On a personal note...

Currently, I am trying to find answers to many different questions.  I am waiting to hear back on some jobs I've applied for as well as thinking through the decision to do the internship I've mentioned with the Vision of Hope.  The policies set up for the house for the ladies have been prayed over and thought through for some time now.  God has been working with that ministry through the staff, giving them wisdom on how to structure the program.  Girls that enter the house have been living lives of sinful entrapment in the form of : abuse, anorexia, bulimia, self-harm, unplanned pregnancy, etc.  When they agree to live there, they commit to work hard on growing in those areas with the structure, which includes counseling, learning to eat and live in a healthy way, learning responsibility, learning about God's word and how it can apply to every area of life...etc.  I greatly respect the policies and the structure they have set up for the girls. 

My understanding of what my responsibilities/expectations would be as an intern are not lining up with what they are requiring.  Since my arrival here in Lafayette, I have found out more about the position that is making me think through more deeply about my desire to do this.  Some of the things are: be in room by 10pm with lights out; only being able to use my cell phone in the lobby;  having an orderly and tidy room at all times like the girls;  etc.  Alot of those things are required to help set an example to the girls.  Just thinking about to what degree do I come alongside these gals and do the others things I am responsible for: class and a job (to pay loans and bills).  Also I thought it was going to work out that I only commit to the internship for 3 months and live with the Kesslers.  But, because there are more gals interviewing for the position, I would not be as good a candidate compared to someone who can commit to at least 6 months and live on-site.  This is alot for me to think about and pray through.

On Tuesday, my dad was working for a customer doing some pruning and suffered some kind of ceasure/stroke.  He called my mom from his truck and told her he didn't know what he was had been doing and didn't think he was ok. My mom picked him up and took him to the E.R.  There they gave him some aspirin and took some tests (MRI, CAT scan, carotid artery ultra sound) and kept him over nite.  They did not find anything on any of those tests that hinted at a stroke or seizure.  His thinking and memory are significantly slow and delayed, as well as his speech.  He says he feels like he's in a fog.  Today, he says he feels like the fog is gone somewhat.  The neurologist went in to see him today to look into other possibilities of what might have happened.  He suspected it might have been a seizure so he put him on some seizure meds for 5 days and they are going to run an EEG to check his brain waves.  Please pray for full recovery, for wisdom for the doctors, energy for both my mom and dad as my mom helps with business duties, and for God to be praised for His faithfulness and love.  God is a rock in my family and I know everyone is clinging to it right now.   Because of His grace and steadfast love, he is willing to teach us through this.  

Word

John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Acts 20:32 "And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified."

Yesterday was the first day of my Biblical counseling class.  It was exciting, intense, slow, fast, interesting, and challenging.  Most of the morning consisted of sessions of intro topics of:

-What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical

-Definitions of Biblical Counseling

-Why Counsel?

-Key Elements in Counseling Process

In the section "What makes Biblical....", we talked alot about the theology of the Bible.  Sometimes in the church, there is counsel given that is not founded on the theology of God's word, but on bits and pieces of modern psychology, Christian literature, and personal convictions.  This was really interesting to think about.  There was a man named James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000) who recognized the popular interest in the inerrancy of scripture.  (He predicted that the next wave of theologian interest in the Christian church would be sufficiency of God's word (for the next century)). 

To honor God and the truth of His Word with their counsel, Faith Baptist has developed a theological pyramid to help guide them.  The 6 levels of the pyramid represent 6 components that need to be included in the theology of counsel.  The bottom level is of course the Bible, the 5th is principles of Bible study and interpretation, the 4th deals with the translation/grammar, and word forms of scripture, the 3rd is using doctrine of God's word "Biblical theology", the 2nd uses the "fruit" of Biblical theology into a system, and the 1st level is "Practical theology" - how to actually grow and change.  The pyramid contains the meat of the methods of counsel used at FBC.  It kinda confuses me with the big words, but I understand why it is needed.

The pyramid is something I would just like to skip over, but that just goes to show how careless I might have been in the past to just try to counsel by the first level (how to grow and change). I am learning that teaching others how to grow and change is not the only thing I should focus on in the future.  

One of the 6 key elements they have developed for the counseling process includes giving hope.

A definition of hope they gave was: a firm belief of God's ability and promise to bring goodness out of chaos in the future.  Brent Aucoin gave an example of this element from Genesis chapter one that got me fired up!  Genesis 1:1-2 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep..."

Brent pointed out that God created the earth as formless and empty/void.  It was chaotic and a mess. God then went on to create the earth as beautiful with order, and abundant life.  God had a plan of beauty for something originally created as messy.  The same God who created this earth with all the beauty of the sea and mountains, is more than capable to make something beautiful out of our caotic lives.  We can give those around us hope from the beginning of the Bible, before Jesus was even mentioned by name.   :)

Praise God for His Word!  It sure gives me hope that He will make something beautiful out of the mess of my schedule right now...

Websites: Faith Baptist Church

Someone recently asked me for the notes/recordings of the sermon I mentioned last Sunday.  Here is the website where you can read and listen to Pastor Viars sermons: 

http://www.faithlafayette.org/SermonFiles.aspx 

The last picture is of the Vision of Hope house.

Downtown

I think my new favorite thing is hanging out with my cousin Theresa.  Today I met up with my mom's cousin, Theresa.  She has lived in Lafayette for a while now, working at Purdue U.  We discovered as we were shopping that we are similar in our shopping styles.  We both don't like it for an extended period of time. Shopping is fun for a while, but we are not turbo bunnies.  I did find some cool shoes I need though.  

After shopping and hanging out, I drove around Lafayette for a while just for the heck of it and snapped a few shots of the gorgeous sunset.  Wow, it was awesome.  I got a few looks as I would suddenly pull over and whip out my camera.  But I think its because I'm a slow driver and from Kansas. 

Lafayette water, applications and Claire

Well, made it through the first week... :)  When I got back from the lakehouse, I hit the ground running.  My first few days were challenging but good.  Spent a couple just trying to find my way around the city!!   But that's ok.  You all should be proud of me because I didn't really get lost LOST/direction turned like usual.   

Currently, I pretty much have the internship with the Vision of Hope (house for girls), am waiting to hear back about a job, and getting ready for my first day of my Biblical counseling class on Monday.  YAY!!  

I met with the director of VOH today to talk about me working as an off-site intern (someone not living at the house with the girls) and it went well. I am seeing how much of a learning opp. this is going to be!  Wow.  Im going to have to be tough and stern with the girls about the policies and rules.  Almost all the girls who come in have had no structure at all in their lives, so that's what the biggest challenge is....listening to authority.  The goal with all the rules is to teach them not only how to make healthy/smart decisions for their life, but why.  Alot of the girls come in not knowing who God is.  They, like alot of people (even believers) don't have a truthful understanding of who God is.  (I was one of them).  I desire to do this internship because I am just recently starting to see how the Bible is really worth studying and believing.  I am just starting to see how God's Word is sufficient for EVERYTHING in my life.  I desire to see girls with broken lives learn about the hope and strength we can have in Jesus.  It takes hard work to change, and growth is definitely a life long process.  

Tonite, I got to hang out with a group from the church known as the "College and Career" class. It was a hang out nite at one of the girls house and we had some amazing Asian cooking.  :)  It was really nice to be with people my own age.  The people in the group are from ages 25-35. I felt like I was hangin with the "Singles" group back at TBC, but different.  I miss you guys by the way!!  :(  When I stop and think about the fact that I don't have a kindred spirit here yet, it gets me down.  So what I'm trying to practice instead is focusing on how good God is and the fact that He was the One who brought me here...so I KNOW He will provide.  Practicing that has been a challenge.  Also, I have been trying not to be expectant of others and just serving them instead.  That humbles me for sure.  

I miss Kansas...especially the water.  The water here has an iron taste to it. Im sticking with bottled water for a while.  LOL.  The Kesslers have a dog named Claire.  She sympathizes with me about the water, so that helps.  

Goodnite y'all.  

Window to my weekend

Love motivates to Serve

God has brought me safely to Indiana!  My parents and I left early last Friday morning and rolled into Lafayette around 7pm.  Jeff and Jana Kessler greeted us with a warm meal of love and hospitality.  It was so good to see them again!!  I had stayed with them in February for the week of the Biblical counseling training conference.   Saturday morning, my parents and I met up with my mom's cousin, Theresa, pictured here.  She works in the admin. office at Purdue University.  That afternoon, there was an event called "Global Fest" featured by the students and faculty at the college. The event offered cultural/ethnic music, food and a marketplace hosted by the clubs of international students on campus.  God used this time with our cousin to catch up and learn about each other.  It was an awesome time.  

The little boy with BBQ on his face was sitting across from me at my table and I could not resist taking his picture...:)  

Sunday morning, we (my parents and I )  went with the Kesslers to the church they attend, Faith Baptist (where I will also be taking my course).  It was so wonderful to be back at Faith, where I had spent many hours soaking in TRUTHS of God's Word and learning about how to apply it to life.  Pastor Viars spoke about what to do during the time you are learning to see others sins against you as good.  It challenged me quite a bit. After church my parents took off to meet up with some friends in Chicago, and we headed up to the Kessler's lakehouse in Bloomington.  Here, I got to meet Jana's mom and son and daughter and their daughter's husband.  Their son brought his 3 friends all about my age and we had a good time swimming and hanging out. We rode out on the lake last nite and were blessed to enjoy the beautiful sunset! (I will post pics as soon as we get back to the K's.)  We will be leaving tomorrow to head back to Lafayette. 

Tonite I am reflecting on the "love" and "service" I have been witnessing.  I have been treated like true royalty since my arrival in IN.  The K's have sacrificed so much of their time and energy to serve me, it humbles me.  They bring me drinks and make sure I am comfortable at all times.  Today Jana and Gran-O (her mom) and I went shopping and bought a few things.  When we arrived home, I caught on to their ritual of "fashion show".  :)  Jeff positioned himself on the couch to prepare for all of us to show him what we had bought!  :)  As I showed him one of the items I had brought (a dress), I noticed he was very attentive.  When I had laid the dress back down on the table, he commented, "I think I like the dress the best".  It was not the fact that he let me know that he liked my dress, but it was the very manner he went about it.  I can't really describe what I am wanting to say, but just that he took the time to listen and care about what we had done today. Im guessing most men are not interested in the many purchases their wives make.  So for him to care about the little things we were excited about buying meant alot.  I have seen so many examples of love between J and J, it just brings me to tears.  It is such an example of Jesus' love for me.  Im so thankful.