So, i'm here and it's FABULOUS. I cannot even begin to tell ya'll what a wonderful time I've had so far. That is to say I have so much to say I have NO idea where to start. So here we go...
I'm living in a condo with 11 other girls. Let me throw that out there again. 12 Girls. 1 Condo. 2 Bathrooms. YEAH. It's gonna get ridiculous as the summer goes on. But, for now at least, it's working out really well. I ADORE my housemates and the girls in my small group. It is going to be a wonderful albeit challenging and draining summer.
So here's a rundown of the last few days:
DAY 1: Move In
I got to enjoy the luxury of waking up at 3am eastern time to hope on a plane that stopped in Salt Lake at around 10am Central time to get into California at 12:30pm Pacific Time. Yeah. Let's talk about jet lag. Afterwards, well, we moved in, obviously, and got to slowly but surely meet our housemates and do all the fun logistical stuff. OH WAIT. Backtrack. Did I mention that the first thing i did when I got here was ask someone to borrow money? Classic. That's what happens when you fail to calculate cab costs accurately. Some lovely gents helped me moved my stuff up to my apartment and then I just hung out with the girls until we had dinner and an opening welcome meeting/game janx with everyone later that night.
DAY 2: Soul 2 Soul
Wednesday pretty much entirely consisted of more get to know you stuff. I mean really though, let's just relieve our childhood. I'm pretty sure we played every get to know you game I've ever heard of. We spent the afternoon with our DNA groups (small groups basically) sharing our stories. It was INSANE. No matter how many times I do this my reaction is consistently the same: amazed. Maybe it's because my story isn't too ridiculous. I mean yeah, i've dealt with some stuff but there was never any ridiculous life-changing turn around. But i've heard some INCREDIBLE stories since being here. It's cool to see people that seem just like you and find out how absurdly different their faith stories are from your own. Trust me when I say that if you can imagine it, i've heard a story about it personally affecting someone I know in the past 4 days.
SIDETRACK--> today another awesome testimony-sharing time happened in my condo. One of the guys walked up and we were all chatting and he just happened to share his story. Here's this group of 10 college students listening to this guy tell an insane story about running away, drugs and God COMPLETELY being faithful in His pursuit of this guy. Afterwards one of the girls asked if we could pray over one of his friends who is still into some bad stuff and it was just an amazing reminder of how much God has blessed me. Here I am getting to live with people who barely know each other and yet feel comfortable enough to love on one another through prayer. God is GOOD.
DAY 3: Job Search and Evangelizing...
Okay, i'm just gonna go ahead and skip the job search. It wasn't exciting, just tedious. Although I did get to meet an awesome kid from New Mexico (Tess--marry him. ya'll would be perfect, just sayin').
EVANGELIZING-- So I just want to start this off by letting you all know that while I LOVE the idea of telling others about the AWESOME love we have in Christ, I HATE the idea of beach evangelizing. The picture I got in my head was that of people wandering around yelling at others, standing on street corners passing out booklets. All that to say, I have never seen beach evangelizing done well. So, that's sort of what I expected, or at least something similar when I came into it. SURPRISE! (okay that word looks ridiculous when spelled--side note) But that is absolutely NOT the type of evangelizing we're doing. It's actually completely opposite. Yes, we walked around the beach and talked to people, but that's exactly what it was; talking to people. Me and 2 other girls got to go around and the second group of people we walked up to happened to be 2 girls from London (God knows me well=]) and we just sat down and got to chat with them about who they were, their travels, and of course faith! It was an AWESOME conversation and God was absolutely working in those 2 girls lives. One of them (Grace) mentioned that she wanted to start reading the bible and we suggested that she might want to start in John to get a good idea of where Christianity is coming from. How does she respond? Oh, you know, someone just happened to have handed her a Gospel of John. God is amazing right? God is ALWAYS pursuing us, regardless of whether we see it or not and I cannot help but pray that she continues to feel that pursuit in her heart. So if ya'll are throwing out some prayers tonight do a quick one for Grace and Zoe and that God continues to weigh on their hearts and minds. They're amazing girls and i'd love to see them again one day and hear how life went=]
DAY 4: Job Search
I won't bore ya'll with the details of friday...we literally just wandered around San Diego looking for work. Okay, wait we did do a man hunt around San Diego, which, if you haven't done one before just means that the staff dressed up ridiculously and we had to run around the town attempting to find as many as we could.
OVERALL:
Ya'll overall, this has just been a crazy wonderful experience. I've got 2 job interviews lined up and with a little bit of prayer hopefully a 3rd. God is already teaching me so much about who I am and bringing to surface who I try to be. I came in with a lot of preconceptions both about people and certain aspects of what we were doing and God has just shattered them. I am constantly being made aware of how God is working in my being here, in the girls i've been placed withi in my condo, in the ministry team I was placed on, and in my DNA group. God knows who I am and exactly what I need and that becomes more and more evident everyday. I cannot WAIT to update ya'll as more insanity happens. I love you all!
---also, i just realized I skipped like 2 days....but, i promise nothing spectacularly awesome happened that ya'll need to know about so don't worry about it=]
Psalm 16
I'm living in a condo with 11 other girls. Let me throw that out there again. 12 Girls. 1 Condo. 2 Bathrooms. YEAH. It's gonna get ridiculous as the summer goes on. But, for now at least, it's working out really well. I ADORE my housemates and the girls in my small group. It is going to be a wonderful albeit challenging and draining summer.
DAY 1: Move In
I got to enjoy the luxury of waking up at 3am eastern time to hope on a plane that stopped in Salt Lake at around 10am Central time to get into California at 12:30pm Pacific Time. Yeah. Let's talk about jet lag. Afterwards, well, we moved in, obviously, and got to slowly but surely meet our housemates and do all the fun logistical stuff. OH WAIT. Backtrack. Did I mention that the first thing i did when I got here was ask someone to borrow money? Classic. That's what happens when you fail to calculate cab costs accurately. Some lovely gents helped me moved my stuff up to my apartment and then I just hung out with the girls until we had dinner and an opening welcome meeting/game janx with everyone later that night.
DAY 2: Soul 2 Soul
Wednesday pretty much entirely consisted of more get to know you stuff. I mean really though, let's just relieve our childhood. I'm pretty sure we played every get to know you game I've ever heard of. We spent the afternoon with our DNA groups (small groups basically) sharing our stories. It was INSANE. No matter how many times I do this my reaction is consistently the same: amazed. Maybe it's because my story isn't too ridiculous. I mean yeah, i've dealt with some stuff but there was never any ridiculous life-changing turn around. But i've heard some INCREDIBLE stories since being here. It's cool to see people that seem just like you and find out how absurdly different their faith stories are from your own. Trust me when I say that if you can imagine it, i've heard a story about it personally affecting someone I know in the past 4 days.
SIDETRACK--> today another awesome testimony-sharing time happened in my condo. One of the guys walked up and we were all chatting and he just happened to share his story. Here's this group of 10 college students listening to this guy tell an insane story about running away, drugs and God COMPLETELY being faithful in His pursuit of this guy. Afterwards one of the girls asked if we could pray over one of his friends who is still into some bad stuff and it was just an amazing reminder of how much God has blessed me. Here I am getting to live with people who barely know each other and yet feel comfortable enough to love on one another through prayer. God is GOOD.
DAY 3: Job Search and Evangelizing...
Okay, i'm just gonna go ahead and skip the job search. It wasn't exciting, just tedious. Although I did get to meet an awesome kid from New Mexico (Tess--marry him. ya'll would be perfect, just sayin').
EVANGELIZING-- So I just want to start this off by letting you all know that while I LOVE the idea of telling others about the AWESOME love we have in Christ, I HATE the idea of beach evangelizing. The picture I got in my head was that of people wandering around yelling at others, standing on street corners passing out booklets. All that to say, I have never seen beach evangelizing done well. So, that's sort of what I expected, or at least something similar when I came into it. SURPRISE! (okay that word looks ridiculous when spelled--side note) But that is absolutely NOT the type of evangelizing we're doing. It's actually completely opposite. Yes, we walked around the beach and talked to people, but that's exactly what it was; talking to people. Me and 2 other girls got to go around and the second group of people we walked up to happened to be 2 girls from London (God knows me well=]) and we just sat down and got to chat with them about who they were, their travels, and of course faith! It was an AWESOME conversation and God was absolutely working in those 2 girls lives. One of them (Grace) mentioned that she wanted to start reading the bible and we suggested that she might want to start in John to get a good idea of where Christianity is coming from. How does she respond? Oh, you know, someone just happened to have handed her a Gospel of John. God is amazing right? God is ALWAYS pursuing us, regardless of whether we see it or not and I cannot help but pray that she continues to feel that pursuit in her heart. So if ya'll are throwing out some prayers tonight do a quick one for Grace and Zoe and that God continues to weigh on their hearts and minds. They're amazing girls and i'd love to see them again one day and hear how life went=]
DAY 4: Job Search
I won't bore ya'll with the details of friday...we literally just wandered around San Diego looking for work. Okay, wait we did do a man hunt around San Diego, which, if you haven't done one before just means that the staff dressed up ridiculously and we had to run around the town attempting to find as many as we could.
OVERALL:
Ya'll overall, this has just been a crazy wonderful experience. I've got 2 job interviews lined up and with a little bit of prayer hopefully a 3rd. God is already teaching me so much about who I am and bringing to surface who I try to be. I came in with a lot of preconceptions both about people and certain aspects of what we were doing and God has just shattered them. I am constantly being made aware of how God is working in my being here, in the girls i've been placed withi in my condo, in the ministry team I was placed on, and in my DNA group. God knows who I am and exactly what I need and that becomes more and more evident everyday. I cannot WAIT to update ya'll as more insanity happens. I love you all!
---also, i just realized I skipped like 2 days....but, i promise nothing spectacularly awesome happened that ya'll need to know about so don't worry about it=]
Psalm 16
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