Live Life, Life With A Purpose

Here I sit in the basement of the Hampton House Hotel. My co-worker Nik (from Bulgaria) is folding towels and we are talking about all of the issues that America faces—debt crisis, housing market, money, money, money! Its kind of nice to talk about this kind of stuff and to think about the world as a whole—its something that I have not done in quite awhile because my mind has been so focused on what is going on here in Hampton Beach.
Today is my day off, and I love this hotel and the staff so much that I am spending a few hours here. I need some time to just let my mind unwind and to think about things that have been going on in the house and what will happen over these next two weeks. Two weeks. I cannot believe that is all the time that I have left here at the beach.
OH! Just a few pictures from going Whale Watching last Sunday! My host parents decided to take us to Boston to see some whales. It was great. Being on a boat for 4 hours and actually getting to see whales flip their tails and blow water out! Whew! Crazy.


Here's me and Dave (Papa Mac) waiting to spot some whales.

The three amigas before setting foot on the boat.

So now I have moved onto a bench by the ocean to finish writing this blog. This just shows how all over the place I have been. I was not able to write anything in the hotel. I had to move to a place where I could have some peace and actually hear my own thoughts.

Let me first start with the title of this blog. This is something that my pastor said in church on Sunday. He was talking about reasons people do not go into ministry and just encouraging everyone to be involved in some way. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to be a missionary, but that we are still furthering the kingdom of the Lord with our work and the way that we live our lives. He shared a story about a boy who was raised in a Christian home. His parents expected him to rebel when he went to college, but the opposite actually happened. Long story short, his heart grew burdened for the children who were being enslaved in Africa and decided to go and serve over there. His whole life was lived in comfort, and when he broke the news to his parents and explained his reasoning behind his decision, he said that

“Jesus came to comfort us, not to be comforted”

This hit home with me because it is something that I have been tossing and turning with. One of the reoccurring themes that my heart has been aching over is the suffering that people go or have gone through. It seems like most of the people that I have met this summer have tragic pasts. I know that in an earlier post, I mentioned how confused I was by this. Why would God allow so much bad to happen to someone, and so much good to happen to me? But finally, with this story and phrase it struck me: I have been comforted and lived an easy, peaceful life so that I can comfort others. God has been TOO good to be, but I cannot beat myself up over his blessings. That is foolishness. I instead must rise upon these blessings and use what He has blessed my life with to turn and bless others with as well.


And now I have moved yet again back to the house. Oh my.


Two individuals that have touched my life in an extra-special way this summer are Will and Natalie, my co-directors. The amount of joy these two bring to my life is crazy. Being put in a leadership role is tough, and God for sure knew what he was doing when He placed the three of us together. I seriously would have lost my mind by now if these two were not around. I feel at peace and at ease when I am sitting with them.

Here is one example of how great they are and how serious they are about their roles as leaders and how they are helping me to become a better leader: This photo is from a 5:00am sunrise prayer meeting that we had. We all were feeling under attack and knew that the devil was trying to get a foothold to keep us from doing the Lord’s work. What better way to combat the devil than with prayer? And through this time in the Lord’s presence He granted us this astounding view…

Life does not slow down here. I apologize for this blog post as well as the couple before. They have been all over the place and hard to follow. I feel like they refelect what my life is like right now. I am both humbled and grateful for my position as APD, but it is beyond tough. I definitely have not be relying on the Holy Spirit enough for strength, and have found myself growing weary and exhausted. Please pray, if you would for total reliance on the Holy Spirit. People need to talk about issues going on in their lives, and I am thankful for the opportunity to pray with them and to offer some advice. Here is what I am going back and forth on: I am not sure if it is a good thing or bad thing to not have any time to deal with my own problems and issues that I am going through. In one sense, it is cool because most of the things I fret over are incomparable to the challenges my sisters in Christ are facing. Maybe the Lord is just training me to not worry about miniscule worries. On the other hand, I am feeling very disillusioned. This blog post represents it perfectly. I can’t even explain it…there just does not seem to be enough time for me to figure out what is going on in this crazy mind of mine!


One thing that I am in charge of is Women’s Time. Natalie and I plan this together and I have seen myself grow so much by doing this. It has been pretty neat. My public speaking skills are sub-par but the Lord has still be able to use me. I feel like Moses, at times. It is honestly the Holy Spirit speaking through me and seeing girls write down the words coming out of my mouth is encouraging and humbling. Why would anyone take to heart anything that I say? A couple weeks ago I had my own mother speak during women’s time. She is a prime example of how much the Lord has blessed me: what a woman of God! Thanks for sharing with us all, Mom.

This past women’s time was held at this waterfall. What a wonderful time to spend with these beautiful women whose hearts are yearning for a more intimate relationship with God. Not only was there this awesome waterfall, but there was also an itsy-bitsy church not 50 yards up from it. And this church just so happened to be the first church planted in New Hampshire. AH! How wicked awesome?! I will forever cherish that evening.

It fit the 17 girls perfectly!

Here I am hydratin' up before I went and climbed the waterfall :D

The women entering the oldest church in New Hampshire!

PLEASE be praying for these last two weeks. Project coming to a close is going to be difficult and I still feel like there is so much more that needs to be done. And thank you all for praying this whole summer. Thank you thank you thank you!

A Quick Update...

Good gracious. I apologize for my lack of discipline when it comes to writing posts. These past two weeks have just flow by. I have something that I would love to write every day, but alas, never get to it. I will do my best to write at least 3 more posts before I wrap this blog up. It makes me sad to think that in just 3.5 short weeks, this project will be over and my summer here in Hampton Beach will come to a close. But I am not going to think about that now!

"Having fun isn't hard, when you've got a library card!"

Look how cute and quaint!

I’m sitting in Lane Memorial Library (above) now (which is not a public library, but private and I’m not really sure if I’m even allowed in here…but its BEAUTIFUL! And no one told me to leave so I think I’m ok) sitting in an old blue chair just soaking up the loveliness and the peace that comes when I am away from the house.

I have come into such a routine here. Every Friday I get off work at 3, ride my bike home, then ride my bike into town, cash my paycheck and then ride around town for a bit before I head home. This is the first time in my life that I have actually had a real schedule where I know exactly what the next day brings, and while it can become somewhat monotonous, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Last Sunday I was able to go to a Boston Red Sox game—what an experience that was! Fenway Park is WICKED AWESOME (as they say up here in New England) and I felt like I went back in time the moment I stepped into the park. I will remain loyal to my Pirates, but the Sox have become my #2 baseball team. It’s probably a good thing I’m leaving in a little over 3 weeks or I may eventually become a Pats fan….YIKES!

Check out these seats!!!

Work is going great. Some of the students on project have grown weary of working and dread going in every day, but I honestly cannot wait to see what hilarities the Hampton House Hotel has to offer every day—not one day goes by without running into some individual that God took some extra time on to make them fabulously unique. I know that I have said it several times already, but I really am considering making a TV show about this hotel…today I started writing down some main characters and little quirks that make it so doggone uproarious.

I work with several Russian students and they hold a very dear place in my heart. They constantly are mocking me and making fun of me, laughing at the silly things I do (like run into walls while I’m talking to them—oh my was that embarrassing) but I still love them. I have been learning some Russian from them as well and hope to continue learning this exceedingly complex language on my own time when I return to school.

In my last post I explained how I was given the leadership position of Assistant Project Director. It is a massive challenge.  I am very grateful to the Lord for entrusting to me this burden, though, because at the same time, it is such a blessing! Honestly. I know that God is really working in my thorugh this position.

It was lovely to have a visit from my parents this past week and my two younger sisters. Having them with me for a couple hours was great and it was good for them to see where I am and to get an idea what the community is like up here.

Finally, I want to thank everyone again for supporting me. God is faithful. He does provide. He cares about all the minute details in our lives. I have been immeasurably blessed by those who have prayed and have given to me financially. At times I have been very discouraged here, but know that the Lord is teaching me so much. I think that life just moves at such a ridiculously fast pace that I have not had time to sit and ponder all that He is doing. So I am looking forward to sitting on my back porch at home and spending a whole entire day with the Lord! 

This post is not too long this time! I know that it does not contain too much detail, but hopefully gives you all a little bit of an update!

Heavens to Betsy

Life in Hampton Beach is now in full-swing. The streets are bustling, the beach is packed, and the smell of sun-screen and salt water is a constant aroma. Oh, how I do love living at the beach. Every sunset and sunrise is different. Every day is different. You think the ocean is the same ever day—heavens to Betsy, no! At the front desk of the hotel every day I spend lots of time just staring at the water, watching the tides, the waves, clouds, and the COLORS! The water is always a different color—last night it was purple, and glassy—just the tiniest of waves right at the shoreline. Wow wow WOW! Phenomenal. God sure does know how to paint a pretty picture!

I am so settled in though now. Riding my bike all over the area, finding little back roads and trails! Like today, my friends Cyrus and Sarah were riding back from T.J. Maxx (oh yes, I am such an avid Maxxinista I WILL ride my bike 7 miles to get there!) when I just jumped off the road into the woods on this little trail. It was AWESOME! We ended up off-roadin’ it for about a half mile or so. It was AWESOME! Just this random trail beside some old train tracks going through the woods. I LOVE NATURE!

This week marks the half-way point of project. Can I just take a second to say—WOAH. And I think that these past couple days have been the absolute hardest of all the days I’ve been here. Especially yesterday.

Ok, so let me go back to last Monday night. We had our last weekly meeting with the staff and then people were just sitting in the living room talking with one another; hanging out like we do every night. My discipler, Abby, had texted me earlier in the day asking if she could hang out with me because she wanted to spend time with me before she left with the rest of the staff. I was excited to be spend some quality time with her. So we left the house and were just walking and talking about how we were going to bake cookies and whatnot. When I rounded the corner to go to her apartment, I saw the director of the project along with the operations director sitting in their car. I smiled and waved a goofy wave and commented to Abby that they must think I am nuts for walking around without shoes on (this is a regularly occurring habit I have picked up since being here at Hampton Beach). When we were walking past the car, the door opened, and the assistant director, Karen, looked blankly into my eyes and said, “GET IN”. I turned to look at Abby, who nodded for me to go ahead.

I was relieved to see a fellow student, Will also sitting in the back of the car. I would not be alone. After sitting for a few minutes, we saw another girl come around the corner, and then she too was shoved into the car. The three students, Will, Natalie and myself automatically began conversing with one another to stop the uncomfortable and somewhat intimidating silence. The staff just piped in every now and again.

Finally, we arrived at Chili’s. Now this was around 10:30 at night so it made it really strange and confusing. We all sat in a booth, staff on one side, students on the other. Natalie and I ran to the bathroom (we legitimately had to go—it wasn’t just one of those “girl’s have to have someone with them when they go to the bathroom” type of things. No way) and here we asked if we thought this meeting would have anything to do with the transfer of roles that would be happening the following Sunday. We both concluded that it must be.

Our deduction was, in fact, correct. The staff revealed to us that we were going to be the new directors of the project. For those of you who are not familiar with what this means, let me explain. I didn’t even know that this “transfer of responsibilities” happened until a couple weeks before I came on project. So basically, for the first half of the summer, the staff leads the students—in discipleship times, bible studies, outreach, various servant teams and with enforcing the rules and keeping everyone in check. Then, the staff appoints certain students to take over the roles that they have been in. So some students are bible study leaders, some lead the servant teams and so on and so forth. Karen, Tommy and Jeff were the three directors of project. They are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and so they were really in charge of the whole kit and caboodle. Their job was not easy. And now, three students are trying to fill some incredible large shoes. Will, Natalie and I were so very humbled when they told us of our positions. I at first questioned their decision, because I in now way feel like I can lead these girls and perform all the tasks that go along with being a director, but they assured me that lots and lots and lots of prayer went in to the decision. That they felt sure God wanted me in this spot.

Here are the positions: Will is Director of the whole entire project and took Jeff’s spot. Natalie is running the operations and I am the assistant project director (APD) and relieved Karen of her responsibilities.

So for the rest of last week leading up to Sunday afternoon when the various positions were revealed, Natalie, Will and I had to sneak out of the house and have secret meetings to plan what we had to do during our first week as directors. And I thought that was difficult.

Sunday the staff revealed who would be in various leadership positions. Right after they announced the three directors, they left to go on a retreat for a couple days. Will, Natalie and I then shared with our fellow students what our vision was for the summer. We thought it would be good to start off by washing the feet of the other students. To emphasize that we want to serve them as we lead them. That was a special time.

But with the staff gone for a couple days, it was tough. They came back, and that was good because they helped me realign my gaze to be set on Christ. Saying goodbye to them was real hard though. Sara has been my discipler for a couple weeks and was on staff at CNU, so our final farewell to one another without knowing exactly when we would see one another again was difficult. Then Abby, my discipler on project, was leaving as well. She lives in Portland, OR! Through these hard times of our “See you later’s”, I had to keep reminding myself of how thankful I am for these two women. Honestly, my life would not be anywhere near the same if these women of the Lord did not spend and invest so much time into my life. They dug deep in conversations with me to bring to light the nasty filthy state of my heart. I love these two ladies to heaven and back. Thank you from the depths of my being, Abby and Sara. Not sure if you will ever be able to realize how much you guys have meant to me.

Keeping up with the APD (Assistant Project Director) duties and working 40 hour weeks is tough. Oh boy. I know that the next 5 weeks of project will be impossible without Christ giving me strength each and every day. Be praying for his strength. I try so hard to sleep, but it just doesn’t happen.

I know that this is another long post that is poorly written but I just HAD to get something posted! I keep trying to update this every couple days, but it just doesn’t happen. I know that it’s not fair for you all who are reading, because so much happens each day and you deserve to know—and I want you all to be able to know ALL OF IT! But I also want to apologize for not responding to e-mails, letters, and the like. I will do my best to  do that ASAP!

Love you all. At first I thought that no one read this blog, and every time I post I am learning about new followers and individuals who want to hear about how I am doing. That really means a lot to me and I thank God for all of you! Jesus Christ has blessed me with irreplaceable friends.

Thanks for all of the support, love and prayers.

Hopefully I will write sooner than later!