Dear Freshman,

This is not an open letter. I find myself irritated when people write 'open letters' that aren't really to the person they addressed it to, but are actually to the rest of the world about the person they addressed it to. To be fair, I frequently write letters to inanimate objects that serve the same purpose as open letters, but the following is not a letter to springtime or my laptop. This is a draft of a letter to my little cousin (he's a foot taller than me, but whatever) that I am giving him when he leaves for college this week. Most of my readers don't need this advice, but I figured I would submit it to you all (1) for revising in case I missed anything glaringly important or (2) if you have freshmen in your life. Of course I have omitted things, but that is because there is a big gap between the length of advice I could give to freshmen and the length I can expect my particular freshman to read :) These are just the things I realized that I wanted him to know while I was attempting to sleep one night... 

Dear [Freshman],

Congrats on going to school… I’ll admit it, college has been some of the best years of my life (although I expect there will be more fun to come after this) so I know you are in for an adventure. I figured since I was basically just there, I should tell you some things I learned along the way or had kind upperclassmen tell me when I first got to campus. 

1.     College is a time to do stupid, fun things (I have done many of those). It is not, however, a time to do stupid, dangerous things or stupid, illegal things. Don’t forget the difference.

…On a related note, freshman in a herd tend to do lots of stupid, dangerous, illegal things at the very beginning of school… the upperclassmen and staff at Gettysburg used to call the first few weeks that freshman were on campus 'the red zone' because freshmen were being dumb either to impress everyone else or because their parents weren't there and they had more freedom than they knew what to do with. Just keep your head.

…On another related note, I think I have already talked to you about the alcoholism that runs in our family? It’s worth mentioning again. I won’t bore you with all of the genetics and psychology (I could!), but I will tell you that alcohol affects me differently than most of my friends. Just watch out for that.

2.     Your honor is something that is both valuable and difficult to keep. Its worth it be an honorable guy.

…Watch out for the people around you, both the guys and the girls. Fun fact: 67% of men in college DON’T rape anyone! It goes without saying that you better be in that 67%. But a ton of rapes and sexual assaults happen on college campuses, and I know way too many girls this has happened to (you do too, although you probably don’t realize it). This means that people around you—or at least physically near you on campus—are going to be assaulted. If every college guy who didn’t rape anyone also prevented sexual assault when it was in danger of happening near them, you and I would know less people who have been assaulted. As much as our society likes to focus on how equal guys and girls are, there are some instances in which guys, in general, have more power than girls. Frankly, you have a greater ability to prevent rape than I do. With power comes responsibility, and all that. Be honorable regardless of how the people around you are behaving.

3.     Make friends with the kind of people you actually want to be friends with. I promise that those people are there, but it might take awhile to find them.

…I met some of my best friends in college in the first week or so of school. But that’s not the case with most of my friends, and I am not friends with most of the people I met in the first few weeks of school. In fact, I didn’t really begin to be friends with one girl until the end of my sophomore year, and I am going to be in her wedding in December. I didn’t meet some good friends until I was a senior. So don’t worry about finding the people who will become your closest friends... you will eventually. Just when you do find them, become friends :) 

…On a related note, get involved in a Christian fellowship on campus! I’m not going to pester you about this one because you are a big boy and your faith is up to you, but getting involved with the fellowship at Gettysburg literally changed my life. And my relationship with God. And who I became friends with. It was the best decision ever, and I had no idea when I got to campus that I should even look for a Christian fellowship.

4.     There will always be one or two huge things that mark you as a freshman. At my school, it was people actually using the lanyard and ID card holder the college gives at move-in for their keys and ID card. I would recommend not doing whatever that particular thing at your school is. Honestly though, don’t work too hard not to look like a freshman, because you are going to clearly look like a freshman to everyone else for the first month or two anyway. Just chill out about it and don’t use the lanyard they give you for your key :)

You are going to be totally fine. I have faith in you. College is awesome. If you ever need anything, you have my number. I love you!

-Christiana

Have I forgotten anything? Made any terrible errors? Let me know :)

Of course cats don't get to go to college. But the policy on pets visiting for a weekend was a littleeeee unclear my sophomore year, and this picture mayyyy have been taken in Tudor House. Possibly. (And the fire alarm might possibly have gone off while Lady M was visiting, causing my roommate to run around our room trying to find my cat in a building that she feared was on fire. Luckily my roommate liked cats... and the building did not, in fact, burn down) 

Real Talk: Homesickness

Last Sunday was the first day that I have felt homesick. Confusing, I know, since I live at home. What I mean is, I really missed my church family at Gettysburg… both my fellowship on campus and the church I attended while at school. I have been “church shopping” for over a month now, and I have been missing the community in Gettysburg for awhile before that, but last Sunday was the first time that I visited a new church and felt homesick for my church in Gettysburg. Perhaps it was because the other churches that I had visited in the past few weeks were so different from my experience at Gettysburg that they didn’t remind me of it while I was visiting. I couldn't tell you what it was exactly, but something about the church Sunday—the size, the way people sang, the way people interacted—made me miss Gettysburg.

This isn’t a new feeling for me. When I was studying abroad, I missed my campus fellowship almost every time I went to church. In fact, there was only one time there that I worshiped at my church in South Africa without missing them… it was so unusual that I can still remember it clearly. It seems almost normal for me when where I worship reminds me of another place I love to worship, or people I love to worship with. 

My homesickness didn't tell me that the church I went to last Sunday is ‘the one’ or that it isn't. What it did do was give God an opportunity to instruct me. The person who spoke before communion read from Philippians 3, where Paul talks about pressing onward toward the goal (of knowing and becoming like Christ). In verse 13-14, it says “But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Now obviously, when Paul talks about forgetting what is behind, he does not mean his super awesome college fellowship. But God still used this verse to convict me that I can’t hold on so tightly to the huge blessing that was my church community over the past four years that I let it distract me from the blessings of where he has me now, and where he wants me to be in the future. In the same way that God did not want missing my church in the States to distract from or impede my relationship with him while I was in South Africa, he doesn't want my church for the past four years to distract or impede my relationship with him now. So how do I learn from the past and do things better this time?

I can't say for sure, but I think that part of it is finding the root of the problem. See, whenever I have a really good thing in my life, I struggle with believing the lie that this is the best life is ever going to get, or this is the happiest I will ever be. Part of this comes from not trusting that God is good and his plan is good, and part of this comes from desiring the gift more than the giver. Both lead to feeling dissatisfied and anxious rather than loving life (whether gifts or struggles seem to be abundant). So I am trying to refute these lies with the truth.*

I don’t know where I will end up going to church, or when I will find one here. I don’t know how long it will take until I feel connected and not just like a visitor. I do know that God has a plan, and I won’t be disappointed (he is wiser than me, so his plan is better than anything I could come up with). I might settle into a new church only to move again… and that might happen over and over in my life. But I know that my desire for permanency and the feeling of being at home will one day be completely met. And when I am there, I will get to worship with my church family in Gettysburg, and my church family in South Africa, and my church family from childhood, and the church families I don’t know yet. So I think it is okay for me to be homesick… as long as I am homesick for my true home.

I could never figure out exactly where this cat came from, as she was allowed to roam wherever she wanted. But she must have lived near where I went to church in South Africa, so she is tangentially relevant ;)

*My go-to verses when I am struggling with this are:
1 Peter 5:6-7 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."
Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."