Berlin and lessons that I am learning...

Berlin:

With great rejoicing, I am able to announce that I am trusting the Lord to go to Berlin, Germany this summer. I found out yesterday that I am accepted. This is really almost like a dream come true! :) I am so stoked to use my German skills for Christ's kingdom.

Grace:

God seems to be continuously teaching me about GRACE.

What it means, how dependent upon it daily, and how a right view of grace frees me and helps me to love the people around me. I love how Kay Arthur describes grace, "everything Jesus Christ is and has made available to us without any reason within ourselves." I truly believe that when we have a correct view of grace, it amazingly affects or relationship with Jesus. A correct view, that we need his grace every hour. That we did nothing to deserve his grace. That the depths of God's grace is unending. We can never outrun his grace there is nothing too bad.

When we view grace correctly, we are able to view others around us in a correct light as well. We know that we never need to hide what we are because we understand that we are forgiven and have been made clean. Understanding of grace helps us in sharing with other people the good news and hope of Jesus Christ.

I am glad that I can continue to search the depths of God's grace and will get to figure out what it means for the rest of my life.

Love & grace,

Kimberly

Where I applied to go this summer!

I'm trusting Jesus to take me there, waiting to hear back!

New Year, New Hair, a little older

I can scarcely believe that the end of January is at our doorsteps. It seems as though I was just on vacation. I have completed three weeks of school, and am for the most part, enjoying my schedule. There are some morning when I do not really look forward to getting up for 8am class, but do enjoy having Fridays off.

After the lack of a haircut for over a year, I decided to get one, and went shorter than I ever had before. I am liking it, but have to plan ahead, no more throwing it all up in a ponytail when I feel lazy!

God is so good, I was able to find so much rest and healing over break. For the first time since summer project, I was able to really take some time off as Bob Wiley would say "A vacation from my problems!" Though, I did not forget them, I was able to find time to spend and talk to Jesus in a great way.

God really provided me with a job for my last week of break, and it was such a blessing to work again with all the other people at my old job, and really be able to rest in the fact that God was providing for me.

All the time off really lead to me feeling ready to once again do ministry on this campus, in fact I was excited to come back and pour time and my love and life into the women who I have contact with in the dorms and hopefully make more contacts. Ready to live as a "sent one".

I am so blessed by the women who are in my life here, and my friends in general! They were all willing to be a little wacky for me on my 21st birthday, which was moustached themed. I decided to be the unique person that God has created me to be. We had such games as "Pin the moustache on the Jonas Brother, wrote verses of poetry about poems, and had a drawing competition.

I have applied to go on summer project to Berlin, and am really excited to hear back. In fact being patient is really hard.

Love,

Kimberly

Tis the Season!

*Merry Christmas*

I pray that this season find you with full hearts in anticipation of the gospel. The Word becoming flesh. Today, I get to drive home and spend the day there. I am finished with finals! (Except for a small project due on Monday) We have received quite the dumping of snow up here, which leads to quite the interesting time dealing with plowing roads, and cold!

I sit and reflect, now that there's time, and i see how blessed I am, Christmas i just around the corner, I can barely believe it. I have been blessed with amazing opportunities this semester. It has been a bittersweet semester. It might sound weird, but I semi-loathe this upcoming thing called graduation. I am learning that I am a person who likes things to remain the way they've always been. Yet, life rarely remains the same.

This semester brings with it the occasion to say goodbye to some good friends and even more opportunities to trust Jesus. I think back to who I was at the beginning of the semester and who I am now. I had just said goodbye to 110 of some of the greatest people that God had blessed my life with. Somedays, I don't even know what to do without them, yet I see a God who is faithful! If only I could learn to trust Him with the same measure. Now, here I am, looking towards a month off a school, and am really looking forward to time for processing, even things from this summer.

Here is the chorus to a Christmas song that was written by the band Downhere, it always causes me to stop and think, and reflect. Hope it makes you do the same (the crown just seemed to fit with the title):

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me

Turkeys, Cranberry Sauce, Joy!

Thanksgiving!

I truly do have a lot to be thankful for, truly, yet, I know that somedays all I can think of is all the woes and worries I have.

This morning I took some time to make a list of all the things that I am thankful for. It was a really sweet time where Jesus really got to show me a lot about what he's done for me.

The following Psalm just kind of hit me hard....

Things I am thankful for:

1) Women

what amazing women I have the privilege of sharing life with, whether from this summer or here at Mankato, women who love me well, know me deeply and have modeled what i looks like to pursue Jesus together as we take our brokenness before the cross and point each other to our healer!

2) Ministry

God is at work here at Mankato, i have to constantly remind myself of that. See, because I may not see that much happening, doesn't mean that he isn't at work. He doesn't need me, he chooses whether or not to use me. Yet, there are some great things that I have seen him do. I know that I have a tendency to want to see what I think are huge things happen. Yet, I must remember that every time someone chooses Christ, that is a miracle, anytime that people turn from their life to his, it's huge! What a privilege to be a part of that and to see Him peak people's interest in who he is.

3) School

As much as I forget it, it is a blessing that I am able to be here at school! I have seen God's grace poured out as I see unmerited favor poured on me by my professors and other students here. I really am loving school here again, and am determined to make the best I can of this semester and the two to come.

4) Life

I am alive, that is by the grace of God! Yet, my quality of life, the amount of joy and gratefulness I have been feeling is amazing! I feel as the psalm describes redeemed. This semester has been an interesting season in my life, one of trial and testing, one where I feel as though I did walk through the valley of the shadow, and standing on the other side I can only say, WoW!

Please read this Psalm in it's entirety, it will rock your world!

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things."

(Psalm 107)

Fallin' :)

Fall is long upon us here. It seems to have been one of the most rainy ones I have seen in a while.

I realize that my BLOG has fallen into neglect. Yeah, I have this thing called school going on. I don't know if anyone reads this, but I am not convinced that the point of a BLOG is for everyone on earth to read it, sometimes I just feel better knowing that I can write it. Maybe someone will read it? :)

This fall has been crazy, that is really the only word to describe it. It felt like cultural shock to come back from project at first. The university scene is a little bit of a far cry in some ways from what I experience this summer. Mostly in regards to the community, and the amount of free time. I thought I was always busy this summer, but I wasn't, now I really am! :)

It feels crazy to have the first semester coming to an end. I have been wearing "teacher" garb for the past two weeks nearly everyday. I am doing clinicals in both Waseca and Mankato (at West High School), it makes me appreciate wearing jeans a lot more.

What is God up to in my life? Good question. He's working, we are doing a great Bible Study with the women's leadership fro CRU and it is great. One week we talk about how the church needs to be storming the gates of hell. Yet, so often we sit in our "fortresses", like our churches or Christian community, neither one of these things is bad, however, they can become something that can distract us from our commission. I would say this: a great community pushes you to go out and talk to people about what you believe.

I have gone out in the past few weeks more. I have missed talking to people on a spiritual level, having conversations with men and women about what it is that they believe, what it is that they are putting their trust in. I am continually asking that question back to myself? What am I trusting in?

Do I trust myself, or am I walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. I find that often I am so prideful and think that I have abilities, that I can do things without Jesus...school this year has been hard. My major (the German part), and the classes I have to take for it, can definitely lead to some interesting conversations. This semester I have German Cinema & Literature (two different classes). It's a continuous struggle to see where I can stick up for Jesus, and where it may be hindering my walk with Jesus if I skip class. I have never skipped class more for reasons of class content. The king of the air is at work.

How glad I am that I have a God who is greater. As I was driving home from Waseca I was listening to the radio.

"At 20 years of age, I'm still looking for a dream, a war's already waged for my destiny, but you've already won the battle, and you've got great plans for me, though I can't always see."

This song really isn't really one of my favorites, but these words hit me especially hard, because so often I do worry about my future. What will my life after college look like? It has hit me really hard this semester, because I have exactly one year left after this semester is over, and a lot of my close friends will be student teaching or graduating after this semester. It was just a reminder that MY VICTORIOUS KING knows, and it's a great plan. WHOA!

Tis Past Due

So, I am failing at keeping up this BLOG, even the last weeks of project slipped away before I was able to share them with you. I loved every single moment that I spent this summer in Ocean City New Jersey. I have enough memories to last me a lifetime, I have over 110 new friends and have been challenged in my faith more than ever! I left project and arrived at home to experience pretty much the hardest week of my life, so far.

Going from an amazing community of 110 people on fire and passionate about Jesus and sharing his good news with everyone to being at home with my parents, was culture shock. I love my parents and am so blessed that they are a part of my life, but I didn't know how to deal without the consistency of people around and just having women in my life. Not to mention that it was so hard to say goodbye!

I have learned so much this summer, and as I was talking with one of my good friends tonight, she reminded me that I need to trust that God is working just as much in my life today as he was when I was on project. Just because I'm no longer in Ocean City, doesn't mean he's no longer at work.

Some things the Lord has taught (and I think will be teaching me for the rest of my life) this summer:

1) I have grown in what it means to be a woman. One who makes mistakes and messes up, but one who refuses to buy into this culture's counterfeit idea of womanhood and chooses instead to find her identity in Jesus and who He says she is and that only in Him and I 100% complete.

2) I have been set free from performance Christianity, I now for the first time understand that God loves me, not because of what I have done, good or bad, but that he chose me. I no longer have to do things to try and earn God's love. He loves and likes me, just the way I am.

3) Sharing what I believe. I have been and can be really afraid to tell people that I love Jesus. Yet, as I continue to walk with Him and see how much he loves me, how much he cares for me, how he sent his son Jesus to die for me, I am becoming more and more convinced that if I love people, they need to know. I am moving from living in fear to walking by faith.

I was also struggling (and still am working through) what my semester this Fall will look like for ministry. I had a lot of doubts and fears and the Lord is leading me out of my comfort zone, and suprisingly enough, I don't really want to go that badly. But I am learning what it means to trust in Him moment by moment and to follow even when the road is not that clear. Some days it is clearer than others.

I have accomplished my first week of classes and enjoyed seeing old friends and getting back into classes, my brain has this love of knowledge and learning, which I think is super cool! This semester's homework load looks pretty intense with reading and I am going to be full up even just in taking German Literature.

I am working through how to be a light for Jesus in my classes, in my spare time and even in my homework. The cool thing is, that this can all be for him! He's doing some cool things here..one day I got to talk to three women who are interested in a Bible Study, and I am excited to get into people's lives.

I need to constantly remind myself that this life isn't going to be easy, and the things I'm going to be asked to do, may not always be exactly what I've planned for myself. But I must believe and trust...that His ways are not my ways...and that he has ONLY good planned for me and that he is withholding no good from me! Praise Him!

By His Grace,

Kimberly