Realization After the 6 Week Evangelism Training

   A lot has happened since I last posted (before yesterday's post).  Tonight was the last Evangelism Training of the 6 week class taught by my friend Milly.  Tonight was all about debriefing about what had happened during those 6 weeks, and things to make the class better, as Milly is going to take the Evangelism class to the other cities with the other Living Lights as well.  (Kenosha, Pleasant Prairie, Cadillac, Taughton, Wellington, and Germany).  A flood of realizations came to my head that I thought I would share.

   During the summer as stated in a previous blogpost, God told me to get more involved with my church, and the people of the church.  I asked God for an opportunity to do this, and on the second week I went to church after summer break, Milly's Evangelism Training class was introduced,  I knew this is what God wanted me to do.  That day was the first time I officially met Milly, after I had heard so much about her.  Now being that the class is now over, I realized I have gotten to know a group from the church so much better, and they have been so encouraging to me.

    It was so great to be taught about genuine evangelism.  On the first night Milly taught us that Evangelism shouldn't be boxed in.  There are so many ways to do Evangelism, and you shouldn't follow a certain technique.  Evangelism should be lead by the Holy Spirit.  The way we had been taught to do Evangelism with Cru (Christian group on campus) is to do spiritual surveys, or to share a a booklet called a KGP (Getting to Know God Personally).  I feel like the use of the KGP and surveys are more like forced Evangelism rather than genuine Evangelism, all though they are easier to use if you don't really know how to start an evangelistic conversation.  I just think it's more fruitful to have the Holy Spirit lead you in the conversation, and gives you away to talk about God.  In the class it was kind of also taught that  God will lead you to who you should talk to, you shouldn't go up to people randomly.  In Cru we were taught to just walk up to random strangers and start talking to them.  Of course God wants everyone in his kingdom, but he also knows when they're ready to hear it.

   Through these 6 weeks there has also been an immense growth in my walk with God, even being baptized in the Holy Spirit. I used to have an open-mind about all the Christian topics, but I feel like God has given me a strong opinion on things so I can talk to other people confidently without doubt that I'm saying something wrong to others, and has just made me way more bold as a person.  If I feel lead to do something, I just do it.   I without hesitation share my testimony, and my faith.  I can talk about things that usually I'd feel uncomfortable talking about with people, and was given knowledge to be able to answer other people's questions that they may have.  Through having such a strong opinion on faith though I have been discouraged.  A few people have definitely disagreed with me, and thought that by me having such a strong opinion that I was actually putting myself above them.  They thought that I thought that I was more spiritually strong then them.  This doesn't matter though.  We are all children of God, therefore equal, but all of us are in varying stages of our faith with God.

   I have been also exercising my faith muscle.  I've been praying over people, and trusting that the images I see or the words I am given are prophetic.  You won't always be right of course, but you need to keep trying, because God "is" talking to you!  I asked God to show me the world differently and he sure did in such a wonderful way.  I thought this post would be longer.  I was inspired to write it last night but got discouraged so I don't know if this is all I wanted to say, but I'll add to it if I think of anything.

Things I've Learned This Semester so far

1) Don't rely on one person too much, this will keep you from growing.

2) Being alone is comfortable, I don't need to be with someone 24/7 (I can eat meals alone comfortably)

3) There's no need for me to feel insecure

4) I can easily befriend cute guys, and they'll like hanging out with me too.  (This isn't high school)

5) Prayer is so powerful.

6) Take my problems to God first instead of other people.  

7) Yik Yak should never be downloaded ( I didn't gain anything from it, except for one day when someone let me in the dorm when I forgot my keys.) Everything is so negative on there. 

8)  Since being alone is comfortable to me, so is me being single

9) Making goals is helpful.  I made a goal to get more involved with my church, and I have met so many wonderful people this year through it.  

10) I like talking about God, I could keep talking about him, and my life for hours.  

11) Things might be awkward when you first meet someone, but you'll get through it

12) Don't do too much 

13) It's impossible to eat healthy on campus, and I'll probably gain 10 pounds.

14) I'm glad I chose Parkside.

What happened in September?

September 1st-4th:  Read my first week of school summary blogs.

September 5th:  Went to Buffalo Wild Wings with Laurette, and hung out at Regency Mall.

September 6th: Joint Church meetings.  (All three Living Lights in the area met at one place for a message and worship)

September 7th: Went to Waukesha with Chris and Robert to pick up supplies for the Freshman Kits we were making for the Org Fair.  Stopped and got lunch at the Soup Depot, the later put the kits together.

September 8th: First Cru Meeting of the year.  Met up with Aly for our first Discipleship time, and caught up over dinner at a stir fry place.  Only a few new people.  Talked to Mike and Jeremy for a long time.

September 9th: The Org Fair took place under the bridge on campus.  The Cru stand was placed by the icecream stand, which provided more traffic but also attracted bees.  A lot of surveys were filled out, and "Jesus Without Religion" books were taken.  I walked around myself, and got a ton of free stuff including like 7 CDs.  That night we sorted all the people into piles by if they were interested in a bible study or not, and who to follow up with.  Snoopwhale was reborn.

September 10th:  Went and did a survey followup in the dorms, was only able to meet up with three people.  There had been a fraternity/sorority gathering/party in the Den that night.

September 11th:  A day filled with nothing and relaxing?

September 12th:  Got frozen yogurt and talked with Christina.

September 13th: Went to church, and got to meet two of Trae's friends.  We met up at Starbucks afterward where we had spiritual discussions.

September 14th:  Went to an Advising Meeting for Cru with Jeremy.

September 15th: Had Discipleship with Aly where we went through part of the Cru Doctrine.  A lot of people showed up to Cru this week, my roommate Christina being one of them.  We all went to Varsitea Flatts afterwards where we were provided free food and drinks, and got to know each other.

September 16th: After classes I went swimming with Kelsey and a few other Intervarsity people.  We played a game where we through a water bottle in the pool, and had to go find it. (The water bottle was completely invisible under the water).  We also played Sharks and Minnows, and just hang out in the water.  Afterwards I met up with Felicia at a pizza restaurant in Racine before our first Living Light Evangelism Training which took place afterwards.

September  17th:  Met another one of  Trae's friends, and hung out with a few Living Light people in the morning.  That night saw the "War Room" with Nicole, Jared, Mike, and Jeremy.  Which is almost the exact people that were in my car on the way to the Brewers Game.  After seeing the War Room went to Culvers for icecream where it began to downpour, so much so there was a Flash Flood Warning.  We eventually got back to campus after deciding to bear the rain after it wouldn't slow down.  Once we got back to campus hung out with Jeremy and Mike for a little bit.

September 18th:  I went home for the weekend,

September 19th;  Relaxed at home, mom took me to Walmart.

September 20th:  Circumstances brought Amber back to Allenton so I was able to hang out with her.  We went to a pumpkin farm, got icecream at Dairy Queen, and painted pumpkins.  :)

September 21st: Got my blood drawn, then went to my first IV meeting.  Jeremy decided to make it his first IV meeting too.  After the IV meeting they were giving out Liquid Nitrogen icecream.  It really good. Door got jammed so I had to wait out in my apartment living room, drained after giving blood and 5 hours of classes. Did tie-dye that night with Jeremy at the Art Club tie-dye event.

September 22nd: Another Cruesday.  I felt super overwhelmed with all the work I needed to do, so I canceled discipleship.  Turned out it wasn't as bad as I thought, and I was able to work on most of it and get things done.  Only a small amount of people came to Cru, including my friend Felicia from church who seemed skeptical about the whole message.  I honestly think Trae did an immensely better job describing Grace last year then the speaker did tonight.  Hung out in the den afterwards.

September 23rd: Had another Evangelism Training.  Before I went to that I washed the tie-dye shirts, and worked on homework.  At the Evangelism Training we discussed cool things that had happened during the week, then watched Holy Ghost.  Holy Ghost is a documentary about Evangelistic Miracles.

September 24th: I was suppose to meet up with Milly today, the leader of the Evangelism trainings today, but my door decided to be jammed again right before I needed to get my keys to head out so we had to cancel.  My roommate bought us a pet fish.  He is a pure white Beta fish with an orange mark on his head and bright blue eyes.  Went to the first bible study of the year.  The bible studies are divided by genders now.  Only one other girl showed up at the girls bible study, and I guess the guys had 6.  Made myself Orange Chicken.

September 25th:  Had an interview at 9am for a Spanish tutoring position at the tutoring center.  Then went to Kelsey's bible study at 2pm.

September 26th:  Went to Milwaukee with Tyler and Jeremy to meet up with Lizzy and Anna, (I have a separate blogpost of details of that adventure.)

September 27th:  A bunch of my friends came to Living Light with me today.  We all hung out after church: going to Applebees, a corn maze, and making caramel apples.  (Also have a separate blogpost for this one to.)

September 28th: Went to my 2nd Intervarsity meeting (the other Christian group on campus) Met up with my friend Milly at Starbucks after my classes were done to get to know each other better and discuss spiritual things.  Trae ended up going to Starbucks that day too even though it was his day off and creeped/took pictures of us from inside.  Once I got back to campus Nicole did my makeup.  Too bad like no one got to see it. :P

September 29th: Tuesday Crusday: Had a small breakdown after the busyness of the last 3 days, I was overly tired,  Tuesday nights always seem to be overwhelmed with homework.  Cru's message tonight was about joy and God's promises.   Hung out in the den afterwards, I basically had a whole meal there.  No one able to stay in the den the full time, which is good because I don't really like missing out on anything, but had to study for a test.  Jeremy has the same problem, Kyle basically had to drag him away to do homework tonight.

September 30th:  Another Evangelism class, this time everyone was split into two groups and we went out to dinner.  This would give us the tools to evangelize in a realistic setting if the opportunity arose.  My group talked to a lot of people, but weren't really given any opportunities to share our faith.  The other group got to share their testimony, and relate one of the girl's tattoos to the Bible.

A Fantastic Fall Weekend: (Sunday)

       Mike and my freshman friend Alex showed up at my apartment at 9:15 so we could carpool to church.  I was planning on leaving at 9:30 so I figured they'd have 15 minutes to get here if they woke up late etc, but they both ended up showing up right on time.  I showed them both my room, and parts of the apartment then we drove to the church.  We got there pretty early so we were actually one of the first people, the worship band was even still practicing.  We got first pick at the breakfast table though.  Milly was the first one to come up and meet Alex and Mike.  Shortly after meeting Mike, Milly prayed over him.  Sometimes when she prays miraculous things happen right away, this wasn't the case however for Mike.  But we have faith God was listening and will answer our prayers.  Kelsey and Courtney showed up then Jen and Josh.  I guess everyone was super surprised and excited to see a big group of new college kids at the church.  A lot of people came up to us after church to meet them.  Courtney got prayed over, and sat on the other side of church from us.  The whole message about how after we come to Christ we are generally nicer people because of God, and people are able to sense that about us.

         After church we all met up at Applebees.  A total of nine of us.  Trae is doing a "Daniel Fast" so he can't eat a lot of things.  He can eat any fruits and vegetables, but no animal products.  Kind of like a vegan diet.  It's 40 days, and the last week he needs to fast completely except for water and juices.  I guess Applebees doesn't have fruit bowls on their menu.  At Applebees since there was nine of us I was the one in between the two groups of 4, so I could be apart of both conversations.  One time I said yes to the other side of the tables questions, and Courtney on the other side of me thought I had been answering her question. ha ha.  Our waiter was kind of rude/sassy though, and seemed to segregate our table.  I guess Trae's side was cooler then Courtneys.  Apparently there's a restaurant in Milwaukee who purposely hires people to be rude to the customers, and people go there for the experience.  Sadly Kelsey took the picture so you can't see her!

   After Applebees we went over to Courtney's house.  Trae and Alyssa went home.  Trae takes Sundays seriously because their his day off, so he considers them his day of rest. We joked about how he could get a half hour start and hide in the maze and lay down somewhere, when you heard him snoring it would be a clue. "I hear a clue!"  At Courtney's house were two white eskimo dogs.  I literally could put together a zoo of just the animals I witnessed this weekend.  They were super adorable dogs.  We then headed over to a pumpkin farm in Racine!

    We waited for Courtney's friend Leah when we got there.  We checked out the animals and the store, then went on an adventure through the corn maze.  Before we went in, we had to watch an instructional video about the rules of the "Maize Maze", and repeat after the man on the screen including: "I will not smoke in the maze!" Along the way we took two Snapchat videos to send to Trae.  One of me acting like we had been in the Maze for three days, and one of everyone singing and marching through the maze.  I wish I could of seen his reaction.  At one point Kelsey and Courtney ran off in a different direction, but it turned out it was a loop, so we both got to the same place.  We successfully got out of the Maze after an hour.  (I walked too much this weekend I think.)

     Courtney bought everyone pumpkins afterwards.  They were pretty cheap actually.  We then went back to Courtney's house where we made and decorated caramel apples, and played Old Maid.  Courtney invited her new friend Zach over, which happened to be the Zach I met from Living Light through Trae two weeks ago.  There was no new people for me to meet today.  We played Old Maid, and Pass the Ace, then took advantage of the beautiful weather outside.  Courtney lives right next to a park, so we played Frisbee, tag, and volleyball in the park.  The mosquitoes began to attack us after a couple hours so we had to go back inside where we talked for a bit then had to go home.

    We didn't get back to campus until about 8ish.  Our fun-filled day ended with the lunar eclipse and blood moon! :) God is such an artist!

A Fantastic Fall Weekend (Saturday)

     This week just seemed to be kicking my butt.  It was all worth it though, since this weekend turned out to be so much fun/fruitful.  Weekends like these, make me remember how blessed I truly am!

    On Saturday Jeremy and I went to Tyler's house to hang out for a little bit before going to MSOE to meet up with Lizzy, Anna, and their friends.  Tyler's house contained three cats and three dogs.  One dog they were babysitting which was a Pitbull mix, the other two were yellow labs.  For cats their was a giant fat, black kitty. (I had to pick him up, because of missing Fluffer.), and a multicolored kitten named Chewbacca,  I was covered in hair by the time we left, and had chosen to wear black pants that day. :P.

   After lint-rolling my pants, we drove to MSOE.  It had been my first time driving in downtown Milwaukee, so I didn't really know what to expect.  I have been driving for 3 years now, and have driven through the craziness that is Racine, so I figured I'd do fine.  I did pretty well, although it wasn't really a busy traffic time of day.

    We got to MSOE 15 minutes before the rest, so Tyler and Jeremy passed time by playing a word game.  The word game involved trying to guess the same word.  They started out by saying a random word, then had to think of something that related to both the words they said.  That way they could more easily guess the same word.  They were still doing the game, after we met up with the rest.
 Lizzy, and Anna had invited their friends Josh, Cassie, and Hannah.  I had met Hannah a couple times before.
     We started the afternoon off walking to an art museum right across the street from MSOE.  A lot of the paintings had super obvious names including: "Five guys by a Fire." Tyler commented about how there was art surrounding us, and Jeremy commented that Tyler was actually the art.  At one point Jeremy's blood sugar was low, so I went with him to get his backpack from the front desk.  He went back to go get, and the secretary kind of just stared confused as he did an insulin shot.  She figured out what he was doing, and was super worried he would pass out in the museum, and how terrifying it would be. Hannah, and Anna were taking an art class at UWWC so they knew what was considered wrong with every painting, and the cool aspects of each one.  We went to the museum gift shop when we were about to leave, and I got a questioning look from one of the employees who worked there after she saw me smelling a book.  Jeremy said the smell reminded him of something.  There ended up being a picture of me representing me when I do my homework.

    Josh goes to MSOE, so after we were done at the museum he took us on a little tour of one of the buildings.  This required many stairs.  I guess the number of the classrooms aren't orderly at all so its basically like a maze.  Jeremy decided while touring the building it would be a good time to play "The Science Museum" song on his iPod.  (We were in one of the science buildings).

    

     By the time we got out of the MSOE building Lizzy, and I were super hungry.  We walked to a Panera Bread down the street for lunch.  They had Clam Chowder soup :3!  

     We walked back to the MSOE parking lot and drove to a movie theatre to see "Hotel Transylvania 2."  I honestly thought it would be a really bad movie. (I hadn't saw the 1st one, so I didn't know what to expect.  We got to the movie theatre a little early, so we walked to a walk up custard place down the street.  We all ate our icecream, then stopped at Walgreens on the way back for a bathroom break.  We got back to the theatre just in time.  The movie was honestly so cute and hilarious.  The funniest part probably was when they made a diabetes joke, and our group all looked at Jeremy and laughed.  The other people in the theatre seemed really confused.  

  

          After the movie was over Anna and Lizzy needed to get back home because their mom was sick.  After saying goodbye Tyler, Jeremy, and I finished off the night by visiting Jeremy's dads house so I could pick out one of his old Imacs for my brothers birthday. It was super strange when we got to Jeremy's house.  His dad must have hired a babysitter for Josh, because she looked scared when she saw Jeremy, Tyler, and I.  Jeremy assured her this was his dad's house, and she let us in.  Apparently that happens a lot.   Jeremy told us a lot of information on apple things, and about the computers themselves.  

        

             It was pretty foggy after we left Jeremys.  When we got back to campus, I made Jeremy wait in the living room as I quickly cleaned my room, and made space for the computer.  If I'd known it'd take less then 3 minutes to clean my room, I probably would of done it a lot sooner then I did.  Jeremy showed me how to use the computers, and all the different programs.  I played a couple games before unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep.  

I'm Growing and Things are Changing

     Last Sunday evening I was able to put the two church teachings I had been too together, as I really thought about the messages God sent me a revelation.  One of the things talked about at the first church teaching was about how sometimes the people you enjoy hanging out with the most are the ones who keep you from growing.  When I thought about it more I knew I had that problem.  That there was a person in my life like that, that had kept me from growing in faith.  It was time to move on, I had spent too much time trying to show them how to grow, but it just wasn't in my hands.  I needed to surround myself with people that were mature in their faiths, and would encourage me even more in my walk with God. It wouldn't be easy and I felt that it was crazy at first, but then at church they also said that sometimes the things God tells you to do, are not the right things.  The hardest part about dealing with a person who is immature is that they are deceived into thinking they are already mature.  This is because Satan is the master of deception, and controls the feelings and culture of the world.  I focused too much on my own feelings, giving Satan the power to hurt me, I love the person I am writing about to death, and would never want to hurt them, because they have made me so happy, so I'm not going to just cut off our friendship.  We'll still be friends, but I'll be growing now. When they start to put God first, and mature in faith, we can grow together again.  God had also put on my mind that it was time for me to get more involved in church, and form relationships with the people of the church.  It's been almost one week since that revelation and I've already gotten so much more involved with Living Light, and have met so many people as well.  I just want to get to know everyone there, and all their stories, and be encouraged even more.  One of my friends from church I feel like I could talk to them for hours on end just discussing things or telling each other stories, and feel so encouraged/inspired afterwards.  It's so amazing to be able to have such inspirational people like that in my life, that through talking to them I can see God and his love and everything shining through, through them.  That's the people I want to surround myself with, people that are super spiritual like that.  I know now it was the right decision to follow God's word for me.

Sometimes Chaos is Beautiful

    I saw "War Room" with some of my friends on Thursday night.  After the movie we went and got ice cream at Culvers.  It started down-pouring really hard after we had gotten to Culvers.  After an hour of being there, there was a flash flood warning.  The rain just wouldn't stop, and it had started to lightning since then.  I had one of the others drive back to campus, not really wanting to be the one to do it.

    On Sunday at church a lady brought up a word of how Chaos is sometimes Beautiful, and it just reminded me of this situation.  If it hadn't been raining, it wouldn't be as memorable or as much of an adventure as it turned out to be.  The rain made us have to stay at Culvers longer and talk, and instead of thinking the rain as negative we saw it as a beautiful thing.