"If our God is for us, who can be against us?"

I survived security contingency training! I now know what to do in case of a robbery, questioning, or whatever else may come my way. Boy, can you say reality check?

It was definitely not a coincidence that the week before we talked about persecuted followers around the world. Father definitely weighed on my heart once again the cost of following that we so often in America don't face. I was reminded of the passage in 1 Pt that talks about resisting our adversary, "knowing that the same kinds of sufferings are being experienced by our brotherhood around the world."

Persecution is normal in over 80% of the world. Normal. Not something to complain about, not something out of the ordinary; it is to be expected. In fact 2 Tm flat out says this: "All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

That brings up the question: Is He worth it?

Is He worth abandoning everything for? Is He worth being rejected and being ridiculed by peers? Is He worth risking not only your life but the lives of your family? Is He worth it?

The answer: YES. 100% yes. JC left EVERYTHING - He abandoned GLORY - to redeem His people, a people who ridiculed and rejected Him. And He gave Himself so that we may be made alive and live with Him.

With that in mind, Father gave me strength and peace to sit through sessions about what possibly could happen during service, things that I would normally be freak out about and probably be having nightmares about. Instead, though, in an enormous act of grace, I could sit and tell myself, "He is worth it. He is worth way more than my feeble life can give. He deserves all glory and praise, no matter the cost."

Sorry for the rant. That was definitely not the direction I meant for this post to go. Maybe later this week I can actually talk about what I meant to talk about. :)

Pr--er Request:
It's starting to get crunch time as we only have 2 1/2 more weeks here. We're having to memorize lots of stories and methods. Be pr--ing for sharpness of mind and, honestly, sincerity in my motivations to memorize. I don't want to know these things just because they tell me to know them; I want to sincerely be affected by them and desire to share them with those I encounter.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom 8:35, 37-39

"'Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.'" Rv 4:11

Earthquake training

As you have probably already seen on the news, the East Coast got its largest magnitude earthquake since World War II, a 5.8 on the Richter Scale that caused even the Pentagon to evacuate. What you may not have realized, however, is that its epicenter was 20 miles away from our lovely little compound here in VA. It was also my first experience with an earthquake. Talk about crazy.

After an emotionally exhausting morning of story after story about persecuted believers [hopefully more stories on that later], we were all sitting like zombies in our chairs, listening to goals and visions, when suddenly, we hear a low rumble. The ground starts to shake, rattling pens, cups, tables...

It's amazing how many thoughts can go through your mind in mere seconds.

"Did someone drop something massive out in the lobby? There's no way that was it. Thunder? No... Jets? No... Holy cow, is this an earthquake?? What are you supposed to do in an earthquake? I was never trained for this! Quick, what's everyone else doing? Getting under the table? Sounds goods to me. *gets under table* Wait, people are running outside. Are you supposed to do that? Oop, they're telling us to evacuate! Run for it!"

By the time we evacuated the building, everything had stopped. What felt like minutes really only lasted 45 seconds. Time is a very strange thing.

All that night, awareness was peaked, and we all had slight panic moments when we felt tremors later that evening.

Then, last night, I woke up around 1 to another rumble and some shaking. I'll be honest, though, I was still in that half-awake/half-dreaming mode, and after I woke up a little more, I didn't know if I had just dreamt it all or if there really was an earthquake. But then this morning, someone confirmed that we had indeed experienced a 4.5 earthquake.

And now, Hurricane Irene is making her way up the East Coast.

Not even six weeks here in VA, and I've experienced my first earthquake and soon my first hurricane. What a week.

SEAPs rock

Saturday my lovely SEAP family went to Kings Dominion!... which happens to look exactly like Kings Island! It poured the first hour we were there, but we rode the Spongebob indoor theater ride and outlasted the rain. It turned out to be a pretty day, and we were able to ride to our heart's content.

Saturday my lovely SEAP family went to Kings Dominion!... which happens to look exactly like Kings Island! It poured the first hour we were there, but we rode the Spongebob indoor theater ride and outlasted the rain. It turned out to be a pretty day, and we were able to ride to our heart's content.

This week's emphasis was on Northern Africa/Middle East and Central Asia. So to our cultural time, the women were required to wear long sleeves, long pants, and head coverings. It was quite the experience. The men and women were separated, and it was strange not being able to tell who anyone was from the back.

I played my first ever game of soccer! For whatever reason, my parents never enrolled me in sports as a kid - perhaps because I was the squirt who always got hurt - but consequently, I lack any kind of athletic capabilities. So when I say I "played" soccer, I really mean I contributed little to nothing. I first had to get over my intial reaction of running away from the ball (hey - what can I say? It's natural instinct! A fast-moving ball is headed towards me and people are charging at me... self-defense!) but after my initial avoiding the ball and illegal move of protecting my face with my hands from getting smashed by the ball, I at least wasn't a hinderance. Everyone was super nice and encouraging.

On a brighter note, I have an announcement to make - we have baby squirrels in our quad. Five of them to be exact (can we say flashback to the Chasity/baby squirrel incident of '09?). These squirrels are itty bitty. Tomorrow, their rescuer is taking them to an animal refuge to be taken care of. Our quad has suddenly become a lot more popular now that we have baby animals.

"For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God - his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him." - Psalm 18:28-30

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Josh. 3:5

Welcome to the world, Grayson Lee!

My dear cousin Emilie gave birth to a healthy baby boy, their first baby, Monday night. I’m in love with him already.

Life here at FPO goes by pretty quickly. It’s crazy to think that I’m already in week 3. Days are long; we’re in classes during the week from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., if not later. We’re learning about everything on the planet that’s related to ministry or could prepare us for life overseas. Each week has a theme. The first week was more of an intro to life here and what we’ll be doing during FPO. Last week was focusing on personal discipleship, which was awesome. We had 3-hour sessions on prayer and 5-hour sessions on doctrine, all followed up with details like payroll or insurance. By Friday, my brain was gone. So much stinkin information in five days. All I can pray is that I’ll recall this stuff when I need it.

This week is affinity week, which has been really awesome. Monday we studied anthropology, and Tuesday we broke into worldview workshops. Meals are even based on what week it is. We had two special meals at lunch where we ate like different cultures. The first meal was bortsch (pardon my spelling), rye bread, and sour cream, based on Central Asian culture. The second was Middle Eastern. I forgot the name, but it was some sort of “salad” (picture fruit salsa, except it was onions and some other diced vegetables) and meatballs that we ate by tearing off pieces of flatbread and grabbing the food with it. Quite delicious actually and both fun experiences. Unfortunately I’ve heard we only have one more.

Visa details are still being worked out. I got my paperwork for my initial visa today, and my departure date was pushed back four days to October 9 for my language school partner.

New requests:

• Stability and consistency in emotions and thoughts. I feel like it’s the middle of the school semester, and I can’t form intelligent, coherent sentences because I’m so zapped. And it’s been a super emotional time for many, many different reasons (I think my record for days crying in a row now is up to 12). No worries, a lot of those days were empathizing with others. I’m not THAT distressed.

• Discernment in knowing what’s truth in my head and what are lies, and strength for fighting those lies. I’m constantly reminding myself that it’s true that I can’t do this by myself, that I’m human and sinful and in need of Him, but the great, awesome hope is that He is my sufficiency and power.

• Emilie and Josh as they are trying to figure out how to raise a baby and are getting used to there being a third one in their family.