These last few days have been an absolute blur. Holiday parties and festivities and countless hours of homework and assignments in between; it's been so crazy I couldn't have told you what day it was when I woke up this morning. But, by the grace of God and by about a hundred tiny miracles, I have made it to the end of my first semester of grad school. After I finish my last paper tomorrow, all that is left standing between me and the plane ride home is a presentation and an optional final exam.
It is so crazy to think that in the moment all of this seems so important. When I'm in the middle of it, school is the only thing on my mind. And, up until this evening I really hadn't noticed how physically exhausted I am from the last few weeks. So this is when I dig. I dig my heels into the ground, tie my hair back, and finish the semester with all the strength I possess so I can go home to the people I love. I have never been a person to give up, and so this is the type of moment that I thank God for making me as strong as I am because I know I can make it through this!
Please keep me in your prayers the next few days. A few things in particular:
*My sanity and health
*Finishing my paper to the best of my ability and having my grades reflect that effort.
*And finally safe and punctual travels on Wednesday. If all goes according to plan I should leave Greenville by noon and be in Portland by nine that night, so please join me in praying that that schedule stays true to my itinerary and nothing goes wrong with any of my flights.
I am pleased to say that within 48 hours I will be able to say, as it does in 2 Timothy, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." And to add my own additional bit to that, "I'm coming HOME!"
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
Learning to Call NC Home
I'm back!!! I can't believe it's been three and a half years since I last wrote an entry on here! I'm still keeping the name though because it translates to "the desires of my heart," and now I just get to write about a different desire of my heart that has been fulfilled.
For anyone who needs an update, I was accepted into the Maritime Studies graduate program at East Carolina University so almost two months ago I packed up my life and moved from Portland, OR to Greenville, NC (which Google has officially calculated as being a 2,949.5 mi. move). North Carolina could not be more different from Oregon, but I am slowly but surely learning how to call this new and strange place home.
This last week has been especially rough on me. Between the shooting in Oregon, the fact that the NOE kids were in Portland running and I couldn't be there, and all the flooding and fear going on here and in South Carolina it has just been an emotional time. Praise God that Greenville was not hit nearly as hard by Joaquin as we were supposed to be, but several other areas have had devastating damage so I ask your prayers for the family and friends of many of my friends here who now have to deal with the water damage from flooding.
I have, however, been able to take hope in the Lord, knowing full well that he would not have brought me here if I wasn't prepared for the challenge he set before me. He gives me daily hope, reassurance, and strength, proving to me each and every day, in large ways and small, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be! The following are lists of praises and prayer requests, I want to keep you all updated so I promise that I will do my best to make these blogs a more consistent occurrence now that I have developed more of a set schedule.
I love you all!!! Sophie
Some praises:
*I have connected well with the staff and students of Campus Christian Fellowship and I am beyond grateful to have them as a refuge of faith and security in this new and strange place.
*My roommates are both amazing and the three of us get along really well which makes life outside of school a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.
*The Lord has given me countless opportunities to expand socially, as well as the courage to seize those opportunities and as a result I have gained more acquaintances and friends in the almost two months I have been here than I did in my two years at Portland State.
*My scientific diving class is going extremely well, and my insecurities of being one of the more in-experienced divers in my program are melting away as I realize that I can and have passed each challenge that has been thrown at me.
*It's raining and, I HOPE, the humidity is finally going away!
Some prayer requests:
*While the people in my program are nice, I live a very different lifestyle and have very different morals, not to mention what I am learning in my classes about theory and human evolution goes against everything I believe as a Christian. I ask for prayer for strength in my faith and for God to give me patience with my colleagues because I am going to be working with them, possibly, for the rest of my life.
*I spend a lot of time with the Campus minister for CCF, his wife, and two small children. Their son Hudson is about a year and a half old and has Cystic Fibrosis so i ask you to keep him, his health, and his family in your prayers.
*I have a 20ish page midterm due on Thursday which is mentally and physically draining me.
For anyone who needs an update, I was accepted into the Maritime Studies graduate program at East Carolina University so almost two months ago I packed up my life and moved from Portland, OR to Greenville, NC (which Google has officially calculated as being a 2,949.5 mi. move). North Carolina could not be more different from Oregon, but I am slowly but surely learning how to call this new and strange place home.
This last week has been especially rough on me. Between the shooting in Oregon, the fact that the NOE kids were in Portland running and I couldn't be there, and all the flooding and fear going on here and in South Carolina it has just been an emotional time. Praise God that Greenville was not hit nearly as hard by Joaquin as we were supposed to be, but several other areas have had devastating damage so I ask your prayers for the family and friends of many of my friends here who now have to deal with the water damage from flooding.
I have, however, been able to take hope in the Lord, knowing full well that he would not have brought me here if I wasn't prepared for the challenge he set before me. He gives me daily hope, reassurance, and strength, proving to me each and every day, in large ways and small, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be! The following are lists of praises and prayer requests, I want to keep you all updated so I promise that I will do my best to make these blogs a more consistent occurrence now that I have developed more of a set schedule.
I love you all!!! Sophie
Some praises:
*I have connected well with the staff and students of Campus Christian Fellowship and I am beyond grateful to have them as a refuge of faith and security in this new and strange place.
*My roommates are both amazing and the three of us get along really well which makes life outside of school a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.
*The Lord has given me countless opportunities to expand socially, as well as the courage to seize those opportunities and as a result I have gained more acquaintances and friends in the almost two months I have been here than I did in my two years at Portland State.
*My scientific diving class is going extremely well, and my insecurities of being one of the more in-experienced divers in my program are melting away as I realize that I can and have passed each challenge that has been thrown at me.
*It's raining and, I HOPE, the humidity is finally going away!
Some prayer requests:
*While the people in my program are nice, I live a very different lifestyle and have very different morals, not to mention what I am learning in my classes about theory and human evolution goes against everything I believe as a Christian. I ask for prayer for strength in my faith and for God to give me patience with my colleagues because I am going to be working with them, possibly, for the rest of my life.
*I spend a lot of time with the Campus minister for CCF, his wife, and two small children. Their son Hudson is about a year and a half old and has Cystic Fibrosis so i ask you to keep him, his health, and his family in your prayers.
*I have a 20ish page midterm due on Thursday which is mentally and physically draining me.
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