What've you been doin' lately?

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.  

Psalms 13:5-6

This is probably the longest post ever about random life updates. But its been a while since Ive been able to talk to all my family and friends back home for any reasonable length of time. I apologize!

October has arrived. In fact, its been flying by with absolutely no concern for my feelings. The weather was beautiful this weekend. Something in the fifties I do believe. PERFECTION! In fact, I was able to pull out my flannel pajamas! The last time I wore most of my winter clothes was in Russia, so its almost an emotional process to pull out all my arctic apparel. Soon, it will be time to wear my favorite wool socks, but for now until it snows, I'm still rocking the flip-flops.

The weekend before last I went apple picking with the Christian Student Fellowship crowd, and we had so much fun! 25 apples ended up coming home with me, I just don't know how! There were about 30 of us who went, and it was wonderful to see both new faces and faces I haven't seen since last winter! One of my favorite thing about Jaswell's Farm is the hayride! Fun:) A bunch of us came back to my place after and carved pumpkins, baked apple deliciousness, and hung out. If my computer was working, or even if my work computer wasn't so ridiculous, I would show some awesome fall pictures. Sigh.

Speaking of computers. I am, again, in a technology dilemma.  My brand new laptop decided to kick the bucket. Why? Why? Why? I have treated it ten times better than the last one, offering it a nice little place to snuggle at night, safe from any sort of weird magnetism. I keep it in a special pocket in my backpack, so not to jostle or scratch it with all the nonsense I hike around with. I am glad I bought the most intense warranty ever, but still. Are you kidding me? This week it's going out for service. Until then, I am scrambling to get all my work done while I am at my work computer, which isn't a very efficient way to do things, but its the reality.

Last week Hannah and I rode our bikes about 7.5 miles. We just kind of rode and turned and wandered and journeyed. As usual, when we "travel" together, crazy things happen and we end up places we just don't even know. (Us: "Are we in Pennsylvania?" Firefighter: "No, you are in Delaware.") In our wandering we discovered this seriously awesome park called Neutaconkanut Hill, in a random urban Providence neighborhood. In fact, Neutaconkanut Hill (try saying that 5 times fast), is "88 acres of trees, field, grasses, and wild flowers, interspersed with valleys, ravines, glacial boulders, stone walls, fresh water springs and brooks, and is the natural habitat for a multitude of small woodland animals including deer, fox, and wild turkey." Seriously, who would have thought this place existed? I conclude that we must go there and have a hike and a camp out.

As for classes, well, meh. I am not very excited about this trimester. I'm taking Statistics. Math makes me cry. Enough said about that. Psychology is actually interesting to me, and my professor is a nutcase, which keeps things entertaining. (He wore a cape the first class, and last week confessed to being a UCC priest.) We talk about all sorts of engaging things, and I have a class that participates, unusual for a JWU general, continuing-ed, night class. My "Financing the Entrepreneurial Venture" class is somewhat enjoyable as well. All sorts of fascinating business case studies, including one about ZipCar, which I am intrigued by. My professor loves to use the word "cohort," and my classmates are pretty cool. I finished my Career Capstone class, and passed, which is great! Sadly, I dropped American Government, but my intentions are to CLEP it like its 1999! I am eager for Winter Trimester to arrive! Imagine: classes in my major, with great professors, at reasonable times, no night classes, and one beautiful, glorious online class! Ecstasy!

Ok, that's enough for now.

What have YOU been doing lately?

Senior Year Crazies

Today is the first day of my senior year of college. Time flies by!

Last night was the Student Activities Fair for all the incoming freshmen and transfers to check out all the Clubs and Organizations on campus and see if there is anything they want to get involved in. I am the President of the Christian Student Fellowship this year, and I thought our booth was quite legit! Here is Travis, Jake, and Jasmine folding some flyers. We even had cups with our logo and info on them. Legit I tell you.

At the end of the night we had passed out over 200 cups and received over 70 filled out info cards. I was also surprised at the amount of students coming up to us as asking us for information about finding a local church. I hope they follow through and put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. I also hope we can help them all get connected with local bodies. 

This year we are strategically looking at our ministry from all angles. We know we have about two years with most students. Travis, the campus minister, has come up with a list of topics we are going to focus on and disciple people through. We realized that by the time a student has graduated, we want them to have grown in these areas (condensed version):

• Discipleship (we want them to be discipled, and be able to disciple)
• Missions (thinking about long term and short term missions, how to get involved)
• Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (what is it, how to grow in these areas, also dating and marriage)
• Love for the local church (we want them to understand the importance of the local church and being a member of one )
• Christian World view (this affects all aspects of life)
• Evangelism

God has truly blessed me by bringing this ministry into my life freshman year and allowing me to grow alongside such wonderful people.

The classes on my roster this trimester are: 

• Intro to Psychology
• American Government
• Financing the Entrepreneurial Venture
• Career Capstone
• Statistics

For some reason I was so pumped about my major classes that left all my liberal arts classes until my last year. Which doesn't make for a very exciting senior year, let me tell you. Haha. Though my last trimester does include some travel tidbits. This is also the first year in the past two years that I will be doing academics all the way through, instead of two trimesters of academics and then one of an internship of some kind. Boring! Trust me if I could find a way, I would maneuver a way out of class, but no loop holes this year. Get in, get out, get my degree!

Otherwise this trimester I am busy working in the University Info Center answering tons of crazy phone calls ("my daughter blah blah blah late for class blah blah professor is wrong to do that blah blah blah.."). Busy living in a crazy community of awesome Christians. Busy trying to wake up at 5am and get to my 710zm classes and probably not get home until 10 pm. Busy trying to keep up with everyone from home and from RI and Russia and all over. 

By the way, I have no idea what I am going to do when I graduate, in case you were wondering. But I am not worried at all really. God is sovereign, Jesus was a hobo and the sparrows are taken care of. No idea what that really means, but basically I find no reason to fret. 

Ive thought about (and started applying to) seminaries. Gordon-Conwell in Boston and Southern in Louisville top out my list and both have pros and cons. Some sort of masters in Biblical Counseling would probably be my education path. Maybe I will get a job at the Southern New England AAA. Maybe I will move to Russia. Maybe I will vagabond across Asia. Its all up in the air :)  I am pursuing God, Im surrounding myself with wise people, and thats what really matters.

So yeah. One year left, lets make it a good one. 

Travel and the Rice Lodge

This last weekend was pretty awesome. Saturday I went with a bunch of tourism major friends to a Travel and Cruise Expo at Twin River Casino. It was pretty exciting, with over 50 displays from travel agencies, cruise lines, and destinations, there was alot to take in. We signed up for every single free giveaway, and took every single free pen or pamphlet available. By the end of our time there, hardly any of us could even carry our heavy brochure laden bags. There was even free food provided by local vendors, and we sampled some tasty treats!

Sunday-Monday there was a Christian Student Fellowship Leader Retreat up at the Rice Lodge in Massachussetts. It was for all the student leaders to get together, network, and brain storm. Kim, Ben, Dan, me and Jasmine all went and there was a total of about 16 other leaders present- representing 5 schools from the New England region. (MIT, UMass Lowell, JWU, Clark) We had a great time playing awkward ice breaker games, and having an interesting round table discussion about our different campus activities and ministries. I am thankful for Andy Haynes and Chris James who mainly put it together and guided us through teaching and discussion. It is good to meet and befriend students from other schools around the area because they can really relate. I came away feeling really excited and re-energized from this weekend, ready to get things going with JWU CSF in the areas of Outreach, Inreach, Missions, and the University.

Missions Focus: Russia

So about every other week at the college fellowship, Tuesday Night Truth, I give a little presentation on a country and some interesting facts and figures about religion, missions, etc. A few weeks ago I talked about Russia. Here is the link from the TnT blog. And here is the info:

Missions Focus: Russia 

• There are many interesting things to learn about this country and how we can be more involved in sharing the gospel.
• Russian Orthodoxy is the dominant religion in Russia
• Some residents of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions practice shamanist, pantheistic, and pagan rites
• 70 years during communism- scientific atheism was enforced

63% Russian Orthodox
16% non-believers.
12% said they believe in God, but did not practice any religion
6% Muslim
1% either Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish

Specific Ways to Pray:

• Russians are now turning to alcohol, drugs and occultism to fill their spiritual emptiness. Pray that God will do a work in this country and bring the gospel: allowing people to have hope, know love, and trust in God.
• Pray for church planters and missionaries willing to dedicate time and resources to spreading the gospel here
• Government begins to loosen grip on religious intolerance. 

Also, I follow some blogs of people that live in Russia- maybe as missionaries, or business people, or just a random family. Its really fascinating and encouraging to read stories that these people share about their lives and how they have come to adjust to life in Russia.

Check out these blogs:

• Mike and Karen McDonald's Russian Blog
• On Life in St Petersburg 
• The Bullherd: Serving in Russia

Brown Hockey Game

Last night I had the amazing chance to go to a Brown University hockey game. My friend Dan is an S/E/E major, meaning that he does sports, entertainment, and events stuff. He is some sort of coach intern for the Brown women's hockey team and he scored free tickets! It was so much fun!!!! I havent been to a sporting event in such a long time, and it felt good to get my cheer on. We made signs and painted our faces, and I even brought my speaker thing. Some of the guys made this huge cutout thing of a "d" and literally a fence. It was hilarious.  What a good night and I cant wait until the next game!!!!!

-Alissa-

Revelations and Sun "Rise"

This weekend, I attended a Christian collegiate conference in Hull, Massachussetts. It was a splended time with my group and with many other college groups. Here is a picture of the Johnson & Wales Christian Student Fellowship:

There were some great speakers and had alot of fun bonding with each other.  We always make an effort to be friendly and introduce ourselves to new people. A bunch of others joined in and we made alot of new friends, hopefully we will be able to stay in touch through the year.

Every year, (starting last year haha), I make an effort to come out onto the beach one morning and watch the sun rise. Usually no one really comes with me, but this year I made sure to let everyone know and encourage people to come. So Sunday morning I woke up around 6am and came out to see the 6:24 rise. Surprisingly, about 7 other people joined in. The pictures above are my awesome friends who woke up at the crack of dawn to come to the cold beach with me. Kim, Elyse, Hannah, Michelle, Corey, Sandra, Katherine! BUT- This year there was an epic storm the night before and the clouds hadnt moved away yet. So there was no sunrise to be seen. Quite sad actually. It was cloudy and dim, but it was still beautiful, and we told God that next year He should be nice to us and bring up the most glorious sun rise EVER!

Alon, Kim, and I= My fabulous roommates. I love them!

This weekend I learned a few surprising things. The main topic of the conference was "The Sufficiency of the Word," and it was quite interesting. But for some reason, I always tend to catch smaller points and get the most from those. One of the speakers was talking about being a Paul and being a Timothy. The idea is that they kind of needed each other to grow through a discipleship relationship. He encouraged all the "Timothys" to find "Pauls" and all the "Pauls" to find "Timothys" and just pour into each other. Pray with each other, give each other books to read, go through the bible with each other, challenge one another with personal struggles. I can think of all the people who have impacted me in this kind of personal one on one mentor kind of way- Jen and Craig Campbell, Pastor Tim, Mrs Watkins, Mrs Attfield, Mrs McDonald, Andy and Amy Haynes, Kevin and Melissa Mckay, Karissa Tolli, etc etc it could go on and on. I know that if these people had not been in my life, constantly spurring me to pursue the truth and holiness, who knows where I would be. I think a new goal for this year is to find some Timothys and just start encouraging them to take their faith to a deeper level.

Another thing that I gained as a result of this conference was some new friends. Because of this, I randomly stumbled upon an interesting note on facebook from someone that I dont know, but it really spoke to my life.

Without copying and pasting exactly, it goes a little something like this: Girl gets something she really wants. Girl puts all her energy and focus into pursuing and holding onto that thing that she wants. She takes her focus off of God and His blessings and constantly focuses on the blessing day and night. All the time previously spent on knowing God and hearing from Him is now spent waiting around and trying to get to know her blessing.

The note then goes on to say something like this:

"God has the power to show you who God is.
And this is God showing me who God is.
He's a jealous God. He doesn't like someone else becoming number one in my heart."

And for some reason I really relate to this. I lost focus on what was really important and I was dwelling on something secondary and the more I thought I was going to loose it, the tighter I gripped. But you cant hoard things in the Kingdom of God, especially if they become what your mind obsesses over and practically worships. God is not pleased when that happens and He will not let it happen for too long before He sends you on your way, empty handed and into the land of "Hey why dont you remember who gave you this gift in the first place and worship me."

 I think thats where Ive been for a few months now. In that crazy land of emptiness and realization that I have to repent of my idoltry and make God totally number one again. Even if it was just a sidetrack for a minute or an hour it doesnt matter. ANYTHING "good" or "bad" thats unchecked that takes God's place in your heart for more than a second is an idol. I think God has brought me a long way since entering this land. He has allowed me to realize what happened and that I need to turn my eyes back to Him. After this weekend and all the thinking I did, I think Im finally seeing the end of this empty and alone season and the beginning of a new refreshing one where God is the center, my portion, my rock, my sword, my shield.



Hope that all made sense.
Time to pack up and go home.
-Alissa

New England Collegiate Fusion 09 this weekend

I will be packing up and going up to Hull Massachussetts this weekend for the anual collegiate christian fellowship conference. Many students from all over New England and some Canada come for this event and it is a great way to make friends and meet new people. Also the theme for the weekend is "Supremacy of the Word" which will be a great word to hear. Last year was a great time and I have so many amazing memories.

The hotel is located right across from an Atlantic Ocean beach front area and about an hour east from Boston. I cant wait.

Right now I have to do some last minute Russian homework and pack alot more. Leave it to me to wait until the absolute last minute to do laundry. Heh.

Anywhoo. see ya on the flipside.
-Alissa

Setting a Precedent

Ahh man oh man, what a week. Things have been crazy busy with new classes, planning freshmen outreach events, working, and just EVERYTHING.

Last week my roommate and I hosted a "Taco Thursday Night" at our apartment, and we had SOOO many tacos and mexican food and tons of people. Learned the guacamole rule as well= no matter how much you make, or how many people, if you set guac out, in 10 minutes or less it will be devoured. People just cant get enough, its hilarious. Our apartment is perfect for hosting, and I am just so thankful. We had about 15 people in there, eating tacos, hanging out, and playing games. I am so happy to have a nice place that is accessible, open and friendly. And I love hanging out with all these cool cats!

Saturday night we took a little trip to Thayer St and had dinner. This was the first time for many new students, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Erica and I went to East Side Pockets for some falafel delight, and most others ate at Antonio's Pizza. Then we caught a bus back downtown and walked around WaterFire. It was one of the best WaterFires Ive ever been to. So many people and things to see and do, what a great night.

I think holding all of these diverse events through Christian Student Fellowship is such a great learning experience for everyone. I think its important to get new students into an atmosphere that is off campus. It helps them feel more connected to a community and its always good to eat home cooked food. I remember as a freshman all there was to do was hang out in the dorms, in the dining halls, with people from the school, and you almost forget that life exists outside. So far many of our new students have taken RIPTA on Smith Hill, gone to Thayer St, been to Hope highschool and played tennis, and hung out in church member's homes and apartments. Im pretty sure I didnt accomplish all of that in my first TWO years! Hopefully this is the right path to people really connecting with the school and the community.

My Russian class is going well. Its definitely a challenge to learn a new language no matter what it is, and Im trying hard. My professor is more of a immersion teacher and not so much a step by step learning kind of teacher. I tend to do much better with small gradual steps into something, but I have enjoyed her style and as of now I am the only person in the class, so it is very helpful and personal. I bought some extra study materials, and downloaded video Russian classes on iTunes which are realllllllly helpful. I could listen to the language all day long and never tire of it, which is probably a good sign.


Prayer: If you could please keep praying for missions opportunities and open doors all around, that would be extremely helpful. Also, please pray for my grandmother, as she is in a lot of pain.

Thats all for now!
God bless.