Not Your Typical Freshman 15

Tonight I leave, because first thing tomorrow I'm going on a 6-day retreat for Campus Ambassadors, my college Christian group.  The retreat's called Infusion and everyone says it's really awesome.  Please be praying for us-safe travels, health, and that God speaks to us!  But I thought that I should get my entry about my first semester of college out of the way, because I have no idea if I'll have Internet access over the coming week.

So when I left off, it was the summer before I started college.  I had a week in between camp and college and I tried to spend it with my friends.  I was getting more and more nervous as the day to leave for college got closer.  It was funny because I'd been looking forward to college forever-getting out of the house and out of the sometimes repressive atmosphere of such a small high school.  But I hadn't gone to any orientation and literally knew nobody on campus. 

I attend a secular school, when all of the other seniors in my church went to Christian colleges, which I found too expensive.  A lot of people thought I wouldn't fit in there, but God provides! 

I was dropped off in my dorm room Thursday with my fish, Felipe, and was essentially on my own.  Everyone else who was on campus was there for one of the special programs, like Honors, so they had meetings and dinners and ways to connect with each other.

Rather than describe how it was at college those first few days, I'll talk about how I "plugged in."  I'll admit that I have a terrible sense of direction, and I was walking around campus my first or second full day there when I came across a bunch of tents set up for organizations and clubs on campus.  I decided to check it out-some of them were giving out free stuff! 

And one of them was Campus Ambassadors.  I filled out one of the little cards and talked to the people at the table, who seemed really nice.  I'd known from looking online that there were two Christian groups on campus-CA, and BASIC, but they both had their main meetings Tuesday nights, so I'd thought I was going to switch back and forth until I figured out which one I liked better.

During the first week of classes I was determined to step outside of my comfort zone and meet new people.  One of the ways I did this was by asking to join tables at meals.  I made some great friends that way, but Monday or Tuesday I "happened" to sit with some girls who were leadership from Campus Ambassadors.  Having befriended them, I chose to go Campus Ambassadors that first week-besides, they were giving out free smoothies!-and loved it.  They brought up a missions trip they were doing to the Dominican Republic, but I never thought I could afford it...(my church ended up giving me half of the money :) ).


I could go on like this, but I think it would be more interesting if I made my own personal "Freshman 15" list of things I learned and/or enjoyed about my first year of college, in no particular order.

1. It's easier than I thought to "plug in."  I know that my personal experience is probably not typical, but God will provide a way for you to find the "right" people, if that's what you really want.
2. One of my pet peeves-people who leave their clothes overnight in the dryer and then turn it on the next morning for another 45 minutes.  Not necessary!
3. If you ever have the opportunity to take a missions trip, take it!  It changed my life in so many ways-I'm sure I'll end up blogging about it at some point, but to make a long story short, they blessed us way more than we did them and I miss them and think about them every day.
4. Professors are usually great about giving help if you take the time to ask.  I never learned the subjunctive tense in Spanish because we taught it every other year to the upper-level classes, but both of my professors gave me the extra help I needed to "get" it.
5. With greater independence comes greater responsibility-no parents means you're in charge of doing laundry, making sure you're up in time for class, etc. I did well with that but some people just can't handle it!
6. You learn if  your walk with God is really yours or your friends'/family's when there's nobody there to make sure you're up for church.
7. Sometimes people in the dining halls give you less food if you're a teenage girl.  Not fair!
8. Some people really will never grow up-might as well get used to them now!
9. Just because you're at a "party school" doesn't mean that everyone goes out and gets wasted on the weekends.  To quote my eighth grade history teacher, "Life is full of choices!"
10. There really is an albino squirrel at my college-I'd thought he was a myth!  (Of course, the picture won't upload.)
11. "Free" is my new favorite word as a poor college student!
12. People told me I'd never get through a semester of college without coffee-well I made it through two.
13. I've learned to have an open mind-just because something is different doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad or wrong.
14. Not necessarily because of college, but I've learned a lot about myself based on experiences with other people this past year-forgiveness and what it is to miss somebody, for example.
15. Life is full of awkward moments-sometimes you just have to let it go and hope everyone else does too!

Well that's it for now!

Edit:
The DR team (mi familia!)

Great Expectations

So I know I said that the next post would be about the past year-but I don't feel like writing about that right now, so I'm going to elaborate a bit on what I said in "header" of the blog: 

"They say a person doesn't become an adult until the age of 24, so I have 5 more years to discover myself, grow in my faith, and (I pray) ultimately make a difference, as I'm old enough to understand the issues, and still young enough not to be embittered or jaded by the past."

This is the article I reference in the first sentence: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/teenage-plus-the-new-adolescence-7676016.html, which says that the

"...adolescent brain is handicapped in the rational assessment of risk and prone to "hot cognitions" – decisions influenced by exciting or stressful conditions which adults are better able to resist."

In other words, part of the reason that people at this age act the way they do is because the decision-making parts of their brains aren't fully developed as of yet.  Having spent a year in a college dorm, I can agree that this is often true!  Being this age-the "extended adolescent," as I've seen it referred to-is difficult, because we're trapped between being rational and irrational, mature and immature, child and adult.

Don't get me wrong-I'm not justifying the actions of people my age, even though there may be scientific evidence to back them.  Going back to the Bible, God often uses young people to do great things for His kingdom.  Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the story of David, who wasn't even considered as being the potential future king.  My favorite verse from the story of David and Goliath is

"David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied."" (1 Samuel 17:45)

Think about it-here's a young man, a boy, really, standing against this giant.  Older and stronger men refuse to take the stand against Goliath, and yet David knows God and is able to discern His will.  More than that, he steps out in faith, armed with just that sling and a stone, "in the name of the LORD Almighty"!

The story of David is a popular one even outside of the church.  Everybody loves an "underdog," after all.  But what I think many people fail to notice, even within the church, is that he didn't come armed with that sling and stone.  He didn't rely on his superior skills, honed by years of guarding the sheep.  He relied on God, trusting Him to do the work and make his aim true.  I bet that if David hadn't had the sling and the stone, he would have still gone up to that line, trusting in God to make a way!

I just finished up 1 Timothy the other night.  I actually read a bilingual Bible, translating the Spanish before reading the English, and it makes me really think about each word.  One of the most famous verses of this book is the ever-popular "Youth Group" verse, 1 Timothy 4:12

"Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity."

The Spanish, when translated literally from my Bible and rearranged to fit English syntax, says "Let nobody disparage you for being young.  To the contrary, let the believers see in you an example to follow in the way of speech, in behavior, and in love, faith, and purity." 

See how the meaning changes just a bit?  The original English commands us to set an example, whereas the Spanish tells us to let them see an example in us.  They ultimately have the same result, but the English suggests being very deliberate about setting this example to me, whereas the Spanish tells us to let them see.  It reminds me of the verses where Jesus tells His followers not to pray as the hypocrites do, for all to hear, or not to let the one hand know what the other is doing.  If we're really living our faith out, people are going to notice on their own.

So how does this apply to me?  I'm not entirely sure yet.  In my experience, God doesn't give us the whole picture.  We're expected to go step by step, choice by choice, and obey Him and the road we are to take will gradually be made clear to us.  Like with my choice to try to interpret, or David's choice to refuse to allow Goliath to insult his God.

All my life, I've been told that I can be anything that I set my mind to.  I've grown up in one of the most prosperous nations of all time and have had many opportunities that others can only dream of.  I'm old enough now to understand that I can't literally be whatever I want-I'm too broke to run for President, for example, not that I'd want to try-but God has a plan for me, for each of His children, that goes far beyond what we might imagine for ourselves.

Right now, my dream is to live in a Spanish-speaking country.  I don't know which yet-my trip to the Dominican Republic was life-changing and I have an open invitation to go back whenever I want, but that's the only other country I've ever been to.  A really good friend of mine-remember Nelson from the interpreting story?-just went back to Chiapas, Mexico, about two months ago, and he said that he would pay for me to go visit someday.  Right now, my plan is to just work on learning as much Spanish as I can and wait for the opportunities to arise.

That's not much of a plan, is it?  Well, often times when we plan, things "don't work out."  I put this in quotes because of course they work out-God's plans are infinitely better than our own!-but oftentimes we're just too shortsighted to look at the bigger picture.  Going back to the article I mentioned at the beginning of my blog, I'm young, I'm changing, I'm growing.  I've a lot to learn, not only about Spanish, but also about the world-about relationships, about love, about God (not necessarily in that order!).  Little by little, day by day, I'm getting there.  God has great expectations for me, and I know He will see them through!

And So It All Begins!

To be honest, I have no idea how "successful" this blog will be.  How do you define "success?"  Is it popularity, having a lot of views and comments?  Or is it being able to influence a few people in a positive way?  I'm going for the second definition, and I hope that this blog will help you to think of things in a different way, to grow closer to God, and, at the very least, to understand that there are teenage girls out there who do think about things other than Justin Bieber or Teen Mom!

Honestly, this stage in my life seems to be the most...important, that I can remember.  That's not really the word I'm looking for, but how else do I describe it?  I've changed so much in the past year, the past 6 months, even-it's probably a lot like being a baby, only I don't remember that much at all.  But I want to remember this part of my life-the positive and the negative-so that's another reason for having this blog.

To start, I'll give a bit of a background on my life up until I started college.  If you're able to hang in there with me until the end, I should give you a cookie!

I've lived in a 6,000 population town all my life, and our biggest claim to fame is probably that we have more cows than people.  My first time outside of New York was a few days before I turned 13, when we drove down to Pennsylvania to buy a puppy.  Maybe it's because I didn't travel much as a kid, but I have this great love of seeing the world, experiencing new things with people I care about, and taking tons of pictures to record it all.  In high school, I went to Cleveland, Ohio, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Orlando, Florida, all on school trips, and I loved (almost) every second of them!  I graduated in a class of 64, where everybody knew everybody and it felt more like a giant extended family than a school.  So these trips were like I imagine extended family vacations might be.

The most defining day of my life wasn't the first time I saw the ocean, or meeting our representative on Capitol Hill.  It was the day after I turned 15-July 8, 2008, and it started out as any other day that summer.  My alarm went off at 5:45 (yeah, I don't understand why I set it that early either), and I got ready for the day.  I called a friend, Jess, to ask if she wanted to go swimming, but she was going up to a Christian camp with her family that afternoon to visit her brother David and sister Megan, who were working there.  (I might add that David was my boyfriend at the time!)  She invited me to come along-her family was doing worship that night.  My parents said it was okay.

If you had asked me that morning, "What's your religion?", I would have told you that I was a Christian.  I was baptized as a baby, I had gone to church for a few months when I was 11, I tried to read the Teen Devotional Bible my grandmother got me for Christmas that same year, and it ticked me off when my teacher talked about evolution as a proven fact.  Now, I would describe that Jenna as a "head" believer, rather than a "heart" believer.  I knew that God existed, and I had said the "sinner's prayer" at the back of my Bible, but my goal in life wasn't to know Him or to carry out His will.

But everything changed that night.  The camp does two "chapels," one for younger kids and one for older campers.  The second chapel had a skit in which people were worshipping God in a different country, one where it was illegal to be a Christian.  Men came in with guns and told the believers that they had to spit on the Bible or they would be shot.  Some of them complied and were let go, but one girl refused.  Instead, she wiped off the Bible, and she was "shot" as the lights went out.  When they came back on, we were informed that this was a true story.

I don't really know how to describe what came over me, except to say that I "got" it.  It was as clear to me as the chapel when the lights came back on.  I said I was a Christian, but would I be ready to die for my faith that way?  Was it really a faith at all?  The answer to both of these questions was a resounding "no."  I didn't talk to anyone about what was going on inside of me-not Jess, not David, not their parents-but I was saved that night.

Not having grown up in the church, I didn't know that that was the word for what happened.  I didn't know that it was the Holy Spirit revealing the truth to me.  I honestly didn't even get that I wasn't saved before I went, and now I was.  All I knew was, I wanted to read the Bible, I wanted to know God.  I read it cover to cover in 2-3 weeks.  I wouldn't recommend speed-reading it now-quality over quantity-but I was just so thirsty to KNOW.  And I started listening to Christian music and finding that I actually enjoyed it!

About six months later, I started going to church with Jess and her family, and the rest, as they say, is history!  I mean, who but God would have worked it out that I was dating him and that I went that particular night, when they did that particular skit?  ""For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD" in Isaiah 55:8.

Fast-forward a few years.  Actually, to about a year ago right now, when my friend Sandi asked me if I would like to start going to a Bible study with her.  Not just any study-this one was in Spanish, for some of the guys from Mexico who worked on area farms.  I said sure-but only my 2nd week, the interpreter couldn't attend; would I be able to translate?

To say that I was nervous would be an understatement.  Sure, I'd taken Spanish since I was 11 (with the exception of my junior year of high school), but Kristy was miles ahead of me-and it's not like "the Bible" is a unit covered in school.  I had no idea how to say the word for "Jews," let alone "Holy Spirit," "resurrection," or anything else!  But I agreed to try it.  So, that Friday night, I showed up armed with a packet reviewing the different verb tenses, a Spanish-English dictionary, whatever chapter of John we were in printed off in Spanish, and my regular Bible.

"Luckily" for me, only two of the "amigos," as we called them, were there, along with the Bakers, who led the study, their daughter Bethany (one of the "jefes," or "bosses," at the farm), Sandi, and me.  Leo and Nelson were great about it-I have no idea if they understood a single word of what I said, but they didn't make me feel at all stupid, and Nelson knows quite a bit of English and was quick to offer a helping hand.

Something funny happened, though.  As more studies came, with more opportunities to interpret, the more I enjoyed it.  I knew I still had a lot to learn, but I was willing-talking with the guys to practice, learning the different words that they used versus the traditional "Spain" Spanish I'd been taught.  For example, in Mexico and Guatemala "what's up?" is "¿qué onda?" but the first time someone chatted me asking me this, I literally interpreted "onda" as "wave" and we were both very confused...but by the time July rolled around, just two months later, I added Spanish on to my Creative Writing major.  Without the study, I doubt that I would have so much as taken a single Spanish class in college!

"Spoiler" alert-I went on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic in January of this year (more on that next post).  Would I have been interested in going had I not added the Spanish major?  Would I have been able to help interpret for the team?  This is the best example I have in my (relatively) short walk with God of stepping out in faith.  God rewards us for going beyond our comfort zones to carry out His will, and there are countless examples of this in the Bible-Joshua was commanded to be "strong and courageous" in Joshua 1:9; in Exodus 4:10, Moses refers to himself as "slow of speech and tongue" when God commands him to lead the people out of Egypt...I could go on, but you can go check it out for yourself!

After a summer of working as a camp counselor and Bible studies, I was off to my first semester of college, ready...or not!

P.S.-Tried adding a picture, but it said I don't "have permission" ...still really new at this whole blog thing, so please have patience!

-Jenna

Edit: A picture of me with David and Jess