Thanksgiving

I am Thankful for...(in no particular order)

Beautiful Sunsets
Family
JP's Coffee Shop
Friends
Education...though sometimes I wonder why
The new Lipton Tea pyramids...Specifically Vanilla Caramel Truffle
Crafts...I'm thinking of what my next stress relief craft is going to be after I finish this semester..if you have any good ideas, please share!
Jesus:)
Discipleship
Adventures...

Inspiration

Why are we inspired? or What keeps us from feeling inspired? And to add one more question to the mix, how do we act on inspiration? I am really talking (aka writing) myself through the last question. Over the past many weeks I have been experiencing tons of inspiration from many areas of my life...Motivational speakers, teachers, friends, and most importantly, God's Word. How is it that I feel so inspired and want so badly to do "good" right now but can't because something inside me says, "You just can't do this anymore, you're not cut out for this." What is this voice inside of of me that is holding me back from experiencing and acting upon the dreams that God has placed in my heart? Why am I finding it so hard to finish this chapter of my life and move on? What is distracting me from embracing the life God has for me? I know the simple answer to these questions is Satan. But what form is he taking in my life? I convince myself to think positively, yet there is still this dust of doubt. I tell myself that I can do this, yet I don't do it. I tell myself that I believe in who God created me to be, but if I'm doubting myself, do I really? I feel like Peter, wanting so badly to tell the world about Jesus...then denying Him. I'm not saying that I deny knowing Christ, but I am saying that I desire to serve the Lord and feel as though I am letting Him down. The other part of me is saying just jump into this life over your head and see what God does with you. Sara, put your complete trust in the Lord, in your weakness and in your strength.

I really have no idea what is prompting my to write these things right now and I think that I'd rather not post this. But something is telling me that I should. It's risky to bear the heart, but I know those who read this, already know my heart. Amen.

"Feed Me Seymour!!"

The title of this post is inspired by a recent viewing of, "Little Shop of Horrors." However, the contents of this post are more about the spiritual feeding I have been experiencing recently. As I glanced through the bulletin before church, I saw that the title of today's sermon was, "Friends." To my surprise the real sermon was entitled, "God's Work In You." The Scripture reading came from Phil. 1:6 "...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." This is the verse that gave me the courage to continue and finish my student teaching at IWU. Many of you may not know that I seriously considered not finishing and going straight into full-time mission work.

Over and over I was reminded how God put a desire in my heart to serve Him through teaching and through music. I rememberd the first two years of college when I wanted to be the best music teacher ever. I knew that God started this work in me for some reason and I must faithfully finish the task He has currently set before me, in order to glorify Him in all of it. So I came back, hesitantly, but I did it.

I am getting down to the last month of my education at IWU, and I am looking forward to being completely finished earning my music education degree. There have been many times I wanted to quit, but I did not. I have been living in the grace and strength of God everyday. Through the prayers being lifted up on my behalf and the faithfulness of the Lord, He is working to complete this work in me. I am getting to the point where it is hard to motivate myself to do the extra writing that goes into the e-folio portion of my student teaching requirements. But I have confidence to know that God will give me words and energy to do so.

Through many conversations with friends, prayer, reading Scripture, and listening more than talking, God is clearly speaking to me. I know that I can do this and I can finish strong because in my weakness, Christ's strength is perfect. I know that I can do all things through Him who gives me strength and that, God, who began this work in me will faithfully carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Thanks

Thank you for praying for me! Today, I was driving to school in the morning and I felt lifted up in prayer. I know that God is sustaining me by His grace and the prayers of His faithful servants. I can't express my gratitude enough. I am so thankful for all the prayers being lifted up on my behalf. God bless you and keep you always.

Printing labels

So today I spent about a half hour trying to get some dang labels to print for my lesson plan notebook. I was thoroughly ready to break the printer! I never got them printed...until tonight that is. It took me about a minute to type and print the labels at home tonight. Praise the Lord! I guess the bad news is that I wasted a half hour prep, but the good news is that I'm not a total idiot and it must be that the printer at school is from the ice age.

This brings me to another thought. I wish that our portfolio for student teaching was still on paper and not an e-folio. Somehow I feel better about organizing things myself rather than relying on a link to correctly connect my index to each paper and artifact. Maybe in the long run I'll like the e-folio, but for right now it's nothing less than irritating. Now that I've gotten on my soap box for the night, I'll stop complaining and just keep on working to the end. (Did I mention it's almost the end?1 month and 15 days to graduation...but who's counting?)

Back to the Grindstone

So I'm trying to set goals for myself as far as my portfolio goes. I would love to have it completely finished next week! However, I'm really struggling with motivation. I need prayer for this area of my life. I find myself desiring to get this finished but not getting it done, I get distracted or I find it pointless to write the same eight papers over and over. I don't know what it is, but whatever is happening is keeping me from doing my best. I do great in the classroom but it's the behind the scene work that killin' me here. Pray that I am given new strength and new motivation to complete this work! Also that I have the words to write. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement!

Fall Break

It's fall break for Eastern Elementary and I'd like to fall over...I think I'll watch the world series instead. I am thankful to have the day off tomorrow and I plan to go visit a couple dear friends. I am looking forward to having a little down time. Granted I have tons of work to do, but I think I need to feed my very deprived social life right now. I miss my friends dearly and I pour so much time into school that I don't even talk to my friends very often. Sometimes I feel like a bad friend, but then again, I have to tell myself that this is only for short time in my life and soon it will be over. Right now I am going to enjoy some baseball.

Quick Breath

I am taking a quick breath in this whole process...aka transition from middle to elementary school. Today was my second day at Eastern Elementary in Greentown, IN. I think I am going to love this placement. I'm still not set on teaching music as a profession but I know I was born to teach in some way, shape or form. This week I am frantically trying to get caught up on my e-folio for IWU because for the past two months I have been doing nothing except trying to stay afloat as a middle school teacher. My days were often 10-11 hours at school..ah! That was sometimes enough to make me go nuts. My elementary placement is not going to be near as stressful. I'll be writing 12 lesson plans a week as compared to 6 a day! I think I will be a bit more normal and maybe even have a life every now and then. I will also try to keep this more up to date in the next months so that those of you praying for me know what to pray for. Right now I am praising the Lord for this transition and praying for strength to finish well.

New Face 2 Face Ministry

I am home from an amazing summer. My home in Indiana that is. I have just begun my student teaching experience and I am not sure what to think yet. I love students and I love teaching, but I just don't know how God is going to use me to further His kingdom through any of this. My goal is to seek frist His kingdom and I feel like I am not doing that at school. Hmm...How is this connected to what I will do in the future? I have no idea, but for now, I must trust that God knows what He's doing with my life. I just have so many questions about what my ministry looks like at School, face 2 face with so many students, many of whom need Jesus!!

Rejoice

So today I feel incredibly blessed. It is over 100 degrees and yet the Lord is watching over me. Many days I have to take photos up at Mt. Rushmore for much of the day. Today however, I only had two pictures before it reached 100 degrees. I am so thankful that I did not have to walk around Mt. R. all day and driving back and forth between the museum and the mountian. Even though it is hot, It feels wonderful to not be in the sun all day! I pray that this grace flows over to this evening. At the Pitchfork Fondue there is no air conditioning. We set up about 10 fans, but that doesn't do much good when it's so hot. I pray that God might send us a short rain to cool off the evening. I also worry for the performers. Many of them wear costumes that have long sleves. They've got to be way too hot. Hopefully no one will pass out. For now, I am going to rejoice in the blessings I have already recieved and pray that it continues into the evening.

Hills Alive

The Hills were Alive with the sound of music! (the Black Hills that is) This past weekend Rapid City hosted a Christian music festival that was wonderful. I had the opportunity to go on Sunday afternoon and evening. The music was great, time spent with friends was great, and get this, It was FREE! Yeah, this entire event was free and not lacking in big name artists. One of my highlights from the day was Natalie Grant sining the hymn, "In Christ Alone." This is one of my favorite hymns and it has been getting me through the past two weeks of work. I also enjoyed hearing the Newsboys. They were great. One thing that I really appreciated about their show is that they stopped sing for a little bit and gave a message about the living life as a Christian. It really put action behind their music and it was meaningful. However, the music was amazing and I really like the lyrics to many of their songs, they make you think.This was a day that I really needed to spend praising the Lord and resting in Him. I'm so thankful God allowed me to have time to go to this concert. I've been kinda tired for the past couple of weeks and this gave just the energy I needed to keep going. Praise the Lord!

Wedding Pictures

Here are some pictures from my "recent" trip to MI for my dear friend Vanessa's wedding. For those of you at home or around the world, here is a little bit of my life from IWU. Enjoy!

The Veeches

Kori, Angie, and Vanessa

Me and Angie

Me and Vanessa

Jason: ie. groom

Goofy Groomsmen

Memory Verses

I have always wanted to have the Word of the Lord imprinted on my heart. I have learned verses over the years and memorized bits and pieces every now and then. This summer I am trying to put my desire into reality. My friend Julie and I are working on memorizing chapters of the Bible. This may not seem like to much to those with amazing memories, but for me, this is a huge challenge. I'm not exactly sure why either. I can memorize a song with ease but when it comes to speaking the Word of God from memory, I struggle. Please pray for me on this regard. Currently we are in I John 3. This part of God's Word reminds me that I am His child and that as His child the world will not "know me." I am encouraged by this because the last chapter we memorized was II Cor. 13 and It says that one day I will know fully just as I am fully known (by my Father). I know this is kind of a weird connection, but that is the first thing I thought of when I read I Jn. 3.

So right now I will continue to be persistent and keep trying to memorize and imprint the Word of God in my heart.

Good Breakfast

This morning I had breakfast with a couple of retired missionaries who now live here in Keystone. They are now running the "Keystone Project" which trains pastors from all over the world in church planting and discipleship. Anyway, I felt so blessed today after spending the morning with them. I was able to share my heart for missions with them and also hear about the ways that God moved in their lives to lead them to missions. They told me about the many ways that God has blessed their lives because they have strived to be obediant to Him and follow His leading. Vic and Barb were such an encouragement to me and gave me such assurance in waiting for the Lord to lead me to the mission field. I am so thankful for this opportunity and time that I had to share with them. They shared wise Scripture and teachings as well as struggles they faced. I'm looking forward to spending more time getting to know this couple and learning from them. I feel so blessed to have met them. Praise the Lord!

Genuine--thoughts

What does this mean? I am trying to be a "real" person with the people I work with, live with, and come into contact with throughout my day. At church last night we discussed this at great length. In fact our whole team sat around until about 1:30am learning to be honest with each other. I admit, I struggled with this more than I thought I would. For some reason I find it hard to open up my heart to people that I don't know well and don't know if I'll ever stay in contact with them long term. At the same time, I love the members of the team. We have all become quite close and we are learning how to work together more every day. So now, I think that I'm becoming more comfortable just being me (this is very good:).

But now what does this mean with my roommates? I want to know them, who they are..what they like/don't...what they like to do, read, listen to, eat..,ect. At the same time I want to proclaim the truth of the Gospel because this is what drives me. It is who I am. I am trying to learn how to genuinely care for them and encourage them sincerely so that they will see Jesus. So these are my thoughts on being genuine for now, maybe I'll have more later...

Crazy Dayz

So I went home for a quick weekend to be a part of my best friend's wedding...(Vanessa and Jason Veach) It was so beautiful and I had a wonderful time. It went by so fast and I can't believe I'm already back here in South Dakota. The funny thing is though, I feel right at home here. It seems as though whenever I go to Holland or MI for that matter, I have a huge agenda. Either I need to finish schoolwork, go to an event, or something is always making me extremely pressed for time whenever I'm there. I enjoy going home and love to see my family and friends, I just wish I could do it on a more relaxed time schedule. O well, in all honesty, I'm just thankful that I had the opportunity to go home, see my family, see a few friends, and then return back here and dive back into the ministry.

Highlights from the trip include: Vanessa's Wedding, seeing my family, having coffee with my friend Julie, running a mile in the airport so I didn't miss my connecting flight, reading "Tuesday's With Morrie," and reading "You Are Special" to a little kid in the airport. It was quite an eventful long weekend. Pictures should be posted soon.

Today I was back to work and enjoyed doing laundry with a girl named Andrea. Sometime this week she is moving down here to Keystone from Rapid City. She's a really sweet girl and we had made the best of folding towels and sheets:) Tomorrow I'm back to work at the Museum taking photos and whatever else they need me to do.

Black Hills Beauty

Here are a few photos that just show a glimps of God's creation out here. I'll continue to add more as we go on more adventures. Most of these pictures are from our camping trip to Custer State Park. Which happened to be the same weekend as my birthday, So once agian God blessed my life abundantly with the gift of seeing the beauty of His creation!

Blog Continues....

Ok, so I admit that I have not been able to keep this blog going for the last month simply because life is very busy and my internet connection in often questionable. But now I hope to keep this going and let you know what is happening out here. I feel as though I have to play catch-up and explain everything that's been happening. However, I don't have the time or energy for that. So I will through in the major events and pick up right where I'm at now.

We are 1/3 of the way through the summer and I can hardly believe time is passing so fast. I started out in a pseudo "Gospel Boot Camp." I learned a lot about discipleship, the Acts 2 church, the role of the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Warfare, sharing the Gospel, and giving my testimony. Honestly, I feel like we've covered an entire semester of teaching in just two weeks. It was major Intense! In fact, that is my word for the summer. Everything about this place in intense: the beauty, the work, the fun, God's work...I could go on and on.

Right now, I have a variety of jobs. First off, I am a photographer. Let's be honest, I'm a amateur posing as a pro, the most technical camera I've ever used in my simple digital camera. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and the boss said, "hey, do you want to learn photography tomorrow?" I said sure and now I'm a photographer (haha). I also work front desk at a hotel, housekeeping and housekeeping inspections at other hotels. I guess I'm what you would call the "go to girl." But I'm having fun with it. When I do photos, I get to meet people from all over the world and I'm gaining the confidence to share my faith with them, which is pretty cool. When I work at the hotels, I work with international students from Poland, Thailand, Philippines, and I live with two Bulgarians. It's amazing! I absolutely love where God has placed me and I love the challenge.

It is my privilage to welcome you on this journey with me. This journey is full of unknows at this point. In fact, all I know is that I'll be working in Keystone, SD this summer with an organization called Face 2 Face Ministries. This ministry places Christian students from the U.S. to work alogside of students from Eastern Europe (most of which of little to no exposure to Christianity). So here we go...

I wanted to start up a blog for the summer so those who are praying for me or interested in what I'm up to can be part of this ministry with me. I'll do my best to update often, however, I don't know what our schedule is going to look like yet, so I may only update once a week. I guess, I'll find out soon enough.

Currently, I'm on my way across the country. I left Holland on Sunday, May 7, 2006 and took the Lake Express across Lake Michigan in order to meet Kathryn (one of the girls I'm working with). We left from her house today and drove to Sioux Falls, SD where we met Janelle, another girl working at Face 2 Face, and tomorrow the three of us head off to Rapid City/Keystone. We officially begin orientation on Wednesday and so far we are so excited.

I really believe that God has some amazing plans for this summer and I am anxious to be part of them. As God works in and through this ministry and teaches me many lessons (I'm sure), I invite you to be part of this with me and join me on this Face 2 Face Adventure.