Mission Austin

Last semester the Forge was assigned to plan and execute their own evangelistic mission trip for this February. A few weeks ago we finished the task with a trip down to Austin, TX. We started out in the St. John's Neighborhood, one of the poorest in Austin, with a 5th Quarter event at Reagan High School. RHS has recently started an FCA program, and so we helped jump-start their name on campus with this event. We played basketball, volleyball, had root Beer floats, and most importantly, heard the gospel. Stephen, one of the Forge students, shared his testimony that was similar to where a lot of the students were coming from. The FCA sponsors were amazed that he had 70 Reagan students sit still and listen to this white kid from Tyler share his story.
The next day was Saturday and we spent the day in Zilker Park walking around, talking to people, and sharing the gospel. I went with John and we talked to a Jewish guy and a girl who grew up methodist, but was no longer following the Lord. We got to have a really good apologetics discussion.
Sunday morning we went to Church Under the Bridge, hosted my Mission Possible. It's a ministry to the homeless that provides a church service, food, clothing and other supplies every Sunday. It's acutally held underneath an overpass, hence the name.
We also got to partner with Apartment Life Ministries. It's a married couple or a team of two people who live in an apartment complex, with no rent, and in exchange they plan community events and invest in the lives of the residents (almost like R.A.'s in college). In the morning we helped them pass out muffins and juice to residents hurrying off to work and in the evening we mingled with them over a baked potato dinner. I really connected with some of the residents and saw myself doing a ministry like this in the future.
Finally, we partnered with Hill Country Bible Church. They have 14 church plants in Austin, and have a vision of reaching all of Austin in the near future. We teamed up with some church planters and did survey work in communities where churches were in the preliminary stages. I really enjoy learning about how a church plant works, especially that they go out and build up the church by evangelizing the community (they don't want people just switch churches, they want more people to know Christ!).
It was a really neat trip, and I definitely learned a lot. I don't see myself being involved in most of what we did, but it was cool to see how God had brought us to Austin to give a lot of the Forge students a heart for the city. Over half of the students have been considering moving there post-Forge and becoming a missional community, possibly partnering with a new church plant. What a cool way to see the Forge community last long after the program has ended!
Until next time, grace and peace.

Audio Bibles

One of our assignments for the Forge is to have read/listened to the entire bible by our Graduation date. Since I have about a 10 hour drive from KS to TX, Matt suggested putting an audio bible on my Ipod. Well, I'm also pretty frugal and don't want to spend $40 on one. With my excellent Google skills, I found this website that publishes the New Testament for free! (As a result, I'm almost finished with the NT!) Enjoy.



Dream Job!!!

On the fateful day of December 17th, my dreams met reality.

I've always dreamed of being an engineer (well, once I realized that I couldn't be a ballerina), but as I got older I struggled with seeing how that would relate with my heart to help others with my gifts. I wanted to live missionally, and after praying for months I felt God telling me to be an engineer that uses her skills to build up ministries for little to no pay. I'd never heard of anyone doing that, and was rather timid in talking about that dream with people--it sounds sort of radical.

Anyway, back to December 17th. Two men from Missionary Tech were at Pine Cove, helping them with future planning. One was an architect, and the other... a mechanical engineer! After talking with them, I realized that the M.E. works three days a week in consulting and volunteers two days a week with Missionary Tech. They were excited to discuss future partnerships... a possible internship in the future. Who knows!?

I just want to encourage whoever's reading that God does not put dreams in our hearts that are impossible. He knew from the beginning of time that all of these things would take place. In fact, He knows what my future with this company will be also. And I'm SO EXCITED!

Forge Q and A

Was it all you expected it to be?
The Forge has exceeded my expectations and God has shown me that his plans are so much bigger my own. I expected to learn new things about myself and to gain more knowledge about scripture and leadership, but I had no idea what it meant to take eight months and go through an intense discipleship program. I expected living in community would be stretching, but I didn’t realize how stretching living with fifteen people that I didn’t choose to live with actually would be. The Forge is tough, because God uses it to refine. “These [trials] have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes event though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7

What do you do each day?
Most mornings begin with P2 (prayer and physical training). Then we have class in the mornings and some afternoons. These include Theology, Life 101, Nehemiah (Leadership Principles), Inductive Bible Study, and several others. We also have weekly speakers who give lectures. Each speaker is so different, and yet there’s always something to be learned from them—especially in our Q&A time! Most evenings we have some free time to work on assignments, visit our host families, or have Forge family dinners. However, no two days are the same. Flexibility is a big part of the program.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned?
This semester has been spent answering the question, “who are you?” In our Sanctus class, we learned the different components of identity including character and temperament, genetics and history, and foundation. We took the Myers-Briggs temperament analysis and we’re also doing a leadership styles class. I was surprised at how accurate these assessments were, and how helpful they’ve been in understanding myself and the group dynamics. A definition of maturity is “knowing oneself,” and I think that someone who does not know themselves cannot be a good leader. If you don’t know how you’re made, you certainly don’t know what you’re made for. I don’t want to be a pencil trying to paint a masterpiece. It has been eye-opening for me to see how God has uniquely made me, and I’m looking forward to next semester where we will start to answer “why are you here?”

What are your weekends like?
Six weekends each semester we work conferences or retreats at one of Pine Cove’s camps in Tyler. This helps us apply what we’ve learned during the week to our weekends; it also helps offset the cost of the program and build close relationships with Pine Cove’s awesome resident staff. I have done everything from work crew in the dining hall to leading the four and five year olds program to speaking to the high school age campers, and it required a lot of flexibility. Then, the weekends where we don’t work, we are free to do whatever we like as long as we’re back for class on Monday.

What’s been the most challenging part of the program?
One of the most challenging things for me was my Forge director week. Each student has the opportunity to be the Forge director for one week during the program. This student has all of the responsibilities of the Forge director, including taking care of our speaker (arrival and their stay with us), scheduling of classes, and planning any special events for the week. I have found that my personality is much different from most of the students in the program, so it was difficult for me to lead them. There were tasks that I knew needed to get done, but I had to find a way to make them fun and exciting for the group.

Are you finished fundraising?
I am not completely finished, but have $1,163 left for the program. I am confident that God will provide for this remaining portion of tuition costs. I also want to thank those of you who are supporting me. God has abundantly and overwhelmingly provided for me thus far!

There's No Place Like Home

On my trip back to OZ (Kansas) from Texas, I took a little detour through Killeen, TX, to see my biological mother. We hit up two Christmas parties with my half-sister Lauren (yes, we have the same name), we baked triple chocolate cookies, and we played a few board games.

I got back to Kansas on Monday evening to be greeted by mom, dad, Eli, Lainie, and Justice (my 2 year old nephew). Tuesday, Wednesday, and even Thursday I got to hang out with Nathan before he left for a basketball game in Washington state. We'll finish up the weekend with mom's birthday and the beginning of next week I'll head back to Tyler, TX, for the Woods New Year's Conference. It will be a fun road trip with Chamelionare, Cold Call, Happy Feet, Evadar, and Evadar's sister (yet to be named), all packed in HF's family's Denali.

Then my 21st birthday is on January 4th. So far only two celebrations planned, but I'm guessing there'll be one more. Birthdays are always a big deal.

Well, that's all for now.