Feels Like Home

Wow! I have become horrible at keeping this thing updated. I guess I have just become so used to everyday life here, that even when something surprising or out of the ordinary happens, I only think to say something on Twitter or Facebook. But I guess this means I have a lot to update on since it's been so long since my last post.

I have almost completed three weeks of school now. Time has just flown. I love my class. Because I have taken Russian classes before, it is easy for me to pick up on a lot.

Rachel, my roommate, and I are in the same class at school. From the very beginning we figured school would be where we were going to meet most of our friends. Well, we got to class, and there ended up only being one other person in there. He is from Vietnam and only speaks Vietnamese. So it was kind of discouraging that we had no way to communicate with the only other person in our class. About a week into classes we were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to meet anyone at school, and all of the sudden we got a new student in our class, and he knew English! In the first 10 minutes of talking to him, he told us he was a Christian. We didn't even ask or anything, he kind of just brought it up. It was definately a huge encouragement. Then a couple of days later, two girls overheard us speaking English and chased us down to talk to us. They knew English and thought it was the coolest thing to meet native speakers. So we talked for a few minutes and exchanged contact info, and will hopefully get to hang out soon. Just when Rachel and I began to think that school might not be the best place to meet people, God allowed us to make 3 new friends. I guess we just weren't being patient enough. Our desire was to make friends at school for the purpose of making Christ known to them, and He provided them in His timing. This was definately a reminder of God's faithfulness and another way of learning patience.

Last night, for the first time, Rachel and I had people over at our apartment. We hosted a craft night where we made cards. It was a lot of fun, and I'm excited for the next one in two weeks.

The Carr family has become like a family away from home. I think it would be very difficult to be so far away from home this long if I didn't have a family like this here. I feel at home when I am at their apartment. I can just watch a movie, hang out with the kids, do homework, learn to bake, etc. They have definitely made me feel at home, and I am so thankful for them.

Since I've been here I've learned to be intentional about making Christ known in everyday situations. The things I do here are not much different than at home, but the way I approach them is much different. And this is something that I do not want to leave behind in December when I come back to the States.

I'll leave you with this...

In my devotion there was a scale to measure our head commitment to see people saved vs. our heart commitment to see people saved.

So here's something to think about. How committed in are you in your head to seeing people saved, and how committed are you in your heart to seeing people saved? It's easy to say you want to see people saved, but if you truly have a heart commitment to see them saved, you will do something about it. Saying you are burdened for the lost without trying to reach them means nothing.