An Open Letter to Liberty University and David Nasser

So out of the 20+ speakers who are scheduled for the upcoming Fall 2015 Liberty University convocation this year, only 5 of these are women, and one of them has a man scheduled to speak the same day.

First of all, I would like to take a moment to write specifically to David Nasser. Pastor Nasser, I applaud you and your work here at Liberty University. I do. I am in full support of you and everything you have done for this school even in the single year you have been here. I could not be happier with a campus pastor. I know you faced a lot of opposition from a lot of different people here since you joined the LU family. And on behalf of the student body and those who agree with me, I sincerely apologize. You do not deserve, nor have you done anything to deserve, the criticism and the terrible words you received. You are a blessing to this school and I am excited and expectant to see what positivity you bring to us in the years to come.

But, to whom it may concern, and to you as well, Pastor, I want to extend a suggestion: You need to bring on more women convocation speakers. Approximately 56.5% of both the residential and online population or Liberty University is female. That is your demographic. These young women are the majority. Young women don’t need middle age, married men with 2.5 children telling them how to live out their faith. They need older women who have successfully navigated the world both as a Christian and as a woman, as well as everything else that comes along with those titles. If any of the young women (or any of the women for that matter), who sit on campus or who watch live streams of convocation come from a similar background I do, they didn’t have a lot of women leaders. They didn’t have good, godly, Christian examples to look up to. They had mothers and grandmothers, yes, but they almost certainly did not have other women they were taught about or they heard about who were successful in their fields and lives and who were also Christians. I know I did not. Now, we are in college or we are continuing our education, and in this time we have to expand our horizons and see farther beyond our homes and our childhoods, we still do not have strong, Christian women to look up to and to sit under. We are still listening to men. And yes, men are the ones who God ordained to be pastors. I understand that and agree with that. It is biblically-based and sound.

 But, Liberty University, you do not invite just pastors onto your stage. You invite all kinds of people into Vines Center. You invite politicians and journalists and authors and comedians and missionaries and performers into our Liberty Bubble. So why can’t any of these people be women? There are women politicians and journalists and authors and comedians and missionaries and performers who are all successful and who are very good examples to bring in. Women have just as much experience in their lifetimes as their male counterparts do, and sometimes, they even have more experience. Yet we do not see them, and we do not know how to find these women. Liberty, you have an incredible opportunity to pour into the lives of these women. Because women are the doer’s of the world. Women do not sit and talk as men do. Women stand up, and women wake up before dawn, and women get things done. And this generation of women are so eager to get up and to move and to get things done. But when we do not see any other generations in front of us encouraging us on, we become disheartened and discontent.

This generation of Christian women do not need an older generation of men telling them the same thing 20 different ways. We NEED to see more successful women. We NEED to see Christian women who have overcome the stigma of being a woman. We do not need men telling us how they think we should succeed. We need women showing use how they themselves succeeded.

You have one TBA spot open in the Fall semester. I ask and I pray that you all deeply consider bringing in a woman to speak.

Frustrated and discouraged, 

Emily E. 

From the Field- Airport Thoughts

So... It's been a while since I last posted, but I am very happy to announce that I am officially in the mission field. I am currently sitting in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport waiting for my flight into Vancouver. While sitting here, I've come to the conclusion that I hate airports. I love flying, it's like riding a really long roller coaster, but I do not like airports at all! I feel so self-conscious just sitting, with all these other people, trying not to look at them, hoping they don't look at me, and then thinking, there's a soul behind that face. I remember why I'm here in the first place. I'm not going on vacation. I'm going on a mission. I am going to proactively fight a battle against the enemy. I am joining forces with two other young adults and a whole church so that we may save lives. I am here to be the embodiment of love to people.

As I sit here, listening to a man talk about the fascinating business of medium sized farming, I remember that God has given me a specific job to do. He has given me a charge. Change the world. Go and do the job I have for you. Go and show them Jesus through your actions. And still I sit here, too scared to strike up a conversation with the older couple splitting a few seat s down from me. Too scared to ask the two really rude guys to stop cussing and looking at me like they're trying to impress me. Too scared to ask the other loner why he's going to Vancouver.

But I'm also too scared to ignore them. I'm too scared to not wonder what their life is like. I'm too scared to not think that they might need Jesus. I'm too scared to let myself take a nap and block everyone out for an hour. I'm too scared to not see them.

A little boy ran by earlier dragging a suitcase behind calling for his mom and dad. At first, I worried he was lost, but he seemed intent on following a certain woman, so I thought he was with her. But then she didn't turn around. By that time, they were farther down the way than I wanted to go. I am so ashamed. I could have gone have him, should have gone after him, and made sure he was okay. What if he wasn't? What if he's still wandering the airport? What if it was all my fault? I could have shown him how much Jesus loves the little children, instead I showed him how much our world doesn't care.  I haven't even gotten to the final stop and I have already failed in my mission.

I've held eye contact with an older man several times, and yet never said a word. For all I know, he could have been begging me to tell him about this Savior,m this Jesus I know. For all I know he could die tomorrow. I have been sitting in this airport for two hours and I have refused to listen to the cross of the souls surrounding me.

Who am I, that God would want to use me, a dirty, rotten, heartless creature, to spread the love of the Gospel. Why would He choose me, a lazy, disgusting child, to teach about His truth? What qualifies me to do any of this?

The answer is nothing. I am nothing, I have done nothing, and I will never be anything significant enough to qualify me for Kingdom work. Yet, even in this, God looked at me, pricked my heart, and said, "I want you to go. I choose you. I chose you before you were even born, because you are special. You are precious to Us, and We want you to be a witness to the awesome things We can do through the broken vessels. I have chosen you, my child."

Jeremiah 1: 5-8, "I chose you before I formed you in the womb; Inset you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. But I protested, 'Oh no, Lord, God! Look I don't know how to speak since I am only a youth.' Then the Lord said to me: Do not say, 'I am only a youth,' for you will go to everyone I send you ton and speak whatever I tell you. Do not be afraid of anyone, for I will be with you to deliver you. This is the Lord's declaration."

Emily E.

To-Do for Canada

I am officially finished with High School. I graduate in 18 days. I leave for Canada in 41 days. Where has the time gone? Everything about my life is changing.

But enough with the melancholia, I have Canada update for you!

To do for Canada

• Arrange travel and airline tickets within the next week.
• Complete the following paperwork:
• Federal W-9 form
• Student Missionary Insurance Application
• Direct Deposit Authorization Form
• Send above forms to the North American Mission Board
• Share missionary placement with church so they can begin praying with me
• Wash clothes and pack my things

I cannot believe this is happening guys! In other update news, i am going to visit another school, this time looking into a recording and music production program. I have my last high school piano recital in exactly one week. I then have my graduation party in 17 days. After that, I have two graduations, both of which I will be performing at.

Also, on a more personal level, I had a time of devotion with God today for the first time since October. With how crazy my life has been with school and Canada stuff, I've put it off. None of that gives me an excuse, now does it? In the last three days, I've realized that I am not going to be any use to God in the mission field if I can't even begin with myself. How can I share with others the amazing story that is Christ if I can't remember what He has done for my life? The answer is, I can't. If I went out today, and I tried to tell people about the Gospel, i would be the biggest hypocrite. I started one of the week-long devotionals available on my YouVersion app (which is the best Bible app out there, it has almost every English translation of the Bible, and has dozens of other languages as well. The devotionals it has available for you to use are excellent as well. My sister highly recommends any of them written by Lecrae.), and this one talks about Authentic Serving. This is the last of the Authentic series that You Version has available, and so far, I quite enjoy it. 

I chose this devotional to help me find that attitude of a servant. Any case I get to meet any of you one day, I will warn you now by saying I am an extremely selfish and lazy person. It takes a lot of effort on another persons part to get me to get up and do something. This has also been a center of conflict in my house, because when you have several small children who need constant attention, a selfish, lazy teenager is not someone you want to be responsible for. So obviously, I need a very big dose of "get-your-act-together" to get me into that serving mindset. And today's topic was "It's Not About Me". How appropriate.

I firmly believe that if anyone is thinking of going into any kind of service industry, whether it be ministry related or not, they have to start with a heart of humility. No one can properly serve another if they are going about it with selfish intentions. It does neither party any good, it only hurts them both.So, naturally, I had some reluctance about going to Canada in the beginning, because who am I that I am qualified to have the privilege to serve God in one of the darkest 1st world countries? But, I think that's exactly why He chose me. I am nothing special; if it wasn't for the passion for music and the drive to succeed that was instilled in me at a young age, I wouldn't have accomplished anything out of the ordinary. I don't think I have accomplished anything extraordinary, to be honest, not yet. And even when I do, it won't be through my strength  it will be through God's guidance and grace in my life.

Maybe that's why I was called to go. So people can see my flaws and my problems, and see that God can love someone like me, and He can live someone like them, too.

Looking forward,

Emily E.

Local Missions: Operation Christmas Child

This past weekend, 12/7 and 12/8, I went with my youth group to Atlanta, Georgia to the Operation Christmas Child processing Center, where they collect all of the boxes sent in from the entire Southeast and sort through them and stuff. We went to help with the process and ended up working for eight straight hours. There were several different jobs, several of which I ended up doing, but I mainly unpacked the shoe boxes out of the bigger boxes (the workers called them cartons). I would take out the boxes, open them, and check for any money placed in the box for shipping purposes. As a result, I was able to see the letters and notes from the people who packed the boxes. Almost every box that came in had a note. We had one carton that was completely filled with boxes from one elderly lady. In the last shoe box, though, she had put a check for shipping, and it was for 39 boxes. Thirty-nine. That's a lot of boxes, not to mention $273 to be paid in shipping.

I didn't keep track of how many boxes I looked through, but I think I unpacked somewhere around 20 cartons or so. So, let's think about this mathematically. If there were an average of 26 shoe boxes in a carton, then:
20 x 26 = 520 shoe boxes,
520 shoe boxes = 520 children,
all who are going to be given the hope of Jesus. And if the children subsequently share the Good News with their family, specifically their parents, that's:
520 x 3, child, mother, father.
That's potentially 1,560 people reached through theses shoe boxes. And that's just the boxes I unpacked for my group. There were at least 20 other stations going through cartons, if they went through 20 cartons each as well,
20 x 20 = 400,
400 x 26 = 10,400 shoe boxes,
10,400 shoe boxes = 10,400 children
10,400 x 3 = 31,200 people who could potentially hear the Gospel.

That's only in the eight hours we worked on Friday. They have been sorting boxes for several weeks before and will be sorting until Dec 17. That's a giant amount of boxes from the Atlanta center. if I remember correctly, there are five (six?) other processing centers in the country. That equals a whole bunch of boxes  which equals an even bigger bunch of people.

What I'm trying to say, is even if you don't feel called to go on a mission trip to another country, there is always something you can do to help grow the Kingdom of God.These shoe boxes you make in your own home go all around the world to give a child a Hope they have never known before. One day, someone is going to come up to you and say, "You packed a shoe box, and I was given that box. Through your gift, I accepted Jesus. Thank you." That makes it so worth it. If you feel that you can't help spread the Gospel where you are, think again. There is always something you can do.

Serving as He calls me,
Emily E.