Jane in Ocean City

Here is the video I mentioned in my previous post.

Hello hello!

I really need to keep up with updating you guys with life at OC. I’ve been learning so much about the greatness of God, my sin, and the vital role of community in a believer’s life. Every day I fall more in love with this place and with the people here and every day I come to the realization that I didn’t come to Ocean City out of coincidence. It was definitely a divine appointment. 

Here are some pictures of OC that I forgot to put up on my last update:

My room:

The boardwalk:

So the themes for the past couple weeks have been the following: All for One, World Vision, and Agape.

All for One week was dedicated to establishing the vital importance of a community when pursuing God. It’s important to have a community that you can depend on that  you are vulnerable with and will guide you with grace and truth.

I don’t really know what to share in terms of the activities that we did because we aren’t allowed to share too much about what goes on during project in order to give students who are planning on going in the future the full experience of a summer project.

But I want to gloss over one big event that happened during that week. Women’s conference was on the Wednesday of All for One week and it was definitely not what I expected. I was waiting for some sort of cry fest where girls would talk about struggles and the leaders would talk about how we’re all beautiful in God’s eyes and we shouldn’t define our beauty by the world, etc. etc. Not that those things are bad (and from personal experience, there are times when you need to cry about life or be reminded that we are all created in God’s image) but it was refreshing to talk about the life God has called us to. (more to be added in during a later time)

A group of Northwestern girls posing during Women’s Conference

World Vision week is definitely been my favorite so far in the project. As the name  probably explains, the week was designed to teach the need to carry out the Great Commission.

This video was shown during our weekly meetings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmLdbgGyxl0

This video definitely challenged me in my complacency. We are all called no matter where we go. We should assume we go unless God tells us otherwise.

World Vision week definitely shook me in my plans for the future. Who am I to stray from the path the God of the universe has given to me? Who am I to say that I am going to be a journalist or a teacher or a missionary in the future when ultimately, it is not my call?

I’m currently reading A Million Ways to Die by Rick James (all the women got free copies of the book during Women’s Conference). In the chapter “Waiting and Waiting”, he illustrates the importance of pursuing God in order to know His will with the story of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

“[Martha’s] responsive, anticipating His movements, allowing herself to be led by the LORD. She has no idea where the dance will lead, but her intimacy affords her the intuition of knowing the next step. Knowing where it’s headed….She is the recipient of the promise and therefore bears the responsibility of believing it.”

Crazy convicting. It’s so easy for me to assume that I’m going to be using my journalism degree or to assume that I’m going to live a comfortable life in the states. But God doesn’t call any of his children to be comfortable.

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time. - Francis Chan

This blog post is pretty random. I’ve been shooting out pictures, quotes, and videos at you guys. I think it’s because I slept out on the porch last night and I’m getting a little loopy. Here are some more pictures just for the kicks. I’ll be updating more soon.

Prayer Requests:

I’ve been loving OCSP but I’m dreading going back home because I’m afraid this intimacy with God will change. Obviously, a shift will happen but pray that I will daily surrender and depend on the Holy Spirit.

Also, I’m 500 dollars away from being fully supported! God is so good! Pray that I will trust God in providing the final push.

The staff is leaving this Friday! I can’t even believe it. I have learned so much from my discipler and the rest of the staff but I’m excited for the next step of the project. My project job is being an action group leader, meaning I’m going to disciple three girls! Pray that I constantly depend on the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom in speaking grace and truth into the lives of these girls.

A studly softball game

Free Chik-fil-a if you dress up like a cow day!

July 4th action group picture!

Room decorations for World Vision week

In Him,

Jane

film-grain:

The Mountain (by TESO Photography by Terje Sorgje)

Thanks Sarah for the first reblog. Totally blew me away.

This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide.
Spain´s highest mountain @(3718m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies.

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the 9th April (bit.ly/​g3tsDW) and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.

Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

(via andsotodark)

Hello everyone!

I’ve been meaning to update for the longest time but every time I tried to blog, I was overwhelmed by the amount I had to update about…and I’ve finally decided to finish this and move on stress free.

Just to give some factual information about the project: Ocean City summer project is the alpha project (or the first project) of all the Campus Crusade summer projects. Ocean City summer project ‘11 has about 110 college students. Approximately 60 of those students live in The Ambassador’s Inn and around 40 of them live in The Mansion. There are 13  Northwestern students (including myself) in the mix.

This past week at OCSP (ocean city summer project) was Killing the Giants week. Every Saturday, both the staff and students go on the boardwalk and give surveys about life perspectives with the intention of sharing the gospel with others. This past week, every day was a day of sharing and we pushed ourselves to kill our own giants of fear/insecurities about sharing with certain types of people or sharing with specific people in our lives.

I didn’t really have a giant in mind until I went sharing with one of my roommates on Tuesday. I was craving for an intellectual debate/argument/discussion with someone on the boardwalk and I totally thought it was an innocent desire. So my roommate and I went on the boardwalk and approached two high school graduates, Serena and Collin. Right away, Collin mentioned that he was going to Yale University the upcoming year and it automatically gave me this want to prove myself worthy to him.

Quick digression. Proving myself worthy to others is something I have been wrestling with throughout this project. It’s so funny how even with this struggle, God still chooses to pursue me and call me his own. I tend to put people’s opinions of me over God’s and He still loves me enough to send his own son for me.

Quick digression from the digression. One of the things I have loved so far about OCSP is the emphasis on the importance of the gospel. During one of my first weekly meetings, Ryan Berg, one of the speakers/staff here, talked about how, as one matures and grows in his or her walk with the Lord, the importance of the gospel increases in our lives. The gospel should permeate every part of our lives. Surrendering my control to the holy spirit’s control is something the Lord has been working on in my heart.

Going back to the first digression. I am constantly preoccupied with the opinions of others. I remember back in December when I went to IndyCC (the winter conference for Campus Crusade) and God definitely convicted me of my tendencies of over-analyzing and how those tendencies prevent me from experiencing the joy God offers me by simply living life moment by moment.

Anyways, back to my story. Just a bit of background before going on with the story: We were recently trained to use the “Knowing God Personally” handbook, which is basically a spark-notes of the essence of the gospel, and I thought I had gotten the hang of it. Whenever I shared the KGP with anyone, I knew exactly what to say. I knew how to transition from the survey to the KGP and I knew how to appeal to the people I was talking to. Unknowingly, I became prideful in how I knew how to present the KGP in an effective way, not giving any credit to the holy spirit who in reality, was doing all of the work in the hearts of the people the gospel came in contact with.

I keep digressing. One more digression and I’ll try to make this blog-post as transition-friendly as possible. Being at OCSP has helped me to realize that I can never credit myself with anything awesome that God is doing. God is so good for letting me take part in his awesome plan for people but I am solely a medium through whom the Holy Spirit can do His work. I didn’t realize that I had taken up so much pride in myself. But ultimately, it’s not the words that I say that will change someone’s life but it’s the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit’s work in that person’s life.

Anyways, back to my story. Basically, the conversation that I had with Collin was, truthfully speaking, a slap in the face. The entire time, the three students (one more student joined the group and announced that he was graduating from Dartmouth so there was a lot of intimidation on my part) treated the survey as a waste of time. During the conversation, I went into debate mode and I asked question after question, pretty much with the hidden intention of trying to prove their arguments wrong. I was brought back to my knees when Collin asked me if he could finish his sentence. Ouch. God is good in all things because when my head is up in the clouds, he manages to bring me down in a way that is painful but also in a way that I can handle.

So basically, this experience hindered my go-all-in attitude I had before this specific conversation. But God still let me be used even with my unwilling attitude. My other roommate, Alyssa, and I went on the boardwalk one of the nights of the beginning of the week after this slap-in-the-face conversation and we ended up getting in a conversation with three ladies, two who were sisters and who were believers, and their cousin, whom we realized had some flaws in her understanding of the gospel.

We ended up transitioning into the KGP and Jennifer ended up receiving Christ as her personal savior. It was one of the most genuine acceptances I have ever witnessed. She had to stop midway through the prayer because she was sobbing so much. It was such a beautiful picture of redemption.

But the story didn’t end there. We ended up meeting Jennifer and her friend, Lexi, for ice cream and Jennifer ended up texting Alyssa and asked if we could share the KGP with Lexi. They came to our Thursday weekly meeting (we have two: one on Mondays and one on Thursdays) and afterward, Lexi ended up coming to know the Lord.

And the best part of the whole story was that at the end of Killing the Giants week we were able to do one more follow-up study with Lexi and Jennifer. Even with my unwilling attitude, the Lord allowed me to witness the most beautiful pictures of redemption.

What an update. And I have a butt-load more to talk about but staring at the computer is giving me a headache so….I will update the rest soon enough.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of friends in OCSP.

PRAYER REQUEST:

Support-raising has been tough but I know that the Lord will provide in his time.

An Encouragement:

Romans 4:18-21

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

In Him,

Jane