Week one roundup

I really should kill my computer.

If not for having internet at home, I am convinced I would be quite a bit more productive than I currently am. But then again, who says productivity is the ultimate measure of human life anyway!

So yes, I am back in Klaipeda for the spring semester, having arrived about a week ago now, on a late Saturday evening, fortunate enough to have caught a minibus from Vilnius with my friend & roommate Sarah, who arrived about an hour before I did. I will spare you the long version of my adventures getting out of Denver (they involve waking up to six inches of snow, frantically shoveling the driveway, being put in the wrong lines by uninformed United employees, missing a flight, a rebooking line, a run through security, all culminating in an hour-long deicing procedure on the DIA runway and my solemn vow never to fly United again. Unless they’re the cheapest option. ), but now I feel like I’ve been back for, oh, at least a month and am getting the hang of my new schedule and courses.

In keeping with LCC tradition, in addition to the Rhetoric & Communication course I taught last spring, I am yet again teaching a new course that I’ve never taught before (as I have every semester), but one that I lobbied hard for – Creative Writing. I’m hoping to keep myself motivated to write alongside the students, which could mean more frequent updates to the blog – yay for you, dear readers.

For those of you who have been diligently and lovingly praying for me, I wanted to give just a couple of highlights of week one. First was the student worship night on Thursday evening – in which the dormitory prayer room was filled up with students eager to begin the semester in worship together. It just seriously ministered to my heart to see so many students there – I think I have (I KNOW I have) felt quite discouraged this past fall by all the students and friends who have been struggling to hold whole-heartedly to their faith. I have felt serious spiritual oppression at LCC and in Lithuania, and it gave me hope to see others who are committed to worshipping God together. Moreover, God gave me a really powerful sense that it is not up to ME to revive people! I know that sounds pretty presumptuous, but when I spend so much of my time talking and praying with people who are struggling, it has begun to feel like I have to be the one to be strong, to help pull them up out of whatever pit they’re in, etc. God just really reminded me that what we always need is HIS Spirit and HIS power to do the reviving and renewing. We can’t conjure it or fake it or do it in our own strength. We can only go to Him in prayer, and ask for Him to move. It gave me a lot of peace to feel that truth.

Secondly, I was also really encouraged by the TWENTY (20) girls who came to Women’s Fellowship on Friday night. Ironically, having that many people together for Bible study is almost not ideal, but it was fun. I am hoping that other “older” women at LCC will also be open to hosting groups or opening their homes in ways that will allow this kind of community to be built and strengthened.

So many thoughts from Urbana are still bubbling around in my head – a lot about church and how we do missions and how I can transfer what I’ve experienced to the lives of my friends and students here. I have a chance to share in chapel here at LCC on Jan 24^th, and hope to be able to challenge with what I say then.

On a lighter note – I should mention that the weather’s been a little bizarre. No snow, and mild temperatures. I’ve been riding my bike a lot this week, and even took a jaunt through the woods with a friend last Sunday afternoon! Today and this weekend it’s been almost shockingly windy, enough to blow roof tiles off and onto defenseless car windshields below (as happened moments ago behind our building). I guess its been an oddly warm winter all over Europe, but after my “3 Blizzards in 3 Weeks” extravaganza in Colorado, I’m missing snow a little bit!