Christmas with Cru

One of the best things about beginning a new ministry is being able to make new traditions! This year, for Christmas, we held our annual Cru Christmas Service for our last meeting of the semester. Rather than have a speaker and a message, we spend the meeting reading passages from the Bible and singing Christmas & worship hymns together to celebrate the birth of our Savior. This year, Marshall did an awesome job of putting together an all acoustic worship service complete with a banjo! Needless to say, the worship was incredible.



Between the Christmas lights, the worship music, and spending time in God's Word, the service was the perfect last weekly meeting of the semester! It was a great night of coming together to worship God for all He has been doing at Southern Miss as well as celebrating the coming of His Son.

Immediately after our Christmas service, we all headed to the Harwell's house for our annual Elf Christmas party! Dressing in our tackiest Christmas gear, we all gathered together to taste the entries for the dessert contest and watch the highly-popular movie, Elf.

Watching Elf

Packer Santa. 

Our Christmas service and party were a great end to the semester. However, the best end to the semester was welcoming our newest future staff woman and staff wife, Peyton! Andrew proposed to Peyton this past week and they will both remain in Hattiesburg after they are married at the beginning of this summer. We are so excited for their upcoming wedding & marriage and even more excited that they will be staying in Hattiesburg!

All the staff women (and future staff women!!)
From left: Elizabeth, Claire, Amy, Peyton

A time to weep, A time to mourn

I realize that a lot of couples who go through this do not speak of it to other people, and they definitely do not write it on their blogs. However, I daily encourage our students and our friends to be open and vulnerable with the Christian body, and so how can I not be as well? I have written, re-written, and come back to edit this blog entry so many times in the past couple of weeks that I have truly lost count. I cannot honestly say why this has been such a battle to write. Whether its my fear that the moment I write these things out in public that suddenly all of this is real and I cannot go back, or whether its just the fear to be completely vulnerable and acknowledge that we are in a time of suffering. The reality is, whether I have chosen to acknowledge it or not, this is real, and it is painful, and it is, at times, extremely terrifying (as it is most times that God asks you to give something up).

However, before I really go into details of this valley we are currently walking through, I want to make a few points very clear. First, God is ABSOLUTELY good no matter what the circumstances. Although Mitch and I are currently suffering, we do not doubt the Lord's sovereignty or His goodness, nor will we doubt those things if this valley continues for the rest of our lives. We are absolutely positive that all that we are going through both now and in the future is for our good and for the good of the Lord and His glory. Secondly, I am very aware that there are people that have been suffering with this days, months, and years longer than we have and my heart truly aches for those of you who have or are currently going through this. I in no way want to compare our short journey into this with your journey or say that I can sympathize with all of the things you have gone through in this process. With that said, here we go.

With the coming of the new year, Mitch and I will be venturing into our 14 month of trying to expand our family. After seeing a doctor at the beginning of the semester (obviously we work with college students since our calendars are still by semesters), and having some tests/charts done, we were deemed infertile and began fertility treatment. The last two cycles have failed, and we are entering our last month on this specific medication. Although we completely believe that God is able to do all things, we are not overly hopeful that this last cycle will be any more effective than the others.

This is honestly the hardest thing I have ever walked through in my life and definitely one of the longest moments of suffering that I have endured. At the beginning of all of this, I refused to call it suffering. I'm not really sure why, I guess I just believed that there are way worse things that could be happening and therefore it wasn't worthy of being called suffering. However, as someone kindly pointed out to me, the definition of "to suffer" is this: (1.) to submit to or be forced to endure (2.) to feel keenly, to labor under (3) to endure pain. And that is where we are.

I love children. I have desired to have children of my own for as long as I can remember, which is why Mitch and I immediately started trying once we got married. And I think that is one of the main reasons this has been so painful and terrifying for me: acknowledging the fear and possibility that I may never be able to have children. The second reason this has been so painful is acknowledging that the reason we might not have children of our own is because of me. Since all Mitch's tests came back positive, the problem lies with me, and that is absolutely heartbreaking. And oh does the Enemy know that. The feelings of fear, shame, anxiousness, and hopelessness can so easily settle in if we are not careful to turn to the truth of the Gospel and trust in the Lord through this.

Since I do not desire to write a book on this (although it seems like I already have), I want to end on the same note that I began on. I do not know how long this journey will be. We could get pregnant next month, or we could never get pregnant. I simply do not know. But what I do know is this: I completely believe that God is good, that He is on my side, and that no matter what happens through this, His glory will be magnified. He has been so faithful to us in all things, but especially in this time of suffering, and we rejoice because of that. The Lord is with us, and He is faithful, blessed be His name.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

"Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story.The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God,
to help us begin dreaming the highest dream.They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream." ~Larry Crabb

"The Big News": Summer Assignment

It is official, Mitch and I will be leading a summer project to East Asia this summer! We are extremely excited (and a bit overwhelmed) and it seems like May cannot come fast enough. For those of you who do not know, CRU sends students on summer projects every summer, all across the world; Miami, Jackson Hole, South Africa, Ethiopia, South Asia, Italy, Spain, and Bosnia, just to name a few. (To see a full list of all the summer projects available and if you would like to read more about the trips, you can go to gosummerproject.com)- Or, if you are a student reading this, COME WITH US!

Anyways, back to East Asia. Due to security measures, we are unable to disclose where exactly we will be stationed this summer other than, well, the East side of Asia. In addition, we are unsure of whether we will be allowed to bring a computer at all so I cannot guarantee that we will be able to do weekly blog updates like we did while we were in South Africa last summer. Enough of the things we cannot do, let me tell you about what we will be doing!

We will be living in East Asia for six weeks, from May 14th to June 28th. During this time, since we will be entering the country as students, we will spend each morning taking a language class at the local university. (On a side note, if you had told me 2 years ago that I would be taking a summer class in East Asia I would have laughed in your face- Funny how God works!) In the afternoons, we will spend time getting to know students, inviting them to spend time with our team, and hopefully getting the opportunity to share the gospel with them. Again, due to security measures, sharing the gospel is not exactly legal so we will be creating trusting friendships first.

Mitch and I will be attending a Summer Project Director's Training and Conference in Denver this January and we will be able to share a lot more information about our trip and specific prayer requests after that week. However, until then, please begin to pray for the Lord to raise up students to come with us on this trip, especially from Southern Miss.