Urbana was good.
At first, I had a hard time dealing with a lot of stuff. I didn't know I was such a hater, because the first few days, I was really critical of a lot of the people. I could not stand the prayer leaders because the woman was way too emotional and her husband sounded like a gay guy (yeah, I'm a sinner), and I just could not take them seriously. (Seriously, every single time they came up to lead prayer, my heart sank.) A lot of the people there annoyed me because they applauded after every single statement they thought was important. (There were thousands of people there and everyone has a different idea of what's important to them, so you can imagine there was a lot of clapping.) I was also pretty critical of some of the speakers and if I didn't like something they said, I could not take everything else they had to say at face value. Yeah, I was a poor sport from the beginning...
I was rebuked in small group, and I tried to stop being so judgmental. That helped a lot...
Aside from a little fatigue and a bad attitude in the beginning, everything was pretty good. Witnessing 20,000 people singing praises to God in unison was an amazing sight to see. That's a small glimpse of what Heaven's gonna look like! Singing and dancing to Spanish praise songs was different, but man, was it fun! (I am seriously going to re-learn Spanish.) And what better way is there to celebrate New Year's than by singing praises to God? Yeah...worshipping God through praise was definitely one of my favorite things at Urbana...
I was also blessed to see so many so passionate to proclaim Christ's name all over the world... While I have my own personal convictions about missions away from home, I've come to realize that I have a lot of work to do here. I've been a fool this semester and I've hurt God and myself more than I ever knew. I'm gonna try to live more faithfully and more obediently...
(As a sidenote, this has really been a bad semester for me. I didn't just get one C... I got two. Stupid Alex...tisk tisk...)
By the by, Happy New Year's Day... Well, not so happy for me... Eh... You live, you learn... I learned.
At first, I had a hard time dealing with a lot of stuff. I didn't know I was such a hater, because the first few days, I was really critical of a lot of the people. I could not stand the prayer leaders because the woman was way too emotional and her husband sounded like a gay guy (yeah, I'm a sinner), and I just could not take them seriously. (Seriously, every single time they came up to lead prayer, my heart sank.) A lot of the people there annoyed me because they applauded after every single statement they thought was important. (There were thousands of people there and everyone has a different idea of what's important to them, so you can imagine there was a lot of clapping.) I was also pretty critical of some of the speakers and if I didn't like something they said, I could not take everything else they had to say at face value. Yeah, I was a poor sport from the beginning...
I was rebuked in small group, and I tried to stop being so judgmental. That helped a lot...
Aside from a little fatigue and a bad attitude in the beginning, everything was pretty good. Witnessing 20,000 people singing praises to God in unison was an amazing sight to see. That's a small glimpse of what Heaven's gonna look like! Singing and dancing to Spanish praise songs was different, but man, was it fun! (I am seriously going to re-learn Spanish.) And what better way is there to celebrate New Year's than by singing praises to God? Yeah...worshipping God through praise was definitely one of my favorite things at Urbana...
I was also blessed to see so many so passionate to proclaim Christ's name all over the world... While I have my own personal convictions about missions away from home, I've come to realize that I have a lot of work to do here. I've been a fool this semester and I've hurt God and myself more than I ever knew. I'm gonna try to live more faithfully and more obediently...
(As a sidenote, this has really been a bad semester for me. I didn't just get one C... I got two. Stupid Alex...tisk tisk...)
By the by, Happy New Year's Day... Well, not so happy for me... Eh... You live, you learn... I learned.
