week six.

Week six of dts has flown by and I’m already beginning my seventh week here in Deutschland. I also find out my outreach locations this week, and will inform everyone of where that is soon after I know for sure.

Again, forgive me from being so absent in my blogging, but also emails and facebook. It’s quite a struggle to keep up with life here, and find time for internet when I don’t have access to it where I live in the apartment in town. I shouldn’t say struggle, that may give the wrong impression. Life here is extremely different from life at home, but I am in love with it. Living in community 24/7 is something I never thought I, an assumed introvert, would be into. But so far it has been the best thing I have ever been a part of. It’s funny… in high school I always wished that I could live in a house full of girls and travel before I got married. The dorm thing was never in the cards for me, and I never saw myself having money to travel. But then God was like, hey, I’m calling you to Germany and you’ll live in an apartment with twenty of your sisters. Yeah, that’s my God. This is better than I could have ever imagined, and I am intent on soaking up every minute of it. It’s such a gift to live in a community people trying to center their lives on just simply loving Jesus and loving each other. Beautiful.

It’s not perfect, there is the occasional drama of someone not washing their dishes, or maybe someone not cleaning out their hair in the tub after a shower.. But what miniscule things in the bigger picture of how awesome this living situation is. I love it.

Anyways, moving onto week six. It was one of my favorite weeks here!

Our speaker was Dan Baumann. What stories this guy has! Whew. His testimony is one that you listen to and just sit back in awe thinking…. God is freaking awesome. His love for Jesus is so evident, and even through stories like being imprisoned in Iran for nine weeks, He is just bursting with a heart for God. I wish I could write all the stories we heard.. not only did we learn a lot but he had us laughing so much.. the guy has a way with story telling. If you want to look into that, he has a couple books ‘Imprisoned in Iran’ and ‘A Beautiful Way’. Highly recommended.

Anyways, God really blessed us with having him here the week we did. The week before was really heavy, and through Dan, God really picked everyone back up on their feet.

Things that really stuck out to me this week:

-          Life is about discovering how good God is over, and over and over again.

-          The Christian life isn’t always about knowing what we’re doing, it’s knowing God is good and in charge.

-          Everything we do for God, will come from intimacy with Him.

-          Jesus is madly in love with us. Not for what we might become, but He loves us now, for who we are every moment.

-          A lot of times, we want God to make things clear, we want confirmation so we don’t fail. But rather than being stagnant, it is okay to live according to what you think God is saying, rather than leaning on our own understanding. Trust His character.

-          Money does not make decisions!!! (big one for me). God is bigger than money. God is bigger than the economy. God provides.

-          God is more committed to fulfill His will for our life than we are to find it.

-          God is more committed to take care of us than we are to ourselves.

-          There is never a fear that can keep us from obeying God. Fear is a distraction; go forward no matter if you’re feeling the fear. Don’t live for this earth, live for something bigger!

-          If God has asked us to do something, we are ready, it doesn’t matter how we feel.

-          God will give us the grace and the power to do the next thing He askes us to do.

-          Life is not about what you should and shouldn’t do, it’s about discovering Jesus.

-          Passion for God is based on God, and God’s commitment for us, and that He died on the cross, and that we are part of His Kingdom will never change. It’s not about how we feel or the ups and downs of our emotions. It’s about how good He is and that will never change.

-          When we focus on what we should or shouldn’t do, it becomes religion. Religion kills. We don’t fix ourselves with religion. Jesus fixes us with a relationship. Instead of focusing on ourselves, focus on falling in love and becoming consumed with Jesus.

-          God’s character is the foundation of passion!

-          We tend to walk in comparison and that is a killer. God doesn’t have to speak to us in the same way He does to friends. God wants to communicate uniquely with every human on the planet. It’s supposed to be that way.

-          We’re in a journey of discovery. It’s more about the ability of His character than it is for us to get it right.

-          Many times we pursue God to get guidance. But rather we should pursue a relationship with God, and guidance comes along with it.

-          Want clear guidance? Spend time with Him. Know Him. Hangout with Him.

-          There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, and that is better than guidance.

Okay, so those were some points from the first few days. Then he covered something that I really resonated with. Decsion making. Dun dun dun. I have struggled so much with this, just wanting to “make the right choices.” The next points really opened up my eyes… God is so good you guys.

-Options have created a paralysis in our society. There are so many! We analyze them. We just don’t know the right one and we’re scared to make a mistake.

- What should we do? Run to God! Dive into the word. Spend time in prayer and simply with Him. But at the end of the day, DO SOMETHING! There will not always be confirmation. Take action! Love responds! Live life lovingly, rambunctiously loving God rather than sitting around waiting and waiting!

- If we fail, or realize we should have done something else, we fall into the unconditional love of God. Not so bad, eh?

- When we don’t know what to do, God is very clear. LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE.

- Do we still ask for specifics? Of course. We are in a relationship with God and must always run to Him. Never stop running after Him, but when He doesn’t give specifics, do something loving God and loving people.

- We will not miss His will for our life if we are pursuing Him. Just do something.

- The big deal is not where we’re going, it’s who we’re getting to know in the process.

- Step out and start going forward. Step out in love for Him, love does things.

- We look for a formula to get it right, and there isn’t one. God wants us to have something better, Himself. We run to Him, not to a formula.

Phew. How good is this? God is awesome. And I don’t mean that in a fluffy phrase that Christians are supposed to say, seriously, all caps now so you know I’m serious, GOD IS AWESOME! He is bigger and greater than we can wrap our minds around.

We also covered topics like fear, and fear of failure (a big one for me).

Then Friday came, and it was my birthday! Yippee. I turned twenty-two!

It was an early morning, I had a photo project to print so since the printer was all booked up I had to get in there around 6am, which meant a 5am wake up time. From the moment I woke up, there was just an outpouring of love. I received the sweetest notes from my friends (was well as chocolates and my obsession here, cashews!) and hugs and well wishes everywhere… my prints turned out perfectly how I wanted.. Coleton stayed up late his time to skype with me and sang me a beautiful birthday song. It was already a great day and it wasn’t even 8am yet! Since it was a Friday, we had worship/praise time at 8:30am, and a friend of mine was leading so it was immediately announced that it was my birthday, so before I knew it I had 120+ people belting out happy birthday to me… it was fun! But more than all that, was the singing. God was so present, and although I know He is always present, this time I could just feel it. Everyone could feel it and it showed. It was awesome. Best way to start a birthday, just praising God and declaring His goodness at the top of my lungs… ahhh. Gives me goosebumps just remembering. Anyways, it felt like that the majority of the day. All day love and joy just seeped through every minute, seeped through every second of the day. And when I thought it was over and time to relax back at the apartment, I arrived home to a surprise party from the girls… beautiful. I can’t tell you how excited I am to start off my twenty second year of life diving into a deeper relationship with God.. I have so much yet to discover about His goodness and character and my wish for this year is that my hunger to know Him grows. It’s going to be a crazy adventure… whoever thinks following Jesus is a boring way of life has got it seriously wrong.

Phew, yeah! Go God.

So that was week six. One of my favorite weeks here, but I say that at the end of most weeks. This week is already underway, praise God for all His goodness He has shown already. Ah.. can’t say it enough.

Again, I’d like to extend an invitation to email me at any time for more information, or elaborations on different things. I share bits and pieces, but it’s certainly not a full story.. Each day feels like 3 weeks, a lot happens! So if you have any questions or anything to say at all just email me at k.calli@hotmail.com. I don’t promise a quick reply, but you will get one. 

-Kelsey

Four weeks later...

Hello everyone!
I realize I have been missing in action for awhile, and I wholeheartedly apologize for that. My internet here is very limited. I will try to get a blog post up soon, but until then, i'm going to try to do as many updates as I can via email.

Please email me at k.calli@hotmail.com for an email about the last 4 weeks. It's quite long, and very very personal, but I am open to sending it to whoever wants an update.

I want to be very open and honest about my time here, so feel free to ask any sort of questions as well!
Thanks guys!

the last five days.

When I arrived in Herrnhut on September 2^nd after a long two days of traveling, I fully had in mind to write this blog post filled of what I now realize would all be complaints and gripes about traveling and how I lived in an internet-less apartment for the time being. Then Saturday night happened. All we were told was that we should be on base by 6pm for dinner, and bring warm clothes and sleeping bags if we had them. We thought we knew what was going on, since most of us had seen THIS (the part about sleeping in boxes) video from the MOTA DTS that was last fall.

We had a great night of worship and getting to know the leaders of all the art tracks, but then they changed the tone. We started to talk about the millions of refugees around the world, and what their situations are right now. Many of the leaders have a very passionate heart for the refugees, and wanted to share what they knew and where their heart was at with all of us.

That night, after our discussion about the refugees, we were split into groups of four. Girls on the soccer field and guys on the garden. And waiting in these locations were a bundle of sticks, some string, and a 6 x12 foot tarp for each group. 

“I suggest not building your tent tonight, but sleep with the plastic covering you in your sleeping bags, if you have them. There is barbed wire surrounding camp, and you must ask permission to use the bathroom,” said one of the leaders.

We were asked to think about what it would be like to BE a refugee. Leaving with nothing, hoping to find something better on the other side. Well, it didn’t really sink in quite yet with me.

It was a beautiful night. We slept in our sleeping bag with the plastic covering us, and laid under the stars. I’ve never seen so many shooting stars in my life! My “tarp mates” were two lovely girls, one from Egypt and one from Singapore. We talked all about our lives back home, and customs. It was just so beautiful.. And my thoughts at the time were ‘Really? I’m sleeping under the most beautiful night sky in a georgous new country talking two two girls from all corners of the world. This is so awesome! God you are so good!’

Also, this whole evening I was thinking this was a one night deal, and even though I was pretty sore from sleeping on cold ground, I knew I had a really nice bed in a cute German apartment waiting for me the next day.

Or so I thought.

The next day went something like this:

We were now refugees.

We had to stay in the clothes were wearing.

We could not exit the refugee camp (unless of a health issue).

We could leave the social experiment at any time, but would not be allowed back in.

We were cut off from the outside world.

We had to make our tents with the given supplies.

Our food was rationed.

We at one point had to share a bowl with another “refugee” and had to eat with our hands.

We went for a long looooong walk in the blazing sun (it’s hot here!).

We were eventually allowed 3 minutes in our rooms to grab belongings for the next night, but they could only be a few select items.

We slept in the rain for a bit.

Unfortunatly, due to the weather this week, the leaders were forced to stop the social exercise to avoid sacrificing our health. I wish it had worked out (as miserable as we felt, we knew we needed to do this in order to really understand a tiny smidge of a fraction of what it was to be a refugee). They revealed to us the plan for each day of the week they were planning on keeping us there. They were going to cut our food supply drastically, set off fireworks during the night to sound like gunfire and “kidnap” some of us, grant some people rights and let them leave the camp (to show how the flow of people is constantly changing in refugee camps), destroy tents during the night, have 2/3 of us develop a disease in which we’d have to sit in the hospital tent with nothing to do, and had planted certain students around to start a discussion that ideally would lead to a camp revolt and we’d be rescued by big white vans on Friday night.

Great social experiment, right?

………

Well, after just two days of it, we were all so physically and mentally exhausted. Mind on overload, no sleep, no comfort, all sweaty, all jet-lagged, all without a clothes change in days. But we knew that in reality, it would end, and we would have a bed to go to. And it makes us feel blessed but also broke our hearts for the people that will never have the option of a soft bed.

It made us all think. Although were might have been sore, and tired and uncomfortable, we still had so many luxuries. We had sleeping bags, and coats, and whatever else we could grab to keep us warm. We had journals and pens. We had limited toiletries.

But real refugees, they have nothing.

Although the experience was nothing like a real refugee would have, it really got our minds going and started to open our hearts to these people who are so in need of our help.

Throughout the discussions we had on the refugee crisis, I heard three stories that night that I wanted to share with you.

Right now, thousands of people are fleeing Libya to flee from war and revolution. They want a better life for their families and have heard of refugee camps in Italy. So a large number of these people spent the last money they have for a place on a boat to take them there. But this boat was not sea worthy. And everybody wanted a piece of this hope, that this boat was their salvation, that this boat meant a new life and a better life for their children. They fled their homes taking nothing, and family after family piled onto this boat. After they set off on their journey filled with hope, desperation, and dreams, their boat sunk because of the amount of people, and every single one of them died. Drowned. Whole families were wiped out.

A woman in Kenya heard about a refugee camp a couple hundred miles away, and left with a group of people to find this camp. With her she had her baby and her other younger children. They walked for miles in the heat with little food or water. All they had was a promise of a better life in the refugee camp. And during the long journey, this woman had to make a choice. She barely had enough to go on herself, and she was forced by the situation to choose between feeding her younger children or feeding her baby. That baby was left at the side of the road, helpless, and no doubt died shortly after. Can you imagine, having to make that choice?

One thing I should mention about these refugees is that most are walking the far distances with bare feet. When they arrive their feet are bloodied and mangled, many with infections and sores. One woman agreed to talk to a reporter on her journey, and when he asked “how do you feel about this?” she replied, “I feel great! I have flip-flops while the others are barefoot!” The reporter looked down to see two mismatched pieces of plastic on her feet, very sorry excuses for flip flops. And yet, this woman was joyful because they were of so much value to her.

These stories are real. Things like this happen every day. They are happening right now.

And I feel like if I heard this story on the news a couple months ago I would have felt like “Oh, wow, that’s so sad.” And then flipped the channel so I could think about something else. Or maybe I would have wished I had never heard it at all.

What’s wrong with that paragraph? Notice how many times “I” was used. And how selfish to see a fellow human being who breathes the same air and who’s heart beats the same, suffering, and think about myself.

And what I realized was that, yes, this is sad. But it doesn’t help them one bit to feel sorry for them. And if you can’t physically help them, pray for them. Pray for them as your brothers and sisters. Pray for the women that are forced to leave their babies behind to die.. Pray for all the men, the women, and the children that are so desperate to find relief from their country, they have to leave their homes with nothing in search of a better life. And that better life is a camp. It is a sea of small tents, with little food and little supplies.

There are currently over 400,000 people dwelling in one camp in Kenya. Can you even picture all those tents, and all those people?

I know that I have learned alot here in the last few days. And this is just the beginning. 

I have many more things to discuss and more thoughts to process on here, but I think this is enough for today. My brain is on overload! God is doing really good things here, and He has certainly carried me through these last few days of change and uncertainty. 

If you want to get a hold of me, email me at k.calli@Hotmail.com! I'll try to get back to you asap, but my internet is extremely limited at the moment.

Madeline - Senior Session.

What a great first senior portrait session! Madeline was so great to work with, and obviously, adorable. Doing this shoot really solidified in my mind that capturing people's spirit and personality is what I want to do. I want to tell stories in the best way I know how. I'm excited to continue learning how to do so more effectively, and I can't wait for much of that learning to happen overseas (leaving in two days!). I'm trying out some new blogging ideas and working on a lot of custom techniques to keep developing my personal style. I'm so excited for what's ahead!

Madeline, I hope you have the most amazing senior year!

the countdown continues.

ten days
ten days 
ten days
ten days
ten days

that's one day away from being single digits.
wow. i think your prayers as well as mine are working. i woke up this morning, and for the first time in a week, i didn't have a nervous stomach. rather, i had alot of excitement about the journey ahead, and i can't tell you how good that feels.

i can't wait to explore a new country.
to learn about other cultures.
to meet new friends.
to learn more about God.
to grow... and grow and grow. 
to be on my own for once.
to break out of my comfort zone.

don't even get me started on all the photographic opportunities that await.
wow wow wow wow.

ten days!
but, i'm still short on funds.
i've hit a bit of a plateau at $1,700 and i hope you can help me break that.
i would love to see that number under $1,000 before i leave.

do you think you could help make that happen? i really encourage you to if you haven't already.
think about it.
or, don't think about it, just hit the donate button and do what feels right.