Unusual Provision

It's amazing to me how quickly I stray from relying on God's strength, and how GOOD He is to remind me. 

As I was preparing to come to Laramie earlier this year, God was abundantly providing for me at every step and in ways I could never have expected or asked for!  As I'm settling in here, however, I'm falling back into relying on my own strength or my own abilities rather than choosing to remind myself that everything I have is from His hand.  God gave me a sharp reminder last Friday morning, and it's been good to get perspective from that:  I was sick all last week with a sore throat, and ended up having to go get antibiotics for it (which--credit where credit is due--my mother called it early on and told me to get to a clinic days before I actually dragged my stubborn self in).  It got to be bad enough where I would wake up several times in the middle of the night needing something to soothe my throat.  Because I wasn't getting much sleep, I overslept my alarm on Friday morning and woke up as I was supposed to be in the office for staff prayer.  I quickly texted my bosses, got dressed, and ran down to my car...and my car wouldn't start.  I had accidentally drained my battery trying to use my auto-start in -20 degree weather.  Tired, sick, frustrated with myself, and very, very late for work, my coping skills deserted me and I called my dad in tears.  Looking back on it, I feel a little foolish for how strongly I reacted to a pretty simple situation.  But it made me realize how drained I was from trying to do everything of my own strength and ability!  As strange as it may seem, it really is a mercy of God to bring me to the end of my own capacity; because it seems that it's only when I stubbornly get to the end of myself that I realize I am not enough, and can meekly turn to Him and ask for His direction and strength.

God has also been showering SROM with crazy blessings!  In preparing for our winter course next week, one of my co-workers (Jay) was calling around trying to find a somewhere that would rent mountaineering boots out and had a size 14.5.  Needless to say, not many places have boots that big in stock to rent!  We prayed as a staff to be able to find a place that would stock the size we needed and that we would be able to find favor with them for inexpensive rentals or purchases.  After a full morning of calling, Jay was finally able to get in contact with an organization who not only had the boot in stock, but was willing to sell us their line of last year's mountaineering boot at an incredible discount!  As Jay was emailing back and forth with the equipment supervisor, he turned in his chair and gave me an incredulous look and said that this guy had asked if an Olivia Zimmermann happened to work in the office.  Apparently, the equipment supervisor had gone to Wheaton and, as it turned out, I had done a wilderness trip with his wife the summer before our freshman year together!  It's great to hear how friends from Wheaton are doing after graduation, and it's always encouraging to find other Christians in the outdoor industry.  We were able to completely outfit the course we needed, as well as buy enough boots to be able to use for future winter courses!  And, just to bless us, he also threw in ice axes and said he would keep us in mind as their organization was looking to update their gear and sell their old inventory.  It's amazing how God works! 

As quick as I am to forget how abundantly God provides, He is there to draw me up short and gently remind me that He is the Source.  He definitely gets creative in how He brings me to the end of myself; He is even more creative in how He brings abundant blessings to us when we seek Him rather than our own solutions to the problems we face.

Staying positive in negative temperatures

Winter has finally truly arrived in Laramie.  We had our first big snowstorm earlier this week, and got around 6 inches of snow overnight.  Cleaning off my car was relatively quick because the negative temperatures turned the snow into light powder that brushed off easily!  You've got to celebrate the small victories.

Getting to go home for Thanksgiving was a rich and wonderful time.  There's nothing quite like having your three-year-old niece run up to you, throw her arms around you and say "I missed you while you were in Why-yo-ming!"  The weekend was full of time with family and loved ones, and it made me finally understand all of the sappy sentimental gooeyness that surrounds the holidays.  Being 1,000 miles away from family during this time of year is hard!  But it definitely makes me cherish the time I do get to spend with them so much more.  Plus, there's nothing quite like the annual gingerbread house decorating contest, rife with good-natured sarcasm and taunting.  When all was said and done, I think we created some pretty darn good houses.

 The warzone.

 The finished products!

The first and second place entries

 The third and fourth place entries

Though there is still a lot left to December, our year-end deadlines are closing in at SROM.  We have a winter camping trip the 15-20th, and I'll be taking a Wilderness First Responder course the 14-22nd.  Most of us are leaving for Christmas around the 23rd, so we really only have this week and next week to get everything done before the break!  Please be praying for continued energy, clarity, and focus as we try to stay on task these next few weeks.  And please be praying for this course that we're running in December; pray for the students, pray for the instructors, and pray that everyone stays warm enough while they're in the field!

Blessings to all, especially around the holidays!

The Body of Christ

Monday morning staff meetings at SROM are quickly turning into some of my favorite times!  We come together as a staff to pray for our students, our alumni, our staff and directors, and anything that the Lord has been laying on our hearts throughout the week.  We take the time to really dive into the devotions that we lead students in throughout our courses, and we discuss the different needs we see in the generations we're serving. 

This week we talked about the general shift from the Church as an institution to the Church as a Family.  We drew on the concept of tribes in the Old Testament (Abraham, Israel, 12 tribes) and translated it to our lives today as covenantal church families.  Though we are not necessarily related to one another by DNA, we are related to one another by the blood of Christ.  We are all part of His Body; we belong to His Body.  For me, it hit home the point that I am not my own.  Because I have committed to Christ and have embraced His commitment to me, I am now part of a spiritual family that is significantly affected by my life.  I don't have the luxury of keeping the consequences of my actions to myself; my actions, choices, decisions, etc. affect my ability to contribute to the growth of my spiritual family, whether positively or negatively!  The effects of sin are communal, but the effects of blessing are generational (Deuteronomy 5:9-10). 

In our individualistic society, this is a tough concept to wrestle with.  I would like nothing more than to believe that my sin and messiness can stay locked up inside me with no one ever needing to know!  But the grace of relationship is that my sin and messiness comes to the Light and is redeemed.  The only way that redemption happens is in community, as I share my story with those around me and hear their stories in return.  We belong to the Body of Christ, and it is through our being with others in this Body that we are challenged, changed, and sanctified.

Covenant

At our Monday morning staff meeting this week we focused on the concept of covenant, and explored biblical examples as well as how the true meaning of covenant has been lost in our society today.  Covenant still carries with it connotations of a promise, maybe even a serious promise, but the deeper heart of a binding commitment is difficult to grasp.  As I understand it, a covenant is made between two parties under the authority and accountability of a third outside party.  (E.g., we often refer to marriage as a covenant between two people before God.)  Both parties are bound to one another, and serious consequences are in store for whomever dares break covenant.  In the Old Testament, covenant required a sacrifice because blood was a key part of covenant.  Every covenant mentioned in the Old Testament involves a sacrifice of blood (Gen 8, 15, and 17, just to name a few).  Blood is required to indicate how seriously both parties take the covenant; in essence, each is saying "Let this be done to me if I break covenant with you."  

While there are grave consequences for breaking covenant, the trust that is displayed by both parties allows opportunity for incredible intimacy.  Referring again to the example of marriage, when both people are truly and wholly committed to one another and to the success of the marriage, there is the freedom to give yourself fully to the other without the fear that they're going to run the opposite direction when your sinful nature surfaces.  In covenant, there is a beautiful opportunity for growth and refining.  Covenant is scary because it's a serious commitment!  It requires intense vulnerability, and it continues to demand vulnerability of each party.  It's not as if there's a plateau of vulnerability, and then you get to coast.  Covenant fosters an ongoing bond between both parties, and there is the opportunity for healthy mutual dependency that promises to be there today, tomorrow, and each day after that.  

In Jesus, we live in the New Covenant.  Christ has fulfilled the Law and has fully taken on the consequences of our sinful nature and our inability to keep covenant with God.  When God made covenant with Abram and chose the Israelites as His people, He did so with the full knowledge that they wouldn't be able to keep the Law and would break covenant again and again.  Rather than destroying mankind every time we failed (because He promised never to do that again in Genesis 8, and He is faithful even though we are not!), God accepted animal sacrifices to fulfill the covenantal demand for the shedding of blood.  When Jesus came, He came in the dual role of Sacrifice and Redeemer.  He came not only to fully and completely pay the blood sacrifice demanded by the covenant, but also to initiate a New Covenant to bring all of Creation back to relationship with God.

Now, our view of covenant directly informs how seriously we understand what it means to submit our lives to Jesus.  Do we truly understand what it means to be in covenant with the God of the Universe?  When we tell kids in Sunday school about 'asking Jesus into their heart,' do we really understand what kind of commitment we're asking of kids who still think there are monsters under the bed?  In giving our lives over to Jesus as King and Savior, we are entering into the New Covenant with Him.  We submit to His authority and reign, and we actively choose to live as He commands us to.  We refuse all other ways of living, and we obey what He asks of us.  We are binding ourselves to Him, and giving our lives over for Jesus to bind Himself to us.  That is incredible!  Don't miss the beauty of the second part:  God is committed to us.  The more we understand the gravity of covenant and seek Jesus, the more we experience the love and freedom offered to us through trusting that God will not abandon us.  We are faithless and sinful, but God is not.  He holds up His end of the covenant and offers us unending grace when we fail.  When we understand the kind of Love that is on the table, we can't help but be intrigued and want to know it more!

First week in Laradise!

I don't even know where to begin!  The incomparable Trudy and I left last week on Friday, drove straight through (Nebraska is still mind-numbingly long), and made it to Laramie in pretty incredible time.  We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring Laramie and looking at potential apartments.  Praise the Lord, I was able to find a studio apartment!  I'll be going in this afternoon during my lunch break to officially take over the lease from the tenant living there now.  I'm hoping to move in by the beginning of next week!

I started work at SROM on Monday morning, and I've been loving every moment of it!  My coworkers are absolutely phenomenal, and I'm so excited to continue getting to know everyone.  We're in the middle of a pretty huge transition right now, and a lot of the projects that we're working on will enable us to run courses much more effectively.  Even though the summer is still quite a ways away, there is a LOT to do before courses start in May.  It's an exciting time to jump in! 

In the midst of all the transitioning, I'm realizing that I fooled myself into thinking that the hard part would be simply getting out here.  I wasn't really preparing myself for the emotional side of the physical move.  Packing and driving were the easy parts!  I've felt a little blindsided by how much I miss those I left in Wheaton.  I absolutely have seen the hand of the Lord in providing for me to be here, and I am astounded at how smoothly this transition has gone overall:  I have an incredibly community that is welcoming me with open hearts and arms, and I have a job that I really love with amazing coworkers.  But there are definitely hard parts about being away from family and friends that I love.  Please be praying for wisdom for me as I try to find the balance of pouring in here and getting connected with community, and keeping in contact with loved ones back home.  Forming deep relationships takes time, and I'm learning how to nurture the deep relationships I already have without using that as an excuse to avoid forming new relationships.  

Sorry that this is more of an update and less of any meat to chew on!  I just wanted to keep everyone in the loop as far as moving has gone!

Blessings!

Long Overdue!

Oh goodness.  I honestly didn't mean to let it go this long!  To assure anyone who may be concerned, I did not die  in Wyoming.  In fact, I loved it so much that I'm going back full-time!  Soon!  

Praise the Lord, my monthly support is at a point where I can begin full-time at SROM!  I'm still a bit shy of my monthly goals, but I have enough in a one-time-gift account to supplement my current support levels so that I (should) have enough to pay rent and maybe buy food occasionally.  My incredibly supportive mother and I will start the drive early on the 1st, drive straight through the day, and arrive in Laramie later that night.  I'll have the weekend to get settled in (most likely in temporary housing...please be praying for the provision of housing!) and I start full-time on Monday the 4th!

During our course back in September (it really has been far too long since I've updated this blog.  Again, apologies!) we were given a pretty thorough introduction to SROM as an organization, their philosophy of ministry, their heart for the students they take on course, and their response to those who wonder "why wilderness?"  The more I learned about SROM, the more I got to experience the courses as a student, and the more I saw the heart of the Lord in every single one of the staff at the SROM base, the more I was blown away by the realization that I get to go back.  I get to be a part of this incredible ministry!  As I was rereading some of my journal entries from course, I came across one from our first few days where I ask God "Who am I that You have given me this experience and have called me to this place?"  Directly below this question is the response "You are My daughter, and I love you."

This became a recurring theme for me throughout the course.  My question of "what have I done?" immediately puts the focus on me.  But God resets my identity as stemming from Him; i am His daughter.  Those who know me know that I consistently struggle with perfectionism and the need to perform.  On course I was reminded again and again that God loves me and claims me as His daughter (again and again).  Just as I am.  Simple?  Elementary?  That's the gospel.  

Most of our discussions on course stemmed from the dichotomy between the heart of the orphan and the heart of a son.  This is an incredibly important concept, and one I will definitely be returning to and unpacking more in future posts.  Briefly, the heart of an orphan is a heart of insecure striving:  striving to please God and others, striving to get by in an unforgiving world, striving to be loved.  The heart of a son (or daughter) is one of response:  I trust God's love and I trust that I am eagerly welcomed at His table.  I am freed from the pressure to prove that I am His daughter, freed from the pressure to perform as His daughter, and freed from the lie that I must produce in order to keep my position as His daughter.  Therefore, I am free to respond to His love; I am free to love others more purely and selflessly; I am free to recognize and exercise the gifts He has given me.

This is huge.  This kind of Love and delight is something that I see so many of my peers hunger for without really understanding what it is they're missing.  I see the heart of the orphan as a characteristic of the Millennial generation (something we talked at length about during our WMPC course, and something I will also be returning to in future posts!) and something that I am burdened to speak to.  

John writes beautifully on this:  

"This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: if our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.  Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.  And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.  The one who keeps God's commands lives in him, and he in them.  And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."  (1 John 3:19-24 NIV)

Though our orphan hearts condemn us, God is much greater than our hearts. He knows our hearts better than we do, so it's not as if He's unaware of the things we've done or neglected to do.  His desire is for us to confidently approach His table and bask in His presence; not confident because of our own righteousness, but confident because of our belief in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is the heart of the Lord!  Because of that, it is also the heart and purpose of the ministry at SROM.  And I get to be a part of that.  Praise the Lord!

And so it begins!

No matter how prepared I thought I was to leave, there are always a million and a half little things that need to be done the day of departure.  (This will be a short post.)

I'm heading out!  It's actually here!  Please be praying for safety and alertness as I drive, and for time to mentally and emotionally prepare for the things that lay ahead.  Pray for all of us on the Wilderness Ministry Professional Course as we learn, teach, lead, and seek the Lord together.  Praise God for time to say goodbye to loved ones, for the provision of a place to stay overnight mid-way to Wyoming, and for the overwhelming response to my financial needs!  God is so GOOD!  

Thank you all for your prayers, I could not do this with out your support!

"Oh ye of little faith"

A wise friend used the phrase "obedience begets intimacy" during a group devotion one morning.  When I am feeling far from the Lord, that phrase often comes to mind and I have to be honest with myself about whether or not I have been obedient and faithful.  Not that my obedience or faithfulness merits God's favor, but my obedience does draw me closer to Him and allows me to understand more of His heart.  The more I lay my will down and seek His will, the more I want to conform all of who I am to who He calls me to be.  It's like running:  that first mile off of the couch sucks.  The second mile sucks.  Heck, maybe even the third time out, it still sucks.  But pretty soon, you start to look forward to running and you realize that those first few miles don't seem as long or grueling as they once did.  In fact, they're pretty enjoyable.  You stop looking for excuses not to run (I already showered today.  I don't have time.  It's too hot.  It's too muggy.  I just washed my running shorts.) and start making time in your schedule to get out and go.

This past week has been a lot of learning what it looks like for me to step out in faith and obey.  As I sort through clothes, papers, and knick-knacks (really? since when have I collected so many tiny useless things?), packing has become an act of faith for me.  Each time I close a box, I'm effectively saying "okay, God.  I trust that I won't need these things until I'm unpacking them in Wyoming."  Which, as the Wilderness Ministry Professional Course gets closer, feels like a bigger and bigger step of faith.  I'm just past the halfway point of where my monthly funds need to be to stay on at SROM as a full time staff member (take a moment to celebrate with me here?  I think that's definitely worthy of celebration.), which means that I will most likely not get all the funds I need by next week, and thus will be returning home after the course instead of staying out in Laramie on staff.  So much has been provided already!  But there is still so much left to go.  Packing has been a good reminder to me that all God asks of me, even still, is humble obedience as I seek greater intimacy with Him.  Yes, packing feels a little premature at this stage.  But I want to step out in obedience and in the faith that God will use this season to bring me closer to His heart.

Faith is scary.  It is not something that comes easily to me.  But I do want to set patterns of obedience in my life.  I want to start making time in my schedule to seek ways to obey, not looking for excuses to live life centered around myself.  Maybe this season of packing up all my cold weather clothes in boxes to store out in Wyoming is helping me to learn what that obedient faith looks like.  Maybe I'll just end up being cold this fall in Illinois as I wait on God's provision to be in Wyoming.  Either way, I know that He will provide everything I need...even if that doesn't necessarily look like what I think it will.  Jehovah Jireh, Lord give me the faith I need.

"Glorify Thyself at My Expense"

What does it mean to glorify God?  What does it mean to be a 'woman after God's own heart?'  When I say that I want to live a life in pursuit of God, what does that actually look like?  And, when I'm honest with myself, how do I move my abstract ideas of 'living missionally' into day-to-day love for the people in front of me?

There are a lot of questions I'm wrestling with as I'm preparing for the Wilderness Ministry Professional Course.  It's unbelievable to me that the course starts only three weeks from now!  Three weeks seems like such a short time to prepare physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually!  And yet, three weeks seems like such a long time to wait until it all begins.  I have plenty of articles to read, lessons to plan, gear to drool over, miles to run, and support letters to send out before August 21st, but a big part of me is impatient for it all to begin!  

Many of the questions I'm asking are life-long pursuit kind of questions, more about the asking and exploring than settling on one "right" answer.  The only thing that I can rest in and be settled by is remembering that I want to glorify God.  Or--more accurately--I want God to glorify Himself in my life.  When I try to act of my own initiative, imagining what I should do to please God, I find that more often than not I end up trying to serve my own agenda, trying to please a god that resembles my own self more than living in worship of a God beyond my comprehension.  All of the best I have to offer is still selfish, narrow-minded, and empty, because all of the best I have to offer still begins and ends with me.  Asking "How can I glorify God?" immediately puts Olivia in the power seat, as if I am the one in charge of making God look good.  When I remember that my life begins, ends, and exists with God, my prayer becomes "How will You glorify Yourself in me?"  It is not my strength, wit, wisdom, or power that adds to God's glory; it is for His glory that all of me exists.

In preparing for SROM during these few weeks, there are so many doubts, fears, and questions that nag at me.  Is this really where God has me?  Do I still have what it takes to do this?  Can I do this?  And the prayer that I have been given for these times is "God, glorify Thyself at my expense."  In preparing for the Wilderness Ministry course, glorify Thyself.  In preparing for full-time ministry, glorify Thyself.  In difficulties raising a monthly support network, glorify Thyself.  In saying goodbyes at home, glorify Thyself.  In my doubts, glorify Thyself.  Whatever it may be Lord, glorify Thyself.

On Grace

What follows is a blog I wrote in December of 2011, after my first semester of LIFT.  I'm reposting it here (with a few edits) because I feel that the message of Grace is important to hear and to be daily reminded of it's simplicity.  Guiding others to a place to receive this love and grace is what drives me.  I want to work with SROM because I feel that the wilderness provides a classroom rich with opportunities to extend and (often more importantly) receive grace.  As always, please feel free to email me for more information about what I'm doing!

It has taken me 22 years of growing up in the Church to accept Christ's love. I spent most of my life growing up trying to earn my way into a position to receive Grace. I grasped the concept that I am a sinner in need of a Savior early on, but to me it translated into a sort of tally mark system: my sin was wiped away upon "asking Jesus into my heart," but all the sin after that was tallied against me. The saving power of Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to cover my sins, but that really only counted for unintentional sins. If I wanted forgiveness for the tally of sins I willfully committed I had to prove by good intentions and irreproachable behavior that I was not only sorry for my sins but striving the best I could to do better in the present and the future. If I could prove beyond reasonable doubt that I was trying to do better, I might just earn my way into a position to be forgiven. But I couldn't ever really know if I was doing enough to prove myself, not until the Day of Judgment. Assurance of Salvation? What's that?

I hope that this is as obviously wrong to you as it is to me now. But growing up it seemed to me to be the only way to reconcile the free Grace of God with His Righteousness. To me, I was showing proper reverence and fear for the Almighty Judge of the Universe. I wanted to love God, but I wanted to make sure that I was doing it right, not cheapening Grace, and properly understanding the faith I chose to follow. In so doing I undervalued Grace, had no concept of the core of what it means to be after God's own heart, and did everything wrong. Thank God that He didn't leave this sinner alone in a prison of my own misunderstanding.

There is no tally system. There is no 'enough.' There is no proving. Grace cannot be earned. The more I tried to earn it, the more I proved that I had no concept of it. There is no gift-exchange for Grace, for there is nothing that I can offer in return of equal or greater value. There is not even me, simple-minded, disobedient, self-righteous ragamuffin that I am, because everything I am and will ever be comes from God. There is Grace, and there is the God of the Universe reconciling us to Himself.

I was reading through old emails (that's a normal thing to do, right?) and came across something I sent to a friend over the summer. Upon reflection, I think this is the beginning of my waking up to Grace. It's akin to the hazy moments when you try to open your eyes in a dream and see the bedroom around you. You're not quite awake, but the reality around you begins to shape your dreams.

"I am just now learning to live in freedom toward who I am. I am full of inconsistencies and skewed perspectives and weird quirks that embarrass me and fears that drive me and baggage that weighs me down. But I want to love God. I am not overwhelmed by my humanness because I believe that God is bigger than my humanness, and big enough in fact to not only tolerate my humanness but USE my messy quirky fearful angsty cussing humanness. God doesn't call us into an awareness of Himself to love Him so that He can tolerate us in our messiness for the rest of our earthly lives, waiting it out for us to die so He can rescue our spirits up to eternal delight. He calls us into an awareness of Himself because He loves us. As we are, He loves us. He doesn't love us for who we will eventually be, He loves us for who we are. Now. Before. Always."

There is no tally system. Grace is not an 'elementary doctrine' of Christianity, it is what all other theology, orthodoxy, orthopraxy, doctrine, and dogma points to and centers on. The Gospel is not something that we as Christians ever grow out of, it is something we continually grow toward. We fool ourselves if we think that our theological studies can ever bring us to a greater revelation than Grace.

Hallelujah, my salvation is not conditional on my worthiness. Hallelujah, my salvation is not the sum total of God's plan for me. Hallelujah, His Grace is enough.

Transitions and Missions

It would be difficult to explain where I am going without first describing where I have been, and neither would make sense without God.

I graduated from a small, Christian, liberal-arts college in 2011.  I spent the year after graduation in a small town in Upstate New York with a group of 19 other students in a discipleship program called LIFT.  I entered the program as a secretly arrogant perfectionist intent on earning my way to grace, and I graduated with a little less pride in my own ability and a little more confidence in God's delight, love, and direction for my life.  The Lord put an end to my striving for acceptance and approval, and He let me rest in the knowledge that--greater than all of the friendships, abilities, and gifts he has given me--His love is enough.  As simple as this sounds, it has changed my life.  It has changed the way I interact with those around me and how I use the abilities He has given me, and the ongoing realization of His love has given me a beautiful freedom to explore who God has created me to be.  

During my second semester of LIFT, I applied for and was accepted to the Outdoor Leadership Masters Program at Denver Seminary.  I wanted to prepare to disciple others in the same way that I had been discipled at LIFT, and I figured a graduate degree was a good place to start.  I deferred my enrollment to spend one last year at home with my family and to start saving for tuition.  And thus began my year of waiting.  

I do not wait well, I am discovering.  I value efficiency, and I like to contribute and feel productive.  This past year has needled me in all of these areas.  In short:  I returned from Upstate New York in September; I had corrective eye surgery in November and could not function for 2-3 weeks due to extreme light sensitivity; I broke my ankle in December, but didn't realize that it was broken and required surgery until February; I was unable to walk by myself until March; and I had follow-up eye surgery in April.  The first half of my transitional year turned out to be much more sedentary than I had initially imagined.  Time and time again I found myself stymied in finding value in my ability to produce; God was gently reminding me that it's not what I do but who I am that matters the most.  Yes, what I do and how I use the things He has given me is immensely important, but it all means nothing if I lose who I am in the process.  (And don't think that this year has been all rough...a lot of really wonderful, unexpected things have been happening as well!)

In May I traveled to Utah and Colorado with a few college friends, and had the opportunity to stop by Denver Seminary's campus.  I chatted with my admissions counselor and my financial aid advisor, and I got to stop in and visit some apartments to look at signing a lease.  As I was walking around and taking it all in, envisioning myself sitting in classes in the fall, I realized that I wasn't excited about it.  I had been praying for confirmation and direction as I drove out, and I came away with more doubt and questions than answers.  I hate using the phrase "I just didn't have peace about it..." but things truly did not sit well with me.  I talked through different questions and options with mentors in my life, and I decided to apply for a position with Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries.  After an encouraging phone interview and a lengthy Skype interview, I was offered a full-time position working in the course management area for SROM!  It's difficult to convey excitement, relief, joy, etc. in writing without endless exclamation marks, but just try to imagine it with me.

And that's where I sit now.  I'm preparing for the Wilderness Ministry Professional Course, a prerequisite course for all SROM full-time staff, which starts August 21st.  If I can gather $1,200 in monthly support by then, I'll stay out in Laramie and continue on as a staff member.  The next two months are going to be full of prayer, packing, and support letters!  I will continue to update this blog with prayer requests and hopefully an entertaining anecdote or two as I figure out what this journey is that the Lord has for me.  (I promise I'll try to keep it shorter in the future.)  As for now, please join with me in praying for a support network (a prayer support network as well as a financial support network), logistics as I pack and prepare to move, and wisdom to end my time at home well.  And, as always, please pray that I rely on Christ's grace and direction more than my own heart's leading.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me!  It may take me a few days to get back to you, but I would love to connect!  

Blessings,
Olivia