His Way, His Time, His Peace

….is perfect.

It absolutely amazes me when the Lord reminds us that He knows and is a part of every aspect of our lives.

Our taking-it-easy Saturday was slow and uneventful until we left the hotel for some fresh air at South Mountain, Arizona and a romantic dinner at the Melting Pot. The cloud-less Arizona skies made the way for the bright afternoon sun…and an almost instant migraine.

I was able to push through while viewing the gorgeous landscapes and views of South Mountain and was even comforted by low-lighting at dinner. But the ride back to the hotel was when the migraine decided to descend and make me nauseated.

All this resulted in being in bed by 8 o’clock which in turn resulted in being wide awake come midnight. And what else do you do when you can’t sleep late at night? Well, of course, get caught up on Facebook!

 This certainly was my demise…but also the Lord’s preparing for “bringing to light” what He was about to teach me.

As I read and re-read comments and articles, I could feel the nastiness of my flesh nature creep up. The jealous seeds that had taken root on other occasions were being watered and were attempting to sprout their ugly heads.

Only because I knew I was tired and not thinking my sharpest, did I choose not to write what was on my not “spirit-filled” mind. I, instead, chose to turn it into a positive, shut off the phone, and attempt to sleep.

Those fleshly thoughts stuck with me through the night and made their appearance in my conversation the next morning.

Thankfully this was all while we were on our way to San Tan Valley, Arizona where some friends from college had been led to plant a church. As we prepared for the morning worship service, I acknowledged my filthy heart before the Lord and in just a few moments, He acknowledged it right back to me.

You see, that morning, Pastor Grant Zevenbergen had been led to speak on Psalm 37:1-7.

1-      Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

2-      For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

3-      Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

4-      Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

5-      Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

6-      And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

7-      Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

As Pastor Grant focused on five key words from the passage, my heart was immediately rebuked and humbled.

First, I truly had been fretting and envying. It was brought to light that when I get jealous, I show my lack of faith. I show that I lack faith that the Lord is going to bless, in His time, for following His will and work in my life.

The thoughts that had crept into my mind the night before was what reward had I for doing “right”? It seemed that going against the grain and causing heartache drew much more attention, whether good or bad.

I had felt almost like that little kid in the classroom that would disobey and act out, simply to get the teacher to focus on them.

But that is where I truly needed to put my trust, in the loving, righteous Father. To have so much confidence in Him, that I would carelessly obey and follow Him. And, in human sense, why would we not follow One who has infinite knowledge and unwavering love for us?

Furthermore, I also need to delight in my Lord. I readily admit I have not been treating my relationship with God as a delicate, priceless treasure.  

Then in perfect sense, the result of trusting and delighting, would be committing my ways to Him. Becoming absolutely consumed and wrapped up with my Lord by carelessly obeying Him and treasuring my relationship with Him would allow me then to rest and wait for His ways.

And that is exactly what my heart’s burden has been of late—a desire to just rest and wait.

The Bible tells us to rest under the shadow of the Almighty. As we drove to the top of South Mountain on Saturday, we could see almost the whole city of Phoenix. Pastor Grant reminded us that even though the tall buildings of Phoenix cast their large shadow, it makes no difference on a hot day unless we are close enough to be under their shadow.

I cannot find the ultimate rest in my Almighty I have been searching for unless I am walking close enough to Him to be under His shadow. But that rest will only come after not fretting, but trusting, delighting, and committing to my Lord.

Goal Recap and a Glimpse of Rep Life

Last weeks goals:

• Personal Goals

1. Do devotions at least 4 times this week. {I ashamedly but transparently admit that I still struggle with consistency in my devotions so I am starting small.}
2. Exercise at least 4 times this week.

• Business Goals

1. Enter "Prime Contacts" every day after each school.
2. Write at least 2 postcards to students every day during the week.
3. Complete Stop By paperwork before getting to hotel.
4. Have all hotels booked for the following week by Friday.

• Family Goals

1. Talk to at least one family member this week. {That sounds horrible, doesn't it?} I talked to three!

• Ministry Goals

1. Pray for the students I have promised to pray for regarding their college decision

Well, if I was in college, I would have a 50% for last week. But, thankfully, I am not in college nor getting a grade on this. :) Although I did not get to check everything off of my goal list for last week, I can definitely say that I accomplished more by having a list of goals than without. I may not have reached my specific numbers, but I definitely made steps in the right direction. Small steps at a time will lead to great accomplishments.

This week is a little different since we have presentations on Monday and Tuesday then a convention for the rest of the week. On top of that, we are going HOME this weekend!!

So here are this week's goals:

• Personal Goals

1. Do devotions at least 4 times this week.
2. Exercise at least 3 times this week.
3. Update Christmas Excel Spreadsheet to keep track of Christmas budget.

• Business Goals

1. Have all Prime Contact postcards written by Friday. 
2. Have all hotels booked for the following week by Friday.
3. Go through entire Shepherd's Guide to check for new ministries.

• Family Goals

1. Devote the whole weekend to our family and whatever they need/would like to do. {Pretty much just have all business work done before we get home.}

• Ministry Goals

1. Pray for the students I have promised to pray for regarding their college decision.

And finally, a glimpse into rep life.

As part of our routine, every Sunday, our hotel bed looks like this as we prepare packets for the coming week. :)

And the end result...

Setting Goals

In college, it seemed easy to have my day scheduled out to make use of every minute to accomplish projects, assignments, and study for class. I had my goals set and stuck to them to get what I needed accomplished in the proper timeline.

At times, I tended to even take it to the extreme where I had only my plans scheduled for the day, and did not make room to include what the Lord may have for me that day. I thankfully had wise council to help me realize this downfall.

However, now that I have been out of college, and not had as consistent of a schedule, I find myself going back to not making the best use of my time or following a productive routine. I get frustrated as I want to include many good and even necessary things in my life, but don't take the time to actually schedule them in. Or I will promise myself to something and start out great, but die off after a bit (take this blog for instance... :)

I recently felt the rewards of setting a goal and accomplishing it. I set out to cross-stitch a pattern for a new-born with the goal of finishing by his two-week birthday. It felt great to have a date to work towards and I was reminded of my determination to accomplish a task I had put on myself with a specfic deadline.

So here goes. Inspired by my favorite blogger, Crystal Paine at moneysavingmom.com, I want to start setting weekly and daily goals to be a better manager of my time. I am reminding myself, however, not to attempt to accomplish all of my shortfalls in one week, but to start one step at a time. And, hey, if anyone does read this blog, I appreciate your keeping me accountable simply by reading.


Personal Goals

1. Do devotions at least 4 times this week. {I ashamedly but transparently admit that I still struggle with consistency in my devotions so I am starting small.}
2. Exercise at least 4 times this week.

Business Goals

1. Enter "Prime Contacts" every day after each school.
2. Write at least 2 postcards to students every day during the week.
3. Complete Stop By paperwork before getting to hotel.
4. Have all hotels booked for the following week by Friday.

Family Goals

1. Talk to at least one family member this week. {That sounds horrible, doesn't it?}

Ministry Goals

1. Pray for the students I have promised to pray for regarding their college decision.

A Year of Reflection

As we departed from Pensacola this morning, I couldn't help but be reflective on the journey we started a year ago.

Three hundred sixty-five days ago we set out on the same road with the same destination passing those same white cotton fields. But there are many things that are not the same...especially us. We have been stretched and molded, hurt and mended, encouraged and questioned; but most importantly, we have seen the Lord's work in our lives.

Through Pastors, Administrators, host and church families, and the Lord's divine appointments, we have gained valuable insight and learned invaluable life lessons. We may not have much more direction now then we did last year as to what our next step is, but, just as we counsel the high-schoolers to, we are trusting that the Lord will guide our next step.

As we passed those white cotton fields this morning, I was reminded of the challenge they presented to us last year. The challenge of the many lives that lie ahead of us. In the past year, the Lord allowed us to plant some more seeds for future harvest, water other seeds, and even harvest a few handfuls. With much excitement, we watched the harvest come in this past week as almost 1,300 freshman arrived on campus!! The thought of the spiritual growth that lies ahead of them encourages us to keep going strong as laborers of the Lord's harvest.

We covet your prayers as we start another year of adventure and especially as we seek the Lord for His leading after this year.

Coming Soon.....

An Update!!!

So we are still alive....AND I just finished my latest project SO updating the long-forgotten blog is next on the to-do list (right after taxes). So stay tuned....

By the way, if you are interested in my latest project...especially if you know an avid hunter...check out the website I was able to put together for my uncle's taxidermy business!

http://www.frostyhollowtaxidermy.com/

Somebody's Praying Us Through

This article recounts the many "divine appointments" and special blessings of November 7th to November 13th.

As I have already mentioned, our boss, Mr. Bryant, came to visit us to check up on our progress and to sharpen us more. This was the week that he visited us and it was really neat that he was able to experience most of this with us.

Sunday
Dale and I decided to attend the church of the school we were going to be at the next day for the morning service. When we arrived, we found that they had evangelist Ed Dunlop with them that week so we decided to attend both services at this church. Evangelist Dunlop is well known for his work with children ministries, but he brought forth some great truths that even as an adult, I needed to be reminded of. We also very much appreciated Evangelist Dunlop's reminder of how simply salvation is.

Monday
After we arrived at our school on Monday morning, we went out to the van to get our equipment to set up and there beside our van was our lovely boss, Mr. Bryant. For some reason, it was different to see him outside of Pensacola, but at the same time, it was neat to have him with us.

While we were setting up, a gentleman and his son walked through the doors of the church. Whenever the administrator asked them how he could help, they said that they were there for the presentation. This father and son drove over an hour from Cape May to Absecon, NJ to meet with Dale and I! Dale had contacted the son a couple weeks before since he was a homeschooler in New Jersey. We had never had a homeschooler show up at a presentation and it was a great encouragement and wonderful opportunity!

Tuesday
On Tuesday, we visited Gloucester County Christian School where Evangelist Rich Tozour graduated from. This was a very large school which sometimes can hinder us getting to meet the students on a personal level. After the presentation, we joined the students for a class which turned into a study hall. I had a blast playing Dale and I's new game, Bananagrams, with some of the girls in the class! After the study hall, we sat in on the handbell class as they prepared for a state competition in the spring.

After we left the school, we stopped by to visit a family whose children attend PCC. This family owns one of the largest garden nurseries on the east coast! We were given a personal tour (by golf cart) of the enclosed facilities by another PCC alumnus that is working for the company. We had never seen such a big facility before or realized the process that goes into growing flowers year-round. We even got to see the poinsettias that were being grown to be sent to decorate the White House for Christmas!

Tuesday night we drove over to Newark, Delaware to once again see the Wessburgs as I spoke about in my last post. It was wonderful to be reunited with them within such a short period of time!

Wednesday
At our school on Wednesday, we met a girl that had already decided that she wanted to attend PCC for the nursing program! We were also able to talk to her mom as she was a teacher at the school. I am always so excited to help students (and parents) prepare to come to college!

We relocated Wednesday to be closer to our next school and ended up in a dinky little town. Dale and Mr. Bryant looked through the phonebook and computer for a church to attend that night and found one where two people from the church had applied to come to PCC.

When we pulled up to the church, it looked like a store front, and then when we pulled into the parking lot, everyone came out to see us. We walked in the door and were treated like celebrities! The pastor sat us down right away, gave us some pie, then one by one called the teenagers from the church over to meet us! When he called a young lady named Erika over while explaining that she was a recent PCC Alumnus, I turned around to look and saw Erika Rugenus, a friend I had met at college!! As Mr. Bryant put it, there was squeeling across the room. :-) It was such a surprise to see a familiar face at this small church!

The students that had already applied to PCC were not there at the time, so the Assistant Pastor's wife drove to pick them up since they usually came on the bus. We had a wonderful time after the service getting to chat with them and help them get ready to come to college in January!

Thursday
We visited a school and had a great lunch with Dr. Riddell afterwards. As we left the diner, we bid our farewell to Mr. Bryant and departed ways. Later in the afternoon, we returned back to the school so Dale could attend the boys basketball practice.

Friday
Since our school for Friday was not until later in the day, we had some time to stop by a few ministries in the morning. We noticed that there was a Christian school just a few miles from our hotel, so we decided to do a quick stop-by to give them some information. When we arrived, the guidance counselor informed us that they had a senior young lady that was very interested in applying to PCC and that she had recently returned from visiting the campus! She even went and got the young lady out of class so she could ask us any questions that she had!

After our school presentation, we drove from New Jersey to Reading, PA. As we were checking in at the Inn at Reading, the desk worker informed us that they were out of King bed rooms so we had been upgraded to a Executive Suite!! We said that would be fine and had relaxing weekend in a large, cozy room. :-)

Sunday
Throughout the last week, a young lady at a school in Collegeville, PA had been texting back and forth with me. She told me that the play they were practicing for when we were there was going to be performed this Sunday. It "just so happened" that we were staying only 40 minutes away from Collegeville! We were able to attend the play which was entitled "Cutting the Ties" and was about our need to not let anything stop us from the work the Lord has called us to do. They did a wonderful job and the play had a deep impact and needed message. The students couldn't believe that we came back to watch them perform! It was very neat to encourage them by attending but we were even more encouraged through the message.

While we were there, we were able to visit Isreal and Shalee again and remembered to take a picture this time!

Great Company, Lasting Memories

Great Company

One of the great advantages to being in many different places is getting to see many people that we wouldn't on an ordinary basis. In the past two weeks, we have had several of these oppurtunities come across our paths and every time it was a wonderful blessing. It is hard to describe the feeling of seeing a familiar face when we are with different people on a day-to-day basis. We were greatly reminded in these past two weeks how thankful we are for great Christian friends.

The Tuesday after we left Harrisburg, we spent the day at Valley Forge Baptist Academy where we were personally escorted around by Israel Alejandro, a friend from college. It was wonderful to catch up on what he was doing since college and see the great miniustry he is involved in. His wife, Shalee, joined us and we headed out to Olive Garden for lunch. This was not my first lunch with Shalee, as we weekly had lunch together with our mutual friend (and bridesmaid) Gretchen at college. It's been awhile since we had lunch with a young married couple and we thoroughly enjoyed the great company!

Later that week, we had a couple schools scheduled around Lancaster, PA so we wanted to meet up with Travis Weyandt at Lancaster Bible College. It just so happened that the day that we were closest to him, he had a playoff game AND his mom was going to be there!!! We have tried several times to get together with the Weyandts when we were home, but we finally got to catch up...several hours away from home. :-D We had a wonderful time watching Lancaster Bible be victorious and catching up with each other. We extended our visit with dinner at Texas Roadhouse...a first for Dale and I.

 

(Side note: the kids are in their pj's since they were getting ready for a late night drive to Duncansville. Pictures of their home on wheels and more of the kiddos are posted under "Snapshots".)

After parting ways with the Weyandts, we headed to Carneys Point, New Jersey, just south of Philadelphia. That night we got a call from Pastor Wessburg letting us know that their family would be wrapping up services at a church just north of Philadelphia that Sunday. We made definite plans to be there and could not wait to be reunited with the Wessburgs and meet all of their adorable munchkins!

The hour drive Sunday morning was so worth it as we heard great preaching from Evangelist Rich Tozour and then spent the rest of the day catching up with Miss Candace and Pastor Mike. I had a front row seat watching a cute pregnant lady keep three young ones entertained in their traveling trailor while Dale helped Pastor Mike get the truck and trailor ready for departure. What a blessing to just be in the presence of the ones who greatly impacted us during the crucial times of our teenage years. Dale and I thank the Lord for such wonderful examples! Our time with the Wessburgs greatly impacted us in another way as they introduced us to bananagrams! We and our restaurant dining will never be the same. :-D

Well, I guess another person that can be listed under "Great Company" is the head of the Promotions department (aka our boss), Mr. Bryant, who came to spend the first four days of this week with us. Since we are newbies on our first semester, Mr. Bryant came to follow us around and encourage us in ways that we can improve. We truly were thankful for him taking the time to leave his family and come to New Jersey to help us better reach students. We learned a lot and definitely have some new perspectives.

As he was visiting with us we were able to go to another church service the Tozour/Wessburg Team was holding, but this time in Delaware. Dale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting more time with the Wessburg family, but we were even happier that Mr. Bryant and Bro. Tozour had the oppurtunity to catch up as they had been groomsmen in each other's weddings 20 years ago! This week was also a wonderful time of "divine appointments" that left us throughly amazed and thankful. Read more about these in the next post--"Somebody's Praying Us Through".

Lasting Memories

Another advantage of traveling is getting to see many places that we wouldn't have an oppurtunity to on a daily basis.

As I mentioned before, Dale and I spent a weekend just south of Philadelphia. On the Saturday of that weekend, we got up the courage to explore downtown Philly. For a couple from the little town of Duncansville, Philly is quite intimidating, starting with the parking! After getting situated on a random back street and putting everything half worth anything far out of sight, we set off to explore historic Philadelphia. We started at the Visitor's Center where we picked up our tickets to Independence Hall and asked where we can find the "Rocky Steps". We thought this was quite the random question, but the desk worker said it was more than common. What a historic country we live in! :-D We headed straight to Independence Hall for our tour and were amazed to be standing in the very room where our country's foundations were laid!

After our tour, we jaunted across traffic to view the "Grave of the Unknown Soldier" and then onto the Liberty Bell. I think we did the quickest tour of the Liberty Bell as we realized in line that our parking time was ending before we even reached the door. So we quickly walked through the display building until we found the Liberty Bell, had a security guard snap our picture, than ran to find our parking spot before our time expired.

We then braved some more Philly traffic as we made our way to the Philadelphia Art Musuem to see those monumental stairs and take a picture with the Rocky statue. As we did so, we learned a very valuable way to get out of leaving a tip for a service we did not ask for -- hope that the police show up. As I was taking a picture of Dale with the Rocky statue, a man that was hanging out there insisted that I get my picture with Dale and the staute...at no cost, of course, Well, as he was finishing our oh-so-lovely (and blurry) picture session, he had just enough time to mention that he appreciates tips before the police pulled up and he booked it out of there. We were quite happy with the timing. Dale also took the plunge and ran up the Art Musuem steps in Rocky fashion.

The week after our Philly weekend, we visited some great schools, starting with an all-Mennonite one in Reading, PA. It had been 8 years since someone had come to this school to present the college AND we are the only college that they allow in to present, so we had a captivated and excited audience. After the presentation, we stayed and chatted with the juniors and seniors for almost a half hour after they were suppose to be in class. This school started our week out on a great foot and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing their dreams and aspirations.

We visited many other friendly schools that week, but unfortunately my lasting memory of the week was of the inside of our hotel room as I was knocked flat with a cold. Thankfully, our schedule had been worked out perfectly where I was able to get some extra rest while Dale went ahead and did all of the work. I was greatly appreciative that week of a sensitive husband who has great compassion.

We moved that week from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and spent the weekend outside Atlantic City. We pretty much only went downtown for dinner which was atrocious in itself. It was neat to see the bright lights and building size advertisements but it was crazy to realize how much people waste at the casinos and other sin-filled recreation that is there. That Sunday we visited the church of the school that we were going to be at the next day and found that they had Evangelist Ed Dunlop holding meetings there. It was great to see an example of a man that has a heart for young people and children. We ended up attending both services at the church and were encouraged by their ministry.

Stay tuned for an update on an exciting week of no coincidences!