Križ

It's been a while since my last update so this one will probably be a long one.. so many things happened!

So, we went to Križ on July 23rd. Got together at Hondo and Trisha's house, packed the van and hit the road! This was my first year at Križ (btw, Križ means K - Kristus, R - Resnica, I - Integriteta, Ž - Življenje; in English, Christ, Truth, Integrity and Life) so I had no idea what to expect. We came up there and went to our rooms which were clean of spiders + bugs (thank you, interns!) but there were still some of them so Stephanie took care of those for me. Ha, scary creatures with too many legs!
First evening was nothing special. We hang out in out Coffee church and Gasper was our waiter - he did a great job! We played games, drank coffee and tea and.. it was nice.
The next morning classes began. John McMurray was teaching us John, Josh was teaching us Ephesians and Hondo was teaching us, beginers, about the first steps of Bible study methods.
It took me 6 days, I think, to get what we were doing altogether. What we learned with Hondo (theory), we used with John.
It was kinda hard for me to get used to different teachers, especially John because I've never been in his class before and I had no idea what was his way of teaching (asking a lot of questions - which is great!) and I knew Josh and Hondo before so that wasn't that difficult to get used to.
We've been learning through the whole Križ.. not just about John, Ephesians and Bible study methods but also about life and especially about God!
He prepared me even more for College; I lived in a room with 4 other girls, didn't have a lot of peace because there was just so many of us (so I got up at 6.30 every morning, took a shower and had a quiet time) and we lived together for 12 days which is not always easy. I learned how to put away my pride (that doesn't mean it's easy to do it!), how to be patient and I learned everything's not (always) about me.
When we were going through John, we started with the Prologue and found out why John wanted us to read his book + what he wanted to teach us through his book. We read miracles that Jesus did and from every miracle, we learned something about God.
The thing that John wanted us to get is that if we know God, we can have a relationship with Him and the relationship is the key to the eternal life. We learned God loves us just for us, not because we read our Bibles or do good works or are nice to people.. nope. He loves every person in the world, no matter who they are, where they live, how old they are.. Isn't that great?!? :)
We learned a lot more in John - ask me in person and I'll tell you what ;)
We went through Ephesians with Josh (and Andrej Lovše)..
Ephesians have 6 chapters; first 3 chapters talk about WHY we should become Christians and the second 3 chapters talk about HOW to become Christians. It's such a great book!
We learned who we are in Christ:
- blessed
- chosen
- holy
- blameless
- predestined
- adopted
- redeemed
- forgiven
- included in Christ
- sealed (with the Holy Spirit)
- in God's possession
AND we are all of those things because of God's grace!
We learned who+where we were before and who+where we are now and we learned our only responsibility is to believe + receive!
We talked about comparisons, competition, insecurity (Josh used the example of the ladder - don't climb, get of the ladder).. this is one of the things that I do. I think a lot of us compare to other people and it's wrong but it's a proccess to get that you don't have to compare yourself to other people because you're so unique and special in Christ and the gifts that He gave us are maybe not the same that other people have but He gave us those gifts with a purpose and He's gonna use us for different + special things!
Andrej talked about unity - we are one in Christ and we have to be humble+gentle, patient+bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2) AND we have to be one! He talked about our old clothes and new clothes - we really have to get rid of the old ones! We talked about the spiritual battle (he called it war) and what kind of armor and shield we have (Ephesians 6:10)
We also talked about wives+husbands and children+fathers. This subject was kind of hard for me.. is was interesting hearing about wives + husbands and pretty hard when we got the the "father" part. Andrej asked us questions: did your dad took you to the park when you were a kid? Did he read you a fairytale for a good night? Did he ask you how's your school when you got home? Did he took care of the finances in your house? .. and then he said this kind of father should a Biblical father be.
I was shocked! My dad did all of those things! And then I asked myself.. "Why do I have such a bad relationship with him then? Is it my fault?.." and after the session I talked to Andrej. I told him the basics of my life with my dad and he gave a really good example of his actions. He said "Imagine a bank account. You do a lot of good works, you're nice to people.. and this is all + on your bank account. And then you do something stupid, something hurtful, something bad.. and it all goes away and on your bank account is -, and that's what happened with your dad and his actions."
And.. it's true. Because of that I didn't even realize/remember that my dad did all of those great things! Bad things are so bad that they beat the good ones, no matter how many there are.
+ I realized that he was a "good" dad but a really bad husband. I don't blame him and I don't judge him for that. He had a bad childhood and his parents did the same + even worse things to him and that's the only way he knows BUT my mom's life is awful because of that! Her childhood was horrible and she thought she'll get out of the misery when she'll get married and it's maybe even worse now! Ugh, this is so hard!!


In Bible study methods, we went through the basics. Hondo talked about the 4 steps of reading the Bible; SEEING, UNDERSTANDING, SHARING and RESPONDING + the greatest tool for it is CONTEXT. It was a funny class because of all of the jokes and idioms Hondo uses :)
He gave us some homework and I learned a lot from it.. what we did in class, we learned through our homework. It was great to go and compare 1 Sam 1-3 and Luke 1-2.. and it was awesome to go through the book of Psalms. He gave us a lot of knowledge and this is a great preparation for Bible College!

On our last day of Kriz, Trish (she was my mentor) and I prayed for my family and for me; going home from a "Christian bubble" is always hard. We prayed I could talk to my mom and dad and just tell them about Kriz and we prayed for our relationship.
I talked to my mom the first day I got home and to my dad a day later. AWESOME! God heard our prayer and showed me His love and grace - that was one of my prayers during the Kriz. It's so hard for me to realize and believe that God really loves me. I'm a sinner and I don't deserve His love but still, He loves me. I really prayed that He'd show me His love in a way I could get it and He did and He still is. Oh, He's so amazing and wonderful :)

Right now, I'm helping Katka to prepare things for Arts camp; we leave on Saturday.
Please pray for all students that are coming and for all the teachers and helpers there, for the staff and the whole week + come and see our show on Saturday or Sunday (21.8.+22.8.). I'll let you know about the details!