Furnace

My friend Carly is an amazing person. :-) She goes to a huge church in Colorado Springs, and while she took a year off after high school before coming here, she helped run a discipleship group called the Furnace. She started a branch off of that here last semester, and this semester I've joined- all of my best friends are in it :-) There are, I think, ten of us now, overseen by the college pastor from my Michigan church who lives and works right near campus.
We just started the Furnace this week, and I'm so excited about it! On Tuesdays Mary Beth, Natalie, Amy, a girl on my hall named Brita and I will have Bible study. On Wednesday nights we have Bible study, with a larger group, at Pastor Steve's house; and his wife Tanya cooks dinner for all of us! On Thursday nights we go to our Hillsdale Christian Fellowship bi-monthly "youth group" meeting. On Friday mornings we meet for prayer before class. And on Sunday afternoons after church we have accountability groups.
So, we do something almost every day of the week. It's been wonderful already, and will continue to be, as a constant reminder of what is most important in our lives- in my life. If I know that every week some of my best friends will be asking me if I've been purposeful about setting aside time with God, then I will be better about actually doing it. And I love having prayer before class, even though I have to be up the hill at 8:15 :-) I'm so excited about how God is working this semester, in my life and in my friends'. Amy needs prayer for learning how to have a relationship with God- she's been brought up in the church and knows about God, even truly believes God is most important in her life, but she hasn't read the Bible except for class assignments before, so I'm really excited about how she'll come to truly know God through His word if she will be willing to read it. I can't wait to see her grow as she realizes Who it is that makes her life worth living. :)
It's time to go read about cellular respiration and other fun things in my biology textbook, but I wanted to share about the Furnace and what God is doing here. I love you all dearly and am praying for you- more so now that I have a constant reminder to be in prayer :-) May God bless and keep you all this week.