Life's Little Adventures

My school is so beautiful :)

WHAT have I been up to lately, you may ask?
Well, I have mostly been up to no good.
Killing fruit flies and eating apples straight off the tree and riding my bicycle in the rain and other quite daring pursuits.
I have also been applying for a scholarship which is probably one of the most competitive things ever. When I passed in the application to my school's selection committee via email, my heart was beating as if I had just run a kilometre, or as if someone had just jumped from behind a door to scare me. It is funny that clicking "send" on an email gave me the same sort of adrenaline rush as I get, say, mountain biking downhill. But the pastor who leads young adults group here said one time "If your goals don't make you uncomfortable then your goals are insulting to God." Yeah, this goal makes me pretty uncomfortable. The scholarship is for a school I have always dreamed of going to. While there is a very slim chance of me getting this scholarship, I figure that I am young and might as well do the things I dream of!

Meanwhile, life. I am leading a Bible study this semester on the parables of Luke. There are a bunch of small group Bible studies on our campus and we are all studying the same thing. It is really cool because Jesus is so cool! But I am having trouble getting good attendance for my Bible study. I LOVE the girls who come- I just wish there were more people to learn about Jesus and the Kingdom. I appreciate learning how His ways are so much different than our ways... that while we respect people who are in high positions, He is looking for humble and desperate hearts. I want my heart to be humble and desperate.

This is the way life works...

When I was eighteen and had not had my full driver's license for very long, my friend and I took a road trip to Quebec. I sometimes wonder what our parents were thinking, allowing two teenage, inexperienced girls to drive a day to a city we had never been to, a city where the language they speak is not my native tongue. But they let us go, and it was a wonderful trip, and the most important part of that trip, I think, was realizing that I was really capable of doing the things I dreamed of doing. And I have been extremely, extremely blessed to be able to do wonderful things, things that I am sure I could not do if it wasn't for the God I serve. Life often seems like a series of surprising moments, those moments when I do the thing I was afraid of doing and realize it wasn't that hard, after all.
I have jumped off a telephone pole, trusting in a cable and harness.
I have bicycled 25 kilometres, in the rain. Multiple times.
I have gone on a missions trip where I knew nobody, to a strange country, and that was my first time flying alone.
I have told my story in front of around a thousand people.
I have written a novel in a month. Twice.
I have baked for about a hundred people. For a week.

But this post isn't just a "Hannah brags about things she's done" thing. For one thing, these are things that GOD has done, for me. Not exactly sure why, but God seems to like me a lot. I love Him. No, the point of me saying all this is:
WHY is it then so hard to do what should, comparatively, be easy?
Why can I not confront that one member of our fellowship whose words do not match up with actions?
Why can I not make chicken nuggets without setting off the fire alarm?
Why can I barely get up the motivation to go to the gym?
and WHY can I not tell that one boy how I feel about him?

Funny how life works, eh? It's the little things that take the most courage.

Contentment

Contentment has never really been a problem with me, because I have been blessed to OVERFLOWING by living in wonderful places and knowing wonderful people. And I am certainly content here:
Here where I have two sweet roommates and a room of my own.
Here where it is apple season and I can bite into a juicy, tangy Gravenstein. I am sure there is nothing in the world quite like that.
Here where the sound of drunk people and pounding music soothes me to sleep.
Here where I can take a bicycle ride up the hill and end up in a pastoral landscape of rolling hills, a meandering river, and vineyards and orchards.
Here where my good friend and I can drop by my brother's dorm room one evening and end up singing worship songs to his guitar playing.
Here where the harbour disappears twice a day, as the tide goes out and turns it to mud.

But I also miss CanIL. I am content here but here is also a place where:
No-one else knows IPA, really.
I have to explain what Wycliffe does.
There is no mountain in the distance.
I miss the people I knew: the barefoot Norwegian. The girl who spoke so fast I always had to listen very closely. The girl with the crazy, curly hair. The one who always said "y'all" and cooked with quinoa. The guy who would exclaim "You're doing it wrong!" and then "headdesk." The polo-shirt wearing guy from Florida. The people I played frisbee with... the people I ate with... the people in my classes. The people I love. When I think about these people, I get nostalgic. Y'all know who you are. I love you all, CanIL summer 2012 people.

But then I remember the people here who I love.
The pastor's kid who rides a motorbike, and goes on walks with me.
The one from Saskatchewan who asks "is this a Maritime thing?"
The enthusiastic Bible camp leader who loves frisbee.
The smiling pastor who has so much faith.
The apple-farming economics major.
And of course the saw duang-playing, unicycle-riding, computer science-studying brother I have.

And THAT is only the beginning. God has placed so many people in my (and your) life who I am so thankful for.

Why not tell your friends and family how much you love them, loving recklessly, as Jesus instructed us to do?

Shared Life

Our hand-picked bouquet

I am sharing life this school year, living in an apartment with two other girls. We occupy a quarter of a fourplex and we are, in my opinion, making the most of the space.
First there are the adventures we have on our own: Creating a tally of how many times the fire alarm has gone off (it's been seven now), and locking ourselves out of our house one night and having to crawl in the window, and taking a spontaneous trip to Blomidon.
Then there are the adventures we share with others. First, I invited a friend and his girlfriend over for supper. When the day for the supper finally came (our first 'dinner party') there were ten mouths to feed! What a wonderful beginning. I invited my good friend over for supper and to cut my hair. So my bedroom turned into a makeshift salon. We invited some girls we knew, and some we just met, to come for a movie night. I feel like it is so much easier to create community when I have my own place to invite others into. Sharing life with others is a pleasure. God has given me so much, and I can't help but share it- exuberantly, inclusively, and joyfully.

Why I'm involved in student ministry, and why you should be, too

 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
-Jesus Christ

I believe that we are called to be missionaries wherever we are. Not just when we are on that short-term missions trip to a Central American country, not just when we are at Bible camp, but also in the place we live, the place we are planted. That place for me is Acadia University.
I came here in 2010 as a scared, shy frosh wondering if my faith would survive. But it more than survived: it thrived here, as I found a group of Christians who showed me amazing hospitality, love, and discipleship. 
At the end of first year, I was nominated for a leadership position within the campus's InterVarsity group.
The truth was I did not think I could take on leadership. But I did, and there were many challenges, but also many blessings. There were things that I considered failures: Bible studies that only two people showed up to. Being the only person at morning prayer meetings. Baking a flop of a cake for a fundraiser. But I know that God does not consider these things failures, because I was faithful to Him. That is why I am coming back for another year. I am coming back because I know that no matter how big my fear of failing is, God's love for the people here is bigger.

When I came here, I thought it was just a stepping stone for my real mission career: a place where I could get the education to go to the mission field. What I did not realize that I was entering the mission field. If you are a Christian and are on a university campus, consider yourself a missionary. There are innumerable opportunities to share our faith and to demonstrate the wonderful Kingdom of God.

In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.
-Jesus (The Message)