Can anyone identify this plant? It grows in my backyard in NC, but we have no idea what it is.

Longing....

I very much enjoy mission reports. Today, Bolt and Fjord gave a report on their trip this summer to Cameroon. I couldn't help coming back to my room and looking at pictures from Swaziland. I so long to return....
In a way, reflecting is distracting from all the homework I should be working on, but at the same time, hearing how much having an education to share can help further God's kingdom and seeing faces of those I have personally met to whom I could be used in their lives for God's purpose, gives me a great deal of motivation to keep working. A goal to strive for makes college have purpose; to give God glory and further His kingdom. God has put me here in preparation for something, and I can't hardly stand waiting. By God's grace, my life has a direction, and by the same marvelous grace, I follow in faith, not knowing where I am going. God is so patient! God is so gracious!

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I an weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Bible classes

Did you know, God always makes excellent grades on Bible test?? Our weakness shows up when the pencil doesn't write quick enough to get all the information down before moving on to the next question. So, basically....God has been taking my test for me. I know I can't remember everything I need to...it's a fact, yet somehow, when I go into a test, the answers (not all of them granted) come flooding in so fast I stumble terribly trying to keep up.
God is making it very obvious that I'm supposed to be at LeTourneau. YAY!!!