Nahmean, da kine?

I think I was expecting this semester to be a lot different. I came in with the mindset that academics would be fairly easy, that ministry would be exciting, fulfilling and almost ... easy, and that life would be awesome in every way. After all, I was riding a pretty fast horse after Ocean City; seeing lives change, being in a community where the cool thing to do really was to spend time with Jesus and to encourage one another, and looking forward to a super busy and awesome semester. How surreal that feels now, as do my expectations for this semester.

It would be simple to say that the past 3 months were really hard. I struggled with a lot of stuff that I honestly wasn’t expecting to deal with. School was frustrating and I really did not enjoy my classes, I felt as though my influence in my house was absent and my relationships drifted further apart in some aspects, my job was draining and exhausting, as Cru grew I felt less and less like an important part of the movement and community, I’m seeing less of my own sin and am wrestling with some apathy, I haven’t really felt pursued, some serious idols surfaced that I had to begin to root up and confess, my dreams for the future have become so confused with fear and uncertainty and passion that I have no idea what my life will look like... The list could likely continue for years.

Looking at this semester, so much has happened yet it has gone by so incredibly fast. For the first month or so God provided me with an insatiable joy that permeated me. I found so much joy in the people around me, in pursuing the freshmen from the dorms, in recruitment for my sorority, and in just everything. I was seeing prayers answered in tangible ways, and things appeared so fruitful. It definitely felt like a harvest season.

(Our girls! <3) It was during this period when the storms started forming. Hurt and resentment reared their ugly heads in my extended family and caused the deterioration of relationships resulting in gulfs of emotional distance. In addition, Kate and Alex called off their wedding and were dealing with pain of their own. My family felt wrecked, pulled and stretched apart, moaning under the weight of undeserved resentment and brokenness. Yet in the midst of this season God’s presence was so real to me. I experienced true hope, the complete confidence in the assurance of the goodness of God and his promise to work all things for the good of those who trust in Him, and unshakable joy that was based solely in the beauty of his salvation and promises of peace, love, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, and simply the pleasure of knowing God personally. And then I get the chance to spend a weekend with the community from summer project. Our chance to catch up, and the opportunity to IN-PERSON(!) share with them these feelings, struggles, victories, hurts, joys... And I don’t think words can fully express the joy I feel. It’s something unnatural, it’s true love experienced in the relationships I have with these friends. True friends, the ones whose love is not of them but from the Lord. The ones who I will only see a handful of times before eternity is ours. Not to say I’m like Paul, but in Romans 1:11 when he says, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine,” is somewhat how I feel. The most I have ever cried was on August 10th-August 11th. Saying goodbye for an indefinite period of time, knowing that what we experienced was so sweet, so real, of eternal significance. A community that was the closest thing to true community I had ever known. Joy and love and acceptance, affirmation and honesty and confession. People whose eyes were looking upward to the Lord, walking side by side, hand in hand. To be reminded of this even for 36 hours spent in Chicago is unreal. To know that no amount of time or distance in miles can separate us from the love of Christ and the supernatural love that we have for each other from Christ. To feel that again in the physical presence, to see it and feel it in the embraces and to know that it’s real despite my inability to express it fully. C.S. Lewis claimed, “friendship is the most unnatural of loves.” It is not needed for survival, but I don’t think I would know what life really was meant to be or could be without it.

No matter how awkward or ineloquent I feel, no matter how many silly things I say, how selfish I can be... These people love me. It’s truly absurd. And no matter their silly or awkward moments, their selfishness, when they disappoint me... I love them. “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace...” (Philippians 1:7).

These friendships, this incredible fulfilling joy... God wants us to experience this. He wants all of my relationships to be like this. He wants us to live in community and radically share his love with the world, that they may know Him through the love that we have. It’s not just the people who made it to Ocean City Summer Project 2012, and those that could also make it to the reunion. It’s for all who are his children. James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” He doesn’t want to withhold this from people, but yet not all of my relationships are like this.

But why not? People are sinful. I am sinful. Relationships are broken. I am selfish, focused on myself, not walking in the spirit so much of the time. But I want my life to reflect this love all the time. I want to love without expectations, without limitations, with Christ’s love. I want to forgive because God forgave me. I want to love because He first loved us. I can yield my life to him and bow down to Christ, who is on the throne of my life. He is willing and ready to fill me with energy, with compassion, with patience, with self-control, with joy, with gentleness, with humility, with generosity, with strength...

This is just a shadow of the future joy that awaits us, but eternal life starts here and now. Therefore, although we can’t fully know and experience all these good things, we can see the reflections of them. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Although it is unfortunate that we can’t see fully now, that there is work still to be done before Christ comes back, I don’t focus enough on the fact that we can partially know now! Yes, sin corrupts everything, but God is at work. He lives in us! He is here with us now, Immanuel. Therefore, I am not a slave to sin. “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” Not to live in bondage to sin, but to be set free in the truth of Christ and his suffering and death and resurrection. Therefore, we can experience love and community and grace! We can share these things with others fearlessly. I don’t live for the approval of man, but of God. And the beautiful thing is that when I am striving for the approval of God alone, he gives us the gift of community which is also the co-laboring with other believers who will accept me not on my own merit, but only because they too have been undeservingly accepted and loved by God. When we live with nothing to prove, we can accept each other freely. And yes, the storms of sin will affect our emotions and interactions at times, but that does not affect our friendship, our faith, our love.

I feel like there are so many thoughts, so many praises, so much reflection going on in my noggin right now and it’s coming out so random and jumbled. Yet these are all themes that have come up over the past semester at school that I am finally starting to understand and put together. God really does work all things together for good, and his timing really is perfect. Oh Lord, how good and perfect you are! May these truths sink deep into my heart and soul and not be lost easily.

To Wrap Up this Summer...

I just wanted to let you know how my summer in Ocean City, NJ, turned out, knowing that I couldn’t have gotten there without the support and prayers of faithful family and friends. The past few months have been the most life changing and life giving months of my life, and I’m so thankful that I got to experience them.

(Some strange things were said in the Staff Lounge...)

Going to a new place on the other side of the country with 130 people I did not know was hard. The first few weeks were trying, as many insecurities and fears exposed themselves in my heart. I feared that I wouldn’t make friends, that I wouldn’t be stretched or grow, that my summer would be wasted. However, over the course of the ten weeks, I found that the opposites of these were the case.

If I could choose a passage from scripture that really corresponds to this summer, I would choose 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

As I struggled through the processes of making friends, of sharing the gospel, of working in a new and difficult place, of being assigned to the leadership team of the trip, I felt incredibly weak and incapable. My faults and failures became so evident to me, and I grew a lot in my understanding of my own sin. What I also found, though, was that God still used me for his own purposes. Being in a place where I could recognize how incapable and sinful I am, I was able to get a glimpse at how good and powerful God is through the fruit that he was producing in my life. Many of my lowest and weakest points this summer are the moments I see God’s hand most clearly.

(The Leadership Team!)

This summer, I experienced a joy beyond anything I have ever experienced before, a joy in the assurance of the goodness of God that surpassed my circumstances. In addition, I experienced a community deeper and truer than what I’d known before, one that encouraged and spurred me onward in Christ. I was stretched in basically every facet of life... In being vulnerable, in studying God’s word deeply, in confessing quickly and openly, in pressing on through exhaustion, in embracing leadership, in sharing my faith boldly, and in loving God, others, and myself.

(Best food ever. Seriously.)

I fell in love with the city of Ocean City and the people who were on the Summer Project, but I’m so glad to be back at school. I had about one full day at home in Long Beach before heading back up to Berkeley and starting my junior year. However, I’m stoked to be back, and I feel equipped to love the campus and my sorority in a fresh and new way this year - a way in which I view people as souls, and love them by seeing their need for God and his message of salvation.

This summer, as a group of 130 people we were able to have 8,400 spiritual conversations, about half being Gospel conversations, with people in New Jersey, and we witnessed 258 people indicate a decision to put their faith in Jesus Christ. I know it’s in the heart and not the numbers, but how awesome is it that God gives us the ability to see him working in tangible ways and in specific moments and decisions?!

Thank you for reading this, I'm excited to praise the Lord with you!

Love,

Laney

(No big deal... only what I did every day at work for a few hours.)

The Final Countdown

The past couple weeks have been absolutely amazing. As the staff left and we get our project job assignments, we grew up. It’s like that moment when we realize we’re on our own and have real life responsibilities. My job position is called Project Director of Discipleship, and I’m on the Leadership Team with 7 other beautiful and amazing people.

My position has entailed writing the project’s Bible Study material with the three other PD’s of Discipleship, discipling women, working with the leadership team to plan the project theme and weekly themes, and giving a talk for our weekly meeting.

Initially, I was terrified of my position. I have never had huge leadership positions, and I felt incapable and inadequate. And relying on my own strength, I am inadequate and incapable. However, I don’t have to. The Lord is my strength and my portion forever, and so I cannot fail because I have nothing to prove. That is the most important and distinct life change in perspective that I’ve experienced and learned through the past 3 weeks.

Talking in front of 120 people about God for an extended period of time is the last thing I ever expected to do during my summer, but clearly the Lord had different plans. Last night I gave the 25 minute talk during the meeting. This means that I prepared it, practiced it, and was completely left to decide the passage and point that I would focus on. I thought it was going to be terrible, and was trying to rest in the knowledge that if I was doing it for the Lord, then no matter how the outcome, it would be successful because I was stepping out in faith and obeying him. And he totally met me in that and pulled everything together in an amazing and supernatural way. I actually ended up really enjoying it, and every single person encouraged me and told me that the Lord really used the words I spoke to touch their lives. So that was awesome and crazy!

The coolest part was that my whole produce department from SuperFresh came to support my friend and I (she was giving her testimony), and so they got to hear the gospel in multiple forms. A group on project performed the Everything Skit flawlessly and passionately which really stuck out to them as well. They said that they truly enjoyed themselves and didn’t feel awkward, which was just totally the Holy Spirit working, and I think last night was actually one of the highlights of this whole summer for me.

(Berkeley people! Plus Kayla ... SF still counts!)

So, we’ve reached the one week countdown, and my heart is just aching. I am so torn between Ocean City, NJ, Berkeley, CA, and Long Beach. I don’t want to leave the 104 students who have eternally impacted my life, Shannon, Chris, Rudy, Rob, Casey, Vivian, Candace, Eren, Johnny, and all the other SuperFresh produce workers who have become my Jersey family, Mary - my adopted mom, and this city with its boardwalk, Wawa, humidity, and life changing memories and experiences that I’ll have forever. But I am so excited to go home to my family, to take part in my sister’s wedding events, to talk with my brother, hug my parents, see my grandfather, and be in California again. I can’t wait to go to school, to see my sorority sisters, to see my best friends in the world, and go back to my awesome job with Event Services... The list goes on and on for what I’m excited to return to, and so I’m torn! But what I know with full and complete assurance is that God is with me whether I am here or there. “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.” (Psalm 62:5-6)

And so I embrace the change, the trial of figuring out how to cope with closing this summer... and even in the pain and mixed emotions, finding joy in the Lord and resting in the consistency of his presence and love regardless of where I’m at.

Beautiful and Passionate Grace

The past few weeks of Ocean City Summer Project ’12 have been wonderfully unique. It’s like I’m home when I walk up to the Ambassador’s Inn (where we all live), and I feel that I’ve known this group of people my whole life. Work is becoming routine, I feel comfortable there and enjoy my job. My coworkers are now actually friends - they open up to me about their lives and listen when I talk about mine. The weather finally broke today after a massive heat wave, and so the temperature feels perfect. I am in this beautiful place of finding joy and peace in the routine.

Ironically enough, this is the point where it all changes. This is the week that the staff leave and go home, and we’ve all been assigned jobs for the project. Just as I felt so comfortable, the Lord shakes it up.

The job position I’ve been given is going to stretch me beyond where I’ve been stretched before. And my prayer is that these marks will never go away. I’m in a place of leadership - spiritually and physically - over the project, and that terrifies me. As I think and plan with the other men and women on the leadership team, our individual and collective feeling is that we are incredibly humbled and inadequate. If we attempt to lead of our own strength and power and wisdom, we will epicly fail. However, if we are relying on the Lord for strength and wisdom, and resting in him, then he will succeed through us. I am really excited to pour my heart into the last month of this trip and truly be transformed by the Holy Spirit, growing in valuable life skills and being stretched as an individual.

(Our Impact group got real when it came to Softball. So fun.)

The community here is rich. It does not come easy, but through casting our eyes on Christ, being vulnerable and humble, and practicing confession with each other we are experiencing God’s grace and truth in a real and tangible way. The reality that this community will only last a couple more weeks in the state of New Jersey saddens my heart, but excites me to continue the vulnerability, humility, and confession with my relationships at home and at school.

I feel like I am being set free to embrace the person that God created me to be, and to find my identity and very life in Christ alone. The reality of leaving here is striking me, but rather than cling to this place like it is what’s bringing me joy and life, I am praying to cling to Christ because he is truly what brings me joy and life. This is a sweet time in my life that I’ll always remember, but Christ is who will stay with me for the rest of eternity. If my eyes remain on him, then pouring myself out over the next four weeks and drinking deeply from the community that will end will not be sad or exhausting. Instead, it is a blessing that I’m here, and the true lessons and heart changes I will experience and realize most once I do leave.

(I found another Gamma Phi Beta- Northwestern! Krysta is wonderful, and I am so blessed by her amazing and true friendship.)

So that’s where I’m at currently, I feel overwhelmed by God’s grace as I am being made more and more aware of my sin and how hard I really do fail. But that only makes the forgiveness so much sweeter. Thanks so much for reading this, I pray that my willingness to be vulnerable will continue and grow (and be reciprocated!)

Love,

Laney

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deut 6:4-5

Giant Fears < Giant God

Facing the Giants. That’s the theme of this week for us in Ocean City. Facing and conquering the giants of fear in our lives that prevent us from living fully and radically for the gospel. On Saturday night each one of us reflected on what we’re most afraid of in evangelism and made goals for attacking those fears. For many people, their ‘giant’ so to speak is sharing the gospel with specific family members. For others it’s sharing with people of a different ethnicity, a large group of people, co-workers, friends from home, and many more. Our goal this week is to break down that giant of fear. In addition, we each set a number goal for how many spiritual and gospel conversations we want to have by the end of the week. The group’s collective goal is to have 4,271 conversations by Saturday night.

Personally, my goal was to lead 30 spiritual conversations on the boardwalk and at work. I’m almost at my goal with a couple days to spare, and am feeling tired but so excited to leave it all on the court. When I went out sharing on Wednesday afternoon I was just feeling exhausted. I didn’t want to be listening to people’s perspective on life who didn’t even want to be talking to me, and it was so incredibly hot and humid. I wasn’t feeling it, and I had plans to go out sharing for a few more hours with my discipler. What ended up happening was that my discipler and I approached a group of three girls and went through the survey of what they think about life and purpose, and I proceeded to lead them through a pamphlet called the “Knowing God Personally” booklet that presents the gospel clearly and concisely. They believed and wanted a relationship with Jesus, and actually prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and savior. And on Tuesday afternoon, two girls prayed to receive Christ with me and my friend, Bronwyn, as well. At work 2 hours ago, my friend Krysta brought a girl from China (named Casey) to Christ with the KGP as well. It’s insane to see the excitement these people have had about the decision they made, and to know that God has an amazing plan for their life and for their relationship with him.



(This is my action group!)

A Bible verse that is striking my heart this week is 2 Corinthians 12:9 when Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and Paul claimed, “therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” This week I have felt more incapable, exhausted, sinful, unintelligent and not knowledgable than I have felt in a long time. Yet God is using each one of us in eternal ways. I don’t deserve to play a role in God bringing someone into a relationship with him, but he has allowed me to. I don’t deserve to have a relationship with him, but thank God that he allows me to!

Honestly, I’m feeling blown away by God’s grace and depth. This week has been so powerful- seeing God change hearts and open souls to eternity is insane. There really is power in the name of Jesus, and I am so excited and encouraged to surrender all to him and watch how his power is made perfect in the weak and sinful and pathetic human that I am.

We have a wall in the Family Room where we post a "brick" (red paper with name on it) of the people who made a decision to follow Christ this week, and that wall is growing like wildfire! Check it out :).

The Best Kind of Pie

I pride myself in my responsibility: that I am always early, I get things done, I don’t lose or break things. However, in the past two weeks I have had two fat slices of humble pie, and God is teaching me a lot through them.

The 28th of May was an exciting day, I packed and prepared to take off for Ocean City, NJ, and got to the airport around 7pm for my 9:55pm flight. When I met my traveling companions at the airport, we were all super excited! We were getting to know each other and hanging out. Our flight was to board from gate 33B, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. However, little did we know that in gate 33A there was another flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to take off at 10:15pm. The only difference was that ours was with Spirit Airlines, and the other was JetBlue. Mind you, they were both labeled JetBlue... Confusing in itself. Anyway, what ended up happening was that we thought that our flight was delayed 20 minutes because Spirit didn’t have clear flight postings, and we got in line for the wrong flight. When we got to the front, they informed us that we were in the wrong line, and the rest is history. We had to come back the next night for the same exact flight, 24 hours later.

My next incident happened on Thursday night. After our weekly meeting here in Ocean City, NJ. There were $1 rides at the carnival place on the boardwalk. It had been raining hard earlier that day, and so the ground was still wet. Some friends and I decided to go on the Log Ride, similar to the one at Knotts’ but WAY smaller. In the big splash at the end of the ride I got a bit drenched, and my purse was in the line of fire. I found out a few minutes later that my phone and iPod and all of my papers were quite wet and dysfunctional. I went to the AT&T store the next day and got a $20 phone - no email, internet, camera, or contacts! Super humbling. Also, the rainy day is pictured below!

What I’m learning through these incidents is that I am definitely not in control, and when I try to be I still fail. Yet in these lessons it is easy to forget that the lesson of being conscientious and aware is still extremely important. It’s embarrassing to mess up so many times in such preventable ways.

On a lighter note, I started work at Superfresh in the Produce department, and according to my co-worker, Chris, I’m a natural at cutting and presenting vegetables. So, Mom, all those days of helping you in the kitchen have paid off! I make beautiful chopped vegetable dishes :).

I made it to Ocean City, NJ! Today is the one week anniversary of Kelvin, Kim, and my arrival to the beautiful Jersey Shore. We actually got to Jersey a day late because we missed our flight and had to take off a little late... long and tragic story, but feel free to ask and I’ll fill you in on the details! However, we’re here and so thankful that God has given us the opportunity to come.

The first week consisted of training in sharing the gospel, multiple opportunities to go out sharing on the boardwalk, job searching and starting them, and getting to know each other and build a community. Already I feel at home here, surrounded by people who genuinely want to know me and my heart.

The authenticity of the people here is so incredible and beautiful. Sharing our testimonies over dinner is commonplace, and going out sharing for fun is natural. My own testimony - which will come later - rests on the idea of being a slave to fear and insecurity. The first few days here I definitely wrestled with these and compared myself to the other people here, feeling like I wasn’t enough and wasn’t up to par. However, in facing this head on and admitting my sin of comparison and judgment, God is working in my heart and showing me the beautiful and unique qualities of each person here. Instead of being jealous of the awesome characteristics of the other students here, I am able to appreciate them and rejoice over God’s goodness and creativity in making us all different and unique.

Putting my brokenness aside and focusing on Jesus Christ - the reason I’m here - is so incredibly freeing and purposeful. I feel full of life and I’m so excited to continue this journey over the summer. Already over 7 people have accepted Christ as their savior, and it’s only been a week! Praise the Lord!

Thank you for your prayers and for your support. And for reading this! I'm so excited to see what God has in store for us all this summer, and can't believe I'm actually in New Jersey! So rad.