Name:Katie Location: Wichita, Kansas, United States Birthday:3/2/1987 Gender:Female
Interests:People and places, but mostly people. Not Xanga. Expertise:Smiling really big at swing-dancing parties. Being a good college girl. Speaking French. Some occasional sign language. Dancing around like an idiot. Boy Meets World and Saved by the Bell. "I'm KATIE." Occupation:Student
Getting off the plane, it smelled like Pawnee Prairie Park. Makes sense, it's right near the runway. But that actually made it summer. Heavy, warm concrete, park, summer.
I forgot how everything was so flat. Just flat. My brain couldn't recognize anything from the plane, starry lights scattered in all directions under the storm.
My house smells like it did when we moved in 5 years ago. Everyone's house has a smell, but you never notice your own. My house probably smells like this to everyone who doesn't live here. But it smells and I know I'm here and it's real.
I have books, clothes, food, dishes, pictures, folders, boxes, presents... and all of it has to fit into 2 suitcases, 1 carry-on, and a backpack. And it has to be in there very soon.
A bit of Kansas showed up in Rome, and we all ran around doing normal Kansas things amid ruins and fountains and gelato and lots of Italian people who probably thought we were strange. I loved it so much.
Last night at GBU, we had one last dance party and they gave me a Bible and a card. They all wrote in the Bible. They LOVED Allison. We laughed a lot and a couple of them actually hugged me. I thought I'd cry, but I didn't.
Maybe this will be like the morning I left Manhattan: rapidly leaving what seemed like everything and everyone I loved, but without a single tear because I knew I was going the right way. I knew I had to be here, in France, and that the Lord would be with me.
I have to trust that now, too. I have to trust that I will be able to adjust to Kansas the way I adjusted to France. I have to trust that people who might not understand me completely will still love me. I have to trust that God will put me exactly where he wants me to be for this time in my life.
And more than anything, I HAVE to pray for this city, these people, this nation... because I desperately want to see them again--in this life and eternity.
...even having said that, I can't help but think, "what the hell do i do now?"
I'd spent the afternoon packing my winter clothes and listening to the Passion podcasts from Kiev and Stockholm. At one point, Louie played a live clip from the night in Kiev when he'd asked, "Is there a generation here of people who love Jesus and want to live for him?" As the translator's voice echoed the question in Russian, the response was a deafening roar. I rushed to turn down the sound, fearing it would burst a speaker, and as I did so, burst into tears.
Of all I've seen this year of the work God is doing in France, the things happening in the Church here, I just wanted so badly to hear something that loud, that deafening, that threatening to the life of my Mac speaker responding to the same question in French.
The Church here is lonely. It's quiet. Its subtle presence must be sought out. One's affiliation with it must be firmly justified. But it is GROWING.
One preacher recently compared France to the girl that Jesus resurrects in Matthew 9:24. "She is not dead, but only sleeping."
So as I walked along the main street, my heart just ached... thinking of the possibility of a crowd of French students making such pure noise for the name of Jesus, wanting that so badly for this place. I must have looked slightly insane, but I let my hand drag along the sides of the buildings as I walked, touching every shop, restaurant, bakery, and bank between Maki and La Cotonne, humming and praying:
Talking with people of other religions makes me think: about their theology, about my theology. About worship and joy. About purpose and obligations. About where I stand in the eyes of God and the eyes of others.
I have a good friend here. She is lovely. She is fun. She is Mormon. We disagree. We like to quote SNL skits while making chocolate covered strawberries. We like to debate doctrine. These are the things I mentally scream during those discussions. This is what a Christian believes about Jesus.
There is ONE God.
He exists as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in ETERNITY: a state to which time has NO application.
Jesus was fully man and fully God, the LORD in human form.
-John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."
-John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We hae seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only (or Only Begotten) who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
-John 10:30, "I and the Father are one."
Jesus is God's ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. (Begotten = past participle of "beget": to bring into existence by the process of reproduction)
-John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son (or only begotten son), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
We were created to give glory to God our creator, the only God.
The only way we can do that in God's presence (read: Heaven) is to become holy.
Jesus' sacrifice covers us. In Him we are made holy.
Eternity in the presence of God... making noise... crying Holy Holy Holy! (Isaiah 6)... that is what I'm waiting for.
Rachel told me something critical tonight: that when you're examining other faiths, doctrines, and beliefs, you have to look at their statements through the lens of the Bible. Not the other way around. Discernment.
I love truth.
"Certain Christian doctrines constitute the core of the faith. Central doctrines include the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the atoning work of Christ on the cross, and salvation by grace through faith. These doctrines so comprise the essence of the Christian faith that to remove any of them is to make the belief system non-Christian. Scripture teaches that the beliefs mentioned above are of central importance (e.g., Matt. 28:19; John 8:24; 1 Cor. 15; Eph. 2:8-10)." (apologeticsindex.org)
