Pray for Brazil

Wow, today's chapel speaker was pretty neat! The ministry he has in Brazil has sent my "heart afire" for world-wide missions...once again.
I'm ready to pack up and leave and not come back! It was so encouraging to hear that he and his wife are not planning on retiring in the US. Today's missionaries have often lost the sense of dedication and commitment this family possesses.
So, I'm really thinking about visiting Brazil and getting involved in that ministry! So pray for me to know if it's God's will or if He has something else for me. I sure don't know...but I wouldn't complain if He wanted me there in Brazil--even as a single missionary! Since that's been my most recent struggle, I was actually kind of surprized when I realized that if God called me to Brazil to work with Dr. Tom and his wife, it really wouldn't bother me so bad to be single. Oh sure, it'd still be nice to get married and have a family someday, but when God calls, nothing else matters, huh? Not when you're in tune with Him. So pray...
1. For Brazil--wide open door of opportunity to spread the gospel!
2. Dr. Tom and his wife Penny--they need fellowlaborers to join them in the harvest
3. Me--to know if I should pursue this or not, and if so that God will provide
4. The rest of the world--it's a needy place, and so ready to receive the gospel, if only people would go. I will do my part, but I am only one person and I can only be in one place at a time...

My Band Nerds

Well, it's an accepted fact now. The students that went on band tour last spring are officially nerds. Me included. This is not just a "I-lost-my-3-page-paper" nerd. This is a full-blown, comb-over, buck-teeth nerd. Enjoy the pictures!

Here I am, the biggest nerd of them all...proctoring tests!

Joal and Andy, playing cards...looks like they have quite the handful, and not such a good one for either of them!

Chip, studying away for his calculus test...or something!

Here's all the guys on combover night...yep, a whole big group of nerdy boys!

Melissa...so it's not nerdy to read your Bible, but there were other instances that revealed her true nerdship... j/k!

Like, I think it's, like, Jenn? Is she, like, really knitting while she's, like, studying???

The essence of nerdness--Sudoku on Band tour...

The biggest nerd of them all, in his office so small, not only was it his tour "house," but it also stored his gray mouse...

I'm such a nerd!

So I found my USB flash drive thing. It was pretty much hiding under my bed. I had already looked behind my bed against the wall, but this morning as I was changing my sheets, I pulled my mattress back a little revealing...wellah! my flash drive. The thing is, I rewrote the first three pages of my paper, so now I had two beginnings to my paper. I should have written it backwards, but...I'm afraid Alyssa didn't think of that. So I used a little merging magic, and now my paper's beginning is 5 pages long, plus I'm on a roll to get it done. I have an hour...think I can do it?

Wow

Just wow. That's all I can say. Grrr. I can say that too. Sometimes I frustrate myself beyond all reason. I am forever losing things. I think the next thing to go will be my mind. Yeah, I pretty much just lost my USB jump drive with all my papers from my entire college career contained on it, including the paper I was going to work on tonight, and the paper outline that I was going to write on Saturday. Pray that I find it. I'm sure it will turn up somewhere, God just needs to get me to trust Him fully again!

"O Israel, return unto the LORD they God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquitey. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously...'I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him, I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily...They that dwell under his shadow shall return' ... for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them:"
Hosea 14--here we have the last chapter of Hosea with an exhortation to repentance. The chapter highlights what God will do for Israel if she repents. What a blessing God was--and is--to His own. I know, I know, the church is not Israel, can't be compared, etc., etc., etc. But I think there is a correllation here.
God is the One Who can heal backsliding. He does love us freely. When we cast off our iniquity, he will receive us graciously, for "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us." Indeed, His ways are right. All of them. Even when we can't see the way, it is still right. He will not lead His children down a dark path for no reason. This comes back to the idea of suffering. John Piper contends that suffering is not an end of itself. I believe Joshua Harris talks about the same thing regarding sacrifice. Suffering is to bring us closer to God--when we finally realize that we truly cannot walk, it is then He can carry us. Sacrifice is not simply a command to follow because God doesn't want us to enjoy life--sacrificing sin on the altar of obedience leads only to future joy.
I'm so thankful that even though I can't see the way cut before me, my Lord holds the light, and as I stay close to Him, He will show me the way.

The Bryn

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. I'm posting, I'm posting!
This is a band tour post. Just so you know.
I just have to laugh every time I see Brynley Dean. Yup, we bonded on tour! She is affectionately known as:

The Bryn-Bryn!
The Bryn-dawg!
The Bryn-o-meister!
The Bryn-a-roni!
The Brynster!
The Bryn-Bryn-Bryn!
The Bryn-Bryn-Bryn-Bryn!
The... yeah you get the picture.

Theses names are affections, complements of Davis Jaspers. But I have latched on, and now whenever I see her, I must needs call her by one or all of them. She is currently thinking up a nickname for me. So if you begin to hear the Bryn-Bryn! call me weird names, you'll know why. I'm not too sure what one can come up with out of "Alyssa," but I'm sure if she gets Davis's help, there'll be some good ones!
Oh yeah, and whenever I see her, I must needs ask her for an "Ear Report! Ear Report!" since she so delicately got her ears pierced on tour.