An Amazing Year

Hi everyone! Wow, it has been quite a while since I last wrote, sorry about that! I am not very good at keeping up on this while I am knee deep in reading and paper-writing, but I am done with that now, at least for the summer :). I can't believe that i just finished my first year in seminary...it seems like I just got here. Let me tell you, it has been incredible! I am still blown away that the Lord has me here and has given me this amazing opportunity to study His Word and to get to know the people here in this community; so far, this experience has exceeded my expectations. Up till a couple months ago I was not sure if the Lord was calling me to stay here to do more school or to go back home after I finished the one year graduate certificate program. After much prayer I really felt the Lord directing me to continue on in my schooling and am still seeking His will regarding what program to do. It is quite interesting, something that I never even considered before as an option keeps coming to my attention and has gripped my heart more than any of the other options...that is the Master of Divinty program. What I love about it is that it has all the classes i am passionate about, the Bible classes, the language classes (I just had my first semester of Greek last semester and loved it) as well as ministry-oriented classes. All the other programs focus on only one of those areas, whereas this program would enable me to learn practical ministry skills while still allowing me to go deeper into my study of Gods amazing Word, which is what brought me here in the first place. I would very much appreciate your prayers regarding God's leading in this! I am not quite sure yet what God is calling me to do after school, I trust that He will show me in His perfect time, but I know He is preparing me...step by step. He is filling me in on a need to know basis and not too much beyond that :). He has guided me this far, i trust Him with all my heart to take me the rest of the way. The Dean of the school is encouraging me to pursue teaching...we will see. All I know is that I want to help people know our Amazing God better, to know the truth of His Word, not some diluted or misguided interpretation of it, and to know Him more personally, His truth, His love, His comfort, His joy, His Sovereignty, His power, His grace, His promises...Him! He is so amazing! I am still in awe that I get to spend this season of my life studying Gods Word, His holy, perfect, living and active Word!
With all that said, I do very much miss all of you back home and look forward to seeing everyone when I come out to visit in July. My prayer for us all is that we will daily grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, that we will more and more be able to grasp the height, width and depth of His love, and that we will live with our eyes fixed on Him, the author and perfector of our Faith and in so doing, bring Him great glory and reflect Him to a lost and broken world. Keep on perservering, keep on praying, keep on trusting; however bleek circumstances may seem, however far hope may seem to be, whatever challenges lie in front of you always know this, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, He is Sovereign, and He is good. Please let me know how I can be praying for all of you and thank you so much for your prayers!

Much Love
Cari