louissa sinclair

hi.  my name is louissa and i’m a citizen of the United States of America.  i read this to keep up with my country.  i love my country.

hi.  my name is louissa and i’m from new york state.  when i read this i remember how much i love the place that everyone thinks of when they hear my states name.

hi.  my name is louissa and i hail from St. Lawrence County and when i read this (thanks, colin) i think of my home, how wonderful it is, and how there is no other place that i love more.

there are some things that even Europe for five months can’t change.  : )

thinking about grace.

realizing how much i love my own strength.

knowing that i’m missing a party for my darling drummer boy.

wanting an evening with my favorite people.

thinking we would eat sergi’s.

looking forward to a visit from my lovely parents.

loving my God

and knowing that He is good

all the time. 

it’s so lovely to wake up to the birds every morning, to take hour long walks with no extra clothing on, and feel warm and become flushed because of the warmth of the sun.  spring is here.  it makes me want to be in a vehicle at home, windows down, and listen to music…

And I’m letting go of all my lonely yesterdays.
I’ve forgivin’ myself for the mistakes I’ve made.
Now there’s just one thing, the only thing I wanna do.
I wanna love somebody, love somebody like you.

i know you’ve all been waiting to hear something from me that makes me sound like i’m actually at Bible School and not just wasting my time and someday my finances on a year long european experience and here it is. 

this week we’ve touched on the topic that makes me different from 80% of the student population.  they all know that i come from a “charismatic” church and most know that my church believes that the gifts of the Spirit are active today.  i enjoyed having someone share about the Holy Spirit and for them to be for it.  today we touched on the topic of tongues.  i listened to the lecturer, from England, argue that the gift of tongues is not to be used in church without interpretation (as is directed in 1 Corinthians 14:28).  he is a great teacher and when giving his opinion, always explains the other view(s) and i appreciate that.  on this he didn’t really give the other argument.  he went as far as to quote Wayne Grudem, author of “Systematic Theology” has having written that if otherwise done it’s “simply disobedience to Paul’s directive and is not acting in love towards others in the church.”

so my questions are:

what’s the Biblical backing for so many of the churches that i’m familiar with who allow audible speaking in tongues without interpretation?

and

is there an argument for why all may have the capability of recieving the gift of tongues?  why is it that there are some churches filled to the brim with tongue-speaking members and others have none?

have you ever had a bad experience with make-up?  while in prague, in the open market, we came across a whole stand that was full of make-up.  since i still don’t have my regular cosmetics, i’ve made do with the basic foundation, mascara, and blush, but have missed having “fun” make-up.  i couldn’t just pass up the cheap make up while in the czech, so i looked and quickly purchased some eyeshadow.

yesterday we took yearbook photos.  i have to say, i did the least to prepare myself.  i’m either too much of “natural” girl or i just don’t really care about how my pictures look, so while most were blow drying and straightening their hair, i quickly pinned up the front and said enough (i’m thinking i should probably care more).  i then went to put a bit of my face on because i knew i couldn’t ignore everything and excitedly got my new eyeshadow out (for not really caring i have great joy when it comes to putting make-up on). 

but i forgot one very important thing.  it’s cheap.  which means that the pretty gold color actually was orange.  orange that i couldn’t get off my eyelids.  i scrubbed and scrubbed, but there was still a hint of the horrid color.  i’m a tight-wad — i know that.  and yesterday i learned that it doesn’t always end up being the best choice to spend less money.

or maybe i should just sit and patiently wait for the arrival of my luggage.

as you can see, when i had my picture taken i got a bit carried away and in a matter of hours they were posted on a facebook for all to see.  now i wonder what i was doing since one of these will probably end being used.  i really am crazy…

and

and

sometimes i’m so eighteen.

prague was lovely.  prague was amazing.  just about as amazing as the group of girls i went with.

i have pictures.  lots of pictures.  to show how lovely things were and to show how much fun we had.  some show the crazy things we saw and some show that we experienced an irish pub (although i don’t know if you can really experience an irish pub when one drinks coke the whole time).  i may have head lice after the amount of hats that i tried on this past weekend and some things that i saw made me smile and feel all warm on the inside and then others made me just laugh.

alright.  i’m done linking.  for the rest just go here.

i know i’m crazy.

crazy ’bout you.

more to come…

i love you, all my wonderful people at home.
you know you mean the world to me.
i miss you.

love,
me

p.s.  i have the best family.  they really are.

i’ve decided to take the advice from the wise and do a bit of traveling while here in europe.  on thursday i’ll leave to go and spend a few days in “Europe’s most beautiful city”.  i’ll be spending a few days in Prague, Czech Republic.  i cannot wait!

it’s my valentines gift to me!  ; )

i could delete my previous post, but that would cause questions, so i’ll just let you know that i’ve never felt so shallow or so silly until hitting “publish” on my previous entry.  i wondered how it came across — after all, you don’t know how much K-5 is a family to me — and wondered what conclusions people came up with. 

but anyways, all that to say that the dinner was completely innocent and i hope that no one thought ill of me.  perhaps it was rather shallow of me to actually post about something like that and i apologize.  this is when one starts to seriously reconsider this whole blogging thing… : )

while we on such shallow thoughts though, i’ll let you know that i have one of my favorite songs playing here.  don’t be fooled when you think it’s over, the song really gets going after the first ending.

and on a more serious note… i watched Martin Luther tonight (a virus is going through Germany and our principal, who was supposed to lecture, has been sick and in bed all day like many students) and had a deeper appreciation for what he did now that i’m in Germany.  it was amazing.