I LOVE my job

Our first Liel Family photo! Hochblauen--Sept 5

So, the blue paint didn't just go on the door...meet A.J. :)

Liel--Sept 4

The Liel Ladies are making scones! Tea of choice: Apple-Vanilla

It has been 19 days since my last entry and there is so much to tell! This week marks the fourth week of school for our students and it has been such a sweet time of getting to know them. When people ask how my time is going at Liel, the first word that comes to mind about the children is delightful. Oh, how they make me laugh :) I enjoy everything about them from their deep spiritual questions to their English blunders.

So, what kind of things have we been up to in Liel, Germany? A few highlights...

1. During our first full weekend with the kids...On Friday night, the girls and I made cinnamon and lemon scones as they are quite the necessary treat for an authentic tea party. On Saturday, we unhinged their doors from their rooms and each set of roommates were able to paint their door. We traveled to a local store and bought several colors of paint. "Uncle Bob" (dorm dad) organized the activity and the kids had so much fun making thier door their own. On the girls floor, we now have an array of colorful doors--lilac, dark purple, red, and yellow. I love it.

2. Every Sunday night, we have dorm fellowship after dinner which is a time where Bob, Sue, and I have an opportunity to share a spirital lesson with the kids. We are all reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which is an excellent book that exhorts believers to respond to the Lord with the same crazy love that He has undeniably shown us. Last Sunday, we took the kids to Hochblauen, which is the highest point in this region of Germany. On a clear day, one can see an outline of the Swiss Alps and the Rhine river that flows between Germany and France. It is a truly magnificent view and as we climbed to the top of the look-out tower, Bob gave the kids time to think about God as Creator as he shared several Bible verses while Sue played worship songs on the guitar. Last night, I was able to share a lesson and show the kids a brief video clip about the supremacy of Christ made by a GCC alum. We discussed what it would like if we never thanked our parents or acknowledged all the ways they love us and provide for us. Ira explained that it would make a parent feel like this child did not really belong to him or her. Wow. As we connected this idea back to the Lord and what it would like to never respond to His love and never acknowledge His gifts, the students were quiet. Please pray for our students as we continue to share and discuss this crazy love of Christ. Pray that they find and discover ways to love Him back. Pray that they make Christ supreme in their hearts. Pray that they do not ignore their Creator who died for them. Pray that the Lord would protect them from forgetting His extravagant love.

Bob and Sue took thier first weekend off this past weekend. In their place, we had the most wonderful dorm parent subs, Mark and Becky Mendek, come and help me manage the house and our 10 kiddos. During our fellowship time last night, Mark explained that while Christ is supreme in and over everything is this world and universe...there is one place where He is not always supreme--our hearts. Mark explained that we have a choice to make Christ supreme in our hearts--it is a deliberate choice. In the Lord's supreme grace, He gives us exactly what we want. If we desire Him, He is ours. If we do not want Him, He offers us a place where we can be completely separated from Him--hell. He loves us so much, friends, that He gives us exactly what we want. My prayer for you is that you would know the Lord's desire to be supreme in your hearts. He wants all of you, but will you respond and give Him all of you?

We are never the same after we encounter the love of God. If you have not let this love transform you, my prayer is that you would relent and receive this beautiful, radical, insanely marvelous, and free gift of love and ultimately life.

"This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is LOVE: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another...If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him." I John 9-16

I love these children. I love the fact that I get to share life with them. I am in love with our God who brought me here. I love my job.

"All over the world [in Liel, Germany, too] this gospel is bearing fruit and growing." Colossians 1:6

Thank you for sending me to the nations.

Yours,
Lauren