staff assignment

gung ho & taking it all in

Crusade staff are, by nature, perfectionistic, excellence-driven people with a high capacity for late nights and high stress (quite the opposite of what we preach, huh?). Putting them in an unusual situation where they can obtain grades, then, is a little like scattering bread crumbs on an ant hill. God forbid anyone get in our way.

mmmmm... dining hall food... YIKES!!

As I write, over a hundred new staff are scattered around the Tin Rim, a student center/coffee shop of shorts, here at Colorado State University. We, two hundred twenty somethings from across the country, are currently enrolled in two graduate level courses with the daunting task of completing a semester's worth of seminary coursework in a mere two weeks. The reading is thick and assignments complex but beyond the classroom, the Lord is revealing far more to us than annotations and apologetics. 
Have you ever seen a Colorado sky? There seems to be another dimension to the clouds that makes you feel as if you could climb up inside. From the cardio machines in the gym I get lost in the view right outside our window: ice capped mountains wider than the eye can see. Between intramurals, the dining hall, late night chats with staff more genuine than I could have imagined possible, & professors dedicated to our complete confidence in the Gospel, I am nothing (and I mean NOTHING) short of blessed. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who made it possible for me to be here and learn more about the Lord. I am being equipped in incredible ways for ministry this next year. Praise God. 

promise land day one

Today I arrived in Colorado!!You should have seen me tearing up as my plane landed with the Rockies in the distance... I couldn't stop whispering, "It's you and me, Jesus. Here we go." My super precious plane neighbor most likely thought I was a little crazy or about to meet up with a long lost family member but I didn't care because, well, I checked his left hand and he was married. So! I kept whispering and tearing up.. It was a big moment. I've waited for this day for a lonnggg time.

Paige Trotter (one of my wonderful, wonderful Bama students) picked me up from the airport and we've had QUITE an adventurous day! We had lunch at Migianos at Sixteenth Street Outdoor Mall in Denver (who not ONLY serves gluten-free pasta BUT also gives you an entirely new plate of whatever to-go pasta you want when you leave!) Then we shopped in a few super hippie stories (where Paige bought me a Colorado license plate with my name on it), came home to hang out with her family, took a tour of her hometown, Greeley, visited her grandma & tonight we'll have a fabulous home cooked meal by Mama Jill (Paige's Mom) followed by smores by their backyard fire pit. It's been so neat to hear all about Paige's life and see remnants of her childhood with my own two eyes. I LOVE COLORADO & I LOVE spending time with Paige!!!! I am so so so happy to be here!! 

Tonight I'll stay at the Trotter's house and will go watch Paige's little brother, Charlie (who I've decided to call Charles), play golf. Then I'll move into my dorm room at Colorado State University at 4. Tomorrow night is our first new staff meeting in Fort Collins. I'm savoring every minute of this. I have a sneaking suspicion the Lord has big plans for growing me this summer. I sure hope so. Bring it on, Jesus. I'm ready for ya.

Paige in the Rubble

Paige Trotter, one of the students I have featured in my newsletters over this past year, brought me to tears recently with this video she showed me. At the beginning of this school year, Paige moved from Colorado to Bama & Desperately wanted to go back home. After a year of loving on & working with Paige, the Lord has moved her heart in an entirely new direction. After the Tornado on April 26th, Paige and her friend Alex began a Tuscaloosa Relief fund in which they raised over $6000! Just a few weeks ago they drove down to Tuscaloosa with her jeep packed high with donations, eager to share the love of Christ with her sweet home Alabama. She made this video during her visit. 

It's moments like this... that I love my job. I could not be more proud of being friends with Paige in this very moment as the Lord reveals his Kingdom to her more piece by piece.

beloved painted black

I know it

I know it like I know I'm a girl

like I know my nose is beneath my eyes 

like the pale birthmark on my back

I know it's right

I know it is my construction

I know it's my calling.

I know I'm called to the Africans

I just know it.

This week I found old schoolwork

age eight to twenty two.

Sixteen papers of seventeen

depict the desperate dreaming

of a young girl in barefoot battle,

ivory hand-in-hand with fingers Divine.

Sixteen of sixteen name Africa my home.

The calling could not be more clear

the calling... could not be more clear. 

Maybe two years maybe thirty

the calling could not be more clear.

I hear the Lord saying

in reverberating echo:

"Listen closely as I speak

for the saints I call with purpose.

Equip the college campus not just 'sent' but bold to come.

across the ocean waters to bring Christ where darkness reigns

Not today, dear child, but first raise up with prayer & passion

an army two by two.

For two hands are all you have 

but inter-weaved called as the body, 

all the more, Christ at work.

I care not for Africa but for the Africans.

Delight in me as I transform you

to bring Truth to Beloved painted black"

So until then, names I know not yet,

I pray for your souls & tilling 

that when I hold you in my arms 

[the youth of Alabama by my side]

you will know that Jesus holds you 

you will know that Jesus holds you

not so patient as I patiently wait

i'm lookin at you, baby!

 Within a matter of months, the energy level in my family sky rocketed to entirely new heights. Last fall my cousin Brittany & her husband Jeff gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Hyatt Stone Burnett & only weeks ago my aunt and uncle welcomed Vander John Stelten! Since it's been over fourteen years since we had a baby in the family (much less two!), my mom and I couldn't help but spend a day in Atlanta cooing over our two new objects of affection.

It's amazing the way people doat over babies. You can't help but to praise them. Everything about a baby is facinating. They are tiny. Innocent. Fresh. Clean. Joyful. And the list goes on.... How are Hyatt's cheeks so big? How are Van's eyes so small? Who will they become? We can't help but to watch... to delight. It's our natural response.

& so this process has really started to make me reflect on the concept of praise. Is my praise to the Lord as simple & joyful as it is over Vander? Is it an overflow of my gratitude? As I read up on the subject, I'm finding my heart more callous than I ever imagined... Praise God for these little boys to teach me what it means to be a child again....

But the most obvious fact about praise- whether of God or anything- strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, of the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise... the world rings with praise- lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game... 

My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value. " - CS Lewis, A Reflections on the Psalms

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation - John Piper, Desiring God