missing today!

my brother is moving into the dorms today and its really hard sitting here in this thunderstorm (literally) by myself just wishing i was with him and my family today... maybe its silly but this is something that i have been praying for, for a long time and something that i will continue to pray fervently for!!! the Lord knows ALL about it and i am forever grateful!! i hope jake knows how proud i am of him!! i love him so much!!



'til I see You
the greatest love that anyone could ever know
it overcame the cross and grave to find my soul
until i see you face to face and grace amazing take me home
ill trust in You

with all i am i live to see your kingdom come
and in my heart i pray you'll let your will be done
until i see you face to face and grace amazing take me home
ill trust in You

i will live to love You
i will live to bring You praise
i will live a child in awe of You

You are the voice that calls the universe to be
You are the whisper in my heart that speaks to me
until i see you face to face and grace amazing take me home
ill trust in You

i will live to love You
i will live to bring You praise
i will live a child in awe of You
i will live to love You
i will live to bring You praise
i will live a child in awe of You

You alone are God of all
You alone are worthy Lord
And with all i am my soul will bless Your name

-Hillsong

Wow!

So about a month ago, there was about 10 consecutive days where this married couple kept coming to my mind right before I would go to bed. So I would pray for them and then go to sleep. I had NO CLUE why the Lord was bringing these 2 random people to my mind. I don't have regular contact with them and I really didn't even know what to pray or why I was praying for them, but I just kept praying for protection over them! So it stopped for a few nights and then they came to my mind again one night when I was trying to go to sleep. So I decided to get up and send them an email and tell them they were on my heart and I was praying for them and had no idea why... I sent it and went to sleep and didn't really think about it again until yesterday when I got an email from the wife telling me that the reason she hadn't written back until now was because she was waiting for her results back from a breast biopsy! She had breast cancer a couple years ago, so she assumed that the test would come back saying she had cancer again BUT Praise the Almighty God, it was benign!!! Wow!! I am pretty much speechless in my awe for how the Holy Spirit works!! Thank you Lord that she is okay! :)

gone

brooke and johnny just left for kids camp an hour ago and i am all alone for the next week... i have spent the past hour talking to stephen and its been great catching up with him!! i am listening to the one and only kris allen!!! i have church in 30 minutes... i cant decide if i should walk or ride a bike... i think ill take the bike... it just sucks riding it back up the hill :) maybe i will blog more this week since i will be alone more... but i am trying to be really intentional with meeting girls for coffee and making plans!! so i think im going to the pool tomorrow and grabbing ice cream or something with maja and hopefully meeting up with dasa tomorrow or friday!! i think i may try to cut my bangs by myself tonight... a little scary but what do ya do!? well... more to come im sure!

happy birthday johnny!!!

happy birthday dad!!

This my dad!! He was born August 12, 1956. I am really thankful for him! He is a huge support in my life...I love that I can talk to him about everything!! I like asking his advice and asking his perspective on things, even though I may not always agree :) We still love each other!! He is not perfect and neither am I! Thank goodness WE have a Father that is perfect!! Thank you Lord, for giving me my dad!! He is a blessing from YOU!!
My dad's love for me has given me a great picture of the way my Heavenly Father loves me! I know that a girls father affects her in so many ways and I am truly blessed to say my dad did a great job in raising me! We have a very special relationship and I hope he feels so loved this day, along with every other day! I miss him a lot today and I wish I could be with him! But the Lord has given me a great opportunity to serve Him in Slovenia and I am thankful and wouldn't change it for anything!!! I know its a sacrifice for you, too, that I am here. Thank you for your support!! Thank you for raising me in the way of the Lord!! I love you DAD!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12:36 am

I can't sleep.
I need a hair cut.
I saw The Proposal tonight and laughed kind of a lot for some reason...
I want to see Funny People and 500 days of Summer.
My blogs are always way too serious.
And I still am procrastinating updating about the 2 weeks I was gone because there is simply too much to share and I don't know how to get in words so I'm just not doing it... I mean how do I blog about 2 weeks of learning about the N.T., the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, spiritual gifts, and growing and experiencing my first bit of culture shock and spending the day completely alone in the mountains talking to God... ahhh there is so much! I am overwhelmed...
I love the book I am reading right now so much that I am reading it slow because I don't want it to be over, but you would think if someone loved a book they would read it as fast as they could... I am weird. (oh the book is called An Echo in the Darkness, its a part of a trilogy called Mark of the Lion by Francine Rivers and its freaking awesome!!!!)
I keep wondering what I should do in December even though its months away.
I am learning to feel content and its a great thing!
However, sometimes I miss my family and friends so much that my heart hurts.
Johnny, Brooke, and I ran up to the castle this morning... it kicked my butt! 20 minutes of uphill... but we did it!
I love falling asleep when there are things going on around me, like I did yesterday and today. Johnny was working on pics and Brooke and I were reading on separate couches and there was great music playing. And then I fell asleep. Like my favorite thing ever is falling asleep, next to my dad, on the couch, during football season, on a Sunday afternoon, after a big meal! (that was a lot of prepositions :)
I HATE having to get up in the middle of the night to go pee! But sometimes its nice to be like 'ahhh, I still have four hours to sleep'
Now its 12:52 am and I need to pee. And then I am going to try to go to sleep!
NIGHTERS!!!

This is in Bohinj, Slovenia and I wanted to share it with you because I think its BEAUTIFUL and so are YOU :)

8.2.09

(I didn't have internet when I wrote this but I had to get it out so I typed it and wanted to share it)

8.2.09- rough morning… I just spent about 30 min in the bathroom crying… just really missing family and friends that KNOW me… its been so hard being here with people who I feel like I am a stranger to. Just really just missing home today!

Later that day ☺ I went for a walk and wrestled with God a bit… (Which is a really cool picture that someone shared with me and I’ll share it with you. When you are wrestling with someone you have to be close to him or her. You can’t wrestle from across the room. So I just have this picture of being really close with the Lord. But just remember that HE always wins ☺) But I was just feeling frustrated… and asking God if YOU are enough for me, then why don’t I feel like you are and just feeling kind of angry… Like He says in His Word He is enough and people say that and I have experienced that and I can tell people about it, BUT at that moment, I felt nothing.

(God wants to put you in a place where you can hear and see Him the best and I think that is what He was doing because He had my full attention that day :) I think I experienced that first hand this day)

So then we went to our 430 class and Hondo talked about how our feelings are not an accurate guide to reality. That is why God gave us THE BOOK… Its ALWAYS TRUE and it never changes, the way our feelings do. If there was a purpose of Jesus suffering (which its CLEAR that there was and is) then maybe just maybe there is a purpose in ours! There’s a purpose in the midst of your sufferings!!!!!!

If you don’t tell the Lord what you are struggling with then how can you let the Holy Spirit comfort you? And if you don’t tell people that something is wrong then how can they know how to comfort you? I HATE that we all wear masks. I mean I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like I am supposed to always have it together. And let’s just get honest! I DON’T!! Maybe there is a fear in telling people you need something because you are afraid of rejection or their reaction. There is something that I long so deeply to be known by people, why don’t I feel like its enough to be known by God because he knows me in a way no else does because he created me… Then when Ana and I met for our Gospel Buddy time, the Lord divinely put us together for that moment of sharing in suffering and sadness and exhaustion and taking off our masks together and just getting it out through our tears!

That night we had a camp fire and I shared and because I shared others were able to comfort me and put their arm around me as a SOBBED!! Thanks John☺ And Matt hugging me and saying, “I’ve been there and I feel your pain”. And Trisha being a great listener and understanding the struggle with basically being a baby again because we are illiterate and can’t do anything on our own!!! So it was a pretty cool day… really hard but really encouraging at the same time.

So I got to debrief this day with Brooke a few days ago and she was just like 'sara, if you don't tell people your story, they can't know you'. So really if I want people to know me, I have to tell them and let them in. Hmmm... sit on that for awhile :)

Bohinj and debrief!

(I typed up this blog July 28th and I will put pics up on Facebook)

I went to Intern Debrief with the summer interns that were in Slovenia and I found out Tuesday night that I was going to and we left Wednesday and came back late Thursday! (July 22-23) I didn’t think that I would be a part of that because I am not a summer intern and I wasn’t with the summer interns all summer, except the first 10 days I was here because we had the amazing race and training together. And they were now all going home! I am starting to have a complex because I am in my own category pretty much everywhere I go… haha… (that is something I debriefed about during our time)

But it was an awesome time for me! We went to Bohinj (which is absolutely one of the most beautiful places ever) and stayed at this farmhouse b&b! It was so cute and nice! We went up on this gondola thing and spent some alone time at the top of this mountain reflecting on the summer. It was a really good time for me to be quiet and just think. When we were done, we went to dinner at this restaurant and just sat around all evening and told stories, just laughing and enjoying rest! When we got back to the b&b, we played a long but fun game of phase 10! The next morning we got up and had breakfast and then debriefed the summer for the next 3 hours! It was really cool to see what God had done in their lives! I shared last and basically cried the whole time. Oh well! HA! So we left and went to lunch and the rest of the day, swam in the clearest, most FREEZING cold water ever. The kind that takes your breath away when come up! Oh and finished our game of phase 10! It was a beautiful couple days! I came home late Thursday night and crashed.

Friday, got up early and went to a water park with the students from high school camp! It was so good to see them! We played hard and I got lots of water up my nose☺ Then got home and packed and Johnny and I left for Kriz, which is held at a place called Kranjskja Gora, around 6. (KRIZ will be my next blog) Needless to say, at this point IM STILL EXHAUSTED!!! It is seriously go, go, go, non-stop!

But I would love to share some of what I shared at intern debrief about some feelings and things God has taught me this summer because I believe that the Lord works through our vulnerability and authenticity. So here I go! One struggle I’ve had recently is ‘my place here’. I feel like everyone has had a specific role and I’ve just kinda been wherever. ESI (extended summer intern) is just kinda a weird position. I feel incredibly blessed to be here. Like most times when I look outside, I’m like, ‘is this seriously my life right now?’ I really am trying to soak up every up every single second! I'm really not sure how to put into words whats inside. Right now the only concrete things that I can say that the Lord is teaching me is DIE TO SELF and LOVE even when you feel like you can’t. I have had so many moments (like right now) that I feel very alone. There is NO ONE else in the same position as me and having someone to relate to right now would be really nice, but I think it’s a part of what God wants to teach me.

So a short summary of things I shared:

• No one else is in the exact same position as me/ feeling out of place at times, yet know this is where God has called
• Still learning from things that were taught at intern training
• How powerful my prayer time was with J and B and how the Lord is still using that
• Camp exhaustion and being homesick
• Dying to self
• Am I fully surrendered?
• This waiting position I'm in and trusting the Lord provide

After I shared, David gave me a really encouraging way to look at being away from my family! We are a lot alike, in that we are wired for family, and he said that he looks at it like its his tithe or his offering. Kind of like a drink offering, it doesn’t burn or smell and it doesn’t make smoke, its pretty much invisible. No one else sees it but the Lord and it is PRECIOUS to Him! So I have a great new perspective on how to look at feeling homesick! Thank you Lord!!!

camp #2

So Monday (the 13th) we went and picked up another team of 7 and they were from Washington! So we had two teams here at once. So we, Johnny, Brooke and I, were doing debriefing with one team and orientation with another team! So we made it through that, and the TN team left early Wednesday (July 15th) morning and then we started our Jr. High Day Camp at 10am and went until about 10:30pm and did that until Saturday! I was relieved about this camp because I was not going to be in charge of teaching or leading a small group, I was just going to be in charge of the late night’s and I was so excited about that! Well I think the KEY to missions is a little thing called FLEXIBILTY!!!!!!!!!! So Brooke and I ended up teaching, but it was good. We had two really sweet girls!! We only had 5 students show up, so it was really small but I think it was a success. This was the first time to do a Jr. High camp, in Celje, so it was the ground-breaking work! ☺
The day camps look a little different. We started around 9 getting stuff ready and the kids came at 10! We would literally play games with them for 2 and a half hours and then go get lunch together. We would teach English from 2-5 and then have an activity for them that went with the theme for the day! Then have dinner, our discussion time, and our late night activity! Then they would go home around 9:30 pm and we would clean up and go home! Fun, but exhausting!!!!!!!!!
OH and how could I forget? For both camps, Brooke and I taught the theme song every night! It was “Wake up, Wake up” by Everyday Sunday! The dance was awesome! Good times! We laughed a lot!
So that camp ended Saturday night! Sunday we had church and a beautiful afternoon of rest!!!! Oh how Sundays afternoons and evenings are becoming my favorite time of the week ☺ Tuesday we went and visited a school that one of the moms from one of the kids from the Jr. High camp, works at, if that makes sense. It was a horticulture school. So she gave us a tour of the place and it was really interesting and then she taught us all how to make bouquets of flowers. I know now that that is not a gift of mine!! After we were done with that, we took a couple kids to the pool and hung out with them for awhile. That night we debriefed with the team and went for ice cream. A packed but fun day!

These were plums that were so so yummy!! Brooke and I picked and ate a lot :)
Learning how to make a bouquet. There is a great reason why I should never work with flowers :) Mine was terrible but it was fun!! But the tiny baby spiders that were crawling everywhere were not so fun :)

here we go!!

A team of 12 from Nashville, Tennessee got here July 3! The got here safely with NOT ONE PIECE OF LUGGAGE and didn’t get their luggage for FIVE days but were troopers about it!! They were and are AWESOME!! I quickly begin to feel like I had known some of them my whole life, Kirby, Jenn, and Paige!! I miss them already! So we did orientation with the team for 2 days and then loaded up a bus and went to camp, 16 students, the team of 12, 4 translators, 5 JV staff members, and the pastor and his wife. So total I think there were 39 of us!

So a typical day at camp looks like this:
8: Breakfast and we sing a song before every meal!
9-12:30: English class until with a 15 minute break in between and every other day the second half of class was a workshop of some sort… ex, cooking, knitting, photography, beading, etc… I had a class of 3 girls, Karmen, Maja, and Petra. Kirby was my helper and Polona was my translator! ☺
1: lunch
1:45-3:30: games where we were split into colors and teams (My team was blue and we won the overall games!!)
3:30-5:30: free time
5:30: a mixer game
6: dinner
7: evening program where we sang fun songs and then went through the story of God, starting with the fall of Lucifer all the way to the church today. So Johnny would tell the story and Andre would translate. (They did an INCREDIBLE job btw!) So we started with the Fall of Lucifer and demons, then creation, then the fall of man, Noah, Abraham, Moses, kings and prophets, birth, life, and death of Jesus, resurrection and church. Then talked about how we can join and be apart of this story. I CAN’T STRESS enough the power of the Spirit moving in these students and in ME. We saw kids the first day of camp say that they don’t like to talk about God to fully engaging to the story by the end of the week!! And ONLY by the power of the Holy Spirit!! And its because the story of God is ALIVE AND ACTIVE!! I think we so often forget the power of Scripture!
Then whenever we were done with discussing the story we would have a late night theme party! So we did like game night, 1950’s night, Asian night, bunko night (I was partners with Petra and we WON the whole thing but only because she was throwing bunkos like crazy!, movie night, coffee night, and Slovenia’s Got Talent! All were fun!

If I can have a moment of real honesty… By God’s grace alone did I survive that week of my life. We left on Sunday the 5th and came home late Saturday (the 11th) night and then had church Sunday (where 9 of the 16 students showed up!!!) and an follow up picnic with them (where 3 more came!!) When I was at camp, I was out of my comfort zone in every way. I was a teacher and leading a discussion group, living, eating, and breathing with 39 other people for 7 days, so basically just on 24/7, LITERALLY. And feeling this FALSE responsibility that I shouldn’t have felt, but I did. So when I finally got to take a breath later that afternoon when we got home, I lost it!! I cried and cried! I have never felt more exhausted in every way, spiritually, mentally, and physically! And it was the first time that I felt SO homesick. So I called my dad just crying from exhaustion and really missing family and friends! So I got a little time to rest that afternoon and evening and the Lord truly allowed those few hours to be enough to get me through the next week…

Also and most importantly, one of the students accepted Christ! There were lots of steps made!! Praise the Lord!! I am SOOOO excited to see what these next few months hold with the relationships that I have made!

Hopefully soon I will have some pictures up on facebook!