My favorite season has arrived. Or is arriving, at least.Yesterday I even wanted a light fleece in the morning. It's my no-campus day, and I'm enjoying doing laundry while it drips rain outside, and anticipating a nice cup of tea once I get back to my apartment. And I might light the spicy autumn candle on my kitchen table tonight. If you haven't already figured out that I'm obsessed with Fall (based on my blog background, or just talking with me), consider yourself informed.
This weekend Davidson met up with several other schools from North and South Carolina for an RUF Fall Conference at Camp Greystone, just south of Asheville. I think there were about 30 of us from Davidson who went, and it was awesome just to have that time to hang out with students in a non-school setting. Our speaker for the weekend, Rob Edwards, was incredible as well, not only for the family/Athens connection we share, but in the way he clearly presented Sanctification over the course of four sermons, all from the gospel of Luke. Based on our small group discussions afterwards, I think most of us were encouraged and challenged by his talks.
Saturday afternoon was our bit of free time, so I got to spend this time NOT studying (it's still so strange not being a student anymore). Besides canoing with some girls, I also learned to play a few new games - some of them more successfully than others :-). Bananagrams is quite fun - we played this for a while in the Dining Hall while it rained. And Flickerball...haha. This is actually a Davidson sport, played mainly between the Freshmen halls, and then at random between upperclassmen. It's sort of a cross between touch football and ultimate frisbee, so if you can imagine me attempting that... :-). But it was fun at least running around the field with everyone, and my students were awesome in encouraging me the couple of times I actually caught the ball (even if I wasn't so sure what to do with it then).
Mainly, this weekend was awesome for having the chance to participate in a lot of hopefully relational-building activities, and to have some common ground to relate to some of the newer students on.
On a side note, all of us female interns got to stay in a cabin together, which meant we talked way-late after lights out both nights, and I am now so excited to see all my fellow inters again at training next month!
So, it's cool and rainy for the first time since I've been in Davidson, and I love it. Planning to make some Ginger cookies and play apples-to-apples with students this weekend. Hopefully they'll appreciate my obsession with this season :)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Humility and Rejoicing
So yesterday I did something I've never done before. I gave away my Bible. (okay, one of them. Now I don't feel so bad for having several :-) ). I'm envious of those of you who have had this experience many times before. I felt so inadequate, like handing over my Bible was the only thing I could do.
See, I was meeting with a girl at a coffee shop. It was the first time we'd gotten to hang out one-on-one, and so I just barely knew her, and didn't really know which direction the conversation was going to take. I quickly came to find out that this girl is a brand new Christian, which is so incredibly awesome! However, she knows almost nothing about the Bible. So she and a friend were talking about how they wanted to start reading the Bible to learn more about their new faith, but they're overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. Also, her Bible is a little hard to dive into because, yea, verily, it is an Olde King James version. (Yeah, that's hard for me to read too!) I'm fearful writing this, because I'm scared to let you know how sheltered I have been. At this point in our conversation, I felt so lost. I've had some experience talking about the Gospel with people who are familiar with the Old and New Testaments, whether or not they take them as truth. But I feel convicted that my speech is so in tune to "Christian lingo" that I seriously fail in explaining the Bible to someone who really knows nothing about it. I pulled my ESV out of my bag and opened it to John. People always say that John is a good book to start with, and so I showed her where to find it, but I'm afraid I failed in properly explaining it. I also showed her the Psalms, and started to say they were written mainly by David, and then stopped, because I realized that she had no clue who David was. So I had to blunder through giving a very vague picture of the Psalms without using any pre-supposed Christian terminology.
I walked away from our coffee date amazed at the opportunity of seeing Christ at work in this girl's life, and convicted of my own inadequacy. I realized that I really don't know how to talk about the Bible apart from Christian platitudes.
Please pray for me, that I would begin to learn how to see the Gospel through the eyes of a new believer, and that God would grant me the grace and wisdom to humbly learn.
And please pray and praise God for this girl who angels are rejoicing over! Pray that God's word would be living and active in her life, even as He promises it is. And pray that she would take great joy in the opportunity to learn about the immeasurable riches of her Savior!
See, I was meeting with a girl at a coffee shop. It was the first time we'd gotten to hang out one-on-one, and so I just barely knew her, and didn't really know which direction the conversation was going to take. I quickly came to find out that this girl is a brand new Christian, which is so incredibly awesome! However, she knows almost nothing about the Bible. So she and a friend were talking about how they wanted to start reading the Bible to learn more about their new faith, but they're overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. Also, her Bible is a little hard to dive into because, yea, verily, it is an Olde King James version. (Yeah, that's hard for me to read too!) I'm fearful writing this, because I'm scared to let you know how sheltered I have been. At this point in our conversation, I felt so lost. I've had some experience talking about the Gospel with people who are familiar with the Old and New Testaments, whether or not they take them as truth. But I feel convicted that my speech is so in tune to "Christian lingo" that I seriously fail in explaining the Bible to someone who really knows nothing about it. I pulled my ESV out of my bag and opened it to John. People always say that John is a good book to start with, and so I showed her where to find it, but I'm afraid I failed in properly explaining it. I also showed her the Psalms, and started to say they were written mainly by David, and then stopped, because I realized that she had no clue who David was. So I had to blunder through giving a very vague picture of the Psalms without using any pre-supposed Christian terminology.
I walked away from our coffee date amazed at the opportunity of seeing Christ at work in this girl's life, and convicted of my own inadequacy. I realized that I really don't know how to talk about the Bible apart from Christian platitudes.
Please pray for me, that I would begin to learn how to see the Gospel through the eyes of a new believer, and that God would grant me the grace and wisdom to humbly learn.
And please pray and praise God for this girl who angels are rejoicing over! Pray that God's word would be living and active in her life, even as He promises it is. And pray that she would take great joy in the opportunity to learn about the immeasurable riches of her Savior!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
"Hallelujah"
As of Monday, I am now an official member of the Davidson College Concert Choir, singing 1st Alto in Handel’s Messiah (I’d call myself a mezzo-soprano, but Handel forgot about us when composing the score), to be performed November 22, at 7:30pm in the Duke Family Performance Hall on campus at Davidson.
I know. I hear your objections. Firstly, “um, Anna…you don’t sing. You never have sung. What?” and, “um, didn’t you go to Davidson to minister to students? Aren’t you being supported to work with RUF?” And you are absolutely right, on both accounts.
You see, joining the Concert Choral to sing well and prove my heretofore neglected vocal calling (ha!), is not really the point. Talking with my campus minister, I realized that part of ministry here is using my interests and talents (okay, singing isn’t exactly a talent, but music in general, maybe) as ways to get involved and get to know the Davidson community, and widen the scope of people that I come in contact with. That being said, I’m not going to choir rehearsal on Monday nights with some maniacal vision of gathering up all the innocent choir-goers and herding them to RUF. I just want to have more opportunities to be a part of Davidson, and get to know girls with whom I would not otherwise come in contact. Davidson students are incredibly busy and studious, and maybe this is a way to enter into their world, instead of asking them to do something else. So this is just a start. I’m trying to figure out how to get involved with Spanish & German too, and am potentially going to the Davidson Knitting Club on Saturday (please don’t laugh too hard, although you are entitled to some laughing). On a side note, I love the Messiah, and pretty much know all the music backward and forward, so I’m pretty pumped to have a great excuse to do this, and it should be a good start for someone with very little choir background. My first rehearsal was this Monday, and I LOVED it, and I also got to meet some sweet girls!
So please do pray for me, as I attempt to get involved in life at Davidson, and look for clubs and organizations in which non-students are also allowed to participate.
I know. I hear your objections. Firstly, “um, Anna…you don’t sing. You never have sung. What?” and, “um, didn’t you go to Davidson to minister to students? Aren’t you being supported to work with RUF?” And you are absolutely right, on both accounts.
You see, joining the Concert Choral to sing well and prove my heretofore neglected vocal calling (ha!), is not really the point. Talking with my campus minister, I realized that part of ministry here is using my interests and talents (okay, singing isn’t exactly a talent, but music in general, maybe) as ways to get involved and get to know the Davidson community, and widen the scope of people that I come in contact with. That being said, I’m not going to choir rehearsal on Monday nights with some maniacal vision of gathering up all the innocent choir-goers and herding them to RUF. I just want to have more opportunities to be a part of Davidson, and get to know girls with whom I would not otherwise come in contact. Davidson students are incredibly busy and studious, and maybe this is a way to enter into their world, instead of asking them to do something else. So this is just a start. I’m trying to figure out how to get involved with Spanish & German too, and am potentially going to the Davidson Knitting Club on Saturday (please don’t laugh too hard, although you are entitled to some laughing). On a side note, I love the Messiah, and pretty much know all the music backward and forward, so I’m pretty pumped to have a great excuse to do this, and it should be a good start for someone with very little choir background. My first rehearsal was this Monday, and I LOVED it, and I also got to meet some sweet girls!
So please do pray for me, as I attempt to get involved in life at Davidson, and look for clubs and organizations in which non-students are also allowed to participate.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A quick look at Davidson
Two weeks ago today I was moving to Davidson. Now, at least compared to my co-intern (who has been here less than 24 hours at this point), I'm decently settled. In fact, my life as an RUF intern is in full swing, or sort of...
Last week was a blur of awesome and crazy. Monday morning I was concerned because I had nothing to do, and then, suddenly, the week filled up, and I was hanging out with sweet people from the RUF Servant Team, and having my first one-on-ones with a handful of freshmen girls (plenty of butterflies in the stomach before those)! Although Davidson's first RUF Large Group was not until last night (details in a moment), we went to the Student Activities Fair on Thursday night, and then had an open-invite BBQ in the middle of campus on Friday. So lots of meeting people and trying desperately to remember faces and names. I could overwhelm you with details, but I'm trying to be semi-succinct.
So far, I've begun to see how very different Davidson is from Samford. Not that I'm very surprised, since Samford is basically a little Southern Baptist bubble. But really, just walking around campus and watching students interact, or talking with freshmen who have come to our events, I'm struck with the sense of lost-ness here. The Student Activities Fair was a good picture of that. About 150 organizations came to entice students to get involved with their particular activity, and these organizations were divided up accross the grass into sort of categories. So RUF was naturally lumped in with all the other religious organizations. Our area of the lawn was a varitable assortment of Christian ministries, muslim, interfaith, and jewish organizations, and even a meditation club. From my vantage point, I was able to witness students meandering from one table to the next, picking up a card or putting down their name at each of these tables in turn. This is a different kind of lost-ness than what I have seen. And at the same time, it holds great potential for ministry, as these students desperately seek something to fill the gaping hole in their life that academics and social involvement cannot fill. Some students that I've had personal conversations with have given me this impression as well.
In all this, I've never felt like I needed to spend more time in prayer and confess my own weaknesses than now. As excited as I am for the opportunities that I'm already beginning to see at Davidson, I have never felt more inadequite. Seriously. I know that is where we are supposed to be, and the study program we are reading through is helpful in reminding us of Paul's confession in 2 Corinthians 12:10, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." Really believing this and living out of the riches I have been given is harder.
Prayer requests would be, first of all, that I would be comfortable with where God has put me right now - that is, that even though I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing every waking hour, or when I do know what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't know how I'm supposed to be doing it, that I would rest in the assurance that Christ is greater than my own insecurities. Also, pray that I might find a good church body to be a part of in this area. There are options, but I am impatient, and I'm struggling to choose between them and be okay with them. I'm lonely for the company of people I can talk to and get to know as friends, so please pray for friendships, and patience as I wait for those too! And do pray that God would work in the lives of students here, and use this ministry at Davidson to grow his Kingdom!
And last but certainly not least - THANK you so much for all of your encouragement - through prayer, phone calls, comments, emails...I'm incredibly grateful and know I would not be where I am without you!
Last week was a blur of awesome and crazy. Monday morning I was concerned because I had nothing to do, and then, suddenly, the week filled up, and I was hanging out with sweet people from the RUF Servant Team, and having my first one-on-ones with a handful of freshmen girls (plenty of butterflies in the stomach before those)! Although Davidson's first RUF Large Group was not until last night (details in a moment), we went to the Student Activities Fair on Thursday night, and then had an open-invite BBQ in the middle of campus on Friday. So lots of meeting people and trying desperately to remember faces and names. I could overwhelm you with details, but I'm trying to be semi-succinct.
So far, I've begun to see how very different Davidson is from Samford. Not that I'm very surprised, since Samford is basically a little Southern Baptist bubble. But really, just walking around campus and watching students interact, or talking with freshmen who have come to our events, I'm struck with the sense of lost-ness here. The Student Activities Fair was a good picture of that. About 150 organizations came to entice students to get involved with their particular activity, and these organizations were divided up accross the grass into sort of categories. So RUF was naturally lumped in with all the other religious organizations. Our area of the lawn was a varitable assortment of Christian ministries, muslim, interfaith, and jewish organizations, and even a meditation club. From my vantage point, I was able to witness students meandering from one table to the next, picking up a card or putting down their name at each of these tables in turn. This is a different kind of lost-ness than what I have seen. And at the same time, it holds great potential for ministry, as these students desperately seek something to fill the gaping hole in their life that academics and social involvement cannot fill. Some students that I've had personal conversations with have given me this impression as well.
In all this, I've never felt like I needed to spend more time in prayer and confess my own weaknesses than now. As excited as I am for the opportunities that I'm already beginning to see at Davidson, I have never felt more inadequite. Seriously. I know that is where we are supposed to be, and the study program we are reading through is helpful in reminding us of Paul's confession in 2 Corinthians 12:10, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." Really believing this and living out of the riches I have been given is harder.
Prayer requests would be, first of all, that I would be comfortable with where God has put me right now - that is, that even though I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing every waking hour, or when I do know what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't know how I'm supposed to be doing it, that I would rest in the assurance that Christ is greater than my own insecurities. Also, pray that I might find a good church body to be a part of in this area. There are options, but I am impatient, and I'm struggling to choose between them and be okay with them. I'm lonely for the company of people I can talk to and get to know as friends, so please pray for friendships, and patience as I wait for those too! And do pray that God would work in the lives of students here, and use this ministry at Davidson to grow his Kingdom!
And last but certainly not least - THANK you so much for all of your encouragement - through prayer, phone calls, comments, emails...I'm incredibly grateful and know I would not be where I am without you!
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