Road trip(Iowa to Montana)

Having fun with the mannequins at Wall Drug in S. Dakota. They were the only redeeming aspect of our stop at this "famous" old drug store.
Montana- somewhere between Bozeman and Libby

Badlands State Park, South Dakota

Mt. Rushmore. Annette, Simona, me and Laura

Self portrait with three of the presidents. Lincoln didn't quite make it in there.

Yeehah! Trying on hats at Wall Drug, in S. Dakota

The investment of a lifetime

"All the sacrifice,
the taking up of the cross,
the going against the flow,
the alien existence-
all are well worth the kingdom,
in fact, they are a
very shrewd investment of our lives."

Yancey

The Many Avenues of Evangelism

This week's class has been on Evangelism and has been very good for me in many ways. I've had so many people ask me how I was going to use my music in ministry in Odessa. My response has been that I don't know and don't want to assume that I'll be able to. I just want to serve in the ways that God would have me serve. But then when I got here to training, people were asking me what my desires were for ministry in Odessa. And I guess I didn't know that I could have my own desires for ministry development.

I had a nice, long talk with our teacher last night and he really encouraged me. He was asking all kinds of questions about music, my background, education, jobs, etc. and then asked how I planned to use it in ministry. When I gave him my reply, he said, "Why aren't you planning on using music in your ministry?? God gave you those gifts, talents and desires for a reason."

This morning we were going through different types of evangelism and the one that really struck me was personal evangelism:

"The sphere of influence of each individual believer within the local church(reach out to the people within your own sphere of influence). Each person within the church body will have a completely different sphere of influence, because of his interests."

And then he literally almost brought me to tears when he said, "You know, I really want to free Anna to use her abilities to reach out to the music community in Odessa, to reach gifted music students or those studying in conservatories-who other believers might not be able to reach." And you know what? That really excited me and freed me up emotionally to believe that God will use my love for music in ministry there and isn't asking me to set that aside. Two more thoughts that I really liked:

"God never minimizes the person that He is using. He uses the best in us(through our gifts and talents)to minister to others for His glory."

"International Messengers exists to empower called people to do what they're called to do."

The brilliance of snow

We all tried to take pictures today after church and it was a very difficult task. The sun was out just enough, that when we tried to look at the camera we could only squint, as tears came to our eyes. We finally got a few good ones, though my group shots weren't good. None of the group could keep their eyes open at the same time. =-)