The beauty of communication.

I love languages, phonetics, linguistics, and everything that pertains to all of it! I find it so incredibly fascinating!
My friend Jessalyn and I lead a Bible study for young girls here at the school, and tonight's topic was all about the things that should characterize a Godly woman's speech: gentleness, kindness, humility....even down to the importance of tone and volume. As we were talking about it, I got a little carried away with something that just plainly excites me. I told them, "Have you ever stopped to think about how crazy communication is?? I can move my tongue, lips, and mouth and add noise to it, and suddenly, you know exactly what is going on inside of my head."
I loved seeing the looks on their faces.....it was obviously something they'd never considered before. I continued by saying, "Then lets say I go to another country with an interpreter. I move my lips and make sounds to let the interpreter know what is going on in my mind.....he makes different sounds....and suddenly, someone who doesn't know MY language also knows exactly what is in my mind and what thoughts I want to communicate."
I saw the understanding come into their eyes as they began to see the insane beauty of spoken language, something we all take extremely for granted on a minute by minute basis.

THEN I brought up the awesomeness of written language. Have you ever thought about it? You can look at a page and see a variety of shapes and markings. You can know what's going on in my mind. You can know what went on in your great grandmother's mind. You can know what went on in Abraham Lincoln's mind. You know what went on in Aristotle's mind. I looked at the girls and said "God has given us the Bible. He has given us the gift of language! We can look at the shapes and markings in the Book in front of us and....." The light bulb came on...they began raising their hands and exclaiming, "now we can know what is going on in God's mind!!"
How cool is that?!!? Talk about insane love! He created us, loved us, sent His sweet and precious Son for us, and then wrote His thoughts down for us so we can know Him better!

P.S. That big, powerful God knows you by name! Think of all He's done for me and you! All the way down to creating our minds with the ability to communicate with one another, and with Him! Need I say it again? That is insane love!!!!

I love pictures.

Have you ever tried sitting down with a little kid and reading to them from a book...without pictures? How much luck did you have?? None. Their little minds don't quite understand....or they get distracted.....or they plainly aren't interested.....or they just can't even begin to follow what you're talking about. Add pictures to the book and voila! They see what the story is portraying! The pictures make the story come alive to them!


Have you noticed how many pictures God draws for us in the Bible to help us visualize the truths that He has for us?
-We are the sheep, He is the Shepherd.
-We each a part of a body, THE body of Christ. Some are the hands, others the eyes, ears, arms, etc. But they all must work together to make a complete body that functions correctly for Christ!
-He is the Vine, we are the branches.
-He is the Cornerstone and we are the bricks that make up His Temple.
-He is the Bread of life.
-He is our living Water.
-He is our Father, our Daddy. We are His children!!

The list could go on and on!

God's ways are so much higher than ours. His thoughts are so much deeper than we could ever imagine. So what did He do for us? He drew pictures in our Book! He brought His story, His truths to life so that our simple minds could begin to understand the unending beauty that is portrayed for us in His Word!!
What a good Father we have!

It's a small, dark world.

I had a fabulous shift at work today. It's always fun to work with people you enjoy! Since I started this job in November and then was gone for almost the whole month of December, I'm still getting acquainted with a lot of the girls I work with.
Today I was on shift with a girl named Paige. We had the opportunity to get to know one another a little bit in between customers and I was surprised to find out that, not only was she familiar with New Tribes, she also knew a lot of the same people I did! She is good friends with missionaries that work at the aviation base in Arizona where Drew and I are going to live after we get married. She even knew who his family was! It really is a small world!!
So, later on, I was visiting with some friends and I decided to tell them about all the connections I had discovered that day between my co-worker and myself. As I began to tell them about it, I said, "So there's this girl that I work with, and I've known she was a Christian for a long time just by the way she acts......." It wasn't until I finished my story that it dawned on me, it was no surprise at all to me when I discovered that Paige was a believer. She is sweet and caring, her conversation is always wholesome, she is an extremely hard and faithful worker...the list could go on and on. It really made me stop and think.....do I have a testimony like that? Do I conduct myself in a way that doesn't give anyone any doubt that I serve Christ? Even more importantly, do my life, conversation, or actions dishonor the name of Christ in any way before unbelievers?
I thank God that He set an example right in front of me of what it looks like to have a shining testimony in a dark world. I pray that I will continually have a testimony that brings Him nothing but the highest honor and glory! It may be a small world, but it's also a very dark world. Only God's truth can penetrate the darkness. My our lives be shining lights for Him!

So basically..............I'm engaged. :)

Will you be a Trader?

How will they hear?

There are approximately 6,912 languages in the world......

1,953 of them are in the process of having the Bible translated into their language. For some this means that the actual written translation is in process. For some this means that a written language is being developed so that they can receive the Scriptures in their heart language. For others this means that there are missionaries living in with them, learning their culture and language so that they can begin work. It's a long, intense process. Praise the Lord for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are out there right now putting in the long hours and hard work to bring the Scriptures to another language group!!

876 of these languages have some Scripture, however small that amount may be.

1,168 languages have the New Testament!

438 languages are so incredibly blessed to have the whole Bible translated into their language!

2,251 languages still need a Bible translation.

2,251!

What a staggering number! There is so much work left to do! I have 4 different English Bible translations sitting on my shelf....and yet 2,251 people groups don't have one word.
There is a tangible number for you. 2,251 Write it down somewhere. Keep it fresh in your mind. Please be in prayer for more people to be willing to devote their lives to the preaching of the Gospel of Christ!! Remember to keep those who are currently in different countries all over the world right now, serving God as they minister to the lost and preach the truth of the Word of God to those who have never heard it before!!

Romans 10:14-15
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

Crank it up!!! Or...maybe not.....

We've all done it. You're driving down the road, the sun is shining, and you're singing along to the radio. Then, it happens. Your favorite song comes on the radio! Your head starts bobbing....you turn up the volume a little bit. Then you turn it up a little more. Pretty soon you've got the radio blaring! This is fantastic!! Such a great song!!! Unfortunately, you get to your destination before the song is finished. You turn off the car and get out. What happens when you get back in the car later on?
The music is BLARING!!
So there you sit, fumbling over everything, reaching over things in a wild attempt to turn it down as quickly as possible. The whole time, you're thinking "How in the world did I let it get that loud! It didn't seem that loud before!"

Sin is just like the music in the car. Little by little, you turn it up. Slowly and gradually it gets louder and louder. Before you know it, you're jolted to your senses as you become aware of the reality of the sin that is blaring in your life. Then chaos ensues as you struggle to shut it down and turn it off as quickly as possible! Your mind is filled with thoughts of "How in the world did I let it get that far! It didn't seem like that big of a deal before..."

I've had the privilege of sitting in on Chapel this week to hear our guest speaker Chris Lujan, a missionary to the Siar tribe in Papua New Guinea. He used this example and it really got my mind working. How often do I allow this to happen in my life?! It is so easy to slip into! The more I thought about it, I started to think about all the times when I'm blaring my music in the car and someone either tries to talk over it or ask me to turn it down. Don't ruin my great song!! So instead of turning it down or off, I turn it up to drown out any outside noise. So if there is a sin in my life that is becoming more and more of an issue, maybe someone will try to confront me about it. Maybe God will show me from His Word or even just convict my heart about it. I pray that I would listen to those warning signs and deal with my sin before it is a loud, blaring problem!