Change Agents

This weekend I went to Intervarsity Fall Conference at one of my favorite places in the entire world Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp.

The theme of the conference was being a change agent. The sessions started out Friday by talking about how we need to balance our relationship with Jesus through intimacy and involvement. How you need to have both of these things in your life to truly experience Jesus and have a balanced relationship with Him. This night we also were told to take a piece of fabric and write our name on it and bring it to the rest of the sessions with us as we would be adding to it.

Saturday morning the session was about Jesus coming and dwelling among us. It actually reminded me of Urbana's theme. Tim talked about how Jesus lived among the people and was a part of their lives, etc. He also somewhat talked about how Jesus had an influence on his disciples and taught them and lived with them, etc. During this session we picked up a piece of fabric and wrote down the names of people that have influenced our faith journeys. We attached both of these squares together with a safety pin. The people I wrote about that have influenced me are my parents, Kris, Kelly, and Jon. They were all very influential in me discovering what my faith was during middle and high school and I'm very thankful for all of their guidance in my life.

Saturday nights session talked about us being a change agent. We were challenged with thinking about people in our lives that we could influence and be a change agent for. These are the people that we can invest in and be a part of their lives like people have been in our lives. We were also challenged by Tim to become that change agent and that included being ready and willing to follow the call of God. He invited those who felt this to stand up. Honestly I didn't stand up. I'm not sure if it's the willing or ready part that I'm struggling with. I tried to think about it Saturday night and have been wrestling with that question since. I'm still not exactly sure which part it is. I think it's a combination of the two. I want to be willing, but yet I still want to make excuses. I want to be ready, but there may still be more that I need to do before I am actually ready. I'll keep you updated if I figure this out (which I probably won't). This night we took another piece of fabric and wrote the names of the people that we wanted to be change agents for. We then safety pinned all 3 pieces of fabric together.

On Sunday we had our last session and mainly talked about bringing the experience back to campus and a variety of people shared their testimonies of the weekend and what they had experienced. Towards the end we all took 1 last safety pin and pinned our fabric chains to a fishing line, which was then brought to the front after everyone's was on there. It showed the progression of the effects people lives have on us and who we can effect. We then prayed for the campuses and people on the chains.

Overall it was a great weekend and my sister also came with Creighton. It was awesome to see her and be at Riverside together doing Intervarsity stuff. We hung out and chatted a decent amount so that was really nice.

Another really cool thing we did as a chapter was to go to the prayer room and each campus had a tree. The activity was to write something on the "leaves" that showed a group on campus where you had influence. Once everyone had put things on the leaves and they were on the tree we prayed for the different groups. Its amazing to see all the different student/staff populations that the people from Drake Intervarsity have influence in. I'll be very excited to see where God uses our spheres of influence to further the Kingdom this year!

Blessing Bag Part 3

I would like to refresh all your memories about blessing bags.  I learned about them at City Lights over Spring Break last year. After learning about them I decided to make my own. I then told you all about given out my first blessing bag this summer and how that went.

Now I'll explain about giving out my 2nd blessing bag. This post is more of a confession of my honesty and heart about giving them away than actually about me giving it out.  I still believe these blessing bags are awesome and it's really a great way for me to see where my heart actually is. Most of the time I really want to give them away to make myself feel better. I feel like helping people out is the right thing to do. Now this isn't exactly bad, but I do think that I do it more to give myself glory and feel better about myself than to bring God glory, which is the point of the bags in the first place. Having the opportunity to give a bag away also shows me how selfish I can be at times as well as how many excuses I can make to God.

I'll give you a little more insight into the situation. I had received a free Fazoli's meal that was good for only 2 days. I decided to use the coupon on the last day so as I was driving there I saw a man with a sign asking for money. I saw him and knew that I should give him a blessing bag. The first thought though was that I was in the wrong lane to do this and it was really busy so I couldn't easily turn around. Also the blessing bags were in my trunk so would not be easily accessible. I then decided that I was going to go to Fazoli's, get my food, get one of the bags from the trunk, put it in my car, then drive back by. Now you may remember these were my exact thoughts last time. Last time I luckily found the man after her left the spot by Target, so he still received one. As I was driving by I thought about this and still decided to drive by. {my excuse and also my selfishness as I just wanted to get to Fazoli's in a timely manner}

I went to Fazoli's and got my free spaghetti. As I was driving back to where the man was standing I thought about how I should realistically give this man this meal. I mean it was warm and fresh, not the random stuff in the bag that I honestly wouldn't probably want to eat for a meal. As I thought about this though I made some excuses to myself that he wouldn't want food that isn't really packaged already. I mean who would want something from someone that you don't exactly know where it's been. I mean this isn't Ethiopia where we would give our leftovers to people on the street. So I drove up to where he was standing and gave him the blessing bag. He seemed to appreciate it and said "God bless you."

I know that it was still very nice of me to give this man the bag, but I wonder how much happier he would have been if I would have listened better to God and the thoughts He was giving me and gave him both the Fazoli's meal and the blessing bag? That would have been me actually sacrificing something that I wanted. I wanted that meal so I didn't have to go back to the house and re-heat something. It wasn't like I didn't have food to eat or something. I was honestly just being lazy because I didn't think that I would like the leftovers that we had. How much more would this man have felt the love of God from me if I would have been more heartfelt in my gift to him? Instead of giving it to make myself feel better and like I am a better person for helping someone else out.

These are the questions that I've struggled to answer looking back on this experience. I think it's good and healthy that I'm examining where my heart was in the situation and trying to make improvements for the last 2 bags that I will hopefully be handing out soon. I want to challenge myself that right when I see someone with a sign I will pull over right there and give them the bag. I won't go on with what I need to do first and hope they are still there. I will also try to change my attitude to actually bless the person and not just try and make myself feel better. One small easy way for me to accomplish this is to make sure that I keep the bag actually in my car instead of my trunk. Having them in my trunk makes it so much easier for me to start up with excuses, which isn't good.

Worship Wednesday-"From the Inside Out"

Things I'm looking forward to....

3 posts in a row-you should probably be impressed with this :) Anyway here are some things that are coming up towards the end of September and beginning of October that I'm excited for:

• Fall Conference this weekend. It's at one of my favorite places Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp, it's with some of my favorite people (Drake intervarsity peeps as well as Carina), they'll be tons of awesome speakers and worship, what's not to be exited about?
• The ISU football game on Oct. 1. ISU is 3-0, Texas is 3-0, it's going to be a great game I'm sure of it!
• The weekend in general. These past couple of weeks have been really busy so taking a little break from school is always nice!
• Fall break is coming in the middle of Octobers, which will be very much appreciated.
• The end of my early morning IPE hours. I don't mind doing the health screenings-I just don't like getting up at 5 in the morning to do them.
• Getting to know more of the new members. So far I don't know that many of them so it will be nice to get to know them more through different activities that we do. They've also started coming to Honor Board so that will help me get to know their names at least a little better (or I hope it will).

Worship Wednesday-"Safe"

Life Update

It's been quite sometime since I really updated you all on the happenings in my life. While they aren't very exciting I thought I'd let you know about them in a bulleted list (my favorite):

• School is finally feeling more like school. I have a million things to do and I feel like there is never enough time to do it all. I've started having tests as well, which kind of stinks, but is to be expected.
• The first day of school I decided that I was going to try and read the Bible in a year so I bough a Bible that lays that plan out for you. I haven't been very successful at doing this so I'm hoping to get back in the grove to have it all done in a year (or maybe 1 1/2 years ;)
• I've of course been busy with all things DG. It will be very strange next semester to not have a position in DG. I think it will be nice, but also very strange to not really know most of the happenings as I find out about now.
• Lately I've been having some really nice chats with people in the house-especially my roommates. I love living with all of these women and talking to them really about nothing. When else in my life am I going to have the opportunity to live with 34 other women and really get to know them? I just love living in the house and will miss that a lot next year I'm sure.
• Last weekend was parents weekend so DG hosted a brunch and I hung out in my room with other people whose parents didn't come. I also went to Sweetheart Sing, which was a lot of fun to watch. It was my first time watching the whole thing. DG won it for the sororities as well so that was cool.
• On Saturday I went to Quad Creek Cafe for supper with Amanda and Courtney. It was good to catch up with them and also have a nice Sodexo buffalo chicken wrap. Courtney and I also then went to the movie The Help, which we both really enjoyed.
• I also did all of my mounds of laundry over the weekend-so that was quite the accomplishment.
• On Sunday I went to church with Yvette and Sarah and their moms, then studied until chapter.
• Yesterday I went to Ames and ate at The Cafe with Isaac and my mom. My mom and I then went to Orange Leaf (a frozen yogurt place in Ames) it was SOO good. I like it much better than yo2go as there are more flavors and fresh fruit toppings.
• DG Bible study starts tomorrow and so I'm excited about that and to see what God has in store for our little group. I really hope that we can be vulnerable with each other and really grow in our faith together. This semester Sarah and Michelle are leading with me so that will be good I'm sure!

Happy Birthday!

Today my little brother turns 20! So he's no longer a teenager, and is officially an adult.  I hope that you have a wonderful day Isaac and don't get too crazy :)

Worship Wednesday-"Come Down"

Last Wednesday at Intevarsity we sang this song and I really liked it so I told Sarah that I would post it for the Worship Wednesday post and she was excited because neither of us knew who sang it. Well I got home and could only remember the chorus 'Come down' and then couldn't find the song online so I gave up and posted a different song that I liked. After church on Saturday we still both couldn't figure out what any other lyrics were and then we were getting confused by the lyrics of songs that we sang at church. It was really bothering us both so I texted Courtney to see if she knew what any of the lyrics were. She asked one of the people that was over at her house and they remembered: 'standing boldly in the throne room with my heart poured out before you' and so I googled that line and finally found the song. It's called Come Down by Interface and I really like it so I hope that you enjoy it as well :) [Also Traci and Sarah it's much earlier this week so you should enjoy that ;) ]

Mom update

As some of you may or may not have known my mom had a cardiac ablation on Friday and things went well. If you knew about this I thought I should update you to let you know that everything seems to be well. So thanks for the prayers they were very much appreciated from our family.

Cyclones Win!!!

Today was the annual Cy-Hawk game series. The last time I was able to actually watch the game was in 2007 (this was my first cy-hawk game seeing in person and also the last one that Iowa State won).  Recruitment has always been this weekend so I've always been busy with that. Having recruitment over Labor Day was a major plus so I could watch the game. Anyway I invited Traci to go along with me and grandpa to the game! After meeting my grandma we went to the Hampton tailgate. We also saw Angela and Jamie there and chatted with them for a bit. I forgot to have us all take a picture together, which was unfortunate, but I at least got this self portrait one of Traci and me!

Here's a nice video of the team coming out if you're interested in that:

The stadium was packed with people:

The game was really fun to watch. I really wasn't expected ISU to do much, which is normally the case with ISU football. After the first possession ended up with a fumble I really wasn't thinking that it would be a good game. Then the cyclones picked it up and ended up winning the game after 3 OTs. Both teams played great and I of course was very excited about the ending! [Traci not so much]

People storming the field after the game. [Isaac was one of these people]

It's a great day to be a cyclone!!!

Recruitment

Last weekend it was recruitment at Drake. This year recruitment was a little different for me as I was a recruitment counselor so I was disaffiliated. For those of you not familiar with Greek life this means that I wasn't really part of my chapter. I couldn't wear my letters, or anything else that had to do with DG. I also couldn't tell people what my last name was or what house I was in. It seemed silly at times, but overall it's best for the women going through recruitment. When they don't really know what house I'm in they're able to talk more freely about what they liked about each house without worrying about offending me, etc. It's also fun to see what house they think I'm in at the end of the weekend. The quote that the disaffiliated girls used during recruitment was this: "We remove our letters to help you find yours." Which I really liked.

I started out with a group of 11 women. They were all great women and half of them decided Greek Life wasn't for them and the other half joined a chapter. It was really cool to be on this side of recruitment again and see how each of the women felt about each chapter and where they felt comfortable. At times it was frustrating with schedules being changed at the last minute, etc. But overall the system worked out like it always does and a lot of women were about to find a place to call home within the greek system at Drake, which is awesome.

I can't imagine what my college experience would be like if I didn't go through recruitment my freshman year and join DG. I wouldn't have had the leadership opportunities that I've had nor the friendships that I've made. I think that even though the Greek system may have some flaws overall it's a great system and I would encourage everyone to at least give it a try.

The end of recruitment also brought about Bid Day, which is one of my favorite days. People like to compare it to Christmas. This is when all of the women receive their bid and find out what chapter they will be joining. It is also the day that I got to become re-affiliated with my chapter and got to tell everyone that I was a DG and be reunited with all of my sisters [we spent the weekend in a hotel]! Being one of the recruitment counselors I was one of the people that taught the new members how to scoop. We also went to sleepy hollow and played games and outdoor laser tag which was fun.

Here are some pictures of my bid day fun:

Worship Wednesday-"City on our Knees"