Aloha, fine folks. I've passed the two week mark and we're rollin'. I've already turned in 3 papers, participated in numerous readings and discussions, and learned from a couple guest speakers. Until last Thursday I was the only girl in our bitty group of 4, but Maddee has swept in like a fresh Swedish breeze and now there are two of us gals. All together we have 3 SLS staff, and 5 SLS students - a nice little fambam. So far we all get along, which is quite cool considering we're all over the board in age, walks of life, interests, and background. Victor's 20, from Sweden, while Troy is 29 from California, and engaged. So varied, and so vary fun (heh, heh).
Right now we're reading a book called Culture of Honor by Danny Silk, a fellow from Bethel Church in Redding, California. If you haven't heard of that place, look it up. It's nuts. In a good way. I've found the book so interesting and ridiculously helpful, and we're only 4 chapters in. In the first chapter, he illustrates how love removes shame, and the importance of identifying one another not by the world's labels, people's labels, the crap they've done or crap that's been done to them, but by who they are in Christ. God created each of us, not so we could just hang out, or screw up and live with guilt or shame as our constant companion for the rest of our lives, but because He has a purpose for us, a life abundant to live. We reflect a part of Him and He loves us. LOVES us. I'm in LOVE with this book. So far.
Upon reading and discussion, our week includes guest speakers it seems once a week or so, adventures here and there, and department days, WHICH, by the way, I've been placed in the Surfers Coffee Bar department. This is hard, but awesome for a few reasons. Hard because I've been trained to make coffee before at a reputable cafe in Seattle, worked in 3 different cafes back home and have a general gist of how to do things, but am having to completely humble myself and learn how to do it all over again with my new manager. He's strongly steeped in Stumptown's coffee culture and I'm having to conform. I'm not opposed, but in order for him to be able to properly train me here, I have to forget what I know, swallow some pride, and honor my leader. I'm not the best at it, yet. This makes me think of my dad, who I've worked for cleaning windows for his company on and off since I was 15. Dad, if you're reading this, I'm sorry for being a crap at work and not honoring you as a boss and leader like I should have. Also, today I had to wash the windows in the coffee bar with Windex and a janky, old squeegee. Agony.
Aside from washing windows with inadequate gear, things here are awesome. One cool thing that's changed since I left last fall is our service team system. When I was here last time, we had a few service team folks who were here for at least a couple months, and her solid believers. While I was gone, they got STN on www.workaway.info, which is, apparently, quite a popular site for international work exchange seekers. I'm in my old apartment, with the intern girls in the room next to me (there's only 4 of them, sheeeeesh), and us SLS gals, any special guest passing through, and the service team girls. With our service team's new-found publicity, we've got people with one-month stints coming through left and right. Our beloved German gal left last night, but currently we have an Australian and Pennsylvanian in our room. Till last week we also had a Canadian. That's just the ladies. We also have a Frenchman and an Argentinian working with us. Our Japanese friend left last week. It's so fun having people from all over the place coming in and out, staying long enough to connect and be adopted into our ohana here. This also makes it hard, I didn't want to see Lena and Allison go and I won't want to see Pierre and Juan, or the others go either. The REALLY cool thing about it all though is that one out of all the people I just mentioned believe in Christ. The rest of them have either not heard much about Him at all, haven't given it much though, or don't care at all. To evangelize, you usually go OUT. I just have to look to the bunk bed next to me. It's SO cool. The conversations flowing in this place, in our room, in our kitchen, have been amazing. Some aren't interested, but DANG some are. Lena was totally new to Christianity all together. No knowledge of the Trinity or anything, but totally curious. She came to international prayer once, and then she came to Sabbath, which is a bit intense for a newcomer, I imagine. I think it's neat to have opportunities for people outside of our "bubble" to come be apart of what we're about. It's definitely been an interesting and valuable experience for me.
Well tomorrow we leave on our mini-adventure, which is to prepare us for our Big Adventure, the ultimate challenge and test in this program. We'll be hiking up mountains and camping for two nights. I can't wait! Praise God for bringing me here.
I'm still working on the newsletter I mentioned in my last post. Most complicated website I've ever had to use, but I'm slowly getting somewhere with it. Please keep me in your prayers, as I'm being challenged in lots of way, especially academically. I'm a smart cookie, but completely undisciplined and unfocused. I've put myself on academic arrest and have not had more than 2 or 3 beach days in the 3 weeks I've been here now. There's not that much work, but there's a lot of things I can think of to waste time and good reasons for doing them instead of my work. I'm trying to break myself into good time management habits - something I've never possessed with school work. Please pray that I could properly prioritize and see clearly how I need to use my time. I'm not here for vacation, I'm here to become a leader. Ask God to remind me of that constantly. Thank you!
I've shared only a couple nuggets from the last week. Another few to mention are one) my best friend arrived the other night to nanny for friends on the west side and live here for 6-9 months. WOAH, God is good and gives us good things. I can't praise Him enough for bringing my best friend out here and for the family she's working for. Just in the one night I spent with them this week they let me do laundry, fed me and drove me around. That doesn't scrape the surface of how great and loving they are. Two) I finally got to see my formerly homeless friend Cody again! Unfortunately, he's homeless again, but there's hope in his heart. More to come on him. Thirdly) I successfully made quinoa tonight. WOOHOOOOO! So full of blessings, my head might pop off.
That's all for now. I hope all is well in your world and that God will not sprinkle or shower, but DUMP blessings on you and all ways, shapes and forms.
Till next time.
PS. If you'd like to receive my (soon to come) biweekly newsletter, email me at ilomay55@yahoo.com and I'll throw you on the list!
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