Kelly Corder

In my last post I mentioned that that Lord has given me a new direction for next year.  I’m excited to share some of that with you now! Earlier this year the Lord told me that my season here at Thrive was coming to an end.  I know that I am called to spend my life in Africa as a missionary so I’ve spent this year looking at other ministries to see what else is happening in Africa and listening, waiting to hear from God about what this season of life will hold for me.

Through that, I’ve become very interested in a ministry that serves in a country located in central-west Africa called Cameroon.  I’m so excited to announce that I’ll be able to visit that ministry this week!  The Lord worked out all the details, finances, travel visa, etc. and on Tuesday (the day after tomorrow!) I’ll be on a 6 ½ hour flight up to Cameroon.

While I’m there, I’ll be able to see two different ministry sites that have caught my eye.  I’ll only be in Cameroon for 11 days so this is going to be a whirl-wind trip, but I know there is something there that I need to see, hear or experience.  God did some crazy things through a lot of people to make this trip happen and I’m expecting BIG things!

I don’t have a camera but my roommate, Cassie, does and she’s letting me borrow it for the trip so I’ll be sure to post pictures when I get back.  In the meantime, if you find yourself reading this post, would you please take a minute to pray for travel safety as I will be traveling A LOT through various means over the next couple of weeks (thank you!)?

Also, I’ve put together a prayer calendar so that you can see what I’m up to each day and pray specifically for what each day holds.  Check it out below…

Hello again!  Thanks to my genius friend, Dave, my blog is repaired and back up!  Sorry for the lack of posts in the last few months, but now that all is working I should be posting again.

Here’s a quick update of a few things that have gone on since June:

- We had 24 wonderful Summer Interns join us for two months to experience life on the mission field.  They all had a great time and I especially enjoyed leading a Sunday night discipleship group with 6 of the girls!

- Our LaunchPad after-school discipleship classes have almost come to a close for the term.  God has been doing some amazing things in the lives of our students.  We had to miss a class one week and the students wrote us notes asking how we were going to cover all the material and offering to stay late or meet on additional days if necessary.  It’s such a privilege to see their hunger for the Lord!

-It’s been an interesting few months for me personally – as I’ve been leading in new ways this year the Lord has taught me so much about who He is and what my place is in his kingdom.  Also, the Lord has provided me with a shift in direction for next year but I’ll post about that later.

- And lastly, the Internship I’m directing this year has been…challenging…rewarding…eye-and-heart-opening.

Again, thanks for be patient while my blog was on sick leave and I look forward to re-entering the blogosphere!

and the eggs too.

When I was a kid my mom taught me how to make eggs-on-toast for breakfast.  It’s essentially bread with a whole in the middle filled with a cracked egg.  And it was an easy way to learn how to flip eggs, with the toast being a sort of “training-wheels”.  The only trouble was that I would occasionally forget about them on the stove and slightly (or not-so-slightly) burn them. Mom to the rescue, and she would eat the burnt ones and let me try again.

Well this morning I was making eggs-on-toast, still one of my favorite breakfast foods, and I let them burn a little.  It’s been along time since I burnt anything on the stove so I put it on my plate a looked around.  I guess I was looking for mom to see if she wanted the burnt ones.  But, alas, no mom and I was stuck with burnt breakfast.  In the spirit of not wasting food I decided I would eat it as it was and to my surprise it wasn’t so bad!  Granted, I am getting over a cold and my taste my be a little off, but still, not so bad!

Thanks mom, for teaching me that sometimes eating the burnt toast isn’t so bad after all.

This is not a blog about doing things right.  This is blog about experiencing excellent things.  In the last week I have had three excellent days and I want to share them with you, so read on if you’re interested (which, I assume you are.  Why else would you be reading my blog? J)

Excellent day #1

It started with my housemate, Cassie, and I getting up early on a Saturday.  How is that excellent you wonder? Because, we had a plan.  We drove about an hour away to a nearby town called Bethlehem, appropriately named due to its propensity to grow wild wheat (Bethlehem means ‘bread basket’).  I’ve spent a lot of time in Bethlehem in the last 2 months because that’s where the local hospital is.  Why I’ve spent a lot of time at the hospital is for another blog, but don’t worry mom, I wasn’t the one being treated.

Anyway, we decided to spend some fun time in Bethlehem at their (very small) strip mall.  The day included eating at an Irish pub, trying on adorable ankle boots, perusing their big super market, and seeing a movie.  The movie was the highlight of the day for me.  First, let me describe the theater – picture a small room with about 15 rows of seats.  The seats are very small and very close together, but if you scrunch down and put your feet over the chair in front of you, actually pretty comfy.  The screen is a decent size but here’s the best part… every time the wind blew outside the screen would shake!  It took us about 15 minutes to realize it wasn’t a filming technique.

And the movie we saw was great.  It’s called ‘Defiance’ and I highly recommend it.  We drove home happy and content.  It was an excellent day.

Excellent day #2

This was the following day, a Sunday.  I spent the entire day – I’m talking sun up to sun down – reading  on  my couch.  I love reading and it’s not often that I get to spend lavish amounts of time enjoying a book but it’s one of the few benefits of winter.  It’s too cold to do anything outside and not much beats a warm cup of tea and a good book.  The book I’m currently reading was the source of my last blog.  I read until it was too dark to read and fell asleep happy.  This was also an excellent day.

Excellent day #3

This was more of an ‘excellent evening’.  Tonight after church Cassie and I came home, had some left-overs, snuggled up in blankets on the couch and watched a bunch of episodes of the Gilmore Girls.  I got a lot done this week and I knew I didn’t need to work tonight.  It was great to just laugh and relax and not have that nagging I-should-be-working voice running through my head.  Plus, I’m getting over a mega-cold and it was nice to just kind of feel normal again.

I turned my heaters on in my room before our Gilmore marathon, so as I headed up the stairs and into my room, I knew I would fall asleep warm.  Yes, this was an excellence evening.

Thank you, Lord, for all the blessings in my life!

I love reading old books.  I love the yellowing pages that tell a story all of their own.  As I read, I often get swept away in imaginary lives of people who have held, who have read, the book that I am holding.  How wonderful it is to think of who they were and what was going on in their lives as they took time to read this book.  How did they react to what we have both read?  We’re they shocked… amused?  Which side of the moral line did they lean towards and did they laugh at all the parts that make me laugh out loud?

I picture a mom, taking time away from her kids to enjoy a good story.  Or a college student reading to sharpen the mind.  I can see their faces and almost feel their hands as mine, holding the same book.

I see a stain on the edge of a page and wonder if a table was bumped resulting in split coffee.  The cover is torn – was this book lovelessly thrown in a backpack or the back seat?

It’s not just the story within the book that I love, it’s the story the book itself keeps as secret.

It seems that the Lord wants to use this year, or at least this season, to bring some clarity to my life.  For the last couple of years I’ve been blindly following along with God’s plan and I’ve been happy to do so.  Sometimes faith needs to be blind, I guess.  I was taking change in stride and doing whatever the Lord had for each season.  My view was a go-with-the-flow, whatever happens, happens kind of view.

But now, it’s different.  For the first time (in my life, really) I’m asking for specifics from God.  And the cool thing is, I know He wants me to ask.  I don’t want to just be a stop gap and I don’t want to try everything.  I want to find out what I’m specifically gifted to do and then I want to get good at it.  For the first time, I want a plan.  Or at least a vague silhouette.  I’m seeking clarity of vision for my life – for the next few years.  The question I’m asking is: what did God create me to do?  Not ‘where should I be living’ – I know that answer: Africa.  And not ’should I be in ministry’ – that’s a yes.  What should I be training in specifically?

I suppose that sometimes faith needs to be wide eyed and perceptive.

I’ve always said that I don’t think I’ll ever sky dive or bungee jump.  I don’t enjoy roller coasters (usually) and I hate that feeling you get when you drive down a hill too fast.  So, naturally I assume signing up for an extended or repeated free fall wouldn’t be my cup of tea.  Having said all that, I was handed a flyer the other day that read “Wanna Skydive?” and I found myself answering “Maybe”.

My brother has skydived (skydove?) a number of times and I think he liked it.  Anyway, I think it’s wierd that I’m even considering it.  And, it’s fairly cheap – the price on the flyer was equivalent to about $125.

Have you ever been skydiving?  How was your experience?

I have the day off.  That should mean that I can do whatever I want with the time.  However, I can’t seem to chill out.  It one of those days where I’m struggling to do nothing.  It’s kinda sunny out too.  That always makes it hard to stay inside and watch movies – the sun says, “I’m warm and wonderful.  Find something to do out here.”  But the problem is that I want to watch a movie (ok, lets be honest – I want to watch a bunch of movies, on the couch, all day).

Hibo.  Doing nothing should be easier.

The best part about this gem is that I found it for sale in a Christian bookstore!

I have lived in Africa for almost 4 years and I have yet to celebrate my birthday in South Africa.  Somehow I always seem to be out of the country at this time of year.  Twice I was home in the states and twice I was in Botswana. Today I am celebrating my birthday in Swaziland.

It’s kind of ironic though.  People that live near me know that I love to throw parties.  However, I have yet to have a birthday party in South Africa, with my friends from Thrive.  But I think we make up for it with all our other parties throughout the year – Superbowl, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving and the list goes on.  And I usually end up with some pretty fun birthday stories – last year my birthday started with the house alarm going off (thanks, Jody!) and included swimming (one of my favorite pastimes), getting creamed by my birthday cake and being treated to a new african-style dress from my dad.  Who knows what could happen today?!

Anyway, I’m 24 today.  That number seems so small but I feel like I’ve lived a lot.  Maybe that’s how everyone feels.  Somedays I feel my age, somedays I don’t (sometimes I feel like a nut…).  I wonder what year 24 will bring.  I guess theres no way to know, but one thing I know for sure – it’s gonna be a good one.