Zion - Your Kingdom Come

I leave for Chile in 50 DAYS!!! I am so excited for the experiences I will have soon on a totally different hemisphere of the world! I think the opportunities that I've had to travel are what started my fascination with culture, and I've loved studying it more as I've been at college. The coolest part about everything I've been learning has been understanding more about God through the people He has made. Something our Intern Coordinator explained to us over the Intern Training Weekend that really stuck with me was the idea that just as each individual person has characteristics and traits that reflect the image of God, so does every culture on earth. I found this to be so interesting, and it made me even more excited to experience a new culture this summer and seek to find Him in it!

Something else I've been learning about has been the cultural contexts in which Jesus interacted with others while he was on earth. I've been reading a book called Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey, and in it the author brings so much added cultural information that has breathed new life into stories that I've read countless times. Knowing what words actually mean and the context in which they're said adds so much significance!

One chapter I just finished reading dissected The Lord's Prayer, which is something that we also looked at a lot over my spring break trip to New York. This chapter specifically talks about the phrase "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

The hardest part about living on this broken earth is that we see fleeting glimpses of the way the world was supposed to be - without pain, without suffering, without shame - and we can never truly experience this perfection until we are fully united with Christ. But despite this separation, we can be used by God to represent this coming Kingdom to the world right now, wherever we are. We should desire to close the gap between the realities of earth and the realities of heaven - because the perfection of heaven is SO REAL!

This is what Zion means to us now - building up God's Kingdom on earth in anticipation for Christ's return by attempting to represent Him to all we encounter, in any and every circumstance.

I am SO thankful for the support I've received thus far! But I still have a log way to go to reach my financial goal - $4,625 is the most I've ever had to raise and that number seems bigger now more than ever! I would so appreciate it if you took the time to pray and consider supporting me. Prayer support is just as important to me!! I know it will be more difficult for me to see where the Lord is working if I am not seeking Him through this process and while I'm gone this summer. Please be praying that the Lord would provide financial support, and that He would prepare my heart and the hearts of the people I will meet!

Here is the link to my donation page! Thank you!

http://www.whm.org/give/give-to-a-missionary