Greek Conference

Last weekend I headed to Indianapolis, IN for Greek IV Conference. It was so much fun and I'm so glad I went. Here's a little recap of what I did and learned from the weekend:

Friday:
I had to go later than the rest of the group because of my classes so I flew to Indianapolis. After a strange start to my journey at the Des Moines Airport where attendance was taken on the plane I made it to Indianapolis and was picked up at the airport by a volunteer with the conference. I got all checked in and then headed to my room to hang out with the other Drake peeps. There were 5 other DGs (Tess, Christina, Lindsay, Haley, Anna), Amy, and Turk from Drake. That first night I missed the sessions, but still got to chat with all of those wonderful people before we went to bed. We spent the night talking about a lot of random things and it was so great to see my DG sisters again and spend time with them as well as meet one of the new members.

Saturday:
We got up and got ready then heading to Starbucks for breakfast. We arrived at our concentrations a little late because of this breakfast stop, but we decided people needed to eat. My concentration was called Influencer and my specific section was about how to influence the world. It was aimed at graduating seniors and so it talked a lot about making the transition from a student in a greek house to the "real world", and how we can be influential in our new location. It was a great concentration- I learned a lot and it really made me think about some things.
Here are the things that stuck out to my from the concentration:

• God is still shaping you: life in your 20s is primarily about what God is going to be doing in you rather than through you. This is the time of your life where you are figuring out who you are and what God is calling you do. Your calling is not just about what you do, but who you are and what you are becoming.
• Get to know yourself better- find out what your passions are. There is a quote that we talked about and that I have talked about before about where the deepest needs are and where your passions meet is where God is calling you. I just love this!
• Stay connected to others in community- wherever you are sink your roots in deep no matter the length of time you will be there. This really stuck out to me because lately I've been thinking how I won't be at Drake much longer and then I'll be moving about for the next year so it doesn't exactly matter what I'm doing. Even though I'll be in these places for a short amount of time I need to be present and loving people and finding people who I can be in community with while I'm traveling around.

During our lunch break we headed to the Butler area and ate at the Ripple Bagel Deli and it was SOOO good. Haley ate here on a college visit and said it was good and so we decided to check it out. After that we headed over to the DG house at Butler and asked for a tour. Our tour guide was really nice and did a great job showing us around the house and explaining things even though we just dropped by. I love looking at other DG chapters and seeing the similarities and differences. Their house is a lot bigger than ours and has more of a typical sorority house feel in my opinion.

After supper back at the hotel we had large group time. The speaker was James Choung and he did a great job. The talk was on the "good life" and what exactly does that mean. It focused on the story of the rich man who was told to give up all his wealth and follow Jesus, but he couldn't do it. I feel like this has been in theme in my life lately through Urbana and Greek Conference and other things. To follow Jesus means to give up everything and follow him for the good life. It's not what the world says it is, but it is so much better. I think that has been hard for me to accept lately. I love having plans and everything mapped out and control so it's really hard for me to trust God's plan and timing for my life and to be ok with giving up that control. But if I really want to follow Jesus that is going to be what I have to do. I'm still not sure what exactly that looks like in my life, but I'm excited to continue to say yes to God in all the small ways and figure out what his plan is for my life.

After that we had a dance party and the theme was country clubbin' so we all got dressed up in our preppy attire and headed to the dance party. It was actually a lot of fun dancing and hanging out with everyone. Then after the party we headed to our room and chatted for quite a while before we went to bed.

Sunday:

We woke up, got ready, and headed back to Des Moines. It was an 8 hour car ride back and so it was nice to chat some more and also rest a little. I'm not the best at sleeping in the car so I didn't do that, but still just got to rest and relax before coming back home.


Here's some pics from the weekend:

Urbana 2012

I spent the December 27-January 1 in St. Louis for Urbana 2012. I'm still processing my experience, but overall I really enjoyed it. Urbana is a missions conference that Intervarsity hosts every 3 years. I also went in 2009 so I sort of knew what to expect.

The theme for the week was the great invitation. We studied the chapter of Luke. The beginning of the week challenged us to accept God's invitation to us. We need to accept Him and look at ourselves and what is holding us back from accepting all of Him before we can share this invitation to others. As the week went on we learned more about how to extend that invitation to others and how we needed to go and share the good news with others.

It's amazing to be with 16,000 people worshipping God in multiple languages, listening to speakers from different countries. They also have a variety of seminars that you can go to about a lot of different topics. The ones I went to were based on healthcare. I wasn't as impressed this year with the seminars as I was in 09.

One of the things that we did this year was called a join-in. We partnered with community workers in Swaziland and packed medical bags for them to use as they work with HIV/AIDS patients. The had videos telling the stories of how these medical bags came to be and we were also able to hear from one of the community workers. It was amazing to hear her story in person as well as some of the other people affiliated with World Vision and the medical packs. It was amazing to be able to partner with these community workers and package 32,000 medical kits to send to Africa so these community healthcare workers can continue to do the amazing job that they are doing.

The speakers at Urbana were also great. You can watch any of the talks online here.  Here are some of the quotes that I wrote down from the speakers that really spoke to me.

• Jesus is worthy of all our trust, all our plans and dreams, and all of our affections -David Platt
• What happens when the church believes that Jesus is really enough? -David Platt
• When was the last time you wasted time with God? -Calisto Odede
• When we act like God is dead, it is not Him who dies, but us -Ram Sridharan
• We are a lost humanity that needs to be found -Ram Sridharan
• Don't climb a tree from the top-you start where you are -Calisto Odede

The end of the week we each got a decision card to commit to what we are playing to do when we got home. I committed to a mid-year and long-term mission. I'm not quite sure what that will look like at this point in my life. I want to somehow use my pharmacy degree to do missions. This may be in an urban area or may be in another country. I still haven't figured out exactly what that will look like, but I know that I just need to continue to say yes to God and he will show me exactly where he wants me to be. 

If you decide to watch any of the videos from above I would recommend watching David Platt and Ram Sridharan's. They were both really good talks and I will probably watching them again to see things that I didn't catch the first time.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday:

• Woke up and went to get my haircut
• Went grocery shopping
• Did some homework
• Courtney came over and we carved pumpkins

• After carving we went with some people from intervarsity to worship at the barn, which was at the simpson barn in johnston. It was a great time they sang some "typical" worship songs and then also did some blue grass ones so it was a great experience. There were also tons of cute little kids so they were fun to watch dance around and worship!
• After worship the intervarsity peeps went to perkins for some food. I sat at the end of the table with Emily, Katie, Matthew, Courtney, and Mandy and I loved chatting with them. I have missed just hanging out with all of these wonderful people so it was really nice to just talk about random things with them!

Saturday:

• Woke up and ate some breakfast
• Did some homework 
• At 3 left and went to Ames for the ISU game
• Hung out at the Hampton tailgate and talked with some peeps before going to the game. I sat with my grandpa and really enjoyed the game. Even though it was cold outside it was nice to watch the cyclones win and they played really well!

Sunday:

• Woke up and went to church with Sarah and Josie (a DG new member) it was a great sermon as usual
• Came home and did some homework
• Went to CiCis pizza with Ken, Wade, and Erin and did a little shopping at the dollar tree
• Did more homework once I got back home
• Watched Erin carve her pumpkin with a drill and she made polka dots all around the pumpkin

My Faith Journey

I decided it would be good for me to reflect on where my faith started and where it is now. I think it's great to reflect and see how God has changed you and to remember where you came from. I also realized I've never really posted about what I believe or what my journey has been. My journey continues to be written and I don't have a lot of things figured out and I hope that you can tell that through this and other posts that I've had. So here's my story hopefully it's not too long:

I grew up going to a Lutheran church. I think we went pretty regularly through my childhood, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure. I know for sure that I went to Sunday School each week and WINGS (Worship In God's Service) every Wednesday. There I learned the basics of the Bible stories and also started memorizing Bible verses. I started to understand who God was, but had more of a grasp that he was someone abstract who wrote the Bible. I didn't really understand that He was someone I could have a relationship with. Towards the end of elementary school (4th and 5th grade) I also started attending Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp in the summer. Camp would be somewhere where I always felt close to God and started to be able to understand who He was.

We moved when I was in 6th grade and I thought it was the worst thing to ever happen to me. Now looking back how see how much God was working in my life. We started going to a church that really showed me what it meant to live life as a Christian. To have a relationship with Christ and also to really trust in God. I had the opportunity to be mentored by a lot of wonderful women and also got really close to the girls in my small group. During middle school and high school I also continued to go to Riverside for summer camp and recharges during the school year. I continued to be challenged to live out my faith and found inspiration in the high school and college counselors who were doing that.

In high school I continued to be active in church and went on quite a few mission trips (Minneapolis, Mississippi [twice to help with hurricane relief efforts], and southern Africa). My understanding of God was very structured. I thought being a Christian was mainly about following a list of rules of do and don'ts. As someone who loves rules this is what I wanted. It was much easier to follow these lists and keep God in a box than to actually trust him. Going to Botswana with Global Expeditions also continued this mindset. They are honestly a great organization and I loved my trip with them. Looking back now I see how structured it was and how much I bought into the idea that being a Christian was only about following a structured lifestyle. I think they need to have this type of structure and mindset when leading 60+ high schoolers to Africa. And like I said earlier I craved this God in neat little box mindset that I had.

When I started at Drake I wasn't super involved in anything religious. I didn't have a car so I would go to church when I could find a ride. I wasn't really involved in any student Christian organizations. I would go to Greek Street Fellowship most weeks and I enjoyed this. I liked having a Bible study with others in the Greek would and meeting some of my sisters. Then towards the end of the year I joined Intervarsity with Courtney and Amanda. Intervarsity was exactly what I needed. This organization really challenged me to live out my faith and not to follow a strict set of rules and set myself apart from non-Christians.

I think since then I've been growing in my understanding of who God and Jesus are. I've seen how important it is to live a life like Christ. To meet people where they are and just love them. I've also seen how much love God has for me. I've seen the ways that God answers prayers through tough situations in my life like my dad losing his job, and my mom's health problems. I've seen how we've gotten closer as a family, how we've relied on God more, and how he's continued to provide to us through this all. I've had the opportunity to go to Ethiopia and see my faith in a whole new way. I experienced so much poverty and people living in despair, but also saw so much joy and hope in ways that I've never seen before.

I feel like my faith currently is learning how to live like Jesus. To take the experiences I've had and try and relate them to others. To hopefully be somewhat of a light in my current community, which is my sorority. It hasn't always been easy and I haven't always done a good job, but I hope that God has used me to plant a few seeds in my house that will continue to grow in the years to come. I'm not sure exactly what my next steps will be on this journey of life, but I can't wait to learn to trust God more and more with the next steps. Because who better than God to direct your story?

Giving

*Sorry that I haven't posted in awhile, but with tests, spring break, etc. I didn't write anything, but I'm now back with a few new posts

During Intervarsity we've been doing challenges to strive to live a life more like Jesus. The first weeks challenge was about money. As college students it's easy to say that we're poor college students and can't give our money. If you look closer though, we have a lot of disposable income. I don't have monthly bills to pay or things "real" people have.

Therefore we were challenged to find 5 items of clothing to donate to someone else. These should be nicer pieces of clothing and things that we bought for ourselves. We were to bring them to current the following week.

The first thought that I had is that I wasn't sure if I had 5 things that I actually bought. I came to the realization that I still rely on my parents for a lot of my stuff. They normally buy me my clothes. I occasionally buy a shirt here or there for myself, but overall they buy most of it. After looking through my closet I found that I did buy more than I thought. I also have quite a bit of clothes that I don't wear and lots that I don't really need. I have been blessed with quite a lot. I chose 5 items some of them I wear quite a bit and have already missed a bit and some that I don't wear as often.

I think this was a great way to realize that what I have isn't really mine. It all belongs to God and He has blessed me with a lot. Therefore I should be willing to give these things to others.

The Mind

Do you ever stop to think about the thoughts that are running through your head? How about how they are affecting your life? These questions were brought up on Friday night at Women's Ministry Night. The importance of your mind and how what you are thinking determines many of your circumstances. This was something that I was very interested in. I had never before really looked at whether my thoughts were positive or negative. If my thoughts are always negative towards a person or situation than I will not enjoy being around that person or in that situation. But if I take the time to be positive and thankful for the people in my life or find the good in a certain situation than it will be a much better experience. I'm probably not explaining this very well, but it really got me thinking. I spend so much of my time either outwardly complaining or inwardly thinking negative thoughts that it makes situations seem that much worse. Emily Boyd talked about this and the book by Joyce Meyer Battlefield of the Mind.  How your thoughts play such an important role in your relationships with God and others. How satan uses your mind to give you those negative thoughts, etc. The book sounds really good and I really want to check it out and read it. I also want to consciously stop and assess what my thoughts are this week. Am I looking at things from a positive angle or making situations seem much worse than they really are. Hopefully this post makes some sort of sense. Women's ministry night really made me think about a lot of things and I may be posting on this more later we will see.

Holy Spirit

I've been meaning to write this post for about a week now, but never got around to it. Now I'm finally doing it. The past few weeks at Intervarsity we talked about the Holy Spirit. It was a great topic and now I really want to read The Forgotten God by Frances Chan, but will probably wait until this summer to read it.

Last Wednesday as the ending of the series we got into small groups to just sit and listen to what the Holy Spirit had to say to each person in the group. We focused on one person at a time and just listened for 5 minutes or so and then shared with that person anything that we heard, saw, etc. I normally don't like activities like this because I'm not very good at turning off my brain and actually listening to what the Holy Spirit has to say to me. I really tried to focus though and since it was only 5 minutes I decided I could do it.

The first thing that I found so refreshing was that I came late so I didn't sit by my usual group of people and therefore I wasn't in a group with them. The group that I was with though, was really great because we each seemed to be in a similar place in our lives and I think everything that we heard for each other also related to ourselves. I was also really excited to actually hear some things and to allow myself to listen to what the Holy Spirit wanted to say to the others in my group.

The first person that shared what they heard was to be bold. At first I was really confused by this and didn't exactly know what they meant. Then the other 2 shared and said they heard something about building bridges, and also related to DG and how I know so much about these women and we share so much. We then all talked about this for awhile and it made perfect sense and was also very encouraging to me.

I've spent so much of my semester so far feeling really down and like all of my worth was in my school work and just super nervous about the whole semester. Encouragement in that area of my life was what I expected to hear from the Holy Spirit. Instead the things that I got were about how I need to step out and be bold and really be there for my sisters. I need to continue to love my sisters and show them what Christ's love is. I don't need to shove the gospel down their throats, but instead through my actions spread that love. When words or conversations are needed or come up though I need to be bold and say what I'm really thinking. I really felt encouraged by this. It also made me really think about how I really only have these last few months with my sisters and living with all of them. I'll still have school next year. These relationships that I'm building now will be very important. The goal also isn't to convert everyone to Christianity instead it is to show all of my sisters who God is. Even if they don't accept Him now they will know that I really value my faith and later in life if they need someone to talk to I will be there. I really hope that this will be evident for the rest of the semester.

Also doing this activity showed me again how important it is to sometimes just be silent and listen for what God wants me to hear. At the Ash Wednesday service Jon talked about all of the noise in the world. I'm definitely conscious of this noise more recently and want to do a better job of just being silent and seeing what God says even if its only for 5 or 10 minutes a couple of times a week.

Intervarsity

Having some fun after Current on Wednesday:

Courtney told me I looked like a cancer patient, which wasn't very nice

Please look at Courtney's face in the doorway

I feel like I mention a lot about intervarsity in my posts, but have never really explained what it is or what it really means to me. I was thinking about this on Wednesday as I was sitting in Current (the weekly meeting) and thought I'd write a blog post on it.

I started going to intervarsity spring semester of my freshman year. Amanda, Courtney, and I had done a little "church shopping" and then Amanda someone looked up Christian organizations on campus and found IV. She asked us to go with her and we said yes and have been going every week since.

It started where we would sit in the back and watch what was going on and maybe talk to a couple other people that we had met and eventually we all got really involved in it. It's crazy to think that this was 4 years ago and that it's almost over now.

As we continued to go to events and meet more people we really started connected to people. I feel like Courtney really connected first and found a small group of friends within IV that became her family. She started going to church with them and really discovered her faith and who God is. It was awesome to be a witness to this during our sophomore year. I was able to really watch her faith grow, especially during this time in her life. Courtney then began leading small groups and doing other activities within IV and has really made an impact on a lot of lives.

Amanda eventually got more involved with IV, I can't exactly remember when, but I think it was more of our junior year after she went to China. (It may have been a little before that too, I can't really remember) and she's done amazing things by helping lead small groups, organizing tons of events, and helping shape the vision of intervarsity at Drake. She also does a great job with getting to know the new people that come and really making everyone feel welcome and like they are wanted at Current.

Through all of this I watched and also made some connections through IV. I knew a lot of the people my sophomore year since I was rooming with Courtney and hanging out with her most of the time. When I went to Ethiopia before my junior year I also got to know the people from IV that went on the trip a lot better and I felt really connected to those people.

My junior year I started living in the DG house and really started to feel connections there. I still went to IV weekly, but started to not know as many people and really felt torn between the IV world and the DG world. Beth Ann started a Bible study in the house at the end of my sophomore year and myself and Anna continued it my junior year. This is where I formed some great friendships with Michelle and Sarah along with many others. By the end of junior year there was some overlap between my DG and IV worlds, but still not a ton. Events still seemed to happen on the same days and I was forced to chose one group over the other.

Then this year things have started to change. The seeds that were planted earlier in my college career through Beth Ann and I'm sure many others have started to grow. The DG Bible study has expanded and now more DGs are coming with me to Current on Wednesdays. There have been a couple weeks where there have been 2 rows full of DGs. It has been amazing for me to see how God has connected two of the biggest parts of my college career and drawn people closer to him.

I think that one of the greatest things about IV is the emphasis on showing who Jesus is to those around you. To meeting where they are. There are tons of different people in IV who are in tons of other organizations and sports, etc. IV encourages those people to go to the places where they have influence and show people who God is. I feel very blessed that God has used me in some small way to further his kingdom and bring my sorority sisters closer to Him. My hope as my last semester as a collegiate member of DG is that more lives will be transformed and more of my sisters will begin to understand who God is and why he is so important in their lives. Even if nothing changes while they are in college they will at least know that there is a group of their sisters who will always be there for them.

What I learned in the first week of winter semester

• I like living in small dorm (besides my squeaky bed)
• I may actually enjoy team based learning (that is still TBD)
• I need to stay on top of my homework so I don't get behind
• I'm enjoying not having a position in DG anymore and having more free time
• It was great to be back at Intervarsity and have a lot of DGs there with me
• Being back at Hope for church today was really nice
• Headbands/hats are very important for you walk in the early mornings to class so your ears don't freeze off
• You can actually shower/get ready for class if you don't hit the snooze button
• Laying out your clothes/getting your bag packed also helps with the above
• I now know the beginnings of how to treat a cold, cough, and allergies
• The sampler at BWW is actually very big and is made for 2 people
• Re-heated said sampler is hard when the breaker keeps getting tripped on the toaster oven
• 8 am class everyday is that bad (we'll see how I feel about this in a couple weeks)
• I'm Sexy and I Know It is on the radio a lot even though I didn't notice this until very recently thanks to Traci
• My sister is now in a sorority (Pi Phi) and Erin's sister prefed her!