Vision and Purpose

Tuesday 9/17 was a BIG DAY!

We got into class, had worship then were given our charge for the day. I say charge because it wasn't an assignment but a charge to search your heart and listen to God to tell us about our self.

We did a Cleansing and Filling packet and it was full of scripture and questions to search our hearts of sins that we might be committing and need to be reconciled of it.

It was so cool how God gave us all the time and spoke truth to us through the packet. It was an amazing reflecting time to focus on God and repent of sins and start afresh and encouraged.

We then headed off to a camping site on Table Rock Lake. I got the privilege to spend time with girls while putting up our tent and hammocks for the night. After everyone was all settled in we had sloppy joes for dinner. They were so good, and I got to share how Dan and I met and our engagement story to a group of girls. I love doing that!

After dinner the fun really began. We all had written our testimonies out the night before and knew that we would begin to share them in front of everyone starting tonight. It was so cool. We spent two hours listening to testimony after testimony and just to hear God get bragged on in every life story. Yes, we are all broken but we have the opportunity to share how God was for us and what He taught us through it. My Testimony is going to be attached at the end of this post. Feel free to read it if you would like.

One thing I loved in writing out my testimony was the helpful tips from The Institute on how to do it well. I am going to share them with you and challenge you to write out your testimony so you can be ready at anytime to share how amazing God is and prove it through your life.

Four parts to a Testimony

1. What my life was like before I met Christ. (Least time)

2. How I realized I needed Christ. (More time)

3. How I committed by life to Christ. (Even more time)

4. The difference Christ has made in my life. (Most time)
By answering these four questions you have your full life story, and guess what you can make your testimony around 5 minutes long. That is so great to share with anyone.

Wednesday morning we started with breakfast and straight into listening to testimonies. Lunch was a community picnic on the K-1 upper fields. It was fun to see all the different Kanakuk Kamps office works and families that live in the community. They welcomed us to the community. The next part of our busy day was going around in a smaller group and talking about different parts of campus that relate to student life or our campus jobs. The four rotations were internship description, mail, kitchen, and champ cabana (which is what they call the competition with cleaning our dorm rooms). Following that we got to have some recreational fun by playing games of whiffle ball, softball, and kickball. After having friendly competition and becoming all sweaty we headed to the Chancey's home (president of Institute) to have a ice cream social and finish up the rest of the Institute.

Thursday was one of my favorite days so far. I am going to give the high points then focus on my favorite part of the day. We started by doing a campus job draft and then training in that job. We have an amazing opportunity to spend this year here in Branson and going through this program for $10,000. That is not how much this program costs but through having campus jobs we are working for our education. It is so fun. My job was predestined as we're a lot of peoples, and mine is Kitchen Manager on Thursday. So, I help cleaning the kitchen after lunch and dinner on Thursdays. For lunch that day we went on a little trip to Springfield, MO to my favorite restaurant Chick-fil-A! I was so excited!!! Following that we had the awesome opportunity to spend the next four hours outdoors and with The Lord! Our charge was to write out a vision, philosophy of life, and a purpose. This was great but so hard. This was my favorite part of the day and will expand at the end of post. After our time with The Lord we went to Incredible pizza and had there buffet to eat and had a fun time doing some karaoke with old 90s music. It was hilarious! After that we got back in our cars and headed back to our Hawaii retreat home.

Now to expand on the charge we were given for the day. Our vision, philosophy of life, and purpose. As I said this was great but hard. It was a wonderful time with The Lord but hard to really pinpoint what I really wanted mine to be. Our afternoon consisted of two locations to reflect and dig into God's Word to answer these questions. The first location was a cemetery. Now don't freak out, it wasn't morbid or weird. It honestly was very respectful and eye opening. We were told to think about what would you want written on your tomb stone once you leave this world? What do you want your legacy to be? As you walk around look for the vision, philosophy of life, and purpose written on the tomb stones of these people you don't even know. This was a very hard time for me. I am an emotional human being so I did cry reading the names of people and hurting for the people they left behind. And along with grieving for the people and searching the tombstone of the people who have left this place I was encouraged to not take thesis charge lightly. This was a cemetery that was for the military and there were many grave that were marked "Unknown Soldier". Looking at all of them I struggled with a lot of hurt. I hurt deeply for the families that didn't get to say goodbye to their loved one and through that didn't get to write their purpose of life on their tombstone. Instead these soldiers gave their lives and they are unknown to us. I started to reflex also how I want my charge to have an eternal mindset and not just for this world. How yes I want to be a respectful and encouraging wife, an incredible mom, a teacher of music, and so much more, but through all of that I want to be a disciple of Christ and spread His name. Our second location was a park and this was more of sitting and listening and searching through God's Word to put the words together for each statement. 

I have not finished this charge still working on finalizing all the words and flow of each statement. I want to leave you with this. If you haven't thought about why you are here on earth then you will perish. Proverbs 29:18 says just that "Where there is no vision the people perish". With that I encourage you to definitely think if not also write out your vision, philosophy of life, and purpose. This is how they explained and the question to answer for each part.

Vision = WHAT you want to accomplish

Philosophy of life = HOW you expect to be able to fulfill what God has called you to do

Purpose = WHY you are bringing these dreams a reality

I hope you have been encouraged and truly reflect on your story God has given you to share His name and what is your vision and purpose for this life here.