WEEK #10 !?!?

This is my last week in Chicago with my Summer Project family. These 10 weeks have flown by and I am not quite ready to say goodbye. I have gotten so close to all the students here. We are together everyday, share meals together, study, worship and pray together daily. I will miss this amazing community but God has called me to return home and take what I have learned back to ECU's campus. There is a time for everything-- Ecclesiastes 3 <3

 All of us here from ECU have been meeting once a week to specifically pray for our campus for when we return home.--Please pray with us that God will make a way for us to get prepared for the upcoming year, planning how to help freshman move into dorms, getting to know them, serving, reaching out, and providing a welcoming week for students. We pray God will allow us to see him working on our campus this year even more than last year with cookouts, outreach, Thursday meetings, freshman bible studies, and more.  Thanks for your prayers!!

"I Am Love"
This week we looked at how God is Love. I know what your thinking, God is loving, caring, giving and gracious. Yes, he is loving but what I have learned this week is that He is love. 
Love is not something God does but it is who He is. All things good and loving on Earth are from him and created by him. He is the creator and our source of love. We would not know how to love if he did not first love us.     1 John 4:16-17

Our leadership speaker on this topic (Anne) told us how when she was younger she was a very active gymnast. She practiced with a personal coach 8-10 hours a day, everyday for years. She was a performer for her coach and she worked hard to please her and get her approval for everything she did. One day she walks into practice and her coach was not there. She went ahead and practiced without her being there and returned the next day, again she did not show up. Days and a week passed and she never showed until another coach had to tell Anne that her coach had moved. Anne was left feeling like she did something wrong and as if she was not good enough for her coach. She was alone, abandoned, and with no hope to ever continue training.

This is how we treat God sometimes. We perform in front of him with our good works, going to church, praying, reading our bible, being nice to people, and hiding our true broken, worn down feelings from life. We possibly feel that if we do not do these things routinely then God will be mad or love us less. This is not true. God is different! He is not our coach or trainer, he is our father! 
As Anne will now tell you, "God does not walk away when our performance is not up to his standards--he is with us even when we can't perform at all."

So if this is love, why can't we grasp it? Its because in today's world the word Love is overused, broken, beat-up, twisted, and based on feelings and emotions. But Love from God is different. It is:
-Sacrificial - 1 John 4:9 and John 3:16 ..He didn't just die in the place of your and my sins but he died in the place of you and me! Your actual self!
-Unconditional- 1 John 4:10 and Romans 5:8

"God doesn't want something or anything from us, he just wants us." -C.S Lewis

-Unbreakable- 1 John 4:13 and Ephesians 1: 13-14  .. We are marked with his seal..we have the holy spirit to guide us until he comes back!
-Commanded- Ephesians 4:2  God commands us to then, "be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."


--Pray that I enjoy this week to the fullest and build even deeper relationships with the students here this last week. I will be flying home Friday Aug.10th at 6am.
Prayers for safety and for getting a smooth transition from here, to Whiteville, and back to Greenville are really appreciated. See you all soon hopefully !!

In God's LOVE,    Danielle