Sunflower Seeds? Why the Change?

Ok, so you may, or may not have noticed the change in the title of my blog, but I am currently bringing it to your attention.

Reasons: 
1. Time to Tell Tales was always a temporary title.
2. It had nothing to do with anything except that I would tell a story sometimes.
3. Sunflower Seeds seems more appropriate for my life.

Somewhere in Slovakia or Austria

Sunflowers always look happy. But more than just their beauty, they produce many seeds, and those seeds then produce more sunflowers that then produce more seeds and so on. I want to be like a sunflower. I believe that it radiates God's beauty, and glory, and that because of that, it produces more seeds. It's a pretty simple desire, but it's mine. 

Eastern Europe has miles and miles of sunflower fields.

Did I tell you?

Did I tell you about my first impression of Bulgaria?

At 1 AM we leave Thessalonika on the bus for Burgas, Bulgaria. We immediately fall asleep... or at least we try. At 4 AM I wake up out of discomfort and can't fall back asleep till about 5:30. Unfortunately at 6 AM we arrive in Sofia, the country's capital. There they announce... something. Yeah, like I speak Bulgarian. So everyone gets off and I figured, hey I don't need anything, I'll just take advantage of the bus not moving and try and sleep some more. As soon as I shut my eyes the driver comes back, wakes me up, and begins to yell at me in Bulgarian. Again, I don't speak Bulgarian. But I figure he want's me off for some reason so with my back pack at my feet, I stand up and don't bother taking it with me. After all we still have 5 hours to go, and I'm still half asleep. My backpack only has my computer, and all my books for the summer no big. So I'm off the bus on the sidewalk waiting for my parents to show up from the restroom. My dad walks right by me just in time to see the bus driver hop in the bus and pull away. In a frantic, and not knowing I was off the bus, dad calls out to the driver looking for me. I call out to him and he sees that I'm off the bus. He then asks about our bags, and some how the driver says that he will be back by eight. 

So all we have to do is wait, right? Well, not exactly. You see dad was supposed to be able to pick up our tickets from Sofia to Burgas at that bus station but for one reason or another they don't have them and we have to buy new ones. Now we're not sure if we have tickets for the same bus. The "ticket lady" tries in her best English to assure us that we will be on the exact same bus, and our luggage will be on it. But we're still not sure that she understood us, and at the same time there's nothing we can do about it.

Everything I had for 9 weeks. Really not a lot.

During all of this, I kept wondering what we would do if we lost all our stuff. My computer would be lost, all my clothes that I brought would be gone, and all I had with me was my iPod and my camera, and the few things in my purse. Of course once you  begin to think of all of this you worry.
 "How am I going to survive with out my luggage? The three of us probably have 100's of dollars worth of stuff! What's going to happen to it." 

Well first of all, worrying is a sin. Secondly, God is in control. Thirdly, I value my stuff WAY too much. We would have eventually been able to replace most of it. But it hit me while we were sitting and waiting for the bus that Christ is more valuable than all of this. This song came to mind:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. 

I would have survived with out my stuff. Luckily the bus came with our stuff on it, but even if it hadn't we would have been ok because God is with us. He is the one that we should be looking to. We shouldn't have to worry about our stuff because He should be everything to us.
Granted, it's going to take a lot more for me to be 100% satisfied with Him, but I'm on my way. 
What about you?

Transform Albania 2012: Pt 2

Hey everybody!
First off I wanted to thank you all for your prayers this past week. The kids programs went really well, as did the house visits and the ladies' meetings.

Back row (left to right): Emily, Keitra, Karina, Laura, Tina, Alexandra, Muriel, Joyce
Front row: Fosca, Carrie, Essi, me.

In case you didn't know, our Transform Albania team was a group of 12 women from 7 different countries, and our ages ranged from over 60 to 18 (me being the youngest). It was a great group to be a part of, with strong unity.


The theme for the week was "Loving the Unloved". The Roma people are a heavily discriminated people group. Many of them have turned to Islam and have started going to the Mosque because they get money there. This creates a pretty strong opposition. Due to their poverty levels the parents don't always understand the importance of education and they would rather have their kids on the streets begging than in school learning. 50% of the adults don't know how to read, but their kids are learning to read more and more. Another part of the Roma culture is the need for marriage. They have arranged marriages and more often than not, the girl will be engaged by the age of 15 and married only a few years later. A lot of the time if the daughter is not engaged by the age of 19, it means there is something wrong with her.

I know what you're thinking, no it wasn't always that chaotic.

But as for our week with the Roma people, our group saw the God working in awesome ways. Every morning from 10:00-12 we went to the Emmanuel Centre where different programs are held. In the morning we worked with kids and about 15 children would show up. We had a time of singing, a Bible story, a memory verse, a science lesson about butterflies (led by me), and craft time. If we had time at the end we would go out for games. 

Each day the story talked about God's love for His children. The kids learned about His power and His love for them and at the end of the week Carrie (one of the team members) gave them the clear gospel after telling the story of Saul (Paul). We also taught them "Who is the King of the Jungle?" in English, and they performed it on our Cultural Night on Sunday. 


We also had them memorize this: 
Jeremiah 31:3 Which says: "The Lord appeared to him from far away. 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.'"
The only catch was that we had to memorize it in Albanian too. It's harder than you think, and if you think it's hard you're getting the picture. 

Anyway, I pray that this would stick in their mind and sink in their hearts until they truely find God's love.


After singing, the story, and the Bible verse I would come up and start talking about the 4 stages of the butterfly. It was a simple 2 minute science lesson for them.
Stage one: The Egg. The eggs are laid on leaves in groups of about 20 or 30 in hopes that one of them survives. some of the eggs can be as small as the tip of a pin.
Stage two: The Larva/Caterpillar. When the egg hatches out comes a caterpillar. The caterpillar begins eating the leaf that it's on. then it eats another, and another, and so on. As it grows it has to shed it's skin and can do it up to 5 times!. 

Me in my cocoon.

Stage three: The Cocoon. When the caterpillar is ready, it will begin to built itself a comfortable home that it can live in for up to 7 weeks. While in there it begins to transform into a butterfly.

Breaking out of my cocoon.

Stage four: The Butterfly. After several weeks, the insect is ready to break out. It is no longer an ugly caterpillar, rather it is a beautiful butterfly.

Showing off my wings =).

I went through one stage each day. On the last day, I reviewed each stage, then went on to tie it in as a Biblical illustration of the heart before and after Christ transforms us. Then they got the joy of decorating butterfly masks to represent the transformed life. 

Just like the butterfly transforms into something beautiful, so do we when Christ works in our hearts.

Our team also had the privilege of visiting homes. There we simply talked to the Roma people and shared our testimonies. One home we visited was a strong Muslim home, though they really didn't know what they believed. Because 12 people couldn't fit in one home we broke up in 4 groups and visited different homes 3 nights in a row. One night 2 groups were able to bring a 13 year old boy to Christ and (in a different home) and lady also accepted Christ. It was amazing to see these faces shining when we came back home and talked about our evening. 

On the last three nights of the week we also held a ladies' meeting. For that, we also broke up into 3 different groups and set out a program. My group decided to tell a small story about an African village,  do a skit on the Samaritan woman at the well, then our team leader told her testimony, and I had the privilege of tying it all together and sharing the Gospel. Although we did not see any one come to Christ that night, the Holy Spirit's work was evident because the next night 3 of the 7 women that showed up dedicated their lives to Him! 

A few of the women at our meeting.

Lastly, (sorry this is so long) we had a Cultural Night on Sunday. That night each of us on the Transform team shared a little bit about our country and it's culture to not only the kids or the women but the whole family was invited. Some of us taught a dance, others held competitions, one had a quiz, and some simply had a power point on their country. 

Keitra (Bahamas) getting ready to teach a dance.

Watermelon eating competition (America).

Joyce (UK) and two hyper boys

Alexandra (Austria) with some typical Austrian candy.

 It was a fun night, and the pastor of the church there then gave a clear, short gospel message. We also had a surprise guest from South Africa who was on the Transform Kosovo team sing for us. After the program they went out and tried some typical food and candy from our countries and they were also given a plate of some Albanian dish for their super. The night turned out to be a pretty good one, and the week was well spent. 

Me with one of my favorites =).

Essi (Finland) with one of the boys.

Me with two beautiful girls <3

Thank you all so much for your prayers for the week. I know God heard you. Please don't stop praying for them, they need God just as much as we do, and He is their only hope for satisfaction in life.

In Christ,

Christina

Transform: Pt 1

Good afternoon... or should I say "Mirëdita"

First off, thank you all for your prayers on Thursday. Things went really well for a lot of people. As for my self and my friend we were able to talk to a group of Peruvians, and a Cuban both in Spanish. We were also able to distribute literature in so many languages, including Arabic. Though I didn't hear about any one coming to the faith, seeds have been planted and lives are on their way to transformation.

My Rome outreach team

My room mate, Hannah (UK) and I

If you have spent a significant amount of time in Rome you have most likely come to the main transportation station in the city called "Termini". This is where (I would say) the highlight of the day occurred. At 8:30 we were all told to meet back there in order catch our train ride home. So we did, and since we were a conference of 300+ people it was a little chaotic. But the cool part was that one group started singing "Our God is an Awesome God", and the whole conference joined in. We also went into "Amazing Grace" but then the South Africans started singing the song they taught us and we joined in while they danced and we clapped. You can only imagine this huge crowd of 300 people in the middle of a train station singing, and dancing. After the dance-link team did a little show, one of the leaders, Richard Sharp, stepped in the middle of the circle and began sharing the gospel through translation. This whole time people came up to see what was going on and they listened to what they could hear of the gospel message! 

The day was filled with great fun, good stories, and Rome being bombarded with the Gospel. 

Transform Rome 2012

However, this whole week we've been in meetings, seminars, interact sessions, worship and break out groups getting ready for the weeks that we have a head of us in our out reach countries. God has been so good to prepare our hearts and minds ready and willing for whatever is thrown our way. I made many friends this week, but like everything in our lives the conference had to come to an end and we had to say goodbye.

 * * * * * * *

Well it's official: I'm in Albania. Half of the team (including me) landed in Albania this afternoon, had lunch and now we are resting. The other half are coming later tonight and probably won't get to the church in which we are staying until 1 AM. If I haven't told you before, we are a group of 12 women ranging from 18 to about 60 years old. I am so blessed to be with an awesome group of girls who all have the same passion I do: to spread God's love to the unloved. My first ministry is tomorrow, and I will be sharing my testimony during church. I'm pretty nervous and would really appreciate your prayers.
The rest of the week is filled with Kid's ministry, and women's Bible studies, as well as home visits. Right now we are simply praying that God's love and power shine through the 12 of us and that the Roma people would simply see His love in our lives. 

Thank you, 

In Him,

Christina

Apologies and Catching You Up

Hi Everyone!

First off I wanted to apologize for not posting anymore posts. The last one I tried didn't want to cooperate and I kinda gave up. But I hope you were able to read my parent's letters and my mom's blog posts. 

This summer has gone by so quickly! To catch you all up, I’ll let you know what we’ve been doing for the past six weeks. Mom, Dad, and myself flew into Istanbul, Turkey and stayed there for a few days, then we went to Patras, Greece, saw the Emmaus work there and moved on to Corinth, Athens, and Thessalonica. From there we went to Burgas, Bulgaria, Bucharest (not to be confused with Budapest), and Timisoara in Romania, Novisad, Serbia, and Budapest, and Gyor in Hungary. From there we went to Austria where a brother so kindly lent us his car and we went to the Czech Republic, Poland (saw Auschwitz) and Slovakia then made our way back to Austria. We stayed there a few days; saw Vienna, then took a train to Venice, Italy. There we met Gil and Carolyn Vargas and, with them, visited Florence then came to Rome where we are currently.

My parents leave tomorrow (Monday) while I stay in Rome for another few days and attend the OM Transform 2012 conference before my Transform Albania team heads out. There we will be working with the Roma people (gypsies) who are an unloved and unwanted people all over the world – especially in Europe. There I will be working with about 12 other women from Europe, the U.S. and the Bahamas. Our group has been teamed up with Emmanuel Mission, an organization that works with the Roma people. In the mornings we will be doing kids’ programs (games, Bible lessons, crafts, etc.) and three of those afternoons will be spent with the women doing Bible studies extending God’s love to them. At the end we have been told that we will do an international night showing a little bit about the culture from which we come to get the whole family involved.

After the mission’s trip is over I stay in Tirana, Albania with the daughter of missionaries there who married a national. From Tirana I fly to Sophia, Bulgaria for the weekend and stay there with a sister from an assembly there. I head home on August 6^th.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated as God has brought us safely this far, and as He continues to do so. This whole summer has been a great cultural experience learning about all the different religions here in Eastern Europe from the ancient Greek and Roman mythology, to Greek and Eastern Orthodoxy, to Roman Catholicism, to Islam, and even different Evangelical denominations. Each country has an interesting history and its fun to learn what aspects of their history affects their culture today.

As my summer comes to an end, I would ask that you continue to pray for:

1. Safety for me and my family as we travel.

2. A willingness to learn on my part.

3. Boldness to teach and witness when it’s needed.

4.Team unity.

5. A pure testimony.

6. That the Power of God’s Word would touch the hearts of the Roma people.

Thank you all so much for everything, and for joining me in prayer.

In Christ,

Christina

"It's all Greek to Me"

"And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ. ...'"


“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth,does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. ..." 

"After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. ..."


(Acts 17&18)


Can you guess who I'm talking about and where we went? Yup, that's right. Greece! Now first off, I realize that my title is rather lame and cliche, but how often do you get to use the phrase literally. (With the exception, of course, of New Testament Greek students at Emmaus.) 
Paul, the apostle, was just that. One who bore the Name of Jesus, and preached salvation everywhere. His year and a half in Greece was no exception. His first stop, was Thessaloniki, but that was our last stop. From there he went on to Athens and his last stop was in Corinth. We, however, took that rout backwards. Actually, we stayed in a small town about 30-45 minutes out side of Corinth with a Greek missionary called John Kramides (sp?). From his town he took us to Corinth where my dad spoke, then he took us to see the ruins from Paul's time. Yep, it's true, I've walked the streets of old... the ones Paul would have walked preaching the gospel, or drawing a crowd. The fun thing about seeing these ruins with John was that he got really excited about the important details and was able to tie them in with scripture. 

Common Corinthian ruins. A regular town about 2000 years old. Cool thing: Paul would have been here.

Wee little me climbing a sycamore tree.

From Corinth we went to Athens via train. There we got a hostel that had a restaurant on the roof and from it you could see the Parthenon! Never thought I would eat such a luxurious dinner (although the food it self wasn't as impressive)! The next day we made our way up to the Parthenon, which, we learned, was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. Legend has it that she and another god had a competition as to who would be the protector of the city. The two were to give a gift to the people of the city, and which ever one was more useful to the people the giver would become protector. The other god, whose name or gift I cannot remember, gave a gift that was simple and unimpressive. Athena, on the other hand, gave an olive tree. This proved to be more useful, because from it would come olives, olive oil, and other olive trees. Thus Athena became the protector of the city, and that is how the city was named Athens... or so goes the myth. Anyway there is also a temple dedicated to the other god, but it is much less impressive. 

A theater on the way up to the Parthenon.

The Parthenon. 

Once we saw the Parthenon, we hiked down the hill a little ways and saw Mars Hill. Ring a bell? Yup you guessed it - or maybe you didn't. Mars Hill is the very place Paul gave his famous speech to the Athenians. There he not only challenged their religion, but also introduced them to the Creator and Savior. It was fun to imagine Paul standing somewhere on that hill in order to be heard. Slowly a crowd could be pictured gathering around him, holding on to each word wondering if it was truth. 

Me on Mars Hill looking over the city of Athens.

From there we continued down the hill looking at other ruins and so on. The next day we saw a temple dedicated to Zeus. This, had it been more in tact, would have been much more impressive than the Parthenon, however, only a fraction of the building stood.

Me next to the temple for Zeus with the Parthenon in the background. 

Continuing our journey through Greece, we traveled to Thessaloniki. The ruins there weren't as impressive... since there was only a wall... but the city itself was a lot prettier than Athens. We spent one day there, and left for Burgas, Bulgaria at 2 AM. But that's for a later blog. 

One of the pillars with the sun behind it. 

On the way up to Thessaloniki 

All in all, Greece turned out to be a beautiful country, with loving people, fascinating history, and lots of feta cheese and olive oil. 

Picture (not so) Perfect

Here are some pictures that my dad took to match the last post:
(If you click on any of the pictures you should be able to see them at a larger scale)

A typical scene in Amsterdam looking across from Anne Frank's hiding place.

The Blue Mosque is known for it's beauty. The domes (seen better inside) were meant to look like a waterfall. 

The Turkish are a beautiful people. 

All of us in front of the Hagia Sophia. It was once a Byzantine Church, then the Turks took it over and turned it into a mosque and now is a museum where they have restored it to show both Christianity and Islam.

A really cool fortress we climbed through... my camera had better pictures, but, like I said, they were deleted. 

Turkey Talk

Our tour of Europe began when we left the U.S. on Monday afternoon after visiting Daniel and Abby and little Anna. We took a 7 hour flight from Chicago to Amsterdam where we had a 5 hour layover. Being the Flemings that we are, we took advantage of that time and decided to walk around the Dutch city. My first thought was "Wow it's really quiet!" But that opinion changed around 10 AM when people finally started showing up... on bikes. It seems like everyone there rode a bike as their main means of transportation. My mom and I also got to tour the Anne Frank hide out which was also pretty cool because that had been Mom's dream. Then we finally went back to the Airport and finished our travels.
If you were to ask me what city I would want to go to before this trip Istanbul would not have been the first city on my list. However, to my surprise, it was a beautiful city. People and Mosques are every where. After all it is a city of 17 million people. In case you're wondering, yes they do pray 5 times a day, and no not everyone wears the full berka. Even though it's a very Islamic country, it's also a very westernized city. We saw everything from a full berka to shorts and a tang top. While there, we got to see the Hagia Sophia which is a museum that was once a mosque but beforehand it was a byzantine church. To see the mixture of the two was pretty neat. We also went on to see the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, and an ancient fortress. The history behind the whole city is fascinating as both the Ottoman Turks and the Byzantine Empire dwelt there when it was formally called Constantinople. I wish I could get pictures up for you, but somewhere in the transfer from my camera to my computer, all of them were deleted =(. I guess I'm not as good with technology as I thought. Hmm. Well... I would tell you more, but so much has happened since I visited Turkey (which was only 4 days ago) that I really can't remember. Now we are in Greece... but that's for another blog. 

Where Do I Look?

First things first: I wanted to make a statement of faith.

. . . . 

That was easy.

Ok, no, really. I have an amazing God who, even though we may not see it or understand, has a perfect will and is faithful to each of His children. The weird thing is I am one of those children. Why? I don’t know. But somewhere in history God wrote me down in His book as His, and is ready to carry out a portion of His plan through me. (Now here comes the wonderful segue:) And that’s what this blog is about.  You’ll notice the website is psalm1611andephesians32021.blogspot.com. Translated that’s Psalm 16:11 and Ephesians3:20-21. I know, I know, that’s a really long website, but I chose those passages because they have been true in my life as of late.

Psalm 16:11 says

                “You make known to me

             The path of life;

         In Your presence there is fullness of

            Joy;

         In Your right hand there

  Are pleasures forevermore.”

So basically, this year especially, I’ve had to learn to keep my focus on Christ, my God and my Savior. Without Him I have nowhere to go, no reason for joy, and I will never be content. But with Him I have a purpose, I will be filled with joy, and more than satisfied. By the way, I’m still working on this. Just ask my family. However it goes beyond me.

Ephesians 3:20-21 is as follows:

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according the power that works within us, to HIM be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

So when I focus on Him, not only is my heart contented, but He carries out His plan that is far, FAR bigger than I could ever imagine! But wait there’s more! (Sorry, couldn’t resist =P.) I, in my humility, must see, and will see that He is to receive all honor and glory – FOREVER! So it’s an awesome thought that I, as does every believer, have the power of Christ (the one who rose from the dead) in me that I could do the unthinkable all for the glory of the One who loved me enough to die for me. Praise the Lord!

Consequently, thou wilt understand my tale in addition to my present method of belief. (Ok, so I’ve been reading Shakespeare, and, to be honest, I don’t know if that’s even good grammar. Oh well.)

So I hope that was an encouragement to you. I promise not all of my posts will be this preachy. Oh, and I have a disclaimer: I’ve never been one to journal much, but I hope I can keep this up so that you all know what’s going on, where I am, and remember to pray for me no matter where I end up. Thanks, Christina.