| Perfil de ArielleArielle's world/El mundo...FotosBlogListas |  Herramientas  Ayuda |
|
11 noviembre VenezuelaHello everyone. (Para mis amigos que hablan espanol, lo he traducido abajo. Por favor, leenlo).
I hope that everyone is doing well. Forgive me for not writing for so long. I am going to try to write more but we will see how that works out. Right now I am in Valencia, Venezuela. I have been here for a week now and tomorrow is my last day. Honestly, I am sad to leave. I don´t really understand why but I like it here. I even enjoy driving around the city. The people here are incredible. They encourage me and are an example for me. Thankfully this trip I can speak more Spanish and even today my Spanish is better than it was yesterday. I have had good practice today. This week I have rested more than anything but that has been a gift from God. I feel like I really needed rest because I normally can´t sleep very much. However, this trip I have slept probably 8 or 9 hours every night. I have also had some time to pray and read the Word--although I have not spent as much time with my Lord as I should or wanted. It seems like it is always a battle to spend time with the Lord--even if it is my hearts desire. I wish it wasn´t that way but I guess it will always be a choice to follow the Lord. Anyway. Yesterday we went to the beach and it was a beautiful day. Can you believe that I didn´t even get burnt? So, it was a good time. I have also gone to some natural springs that are here. We went there on Tuesday, I think. Today I went to the church and watched their play pracitce for a play called Agape that they are going to perform at the end of the month. Later in the day they had baptisms and had supper together. It was great. I got to spend time with my friends and all of the saints here. Then we went and had ice cream. Yes, so it has been a good trip and yet it has been hard in a sense, too. I have had to fight my own battles. And, honestly, my heart is heavy as I know tomorrow is my last day. I never want to leave these people and nothing has changed this time. They have said that they will hide me in the church so that I can stay. I would like that, but I don´t think that is God´s plan. Maybe some day. At least in heaven I will never have to say good-bye. I suppose that is all I have to write right now. I need to go spend some time in prayer and the Word. It truly is the only essential thing in life even though I often fail to see that. May you seek the Lord a little more today. May we remember that our time is short and that there is only one thing in life that has value and that is following Christ. I love you all and I hope to see you soon.
Arielle
Hola. Espero que ustedes esten bien. Perdoname que no los he escrito por un gran tiempo. Intentare a escribir mas a menudo pero vamos a ver lo que pasa. Ahorita estoy en Valencia, Venezuela. He estado aquí por una semana and manana es mi ultimo dia. Honestamente, estoy triste para salir. Realmente, no entiendo porque me gusta Venezuela tanto. Pero aun me encanta manejar por la ciudad. La gente aquí es increíble. Ellos me animan y es un gran ejemplo para mi vida. Gracias a Dios este viaje puedo hablar mas español y aun hoy mi español es mejor que ayer. Pude practicar mucho hoy. Esta semana he descansado mas que nada pero eso ha sido un regalo de Dios. Siento como que lo necesitaba porque normalmente no puedo dormir mucho pero esta semana he dormido como 8 o 9 horas cada noche. Tambien he pasado tiempo en oracion y en la palabra—aunque no lo he hecho tanto como quisiera o debiera. Me parece como que siempre es una batalla pasar tiempo con el Senor—aun cuando es el deseo de mi corazon. Espero que no sea asi pero me imagino que siempre voy a necesitar tomar una decisión para seguir al Senor. Bueno. Ayer fuimos a la playa y fue un dia muy bonito. Y ustedes pueden creer que no me queme? Entonces, estuvo un buen tiempo. Tambien he ido a algunas aguas naturales que hay aquí. Fuimos ahí el martes, creo. Hoy fui a la iglesia y vi a su practica de teatro para una obra que se llama Ágape que van a hacer al fin de este mes. Después en el dia, tenian bautisos y cenamos juntos. Fue bueno. Yo pude pasar tiempo con mis amigos y los santos aqui. Después comimos helado!!! Entonces, ha sido un bueno viaje pero tambien ha sido dificil de algunas maneras. He tenido mis propias luchas. Y, honestamente, estoy quebrantada porque yo se que manana es mi ultimo dia. Nunca quiero despedirme de la gente y eso todavía no ha cambiado. Ellos me han dicho que van a esconderme en la iglesia para que pueda quedarme. Me gustaria eso pero creo que eso no es el plan de Dios. Quiza un dia. Por lo menos, en el cielo nunca mas tendre que despedirme de mis amigos. Supongo que eso es todo que los puedo contar ahorita. Necesito pasar un tiempo en la oracion y en la palabra. Estar a los pies de Dios es la unica cosa en este mundo que es necesario en nuestras vidas aunque muchas veces no lo creo. Espero que hoy busquen el Senor un poco mas. Espero que recordemos que nuestro tiempo en este mundo es corto y que hay solo una cosa que tiene valor: seguir a Cristo. Los amo mucho y espero verlos pronto.
Arielle 05 octubre Oops!Well, I guess I haven't done a very good job of writing on her very often. It is definitely not on my high priority list and that's why it doesn't get done. Sorry. I thought I would write because I am quite awake right now, although I am tired. I do have homework to do but I don't feel like doing it!!! Can anyone relate? Maybe being awake has something to do with the fact that I decided to take a 15 minute nap at 8:45 tonight! I couldn't stay awake any longer.
So, I am doing just fine. Today was a long day and did not go as I expected at all. I went to work this morning at 7 (we got to go in an hour late) and I ended up driving to Thornton (it's a town outside of Denver) to pick up some desks for a customer because of a major mess-up on our distribution center's part. However, I got lost on the way there because the directions I was given weren't very good. So, I finally turned around and got stuck in traffic for probably a half hour. I finally found the store, had to drive all the way to Windsor and then unload 4 big desks with only a lady about my size helping me! (That was fun!) I had left the store at 12:30 and I didn't get back until 3:30. Unfortunately my math class starts at 3:30. So I had called a friend and asked her to come pick me up because I had ridden my bike to work. The problem is that I can only skip Math class 2 times and there is no book for this class--so if I miss class, I don't know how to do the homework. I was only 15 minutes late to my class and didn't miss anything. Then I had to drive back to work and get my bike. So I pretty much did nothing today until after dinner and it was a lot of driving around! I guess the day went quickly.
Yeah. The rest of my classes are going well (I don't really know about my English class, but otherwise I've kept my grades up in all of them). The baby is cute and adorable. I don't get to see her too much but it is kind of fun to have a baby in the house.
My quiet time thought for yesterday came from Ezekiel 29:16 "And it [Egypt] will never again be the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing to mind the iniquity of their having turned to Egypt. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD." Here God is talking about the judgment of Egypt and it just struck me how God wants to remove the things in our lives that we are putting our confidence in. Putting my confidence and hope in someone or something other than God is idolatry. I know that but I don't always look at it with that perspective. God wants to meet my needs. He wants me to look for my needs to be fulfilled through Him. He will help remove idols and hindrances in our lives. Will we let Him? He also longs for us to know that He is THE LORD GOD!!! I don't know about you but God is so great that when I really, truly stop and think about Him and who He is, it blows my mind. May you take some time today to really think about the Lord. The Creator of the Universe wants to let us know Him. He is intimate with the righteous. What a privilege to know the God of the Universe!!!! Let's seek Him together.
Well, I need to finish up my homework quick so that I can go to sleep!
I love you all.
Take care. Remember that we only have this day once. Let's make the most of every opportunity the Lord gives us.
Arielle 19 septiembre Jazaniah is born!!!!Hello everyone! Today was a super exciting day because the Nelsons had their 7th baby at 8 a.m. I was ridiculously excited and, of course, I had to work all day today and then go to class. I did get to see her after all of those things, though. She is a precious, perfect baby. She was awake and I got to hold her. She has soooo much hair as you can see by the picture (I will put some up but I only really have two. I will have to get more in the next couple days). I am amazed that the little girl we have been waiting for for 9 months is here and this is what God has created inside Kathleen. This is the little girl I got to feel moving around in Kathleen's stomach! I am just blown away by how God does that!!! Also, praise the Lord because the delivery went very smoothly and Kathleen said it was like God just totally took care of everything. For those of you who like details, she weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz. and is about 20 inches long, I think. Her name is Jazaniah and they were going to have her middle name be Grace, but they might change it. I guess that's enough about the baby. I feel a little bit like she is my little sister. :-)
Otherwise, life has been crazy. I am learning to juggle all of my homework and classes, work and church. I am trying to learn to prioritize things correctly and just be faithful one day at a time. I know stressing out does no good so I am trying not to do that and sometimes I do okay and sometimes I don't. I honestly just wish I could sleep more!!! I sleep plenty but I just always would like to sleep more. I do have a test tomorrow that I am a little worried about, so if you think about it you could pray for me. It starts at 10:10. I also have two tests on Friday, so this is really my big week.
Saturday night we had an El Paso meeting. I didn't really want to go in all honesty. It makes me think about it a lot again and just reinforces in my mind that I don't know what the Lord has for me yet. One thing that I did realize is a lot of the reasons I really don't want to go are selfish reasons. And you might say that is normal or something and I think that is honestly what I realized--no one in the room full of people considering going wants to leave friends and family. They may have a heart to go for other reasons but they don't want to do that. I need to be careful that I am not holding that back from God. I have told God that I am willing to do whatever He asks, but I think that I was truthfully still holding things back from God, saying "sure, I'll do it if I absolutely have to but I am not really wholeheartedly willing to make these sacrifices." Wow. I think that I am a little more willing to do whatever now that I have realized I was holding those things back. I still don't know what God has but I am prehaps a little more peaceful with the whole situation. It is going to be a hard decision--probably one of the hardest in my life. Still, God will show me and I just need to have faith and seek him persistently and wholeheartedly. Praise the Lord He will be faithful to lead and bless.
Well, it's really quite late here and I need to go to sleep. I will try and write more very soon--maybe tomorrow, but probably Thursday.
Love you all.
Arielle 08 septiembre FridayHello. Well, this is the third time I have tried to write something on here. So, yeah. Anyway. We had O2 tonight and Jack talked about how we need to have a loose hold on our lives. He focused on Deuteronomy 8 and basically said we need to realize that God is always going to rescue us out of difficult situations. God wants us to be humble and broken before Him and He will lead us through difficult things to get us to that point. He also said we need to be careful not to have a "list" of things that we don't want God to take away. Just some good, convicting thoughts. So, primarily I want to share some song lyrics with you that really stuck out to me tonight. Here they are: None but Jesus In the quiet, in the stillness When You call I won’t refuse There is no one else for me So when You call I won’t delay There is no one else for me All my delight is in You Lord
I hope you enjoy that as much as I did. May God be your delight a little more each and every day. He alone is our strength, our hope. Praise God there is hope in this world because I sometimes feel like there is no hope for this fallen world. However, God's desire is to redeem it. Praise God He is so compassionate and slow to anger. We really do serve an amazing God!!!! I love you guys! Take care. Keep seeking God. Another cool promise that my Mom reminded me of: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13). Have a good weekend! 01 septiembre Friday--a God daySo today was the end of my first week of school!!!! Yeah. Since I had a long weekend ahead of me, I decided to take the three youngest kids on a walk. They enjoy it and I figure that I will get busier after this weekend and it will also get colder. So, I snatched the opportunity while I had it. Other than that, I took a nap and worked on stuff for tonight. I was trying to put together some stuff for Memory Madness for the college students here. We are trying to get them all going on memorizing verses so we can compete against Ft. Collins at the end of November.
So, that's the boring part of my day. The exciting part is that at lunch, a girl ended up asking if she could sit with me. Of course I said yes and figured there was a reason. We talked and ended up hitting it off pretty well and we found out that we had a lot of weird similarities. For example, the ages of her siblings are exactly the age of my siblings and their birthdays are a month apart from my siblings's birthdays. There was just some weird stuff that came up. I told her about O2 and she said she was going to check out Campus Crusade this weekend. I told her that she should come with me tonight. So, she said that sounded good. When we left for class, it seemed like we had definitely known each other longer than an hour. Pretty cool. So, she came to church tonight and obviously enjoyed it because she asked me about Sunday mornings and I think she is going to come and she is also probably going to get involved in small group!!! Wow! I didn't do anything except talk to her! It's pretty cool because God must obviously have a plan in all this. I pray she will get involved and God will work mightily in her life through our church. She may also have a lot of potential to be used by God. We will have to see what He does.
Quiet time thoughts. Well, I am getting tired so I am only going to copy down the verses and you will have to read the chapter to get context and figure out your own thoughts! Jeremiah 31, verse 3: 'The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovinkindness." verse 20: "Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him; therefor eMy heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him," declares the Lord. And verse 25: "For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes."
That's all for tonight. I must shower and jump in bed. I am quite tired tonight.
Love you all! |
|
|||
|
|
