Becoming Sisters

A ship cannot sail on the choppy sea without first being built in a safe harbor.  It cannot find shape unless it has something to model itself after.  It cannot grow and improve unless others are allowed to come on board and supports are set in place around it.

Last weekend, my dream finally starting taking shape and becoming a reality.  Let me explain:  

My youth group growing up played one of the most instrumental roles in my choice to follow Christ personally.  Although I had been raised and formed in a strong Catholic family, it wasn’t until I had the fellowship and support of other kids my age that I confidently made a personal decision to accept my faith as my own.  For me, the witness of girls slightly older than me making decisions to follow Christ and strive towards holiness had a powerful impact on me.  They proved to me that this faith that I had been raised with was not just something for my parents, but something for me too.

In the last months, it seems to me that the youth of the Jerusalem community are facing the same decision that I faced a few years ago.  Their parents have given them a strong foundation on which to build their faith, yet many of the youth have not yet made the decision to follow Christ themselves.  They are on the brink of making that decision, but it is an infinitely more difficult decision because they don’t have the support and encouragement of those their same age.

My dream has been to help create a support group for the girls that unites them and provides them with opportunities to build strong relationships with one another. 

Leven in de Geest

Do you know the feeling of going into something completely unsure of what is going to happen or even what you should expect?  Well, in a way, you could say that that has been my experience of this entire gap year.  However, the Life in the Spirit Series that Pharos has been putting on has provided me with this experience in a particular way. 

In order to advertise this seven-week series that explores the fundamental truths of Christianity and offers participants an opportunity to choose for Christ, we made 1000 Dutch and English flyers and literally spread them out across the entire city.  For a week we went out every day for a couple of hours and handed them to every person in our path, plastered them on every notice board, put stacks by every campus info booth, and talked about it with every person we know in Leuven.

Destination: Dublin, Ireland

I have always had a travel bug.  And, as any Travel Guru knows, Dublin, Ireland, is one of the places that must be seen.  This weekend that dream became a reality.  Along with 13 others from Pharos, I traveled there for the annual Kairos Weekend- a huge regional conference where all of the young adults from Kairos Europe and the Middle East come together to learn about discipleship and leadership and to pray together.  Honestly, it was incredible.  I was the photographer for the weekend, so I had the privilege to take a step back and wonder at the uniqueness of this experience.  

Set Apart

It seems like yesterday it was the Christmas season and I was reflecting on that first half of my Gap year and making resolution for the second half.  Then I turn around and today it is already February.  Growing up, I have been told countless times that I will blink and the time that I am in will be over.  I need to stop now in the moment and appreciate it. 

As one way to do that, I want to write a little bit about this last month.  Belgium in January is unlike Belgium at any other time of the year.  It is exam period meaning that students finish class in December and immediately go into solitary seclusion for four to six weeks, living and breathing only their text books until exams finish the first week of February.  Literally, the city goes silent and dead because the students are all locked in their rooms. 

The Belgian version of myself studying for my Dutch exam