Late Night of Study

This semester has been a pretty lonely school semester. My classes have been predominantly studied for by myself. Not that this is a big deal, but it makes me sad that I haven't made a huge effort to study with people or get to know my classmates too much. Now I know the semester isn't over, but that isn't I guess what I'm thinking about right now.

It is 1:30 in the morning on Monday and I'm studying my butt off. I've got a hw due tomorrow that I really don't even know how to approach. I guess I have ideas, but I don't know. But where is my mind? Talking to my sister on AIM about theology. What does that mean?

Does it mean that I am just finding that as a way to procrastinate or avoid my school work?
Does it mean that I just prefer to talk about God and how he has moved and is moving?
Does it mean that I should already commit to doing ministry?
Does it mean engineering is a hobby or that theological discussion is a hobby?


I guess these are big questions for me as they are going to help determine my direction in my life. These issues have come up a lot lately and I really would hope to have it settled tomorrow (read: hope = unrealistically hope). Instead, I have a lot of options before me in about 9 months. I will be graduating then, so I guess I'm pregnant with the rest of my life now. It's got a standard gestation period and now is the time that I really need to research what it'll be like to take care of it once it pops out.

Could I be doing some form of engineering discipline in a place where they don't have that but need it to establish infrastructure?
Could I be using my engineering knowledge to teach high schoolers in an inner city area because they need education in technical disciplines as much as rich suburbanites do?
Could I be learning how to council people through their struggles?
Could I be coaching sports and doing sports ministry?
Could I be doing support raising for campus missions work?
Could I be working in an engineering job in Colorado, Northwest, any other place and being involved in a church while ministering to my co-workers?
Could I be working in engineering in Champaign and doing campus missions on the side?

Yea, and that's only a list of options that come to me at this moment. I'm positive there must be others. So instead of dwell on this, I shall go to bed, and hit the grindstone early in the morning, while counting down the days to my second trimester.

And even thinking about that, I guess I kinda do have trimesters set up

End of Spring 08
Summer 08
Fall 08

Each will be different in nature, and each will help me to determine stuff about me and my future...I hope

Good night (or good morning I suppose)

xPosure

This spring break I spent most of my time in Memphis, TN. I was on a mission trip with an organization called SOS. We worked on a home in the Binghamton neighborhood. This area was once a thriving community that has since been left to crack dealers, prostitutes, unemployed, and unfortunate people. It could be called a 'white flight' neighborhood and was an interesting experience. While the neighborhood isn't extremely different from neighborhoods on our own doorstep in places like Decatur, IL, what is changing is fascinating. A high concentration of ministries have teamed together and exist separately to influence the community for the message of Christ. Many of my thoughts that will come to you soon come from that trip.

One of the most eye-opening experiences was our xPosure visit (I know, cheesy spelling, right?). In this time on Tuesday night, we went to the home of a 'strategic neighbor' in the community. These are people that are passionate about building up the community and are willing to live there despite gunshots and killings only blocks away. The family we met moved from the suburbs of Memphis to this inner city neighborhood in crisis. Their passion for their neighbors is a fantastic witness to the power that God has in this place. They built a new home with wide open rooms so that they can host a house church and truly build up the community. They have Burundi refugees in their neighborhood and in their church. Their neighbors are people with real struggles and in this neighborhood all problems are out in the open.

Witnessing their lifestyle choices truly gave me a sense of how much God can move when he puts a passion in our heart and we follow it. They are helping to bring this neighborhood back to a place to be proud of by encouraging those who go off to college to return and help people believe in Binghamton.

I wish I could better articulate how incredible these people were. They chose to leave a life of American dreams in the suburbs to live in a neighborhood where they, white middle class people, should not fit in. Their daughter just graduated from college and had as much passion for her neighbors as her parents. The father still works in the swimming pool business and is an encouragement to those who don't work in the neighborhood. They have brought hope to Binghamton through Jesus. They also were able to do so without traveling thousands of miles on a mission to Africa or some far off land. There are people on our doorsteps that need Christ's compassion as well. Let us be aware of them.