Resting on the Everlasting Arms of our Lord

"The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

-Deuteronomy 33:27

This is Hillary's favorite Bible verse. One of her favorite qualities about God is that He is everlasting--a really mind blowing quality when you stop and think about what everlasting means. She led my Bible study with Jordan my freshman year at Eastern and passed away a year ago today. 

There are SO many things to say about Hillary. She was inspiring. Bubbly. Had a huge heart for the lost. Was real (in more than one way... haha shout-out to the R.E.A.L. Women). Godly. Gave the best hugs. Was my zombie mom on spring break. Genuinely cared about everyone. This doesn't really even begin to touch the surface of Hillary, but I think it gives a decent start to understanding her.

She taught me so many things. She didn't just teach me through words what a Godly relationship looks like, she lived it out. She taught me Jesus was radical, and that completely blew my mind. I was taken aback when she said that we should be radical because Jesus was. I see myself learning from her still, to this day.

One of the best and most memorable Bible studies I've ever been to was when we talked about Heaven. I'm pretty sure the topic that night wasn't necessarily supposed to be Heaven, but we somehow got there. At that point, I had seen Hillary excited, but she was at least 10 times more excited when she started talking about Heaven. She was giddy! It was great. I left that night with a better eternal perspective, more desire to know the Lord and what He had in store for me, and a book recommendation (Heaven by Randy Alcorn -- I just started it and it's fantastic). That's just one of the zillion things she and Jordan taught me freshman year. I couldn't have asked for a better pair of leaders. Only God could have pulled them together and then placed me in their group.

I remember at the memorial service we had for her on the first day of school, we sang "Our God" by Chris Tomlin. We sang, "Our God is greater, our God is stronger. God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power."

Singing that song in a time like that just really struck me. In my opinion, you'll only find joy and worship during a trial in a Christian community--people whose hearts are being captivated by Christ. People that understand and trust the words when it says later in the song, "If our God is for us then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?" (see Romans 8:31).

Hillary was one person that understood that. She recognized that there is a God and He is holy, without flaw. That we were created to have fellowship with God, but that fellowship was broken because of our sin. That God saw this brokenness and restored it Himself, because nothing we could ever do on our own-no amount of good deeds, no church going, nor how "good" we are-would ever be able to restore this relationship. So He sent His son Jesus to earth to live a life that was without sin and die on the cross, taking God's wrath when we are the ones that deserve it. And if we place our faith in Jesus and believe that He not only died, but rose again, we will have everlasting life in Heaven.

That's how I know Hillary is in Heaven. That's how I know I'll see her again one day. And that's why my brothers and sisters in Christ and I can sing songs like "Our God" and "It Is Well With My Soul" in times of sorrow.

Love and miss you, Hillary!

If you would like to know more, I would love to tell you more! Email me at:

stephanie_scrivne1@mymail.eku.edu

It's Over?!

That was the fastest and best 5 weeks of my life. It truly was incredible!

Many of you, I'm sure have a lot of questions about what I did exactly. Our daily schedule looked something like this:

• Wake up/eat/get ready for the day
• TWL (Time with the Lord)
• Meeting/training
• Lunch
• Campus time
• Meeting or group dinner

I really appreciated having Quiet Time (QT, TWL, whatever you'd like to call it) built into our schedule. One thing I learned over the summer is that it's best to have this time in the morning because it gets your day started off right (or it does mine at least). I used to have my QT at night, thinking it's a good way to end your day, but many times I would be so tired that I wouldn't get anything out of it and if I did get something out of it, I would fall asleep quickly and not meditate on it at all. When you having this time in the morning, you can meditate on it all day.

Our morning meetings differed from day to day. The first week we were refreshed on how to use Cru's evangelism tools: Soularium, Perspective Cards, and the Knowing God Personally booklet. We were also trained on how to lead small group Bible studies, talked about God's heart for the world, how to interact best with international students, how to study the Bible, etc. 

Tuesday mornings were different though. We would still have a morning meeting, but it was not a training time necessarily. We had a time of Prayer, Praise, and Celebration that the Prayer Team was in charge of. I was privileged to be part of the Prayer Team and helped plan this time every week. It was great! I learned a lot from the planning process as well as the actual meeting Tuesday mornings.

On to campus time. We were split into two missional teams that covered 4 different campuses: Brooklyn College, City College, Queens College, and New York University. I was stationed at NYU all but two days during the summer--I went to Brooklyn College twice. As I stated in a previous post, ministry was really hard to do there. It was difficult to find students--we had to go to Washington Square Park, in the midst of the campus, because non-students could literally not get into the buildings. We got rejected a lot by students and non-students--some because they probably thought we were trying to sell them something, some because they didn't have enough time, some because they just simply did not want to talk to us.

Monday evenings we would have our Monday Night Meetings (MNM). These were events open to the public held in our office space. These meetings were like our regular Cru meetings on Thursday nights at Eastern. We had a fantastic praise and worship band, a wonderful emcee, and great speakers every week. We talked about being captivated by Christ, being changed together by Christ, being compelled to express love and life with others, and choosing Christ over everything else. As you can tell, our conversations were Christ-centered and Gospel-rich. It was great!

Overall, my experience in New York was fantastic. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and if you supported me through prayer or financially, I cannot explain how much I appreciate it. Our group shared the Gospel no less than 90 times--those were only the ones that we for sure remembered as we were tallying at the end. You were a part of that! And even though we didn't see anyone make a decision for Christ, there's a whole other spiritual world that we don't see how the Lord is working in! The seeds have been planted and God will water and grow them in His own timing. 

I have learned a TON over this summer and I am currently processing it all. As I do this, I plan on sharing what all I have learned on here. So plan on checking back!

ps- While in New York, I walked no less than 150.48 miles. Assuming my stride length was set correctly and not adding in the times that I couldn't wear my pedometer. That's a lot!

Incredible.

Project is already halfway over! I feel like I just got here yesterday, but at the same time I also feel like I have been here for a forever. In just two and a half weeks of being here on mission, I can say it's been the most incredible summer of my life. Not only are we sharing the Gospel, but we're also getting to do "New York" things--Broadway plays, pizza, different culture dinners, and hanging out in the city in our free time.

This past Wednesday, our group went to see The Phantom of the Opera and it was phan(tom)tastic. (Yes, I do realize that was a really lame pun.) Moving on! It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I would go back and see it any day of the week. The special effects were great and the phantom was spectacular. It was great to experience the musical live in a theater--the way it was originally created to be seen.

I have found that it's really hard to do ministry here, but at the same time it's good for me. It has helped me learn to be dependent on God. In Kentucky, I have realized that I tend to try and do everything by my own power, which is not the way a Christian is supposed to operate. It's definitely not the way you can operate in New York City.

The people here are normally pretty open-minded, but not necessarily open-hearted. A lot of people seem to think that you're trying to sell them something when you go up to talk to them--understandable because a lot of people have tried to sell us things (including in my discipleship time last week). If you are able to get into a conversation with them, they're usually very willing to tell us their thoughts on God and spirituality, but they haven't been very receptive to the Gospel. It's heartbreaking, but we must understand that our job is to go out and share through the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the rest to God. Just plant the seeds and let God water and grow it.

Sometimes it's hard to keep your head up high when you've been rejected so much, but a couple verses come to mind:

"But how can they call on Him they have not believed in? And how 

can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without

a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent?"

-Romans 10:14-15

Much, much worse than getting rejected is a soul spending an eternity apart from God. We all need to proclaim the Gospel, whether on a mission trip or not, because how can they believe if they don't hear about the Savior?