Slovenia, here we come! + things I learn daily.

It's almost time for our 10-day outreaches and I’m super duper excited we’re coming to Slovenia! We’ll be mostly around Celje and that area BUT we’re also coming to Ljubljana for a day, yay!

I have no idea about the schedule yet but I know we’ll be busy. We prepared the “Set me free” skit and we had our Simply Jesus workshop today, reviewing how to share the gospel on the streets and with the kids.

We’ll be arriving on April 15^th, Friday evening, and leaving on Monday, April 25^th. It’s 11 of us on the team, mostly Americans; our leader Jemma is from Australia and we have a girl from Finland as well. And me :)

God started opening so many doors with Nick Vujicic coming (even though I was reading articles about him now that he left and I’m not very pleased how people view the events…) and we get a change to continue talking to people about God!

We’re right before our finals so we have work before we leave and we’ll have some finals when we come back from a 10-day. Otherwise it’s only 1 good month left of school and then I’ll be coming home!!! I’m excited for that as well, and for the summer!

I’m hoping God will open doors for me to get a job so I can help with English Camps and summer activities but for now, I’m just waiting on Him and trying to be patient and trusting. He has always been so faithful and has given me everything in abundance so I can’t complain or whine about anything!

I’ve been learning so much through the class of Romans and Joshua about Him and my relationship with Him and I’ve been learning about His existence and world views about Him in class of Apologetics. It’s been an amazing semester, full of ups and downs and even though it sometimes seems to be more downs, I know I’m growing. 

 

I’m at the “learning how to walk” stage, an advanced one, and it’s hard. Imagine a baby learning how to walk and his parent has to let him go for a bit… and a bit more… and a bit more… and it’s hard because the baby falls a lot of times and cries... well, it’s the same with me. But it will strengthen me and this time here is preparing me for something in the future, something that God has for me.

I’m learning how efficient prayer is and what it means to spend a quality time with God daily. I’ve never done it before but He’s been stretching me so much that if I don’t spend time with Him daily, I see the difference in my attitude, my lifestyle, my reactions… It was different before because He was giving me a chance to get used to Him, to my new life in Him; you know, He was “spoiling me”, but in a good way. It’s time to slowly grow up and I feel like I’m not ready but I think He knows that better than me.

And whenever I get scared, He reminds me of His promise He gave me when He saved me from death to Life – “Do not fear because I’m with you; don’t be discouraged for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will lift you up with my righteous right hand.” – Isaiah 41:10

I love His promises even though they come with a command.

He’s awesome like that :)

Lot's wife looked back... and so did I.

I’ve been a Christian for 1 year and almost 3 months now. My life has radically changed and I love it! It’s still a constant everyday battle but I prefer having the battles and being under the authority of God and free in Him than being “free” in the world, under authority of the devil and sin and be depressed all the time.

Even though I love my life now, I still sometimes look back.

A story of Lot and his wife comes to mind. She looked back when they were leaving Sodom because she was sorry they had to leave. God was saving them from that place because He then destroyed it but she looked back because she loved it – the city of sin and wickedness.

What happened to Lot’s wife? She became a pillar of salt (it’s kind of hard to believe that she actually became a pillar of salt; it does sound just like a random story to me but it’s in the Bible so it’s true, she really became a pillar of salt).

I looked back today. Not a lot; I just went to read some blogs of the people who were in my life before I became a Christian.

I shouldn’t have done it because it made me doubt the goodness of my life in Christ.

Satan used my weakness right away and my thoughts changed. “Why did I ever leave my life that I lived before? It wasn’t that bad…” but then another thought came to my mind, a thought of the Spirit and it reminded me of who I am in Christ today.

 I’m sure glad I didn’t become a pillar of salt for looking back but God did convict me for stop looking back. I have so many things ahead of me, so many open doors and God wants to use me for His glory! And I shouldn't even be looking at those open doors yet; I am where He wants me to be and I'm (supposed to) living in the present. It's hard but that makes life more interesting :)

I’m so thankful He chose me to be one of His people!

An unfriendly visitor

I live in a big room this semester, and my bed is in the corner of the room so I can have more privacy, I can go to bed earlier without anyone bugging me…

2 days ago I noticed some kind of little dots on my left arm and they started to itch. I talked to a few people and one of them said it might have been from the heat if I slept on that arm. It was a good enough answer so I stopped thinking about it.

Next day, I found a couple more dots/spots on my arm (only on my left arm) and, oh man, they itched so bad! I still didn’t know what was it from but I had an idea it was probably from a fly or some kind of a bug.

I was working in a coffee shop before and I started talking to Rachel, one of my schoolmates, and I started scratching my arm again. She noticed and asked me what I have there and I told her… and then she said IT’S PROBABLY FROM A SPIDER!

I laughed at her, thinking she’s crazy (I’m terribly scared of spiders!) and then she said she studied about bugs (bees, spiders, butterflies…) and that she knows how a spider bite looks like and that my dots look like spider bites. She calmed me down (not!) by saying it’s probably a small spider because my bites are small but that it’s probably there.

I freaked out and she said she’ll go and search for it because she knows where to find it and she said she’ll clean and vacuum all around the bed and the wardrobes.

I stayed in the coffee shop while she was in my room and she got back 30min later, saying “I got it!” My face went white when I asked how big it was and she said it wasn’t that big, he didn’t have big legs… but it was there, on the wall, closer to my feet than to my pillow! She looked everywhere else and she cleaned around the bed.

I’m so thankful she did that but I’m still moving to the top bunk bed, it’s less chance he’ll get me there!

Creepy little monsters, they just come and bite!

P.s. - I have 19 bites on my left arm! How scary is that?!?

P.s. 2 - can you tell I’m freaked out?!?