Futbol :)

I love my students to pieces! Part of my "ministry" with them is just hanging out with them: listening, learning, and loving. It has been fun doing things with them after school, like inviting them over to my apartment.

The past two weeks all my boys came over in groups. I taught them how to make homemade pizza, and they LOVED it. ;) They all wanted the recipe. The best part was getting goopy kneading the dough. Super cute.
Great conversation was had by all. As the pizza rose, we had some thrilling matches of futbol (soccer).
It was fun "getting rough and dirty" with them. They were impressed - pretty good, coming from ultimate futbol lovers!

I truly thank God for the relationships that are built. :)

Ready to Hike!

I am pleased to introduce you to my very dearest friends, here! Our bond started as a simple common passion for hiking "our mountain" and developed into a wonderfully refreshing relationship! :)

From top to bottom, left to right:
Betsy, Elisa, Robin
Sarah, Me :)

Sarah is actually only visiting here right now. She worked here last year and was so dear to me! She was at grad school this past year, but is returning...and we're going to share an apartment! I'm super duper excited; she is an absolutely amazing person! So, here you go - some of the key people in my life from this end. :)

Potter's Hand

I have these lyrics beside my bed and have been praying them each night before I go to sleep. It is a beautiful pray of adoration and of surrender....a prayer for direction within God's will.
May the words bless you as well!

Beautiful Lord, Wonderful Saviour
I know for sure, all of my days are
held in your hands,
crafted into your perfect plan.
You gently call
me into your presence
guiding me by Your Holy Spirit.
Teach me dear Lord
to live all of my life through Your eyes.
I'm captured by Your holy calling.
Set me apart,
I know you're drawing
me to Yourself.
Lead me Lord I pray

Chorus:
Take me, mould me,
use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter's hand
Call me, guide me,
lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter's hand

"The Potter's Hand" by Darlene Zschech

He First Knew Me

"What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that He know me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me....There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me. "

J. I. Packer, Knowing God
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973, p. 37

Submission

The beautiful,life-giving irony of Christian submission is this:
In Christ, I am actually stronger in weakness than when I am on my own and "doing well."

''Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

1 Peter 5:6-7