About this time last week I arrived back in College Station after an amazing week in a place God has blessed me with a love for. Thursday March 8 2012 marked the beginning of my third trip to Nome Alaska for the Iditarod Outreach. In the weeks leading up to our departure I was anxious to go and desperate to see what God had in store for the week I would be gone.

After a few last minute errands, the three hour drive to Dallas seemed forever long, and yet short because we were finally on our way. As we traveled, we met up with more and more headed to Nome to minster with us. A long night of travel, including sleeping on the floor of the Anchorage airport, meant we arrived safely in Nome at nine in the morning. And apparently there is no such thing as a normal Iditarod Outreach volunteer after serving there twice before, and being a summer missionary. We had no more than put our bags down then we where whisked off to set up the other church.

Each day I was in Nome was amazing and a huge blessing in my life. I had the privilege of working with and developing relationships with many. I was able to work alongside some of the leaders at Nome Iditarod Headquarters, helping them out a few times.

One of the best nights of the week was when I pulled the over night shift at the minnie, I got to listen to two men who have been involved with Iditarod for years. To hear the ways they struggled and fought their way down the trail and what they learned along the way. I got to spend time with one of my closest friends from this summer that same night. We continued with our light banter and meaningful conversations like the ones that taught me so much this summer. I got to see and hear one of my teammates come in from working outside with a light in his eyes and a joy in his words showing how much he loved the work he was doing.

From washing dishes, everyday it seemed. To making a homemade strawberry cake for a wonderful older friend on his seventieth birthday. Playing with two amazing young kids on the sanctuary floor. Showing them the joy in being cared about by two college kids willing to spend their final hours in Alaska spinning them around and investing in their lives and talking with their Mom. Whether promising to keep the boat from sinking, though nothing was said about keeping it from leaking. Or desperately praying I am able to fulfill the duties given me to keep from disappointing so many around me.

It seemed everyday was filled with me discovering something new about myself, laughing with people I have not seen in months, yet are in many ways closer than those I am around daily. Being shown how God is moving across the arctic tundra, being a part, an extremely small part of what God is doing.

I am sure much of this makes no sense to many of you. If you wish to hear more about one story that was only hinted at, let me know I would love to share more, it is just hard to try and condense it down to something readable. Hopefully I will put up pictures soon so you can see a small part of what my week was filled with.

Please pray for Nome and the arctic region. God has so much in store for that area and it is amazing to start to see it unfold. Please pray for me, I have many decisions to make soon. Decisions that could potentially change the direction of my life. Wisdom is something I am desperately in need of right now and I am very grateful for the support given to me through your prayers.

Excitment

Tomorrow I leave to fly to Nome for the third time. All I can think about is how amazingly blessed I am. I have been so excited the last week or so, at times I couldn't even focus. I was sitting in church, thinking about Alaska. I was at Breakaway thinking about how the people of Alaska are going through many of the same things as where being talked about. I resisted the urge to count it down until week before. Then I kinda went into crazy overdrive mode. Randomly texting people when it is four days out, totally packed, two days before.

In all of this, I am so ready to be there to see the people I have grown to love over the years. I want to sit and talk with people who have such a love and passion for where they live, and the Savior they serve. I can't wait to learn, grow, experience all the amazing things I know are going to happen next week.

Please pray for me.  Pray for the people of Nome and those coming in to visit for the Iditarod. For my teammates that we would all be open to the urgings of Christ. That through it all lives would be changed for the better and challenged in ways that would push them into new dimensions of their life.  

Thank you all for the support you have shown and given me throughout the years.  And for letting me show you a little bit of my heart for Alaska.

The little things

It is the little things in life that make everyday memorable, and at times even bearable.  Yesterday was a really rough one for me.  But throughout the day God opened my eyes to the little blessings.

• Actually talking with a friend for a while as we pass on campus, instead of the usual hi or wave
• The A-Whoop text message replay I get
•  Being able to help someone else out 
• Coffee with a friend
• Sort of seeing a sunset
• Talking with my mom
• My sister texting me for no real reason. 

These are some of the gifts God gave me yesterday.  By focusing on the good, I am finding myself more productive, and better able to focus on all I have to do in the next three weeks.

Scared...Alaska

In two weeks I will be back in Alaska. Nome specifically. But today after sorting out lots of paperwork and finding all the information need for my team, I became overwhelmed with a sense of dread almost.

This trip is turning out to be totally different than any other one I have been on. I find myself looking forward to seeing all the people I have built relationships with. The people who have become like family, those who have helped me learn and grow so much. But I seeing them should not be why I am going. I will have all of eternity to spend with them. What about those people I encounter who right now have no hope for the future? Have I been praying for them daily?

Yes, my heart breaks for them and I desperately want them to see the truth and healing that comes through Christ, but is that why I am going?  Is it because of Romans 10:14 "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" Am I going to be a voice of hope that they have not heard. Or will I get scared and revert back to what is comfortable for me?  And not step out of my comfort zone to be a tool of the Lord.  I don't know. Right now, I think of the ways I have thought of totally rearranging my life to be there more often and I still go back to what is my motive.


I don't have that answer yet.  Please be praying for me, a friend put Romans 1:12 at the end of a note she sent me "that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine." This is my prayer that I can encourage them in their faith, and them me in mine.  I know the Lord will work no matter my motives, but I want to be right with Him every step of the way.  

The little kids

This morning while I was doing my quit time it was talking about courtesy.  One of the questions it asked was to explain a time when courtesy made your life better.  The one instance that sticks out in my mind happened over Christmas break.  I should have written about this when it occurred.  But I didn't.

A few days before I left to come back to school Mom and Dad asked me to stay with the little kids while they went to Amarillo for the day.  It was a pretty normal day, cool and cloudy.  But as the day went on the temperature continued to drop.

We where getting ready to go into town to eat and go to church.  But when I looked outside it was blowing snow.  So I told Asher he needed to go get his lamb inside the trailer where she would be protected.  While I was in the bathroom getting ready to go I simply mentioned to Lydia "we need to make sure Asher gets water to his lamb."

When I walked back into the kitchen Lydia and Shep had a bucket in the sink and where filling it full of hot water.  I told them thank you and asked them why.  They told me I had said he needed to get water and they figured they could get it ready for him so he could just run it back out.

That moment was one of my proudest as a big sister.  I did not ask them to get the water ready they just saw a need and fulfilled it.  They weren't thinking about how they are not strong enough to get the bucket out of the sink, or how they might not even get told thank you.  It was the clearest, most amazing, showing of love I have seen in a long time.        

Goals

I added two lists to the left side of my blog.  There is a bucket list of things I want to do before I die, and things I want to do this semester.  We will see how it goes.  As soon as I figure out how, I will change the color on the one's I have completed.  If anyone knows how, help is appreciated.  And the first number means I have done it that many times out of what the total should be.

The lists will most likely have things added to them.  I hope it will be a good way to keep me on track.  Accountability always seems to help.

Love

1 John 4:19 "We love, because He first loved us."


Disclaimer:  Just because I am writing this does not mean I have turned into some lovey dovey  mushy romantic girl.  On the contrary, I am the same girl I have always been, I have just been hit in the face with an appreciation for the way God has designed us to be in relationship with each other. And yes, flowers are still way overrated. 


I have seen several friends my age and that I grew up with get married in the past year or so. I am seeing many of my very close college friends that I do life with everyday start getting in relationships, often with each other. My family is expanding.  And I have been blessed to see numerous godly wonderful marriage relationships over the course of my life.  


God has begun to open my eyes to how he has created us to be in relationships with each other.  Both romantic and none romantic.  So often I give my friends a hard time about dating, and how I am the third wheel, ect. ect.  But I realized that I am super blessed to be where I am.  I get to see God work in their lives in an up close way.  I can see them make mistakes, and hopefully learn from them. So maybe I can make my own mistakes instead of repeating those from others.  


I don't know if or when God will open my heart to a guy.  Everyone around me seems to have more faith than me on the whole thing every happening.  What I do know is that if I meet the guy I am to marry tomorrow, if I have to wait for years to meet him, or if I never meet him.  God is there for me, he is my protector, lover, leader, and rock.  I don't need a guy, I do need a close underlie dependent on Him, relationship with my savior.  Until that occurs, I do not see myself walking through life with anyone other than him.


I am perfectly content, and happy in my life the way it is.  I am beginning to enjoy seeing friends go out with each other, that doesn't mean I won't still tease them about it every chance I get.  But I can enjoy it and learn from it.  And through patience and a lot of prayer maybe one day they will have a legitimate reason to tease me.  And until that day comes, it is my job to fall more and more in love with the one who will never let me down or disappoint me.