I just can't wait

I am going on a missions trip to Romania, and I just can't wait. I will be working with a camp there that is associated with BHOP and IHOP-AC. I am so excited that I have constantly been looking up information about the country and it's history. I am amazed at what these people have been through.

This guy named, Nicolae Ceausescu, became president of Romania and made it a Communist country. He kind of reminds me of Nero a little bit because in 1974 he started this "systematisation" process and basically that was completely destroying Romania so he can rebuild it all in his own style. Thankfully, he was overthrown like twenty years ago. Communism has left it's mark on alot of the older generation though.

They have real gypsies there. Alot of them travel in wagons going from town to town stealing things from the flats or apartments. Some of them adopt land that was left abandoned due to lack of expenses, until they are taken off by the government. Some of them will trick you right beneath your nose. All the people I ask about gypsies too say they are easily identifiable. That You will know a gypsy when you see one. Here is a picture I found online. I can't wait to take my own :D

I still have alot to learn about Romania. It's too bad I can't speak the language. I will be over there for twenty days so hopefully I will pick up on a few words. I can't wait!!!!

I will be thankful

It's been awhile since I wrote on here...sorry folks!

I went back to Georgia for a wedding and some graduations this past week. I haven't felt that alone in so long. These people that I got to see are wonderful, I love them all so much. We had a pleasant reunion, but amidst all the "I miss you!'s" and "how have you been?" "what have you been up to?'s" I still felt a loneliness. Not in the sense that I felt companionless, but in the sense that I now stand apart. I am not apart of what they are apart of anymore, and they don't agree with what I am standing up for. I stood in a room full of people that I once felt a kindredness with and felt lonely.

I know this move is where the Lord wants me. I know that my loneliness will only serve to make me rely more on Him and His love. So I am truly thankful. As I see my friends graduating and getting ready for the next step, as I see my friends getting married and having babies I will be grateful for where the Lord has me. I know my calling isn't normal. I know I stand alone. but it is in this solitude that the Lord has made His presence known, so I will be thankful.

I have chosen to be apart of the prayer movement here in North Carolina. I am slowly and sometimes painfully being transformed. Nothing compares to one day in the presence of the Lord. I choose to give it all up for the sake of knowing Him in a greater way. He is worth it. In Him I have found my rest, my song, my hiding place. I will be thankful as the Lord sets me apart. He is Holy, and so I desire to be Holy!

108 things I miss

I miss...
G.I. joes in the backyard
bear shaped ice cubes
sours
ice cream man in Germany
bubblicious bubble gum
s'mores with best friends in the living room
talking on aim
swimming with the Petersons
walking to kroger
Lord of the rings on christmas eve
dodge ball on the trampoline
camp... old spice!!
wal-mart with grandma
dinner at pastor Jeremiah and Bianca's for family nights
prayer with the staff on tuesday morning
being lazy at heather's house
making pizza with hillary and chris at sammys
la fiesta with zach and ashley
every single conversation with Lindsay Anne
swimming with the magic man
dinner at 5:30 with the whole family
popeyes
new orleans
playing in the creek with the neighborhood kids
making stuff on the table saw
truth or dare
Wisconsin
string cheese
watching zorro at midnight
rent-a-crew
the seven projects
joking around with mike hult
Mathew, Jessica, Andrew, Jon, and Mike(FTC)
going to suretha's with Mrs. Cindy
playing in the snow with brooke and the fowlers
catalyst
8:00
special delivery pizza when I'm sick
the rocket summer in summer
tennis
hopping fences at sweetwater
playing with gobbi
shopping at the mall with charity while they fix the car
all the pastors at cch especially Pastor Jeremiah and Bianca
biking
makani jane stingl
trying to learn Jessica's dances
crochet group with Mrs. Dorris
Hacky sack small group in the winter
s3
transit
wesley guys
staying on the internet all night with jenna
lunch with briana
laughing with heather
being in the bus with FTC
laser tag and skating rinks
sidewalk chalk
overhead projectors in elementary school
easter egg hunts
charity falling in the pool while trying to practice the dance
memory verse tests
monterrys
adullam christian fellowship
movies with bethany
phone conversation's until 4am :)
fishing in milford lake
Mrs.Jill and Pastor Randy
crave
listening to music in the car with chris
watching that scary movie with austin and elizabeth
making movies all night with pidge
weird snacks with hillary
stephanie freeman
talking on the phone with susanna and montana
pastor Bianca's small groups
heather's christmas parties
bicentennial park with the wesley kids at christmas
taiwan
working at the skate park
capture the flag after saturday night bible study
hanging out with kristen smith
backstage with briana
wesley reading to me
jenna's smile
napolean dynomite
vote for pedro shirts
decorating cch for christmas with FTC
creative planning meetings
honduras
taking videos of ftc, something hilarious would always happen
trans 56
xanga
transits got talent comedy routine
neewalloh
silent football
courtney corrin huth
the tea room with kristen
savannah with my mom
lock-ins
trey and brooke in baseball nets
starbucks with friends
dollar coffee with briana
the office with chris
murder in the dark at that castle playground with transit
church at chapel hill and everyone in it

I am so thankful for my memories. I look forward to the new ones that have yet to happen. Praise you Lord for blessing me in my life!!!!!
Kirsten

I am a monster, yet He loves me

I tend to be a selfish person.

I am selfish when it comes to my time, my brother, food, sleep, conversation, friends, and much more. How easily I turn to my self every single day. At times, I see it. Mostly, I feed it. Those scarce moments when truth sheds the thick lie from my eyes, I see the way I really look. This disgusting fat monster that is on its own island of pleasure while the things that need help drown in the ocean surrounding me. It is a vivid and repulsive image.

Some of you might be thinking I see you help all the time, Kirsten. Yes even when I am helping it is still mostly due to my selfishness. I help only to prod myself, to make myself feel like a good person, or to make myself look good for other people. There are such rare occasions in which I actually serve for God, because I love Him and He told me to.

This truth about me is unnerving, to say the least. Not only is this selfishness at the expense of others in need around me, but it also takes the God I proclaim to worship off of His throne and me in it. I constantly serve myself. I am a glutton for pleasure. I worship the things that give me gratification.

I am, however, thankful for the things the Lord uses to reveal this to me and to convict me. He uses Love and sometimes art. He uses a woman with exceptional character. He uses His word and teachers. He uses my brother. I want to become more sensitive to my selfishness, it has grown into a natural thing for me. This is a feat that wont easily be won. In Christ the victory is mine. I will spend my life dying only to make Him more powerful in me.

I am not God! I will not be the Lord of my own life. I refuse to stay on this Island of pleasure and feed my massive stomach. I repent, Lord, for my wrong motives and disgusting habits. Teach me how to be selfless out of Love for you. Teach me humility that seeks after your heart and not mine. Father align my will with yours, that I will never do anything that doesn't please you. Father teach me a love that looks past my pleasure and my emotion. I choose to love you! I choose to be faithful to you! Thank you, beloved, for showing me truth. May I always love your truth more than my ignorance!

Kirsten

change and immutability

One thing I have been thinking about these past few days is the mystery called "change". This is one thing I just don't think I will ever get used to, I am not really supposed to either, that would defeat it's name. I am so puzzled by this thing "Change" that plagues our lives. I mean if you think about what the word means, it's making something different then it would be if it were left alone.
We have all been victims of change. Some we would say are for good, others more depressing, and still others we would in fact like to "change". I try to imagine my life without it. If I was just a baby for the rest of my life left alone, in one constant state. I would never die, eat, sleep, or laugh. So we see change is mandatory even for rocks and things not living, they too experience change. Either by erosion or man's destruction.
Looking at this impossible thought more practically, there are more recognizable changes that happen to us, ones that we think upon that we are either thankful for or ones we curse. I have come to appreciate change, even in the most frustrating terms. These sort of shiftings and imbalances that redirect my path only make me more aware of that which is greater then me. This God that never changes, this immutable King that is my foundation and my firm rock that I can hold onto while everything around me changes. I am thankful, even for the changes that set me in a more sorrowful or empty direction. I am thankful for the changes that set me towards happiness and opportunity, for they all only seek to make me more aware of that stillness in my Lord.
Yet still this is a thought that will keep my mind meddling. It is insane!!

Birth and Poetry

April 28th was my brother's Birthday. He is 22 now. I wrote him this...

We are poetry, he says
Step after step
Under bright lights that drown out the stars.
You commission them to turn off.

defeat takes his seat
back on the brick sign

We are poetry, I reply
glance after glance
over the cement guard rails onto the highway, we tower.
Vertigo takes it's toll.

fears too subtle for fears
along we walk again.

We are poetry
Smile after smile
On abandoned soccer seats we tell of
lullabies our futures tease.

songs we hope will play along
until another tune catches our ear.

You are poetry, the moon shouts
We scream "we love you, moon!"
We hold the jealousy of Robert Frost, the admiration of an
only child, the appreciation from words that have so long been
ill-used. The declaration of never-ending train tracks. The
motivation of inspiration and understanding hearts.

Yes, my brother, we are poetry indeed.

I finally found where I belong

Safety and Normalcy

I have been here already 4 weeks. The Lord has been so faithful in making this transition non-existent. I find that everything I have given up there, I have received in greater quantity in different ways here. Of course I have irreplaceable relationships at home, but I find the new ones are just as irreplaceable and meaningful. To Love with out reason is so freeing.

I do about 40-50 hours in the prayer room. I really thought that this would be the hardest transition. To go from the racing and running to sitting and waiting. From the first minute I sat down in the old fashioned ill-lit room, I fell in love with it. It feels so normal to just sit for 8 hours a day and do nothing but talk to the Lord. I feel like I really have found where I belong. There have been no bolts of lightening or thunderous rapids but in the slowness of His speech I have found a safety and a love completely undeniable, unbearable, unexplainable, unthinkable and I will never let go of it.

I praise God for His faithfulness. I have obediently followed what He spoke to me, and He has not left me high and dry. Thank you Father!!!