For those of you who don't know, I am spending five weeks of my summer in Barbados with a group from Campus Crusade for Christ. We're going to be ministering to the students at the University of the West Indies, which I am so excited about. I've put up this little blog to keep you all updated as I prepare to go, raising support and trying to finish school with my sanity intact and such, and I will try to update it as much as possible while in the Caribbean.
Let me explain the title of my blog just a bit: first of all, it's essential to understand how very important words are to me. I'm an English major, a grammar guru, and I fancy myself a bit of a wordsmith. So not only are words very important to me, but I'm a big fan of plays on words, and I have lots of opportunity for those being a Christian whose name is Grace (Amazing Grace, Grace Greater Than Our Sin, let's all say Grace, the list goes on forever). The title of my blog, however, is not from a hymn (though the address is. It's part of a line from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, which is one of my favorite classic hymns. "Tune my heart to sing Thy grace." That song is so beautiful and so meaningful). It is from a poem by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. As someone with a distinctly Scottish heritage, it is practically my duty to hold him in reverence, and I do. This particular quotation however, speaks of people's "sighing, canting, grace-proud faces, their three-mile prayers and half-mile graces." It isn't a positive description of people, but I chose it anyway, for two reasons. 1) It has such a nice ring to it that I simply couldn't pass it up; and 2) I'm not accustomed to being very far from home. While a half a mile is a bit of an exaggeration, I really have not ever been very far from home--this is the first time. Five weeks spent more miles away than I can probably count. So I sort of began thinking of myself as a "half-mile Grace," since I'm such a homebody, and realized that I would need more than three-mile prayers in order to make it through this trip. Maybe that doesn't make sense to any of you, but I thought it made an appropriate title for my blog, and thinking of what the line actually means will be likely to keep me in check--make sure my humility, attitude, and grace are intact.
So that's what I'm asking of all of you. Your prayers, from many more than three miles away.
In news on the actual Barbados front, I am chugging along on support. I am up to $2575 at this point, and the total cost of my trip is $4350. According to one of my project directors, with whom I had a conversation yesterday, that is right about where I need to be. So that is a big relief. Keep praying, though, since I still have quite a bit left to raise. If you're interested in helping me out financially, please make all checks payable to Campus Crusade for Christ, and send it to my parent's address: 1620 Houston Drive Spartanburg, SC 29307.
Also, I am now Facebook friends with everyone going on my project (it's a tiny project--there are only about 12 of us, so we should all be great friends before it's over), so it's very cool to have a face on all the names and know a little about one another.
Thank you for keeping me in your prayers. More news will be along soon.
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