Halfway

I can't believe we're already more than halfway past this semester! This has been a challenging semester (but every semester is). It's already Wednesday and I can't believe spring break was only a week ago. I thank God for a week to relax, spend time with my friends, and catch up on some school work.

I don't want to forget what I did last week so I'm going to recap here:

I recovered from being sick by resting and sleeping a lot. Now that I'm back in school, all I have are memories of rest, haha (however true rest only comes from God).

We helped Susan film her math project! And we ended up going to Silver Diner for dinner.

David had his first birthday party and I enjoyed taking pictures for the party!

I thought this was a really cool picture. The popping bubble kind of looks like a jelly-fish. What do you think?

My friends and I went on a fun adventure in Annapolis. It is such a beautiful city to take pictures! Future note: Annapolis is a great photoshoot location. (:

Took pictures of the Adebola family!

A lot of pictures for one week, but it was great. I forgot how much fun it was to shoot and edit pictures. And I realized why great photographers charge a lot of money. It's a lot of work! Even though it's really fun, a lot of hard work goes behind preparing for photoshoots and editing the pictures.

We had a Tuesday prayer meeting for YDJ this week. It was so good to just sit before God and listen to his voice. Every day is so busy that if I don't intentionally set aside time to pray, I realize that the week has already gone by. Right now, it's already Wednesday! Then it'll be Friday, then the weekend, and then it'll be Sunday again. And then repeat. I hope that despite all our busy schedules, we can come before God and set aside an hour to come to really pray! It's also always encouraging to pray with others. (:

Random note, I have come to really like my art class. It's really exciting to see my drawings improve over the semester.

Gemstone

Currently, I'm a freshman in the Gemstone program at the University of Maryland. Part of the Honors College, Gemstone is a four year group multidisciplinary research program. Whenever you think of research, you might think of biology and engineering, but there are Gemstone teams with pretty cool non-science related projects as well. Although a four year program sounds like a long time, when you break it down, it goes by really quickly! Freshman year is spent getting to know your cohort and others in Gemstone. However by the end of freshman year, everyone is placed in a team. This semester in GEMS102, we're in the stage of choosing and being placed in teams. So, how do these teams form? In the beginning of the semester, people proposed their project ideas in the form of a project proposal. From the beginning of last semester, I knew that in order for there to be teams, people would have to propose their ideas. However, I personally didn't have any cool project ideas and was not planning on proposing a project at all. And then...I read a faculty proposed project and was interested in one particular project a week before the project proposals were due. Why didn't I get interested in a project weeks before? I don't know... Since one week was a short amount of time to propose a project, I was struggling with the decision to propose the project or not. If I chose not to propose the project, I would not have had anything major due that week. If I did choose to propose the project, I would have to do a whole literature review and find out what this project was even about. Although I felt that God wanted me to propose this project, in the beginning of the week, this seemed impossible. Within less than a week, my co-authors and I had to write the background, literature review, background, cite sources, and make a commercial. Then on Monday, I found out three people I was planning to write the project proposal backed out (with legitimate reasons). Again, I was caught in a conflict and was asking God, "Should I propose the project or should I not?" However, my one close friend from high school agreed to propose the project with me and helped me sooo much! Thank God for sending my friend. I don't know what I would have done otherwise (I probably wouldn't have proposed the project).

And then our project proposal were approved by the Gemstone heads! Around forty projects were proposed and approved in the beginning of the semester. By the end of the semester, there will only be twelve projects left. The first round of voting was last Thursday and thank God our project went through (even though I forgot to promote the project until the day before). Although I don't know if the project will go through to the end, I know that God is in control. I know that God has the best plans for my life. Even when things don't work out the way I plan it, I know it's because He has even better plans for my life. For example, I applied to be a GEMS100 Section Leader and didn't make it, but I'm going to trust God that it's the best for me. I'm still learning and struggling to trust God in different aspects of my life. However, when I do entrust my life to Him, there truly is peace and joy that passes all understanding.

Here's our facebook page for team IMPACT. (:

All Things New

I'm so thankful for the 85mm lens! I've been having a lot of fun with it and the quality is far better than any other lenses I have. Since it's difficult to shoot during the semester, I'm hoping to take a lot of pictures & spend time editing this week. Yay, spring break! (:

It has been a long, hard winter, but the officially first day of spring is this Thursday! I am so thankful for the amazing weather we had on Saturday. As I write this there's a blanket of snow covering the roads, haha.

I was listening to this song last week. I thought it was perfect timing as we're transitioning from winter to spring. My prayer for this spring is that God will "make all things new" in this new season.

This post is just going to have a lot of songs. I somehow came across this band "Unspoken" and I really like their songs!

"Run to You"

"Everything"

"Walking Away"

Sharing Burdens

On Monday, I studied John 2:1-12 with my Bible teacher. This marked the beginning of Jesus' ministry because it was the first miracle Jesus performed as He changed water into wine at the wedding. Every time I study this passage, something different really sticks out to me. Previously, the servant's attitudes and obedience to Jesus really amazed me. However, this time Jesus' mother, Mary's attitude really convicted me. Mary was simply a guest at the wedding. However, when there was no more wine at the wedding feast, Mary noticed and did something about it. She didn't have to because she was simply a guest. But she knew and believed that Jesus could do something. As a result, she came to Jesus and told him "They have no more wine." Jewish wedding celebrations were a week long and in those times, people drank wine instead of water because water the water was unclean. Therefore, having enough wine was really important at weddings. In the end, the wine that Jesus created turned out to be the best wine the guests had. Because Mary brought this problem to Jesus, the problem was solved and the guests were all blessed through it. I thought about it and wondered - "How often do I pray for someone else's troubles and problems if I don't think it really affects my life?" Recently, not that very often. However, I believe that it's important to bring other's concerns and prayers to God even though they do not immediately affect us. In this way, we can see God do amazing things and be a blessing to those around us (though they may not know it). I believe Mary's faith was increased by this event and I believe by praying for others, our faith will be increased as well.

I was also reading Exodus 18, when Moses' father-in-law, Jethro visits Moses. (I wrote a short paragraph about it a few years ago here.) Moses served as a only judge for the Israelites and worked from the morning till the evening. I find it really interesting that Jethro said, "What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave" (Exodus 18:17-20). In the way that Moses wasn't supposed to do all the work by himself, I believe that we are to share our burdens with each other. In this way, we can pray for each other and really encourage each other.

Lent started last week and I haven't really decided whether I am going to give up anything for these forty days. However, I have been trying to consciously daily thank God for something in my life. Right now, I'm so thankful for this beautiful weather outside! It's finally (almost) spring. Ah, my favorite season. It's like winter has finally been defeated...

Youth Winter Retreat Reflection (Part 3)

At the retreat we had two seminars. The first seminar was held by Julia in finding our identity in Christ. Although I didn't know, while listening at the time, this seminar was such a good reminder and encouraged me these past two weeks. The second seminar was given by Abby. She shared how God was working in her life and how she was learning to serve others!

Here are my notes:

Seminar I:

• Self image
• "Who am I?"
• we think that we are so insignificant
• feeling of inadequacy (Julia talked about Moses' response when God called him to speak to the pharaoh)
• inabilities
• looking at our weaknesses make us think we can't do it
• mindset of thinking that we don't have the qualification to do the job that God has called us to do
• false humility
• we have the mindset that we don't know what we're doing
• focusing on what we can't do
• "send someone else"
• Replacing the lies
• we were meant to do great things
• we need to view ourselves sin a "vertical" dimension - seeing who we are in God's eyes, not the "horizontal" dimension of doing all we can to impress others
• "with identity comes purpose"
• "I am a child of God."
• declare truth about your identity
• ask God how He sees you.

Seminar II: 

• "serving is tending to hearts"
• we give what little we have to gain so much more
• "serving is seeing who's on God's heart and tending to them"
• love of God > love that they've been searching their whole life
• call to see people and love on them
• love people through serving
• we are able to serve when we tap into what God has in store for us

Message by Pastor Tony - Genesis 15

• "I want to know your heart..."
• What is God's heart?
• that all people would know Him
• limitless
• God has a heart for the earth itself
• everything that's messed up is a result of our sin
• God desires a restoration of all things
• Why was it remarkable that Abraham believed?
• God had not shown his miraculous power to Abraham yet at this point in Genesis 15
• Abraham's response was remarkable
• he believed & trusted the Lord and in this moment wis considered a righteous man
• How about us?
• What is the primary character of faith?
• Faith is based on what you don't know
• take a step of faith and it is called risk
• Faith requires us to take a risk.
• We don't want to take risks
• we control our lives
• We build our lives around comfort, safety, risk-free world, etc. These things have come idols for us.
• if you live your whole life like this, you don't need faith
• it's very easy to live like this but hard to follow Jesus
• Which would you rather have?
• comfort vs. faith-filled life
• life when you give it all to God is exciting
• let go of all the things you are holding onto and throw it to Jesus
• risk everything - He gave up everything for you