Howdy y'all! I know this entry is a bit overdue, but now that the suspense about the inner workings of my life and my personality have been thoroughly built up, it is now time for me to share.
My name is Austin (see above title) and I am a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, a little school I like to call "Wash. U." I'm a psychology major with minors in Chinese, linguistics, and computer science, which all point to the fact that I have had an interesting, albeit somewhat circuitous, experience over the last three plus years trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Yet praise God for His provision and guidance, along with His awesome plans! At this point, I feel strongly that I want to work in fulltime ministry in some fashion after I graduate in May. So right now, I am still praying a lot for God to continue to reveal His path and show me more specifics about that calling.
Though living in St. Louis for school, I am originally from Nashville, Tennessee, and when home, live with mom and my younger brother, Sam. My mom is a single parent and an amazing mother and woman of God, whom I respect to no end! Growing up always in close proximity of my grandparents, my Nanny and Paw-Paw have also had a huge impact on my life. Although my grandfather is a Southern Baptist preacher and I was raised going to church with my grandparents, praying to receive Christ when I was ten, it was not until late in high school when I learned what a daily walk with Christ could and should look like. Since that time, God has captured my heart and I stand amazed at how He has changed both my life and the lives of others around me over the last four years.
During my time at Wash. U., God has continually given me a bigger heart for ministry here. A huge part of my growth has taken place in small group settings. From my freshman small group three years ago to the opportunity to be leading my third small group this year, God never ceases to teach me new things and to reach people from all over campus through them. This year at Wash. U., we have doubled the number of weekly small groups to twelve and have them strategically scattered across the residential areas of campus. It's been a blessing to see so many of these small groups with regular numbers already! We had a fear of oversaturation with the large number of small groups, but God is plainly showing us that His gospel has by no means been "too present" on our campus. Students here are hungry for God and that's very evident through the small groups.
God has also blessed with the chance to spend the last two summers in East Asia on summer projects, and if I start to blog about East Asia right now, I'll bump everyone below me to a new page. So for right now, I'll keep it to an encouraging verse God laid on my heart during my time there this summer, 2 Timothy 4:5: "But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and discharge all the duties of your ministry." Fun fact o' the night about me: I'm a language junkie and/or nerd. So I love the last part of this verse with regards to one's ministry, which in the ESV reads "fulfill,"; in German "mit ganzer Hingabe"--lit. with complete devotion; in Chinese "尽"--lit. to the utmost, to exhaust; and in the Greek "πληροφορέω"--lit. to carry out fully, entirely accomplish. How sweet is that? I mean, it's quite a tall order, but are we not called to those kinds of steps of faith? to believe that God can truly--and will!--work in gigantic ways and live our lives accordingly?
That just gets me fired up. Okay, I'm done now.
