On my mind...

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea:

A great High Priest, whose name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,

My name is written on his heart;

I know that while in heaven he stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look, and see Him there

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because a sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free;

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,

Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb

My perfect, spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,

The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die

My soul is purchased by his blood

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ, my Savior and my God

With Christ, my Savior and my God

"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." 
- Galatians 1:10

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." 
- Galatians 6:7-9

The past week

Tuesday - team time. We all met in Ljubljana, first went to the warehouse at the Jackson's and prepared the supplies for camps.

Then we went to eat čevapčiči, had an ice coffee,

 and then Johnny and Brooke had a surprise for us. We all went to Kolosej and Arena area and we had no idea where we're going... They took us to race with gocarts! :)
It was awesome!

We helped David to promote their English Camps in Ljubljana on Wednesday. We went to Gimnazija Ledina and spent 3 hours with students there. That was a lot of fun!
Thursday was promo day in Celje. We all had matching camps t-shirts and were promoting our English Camp on the main square in Celje. Margaret and I ran into 2 mormons that weren't dressed up but had their name tags on but we thought they're slovene. It was a fun 2-minute conversation.

Friday was another promo day! We left Celje at 7am and drove to Slovenj Gradec where we picked up Hondo, and then went to Ravne na Koroškem where we spent the whole day with students. We taught 5 classes and students were really excited about camp.
Saturday was a day of promotion in one of the malls in Celje. We stood there for a couple of hours and people were quite interested, some parents came and talked to us... Later on that day a bunch of people from church met at Johnny and Brooke's house for dinner and 2 episodes of "So you think you can dance". I'm not a huge dance fan but I love the show! :)
Sunday was church and another couple of hours of promotion. 

We're only 4 days away from camp! The team from Tennessee is coming on Thursday night and we have orientation on Friday. We're super excited but we still have a bunch of things to do.

Today's agenda: putting together an Amazing Race for students (we'll run it after the camp) and going to Ljubljana for a meeting for another camp :)

A day off + a day of team time!

We had a day off yesterday so we went to visit my Bible College in Vajta, Hungary. We actually went with Miha, a friend from my youth group, because he's thinking of applying to Bible College and wanted to go and see it before he does.
We had a great time even though we were on the road for 8 hours. Our dinner was pizza in Slovenska Bistrica where we met with Karmen, one of the girls that goes to church in Maribor.
It really was great to see friends and pastors, to give a hug to Lynn and to try to encourage Miha to apply to that school. He's not sure if this school is the one God wants him at so you can pray that he'll hear the voice of the Lord, affirming whatever He wants for Miha, and for courage and boldness for Miha to step out in faith and obedience.

Miha, me, Margaret and Danny in front of Calvary Chapel Bible College

I'm in Ljubljana right now and I'm spending the night at home because we're going to help promoting English Camp in one of the High Schools tomorrow. We spend the day together with the whole team and had lots of fun (eating čevapčiči, drinking ice coffee and driving gocars) - I love being an intern! :) and we'll spend the next week and a half promoting camps which is really exciting!

God's been doing some work in me but what's going on in my heart right now is a bit confusing. There's a lot of spiritual things around all of us interns and you can see the enemy trying to get to us; he has some good tactics but we have the Holy Spirit to help us + protect us.

God is showing me step by step what ministry really looks like and... it's different than I thought. Not good, not better... just different. I'm trying not to go into anything with big expectations but with an open and willing heart, ready to serve. That's sometimes easier to say than to do but I need to remember what's my goal - to help saving souls.

A memory from the Amazing Race

Living in Celje

It's been 4 days since we arrived to Celje. Margaret and I are staying at Maja's house; she's one of the rare Christian students here, she's 17 and she gave us her room for a couple of weeks. Her family's not saved yet and it's great to be here with her, to shine Jesus with her and be a blessing to her family. It's not easy and it's not hard, it's just... different and still a bit awkward at some moments; it's only been 4 days so that makes sense. But they're all nice to us and they have the best coffee maker! :)

Our start of the summer internship is kind of low key, flexible... We don't have a lot of students to hang out with yet but we're preparing for camps (English lessons), we did some promoting (we'll do a lot more in the next 2 weeks) and we're trying to serve and help Johnny and Brooke.

Miha, one of the guys from the church in Ljubljana, is thinking of going to Bible College in Hungary but he wants to check the school before he applies there so we're going to Hungary tomorrow for a day! I'm super excited because 1. roadtrip, 2. I'll get to see my friends, and 3. Miha might be my schoolmate next semester! It would be amazing to have a Slovene person there and I can really see Miha growing at school and deepening his relationship with the Lord.
I'm so excited! :)

We'll be doing a lot of promoting for English Camp on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We're praying for 60 students to come to camp and we know God is capable of bringing them. Would you pray with us for them?

I love life in Celje right now. It's definitely stretchy but it's also a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll learn a lot and I can already see God teaching me how not to be selfish. One of the hardest things this summer is and will be not having home/living out of a suitcase/being flexible and spontaneous. I'm a person of a routine, I'm organized... and right now there's no way I can be organized and that bugs me :)
I'm glad I'll learn how to be more flexible and how not to worry about every detail because that's what ministry is! I don't know if God's calling me somewhere but I do know everything is a preparation for something.

I wonder... :)

 Interns 2011 (Ben, Gwynne, Danny, Margaret, Mana, Evan) and JV babies :)

Intern training continuing...

It's been 3 days since we've arrived to Malenovice in Czech, and it's amazing. I had no idea what to expect but it's really awesome to be here, to have daily devotions with a group of Christians your age, to worship the Lord together twice a day... it's a huge priviledge.
We've been talking about different things that are important for us as interns this summer. We all took personality test (I'm a pretty strong beaver with an equal taste of golden retriever and lion - there's almost no otter in me), we also took spiritual gifts test and that was interesting. I had an idea of what my primary spiritual gift is, and the test brought it up, but I also realized a lot of new things (1. discernment, 2. administration, 3. prophecy) - it doesn't mean those are the spiritual gifts I have but I do think I have a gift of discernment and I experienced it with other gifts before.

Every evening Dave Patty takes us into Ephesians. We looked at who we were before being with Christ, who we are in Christ, where are we in Christ... awesome stuff! We went through Ephesians last summer at Kriz with Josh and it's really good to hear about these things again because it's so important to know who we are and how God sees us! It says we're blessed, included in Christ, adopted, forgiven, sealed, God's possession, redeemed... that's how God sees us because we're in Christ and He sees us through Christ!
A good thing to remember...

We have 2 days of training left and then we'll return to Slovenia. Our team is really amazing. We bonded so quickly and we've been having a lot of deep and spiritual talks - either in the whole group or one on one! I don't think any of us could ask for a better group of interns; the only sad thing is we won't be serving together during the summer, but we will be meeting once a week to talk and share what God is doing.
Johnny and Brooke are amazing as well. I met Johnny when I was 14 but because he moved to Celje a couple of years ago and because I wasn't always around there is a gap in our friendship. I think I first talked to Brooke in April when me and my schoolmates came for a 10-day outreach to Celje, so I really didn't know her, and in a way I still don't - but God's been working on our friendship and even though we're pretty different characters, I think we found a language we can both speak in.
I'm really excited I'll be serving with them this summer and I'm excited to be discipled by them.

God is... He's just good and faithful and amazing. It's so simple but sometimes so hard for us to get it. But it really is as simple as that - He's just good.

Amazing Race and Intern training

It's been 4 days since we've arrived to Czech; the first day was just hanging out and meeting people but the next day the Amazing Race started. We met our team on the airport (Gwen, an intern who will be in Maribor until December, was already with us) and we had a couple of hours to get to know each other, play some games... There's 3 girls (Margaret from Nashville, Tennessee; Gwen from all over the place since her dad works for a military base; and me) and 3 guys (Evan from Seattle; Danny from California; and Ben from California). So, Gwen will be in Maribor, Evan will be staying in Ljubljana, Margaret, Danny and I will be staying in Celje and Ben will be staying in Kranj where he'll be helping his uncle Todd Hunnicutt :)

Our Amazing race started on Wednesday at 4pm and it finished today at 1pm (well, for our team). It was hard and exhausting but also amazing and unique. Our team is awesome and we were able to see leadership, encouragement, joy... lots of gifts! We were united and after nearly 3 days of racing we were the 2. team out of 17!! :)

Once we were done with the race, we went to the hotel where we're going to do the training and preparation for the summer. We have schedule for each day and the first thing started tonight. Dave Patty, the president of Josiah Venture, talked about the story behind this organization; how it all started, how was God working and answering prayers... and he kind of united the story with why are we going out. He showed a picture of a guy that's getting baptized and told us his story and then he started talking about Manna and her story... it took me 15 second to figure out he was talking about me!! When I was 15 years old and people from Josiah Venture introduced me to our Lord, I wrote something to Anna. I told her I think God is trying to find me and that I hope we'll find each other... I told her that I want to know what's the meaning of life and that I hope God finds me... and more, I can't even remember what I wrote down. Anyway, Dave went on explaining that I'm from Slovenia and that it took me 7 years to become a Christian and that that's the reason why we're doing what we're doing. I looked at Johnny and asked him if Dave knows I'm right in front of him (we've never met before) and Johnny said that he probably doesn't.. and then Johnny pointed out to me and Dave saw me... and they figured that he was talking about me! I was in a shock, especially because I read my own words from 7 years ago again and... it's amazing where I am right now. It's been almost a year and a half since I became a Christian and God has done so much in my life! He's talking to me, He's giving me visions, He's preparing me for something big... and why? I don't know why, I don't know why He chose me. That's a whole another story though... :)
Afterwards Dave prayed and then later on came to me and we met for the first time! :) It really was an honor to meet him and his wife who came to us and wanted a picture of us all. They told me they've been praying for me for so long... and it's amazing to hear that. I mean, I've heard it before and I know how many people prayed for me, but... I don't know. It always shocks me that people are willing to pray for someone they don't know because they want him or her to come to Christ. Prayer is a very powerful thing and I believe I'm here today because of their prayers. Not just theirs but all of yours!!
I would really like to thank you again for not giving up on me OR on God and keep praying, and I want to thank you for supporting me even now that I'm a Christian, and praying for me +for all that God is going to do through me.

I'll be updating my blog as much as I can in the next few days before our summer begins.

We're right where we're supposed to be right now and God has His hand upon all of us.
Don' forget that.