What a week!

The theme this past week was others centered living,. On of the main things we talked about is our motivation to serve. Christ followers are called to serve God first. If we are first filled with the spirit of God, that enables us to truly love others and serve them. When we try to serve without that initial fulfilment from Him, it is superficial. Our motivation comes from either a feeling of worthlessness and we feel like we are forced to serve others, or we want others to see our good works and our service comes from a need for approval from others. My favorite definition of Humility is: it's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. This is because when the Creator of the Universe tells you that you matter, that gives you the freedom to be a servant because you know that your identity is secure.

Also, at work this past week, one of my co-workers started really opening up some more. His name is Jon and he is from Albania. His English is very good, but his accent is heavy and I've had a hard time understanding him and the only things we've talked about have been related to the Bakery, but this week, we've gotten into some really good conversations. So please be praying for more conversations with him and that God would be moving in his heart.

So that was the week, and this weekend was one of the best. Ever. Friday night was Thrift Store Prom, and what a night it was. The idea behind it is, it's prom, but everyone gets their outfit from a thrift store. It was an absolute blast.

Saturday we headed down for a weekend in Orlando and hit the Wycliffe Bible Translators Headquarters, and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. For the majority of the summer we spend time in our teams, which are made up of people from various campuses. My team of 4 girls has 3 different campuses represented. This weekend we spent most of the time with our home campuses. We drove down to Orlando and spent the afternoon at Wycliffe Bible Translators and talked about God's heart for the Nations, and the significance of the Word of God. It was incredible. I'll probably have to make a separate post about it. Seriously. So much awesome stuff!

The people who are here from Iowa are a really close knit group and we had a great time together. We drove down together, and shared dinner had some time to share what we've learned this summer and it's really exciting to see how much God has been working in everyone's lives. Then on Sunday we spent the day at the theme parks, had dinner at a Waffle house and drove back to Jacksonville. I have had an incredible summer at STP so far and I will be very sad to leave, but I am also so excited for this coming school year and spending time with the people from my campus was a huge encouragement.

On a side note, Happy (late) Birthday to my fantastic brother Hunter. July 15 was his 16th Birthday, and I wish him the very best! I have really missed him this summer; he is an incredible guy and I am so blessed to have him as a brother.