Life Update - Still Missing Tinca a Year Later!

Not much to update - life's been busy but good :) I'm really enjoying spending as much time as I can at Parkside with those kids and staff before school's out. It really hit me that this is my last opportunity to spend time in the room I fell in love with so many years ago! I'm excited to be a real teacher next year though! It's been a long wait for that! I just love the kids so much, so I can't wait! Of course I'm still struggling just as much as ever with my brokeness for orphans. I'm looking into/thinking about going to Haiti over Christmas break next year. I've gotten connected with some people and facilities there that I have already fallen in love with. Part of my heart is still in Africa - that I'm sure of - but Haiti is considerably cheaper to travel to. And, the faces of these beautiful children, dying without family, are in my mind constantly. I would love to hold them and love them. So, that's what I'm praying about right now. It's also hard to believe it's been a whole year since I've been home from Romania. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about that place, don't look at those pictures, or pray for those children. I miss Tinca. I miss everything about it, honestly! What joy I had in that place holding precious Abel! I'm moving from being sad about all the orphans though - God's gonna use me somehow. Maybe he already has, we were both so happy in that picture. I trust that greater things are yet to come, for me, for Abel, for Tinca, for Haiti, for Ethiopia.... :)

Untitled....

I feel like there are so many things to write about. You'd think I would have all kinds of free time now, but I feel busier than ever!

I made it - I graduated from college on Saturday! The past four years that truly seemed impossible to get through more times than I could count ended with joy, tears, family, friends, and a diploma. I didn't want to walk in the graduation ceremony, but I did because my parents really wanted me to. My parents and my grandpa and his wife attended. They were proud of me, and that meant a lot. I'm glad I walked for them. We had a nice lunch at Lucca after the ceremony and the party began at 6:00pm! I was blessed by the number of family members that showed up as well as a few friends! It was surprising to see how proud my family was of me. The evening ended with four friends praying over me - what better way to end?! I am very blessed!

College graduate!

Me and Alyssa

Marrita, me, and Kali

Taylor and me - I love this girl so much! And I'm so proud of her for the medal she's sportin' that she earned Saturday morning at the Special Olympics!

Mom and me

Mary Kate (who graduates from high school soon!) and me

Oliver and me - he's lookin' so grown up! I guess we're all growin' up!

Oliver, me, and Mary Kate!

Katie and me


Me, Danielle, Jonathan, Marrita, and Gabe :)

So, I made it - by the grace of God - and that alone - I made it! I think I made the mistake though through all these hard times of believing that once I was done with school and finally able to teach everything would be okay. Because boy did the enemy hit me hard come Saturday! I have not enjoyed school the least bit and couldn't wait to be done. But, it was familiar. I have had an overwhelming since of fear of the unknown and doubt. What if I'm not a good teacher? What if I never make a difference? So many what if's. It wasn't until my women's Bible study last night, that I began to see those as lies from the enemy. I was honestly believing them as truth. Praise God for light on that! I have felt like I have a to-do list with a million things on it, but I decided today I needed to go see "my" kids. I needed a reminder of why these past four years were worth it. I got more than that reminder. I love those kids. I see Christ's love for me through them, and I pray He uses me for His glory. Am I alone good enough to be a decent teacher to these precious kids - no. But Christ in me is. I pray that His light would shine brighter and brighter each day and that this whole ride would be for His glory!

I won't live in fear and doubt. I desire to submit fully to His will. I want His perfect will for my life to be worked out. His perfect plan that is far better than anything I could ever imagine. I trust Him in that. I trust Him that next year I am supposed to be a CI special ed. teacher at West. I trust Him that this burden on my heart for Africa isn't pointless - that it's there for a reason and in His perfect timing He will use it somehow. I trust Him, that He will bring joy and fullfillment to my life that only He can bring.

"But I have raised you up for this purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." ~ Exodus 9:16

Done and DRIVING!

I pulled an all nighter last night getting the 4 projects done that were due today. More things went wrong than I could have imagined! Haha, such as running out of ink at midnight - and remember I can't drive! Then the printer jammed for a good 30 minutes! Then I ran out of color ink (after going to Walmart to get black ink) and I had to have color for my graphs. Needless to say, it was quite an adventure - and not so fun of one at that! But, praise God, they all got done! My supervisor came at 9:00am today, and everything is done! I just have to show up the next three days and then I graduate on Saturday! Praise God! And to top it off, I had my doctor appointment today and he released me to drive! I am estactic! It felt SO good to have my car and independence back! God is faithful :) I've had more rough nights than I could count throughout my college career, but God has been there through all of them! And now I'm almost done! Praise God! He is SO good! My Savior, He can move mountains - and not only can He, but He does!!!!

Ready to be done - and other ramblings....

It's crazy to think that one week from now, the awefulness of these past 4 years will come to an end. I'm more than ready. I have 4 projects due Monday and being the procrastinator that I am, it's a busy weekend! There's been a lot of hard work put into these past 4 years, but honestly I don't feel like I've accomplished much - at least not what's being celebrated. There's been drama, frustration, and even tears over walking in the graduation ceremony as well as a graduation party. My parents want me to walk. While I am 22 years old and can make my own decisions, they want me to walk so badly that it's not worth it to me to fight it. They think it's a big, important accomplishment. Me, not so much. I'm getting a piece of paper that says I did it, I made it through these past 4 years. And while that's cool because there were more times that I could count that I didn't think that was going to happen, I still don't feel accomplished. What difference does that piece of paper make? Will it ever make a difference? I'm afraid it won't. I don't feel like I received a wonderful education that makes me so much better than others. I'm actually not that happy with the education I received. As for being better than others, that piece of paper is far from how I want to be remembered. I want to be someone that makes a difference. Someone that loves others - not for what piece of paper they hold, but simply love them because Jesus does. I want to feed the hungry. I want to love the unloved. I want to hold babies that aren't held. I want to rescue orphans. That's the kind of difference I want to make. I want people to see Christ in me - and I want to be distinguished by that, not by my piece of paper. I'm not doing any of that, so I struggle with having a celebration. We did settle on a party, but I'm not celebrating that piece of paper - I'm celebrating the work Christ has done in me over the past 4 years that has gotten me to where I am today. Without that work, I wouldn't have those desires, so I am thankful for that. The strength of Christ alone got me through, and I will praise Him for that! Needless to say, it'll be good to be done on Thursday. I hope my parents are happy sitting through a ridiculously boring 2 hours to watch me walk across that stage - I'm doing it because I love them! And I hope that during the celebration that night, Christ gets the glory!

I've decided that our family is keeping the medical industry in business. Two aunts had surgery last week. And then of course my dad has his too. We're praying that they got the whole tumor - they won't know for 2 weeks. But that surgery was way too painful for him to go through again, so please join me in praying that they got it all and the cancer would be gone!
To keep things unusual, my little cousin is having a bone removed from her foot this coming week! Praying that that surgery and recovery goes smoothly! Everyone thought it was crazy weird when it was discovered that I had an extra bone in my foot that was causing the severe pain I was in and needed it removed! Then I had to have it done again! And now my little cousin has the same thing! Weird! But it'll feel tons better once that annoying bone is gone!
I go back to my neurologist on Monday. I'm praying that I will be released to drive then. We'll see though. I'm pretty fearful that this will not happen, and just really not sure how I can handle the loss of independence and the ability to work any longer.

I will be moving to a new apartment in June. I'm pretty excited for this - it has more of a grown up feel, which is good since I will be a grown up teacher and all :)

I don't know what to get my mom for mother's day. I feel like a failure as a daughter, but I've just got no ideas :(

My heart is still in Africa. I don't understand why my heart is there but I am not. God is way too confusing on this issue, and it is very frustrating! I just wanna be there....

I'm done rambling for now - I need to go to bed. I'm SO tired!

Praying your weekend is blessed!

Much love,
Jenna

Trusting Him

I trust Him - my God, my friend, my Lord, my savior who is might to save. I trust Him. I have absolutely no understanding as to what's He's doing in my life. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a fan of not seeing any of what He's doing. But I will still trust Him. My heart is in Africa, yet He has provided a job here and called me here (at least for now). I have very few friends here, a church I'm not connected to, and not even one guy that is a possibility to marry (yes I realize that sounds corny, but let's be real, I'm a girl and want to get married some day). So what's the deal? Why here? Why that church? Why so alone? What's He doing? I don't have the slightest clue! I know I'm supposed to be here - I can't honestly say I want to be and I have no clue why I'm stuck here. I feel like there is so much more I can do elsewhere. But I guess that's just me doubting God which isn't at all what I want to do. If He could save me from the darkest pits that He carried me out of, I'm sure He could create a better plan for my life than I could. It gets hard to trust though, when you still continue to see no reason why. But I will trust Him with my life and with my brokeness....

Blessed be Your name!

I'm so beyond tired that I'm gonna make this short so I can get to bed, but I feel the need to share the praise on my heart real quick.

I keep thinking of the song that says, "You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be Your name!"

It's been a day of lots of ups and downs - emotional in many ways. I've gone through more emotions than I can explain, but I've known through it all that God is faithful and has a plan for my life. I had an interview this morning for a position I would really like. I felt like some parts of the interview went really well, other parts not so strong for me. So, I was nervous and excited. I got back out to the car after the interview and my mom informed me that my dad had just found out he does have cancer after all. He had surgery last week and ended up not having the tumor or his kidney removed because they said it was not cancer. Mayo says it is. We knew this was a possibility from the beginning, but I was so thrilled to hear the doctor report after the surgery last week and to leave it at that! What a blow today's news was! So back he has to go again for another surgery to remove it. My students were good today. It was a rough day to get through with so many questions, particularly why's running through my head. But the grace of God got me through. I had a wonderful and blessed dinner with Mallory at the spur of the moment. It'd been such a crazy day, I just didn't want to be alone - I wanted a friend. God provided! I was so blessed by our dinner! I got a phone call and quickly listened to the voicemail right as we got to dinner. It was the principal calling to talk more about the position. That's all he said and said he'd have to call back later because he would be in meetings for the next two hours. That was at 5:00pm. So as I got home right as 7:00pm rolled around I waited patiently or more like quite anxiously for his phone call - I was nervous though that he might be calling to turn me down. But, he didn't call. So I kept busy by doing a ridiculous amount of cleaning the dishes, and then gave the cat a bath. I have a crazy cat, like I'm pretty sure is clinically crazy, so why I thought attempting a bath was a good idea is beyond me - we'll just say I'm pretty sure the cat won that battle as I appeared more wet than him in the end. I was exhausted (the chronic fatigue syndrome is still on a bad spurt) so I figured I'd head to bed when 8:30pm (yes I truly am that lame and could have gone to bed that early) rolled around. Just then, the phone rang! I was offered the job!

The Lord has given and taken away. I've received so many blessings and good news lately! Yet, there is still the hard things. I don't understand why some things happen. It's frustrating to question why I have to deal with them. But my God is good and so much smarter than me! Haha! Sometimes I forget that :) But He is, and He is so faithful! Through it all, regardless, I will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your name!"

Love,
Jenna

Peace

God is good :) I am in awe at the peace only He can bring! I have a ridiculous amount of school work due tomorrow - most of which hasn't been started, much of which I just realized I don't even have the materials and information with me that I need to do it correctly. While there is stress and frustration with the amount of work I have to do, there is also peace. A peace and comfort in knowing that God is with me, and this will get done. I may be tired tomorrow, but it'll all get done, and by 3:30pm tomorrow, all the stress will be gone. I look back at just a short year ago. The panic would be setting in over the work load and the limited time left to do it. My old "friends" know the truth of this all too well. I would probably be literally shaking, eventually panicking so bad I couldn't breathe. Possibily ending up with 911 being called, an ambulance coming, and an evening in the hospital. This happened too many times to count. But God has brought me a peace that surpasses all understanding, that only He can give me. So while I have an overwhelming load of work to do today/tonight, here I sit taking the time to blog about His peace and His goodness because I have an overwhelming desire to share that with people. To say that God has changed me in enormous ways and that He works miracles and saves the people that seem so far gone is the understatement of the year! My God is mighty to save, and I want everyone to know that! Praise God, for He is good! I will now get back to work, but I pray that you will know His peace and rest in it :) Blessings!
~Jenna