JOY unspeakable

Now, those of you who know me can attest that my greatest worldly ambition is to be a hippie. I mean legit, awesome, chill, oozing with coolness hippie. Well, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction. The past week or so I have hit my stride with bluegrass music. I'm talking I was watching a PBS movie with the Wright family called The Songcatcher (HIGHLY recommend) and it hit me like a brick wall. I was obsessed. Now, I am not a country music fan but living in Nashville, TN for 2 months I have been exposed to it on a daily basis. I must also admit that this is partially due to Landon Byrd and the fact that he is a cowboy... or at least that is what his greatest worldly ambition is to become.

So we have had this interesting dynamic between the two of us. I have dragged him downtown to sketch-ville bar to see a techno/alternative/disco/funk/folk/electro-ish band and he BLASTS Alan Jackson everytime we are in the car. It's very interesting. However, our musical worlds have fallen into step under this mutual understanding and appreciation of folk and bluegrass music. He downloaded the Old Crow Medicine Show CD and we both sang along to Wagon Wheel as we drove to church on Saturday. Following some tweeps, I came to know a band called Mumford & Sons and I have become hooked. I watched a documentary on Netflix (another new obsession of mine) called 180 Degrees South (another HIGHLY recommended view) and have been listening via http://www.grooveshark.com to the soundtrack which makes me want to take up mountain climbing and surfing, simultaneously, but more about that later. So my world has opened up to this different kind of wailing, banjo playing, barefoot tapping music and it is beautiful.

"You can understand dependence/ when you know the Maker's hand."

This new music trend has brought on a fresh wind of life in me. God has been faithful to bring things into my day everyday that show His beauty and majesty to me. I have been challenged through conversation with girls in the youth group and through teaching and leading discussion every week, but amongst all of this God has given me an unspeakable joy the past two weeks. I can't explain it except I know it is from Him, filling my time with things to laugh at and friendships to enjoy. It's almost like I just realized how much I love it here and that I just felt the urgency that I leave in 9 days. Nolensville has hooked me in and it's wonderful.

In other news, I got to visit Shades Mountain's youth camp in Ocoee earlier this week and spent a day seeing Lesley and have her poke fun at me because for once in her life she is tanner than I. I also got to see Rachael Collins which ALWAYS makes my day. I am so blessed to have grown up with a friend who loves the Lord without abandon. I mean, Rachael dragged me along to wash this kid's clothes that were infested with roaches and she modeled a servant's heart through the entire ordeal. AH, I can't wait to be in Birmingham to have time with my core group girls.


Bah, I just feel really smiley right now, and I blame this:

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your innter being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 4:16-18

one night with the King

So I got this app on my iPhone that makes pictures look like polaroid pictures. I may or may not be obsessed with it and combined with the satisfaction that I get from posting pictures on here, I'm pretty excited!

I feel like it is most important to note the bombings that happened on Sunday and the 74 people who were killed and the countless more who were injured. These particular events struck me really hard because 3 of my friends are in Uganda right now and were at the restaurant with the projector screen that was bombed in Kampala. Catherine and Tori have been in Uganda since May serving at the Sozo orphanage helping love and serve the children of this area. Jonathan has been traveling all over, it seems like, working with various evangelizing groups spreading the Gospel to students and adults alike through Kenya, Uganda and soon to be Tanzania. I am so blessed to be able to say that none of them were hurt during the attack. Jonathan had met up with Catherine and Tori's group before to watch the game to hang out with them. Through a string of events and circumstances that can only be labeled as being planned by a Sovereign God, none of their group was injured. I'm praying that they would be able to take this story that has certainly left a deep impact on their hearts and use it to glorify the Lord and to testify to others who have suffered through this. Please pray for their safe travels back to the US and continued travel and work in this region, but mostly pray for those who were impacted by these attacks and those who were behind the attacks. Somalian terrorists are blamed for the attacks as a protest to African Union peace keeping forces in Somalia. I am constantly reminded of the state of decay that this world is in. Please join me to pray that the Gospel of Peace would reach the hearts of these attackers and that the people of this region of the world would respond with unimaginable peace.

Speaking of journeys this weekend Landon, Baylie, Matt, Lydia and I drove to Chattanooga for the day:

This was on top of Lookout Mountain. There were two guys playing bluegrass music and it was awesome.

Also, I found this:

You can decide if it's creepy or not.

I'm trying to get the chance to meet one on one with each of the girls in the youth group before I leave in 3 weeks. This has been really interesting and challenging for me. God is really challenging me to be bold in word and deed before them and to impart even an ounce of how much God loves them to each one. Please pray that I would be faithful to cultivate Godly wisdom in my quiet time and that He would guide my words and conversations with each of these precious girls.

grace&peace
mgw

Kairos

This is my summer. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to minister with and to these kids this summer. We took this group to M-Fuge in Kentucky last week and had a really great week of serving and learning and really being challenged by the Word. I had to opportunity to pray with a girl as she accepted Christ and had a lot of opportunities to pour into relationships with girls from our group and really see young girls that are thirsty for God. Bulleted highlights:

- group-wide predestination/free-will discussion
- challenging questions about the Trinity
- roofing (I got a sweet lanyard tan on my neck)
- getting to know the staff from the camp and talk to my leader about global missions
- camp cheers (!!)

Pretty much, it was incredible to see how God moved in the lives of these students. I would like to say with an honest heart that I anticipated and expected Him to move in such ways, but I had my doubts. In addition to the girl who became a Christian, we also had a boy give his life to full-time ministry. They are both 9th graders- woah! The sweetest time of it all for me, though, was when girls would come and pull me over to the side to talk and to pray over them. This week kinda radically opened some relationships for me with them and I'm super pumped to see how these relationships grow. Please pray that my heart and mouth would be overflowing with God's words and wisdom and not my own.

I definitely saw the depths of my heart this week as well. Riding in the middle school van might have driven me to the ends of my patience, but God is so faithful to pull us and stretch us and teach us, even if we are resistant to it.

Despite the post-camp craziness (still trying to recover) the past few days have been really great. Yesterday Landon and I got to go spend the day with Jay, Shantal, the girls and their whole extended family. We got to play with the kids, swim, grill out, and really enjoy being surrounded by a loving family. Even if I couldn't spend this weekend with MY fam, I was able to spend it with other families who adopted me in and loved on me.

A story that I have been reading through and thinking about is the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel. I have been so convicted about my heart in prayer. I remember being taught by a friend in high school to pray with expectation. If we do not pray with the certainty that God will move, we are limiting our view of God's nature. I feel like it's so important that when we pray, we do not let it become a passive activity that we can check off the list of things to do, but rather that we use these intimate moments of meeting with Him to "weep bitterly" and to pour into passionately knowing that God will remember you.