Friday night (7/19), Trinity Baptist put on an open mic night in which people could sign up to perform. We had several people from project go up to show off their talents -- singing, playing piano, bagpipes, and even slam poetry. It was amazing to sit back and notice how much talent God has given us and how awesome it is that we choose to utilize it.
Saturday included discipleship with my roommate and discipler, Janee, sharing with my friend Ryan, and a SMSP Olympics event at night. To fill a day with growing in Christ, doing His work, and experiencing Christian community is always something I will love. Sunday we spent our outreach time serving ACTS church, a different church that uses the same building as Trinity Baptist. We went door to door asking people to fill out demographics surveys so that ACTS would begin to know how to reach the community. It was cool to spend outreach time building God's kingdom in a different way -- through the church.
As always, the weekdays fly by. Well, I guess the days themselves seem to be dreadfully long, but at the end of the day I am always surprised to notice how quickly this project is coming to an end. This past week our theme has been God's love for us. We looked through several different pieces of scripture but focused on Romans 8:31-39 (if you haven't read it, I encourage you to look through it and meditate on it -- it's a great passage!). In Bible study on Tuesday, we talked about how God's love is sovereign, great, abiding, unfailing, unalienable, constraining, and everlasting. Before this week, I never really took the time to pay attention to all the different qualities of God's love, so it has been cool to see how God has worked in my heart through that.
Thursday night we had another community event -- Tacky Prom. We all dressed in thrifty outfits and enjoyed a night of dancing with fellow friends and just enjoying our community. I am going to miss everyone when project ends!
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| Boy do we know how to do thrifty. |
As the days and weeks fly by, it's easy to let work get the best of me. I have been continually tired from everything going on, but I truly believe that God has given me energy each and every day to engage with children at work and still have the energy to enjoy my fellow college students at night. I have also loved building relationships with coworkers! As always, Tuesday night volleyball is a blast. It is so fun to hang out with fellow workers in a normal environment. Also, I got the chance to go to a friend's house from work on Saturday night for dinner, dessert, and hot tub time. It's always refreshing to make new friends and it has been so cool getting to know her! Ahhh I just love building relationships so much.
And finally to talk about this past weekend! Yesterday (Saturday) 20 of us went on a prayer hike to the Hollywood sign. We hiked up enjoying the scenery and talking with friends, and once we were up at the top, we spent an hour in prayer over whatever was on our hearts. Prayer does amazing things and I was totally convicted during the prayer time of how little I pray and how I need to be more serious about it. We prayed for project, for Santa Monica, for our workplaces, and much more. God does hear our prayers and I want to believe that to the point of actually praying continually.
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in al circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
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| My roommates and I above the Hollywood sign. |
Today we spent outreach doing a spirituality survey. Although all the conversations I had were not super deep, I know of one person that accepted Christ through a conversation and several believers who took our survey and rededicated their lives to Christ. God is changing hearts here in Santa Monica and I am continually amazed!
Regarding the rest of project
There are only 12 days left of project and I am not quite sure what emotions to feel! On one hand, I have loved the opportunity to grow and learn in a loving community such as this one, but on the other hand, I am super excited to see what God has in store for me with my second year at APU, and I am anxious to get started there. I want these last 12 days here to be the most life-changing. I want to wake up every morning surrendering myself to God so that He can use me at work and in Santa Monica. I want to enjoy my time with the friends I have here before we will be separated. I want to invest all of my time into this community and the city of Santa Monica and I want to leave this project with no regrets of how I spent my summer.
After project ends, I know there will be a period of sadness and mourning over the ending of such a wonderful community. However, because I am anticipating this, I am prepared to pray fervently and faithfully for a continued heart for God. I will be praying that God keeps my mind from wandering and slipping back into old ways of living my life the way I want to live it rather than how God wants me to live it.
Prayer Requests:
- a girl on project (Taylor) got a concussion earlier this week from a frisbee. Pray for continued healing
- for those who have prayed to receive Christ so far on project. Pray for a continued curiosity and for God to reveal Himself to them in mighty ways
- for Post Project Depression (PPD) --> it has a name and initials because it is a very real thing. Going from a large community back to nothing (before school starts) will be very difficult
- for perseverance in these last two weeks. God will use us up until the day we leave, but we need to be open to listening to His will
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