This Day with God

This morning, I woke up late. Not only that, but I was still tired when I woke up. I tried to read something for my devotions, but I couldn't focus and my eyes kept wanting to close, so I prayed instead, asking God for strength. I should have known better, because any time I do this, I never end up having the best day, but I reasoned with myself that I could come back and read something later, after breakfast, and hurried away.

A little more than halfway through the morning, I was feeling absolutely horrible. I was not comprehending thing in class, making stupid mistakes, and just not having a good time in general. It was then (as it always is) that I remembered I hadn't had my devotions that morning. I crept off in between classes and read from tomorrow's devotional (from This Day with God, November 16). It was such a blessing! God knew exactly what I needed, gave me time to read it, and blessed me with strength for the rest of the day - the strength that I had prayed for! :) Here's what it said:

"We have every encouragement that, if we daily surrender our wills to God, the promise will be fulfilled, 'And of His fulness have we all received, and grace for grace' (John 1:16). Every revealing of the grace of Christ in our behalf is for us. We are to reveal His grace in our lives, in thought, word and deed.... Were it not for the power received through Christ, we would have no strength. But Christ has all power.... Here is our power, our comfort. Of ourselves, we have no strength. But He says, 'I am with you alway,' helping you to perform your duty, guiding, comforting, sanctifying, and sustaining you, giving you success in speaking words that will draw the attention of others to Christ, and awaken in their minds the desire to understand the hope and meaning of the truth, turning them from darkness to light and from the power of sin to God. (TDG 329.5)

Fall Colours

Surprise at ARISE Part 2

So this is part two of yesterday's post! :) After we finished eating, we went up to the game room and all played some games together. Here are some shots :)

Melissa Guthrie: future ping pong pro. 

Playing with Shannon, who is another future ping pro :) I am so honoured to take pictures of them before they're famous! :)

Guess who?

...Carmen! :D

This event was so awesome it had TWO photographers :)

Filipinos are good at foosball! :)

At about 10, a group of tired, happy people left for bed. It was a really fun night, and a good chance to have some fun with friends! :) I miss you all, and Victoria, thank you SO MUCH for having a birthday! :)

Surprise at ARISE

Last month, at the beginning of October, Val and Allie had the brilliant idea that Cyrus, Melissa and I should come and visit them at ARISE. We all, of course, loved this idea, but Cyrus had a big test the next weekend, and the weekend after that was a closed weekend at Weimar, and the weekend after that Melissa was busy, and then they had an evangelistic series. So despite the threatening emails, the pleading Skype chat, and our own desire to drive and see everyone, we hit a dead end. 

Then, about a week before the closed weekend, I received an email in my inbox. I had been Bcc'd on an email Matthew sent to the girls' dean at Weimar, asking if Melissa and I could come down for Victoria's birthday! We were surprised and super excited, but we were pretty sure that it wouldn't work out (so we tried not to get our hopes up). Surprisingly, the school said yes! We cheered, we jumped up and down, we packed, we told Cyrus, we cheered again, and on Friday we began the long drive.

8 hours we spent in the car, for our dear friend Tori, and then we finally got there. She came in to see some her ARISE friends holding up a Happy Birthday sign, and then Allie gave her a completely blank card (that we had gotten for her) that said, "The distance between two friends..." on the cover, and then on the inside: "...is never as far as it seems." She was kind of confused, and begin to tear up. "I don't know who I'm supposed to be missing," she said, "but I really miss all of my friends!" Then we walked in, and there was much crying and snapping pictures and recording videos and smiling. It was THE best. Surprising people is my new favourite hobby. :)

Here are some snapshots of the weekend. Sorry for the blurriness in some of the shots, but the memories they capture are worth it. I love and miss you all!

COCONUT cake! Best. Thing. Ever.

This shot is really blurry, but I think it really captures Matthew as his usual self. :)

Tori telling some one on the phone how we had surprised her :)

This pretty much captures why we went - for Victoria, because she is one of our closest friends, and we love her and miss her a lot! Love you Tori! :)