Race for Hope

Family and Friends,
 

July 2014 I started an internship with Vision of Hope in Lafayette, IN. VOH is a residential treatment center focused on helping young women overcome life dominating sins through Biblical counseling. I have a front row seat to see girls who come in with self-demeaning attitudes experience God’s love and start loving others. I have been challenged and come to the understanding that this job and anything I do is not about ‘I’. I thought I was being unselfish in my love, but sometimes my actions were motivated by what I could get out of it. I started out looking at my shifts as what I could do to fix problems, but that’s not my job description. I am to point the residents to the Truth in the Bible. In Acts 8, Phillip sat with the eunuch and told him the good news about Jesus. The most loving thing I can do for anyone I come in contact with is to be glorifying God with my life. I have been praying that I could see God in my interactions on shift and not do things for the approval of others. 

Vision of Hope’s program is set up so the girls are supervised throughout the day. I have four shifts a week where I help facilitate class, assign jobs for house cleaning, work meal prep, and answer questions during study hall. The ladies have one hour of counseling a week and then have homework to do to help them grow closer to God. When I am not working I have started volunteering at Faith Church. I help in the counseling department and have learned how to edit sermons. I have learned so much here and have built incredible relationships. I am so thankful to be at Vision of Hope.

One of Vision of Hope's biggest fundraisers is Race for Hope. This race is a 10k run or 5k run/walk around Lafayette. The money raised from Race for Hope will be used to keep the VOH program free and living expenses for the residents affordable. Each staff, intern, and resident will be a team captain. Each of us has a goal of raising $1000.

 

I would like to invite you to join my Race for Hope Team: The Mercy Empowered Givers (MEG). The way you can help me the most is to join my team.  You can come here for the fun event on June 13th, you can walk or run in your area any day or time, or you can even be a “virtual walker” and just ask friends and family to sponsor you online.  The cost to join my team is $25 and you will receive a T-shirt. I would love to have your support.  You can join my team by going here.

 

If you are unable to join my team but would rather sponsor me by giving a donation you can do that here, or you can mail a check to Vision of Hope, 5652 Mercy Way, Lafayette, IN  47923.  Please make checks payable to Faith Ministries and include my name in the memo. 

 

Thank you for all your prayers,

Why I love Jesus

I am blessed by the ladies I work with! This week one of them shared with me what she is learning in her devotions. She wrote me a note of why she loves Jesus today, with scripture to back up each item. She said, "I feel like I've fallen in love with Jesus all over again. It is like rediscovering the most beautiful, passionate relationship there is to man. When you start looking for reasons why you love Jesus you won't be able to stop seeing it." Now we are constantly seeing blessings instead of things that are just not working out our way.

Our list is…

2 Samuel 22:47 Our God lives!

The beautiful reminder that our sins have been washed white as the snow outside
2 Samuel 22:31 God can be trusted
Ephesians 1:4-5 Before creation God chose us to be His daughters
Romans 8:15 We don’t have to fall back into fear
Romans 8:31-39 Nothing can separate us from Him
1 Corinthians 6:20 He paid the cost for us
He cast our sins as far as the east is from the west
He is infallible and He thinks of everything
We deserve Hell and there is nothing good in us
Christ goes before us
Galatians 2:20 He was crucified for me
Isaiah 26:3-4 He is trustworthy, perfect peace, and everlasting rock
2 Chronicles 20:12 He can fix our eyes on Him and He will overcome
God is always good and I am always loved
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 He is the one true God
Laminations 3:23 He is faithful
He loves me because He loves me
We are surrounded by people who love us
John 1:14-16 We have received gift upon gift
He is out pursuer
He is all we need
Psalm 16:2 The is no good but God
He created us with enough understanding to accept His love
Jeremiah 32:17 Nothing is too hard for Him
We can cast our cares on Him
Genesis 16:13-14 He is omniscient and is in total control over all things
I am constantly made aware of how messed up I am and how good He is
The sunrise this morning
The Gospel is why we love, why we have peace, and why we can choose joy

Race for Hope

One of Vision of Hope's biggest fundraisers is Race for Hope. This race is a 10k run or 5k run/walk around Lafayette. The money raised from Race for Hope will be used to keep the VOH program free and living expenses for the residents affordable. Each staff, intern, and resident will be a team captain. Each of us has a goal of raising $1000.

I would like to invite you to join my Race for Hope Team: The Mercy Empowered Givers. The way you can help me the most is to join my team.  You can come here for the fun event on June 13th, you can walk or run in your area any day or time, or you can even be a “virtual walker” and just ask friends and family to sponsor you online.  The cost to join my team is $25 and you will receive a T-shirt. I would love to have your support.  You can join my team by clicking here.

If you are unable to join my team but would rather sponsor me by giving a donation you can also do that here, or you can mail a check to Vision of Hope, 5652 Mercy Way, Lafayette, IN  47923.  Please make checks payable to Faith Ministries and include my name in the memo. 

Biblical Counseling Training Confrence

Last week Faith Church hosted the Biblical Counseling Training Conference (BCTC). There were 2,000 people who came for the conference. I had the opportunity to attend and I took track 6, which is the women's track. Different speakers came from all over the country. In my track Elyse Fitzpatrick (author of Because He Loves Me), Martha Peace (author of The Excellent Wife), Jocelyn Wallace (former director of VOH), and Amy Baker (counselor at Faith) were the main speakers.
They spoke on topics like: Our Identity in Christ, Attitudes of Love, Helping Women to be Godly Mothers, Understanding God's comfort, Helping Women who have been treated badly by their husbands, Approval Oriented Friendships, and Panic Attacks. We received a lot of Godly wisdom in a very short time frame.
In my first session Elyse Fitzpatrick shared, the good news is for you everyday of your life, not just for unbelievers. God chose you because you wouldn't have chosen Him (Eph 1:3-6). Everything that should disqualify you from being in this family has endeared you to Him as a way to demonstrate His mercy. You are unceasingly, passionately, unquenchablely, loved by God (Rms 8:35-38). We started with the Gospel and everything else that followed was good to know yes but would be of no use without the Gospel. I am thankful to have been a part of the BCTC this year.

The Good News

photo via Christy Stewart

The Gospel is Jesus, the Son of God, living here on earth, dying for our sins, and then raises from the dead. As humans we are born into sin and once we repent God will show us grace and accept us into His family. Then as Christians we try to love God and love others. Most of you reading my blog know this and believe this. That's great! But is that it? Are we really living like we believe the Gospel?

This is something I have been learning about since last December when I was in Haiti. I read a lot more and talked to God a lot more there than I did before and sadly more than I do now. I was reading Ezekiel and saw what our lives look like without God. In Ezekiel 16: 1-14 God tells the prophet how when Israel was born there was no one to take care of her. She was dirty and alone. But God loved her and she become His. Do we ever stop and think of how much of nothing we are? Or about how nothing we do can be good enough for Him and He loves us anyway?

In The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son."

Recently this topic has been coming up again. The sermon series we just finished covered Hosea. God asks Hosea to marry a prostitute to show the people His love towards them. Through His loving discipline He showed grace. Why do we think we can accept God's grace and then go back to living our lives? How can we call ourselves Christians when we keep putting our trust and hope in ourselves?

The start of the journey

The other interns are great! We have been discovering each others' passions and interests. It has been incredible to have people who are going through the same new situations as me and others who remember what it was like when they first got here and can help guide us. 

We have had fun exploring Lafayette together; going to art in the park one night and another time just walking around downtown. We have gone to different small groups together and met new people at Faith. And sometimes we spend a night together just watching Netflix.

I have been thinking through many ways to try and explain what my experiences here have been like so far. At times being on-shift vs. being off-shift can seem like a completely separate life, but I am here to guide the residents through their day and learn about biblical counseling. I guess I can explain it by saying in every situation I am reminded of God's Truth and His love for us.

More stories to come...but I wanted to check in with you and say thank you for your prayers towards this next year!

The Next Chapter

Four months of living back in the states, it's time for another transition right? This weekend I will be moving to Lafayette, IN.

I'll start at the beginning...my friend, Ashlen, was reading Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey. In the book Bessey writes about a women's rehabilitation center called Mercy Ministries. Ashlen knew that after getting back I was now interested in counseling women and in particular at a place where we all lived together and the help could be in every aspect of their lives. So she texted me and I looked up Mercy Ministries. I found they have a house in St. Louis. I read more about them a decided to apply. For no reason at all I Googled to see if there were anymore houses like this and I found Vision of Hope in Lafayette. I applied there too.

I received a response from VOH and after some phone interviews went up for a shadow weekend to see how everything ran. I loved everything I saw and everyone I met. While I was there I got a call from Mercy and set up a phone interview with them later that week. After talking with friends and praying about it I decided to take the position at VOH.

"Vision of Hope is a faith based residential treatment center whose staff and program focus on applying love, practical solutions from God's Word to help produce permanent and lasting change in women whose lives have been characterized by negative, life-dominating habits."

You can read more about VOH and watch testimonial videos here.

I will be escorting the residents from meals to classes, overseeing their volunteering at the church and community center, and going through counseling training. Since my shifts are about four hours I will have some free time. I am excited to get involved in the Lafayette community. When I was visiting I heard about some ways people are helping in the homeless cimmunity, one of the girls working at VOH is on a volleyball team, and I'm hoping to go to Thursday night meetings at Purdue's Campus House.

The next two weeks are training; afterwards I can post again and share how it's all going.