Wednesday, September 29, 2010

An update

Nothing much's going on right now but we are super busy with preparations for Midterms and 10-day outreaches. This weekend is going to be super busy but I'm kind of excited. I need someone to help me explain what exactly the teachers want from me for the Midterms but from what I've seen/read, it's not gonna be hard, it's just gonna take a lot of time.
For Inductive Bible Study we're gonna have to dig into the first half of Psalm 119, so into 11 paragraphs. We're gonna have to look for verbs, write down certain definitions of words, explain some things.. a page and a half for one paragraph.
For Gospel of Mark we're gonna have to do a bit of Bible study on it and dig into first half of the gospel, so 8 chapters. We'll observe them and then write a letter to someone from our family, a friend.. who's not a believer and we're gonna have to apply what we've observed in the letter. We're not gonna have to send the letter but it's awesome because we can practice sharing the gospel to someone we know in a way they'll get it + Caleb, our teacher, will see if we got the application part.
For Acts Midterm, Shaun, the teacher, gave us an option to choose between some titles and I chose the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna have to read through the book of Acts, observe + write down how vital was the H.S. to the apostles and I'm gonna have to write down how I can apply that to my life. It's gonna take me awhile but I have time :)

I have to memorize a verse from Mark by tomorrow - Mark 9:35 --> "And he sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all." and tell it to Lynn (because it's a part of our servanthood and she's my supervisor). I'm excited to start learning verses; I'm not gonna do it if I don't have to and it's great that they kinda "make us" memorize it :)

There's another thing going on but NOTHING is official yet. Since Finland is not one of the options for the 10-day outreach and I really feel I have to go there, I told that to Lisa who's in charge of missions. She thought that'a a great idea and now she kinda wants me to lead a 4-day outreach to Finland :) I sent an email to the pastor and a former student of CCBCE who's there now, and asked if we can come. I'm waiting for their answer right now.
I feel so scared because I've only been here for a month and people who usually lead outreaches, are interns. I've never done it before but I have all of these wonderful people helping me, directing me + most importantly, I have God directing me and I know He's holding my hand. I'm not alone :) (btw, LOVE the feeling of not being alone :) ).
I'm not really sure why He wants me to do this but I trust Him. Well, we might not go, it depends if they need us but people said finnish people are always excited about students coming for an outreach to their church.

We'll see how that works out. I'll sure keep you updated :)

I love being here because I'm growing in my faith, in my trust in Him and I'm getting to know how amazingly wonderful He is. It's really hard but it's SOOOOO worth it! He's worth it :)

Monday, September 27, 2010

Budapest

I took a weekend off and went to Budapest with some of my roommates and other students. It was really great to get away from homework for a couple of days and just enjoy the exploring and experiencing other culture, tasting different food, seeing things we've never seen before.. It was also kinda hard because I'm a person who plans everything in ahead and other people weren't so we had no idea where we're going for the entire weekend but this lesson kinda helped me learn how to be more patient and how to lean on God more. It was all a part of His plan.. :)
(I can't upload any pics on my blog because my access is denied but you can check them out on facebook).

We've also decided where we're gonna go for our 10 day outreaches and I decided to go to Pecg, which is a beautiful Hungarian town around 2 hours away from Vajta. We're gonna do some street evangelism, we're gonna go to Universities, to men's and women's prison, we're gonna prepare a concert for them.. it's gonna be awesome!
+ I think I'm gonna go to Finland for my weekend outreach (plain ticket costs only 50€ for both ways!!) on the Thanksgiving weekend (we have 4 days free).. I'm really looking forward to it and am excited what God will do and how He'll use me.

I'd really like to ask you to pray for spiritual attacks (I keep being reminded of my past life and it's really discouraging) and for my trust towards God. Even though I'm in a Christian bubble right here, that doesn't mean the enemy can't get to me and to other people. Please, just pray that I'll always recognize his lies and turn to God and the Truth.

Friday, September 17, 2010

An outreach

Another week has past by and another weekend is ahead of us. This week's been easier but still not easy. A lot of homework, a lot of thinking, a lot of learning BUT it's great. I see how good it is for me.

A few days ago a guy, a former student of CCBCE came to visit us, his name is Kyle. He is now working as a missionary in Finland. He joined an american couple and they started with Bible studies and now they have a young church of around 40 people. It took them 5 years but that's a lot of people for 5 years.
Kyle was leading Devotions in the morning and he said we can come and talk to him during the day if we want to know anything about Finland. I'm not really interested in Finland but after Devo's I went to the coffe shop to do my homework and I saw him there, drinking his coffee. I asked God if I should go and talk to him and I didn't really get an aswer or even a specific feeling but I went there and talked to him anyway. He told me a lot about Finnish people and their culture and.. you know what? It's a lot like Slovene culture! So, he told me how their church works and what's his job there and then he said there might be a 10-day outreach to Finland and he asked me if I would be interested of going there. I was kinda shocked but I said yes!!
Later that day, right after lunch, a small group of people went to a small town 1 hour away from us to get visas and stuff. I was in that small group and we started talking while driving there and it was a lot of fun. I talked to Ana, a girl from Finland. I told her about my talk with Kyle (they go to the same church) and she was so excited! Then I told her about countries that God put on my heart and one of them is Ruanda, a country in central Africa. We talked about some other stuff too but then she told me that one of the 40 people from their church is a guy who comes from Ruanda and was a part of the genocid that happened 16 years ago.

I don't know about you but I have a feeling I have a lot of pieces of a puzzle in my hand and I just have to figure out if they fit together or not.
It's definitely intersting. A lot of praying is neccesary and I'm really curious what God has for me.

What do you think? :)

Monday, September 13, 2010

Romans 12:10-11

These 2 verses have been on my mind since Friday when we had our prayer group and Laura shared them with me and Dunja.

"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord."

I've been really thinking about them and how we compare each other and compete in so many things. It says really clearly (especially in Slovene Bible) that we should compete in respecting each other ("..Tekmujte v medsebojnem spoštovanju."..). It's so true. I had problems with that in the past (I still do sometimes) because another girl had perfect skin or her hair looked perfect or.. something.

Ah. I love how God is slowly, in His perfect timing, revealing things to me. He is so awesome :)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Prayer group

Fridays are not the same as the first 4 days in a week; we don't have Acts and other classes but we do have a class called Ministry and Discipleship (love it!!) where every week one of the teachers/pastors will come and speak for an hour and a half about one of the characters in the Bible. Don (who also teaches Genesis) spoke about Enoch yesterday and it was an awesome lecture. He made me cry, laugh, think... in an hour and a half. Awesome. We have to write a 2-page paper from our notes about the lecture every week + write down a personal application. It's a great class.
Right after that interns told us who is the leader of our prayer group and who else will be joining us in it and I'm sooo thankful that God put me in a prayer group with Dunja (a croatian girl who we met at the castle in Austria this summer) and Laura (+ another lady will be joining us but they haven't arrived to Vajta yet - she and her family are coming from South Africa!). Dunja and Laura are both so nice and their hearts are so gentle and warm and soft and I know He put me in the same prayer group with them so I can open up myself and not keep things inside me. Before we started praying, we talked for a bit and I started crying because Don was talking about our moms in his lecture (ministry+discipleship) and since then, I couldn't stop thinking about my family and how they're not saved yet. It's so hard to live a great life in God's arms (no one said it's not hard) and seeing how they suffer and how they're looking for a way out but can't find it. I'm praying for them all the time and I have hope for them but I really wish they could see how their lives could be so much better with Him.
We prayed then and poured our hearts out and after that talked about what it's like to be a missionary and which places has God put on our hearts. It was awesome and it's really amazing how I can see God's work in all of our lives. Every one of us has it's own story and God has a special plan for us. It's amazing to see Him working in our hearts and teaching us things that make no sense at the beginning but after a while, when you stop yourself and look at everything, at the whole picture, it makes so much sense!
Awesome.

So.. I survived the first week of classes :) Sarah and I got up at 8 this morning and have been working on our homeworks all morning and after lunch (actually, it was brunch - bacon, eggs, pancakes, some kinda potato stuff.. yum!) and we're gonna go for a walk now. We're inside a lot cuz it's been raining a lot but we don't care today. We need fresh air and a longer break! :)

Thursday, September 09, 2010

First week

It's been a week since I came to Vajta but it seems like I've been here for a month now. I'm not homesick, the castle is a lot like the castle in Austria, food is similar and people are amazing.
So, on Monday we started with classes! My schedule is changing every day (not classes but activities, free time for homework, free time for fellowship, laundry time, dorm meetings, servanthood..) and it's really hard to know when am I really gonna have time to be on email, facebook and skype. I'm sorry if you didn't hear a lot from me but this week's really been busy so far and it's really stressful.
I have Acts on Mondays+Wednesdays and G. of Mark+IBS (inductive Bible study) on Tuesdays+Thursdays. I also had Hebrews but don't anymore because it was just too much of everything and Hebrews is a really hard letter to study. I like the teacher, though.. so I might go and listen to his class sometimes.
I LOVE Acts! It's such an interesting book! We just did Acts 2 yesterday and Shaun, our teacher, explained things in such a good way. You know, apostles get up one morning and go and pray for a bit and there comes a wind with fire tounges and everyone starts talking in other languages because the Holy Spirit is working through them. And then other people come and start wondering what's going on and Peter gets up and starts preaching them the word of God! Amazing! Do you think he knew that's gonna happen on that day? He wasn't even prepared, he had the word of God in his heart and just.. started preaching! And around 3000 people became Christians that day! WOW!
I mean.. can you imagine yourself getting up one morning, thinking what's on your "to do" list, how you're going to do something, where you have to go.. and then BAM!, there's the Holy Spirit working in you and you start telling other people about God and A LOT of people convert and become Christians! :) I'm really amazed. Can you tell?!? :)

Anyway.. one of the classes is servanthood; we have to do 8 hours per week of something they signed us for (cleaning, laundry, dinning room...) and they signed me for taking care of kid's library and helping them with their homework and tests! Isn't this awesome?!? I've been working on the library for the whole week, re-arranging books and organizing everything + I'm gonna help with "Sunday school" tonight. We don't have church service on Sundays but on Thursdays (and they call it Koinonia) because they want to encourage us to go to other churches on Sunday morning. I can't wait.

I have to start working on midterm assignments this weekend because due date is October 9th which is gonna be here soon. I'm thinking of writting about Trinity for Acts class and I'm not really sure what we have for G. of Mark and IBS. Hm.. I'll have to check.
So, really, as you can see, we are busy but the truth is that this is our first week where everything is new and we just have to get used to it. Once we're "into the system", everything will get easier. Can't wait for that :)

There have been some hard times in between as well and it's really hard to focus on my relationship with God with so much "school work" even though it's about God and His word. My relationship with Him is really good though, one of the reasons is probably that we pray a lot (Devotions in the morning, before and after every class, before EVERY meal, before and after every meeting we have..) and that I'm trying to trust Him and I try to lean on Him. I can feel the enemy but He doesn't have a lot of power in my life, he's definitely not stronger than God :)
My roommates are awesome and I became really good friends with Sarah. We go to classes together, we do everything together.. we already cried together and shared a lot of personal things.
I'm so thankful that I'm here because even though I've been here for only a week and I have NO IDEA about my future, I'm starting to see what is He trying to teach me and how huge of an impact He has in my life. He is worthy of every hard hour in my life, of every stressful homework I have to do.. because that homework will help me get closer to Him and that is so awesome! :)

If you'll pray for me, please just pray that I won't forget He's always with me, holding my hand like the best Father in the world does.

+ p.s. I'll post some pics soon! I didn't take any but Sarah did :)
+ words that I've learned in Hungarian (I don't know how to spell them, just how to say them):
- Jó reggelt (joregelt) - good morning
- Jó estét (joeštet) - good evening
- Köszönöm (ksnm) - thank you
- Nem - no
- hol (van) a vécé (holvan a vece) - where's the bathroom?
- Jó (jo) - good
- segítség (šegitšeg) - help
Sarah and I went for a walk in between classes and started running/jogging and screaming:" Segítség, hol (van) a vécé?" A funny, funny moment :D
+ I reached my goal for the whole semester (Katka said I have to learn at least 5 words in the whole semester :)

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Bible College

Greetings from Hungary! :)
I got the internet code yesterday and now I can update my blog and stuff like that.
We just spent a few days getting to know each other and spending time together and things got a bit deeper yesterday+today with the registration and orientation. We found out our schedule and which classes we're gonna have/take.
I took:
- Hebrews
- Acts
- Gospel of Mark
- Inductive Bible study
- 1st part of the Old Testament
- Ministry & Discipleship

Our trip to Hungary was great (David&Katka, Alex, Tilen, my sister Nina and I took the red super van and drove to the school. It took us 4,5hours but we stopped by the Balaton lake on our way so it took us more than that.). It was a great time of just hanging out, talking about different things and since people don't really know my sister, it was great that they got a chance to talk to her, specially on their way back home cuz I wasn't there with them :) I am proud of her coming with us. It was a big step for her.
Am.. life here is similar to life at the castle in Austria. It's so easy to feel at home and people are really nice. I have 5 roommates; Ester is from Korea, Kati from Hungary, Nastya from Russia, Wendy and Sarah from the States and I'm from Slovenia. An international room. They're all nice but I really got along with Sarah. She's 20 and just soooo nice and open and God blessed me by putting us in the same room together. We took the same classes and I think we're gonna spend a lot of time together. I also invited her to come to Slovenia for Christmas and January since she's gonna stay here for another semester and wants to experience other cultures and see other parts of Europe.
Hm.. Food here is different but good. I think I lost a few pounds already but I'll probably get them back soon.

Nothing much is really going on yet but that will change in a couple of days so I'll write more later in the week.
I'm really grateful that God has given me a chance to be here and spend a lot of time learning about Him and deepening about relationship. I feel very loved by Him and by people here + this place already feels like home to me which is kinda weird cuz that's not in my personality.. it's actually not me, it's God. I would never be able to react so calm+peaceful on a change like this.
Oh, He's just so awesome :)

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Calvary Chapel BIble College

I'm all packed, all ready. Excited and also a bit nervous, I have no idea what to expect but I feel at peace. I didn't this morning, though. I went to David and Katka's to pray; we took 4 hours and just prayed over my memories from my childhood and let God be in charge of things. One of the lies I believed was that God doesn't love me and this morning He very clearly showed me how much He loves me and He healed some wounds that needed to be healed. I really feel at peace leaving home for a couple of months. I know He's going to stay with my family even if I'm not gonna be here and He's gonna take care of them.

We organized a roadtrip because I really don't want to go to Hungary alone so David and Katka are picking up the Super red van and Alex, Tilen, my sister and I will join them and we're gonna hit the road to Hungary! School is 4 and a half hours away but we're gonna stop by the Balaton lake and play some games, hang out, eat some lunch.. and then go to the school.
I'm so thankful they're coming with me + they're gonna see the school and meet some people there. Nice! :)

I'm gonna go to bed now to get at least some sleep. I'll write an update as soon as I get a chance!

Please pray that I'll always remember He's with me, holding my hand and that He loves me.
Thank you for all the prayers and support!