-AH-

2 days and 5 hours.

-Frustration-

"To educate Christians who will make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ. Matthew 28:19-20" -- Corban College's mission statement, taken from the Corban website.

Matthew 28:19-20 reads, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

I am getting ready to leave (in 5 days) for a Spring Break mission trip that is organized through Corban and Saint's Equipped to Evangelize. We have been working since October to prepare for this mission trip. Our team mission is based off of two verses in the New Testament. In the book of Matthew. In chapter 28. Ironically enough, these are the same two verses as exist in Corban's mission statement.

We are going forth to make disciples. We are following Christ's command to go. Shouldn't my Christian school, which exists to "educate Christians who will make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ", support our team? One would think.

Only that's not the case.

I have fought tooth and nail with the academic council this year. They have denied some of my fundraisers and have been adament about not allowing us to be excused for the 3 days of classes we will be missing while in Italy. My team members have all saved up their three allotted "excused" absences for every one of their classes. They have not skipped a class yet so that they can use those allotted absences for the days of classes we will miss next week.

And yet I hear things like this from the professors:
"If you miss the exam because of a mission trip, you will not be allowed to make it up. You will have to take a zero on the exam. Mission trips do not count as excused absences."
"You cannot expect me to be okay with you missing two days in a row of this class."
"Mission trips should not happen over Spring Break. It is not a worthy reason to miss class."
"These trips could just as easily happen in May, after school is out, when students wouldn't be missing class."
"It is disrespectful for you to miss my class for a trip that you want to go on."
"Students missing the days before Spring Break is uncalled for. Things will be very different next year."

It makes me sick.

These professors condemn the mission trips out of one side of their mouth and encourage the athletes out of the other side. Most athletes miss class at least once a week to travel to games, and every one of their sports absences are excused. If they miss a test, they have several days after returning from their absence to complete the test. They still receive points for doing the reading for class, even if they're gone when the prof records the reading.

And, no, I am not exaggerating on the athlete information. I have talked to multiple athletes about what happens when they miss classes for games and the same thing is true across the board.

I have heard the argument that, because the school is paying the athletes to be here, they need to excuse their athletic absences. My question is this: shouldn't those of us who are paying to be here be allowed to use our three allotted absences however we wish? Or, better yet, shouldn't a school who exists to "educate Christians who will make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ" support the school sponsored mission trips and excuse students for missing two days of class?

It makes me sick. We are going halfway across the world to Satan's backyard, and we're not even being supported by the professors at our CHRISTIAN school.

Now, this does not reflect the view of every professor at Corban. I have come across plenty of professors who whole-heartedly support the teams. These professors have blessed and encouraged my heart an incredible amount over the past three years that I've gone to Italy. I am so thankful for them.

It just hurts my heart that the rest of the school can't get behind us and support the fact that we are going to share a life-changing truth with these people who may not hear it otherwise. I just want things to go back to my freshman year, where almost half of the school went on missions trips, and everyone was excused.

Corban is changing a lot....and I don't think it's always for the better. It hurts my heart.

-Exhausted-

In the past 60 hours, I've had 4.5 hours of sleep.

sick. why do college profs schedule half your tests and make almost every paper due in the same week? theology mid-term, LD test, CAC paper, LD paper, another LD paper, HJC test...all in one week. plus trying to do everything that I'll miss next week.

MISERY.

-Where I'm At-

I am stressed.
I am excited.
I am exhausted.
I am blessed.
I am ready to quit.
I am restored.
I am broken.
I am beautiful.
I am hurting.
I am held.
I am afraid.
I am secure.
I am nervous.
I am protected.
I am weak.
I am strengthened.
I am persecuted.
I am safe.
I am alone.
I am loved.
I am loved,
I am loved,
I am loved.

-So Close-

12 days.

I can't wait.

We're still over $7,000 short. I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to provide. This is such a challenging, heart-wrenching, stretching, growing, faith-building experience.

Satan does not want us on this trip. He's tried (and succeeded) to discourage my heart and my team's hearts so many times. He's thrown up countless road blocks. But my God has knocked all of them down. THROWN them down.

I can't wait to see the wait He provides this time.

-Provision-

My team is leaving for Italy in 15 days (wahoo!!). As of Friday, we still needed $13,000 for our trip. Rather scary. We were starting to feel a little more confident, though, because we had 2 fundraisers planned for this past weekend: Krispy Kremes and a can/bottle drive.

Saturday morning, I left school at 5:30 with three of my teammates. We followed our mapquest directions to a T and they sent us completely the wrong way. Lame.

We finally got to Krispy Kreme about 20 minutes late (good thing they give you a 1 hour window!). I walked up to the counter and explained that we were there to pick up our 150 dozen fundraising doughnuts. The lady disappeared to the back room, came back out and said "I'm sorry, we don't have an order for this morning."

Great.

After some communication with the general manager and the fundraising department, they told us they would make our doughnuts - but it would take about 2 hours. We said okay because we had no choice, but, in truth, we were a little disappointed because it meant we would lose out on our two biggest selling hours - 8 to 10am.

We got the doughnuts (which barely fit in my car) and drove back here. We get to our location and it's dumping rain. Here in Oregon, the rain has to be rather crazy for us natives to say that it's truly dumping. But we got set up anyway. We didn't sell anything for the first hour. By noon we'd only sold about 20 dozen doughnuts. Discouragement was setting in pretty heavy.

We came together as a team and prayed and when we said "Amen" there was a line of 4 cars waiting for doughnuts from us AND the rain had stopped.

Throughout the rest of the day, the rain pounded, the wind blew like crazy, we had hail, thunder, everything. The last 2 hours were sunny. We had 2 dozen doughnuts left so we decided to pack up and we'd try to sell the last 2 dozen here at school. One of the girls prayed right then and there that God would help us sell that last 2 dozen. No less than a minute later, someone pulls up and asks for 2 dozen doughnuts, if we have any left. Praise GOD! We made $600 from the sales and $300 in donations. $900 in 12 hours. Praise God!

Then Sunday we spent the day doing a can/bottle drive. I honestly didn't think we'd make much. At our meeting Sunday night, my treasurer and I counted the money and we made almost $400. Wow!

Then we gathered up everyone's support checks that they'd gotten throughout the past week and we had another $2,200.

So...in 2 days...God gave my team $3,500.

It was just so amazing to see all of the road blocks that Satan was throwing up in front of us (the doughnuts, getting lost, the horrible weather, discouragement) and watching our great God tear every one of them down.

SO COOL.

And then we had a meeting Sunday night and I had each of my teammates share something that God has taught them since starting the preparations for this trip. It was so cool to see how He is working in their hearts.