Mansfield Plantation entrance
us at dinner at the Goat Island Grill
Jake on a rope swing at Mansfield
slave quarters at Mansfield
riding bikes around the plantation :-)
me with Valerie!!!
Jake with his discipleship group going to shoot guns!
Together for the Gospel 2010

Well, I haven't updated this blog in a looong time...over a month!! April is one of the busiest months for us on staff, so i'll give a few highlights of what has been going on this past month:

-we had a great Easter with the McCouns!! It was my first Easter sunday with them, and it was great!! We went to Perimeter Church in Atlanta which is a wonderful, reformed missional church. We also had some time to just relax and read while students were at home with their families!

-From April 13-15th, we went to Together For the Gospel in Louisville, Kentucky. The conference was a pastor's conference, and there were 7,000 people there, the majority of them men. The theme of the conference was "The Unadjusted Gospel", meaning that there is one true gospel and it cannot be changed regardless of modern culture...it is always relevant! We heard sermons from Al Mohler, R.C. Sproul, CJ Mahaney, Mark Dever, my favorite John Piper and more!! One of the most encouraging pastors we heard from was Matt Chandler, a pastor at the Village Church in Texas. Matt was diagnosed with a brain tumor around last Thanksgiving, when he suddenly had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. Now going through chemotherapy and being told he has up to 3 years to live, he is walking by faith and is a living witness to the grace of God and the fact that Jesus is better than life. Their family (he has a wife and 3 young children) is claiming Psalm 112:6-8 which says

For the righteous will never be moved;

he will be remembered forever.

He is not afraid of bad news;

his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.

His heart is steady;

he will not be afraid,

until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

-We have been planning and preparing for the Leadership Project, which will begin on May 26th this year. We will be heading to Greenville next week to prepare, and then down to Myrtle Saturday morning. Woo hoo!! We have 73 students coming to the beach this summer, 23 of them from PC. We are so pumped about the theme for the summer, "Witness". This comes from the scripture 1 Peter 2:9 which says, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Our theme has two facets: That we are image-bearers of Christ because we all, as humans were made in the image of God, and yet when we become Christians we possess the Holy Spirit and so throughout our lives we are becoming image bearers as we continue to be transformed into His likeness. Secondly, the fact that we are image bearers compels us to be message bearers, and to share Him with others!! We are so excited to see what God will do with the theme in our hearts and in the hearts of our students.

-I met one of my heroes in the faith's daughter, Valerie Shepard. Valerie is the daughter of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. Jim was a missionary in Ecuador who was killed while trying to witness to the Auca Indians. His wife, Elisabeth, and daughter Valerie later lived with the tribe and they became Christians! Elisabeth has written many books about Biblical femininity, but two of my very favorites are Passion and Purity and Let Me Be a Woman. Her daughter, Valerie and her husband are church planters in North Carolina, but they have also been missionaries to the Congo in recent years. Valerie spoke of being a wife, mother of 8, and the struggle with the belief that she had to live up to her mother's reputation (she discovered this through studying Galatians and the false gospel of works). It was awesome!! Here is a picture of me meeting her!! :) :) I was SO excited since i reference Elisabeth's work with girls all the time!

-We went on our anniversary trip to Mansfield Plantation in Georgetown, SC. If you've ever seen the movie The Patriot, part of it was filmed here! Jake and I had so much fun exploring the plantation, riding bikes, and getting to know the other couples that were staying there! We also went antiquing around the town and to dinner at some great restaurants, my favorite was the Goat Island Grill.

Here are a few pictures from the month!! I will try to do better at updating what the Lord is doing in our lives. Right now I am reading through a great book about sin. If you know me, you know i struggle more with cheapening the grace of God than with legalism, so this book, The Enemy Within, is a great practical tool for me. I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with fighting sin!!