not of this world january/february 2013
a note from the editor Several months ago, a friend from school started hosting prayer meetings before school on Thursdays. It ended up happening only a few times, but one thing he said has remained in my mind. As he was closing our time with a few words of encouragement, he described our meeting as a “date within a marriage.” I loved that analogy. Just as dates are an important part of a relationship, we also should set apart specific times to spend with God. However, just as dates do not sustain a marriage, neither does only going to church on Sundays or praying for a few seconds before you fall asleep sustain your relationship with God. As you enter the new year, I pray you will keep that thought close as you seek to grow in your relationship with God. To help your pursue and nurture that relationship this year, there will be a new monthly feature on the blog. Each month, there will be four ideas for fun “dates with God.” These are simply easy ways for you to set apart special time to spend with God. Also, one of my personal goals this year is to keep the blog consistently updated. This year, there will still an inspirational quote or picture for the feature “A Thought to Start Your Week,” but there will also be at least one post per week on something related to travel and living overseas and at least one per week on a spiritual topic. Hopefully, this will be a good balance of encouragement and thoughts to help you benefit the most from living in a different country. Click here to read the dates for January...I hope your desire this year will be to spend more time with Jesus and let Him mold you into the person He wants you to be.
-Courtney R. I love hearing from you! Send me a note at notofthisworld.r2@gmail.com
table of contents On God
30 | Heart of Worship
On You 5/10 | I Don’t Wait Anymore 24/29 | Made for Relationships
On TCKs 19/22 | Baking Overseas 23 | Summer Project
On Life
5/12 | What Is In Your CarryOn? 31 | From the Blog 2 | Note from the Editor
30
5
19
Third Culture Crafts hats
scarves
headbands
etsy.com/shop/ThirdCultureCrafts
I Don’t Wait
Anymore by Grace for the Road
When I was 16, I got a purity ring. And when I was 25, I took it off. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it — it wasn’t a statement or an emotional thing. I just slipped it off my finger that day and, before tucking it away in a box, ran my finger around the words on the familiar gold band. “True Love Waits.” Waits. What’s it “waiting” for, anyway? I had my reasons for deciding not to wear it anymore. Other people might have other reasons. It’s a graveyard of hearts, this place where single church girls crash into their late 20s and early 30s. Churches see the symptoms. They scramble to reach out to the ever-growing young adult singles crowd who feels alienated by family-oriented services. But there’s something bigger behind it than that. Much bigger. There are a lot of girls out there who don’t know who God is anymore
– the God of their youth group years just isn’t working out. Back then, that God said to wait for sex until they are married, until He brings the right man along for a husband. They signed a card and put it on the altar and pledged to wait. And wait they did. And waited and waited and waited. Some of them have prayed their whole lives for a husband, and he hasn’t shown up. They’ve heard the advice to “be the woman God made you to be, focus on that, and then the husband will come.” They’ve read “Lady in Waiting,” gotten super involved in church and honed their domestic skills. And still they wait. More than a decade ago, a youth leader handed them a photocopied poem in Sunday School written to them from “God” that said, “The reason you don’t have anyone yet is because you’re not fully satisfied in Me. You have to be satisfied with Me and then when you least expect it, I’ll bring you the person I meant for you.” And the girls see it posted on their bulletin boards from time to time.
“You’re right, God,” they say. “We’re not satisfied in You yet. We will put You first and then You can bring us a husband in your timing.” But many of them – if they’re honest – will tell you that time has passed, and it’s wrecking their view of God. If this is who God’s supposed to be, then He’s tragically late. So some decide to chuck “Lady in Waiting” out the window…and possibly their virginity with it. Church goes next. God might go next, too. If He doesn’t answer these prayers after they’ve held up their end of the bargain, why would He answer any others?
Pretty sure it wasn’t God. When Jesus was here on the earth, the crowds would follow Him because they saw He gave good things. But that’s not what He wanted. He wanted their hearts for Himself. So He would turn to them and say things like, “If you don’t love Me so much that every other relationship in your life looks like hate by comparison, you can’t follow Me.” (Matthew 10:34-39, paraphrase)
Whether it was the fault of the leaders, the fault of us girls, or both, a tragedy happened back then. A lot of girls were sold on a deal and not on a Savior. I had that poem on my bulletin board all through high school – the one where “God” was telling me to fall in love with Him first and then I would be able to fall in love with a husband later. Who wrote that poem anyway?
T h a t sounds poem.
a
lot
different
from
the
Christ is the source of everything we need and the giver of all good gifts … but in telling people about Him, it’s possible we’ve sold them on a solution for life’s problems and not life itself. What if we as girls had learned early on that having Him was everything, not a means to the life we think He would want us to have. If we had learned we don’t abstain from sex because we’re “waiting.” We abstain because we love Him.
fall in love with Jesus
If I’d had on my bulletin board, “Fall in love with Jesus.” That’s it. Bottom line. That’s everything you need to know, to work toward, to put your hope in. If I’d learned who He is, what He wants, how to give Him everything, not “wait” so that one day I could give my everything to someone else. If I’d learned that it’s not bad to pray for a husband, but that my greater prayer should be for Him to spend my life as He chooses for His glory.
If we as believers make that our message, things could be drastically different for a lot of girls wondering
w h y the God they think they learned to follow doesn’t compute. It doesn’t necessarily stop the desire for a husband or end all feelings of loneliness, but it does show a God who provides, loves and gives infinite purpose even to our singleness rather than a God who categorically denies some who pray for husbands while seemingly giving freely to others. It shows that while marriage is good, He is the greater goal. Don’t think I’ve done this perfectly.
I already have Him...and He is everything.
I’d be deceiving you if you thought that. I’ve had relationships where I made major mistakes. I’ve gone through angst-ridden phases where I met with friends to plead together with God to bring us husbands. I’ve planned major life decisions around possibilities.
True Love Waits, or to anyone who wears a purity ring – saving sex for marriage is good and is His design.
I lived like I was waiting for something.
I already have Him…and He is everything.
And that’s why I slipped off my ring that day. It wasn’t that I wanted to sleep with people – I haven’t. It wasn’t a slap to
published with permission from
I just didn’t want to wait anymore – didn’t want to live like I was waiting on anyone to get here.
“Follow Christ for His own sake, if you follow Him at all.” – J.C. Ryle
gracefortheroad.com
third culture kid (tck) (n): Third-culture kids are those who have spent some of their growing up years in a foreign country and experience a sense of not belonging to their passport country when they return to it. In adapting to life in a ‘foreign’ country they have also missed learning ways of their homeland and feel most at home in the ‘thirdculture’ which they have created.
Missing Not of this World in between issues? Pour yourself a cup of tea and read all of our stories on TCK topics here.
what’s in your
carry-on?
car
ry-on
noun a bag or suitcase suitable for taking onto an aircraft as hand-held luggage Packing a carry-on is an art. What you pack can make or break your trip, successfully keeping you alive for that 10+ hour long car trip or leaving you without your passport when you arrive at the airport. My biggest carry-on mistake took place on a flight from Germany to Texas. I had a huge duffel bag stuffed with games, books, and anything else I could cram within the pink handles. As we hurried through the Houston airport after landing, I ran to catch up with my mom, slipped from the weight of my bag, and went sailing across the entire length of the room. Clearly, I had fallen victim to overpacking. To avoid any future mistakes, I asked several bloggers to let us peak inside their carry-ons...
1 2
3
4
5
6
1. Lip Balm: my current favorite is Body Shop's Born Lippy in Pomegranate. // 2. Cereal Bar: like a woman from a Victorian novel, I am rather prone to fainting and dizzy smells, but instead of smelling salts I keep a cereal bar on hand. They keep me going and on my feet for hours in dreary airports. // 3. Small Notebook: I love writing and right now I'm using one of Moleskine's unlined pocket journals, which are as light as a feather but beautiful quality. // 4. Cheap Paperback: hanging around waiting for trains and planes is a good way to catch up on some reading, and I swear by ÂŁ2 Wordsworth Classics for my weekend trips in Europe. My most recent read was Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own/The Voyage Out. // 5. A Nice Bag: I like the one that I bought last summer when in NYC, and there are plenty of other beautiful handmade and affordable options on sites like etsy. // 6. Moisturizer: this is a must for air travel. I swear by Clinique's Moisture Surge, but use whatever works best for you & your skin.
Favorite City It's going to have to be a tie between London, Amsterdam and NYC
Dream Vacation My friends mainly have European parents, and we dream of either a trip around the continent ( to France and Hungary and Denmark, and onto the border between Georgia and Russia 'where the watermelons are') or a road-trip around California, where my best friend hails from and where the sun always shines.
Longest Trip My family have been lucky enough to fly to both Toronto and NYC; these two trips were the longest I've been on -- each one was about seven or eight hours in a cramped plane.
Train, Plane, or Car Nothing beats taking the Eurostar to Paris.
Favorite Trip A little seaside town called Southwold. My grandad taught me how to go crabbing there, and my grandma took me on walks along the beach to talk and gather shells.
Favorite Part of Traveling The first day in a new place, when you walk around for hours orientating yourself and getting to know a new city. That day is just magic -- it feels as if we always find the most beautiful places and lovely people and wonderful scenery on those first walks.
Libby blogs for:
Catching the Stars and
Fernweh Magazine
2
1
3
4
5
1. Pen // 2. A Good Book: my favorite genres are classics and historical fiction // 3.Camera Charger // 4. Foreign Money // 5. Earphones
Favorite City Florence, Italy
Dream Vacation My dream vacation would be to go on a tour of European castles.
Longest Trip My longest trip was in the summer of 2002 when I spent a month in Spain.
Train, Plane, or Car Train
Favorite Trip My favorite trip was this past summer when I visited Scotland.
Favorite Part of Traveling The best part of traveling is getting to meet dierent kinds of people.
Abby blogs for:
History of Costume and
All Things Arthurian
“I like to take photos of each outfit with my phone. That way, when I'm traveling I can reference the photos. This also serves as a way for me to check that I have enough items and looks without making a list.�
Follow Not of this World on Pinterest to find lots of great travel tips!
Baking Overseas tips and tricks to create your favorite treats anywhere
by Claire P.
When I was six years old, I baked my first cake. If I remember right, it had green frosting and sprinkles on it, and raisins studded in the batter. Ok, it wasn’t my best creation. But it started a love for baking that continues today in my life as an MK in Czech. Never would I have dreamed twelve years ago that today I would be baking gluten-free, lactose-free and coconut-free, but after some health problems, I now eat this way. I also never imagined how difficult it would be, and what an adventure it would be, to bake American recipes in Czech. I’m sure you know what it’s like to find a great recipe, and realize that you can’t buy marshmallows where you live, or can’t find peanut butter, or you just ran out of the corn syrup that you brought back from your last trip to the States. After many trials and errors, I have learned so much about baking overseas. I would love to share a few tips with you!
1. Be courageous
Yes, this is important. You may make mistakes, and that’s fine…you’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t.
2. Ask around
Ask your missionary friends what their experiences were; ask your neighbors; or check out your local health food store. You never know what you might find.
3. Be creative
When you don’t have pumpkin, try mixing in mashed bananas, or pureed mango. It’ll be different, but hey, that’s how winner recipes are born! (Or you could also do what I did, and look in the baby food section- that’s where we found pumpkin puree!)
4. Go to places you’ve never been to, and keep your eyes peeled
Is there a new grocery store in your town? Look and see if they have what you’re missing. Have you walked by the same little shop every day, but haven’t been in there yet? We can find marshmallows in a cheap German store, cumin in a warehouse type place (Makro!), and sweet potatoes in Tesco (a big grocery store about 25 minutes away from where we live).
5. Import
It’s probably a given, but it takes some planning ahead to get it right. If you really want cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, bring it back with you when you come back from a summer furlough. If your birthday tradition is a rice crispy treat, ask someone to bring the ingredients when they come visit. And if your American friends ever want to know what they could send you, don’t just ask for Kool-Aid (done that!), but have a list of things you really need for your baking endeavors!
6. Research! There are so many tips out there for substitutions. Not to mention, there is a plethora of creative recipes online, so if one recipe contains an ingredient you don’t have, just keep searching! Sometimes the best recipes are the ones that take the longest to find.
And the biggest advice I can give you on baking? Keep at it!! Don’t give up after a couple of failed attempts. In Czech we have one well-known saying: “Chybama se člověk učí,“ which means: We learn from our mistakes.
Find Claire’s recipes on her blog: Claire’s
Corner
What: Missions Trip Where: Nepal or South Africa Who: High School Missionary Kids Why: To Stretch Your Faith and Share the Gospel When: Summer 2013 Learn more here!
made for
relationship by Millie Welsh
part 4
Since God made us for a relationship with Him, I think it’s the coolest thing that He chooses to tangibly show us His love, care, and concern through the people He puts in our lives. As I’ve experienced my own friendships and observed many other female friendships, I have noticed some common “foundations” that contribute to building and supporting a successful friendship. We’ll call these pillars: strong, supportive, and foundational. These are essential elements in the architecture of friendships, giving solid support to withstand the challenges that come along. Of course there are probably dozens of other factors that contribute to building a healthy friendship, but the following seem to be the most consistent and crucial. In the last issue, we explored the first pillar: communication. Now, we’ll move on to the second...
Pillar #2: Vulnerability As I mentioned when explaining the relationship cycle, the word vulnerability is an old military term, which means, “able to be wounded.” I’d like to expound on that. It’s important to see the difference between being transparent and being vulnerable. For whatever reasons, our culture now places a high value on transparency. It has seemingly become cool to talk about our struggles. (Need proof? Just watch basic cable.) But I think this airing of our dirty laundry is often mistaken for vulnerability. A window is transparent: We can see a tree outside, but guess what? We can’t fully experience the tree. We’re able to make several observations about it, but we can’t touch it, hear it, smell it or taste it. (Why anyone would taste a tree is beyond me. Unless there was maple syrup flowing out of it.) Being vulnerable takes risk. When you are vulnerable with someone, you are allowing her to experience you, to really know you. Being vulnerable is taking the risk to share something about yourself that is deeper than just how your day was! It’s more about something at your core that’s key to who you are or how you feel about something. I’ll allow you to peek into what this looks like in my friendship with Shannon. In the beginning of our friendship, we became experts at “water-skiing”
together as we laughed our heads off about everything. We shared a kindredness that I can only describe as God-given. But we took it to “scuba diving” when I sheepishly approached her knowing I needed to get some sin “into the light” as I confessed a number of my struggles to her (I John 1:7). I had no idea what Shannon would do with this confession but she moved toward me in such a gracious, non-judgmental and accepting way, I knew our friendship was solid. That day I took a risk that was met by empathy and unconditional love and acceptance. Over the years, this has been a twoway process. It never ceases to amaze me that when I experience this from Shannon or any friend, I’m getting the slightest glimpse of the unfathomable love and acceptance of God! And here’s the cool thing — when you have a friend you can be vulnerable with, you are set up perfectly for the 3rd pillar.
Pillar #3: Freedom This means the freedom to be who you are and for your friend to be who she is, not who you may need each other to be. For example, Shannon and I have very different temperaments. She has a phlegmatic temperament (laid back, even-keeled, stable) and I’m sanguine (excitable, hyper, talkative). I am a verbal processor and she is an internal processor, which means I need to talk to figure things out and that she needs to think (in silence) to figure things out. That’s a recipe for disaster if we don’t give each other the freedom to be who we are! It is really hard not to just expect what I want from Shannon (her thoughts, feelings, opinions) to be readily available. But I have learned that she’ll talk when she’s ready and it’s impossible to get her to do so one minute sooner than that! Whereas, she has learned to pull ideas out of me (because when they’re stuck in my head, it’s dangerous!) So often, she’ll push me until I get my thoughts fully verbalized, but if I try to push her —TROUBLE! This is where the freedom to be who we are comes in: I have to be patient while she thinks and she has to be patient while I babble! But she has promised me over the years that she will close the loop and come back to whatever
Being
vulnerable is taking
the risk to share something about yourself that is deeper than just how your day was. It’s more about something at your core that’s key to who you are or how you feel about something.
topic/issue she needs time to figure out in her mind — and she actually does! So I trust her to come back to it and I choose to be patient in the meantime. She also is extremely patient with me when she has to just listen to me go on and on about something until I figure out what I’m actually thinking. Delighting in the differences!
Pillar #4: Agape Love One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:35-37) The “love” Jesus describes in the above passage is agape: unconditional love. Jesus told us to agape love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind. I was so intrigued to learn (in my NIV study notes) the difference between the Greek words agape and phileo —phileo love is just friendly affection (Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love). But “agape love is the commitment of devotion that is directed by the will and can be commanded as a duty!” Jesus knew that sometimes we weren’t going to feel like loving God or people and that sometimes we would have to choose with our will to do so. In my opinion, that’s why Gary Chapman’s concept “The Five Love Languages” has been so popular over the years. People are discovering the specific ways in which they want to be loved and the ways significant others need to be loved; which often don’t match at all! For example, Shannon’s love language is quality time and mine is words of affirmation. I encourage you to look these up for a deeper understanding, but what this means for us is that she feels the intentionality in my love towards her when I spend quality time with her. If she moves beyond her comfort zone (since affirming words don’t come naturally to her) and shares life-giving words with me, I know she’s loving me from a love generated by the Lord. It’s critical to remember that loving others often means we choose to do so in ways that communicate love to them (speaking their language) regardless of what we need.
Let me just say, this kind of love is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what we call “supernatural,” because in and of ourselves, drawing on our own power, we can’t love unconditionally. Often we must choose to love someone by faith because we don’t feel it. That’s okay, that’s what the Holy Spirit does through us!
This is the last segment of “Made for Relationship” by Millie Welsh. To go back through past segments and read the entire article at once, click here.
Shaken and Stirred heart of worship
by michaela f.
Before you freak out, let’s realize that I am not going to write a Heart of Worship about alcoholic drinks. Who do you think I am?! Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get down to business. With graduation and the doorway to my future right around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s plan for my life. About how He promises that His ways are better than my ways and that I can rest in His good and perfect will. About how He will never leave me floundering on my own. About how He loves me more than anyone else in the world does and wants what is best for me. It’s a lot of heavy but really, really good stuff. In Proverbs, it says “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21) As I’ve been pondering these truths and trying to apply them to my current situation, I have come across some fantastic illustrations. Several weeks ago, we went to go cut down our Christmas tree at a farm and there I saw a somewhat puzzling sight. The strong farmhands would set the freshly-chopped tree into a machine and when they turned it on, the machine would shake the tree at a magnificent speed. I immediately questioned, “Why?” and I was answered with this profound statement: “to shake out all the dead needles of course!” Just the other day, it dawned on me that God kind of does that with our plans. He shakes our plans so that all of the selfish and unwise ones fall to the ground and only His perfect purpose remains. How cool is that? Another way to look at it is like a cup of instant hot chocolate. We try to add our plans to God’s because we think we know best, but in His good mercy He stirs up the water until our plans and His plans become one. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I find great ability to rest in His perfect promises when I realize that His plan alone will stand. And really, that is the only plan worth pursuing. So, sisters, let us follow Him with everything in us, surrendering any of our hopes and dreams that don’t measure up to His best for our lives. Let us free ourselves from any selfishness that holds us back from running straight towards our Heavenly Father. Let us be shaken and stirred until we are directly in the middle of His will, after all it’s the best and safest place to be.
from the blog... My grandma called up my dad in May and said “Do you know what a ‘Macbook Pro’ is? Do I want it?” She’d won a brand spankin new, sleek 13 inch from a radio station to which she donates. My dad said “YES.” And in a roundabout way, I ended up with this Macbook Pro for Christmas. Good gift. Great gift. Hallelujah, it’s a laptop I would never have dreamed of having. I was speechless for several minutes in shock. My thought was “Oh good, I have a present that will make Christmas last beyond today. I have something I can keep on enjoying after all this is over.” The shady little thought lying beneath that one went something like: “Oooh, a gift I can delight in. A way not to be disappointed by this Christmas. A way to fill the void.”
read the rest here and more on notworld.wordpress.com
“Jesus didn’t come to earth to give you seasonal salvation. It lasts all year long.”
[see you in March]
Romans 12:2 Not of this World for MK girls by MK girls