winding down

wow. well i know, i've not been as good at this blog the last few weeks. sorry. thanks for your patience.

Christmas was last week and i must say it was fantastic! yes, the gifts were awesome, but it was great to celebrate Christ's birth with my family. i loved getting to be able to worship as a family Christmas eve and again the day after at Church.

This year as a whole has been a huge transition. New: state, church, roommates, friends, car, office, cell phone, bed, camera and house slippers.

It truly has been a unique and challenging. The greatest lesson that i have learned intimately is that God is overwhelmingly faithful for the daily things. I have been living on 100% faith financially since being in MN and as awesome as it is to walk through times of growth, it has had moments of great difficulty. I am excited to report that over the last month or so, God has pushed more and more people to partner with me financially and i am MUCH closer to my financial support goals.

What are some of the new things you've had this year?

SNOW!!!

One of the interesting things about driving on unplowed roads after about 6 inches of snow has fallen is that you get to make up your own lanes. It's strange really, but in NW Indiana, it snows that much and people just kind of stay inside, or slide into the ditch.Not here! I drove to visit my friend Christie last night to catch up on life and watch the Bears CLINCH (!) and it was almost funny to me, there was not ONE person in the ditch, I was shocked. And while some of the drive was a little slow, I just cranked the worship music and enjoyed my time in the car.
Getting to see the Bears clinch the NFC north and secure a spot in the playoffs was a satisfying moment after watching them go into almost every game as the underdog :) But as AMAZING as that was (and it was) I really enjoyed hanging out with my long lost friend Christie. Ok, so she's not really a long lost one, but when we met in Africa we became fast friends. It was fun for me to meet a friend who is in a similar life situation, single female missionary seeking God's will for daily life. It got me thinking a lot about community and the importance of it and the different stages of it that I've been in. Authentic community is something that I desperately long for, something I need as I move through life in ministry. Sometimes I've had it close by, and other times I've had it far away over the phone or skype. I prefer to have it close by but sometimes that's just not the season God has me in. I am blessed to have several friends who I consider true community, a few close by and several around the world. Thanks God for good friends.

Ode to my Co-Workers.

I have a curtain that I put over my cube opening some days when I really need to hunker down and get work done. I do take some flack for it, and not everyone likes it because its kind of crazy colors. So I came into my office today to find my Cube Curtain moved over to the bathroom along with my name plate and the Bathroom door put on my cube. It was a fantastic moment. Apparently they did it yesterday while I was out of the office and they had grand plans to do more, like move things from the inside of my cube to the bathroom. Everyone had a pretty fantastic laugh, but I'm sure they're all glad to have the bathroom door back now so they don't have to go downstairs if they need to actually use it. Thanks people I work with. I love you all a lot.

I called it...

Now listen, just cause I called it, doesn't mean I'm happy about his injury. Bret Favre went down on the third play of the game on Sunday... the THIRD play. In his three plays he was able to attempt one pass which was picked off making it 18 throw aways on the season thus far. He is three games away from his 300th start so I'm pretty sure the "interim" head coach will start him for the next three games, which I think is kind of dumb, cause any other QB in the league with 18 throw aways in 12 games leading his team to a 5-7 record would be benched especially after their backup shines so brightly... but I mean hey, its all about football politics right? My prediction when the Vikings started going downhill was that Bret Favre would get some sort of big hit on him, causing a "season ending" injury... aka injured pride and regret over coming back this season. After his 300th career start, my guess is that he'll be done. Of course with the excuse of his latest injury....

Speaking of people I love...

Life is funny. Some days, as a single woman of 26 (wow when did i get to be 26?!) I find myself feeling a little lonely. It doesn't happen that often, but it's normally when self pity and those sorts of things are battling their way in. THAT is why I have my cubicle at work decorated the way I do, namely a TON of pictures of some of my favorite people on the planet.

They say people are lucky if they have 5 REALLY good friends in their entire lifetime... in my lifetime? I've probably had a hundred. no exaggeration.

I am beyond blessed to have friends in my life that I can call at the drop of a hat and share my heart with. People that even if it's been six hours, days, weeks, months or years, I can talk and share on a level of understanding and authentic community.

Back home again in Indiana

I have enjoyed being home so much! I love getting to spend time with my family and my church. I have met with several of our small groups and I get to talk to our teenagers tonight! I'm excited to talk about all of our call to share Jesus with others.
I'm enjoying home.
I'm excited about Thanksgiving.
I hope you are too.

I'm a passionate person about THIS!

Take a look at the video I finished this week about what I do. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it!



ps. if pushing play doesn't work, try hitting your space bar :) Or CLICK HERE for a link to the youtube site.

Veterans Day!

Thank you men and women who are daily out there on the front lines of our freedom. We don't live in the country we do without sacrifice and today we stop to remember that.
For those who gave their lives, we are grateful to the family you left behind for their sacrifice. For those serving on the front lines or behind the scenes, thank you for your diligence. And for those who previously served, Thank you for protecting us well and for passing the baton to the next generation.
I'm proud to know several military men and women and proud of my Grandfather who fought with pride and conviction in WWII.

I had a hard time sleeping last night.

As I was laying in bed last night I got to thinking about the kids at the JCC orphanage in Bo, Sierra Leone. I was in my fantastic apartment, laying in my soft bed with several blankets and the window cracked. I thought about the kids who at JCC were in a concrete room inside a razor wire compound sleeping in home made bunk beds covered with mosquito nets to try to fend off malaria. No glass or screens on their windows and no air conditioning because there's no electricity. Getting up for a glass of water in the middle of the night would require a flashlight and using the noisy well pump, unless they had thought ahead and pre-pumped some water before bedtime.
The kids are beautiful. I thought about Patrick, how adorable he is and how he seems to think he's one of the "big boys" at 4. I also thought of Junior, that little stinker at 2 running around playing shy with all our students to get attention. Nancy, Mabel, Christiana and some of the other older girls who are trying to navigate teen years. And of course Betty, my "Piqueing" or small child. I want so much to go wrap her up in my arms with a hug.
Laying there last night, there was nothing I could physically do for them but continue to lay there and pray for them. Pray that as they sleep they are safe, that God continues to call the 85 or so kids to himself, that they would know that they are loved and that they would be able to grow into men and women of Christ who makes an impact of the world around them. Pray for them with me would you?

Ever Wonder...

... why i do what i do? Answer.

Picture This!

My Amazing Brother Bryan Buchelt took this picture of Chicago while flying with my dad to Wisconsin for an airshow this summer. It's such an amazing picture that after messing with the color, it is now a 16x20 over our couch in the living room.

Thanks Bry :)

Missions Festival

It is missions festival week this week at Grace Church! This morning's service kicked it all off and I must say, it was great!
I walked in a few minutes late (so what else is new) and when I did they were in the middle of a few updates from missionaries who weren't able to be at the festival. OF COURSE, the first one on when i was in was the Gebel family! only one of my favorites ever! small world that one of my girls' families is being supported by my church. i love it.
The worship this morning was filled with "send me" and "I'm willing to go" type of songs which got me choked up. THEN they paraded in flags from a ton of countries, many of which I've been to or Royal Servants does ministry in. Again... eyes got pretty darn misty. and i won't even lie to you, i cried when the final flag that came in was the Christian flag followed by 28 of the Grace Church's 85 missionary families! it was awesome to see them take the stage, what they represent is beautiful. So then many missionaries and sister churches presented how God was working and the importance of what we are doing here on this side of the pond to make what they are doing happen. i basically had a smile on my face and tears in my eyes through the whole service and kind of felt like a nerd. I feel soooo blessed to be a part of a church that is so on mission that it is built within the very dna of the place.
Praise God for what he is doing around the world, and praise God that he is using Grace Church in the process!

In the Name of Jesus

So I'm re-reading this book by Henri Nouwen which was hugely impactful in my understanding of Christian Leadership back when I was taking my first steps into the role.
I recently found a study guide by a man named Troy Cady (I have no clue who that is, but he writes killer study guides!) and I'm thinking about how I can use this book along with this study guide as I disciple and mentor the next generation of Christian leaders. But of course I need to go through the study guide myself in order to see if its something worth using (so far so good) and wouldn't it beat all, I'm once again being challenged by this book as if I'm reading it for the first time (although my copy is quite marred).
In one of the first chapters of the book, Nouwen talks about the temptation to be relevant. He went from a big time professor, author and priest, to work for a home for disabled people. All of his skills and acclaim he had amassed meant little if anything to the people he was called to minister to. He was so used to being able to ride on his accomplishments that he was "suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how i was perceived in the moment." He goes on to explain, "I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self."
I am so challenged by this. How often do I find my identity in what I can do or have done or in what God has done in and through me in the past. Its easy to hide that way. In Christian leadership, the external may not change much we have mastered the art of making our facade of relevance look an awful lot like authenticity. But when we're riding on that, we cannot last long. My thoughts the other day were this, "Relevance is a facade. When we hide behind it we don't have to show people that we too are human and have struggles and temptations and hurts and vulnerabilities. if we avoid being relevant, we are honest about who we are because there's no cultural stigma of perfection that weighs down on us. We don't need to hide behind our past successes or accomplishments, I want my love of Christ to be what shows first!"
I don't want to worry about LOOKING like God is doing something in and through me and flaunting all the ways he has in the past, I want to worry about if he actually is..... right now.

My Church

i love my church.
www.atgrace.com.
it's pretty great.

SKYPE!

I have decided once again that I love Skype. I used to use it from time to time and now I'm back using it regularly. Its fun to not only get to talk to my friends and my girls, but I get to see them!! It does get kind of funny when I have my headphones in and other people are around, it looks like I'm talking to my laptop haha. No. I'm not crazy. I'm social.... and I like to talk to my laptop.