Just wanted to add that I have recently sent a newsletter out. If you didn't receive a copy but would like to email me at becca@thejourneyuga.com with your address and I'll add you to my list! Thanks for reading!

Vrumm, vrumm...

These days it feels like I live in my car! I seem to be spending more time on the road than I am at home. Three weekends ago we took a group of students tubing in Helen, GA. It was a blast! After our trip down the river, we drove around to Unicoi State Park to splash around in another river near to Anna Ruby Falls. I was leading the pack until I frightened a basking water moccasin which quickly slithered away to hide. In truth, I’m not sure who was more frightened! After playing in the river for a little while, we headed back to Athens, to home and to a good night’s rest.

The following Monday our staff team left for Johnson City, TN for our annual staff conference on the campus of East Tennessee State University. It’s always a great time of catching up with staff from all across the country for a week. We also spent a good bit of time focusing on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. It was a balanced teaching time and a great encouragement. I heard many reports of what some staff are doing internationally, which was particularly exciting! Mike, my director recorded all the teachings, which I hope to post on my blog for your use... but need his help to do so, so be on the look out!

Like I said, I've lived in my car, so upon returning to Athens I have spent a good chunk of time driving around looking for a house to rent this upcoming fall. My roommate-- a former WDA staffer-- and I had found a house to move into next month, but the bank foreclosed on it a week ago... Sending us back to square one with the clock ticking. We found another house yesterday, finally! This has been the most difficult house-hunting process I have had in Athens since I moved here 6 years ago. So, I am thinking that God wants us to live in this specific house for a very specific reason; pray we would be faithful with whatever ministry opportunities that come along.

I am really needing to raise up more support, so pray for opportunities and that I would be a good steward with my time the next month and a half. And as always, if you are up for hearing about my heart for discipleship and WDA's ministry, shoot me a line and we'll do dinner!

What the summer holds...

I have been asked that question quite frequently by some new friends of mine. This summer for me and for our staff team holds a little bit of student ministry and a whole lot of support raising. I have never raised support full-time before and am unsure what sin it may reveal in my heart. I am sure that is will reveal much! I already know how much my heart resists being a beggar continually in need of grace... Well, it seems God would have me proclaiming that everyday for the next two months. So yes, here we go humility (hopefully!) and needed finances (hopefully!). Pray, and if God leads you to give or if you want to hear more about what God is doing through us, please contact me. Or if you have a friend that may be interested, send them my way as well... or if your friend has a friend... or if your friend's friend has a friend. You get the point!

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you , as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you."

God has brought this verse to mind frequently in the last week. My church, Crossway Fellowship, has been going through the Sermon on the Mount for the last few months. It has been very convicting and refreshing. It has also served to prove that though I teach through this passage frequently with our journey leadership students, I am still in need of much grace to apply its truths to my life.

Anyways, back to the verse. It seems I have been more aware of some "needy people" or "needy situations" in my life as of late. As I relate to each of these, I hear God calling me to a higher level of trust, humility, forgiveness, patience, or surrendering. In response, I have felt more resistance in my flesh-- wanting to grasp at and clinch in my fist the security of material wealth, my own comfort, my own rights, my own schedule which has myself as the supreme benefactor, and my own determining of whom I will love and whom I will avoid. Because our God is unending in goodness, his grace still calls me to crucify my flesh and walk in obedience amidst my childish temportantrums.

Still with all that grace, I have noted in myself the tendency to be all too observant of the ways God is asking me to serve or mortify my sin or love or obey. As if I have a calculator in my pocket and I am keeping a tally, so as to justify my two wrong responses to God: The first is entitled, "The Demand for the Hollywood Lifestyle/ The Opposite of a Submitted Life". This is when I tell God he needs to stop messing with my life now... My flesh mourns, laments, and yells while God peals my hands off my Hollywood lifestyle-- where everything is easy, nothing makes me depend on him or grateful for him, and I am made much of, instead of him. The second response I call, "The Self-Righteous Trumpet Player". I think to myself, "Wow, you're pretty impressive, look at how much you're giving here and here and here and...You deserve a break." How arrogant those words seem when scripture calls me an unworthy servant who only does the lowest requirement for the Master.

Gross as it is, that is where my heart goes... averting my eyes, not away from myself and to my God, but towards myself. Following my friend, JohnMark's sermon on Sunday, I listened to a sermon by John Piper. He spoke of the glory of God when all things are restored, commenting that one thing that will become characteristic of man is his self-forgetfulness in the midst of praising and looking to the glory of our great God! Oh, how my heart needs that! Pray for me that self-forgetfulness would be my first inclination amidst God's pruning or increased call to love and live the Gospel. Self-forgetfulness-- so much so that my left hand would not realize what my right hand is doing. Pray hard, for my pride does not make this process an easy or natural one. Pray hard, for I fear that the God I serve is very jealous over his glory and demands that I be as well.