"God is pleased with you when, for the sake of your conscience, you patiently endure unfair treatment" 1 Peter 2:19

This was one of my Journal entry's for one of my classes so I just copied and pasted it so the beginning part probably won't make sense. I haven't posted a blog in awhile so here it is.


This chapter is so necessary to where we are in this program. If I may I'll quote Susannah.. a lot of times we feel like slaves and not sons and daughters of our Lord. I think we need to keep in mind, "No one on earth posseses more authority than Jesus, yet He never defended Himself before authorities." I feel like a lot of times I'm frustrated and confused because I'm getting asked to do things I don't quite understand. Especially in my track time. I get asked to do certain things but because everyone is pressed for time they can't explain to me what I'm doing and why. I just do it and it's incredibly frustrating and I don't feel like I'm gaining anything. But in reality I am and God knows I am.

We're taught to stand up for ourselves but no one ever told us to take harsh ridcruel, this kind of throws all of the foundation of our thoughts out the window. It's so strange to think to bite our lip and not justify our situation because Jesus did not do that. Whoa... Jesus did not stand up for himself and he took it all for someone else. That someone else is me. We think of hard times as building character but never viewed it as a blessing."He uses it to set us up for a blessing." But we need to humble ourselves and allow that blessing to come. I loved this verse, "He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly" 1 Peter 2:23 It's hard to remember we're not of this world when we don't know of anything else. This is just temporary and we need to be treated unfairly and be broken because "a prerequisite for intimacy with the Lord is a broken heart." How will we ever truly know how much we need to cling to him if we have it all together? I think keeping in mind that nothing gets by God and realizing that he is the ultimate judge.

Atlanta

Monday we left to go to Atlanta to help with the flood victims. It was, I don't even know because words can't describe. I was there, I saw it, I talked with the home owners and I still can't imagine how I'd react. I can't comprehend it.

This picture was when we first arrived. This guy was one of the pastors we partnered with. He was telling us that we were one of the first groups to arrive. I was really confused to why we were the first groups to arrive. A lot of the people in Atlanta did not have flood insurance which left a lot of people homeless and lost. The pastor here told us a lot of people were so confused on what they should do that a lot of people ended up going back to their homes and sleeping on garbage bags. That means not only are they breathing in mold they're breathing in waste; sewage.

I know this is a funny picture but if you look at the trees you can see the discoloration on them. That is how far the water went up. We were told the water was up at least 30 ft. Crazy..
The two pictures above are what we did all day. We tore people's homes apart and threw their lives out of windows and took them to huge dumpsters. One of the interns said it was awful that he'd ask the home owners something like, "This uh is your family photo it's water damaged but do you want to salvage it." And most of the time they just reply with just throw it all away.
These are what the homes looked like after we gutted them.


Some girls I met and some girls I already knew. Even though it was a traumatic time it was also a wonderful bonding time.

One of the most moving things to me was our last house. It was eight at night and it was dark. I was tired and I was ready to go home. I wanted to be done but we ended up doing one more house in the dark but lit up by two car's headlights. I was so annoyed but as we were busting our behinds I realized that the man who owned the house was sitting outside on his lawn watching us. He was an older gentlemen named, Mr. Leon. He was by himself. I started to think If we hadn't done his house, who would have or at least how long would it have taken for someone to do it? He sat there and watched us rip apart his house. Not just his possessions but his carpet and his walls. Throwing stuff out of the second story window and dragging it out into his front yard for garbage. How would you react to that just sitting there watching your home be demolished? I don't know how I'd feel. I don't know it's things like this that we do in the internship that make me appreciate life so much more. That make me more of a humbled person and become more compassionate towards people, because that's hard for me. The authenticity that we brought helped out a lot. And I think we forget where the glory should go.