A Roller Coaster Ride

In my girls’ small group at W&L, we always start off our meetings with highs and lows. I think that’s the best way to sum up my first two weeks at IHOP:EG.  I wish I could say that I’m unshaken by circumstances and that, no matter where I am, I am confident and at peace because of my identity in Jesus.  But unfortunately, I’m just not that mature…at least not yet. So this internship started out with a bit of a roller coaster ride.

Low #1:  Although I could eventually no longer attribute it to culture shock, I was still stressed and frustrated about our seemingly disorganized schedule and my loss of a plan for housing.  I would sit in the Prayer Room, get bored within 30 minutes, and accuse God for the next hour and a half with lines like, “Why did You bring me here for this whole summer?" and “What am I going to do with myself for the next two months? I don't even have a place to stay!”  (Yep, I was full of myself… thank the Lord for His grace and mercy.)

High #1: I’ve played the flute for 12 years.  A lot of time, effort, and my parents’ money has gone into lessons, band, auditions, recitals, concerts, etc.  But until just a year or two ago, I never really used my flute to praise the Lord.  I didn’t know how.  I could only play music written on a page, which just isn’t very useful in Spirit-led worship.  However, last year, Chris gave me some tips so that I can now play by ear.  Suddenly, this instrument that I love can be used to make music to Jesus!  This is relevant to my internship, because now, for the first time since starting college, I play my flute for several hours a week.  And I love it!  In the Prayer Room, I actually get to live out Psalm 150:4 (“Praise the Lord with harp and flute”).  What a privilege!

Low #2: The Prayer Room is freezing!  I’ve gotten used to it, but at first, this was a big struggle for me.  I would try to pray but be so mad about how cold I was that I couldn’t focus AT ALL!  I tried using a blanket, but naturally: Sitting on the floor + wrapped in a blanket + closing my eyes to pray = prayer???  Nope….sleeping!

High #2: The teachings that we listened to rapidly began to change my view on creation and heaven.  Talking to some of the staff at EG blew my mind, and I found myself telling everyone about how heaven is a REAL place, not an immaterial realm where we float around on clouds.  Like a child, I was easily excited by even the simplest things we learned.  For example, God stretched out the heavens after He created them (Isaiah 42:5).  I didn’t know that!  And there must be at least some animals in heaven, because Jesus will come down riding a white horse (Rev 19:11).  And there are at least 3 heavens (2 Cor 12:2), with God dwelling in the highest heaven (Deut 10:14, Job 22:12)!  The stuff we were learning was just so cool!

High #3:  One of Chris’ friends shared with us how she really believed we were in the right place.  She knew I was frustrated about housing and the disorganization, but she stressed the importance of learning to be sent.  When God tells us to go somewhere, our job is to obey, even before He actually provides the way.  Naturally, as humans, we want provision before we go, but that takes little faith.  Real faith is demonstrated when we follow God before we can see how He will come through.  The next day, I found a place to stay that was much closer to EG.  So she was right. God provides when we take the first steps towards what He asks of us.    

Low #3: Now that Chris and I were no longer staying with his parents, I couldn’t rely on Chris to drive me everywhere.  The first time I had to drive by myself on the Garden State Parkway, I cried the whole way home.  In retrospect, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.  All I had to do was merge on, stay in my lane for 3 or 4 exits, exit, and make a few turns on local roads.  But that first night, it seemed terrifying.  SO MANY LANES!  And headlights...EVERYWHERE!

Low #4: It rained on our first day off.  So much for our plans to head down to the Jersey shore. L

High #4: It turned out okay because we went to the Liberty Science Center instead and got to watch a lady dissect a cow eye (gross!), see an IMAX about sharks, and lots of other fun stuff.

Low #5: On the way back, we got stuck in traffic for the first time.  Not fun.  At all.  I think traffic is a great way to become better acquainted with our sin nature.  So much anger and so little patience.  It's a very simple reminder of how much we need God's mercy.

High #5: We attended our first Encounter God Service and Sunday Expressions, both of which were unlike any church service I’ve been to in the United States.  It was amazing to see such freedom in worship.  Everyone praised God in their own way, and no one cared what anyone else was doing.  It’s a beautiful thing to see people dance for Jesus. 

High #6: I discovered that it IS possible to cook with no stove, oven, measuring cups, or Pampered chef utensils.  A slow cooker and a toaster oven is all you need!  The EG staff have a term for such things….MISSIONARY LIFESTYLE!

Low #6: Just when I was getting used to things, it was time for my 6:30am flight out of Newark.  But it's probably unfair to count that as a low...I was headed to PUERTO RICO!  More on that in my next blog...

Liberty Science Center

New Jersey: My First Taste of Culture Shock

It’s a little surprising, but in all my trips to Peru, Honduras, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, I've never really experienced culture shock.  Yet somehow, during my first week in New Jersey, I showcased almost every single one of Google’s top culture shock symptoms: homesickness, feelings of helplessness, disorientation, sadness, increased irritability, and excessive critical reactions to surroundings.  Looking back, I can’t even explain why.  There are a lot of things about New Jersey that are different (traffic, more people, more buildings, traffic, complicated roads, traffic…), but there are also lots of things that are just like West Virginia (trees, rolling hills closely resembling what us West Virginians like to call "mountains", bunnies, people who speak English, etc.).  For some reason, though, being in New Jersey really stressed me out at first.  Staying with Chris’ family, I was a bit less independent than at school, and I was very anxious about the fact that my initial plan for housing had fallen through and I might have to stay in Ridgewood and commute 40 minutes every day (plus traffic) for our internship.  Plus, I was unaccustomed to life in the Hu household, where they eat Chinese food, use the dishwasher as a drying rack, and walk around the house barefoot (which always results in a scolding at my house).  Of course, none of these are bad things, but when thrown in with feelings of homesickness, helplessness, disorientation, sadness, increased irritability, and excessive criticism, they felt overwhelming and kept me from seeing all the really amazing things about staying at Chris' house, such as the overflowing generosity and hospitality that I was receiving from both of his parents whom I'd only met a handful of times.  Most of all, though, I was flustered by the fact that our internship turned out to be very flexible and could not be carefully penciled into my color-coordinated planner as I always prefer things to be.  Unfortunately, it took me a while to get my eyes off myself and thank the Lord for bringing me to a place where I could learn and grow in so many ways. 

On my first night in New Jersey, one of Chris’ friends treated us to dinner.  I was surprised to see someone I’d never met give so generously and share so openly about his life and faith.  Through this occasion and many others, I've been encouraged by how easy it can be to connect with brothers and sisters in Christ just because we are all seeking the same thing.  That evening was especially interesting because a random stranger came up to us in Starbucks after hearing us pray and performed a magic trick sermon using a quarter.  His little show explained how the devil can distract us and steal away what God offers, a great reminder that God had something special in store for the summer that I would likely miss if I continued freaking out about the little details. 

The following day, I visited the church where Chris grew up.  It’s a Chinese church, so for the first time ever (at least in the US), I found myself in the clear racial minority.  There was only one other white guy in the church, and because he stood out like a sore thumb, I knew I must also be as easy to spot as a gringa in Huancayo, Peru.  Since I was so clearly a visitor, the man doing announcements had me stand up to be welcomed by the church.  Ironically, he misheard my name and introduced me to the church as Chris’ girlfriend, “Jersey.”  But that was practically drowned out by the crowd's "Awww" as the two of us sat down.  I'm pretty sure my cheeks matched my bright pink dress for a second there.  

On Monday, Chris and I finally got to go to the International House of Prayer: Eastern Gate (which I will often refer to as “EG”) where we would be interning for the next 2 months.  Still suffering from some culture shock symptoms, I was uncharacteristically irritated about the fact that the person in charge of our internship was not there on our first day.  This irritation rapidly transitioned to panic as we were informed that our time at EG would kick off with an on-the-spot audition.  Shaking like a leaf, I played my flute and sang a few lines of “Set a Fire” so that Chris and I could lead the 2pm set that very day.  It was pretty scary, but as soon as that was over and we entered the Prayer Room, I realized that EG is no so different from our Prayer Room at school.  Yes, it’s open almost 24-7 and is a lot bigger than our space at W&L.  And yes, the Prayer Room has a full sound system and a stage.  But just like at school, we simply worshiped. There was no big audience or crowd of people joining us in prayer.  It was just me, Chris, Jesus, and one or two others.  And for those 2 hours, my culture shock symptoms subsided.  Because in the presence of God, there’s just no place for such things.  

A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 6

It’s funny how, although it’s only been a month and a half since junior year wrapped up, it already feels like so long ago.  It was a great year, but part of me doesn’t know what to write that would entertain you as the reader.  So much of my story in college seems the same:  We prayed.  No one came.  We prayed.  No one came.  We prayed.  Someone came and was touched, and God reminded us that it’s all worth it.  Repeat.  Boring, right?

But it’s not boring!  Because each of those times, there was a real person at the center of it.  A real person giving their life to Jesus or recommitting or being changed.  And that matters!  As does all the time in between, where it was just me, Chris, and Joy huddling around the space heater, praying in the cold.  Because it was not just me, Chris, and Joy in that room.  It was me, Chris, Joy, AND the God of the Universe.  And regardless of how I felt during those meetings, He was never bored.  During every meeting, Jesus was on the edge of His chair (well, throne if you wanna be technical), listening to our every word.  What a special thing!

So though the year may seem like a lot of the same, there are amazing stories between each of the periods where God seemed quiet or distant.  One night, we had a friend bring a student from a nearby community college, and although we thought she hated the prayer meeting (which is generally our conclusion when someone sits stiffly with their eyes open and doesn’t speak), she returned a few days later and shared that she had committed her life to Christ because of that visit.     

Later in the semester, a Jewish student came to the Prayer Room.  I’m still not exactly sure why she came, but she kept on coming for many weeks.  And not only did she come, but she asked questions, started attending Joy’s Bible study, and began to read the Word.  Eventually, she concluded that Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life.  Praise the Lord!

A few weeks later was our craziest night yet.  We were having a pretty average prayer meeting when one of our friends knocked on the door and motioned me to come out.  She explained that there was a girl in her car who had possibly overdosed on drugs.  Not knowing what to do, she had brought her to the Prayer Room.  After some VMI cadets (who happened to be praying with us, thank God) determined that she didn’t need to go to the emergency room, three guys who were also in the car carried her into the Prayer Room.  I couldn’t help but think of the paralytic man who was brought to Jesus on a mat by his friends.  Like him, this girl was helpless as the guys laid her on the floor with a blanket.  We prayed silently as she shook and cried out, and Joy often recounts that she was preparing for the girl to die before her eyes.  It was scary!  But as we prayed, she began to relax and her breathing slowed to a normal rhythm.  Finally, as Joy played “You Make Beautiful Things,” she stood up.  It was crazy...the closest thing that we’ve seen to healing.  At least so far.

 

Those are just the Prayer Room highlights, though.  I did other things of course.  I stood with one of the middle schoolers that I work with as she announced her decision to give her life to Christ at Young Life Camp.  As an RA, I prayed for and with freshmen girls that I had the privilege of getting to know.  I wrote a 30 page poverty capstone, which was the most difficult school assignment I’ve ever done.  And I went to a Switchfoot concert with Chris to celebrate the end of our first year of dating.  It was an awesome year!  But the best part by far was Spring Term, where some of the underclassmen who had come to the Prayer Room on and off really began to catch a vision for wholehearted pursuit of God.  

To be continued…

A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 5

This is part 5 of a series of blogs about my first 3 years at Washington and Lee University.  Make sure to read the first 4 posts before this one, which picks up halfway through my second year!  Also, I realize a few parts might be a bit confusing because I tried not to use many names.  Just bear with me and rejoice in what God has done!  

Second semester of sophomore year, God really began to stir things up.  On the first weekend after Christmas break, one of my friends brought a freshman named Joy to the Prayer Room.  She cried through the entire meeting but finally explained that God had spoken to her over break and asked her to give Him more of her life.  At the start of the year, she had been drawn to some of the worldly influences of college but now she wanted to return to her first love.  And she did.  With all of her heart.  She came to the Prayer Room the following night and has come pretty much every night since.  She was the first to truly commit to joining us in daily worship and prayer and gave Chris and I renewed energy to continue on.

The following weeks were equally exciting.  People were getting saved right and left, and they had powerful testimonies.  One friend heard God tell her to read a specific verse in a book of the Bible that she had never heard of.  It struck her heart, and she showed up in the Prayer Room as those of us already inside were praying for her salvation.  Surprised by her sudden entry, we transitioned back to worship as she sat on the floor, her black, mascara-laden tears soaking the pages of her Bible.  I didn’t realize I was staring until Chris’ chapstick hit me in the back of the head, causing me to turn around and see him frantically motioning at me to pray with her.  Moments later, I held her hands as she committed her life to Jesus.

Just two days later, her testimony helped her best friend to recognize that she also needed a real and personal relationship with the Lord.  The Holy Spirit was clearly gripping her heart, and that Sunday, I felt God leading me to sit behind her in church.  I don't remember a word of the sermon, but I do remember praying hard for her salvation, and rejoicing in tears when, at the end of the service, she prayed with our pastor to receive Christ. 

A few weeks later, both of them were baptized at Jordan's Point, and at their baptism, I really felt the Spirit of God and was touched by how He had answered our prayers.  It was a beautiful time, and Chris, Joy, and I were encouraged to keep praying for salvation on campus.  

Soon after that, we began praying for a freshman girl who someone else had asked us to pray for.  We’d never met her, but we lifted her up each night in prayer.  A week or two later, I was inspired to lead a Spanish Bible study.  It only lasted three weeks, but in those weeks, two Spanish-speaking students started coming to church with us, and the very girl who we’d been praying for showed up.  She didn’t speak Spanish but asked to join our Bible study, and not even realizing that she was the one we’d been praying for, I gladly welcomed her.  In the following months, she got involved with our church and also committed her life to Christ. It was a crazy time!

Yet in the day to day, prayer still seemed dry.  While God's hand was clearly moving in our lives and on our campus, the three of us in the Prayer Room often didn't really feel it.  Worshiping and praying for over an hour every night can be monotonous if you lose sight of the love behind the sacrifice.  But we persevered, and even during our prayer meetings, it certainly wasn’t always boring.  Sometimes friends came in to pray with us, and occasionally, leaders of other campus ministries joined in to pray during our meetings.  And sometimes we really felt the presence of the Lord as we prayed for certain things or rejoiced over the salvation of our friends and prayed for more to follow.

But perhaps the most dramatic night was when we attempted to rescue a wounded baby bird that we found next to its dead sibling right outside the Prayer Room door …Well, I suppose in reality, it was Joy that did the rescuing while I stayed at a distance, still horrified by the dead bird on the doorstep, and Chris tried to calm me down. But either way it was quite an ordeal. 

Eventually the school year ended, but since all three of us were staying in Lexington over the summer, we continued our prayer meetings through June and July.  More people than usual were able to come in the summer months, and we began to develop a bit more community amongst prayer warriors.  But summer flew by, and I was soon cleaning up the Prayer Room for the year, which took forever, not because of all the posters I had to take down, but mostly because of the baby snake that I encountered underneath one of the shelves.  What an ordeal... But anyway, that was the end of sophomore year.  Of course, many other exciting things happened that year, but that’s a story for another day.  So after July, I went home for the rest of the summer with half of my college years now behind me.  But God certainly wasn’t finished with me yet.  He's still chipping away that this little piece of clay.

To be continued…

Joy, Chris, and I 

A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 4

Sophomore year started off much differently than I anticipated.  All summer, I envisioned a glorious return to the Prayer Room where a crowd of students would gather to lift up harmonious worship to the Lord.  I thought it'd be like Spring Term of the year before, where the musty basement had come alive, with 8, 10, and 12 students attending each night.  But the excitement had died down, and one of our faithful prayer warriors transferred.  School got harder.  Everyone got busier.  And after a few weeks, it was back to just me and Chris. 

That semester, I entered a season of loneliness.  Suddenly, the things that had once brought me pleasure were no longer appealing.  I began to desire God more and more, and that yearning to know Him consumed every other desire in my heart.  And not just the bad things.  Hanging out with friends, watching movies, and even reading novels no longer seemed worth pursuing in the face of a relational God of the Universe that I could get to know.  God was answering my prayer for more of Him, but it was difficult because few could relate.  People didn’t believe that I would actually rather sit by myself and read my Bible than attend a game night with friends.  But that's how I felt, and at times, normal, everyday conversations seemed so shallow and pointless that I wanted to explode.  Although my lips stayed sealed, my heart would cry, "I don't want to talk about homework anymore!  I want to talk about Jesus!"  He was drawing me away, and I think He really enjoys such seasons, though they may be painful for us.  (If you’re really interested in this, check out The Saint Must Walk Alone by A.W. Tozer or Apostolic Loneliness by David Sliker.)

So I was lonely.  But that didn’t mean that I was disengaged from what was going on around me.  God was really moving on campus and I was not blind to that.  Three of my friends got baptized in September, and one of them hadn’t even known about the baptism.  She’d been praying for over a year about getting baptized, though, and happened to run into us when we were on our way to the river, to a spot appropriately called “Jordan’s Point.”  Just a few weeks later, another girl who I’d been talking to and praying for accepted Jesus as her Savior.  She's from China and didn’t know much about God before coming to W&L, but now she loves Jesus, and I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to be a part of it.  These events and others made it impossible to believe that God was ignoring our cries.  But at the same time, I struggled with understanding why no one would join us in the place of prayer.       

I think this piece that I wrote during Christmas break of that year helps explain what we were experiencing.  It describes a detailed vision that Chris received during that fall semester.  In the vision, the Prayer Room was like a prison that God had put us in.  But instead of breaking down the walls by our own strength, we needed to dig deep into God.  Check it out: 

Darkness is closing in.  Deep, deep darkness.  It’s all around.  You can almost taste it.  And with the darkness comes despair, anguish, and wickedness.  It brings great blindness and confusion.  The darkness has reigned for so long in this place that many people have forgotten the Light, most people even. 

They don’t realize what they’ve lost.  Some of them have actually come to love the darkness.  They embrace it and relish it with every breath, and the mere thought of the Light is completely unappealing to them.  Others are deceived.  Wielding a lamp or other cheap imitation of the Light, they think they are clinging to what is good.  But they have forgotten what the Light truly is. 

My heart breaks for these people.  Their satisfaction is counterfeit and they are missing out on true joy. I suppose it doesn’t look like joy, not while we’re in this cell, at least.  But it will one day, when the Light suddenly bursts forth to reconquer this place.  Then they will see.

I can’t blame them for losing sight of the Light.  The darkness is powerful, and it seems to control everything.  I hate it down here, often longing to return to a life where everyone loves the Light, or at least pretends to, a life where the darkness cannot parade before the people but must instead hide in the shadows.  I ask myself all the time why God sent me to this dark, dark place.  Yet part of me loves it here.  Because I’m being changed.  For the better. 

Even while the darkness seems overwhelming, every now and again, a tiny ray of Light slips through the cracks of our prison, reminding us that the hope we cling to is not in vain.  I love those tiny rays and the encouragement that comes with them.  When everyone else abandons the Light, forgets it, and gives up hope, we hold onto those little bits of sunshine, and we keep fighting.  Well…sort of.

In one sense, we’ve stopped fighting.  At least, the physical battle.  But believe me, war is still raging.  The battle has simply changed.  We used to pound the walls, beating the cold, metal bars until our knuckles were raw.  Our goal was the same: escape, returning to the Light.  But beating metal bars with fists of flesh never did a thing.  We'd eventually collapse, exhausted, without an inch of progress or a dent in the bars to show for it.  We’d get up and try again the next day, but still nothing.  And the darkness kept closing in. It thickens even now.

So we stop “fighting,” but now what?  We must get out.  We MUST.  This darkness CANNOT win.  Then what do we do?  We dig.

Now trust me, that wasn’t my idea.  I tend to go for quick and easy solutions, and digging our way out of this cell is certainly not going to happen overnight.  However, it’s the only way out. 

It’s hard to even start digging.  I look down at my hands, still clenched and a little bruised from beating the iron bars.  Inside each curled up fist, I feel all the things I still hold onto: the anxieties, the distractions, the fears, the pride.  I glance at my shovel.  Can I hold all this at once at once?  Perhaps I can dig with one hand and clutch all these other things with the other.  No way.  The shovel will be too heavy.  I have to let them go.  But I don’t want to.

I stand there for a while.  This is pointless.  We have to get out of this prison, and that means that we have to dig.  So one finger at a time, with some supernatural help, I pry open my hands, fixing my mind on the Light and letting everything else fall to the ground.  It’s harder than it sounds. Painful even.  As all these things I used to cling to hit the dirt and scatter, I resist the urge to snatch them back up.  I look at my empty hands and realize that I actually feel lighter, perhaps more free.  But I can’t stop here. 

After what seems like ages, I pick up my shovel.  As I press it into the ground and raise up the first scoop of dirt, I wonder how long this is going to take.  But I guess it doesn’t matter.  It’s the only way out, so we have to dig or let the darkness win.  And we’re going to have to dig deep.  Really, really deep.

It’s been about an hour, and my body is already begging me to stop.  The shovel is heavy and awkward.  My back aches.  My arms, which are pretty weak to start with, are screaming, and I’m hot and tired.  The worst, though, is my hands.  The blisters are emerging already, and I know that my palms will soon be rubbed raw.  I consider laying down the shovel and gathering all those things I worked so hard to let go of.  They were much easier to hold, much more comfortable.  But the Light keeps beckoning.  We can’t quit.

At least I’m not alone.  I give thanks for that every day.  Multiple times.  Yet even as I give thanks, it’s easy to complain.  Why is it just the two of us?  Is there really no one else who will help us dig?  There isn’t one other person here who’s willing to go deep? Lots of people think they’re willing, even say they are, but no one sticks around.  That took some getting used to.  We’ve had to learn to just keep digging. 

At first, I was really distracted by the others.  I still am sometimes.  First, it was excitement.  Someone would come into our cell, pick up a shovel and start digging with us.  I thought they’d stay forever.  I cried when they left.  Then, it was anger.  The first time some kid dropped by to tell us, “I love what you guys are doing!  Keep at it!” I wanted to hit him.  Really?! If it’s so great, why don’t you give us a hand?

After that, it was a bit of desperation.  Every time someone passed by, I tried to convince them to come dig with us.  I wanted to show them that it’s worth it even though it’s hard.  Maybe it was because I was lonely, but at least part of my motivation was wanting them, too, to experience the Light that we so dearly love.  Some of them showed interest, would even dig for a while, yet no one truly believed in escape, in the revival that we knew the Light will bring forth.  So they didn’t endure. 

Several times I was determined to make them stay.  I laid down my shovel to grab their hand, stopped digging to plead with them some more.  But they didn’t get it.  The darkness continued to cloud their understanding, and I couldn’t force them to stay.  I should have just kept digging…

We’ve been learning that we can’t pour our energy into these others if they’re not really committed.  We just have to dig.  And dig.  And dig.  Deep.  It doesn’t get easier.  Actually, it probably gets harder.  As we go deeper, the soil turns to hard clay, our bodies grow weak and weary, and our hands start to bleed.  Worst of all is the battle in our minds.  “Quit!” screams a voice within.  But we can’t.  What about the Light?

Somehow, though, as it gets harder, the digging also gets sweeter.  Our hearts are filled just as our hands were emptied.  We can soar even when we feel weary.  Escape is ever nearer.  Breakthrough is coming.  And we can hear, albeit faint, the river that lies beneath this prison, the river that will take us out of the darkness and back to the Light.

I wonder yet again how much farther we have to go, how much longer darkness will reign over this place.  When will people realize the goodness of this life we’ve found?  Who will be first to take up a shovel and stay with us?  Will it be the girl that digs with us for an hour or two every other week?  Or will it be the guy that stands outside and laughs at our foolishness, insisting that we should come drink a beer instead?  I think they’ll both have a shovel when this is all over with.  But how long?

I keep asking that question, yet I know the answer really doesn’t matter all that much.  Because whether we escape tomorrow or next month or two years from now, what we do in this moment doesn’t change.  Either way, we keep on digging.  We dig deep, and we don’t stop until darkness is conquered.  Because our Light, our GOD, is worth it.  And He’s with us all the way, never once despising His beloved prisoners.

Even crazier than the fact that Chris had this vision, so full of meaning and relevant to our experiences was the fact that, the next day, he stumbled upon this verse “For the Lord hears the poor and does not despise His prisoners" (Psalm 69:33).  Even now, there are times when I feel like God has imprisoned us at W&L, but He has not forsaken us. 

To be continued… 

A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 3

So after Christmas break, where I had an awesome experience at the Passion Conference in Atlanta (see “The Potter at Work,” my blog from March 2012), Chris and I once again discussed the idea of starting a House of Prayer on campus.  We wanted a place where we could meet every day and where anyone would feel welcome, unlike a dorm room, which can honestly be a little bit awkward if you aren't close friends with the people living there.  The most difficult part, though, in starting a House of Prayer was finding a space to meet.  But, as one might expect, we found that the most effective way to start a Prayer Room was with prayer.  We told God that we would gladly hold the prayer meetings if He would provide the space.

Yet we looked all over campus and couldn’t find a room that would be available every night of the week. After mentioning the idea to one of my Young Life friends, she suggested asking R.E. Lee Episcopal Church, which is literally right on campus, if they would be willing to let us use a space.  That week, Chris and I met with the pastor/priest/rector (I’m still unfamiliar with Episcopalian terminology).  Meeting with him was a bit intimidating, but he was perfectly friendly and showed us some potential spaces for prayer meetings.  We ended up deciding that the basement looked like the best option, and after talking to some other church leaders, he gave us permission to use the space daily. I still recognize was pretty much a miracle and am very grateful.  This man allowed us, two W&L students that he didn’t know, to use the basement of his church EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for free.  

Anyway…somewhere between October and February, Chris and I lost the 26 people that had prayed with us that first Tuesday morning in the library and even the others who’d prayed with us daily.  By the time we actually started the Prayer Room on February 7^th, 2012, it was just the two of us.  But we kept believing that, if we asked Him, God would transform W&L.  After all, He promises that, “If my people called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chron 7:14).

So we met every night at 9:30pm for the rest of that year in the church basement.  It was cold and kind of dirty with some creepy high-jumping crickets and few spiders here and there, but it was awesome.  (For me at least. Chris might tell you otherwise.  It’s hard to lead worship for a crowd of one.)  People came in occasionally to pray with us, but even when they didn’t, I loved to go and worship every night.  It was an escape from school and homework and hearing about the crazy social scene, and it was a place where, every day, I could meet with God free from distractions (which is especially key when you have a roommate!).  I began to catch a greater vision for revival at W&L and every night seemed like a thrilling encounter with Jesus.  Or at least that’s how I remember it in retrospect.  Perhaps in the moment it was more mundane in the day to day. 

Over spring break, Chris and I went to a conference put on in WV by the International House of Prayer before going our separate ways for break.  We were both really challenged to pray even harder upon returning to campus, but Chris was especially touched.  I still remember walking into the Prayer Room that first night after break.  The formerly plain, white walls were covered in about 50 sheets of paper.  Each page was full of names, several columns of them, and I realized that every single W&L student’s name was handwritten on the pages.  The staff too.  On the whiteboard, Chris had written his word from the Lord, “Write the names of the ones that I love on these walls.” It was powerful.  Hundreds of names.  Probably over 2200 when you counted the staff.  These were the ones that God loved.  Passionately.  More than I could imagine.  So we stepped up our game.  We prayed hard for salvation and changed hearts.  During those last four weeks of school, more people came to the Prayer Room each day.  Some even started coming regularly, and we saw amazing answers to prayer. 

For example, I still remember praying for opportunities to share Christ with people in the dining hall. Every time I went in for a meal, I’d ask God to show me someone to sit with.  On this particularly occasion, I specifically asked God for someone sitting alone so it’d be easier to have a deeper conversation.  When I didn’t see anyone sitting alone, I was discouraged and gave up.  But when I walked over to sit with Brandon and Daniel, they said, “Hey, we’re about to leave, but you should sit with our friend here.  He just sat down and we don’t want to leave him alone.”  So I sat with their friend.  And he immediately asked me about my experiences in mission work.  What an amazing opportunity.  And things like that happened every day.

But suddenly it was the end of freshmen year.  And I was off to Argentina, which is a whole other story.  You can read all about it and mt second trip to Peru with my sister in my 2012 blogs.  I spent that summer going on crazy adventures and learning to pursue God on my own, without the support of the Prayer Room.  When I returned, I expected our prayer meetings to be like Spring Term of my first year, exciting and well attended.  But unfortunately, that was not the case.

To be continued…

A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 2

This is part 2 of my series of W&L posts and picks up in September/October of my first year at college.  Make sure to read A Glimpse Back in Time: Part 1 first! 

Radical ideas such as this one (praying together for at least 5 hours a week) are really nothing special, especially among young and zealous Christians.  What is special, though, is when radical ideas are followed by radical behaviors.  When four people plan to pray together daily and then actually do it.  And we did.  God gave us supernatural commitment, and we held prayer meetings every single night around 8 or 9 in Brandon’s room.  Occasionally, we invited other people, but usually, it was just the four of us.   

It was a simple thing really: meeting, praying, and talking.  But it began to awaken a new hunger in me.  Suddenly, I wasn’t just talking about following Jesus, I was actually talking TO Jesus.  At first, I was mystified.  Chris would tell us stories, about crazy missionaries who were sold out for God and about revivalists who saw crowds of people healed and saved.  But most importantly he told us his own stories, about encountering God, hearing Him speak, and falling in love with Jesus.  And although I’d come into college believing I’d pretty much gone as deep into my faith as I could go, I soon realized that I’d barely scratched the surface.  Kind of like when I was younger and got really excited about the jolly music coming from the pink and white truck, completely missing out on the fact that the friendly driver would give me delicious ice cream if I would ask (and pay, of course, but that’s beside the point).  Anyway, I started to realize that I was missing out on the best part of following Christ: actually knowing Him and His love for me.  I saw in Chris a passion for Jesus that I hadn’t known existed, and I began to pursue it for myself. 

I started praying hard for my friends and my campus, but mostly I examined my own heart.  For the first time, I could actually feel God’s love for me so strongly that I really desired to spend time with Him, and not just so I could mark my daily devotional time off my to-do list with my colorful highlighters.  I’d finish my homework early so I could slip away to read my Bible or sing love songs with my flute on the banks of the Chessie Trail.  And I’d get up before my roommate to pray in private without the constant nagging of “Is she watching me?”  During those months, God began to whisper to my heart.  Or perhaps I just finally learned to listen to His still small voice.

Since those days, God has never seemed quite so close, but that sweet intimacy still drives me to pursue Him.  It was a taste of eternity, where God will be by our side and we will just soak Him in.  The rays of His presence drenched in Shekinah glory and agape love.  It’s gonna be awesome.      

During that first semester, God marked my heart.  He talked to me and loved me and answered prayers in ways that could not be coincidences.  One of my favorite stories is about a guitar.  You see, before I came to college, I dabbled in guitar.  I learned a bit during my gap year as Jon Beard taught Honduran kids in Spanish, and I took a few lessons from Crystal Gray before starting school.  So as I was packing for W&L, my dad suggested I bring the guitar along.  I told him it was silly; I could barely play, and I’d never have time to practice.  But we finally agreed that, if there was room in the car once I’d packed everything else, I’d bring the guitar.  And there was.  So I brought the mediocre guitar that my mom had bought on Ebay, and it sat in my dorm room for weeks.  Meanwhile, although I didn’t know it, Chris was praying for an acoustic guitar. He had been leading worship for years but had no instrument with him at W&L.  So I had a guitar that I couldn’t play, and Chris could play but had no guitar.  And once we made the connection, my guitar became the answer to his prayer and the instrument that we used for worship for our prayer meetings for nearly 3 years (until it fell in the Prayer Room a few months ago and the neck snapped…a sad day). 

Anyway, there were lots of stories like that, and it was exciting.  Every day I was eager to spend time with God, to share my faith with people in the dining hall, and of course to go to Brandon’s room in the evening where I knew I would learn something new about God.  Meeting with Chris, Brandon, and Daniel was one of the highlights of each day.  They became my closest friends, and our little community began to extend beyond our prayer time.  We ate together, shared about what God was teaching us, and even attempted an off-campus adventure, which was thwarted by a flat tire in Brandon’s car and resulted in pumpkin carving on the Colonnade instead of the much more exciting Blue Ridge Parkway. 

But around December, Chris announced that we should halt the meetings to seek God individually and to pray about something bigger.  I didn’t understand, and I didn’t like it, but that month before Christmas break was good for me.  It proved that my new desire for God wasn’t all about the prayer meetings or my new friends.  It was all about loving Jesus, and I sought him just as hard when we stopped meeting.  I found rooms in the school where I could sneak away to pray away from the curious gaze of my roommate (which was very effective except for the one time when I was praying in a music room and someone walked in to play their cello...awkward!)  Anyway, based on Chris’ suggestion, I began to pray that God would open the doors for us to start a Prayer Room, a place where students could come to worship, pray, and meet with God any day of the week.  And soon after Christmas break, that’s exactly what He did.

To be continued…

A Glipse Back in Time (Part 1)

Hi friends!  I've decided to start blogging again this summer.  But I realize that my blog currently has some pretty gaping holes.  I wrote regularly during my gap year and again during the summer after my freshman year, but there is little to nothing on here about my college experience.  So I've decided to fill you in, to tell the untold stories of Washington and Lee from my first year to the present, at least the important ones.  And once I've done that, I'll reinstate my regular, weekly summer blogs.  But first, let's rewind.  This first post is one that I wrote after my freshman year but never put online.  I'll  start here (without editing it tooo much) and then pick up where I left off.  Hope you enjoy this ride in my time machine!  

A Glimpse Back in Time

It’s easy to tell stories of life’s adventures, to write about getting lost on bicycles in Uruguay or climbing waterfalls in the jungle just outside the Amazon.  And with the backdrop of such exciting tales, it’s even fairly easy to tell you what God showed me through those adventures.  But I fear that I deceive you by writing blog posts only when I’m hundreds of miles from home doing something exotic or experiencing poverty firsthand.  If you know me from my posts alone, your understanding of my life is surely askew.  Because there’s another story I’ve yet to tell.  It might not sound like an adventure.  There are no gypsies, no soups full of chicken feet, and no venomous spiders in my bathroom.  Instead, there’s just a humdrum of daily activity that doesn’t really make for the best story.  So I could skip this one.  I could let you keep believing that everything I do is either exciting or terrifying or hilarious.  I could…yet, I can’t.  Because THIS is the story through which God has changed my life.  THIS is who I am in the day to day.  Not an adventurer.  Not a world traveler.  Just me, a Potter’s Daughter.

Once upon a time, God invaded the life of a curly haired high school senior.  He’d always been a big part of her life, but just weeks after she uttered the prayer, “Here I am! Send me!” He truly took over.   Like a giant claw machine in an arcade, He lifted her out of Morgantown, sent her all over the world, and then gently set her back down in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley at a university where He would transform her life.

That’s where we begin our story…my story if somehow the curly hair reference wasn’t enough to give it away. I showed up at Washington and Lee University (hereafter "W&L") excited about volunteering, studying poverty, and getting involved in campus ministry.  But that excitement was pretty short lived.

The first real night I spent on campus was a disaster, and not just because I fell off my lofted bed (which really hurt and made me very glad that my roommate wasn’t planning to arrive for several more days).  Anyway, I learned quickly that following Jesus in college was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done.  After roaming around campus with the only two people I could find who hadn’t gone out to the parties, I returned to my room and cried.  Hadn’t God heard me when I said, “Anywhere but a party school, Lord!”?  [Since I starting writing this almost 3 years ago, I’ve realized that pretty much every college could probably be considered a “party school,” but at the same time, I continue to insist that W&L is particularly so.] The night was horrible, and I spent the next day calling my closest friends at home and sobbing over the four years of misery I was sure to endure.  Never in a million years would I have guessed that just eight months later, I would be crying because I didn’t want to leave.

I spent the first week or so drowning in self-pity.  But eventually I had a change of heart.  Although I wasn’t sure why God had sent me to such a place of darkness, I figured it wasn’t to sit around and cry.  At that point, I had to take action.  I could join in with the other freshmen waiting in line for the bus to the frat parties, or I could resist.  And fully aware that it would be the lonelier path, I chose the latter.  I had no idea what I was getting into. 

Thankfully, I at least had the sense to know that there was nothing in the world that I could do to change W&L on my own.  The culture of the school was the result of a couple hundred years, and I was very certain that it was going to take a miracle to bring light forth from the darkness.  But thankfully, I happened to have a pretty tight relationship with the Creator of the Universe.  And I believed that He would change our campus if we took the time to ask.  

So after about another week, I wiped away my bitter tears and put my game face on.  Without wasting time, I grabbed a friend and a dean and started up weekly prayer meetings in the library.  And little by little, God began to take control. 

It quickly became evident that an hour of prayer a week wasn’t going to cut it.  Although our Tuesday morning numbers faded away (probably at least partly due to the 7:30am start time), a tiny band of dedicated prayer warriors began to develop. Two became three and three became four as we spent hours in d-hall strategizing about how to conquer our school for Christ.  Though I’d rarely spent time with guys in the past, Brandon, Daniel, and Chris soon became my closest friends.                                                                                     

“What if we were to pray 5 hours a week?” asked Chris one day from the other side of a booth in d-hall.  Over the past month or so, Chris had become our leader.  He had experienced more of God than the rest of us, and He gave me vision to really know God's heart and see Him as my friend.  Chris challenged me to read the Bible more and to talk to God like a real person, and it began changing everything.

Looking back, I think Chris' question was probably rhetorical, but in that moment, my hungry heart would have agreed to pretty much anything to get more of Jesus. “Let’s do it!” I said, without hesitation.

I watched the three faces around me.  Brandon’s sparkling eyes reflected my excitement as he nodded vigorously.  Daniel didn’t seem so sure, but I knew he’d be willing to join.  And Chris just looked surprised.  I don’t think he’d actually expected us to say yes. Who wants to pray, anyway?

But we did.  So that night, I started on a journey that I know will continue throughout every season of my life: the journey of DAILY prayer. 

To be continued…