All About Carrie: 02/01/2005

D is for da bomb nick name!!

I was just given the coolerest nick name ever, Hurl Earl. These two awesome chicks (one formerly know as coolest) Ralph and Chuck gave it to me. Have you ever heard of such a cool name? We all belong to this cool club, there is another member named Spuey Huey. I can't tell you enough about how cool these girls are. They rock my socks off!!

For Ralph- "Are those Sketchers?"

C is for Cheese??

Maybe the good ole fashion cheese would do the trick better. Or maybe they want to be politically correct so they don't want to reveal their ethnicity. I wouldn't descriminate because of it.

I am trying another experiment. This time there is one trap with British peanut butter and another with American. We will see. Is it bad I want these mice gone?? I will try cheese next.

B is for Bon Voyage mice!

In order to figure out if our mice are American or British I am conducting a wee test. I have set two traps. One of them has a small piece of American homemade cookies (from an American recipe anyway). The other has British peanut butter. Which trap will they go for? I really just hope they go for one of them!

Maybe not the best picture, but what I like about this one is the view of the castle from our flat. Yes, that glowing thing on the top of the hill is the Edinburgh Castle, and that is the view of it at night from our flat! This is where I live!!

This is what it has looked like for the last three days here in Edinburgh. Normally the snow doesn't stick, but today it did. I am living in a winter wonderland! I want to try to get a couple more, but for now here is the view out of one of our windows.

A is for Aberdeen

I had such a good week in Aberdeen. I had kinda gone into the week with a bad attitude, and had been praying for God to change that. There were a lot of uncertains, including where we were staying, and I didn’t like that.

Even with some things starting out uncertain I was able to see God move during the week so much. The students at Aberdeen Uni weren’t real into sharing their faith, and it took a lot of persuading to get them to. When they did it was really amazing.

We were considered assistant missionaries for the week and were there to help out however the Christian Union (CU) needed us to for their mission week. On Monday that meant doing a lot for the event, as things weren’t real planned. During the rest of the week we mostly helped with flyering, surveys, and striking up conversations with non-believers.

One morning I was able to have some really good conversations. A girl from the CU joined me who had never done surveys before. There were actually a few students who had never done surveys before, so I lead a training time on surveys. Once we were all ready to go out we went into a dining room to find people to talk to. We had a few good conversation, but people weren’t really wanting to know a lot about God. We then went to talk to two girls who were finishing up their meal.

During this conversation the girls were able to go from basically having no idea who God or Jesus is, to knowing who they are and what they mean to me and so many. I asked them if they thought they were self-centered people or Christ centered people (this illustration actually works really well) and they said self-centered but they wanted to be somewhere in the middle. They had moved in their desire to know God!

We then went outside the library to talk to people. There were two girls that we were able to have an amazing conversation with. One of the girls had been a Christian. The long story short, by then end of the conversation one of the girls thought that she would be able to pray the prayer and mean it, and the other wanted to re-dedicate her life to Christ! How awesome is that!!

I am keeping these girls in my prayers that the Lord would meet them where they are and continue pursuing the girls that don’t know Him and give growth to those who do!

Ta Ta for now

I am going to be in Aberdeen for the week helping with their missions week. It is a great opportunity to help out at a new university (actually on old one) and help their students out with evangelism. We will be on campus all day every day and helping with events in the evenings as well. I will share some about how the week goes when I get back.

Post-it Notes part two!

After we all got back from the day of outreach we had an evening called, "To the ends of the earth." Challenging people to go where God sends them. During this talk the history of missions was reviewed and I learned how much missions has declined in Britain. This helped increase my heart for the people here. The students (as well as us staff) were challenged to spend time and see how God is revealing Himself to them and moving in their lives.

There was a time where people could make a commitment to what God had shown them by putting a Post-it note on a map of the world to where they had felt lead to go. At the end of this time the map was just covered with Post-its. People had felt God call the to "Go" and make disciple of all nationsa.

Please pray for the UK STINT team that is coming together for next year. Sending a group of students from here to Russia. It is so awesome to be sending a group. This is what it is all about. raising up students to go out into the field! Go God!!

Father, I come to you and lift up the students here in Britain. I pray that you continue to work in their lives. Bring students to us so we can bring them to you. Be with the students at the conference as they are back at home and are faced with every day life. Use them where they are. Be with those you spoke to about going out to the world. Specifically I would like to lift up the STINT team. You know who it is that you want to go next year. Work in their hearts and continue to pull together the team. Thank you for all that you do. Amen

Post-it Notes

This weekend post-it notes really gave me a powerful message and were a sign of how God was working.

I was away over the weekend at the National Student Conference here in the UK. The first Post-it note story was seeing them on the front doors of flats in Selly Oak. On Saturday all the attendees (about 200 people) went door to door sharing the Gospel on about three really long streets in the student area of Birmingham.

As we walked down the street knocking on doors wanting to talk to those behind them we saw little Post-its on doors. The Post-its meant that someone had spoken to someone at that flat. We had a system of putting the small piece of paper on the door to know if we should go to a flat. The note didn’t necessarily mean that the person had heard the Gospel, but it meant we had at least given them the opportunity to hear the Good News.

During my time I was able to talk to four different students who were so receptive to what I had to say. It was so amazing to see people who wanted to hear what I had to say. The people wanted to hear about Jesus and all said that they felt that they would be able to some day say the prayer and mean it. God had used me to get people that much closer to knowing Him.

Sometimes I get guilty of really wanting to see immediate results. The important part isn’t if the person I talk to receives Christ. What is important is that I let God use me to present the Gospel. I had done my part, planted seeds—the rest is God’s job.

As I left the last girl’s flat and walked back to our bus there were Post-it notes on so many of the doors on that street. God had been there, even if those doors were slammed in our faces.

You will have to wait for my next Post-it story….to be continued :)

LEave Me SOME LOVE

If you read this
You must post a memory of me.
It can be anything you want,
it can be good or bad.
Just so long as it happened.
Then post this to your journal,
and see what people remember about you …

This amazing picture just sums up an amazing week. Only something God created could be that beautiful. These pictures were taken by Chris who is on another STINT team.