(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.)
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