This week we're learning about missions, next week evangelism, then winter break from the 17-20, creative week, outreach prep week, then outreach! That means we only have four weeks until we leave for mexico! I'm nervous and excited all at the same time.  please pray for our safety, good health, and God's strength and provision as we travel and serve. And especially that my skin and eyeballs won't boil once I meet the sun again.