Christmas Break To-Do

Leave it to me to make a to-do list for Christmas break :)

*make chocolate covered pretzels
*finish law school apps
*celebrate Christmas with Loren and Andrea
*make the "pink stuff" with my mom
*see a movie alone
*read non-educational books because I have time to
*read super nerdy, amazing books because I have time to
*clean out my closet in Conroe to get rid of stuff that just sits there
*wind up not getting rid of anything because I am a pack rat
*see friends who are in town for the holidays
*help my grandmother cook for Christmas day
*watch as many cheesy, Hallmark Christmas movies with my mom as possible
*go look at as many Christmas lights as possible
*find a TV show to watch a season of and wind up addicted to (any suggestions??)

I'm sure there is more....I forget anything?? :)

Monday Thoughts

* I claimed yesterday as my last totally-calm-no-schoolwork day (except for my b'day) between now and the LSAT. Took a nap. Read a fiction book. Only problem is that last night I was up until 1am. Stayed up too late reading the book and then couldn't fall asleep because of my previously wonderful nap.

* This morning, everything I was worried about forgetting, I did in fact forget. Thankful for a roommate who is at the apt. and coming up to school later.

* On days when it is raining like this, I am very thankful that all of my classes are in the same building. Also, I might be an evil person because I like sitting on the second floor and watching all of the people running in the ran. Rather entertaining.

* I saw someone on campus today wearing a FL!P shirt.....weird

friends

This little girl is one of my favorite people in the world. I've watched her grow from the little baby who I pushed in a stroller up and down our street the day her family moved (the first time) as she screamed and screamed to the little girl who reads and runs and talks and plays...2nd graders are so grown up! Tonight I got to spend time not only with my family, but with her family as well. I could not have asked for a better Friday night. It began with her and I playing on photo booth on my computer (thus, this picture...it's our suprised face in case you were wondering) and it ended with her falling asleep in my lap while we watched a movie with everyone else. Best Friday night of the school year. Love you sweet girl.

Let's play a game...

So I'm reading for my "Women in American History" class and it is talking about men and women in Frontier America. And I thought of a question....and I want to hear y'alls answers just because it's fun :)

(Mom, after I asked a friend this a few minutes ago I realized that this is something you would totally do to us, ask us random questions and make us answer them...you have taught me well :)...)

Here are the questions, answer them in the comments section:

1) If you lived in America during the time when the West was being settled would you want to live in the East (the states) in a city that was settled or would you want to move West and settle a new part of the country? (there is no correct answer...curious to hear people's thoughts)

2) Of those who choose to go West, some left their families in the safety of the East while they went to build a house and make sure things are safe while others brought their families along
with them. If you are a guy, which would you do, leave your family or bring them with you? If you are a girl, which would you want to do, hold down the homefront or go build a new home?

Leap of Faith

I just registered to take the LSAT.

Not really sure how I should feel right now. But, I do know that I am excited to see how the Lord uses this, even if it is in ways that I don't expect. This is me waiting, seeking, trusting and following.

Let the journey continue.

Reminder.

He who has called is faithful to bring about His work to completion.

I wait.

I seek.

I trust.

I follow.

The End is also The Beginning

Well, BT09 is officially over. On our last night of camp I became so overwhelmed by the fact that God allowed me to serve him this summer but not just serve Him in any way, I got to serve Him while doing a job that was perfect for me, travel the country and make some of the best friends. What an awesome God I serve.

We just left the home office in Birmingham where I told the majority of our team bye. I cried. Lots. Right now I am sitting in a hotel room with 6 other girls who were on my team. We are just hanging out for a while then going to Iguana Grill (YUMMY!!) for supper in honor of Michelle's birthday! yahoo!

I will fly into Houston tomorrow and spend a few days in Conroe with my family and then on Wednesday I will move into my new apartment!

Gotta go take a shower and start getting ready for supper!

Peace!

Hope.

Read this blog post. It is an example of how Compassion International is carrying out the mission of the gospel all over the world. What are you doing to further the gospel?

http://blog.compassion.com/michelle-tolentino-brasile-family/#more-4439

Sights and Sounds of the Summer

I've sat down to write a blog about 5 times in the past two weeks and just couldn't think of what to write.....Totally stole this idea from Ashley Hatchett.

Sounds:
*campers asking Micah if they can touch his hair
*7000 campers worshiping at Daytona
*BA singing "Boom Boom Pow"
*hammers echoing off the walls of the worship room
*Three Dog Night singing in downtown Chattanooga on our night off
*printers jamming
*lots of music....LOTS of music

Sights:
* 25 people wearing the same shirts as each other. every day.
* "kids in the quad" aka campers sitting around in a circle playing a guitar and singing (bonus points when there are numerous guitars present and being played)
*a room full of beautiful MACs
*lots and lots of dancing
*the sun rising in Gatlinburg as we walked out the Convention Center after our all-night load out
*beautiful mountains and the wonderful views from on top of said mountains
*my favorite Kenyan experiencing many American things for the first time
*hundreds of Compassion children being sponsored
*numerous dance parties (including the dance part of ALL dance parties on July 4th)

Tastes:
*Cinnamon biscuits at Covenant College
*Fast food on travel days
*Dove chocolate on reg days/day 2
*snacks from Decatur!
*coffee after staff devo in the mornings

Smells:
*Antibacterial hand sanitizer
*Lysol (thanks to Alicia)
*air freshner in the office
*smelly feet on the end of reg day from wearing our closed toed shoes all day
*funky smelling bathrooms

Christlikeness

Last night I was readying through 'The Valley of Vision' before I went to bed. You guys probably get sick of reading about this book but I love the pure sincerity of words. The prayers in this book express the words of my heart that my mouth does not know how to verbalize. I was reading through a pray titled "Christlikeness" and the last few lines really hit me...

"Help me to walk as Jesus walked,
my only Saviour and perfect model,
his mind my inward guest,
his meekness my covering garb.
Let my happy place be amongst the poor in spirit,
my delight the gentle ranks of the meek.
Let me always esteem others better than myself,
and find in true humility
an heirdom to two worlds."

I'm still here...I promise

I've done such an awful job of keeping up with my blog this summer. So sorry about that...the camps I am working at might be smaller this summer but things have been super crazy.

I spent the last week in Gatlinburg, TN. That place is just odd. It is by far the most touristy, commerical place I have ever been in my life. That week was not a normal week of camp, there was no recreation or missions during the day. Instead, churches came to Celebration (our morning worship service), left and did their own thing (shopping, white water rafting, etc) and then came back at night for another worship service and on nights 2 and 3, a concert. Leading worship was Steve Fee and our Camp Pastor was Louie Giglio. On night 2 we had a concert with Leeland and on night 3, The David Crowder Band. Our typicaly weeks of camp have had between 550 and 650 kids (though some are larger, around 1200-1500 campers). But, in Gatlinburg, we have 4500 people attending....CRAZY!

It was a great week of worship and ministry. Sadly, I was not able to go sit in on worship much because of work that had to be done.

We finished there at 10:30pm on our last night of worship and started loading out. Due to some different situations, we were up ALL night working. We finished around 7:00am the next morning. Thankfully, we had a few days off and were able to sleep all day (I love me some Hampton Inn beds!!).

We are now at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. This is our largest week of "traditional camp" with about 1500 campers. It has been an interesting Reg day....camp is full and I am short on mattresses. I hate SO MUCH not having beds for people....but, camp still happens :-)

Off to do more work....

~Lisa

Boom Boom Pow

Well yesterday was the long awaited, much needed, afternoon off.

It. was. lovely.

After 1 week of training and 10 days straight of camp, we were all very very tired and in much need of rest. So yesterday we went off campus for a really fast lunch. We also got to make a Wal-Mart run (where we accidently left someone....sorry about that Beth). Once back on campus it was time for a nice lonnnnggggg nap (3hrs for me...yay!). Once we were rested, the girls got all pretty and had a mini-photo shoot. One of the girls on our team, Caroline, is an excellent photographer who loves taking pics and us girls like having our pics taken so it is a great combo :-) After pics, we met up with the guys and went to downtown Chatanooga. I ate at Big River which was VERY yummy. We then wandered around downtown for a bit, took some more pics, ate some Ben and Jerrys. The evening was made extra fun by the random fact that Chatanooga is in the midst of hosting a large music festival and we got to watch Three Dog Night...we walked back to our car listening to them sing "Jeremiah was a bull frog."

This morning, while walking to our early morning meeting, we decided that an afternoon off, combined with 8 hrs of sleep, makes our team much happier and nicer :-)

Off to do Registration Day 3....

~Lisa

Where's Lisa??

Oh. My. Goodness. These past 2 weeks have been crazy and yet so amazing. Here is my attempt at a quick overview.

Training Week
During this week I met my team, who are all fantastic. There are a lot of returnees from different teams but there are also a good number of people who this is their first summer working for Student Life. Everyone is a very harder worker and I am so excited about serving with them for the next 2 1/2 months.

Doing my job the second time around has its own challenges but the actual "housing" portion of my job is so much easier now that I have had 3 months last summer to figure it out. :-)

1st week of camp
After MANY late nights or preparation we started our first camp. Registration Day, which is always pretty crazy, went really well. The craziest part of the day was when the fire alarm went off in the building where our camp office is, which is also where we were/are housing all of our female campers and where the cafeteria is. Needless to say, keeping 600 people outside when it is supper time is quite the adventure.

Towards the end of Reg day, when I was hurrying to get to a meeting on time and had not gotten to eat yet (and had a feeling I smelled a little bad) I realized how much fun I was having and how glad I was to be doing this and how greatful I am that YHWH has placed me here with this people, working in this job.

Overall
Honestly, I am a little fearful about this summer. Our world is so sinful and broken and it seems that a large portion of this is manifested in the youth of America, whether it is because of their own mistakes and sin or because of the actions and sin of their parents. God is, and has been for a while, in the process of breaking my heart more and more for the hurt that is present in our world because of sin. The thought of being surrounded by about 15,000 broken and hurting teenagers in a 2 1/2 month time period is frightening because I know how emotionally and spiritually draining it is. It is my prayer, though at times I want to be selfish and not pray this, that God will teach me about the healing that He brings through His overwhelming love.

My prayer is, and will continue to be that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:4).

Thanks for going on this journey with me and being patient with me as I am slow in communicating. The Lord is working in lives, and is it a great thing to be a part of.

Blessings,
Lisa

Poor Wayfaring Stranger

So I'm not begging....a lot....but you should write me letters this summer. If you decide that you love me enough to do that, here is how you should address it:

Lisa Lund
Blue Team
P.O. Box 36040
Birmingham, AL 35236

:-)

If you want to send my hungry stomach some cookies or something like that, then you will need to send them to the actual location of where I am. For that address, sent me an e-mail/fb message and I will gladly get that to you.

But more importantly, please pray for my team that it will not be about us, but that everything we do will bring much glory to God.

Georgia on my Mind

So summer is fast approaching and today was the day that many people have been waiting for....the day that Student Life announces who is on what team and where those teams are going. Thus summer, I will be on the Blue Team working for Graham and BethAnn Hill. Graham was my camp director and I went to his and BA's wedding back in November. My friends Michelle, Caroline and Madison will all be on the team with me and I am excited about working with them again but I am also really excited about meeting new people!

My schedule is different this summer...in fact of all of our locations I have only been to one of them before. Most of my summer will be spent at locations in Georgia but Covenant College is actually right near Chatanooga, TN (I can't spell...forgive me). Here is my schedule:
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--may 30-june 3
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--june 3-7
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--june 8-12
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--june 12-16
gatlinburg conference center, gatlinburg, tn--june 19-23
lee university, cleveland, tn--june 27-july 1
georgia baptist conference center, toccoa, ga--july 3-6
georgia baptist conference center, toccoa, ga--july 6-10
daytona beach, fl--july 13-17
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--july 20-24
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--july 25-29
covenant college, lookout mountain, ga--july 29-august 2
tuscarora conference center, mt. bethel, pa--august 4-8

My prayer is that God will begin to prepare all of the summer staff for SL's hearts now so that when we come together we may serve and glory Him in abundant ways.

Weekend Fun

So a few weeks back I had kept having the same conversation over and over in my head.....should I go to my church's women's retreat or go to Dallas for Student Life Conference there and hang with some dear friends who I miss a lot? You might ask why I just didn't go to both (since they weren't on the same weekend). The reason is it would have been too much...I know my limits and I needed at least ONE weekend where I didn't have anything.....plus I wound up with two babysitting jobs the weekend of the retreat.

So, this past friday I skipped both of my classes and headed for Dallas. On my way there I stopeed and suprised my mom. I then went to lunch with both her and my dad. Lunch was actually kind of sad because our favorite Tex-Mes resteraunt closed a few months ago with no warning. So we went to the eat at the resteranut that opened in the same building. It was lovely to spend time with my parents but that was by far some of the yuckiest mexican food I have ever had (my mom and I tried to convice my dad to leave the second we opened the menus but he wouldn't...oh well...now we know not to go there again).

I actually enjoyed my drive to Dallas. I listened to some great podcasts by Ben Stuart and just enjoyed being alone on a beautiful day.

When I finally got to DBU, I was greeted by Alyssa and Raychelle, both of whom I have not seen since AUGUST! Oh my goodness it was just LOVELY to see them. Dani got there about 30 minutes later and we were off to the church that the conference was at. While there we got to see the amazing Jessica Dodd! Oh how I have missed my hotel-roomie! (This summer, almost everytime we stopped at a hotel while traveling I roomed with Dodd....good times). While we were standing around talking with her one of the guys working Tour walked up to us. He told us they were short on staffers and were wondering if we wouldn't mind helping them out by working the Compassion table (Compassion International is a fantastic organization and Student Life has a booth for them at every event they do). Being the ever devoted (and crazy excited...I mean come on, we were part of OTOCHO) Student Life summer staff we were we said "sure! why not! can we have staffer shirts??" (cause it is not like we don't have enough SL shirts anyways). He then proceeded to ask us if we knew how to work the Compassion table. Our response was to look at him like he had a 2nd head.....we spent 12 weeks doing camp....yes, we know how to work the Compassion table. A bit later Ben Cranford and Maddie showed up....we also got to see Ross for a bit. Once tour started we got to enjoy the ever-so-amazing Kristian Stanfill lead worship.

The highlight of the evening took place after the event was over for the evening....we all go to hang out with Dodd. Let's just say, we had some very OTOCHO moments. (side note: for those of you who are wondering what in the world OTOCHO is, it stands for Orange (O) Team (T) 08 (OCHO).

The next day (of which I was running off of 4 hours of sleep...just like camp!) was great....friends interviewed for summer positions, saw some people we knew from the summer and just over all had a great time.

My drive home that night was the first time in my life I have ever wished that I went to Sam Houston University. My reason? Because my drive would have been 1 1/2 hrs shorter :-)

I have some observations I have made and been learning about worship but I must go study for a test so those will have to wait until another day.

Blessings

15 things about me

1) I don’t like “Care Bears.” I had a bad experience as a child. I will never buy my children a care bear movie or stuffed animal. If you love me, you won’t either
2) If you had told me 4 years ago that I would study languages in college, I would have laughed at you.
3) I prefer Hebrew over Greek (and think it is weird that I know which I prefer).
4) At some point in the near future I want to spend an extended period of time living and working at an orphanage. I don’t want to teach a VBS, paint, etc while there. I just want to sit on the floor, love on the kids and be a part of their daily life.
5) I get more homework done while sitting at Starbucks or Panera than I do in my own room.
6) I took piano lessons for about 10 years and ballet/pointe for about 12 years (it seems like at lot of people at HBU don’t know this).
7) I hate shopping for pants just as much (if not more than) as I hate shopping for swimsuits
8) My calendar on my computer (ical on my mac) is color coded, has EVERYTHING on it, and makes some of my friends want to throw up my at OCD-ness
9) I only like hugging people that I am very close to so when random people come up to me and try to give me hugs (ESPECIALLY frontal hugs) it kind of weirds me out.
10) I want to adopt at least 2 kids...
11) Certain phone rings and other noises make me jump because they sound like a fire alarm at first and fire alarms are WAY too common in all the dorms I have lived in the past 3 years.
12) I love driving long distances at dusk…sunset, good music, driving down the freeway, it doesn’t get much better than that.
13) I want to work in family ministries that help equip moms and dads to be better parents (i.e. crisis pregnancy center, etc) and am looking at pursuing a Master’s Degree that will better equip me for this ministry.
14) I didn’t think I was one of those girls who a really cute pair of shoes made her day better but a few weeks ago, I learned differently.
15) I tend to act like I am on “Mission Impossible” while I am on RA rounds in the dorms with Scott.

The Year of Prayer - A Disciple's Renewal

Hello my friends

Welcome to 2009 :-) As you might have gathered from the title of this blog, 2009 is a year of prayer for me. It is something that God has been laying on my heart and convicting me of : to be more spiritually disciplined and to me on my knees praying for my family, friends, and direction for my life. In all honesty, these first 11 days have not been the most successful but God is growing me and teaching me how to make prayer a part of my day-to-day life. Sometimes prayer is frustrating to me because I feel like I should know how to pray but then when I start my mind wanders, I don't know what to pray for/who to pray for etc etc. So I have been searching the scripture to see what God teaches about prayer (if you have any thoughts/scriptures, I would love to hear from you...lundlf@hbu.edu) and am learning much (i.e. sometimes, the best thing is just to "be still and listen"). But if you think of it, I would appreciate your prayers for my prayer journey.

There is a book called "The Valley of Vision" which is a collection of Puritan Prayers. I have wanted it for a very long and got it for Christmas. I wanted to share a prayer from this book that is a perfect expression of my heart right now.

A Disciple's Renewal
"O MY SAVIOR,
Help me, I am so slow to learn,
so prone to forget,
so weak to climb;
I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
my sloth in the heavenly race,
my sullied conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.
I am blind while light shines around me:
take the scales from my eyes,
grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.
Make it my chiefest joy to study thee,
meditate on thee, gaze on thee, sit like Mary at thy feet,
lean like John on thy breast,
appeal like Peter to thy love,
count like Paul all things dung.
Give me increase and progress in grace
so that there may be
more decision in my character,
more vigour in my purposes,
more elevation in my life,
more fervour in my devotion,
more constancy in my zeal.
As I have a position in the world,
keep me from making the world my position;
May I never seek in the creature
what can be found only in the Creator;
Let not faith cease from seeking thee
until it vanishes into sight.
Ride forth in me, thou King of kings
and Lord of lords,
that i may live victoriously,
and in victory attain my end."