Returning to a Place of Change

July 2006: 19 year old Me on Summer Project VA Beach, just blocks from where I am living today!

I just had to check the calendar to see how long we have been in Virginia Beach: 2 and a half weeks, but it has felt like a month!!  So much happens when we wake up, "go to work", eat meals, go to sleep, all in the same motel as the 70 students we are working with.

If you missed it, Alex and I are in VA Beach for a Summer Project. College students involved with Cru all over the country come here and live in a less than ideal motel to grow in their relationship with God, learn leadership skills, be discipled by staff, and get lots of training and practice in sharing their faith.

Many times these last 2.5 weeks I have paused and breathed in the amount of sentiment in the air. 6 years ago, the summer after my freshman year, I took the biggest step in my young Christian faith and hopped on a plane to attend this project as a student. I had no clue what I was getting into, but now 6 years later, it has brought me to tears seeing how much God had planned. 

Watching 4th of July Fireworks over the Ocean in 2006 with my new friends!

I worked at Haagen Dazs for my summer job. It is now a Gyro place.... I  can't decide what is worse for you, Gyros or ice cream but I love both. :)

Walking into project I was a very "Me-Centered" Christian. I thought the Christian life was about my happiness and my 5 year plan being fulfilled, while doing "God" things on the side.  Throughout the 10 week trip, God transformed my heart in so many ways and completely changed the direction that I had planned for my life .

I experienced vulnerability with women for the first time; I was around men that loved the Lord and raised my standards for what to look for in a husband; I led my first Bible study and discipled my first girls; I shared the beautiful message of how Jesus had transformed my life with literally over a hundred people and saw many of them come to believe it for themselves; I learned how to talk about my faith while working a 40 hour/week job; I was taught how to deeply study a book of the Bible; and I mostly saw that the Christian life wasn't actually about me.

My roommate, Ashley, & Staff discipler, Cynthia. 2 of the most influential people for me that summer.

The most life-changing thing I learned while I was in Virginia Beach 6 years ago, was that there are 3 things that will last forever: God, His Word and People.  If I have even 80 years on this very temporary earth, I want to spend them living for and investing in things that will last for eternity.  God used this truth to grow my heart for him, for people, and for spending the better hours of my day talking to people about Jesus- the One who exchanges peoples' eternal death for eternal life.

I can remember the night so vividly. We had just talked about the reality of the world. It was brand new news to me that entire countries in the world had absolutely zero Christians in them and if people wanted to even learn about Jesus they could be put to death. We learned that billions of people have never seen a Bible, or even know what a cross signifies. I remember crying. And I remember asking the Lord to use my life, in whatever way he wanted, in whatever country he wanted, in whatever discomforts it required, so that I could be a part of his plan for people to hear about his great love.  My heart broke thinking about the billions of people that don't know or don't have access to the hope, freedom and power found in Jesus. 

I prayed so much that summer for my future. Offering it to God, and trusting that if he sent Christ to purchase my life on the cross, than he most certainly had the details of it figured out too.  I love that now, 6 years later, I am doing exactly what he had so passionately placed on my heart to do; married to a man that so passionately wants to invest his life in the same things as well.
 
It feels surreal sitting in some of the same meeting rooms, same coffee shops,  listening to some of the same talks, knowing that God had all of this planned for me way back then. Nothing changed in His plan, he was just in the process of changing me.