Equipped for every good work

EVERYONE IS GIFTED.

God has uniquely designed each person with specific gifts to glorify Him and further His Kingdom. These gifts include teaching, serving, perceiving, encouraging, administrating, giving, and extending compassion. Bayside has a ministry that helps people to discover their gifts and learn about some of the different ones described in the Bible. Last year in my first year of Twenty-Four Seven, school staff had us take the quiz to rate our motivational gifts from most active to least used. Then we had a class where we received a booklet and some teaching on each of the motivational gifts.

The first two times I took this quiz, once at the beginning of the year and another at the end of the year, I couldn’t see my top gifts being exercised in my daily life so they didn’t make sense. However, as a second year student, I got to take the test again and discovered that I have multiple ties in my three highest gift sets. Having a combination of gifts in the first, second, or third ranking can mean that you switch between the giftings regularly and operate in them at an even level. Now that I know that, it makes sense that my gifts changed between my first and second times taking the quiz.

In my top three I have teaching and serving as my first two gifts, then perceiving, and lastly for third, administrating and giving. These basically mean that I enjoy researching, explaining, and learning new things, as well as helping others with whatever they need whenever I can. I’m also pretty black-and-white and have strong intuition. For administrating and giving I basically enjoy generously giving to causes I support and can delegate, plan, or direct people well. With this combination of gifts, God made me pretty well rounded in general. I can have faith that He has fully equipped me for every good work He has set before me.

There's no place like home

FLORIDA IS MY HOME AWAY FROM HOME.

 (This is the very first picture Melinda my former homesponsor mom, myself, and Devon my past roommate took together. We had lunch after the family beach hangout last year during orientation weekend.)

When I moved to Bradenton last year to participate in my first year of Twenty-Four Seven, I at first experienced an extreme case of culture shock. Everything in Florida is entirely different from the DC area: the way people dress and talk, the food people eat, the climate and weather – everything. Until I had more fully settled in with my home sponsor and roommate, I despised Florida. However they helped me open up to it. My home sponsor mom last year and my home sponsor family have all blessed me so immensely. Without them I would not be able to do the program and get my schooling. Home sponsors provide their students with a second home and family. So many growing, learning, and serving opportunities arise from the families provided by my ministry school.

(These are my new home sponsor parents. I moved in with their family at the beginning of last summer. I am so grateful to them; they are awesome!)

Last year My home sponsor mom counseled me through rough situations, helped me live up to high standards, provided room and board, taught me from her life experience, and allowed me to help with her ministries at a local college. Even living with another student helped me grow a lot. She and I had some bumps in our road, and although learning to live with someone so different from me was the hardest part of last year, it probably taught me the most about leadership, compassion, friendship, and compromise. Because of our time together, I am closer to her now than almost all of the other students in Twenty-Four Seven. This year, since my home sponsor mom from last year is not home sponsoring again, I live with the program director and his family. Through my time in Twenty-Four Seven I have met numerous times with Pastor John and his wife Miss Kelly. Now I get the blessing of remaining in the school because I have a place to live thanks to them. I’m slowly getting to know their daughter Lexi, have fallen in love with their dog Toby, and look for ways to help when I can.  Living with them reminds me so much of life at home, but I love seeing their example of a godly family. The Matson’s also counsel me and Alex on our relationship and just allow me to experience a difference of lifestyle and time management. This family does so much, and I can never fully express my gratitude for everything they do for me, the school, and God’s kingdom.

God's children

KIDS ARE GREAT.

Growing up I got teased a lot by the kids in my class. As the years went by I never really learned to like kids, and claimed I would never get married just so that I could avoid having my own kids. Eventually, I started thinking badly of God’s creation, though. I would say things like “I don’t like babies because they are stupid, ugly, loud, and they smell bad.” When in reality I just didn’t know anything about how to handle babies or act around them because I never had exposure. That’s also partly because I was afraid of being a bad mother and didn’t want that much responsibility on my shoulders.

At the beginning of my first year, I made it very clear to the woman in charge that I did not like children even though I was required to help the church minister to children. She put me in check-in where I can mostly greet and help parents. However, that only lasted for the beginning of service, so for the rest of the hour, I would go to a classroom. In the room I helped the teacher entertain the kids by coloring with them, helped with students struggle to do the crafts, handed out snack while the teacher gave instructions, supervised while they played on the playground, led kids to the worship room, and even sometimes gave the lesson myself. I got to explore pretty much every age group from one-year-olds to fifth graders. While I enjoy serving, working with so many kids often overwhelmed and exhausted me.

(This is me and two of my first year girls with some kids at Bayside's weekly Saturday outreach, Adopt-A-Block. I drew a picture for Synthia who's hugging me on the left, and she loved it.)

Through Twenty-Four Seven I have learned to love kids by serving in Bayside’s children’s ministry, A.C.M.E. Almost every weekend for a little more than the last year, I served as a volunteer in the church’s Green Room. The Green Room is a place for volunteers’ kids to safely hang out instead of hearing the same Sunday School lesson four or five times every weekend while their parents served. This is where I found my niche in children’s ministry at A.C.M.E. I pretty much just get to play and have fun with the kids, watch movies, play video games, and things like that; my favorite part is probably the conversations I have while coloring. After working in that room almost every weekend, I’ve built some relationships with some of the kids, and they even recognize me outside of church. It’s great to see how I’ve had an impact on their lives by watching their attitudes and behavior towards others improve. Now I know that I can love kids; even if I never really like children super deeply unless they’re my own, I have a new perspective on parenting and God’s love for people.