All of our showers our janky. When I experience a real shower at someone in a real home, I am blown away at what I’ve been missing. Then again, this is nothing compared to outreach. Most of the time last year we just had a hose. Some outreach groups aren’t even that lucky. But seriously, I don’t mind. Wherever God calls me, I can put up with anything. Seriously. I feel I could handle a zombie apocalypse if necessary.
These past couple weeks have really been a whirlwind. It’s really nice to be back...I think I adjusted pretty easily. Especially considering that I made it through an entire week manning the kitchen without crying. I seriously have never cooked a full meal all alone before, let alone responsible for leading a cooking team. Believe me, I had wonderful, amazing help this week, but I was super proud of myself too. It involved a lot of prayer and a lot of looking up recipes. And God bless Kimberley Harris. She made me feel like cooking is effortless, and the reality is that its not that hard. Just throw a bunch of stuff into a dish and shove it in the oven. I even received some compliments.
We also had our first Agape (love feast) since I've been back. Basically its a once-a-month ordeal where we have a theme and the whole base gathers together for a party. The theme this time around was Childhood dreams, essentially dress as what you wanted to be when you were a kid. I dressed as Peter Pan. Obviously. I always wanted to be an artist. The only times I reconsidered was when I was persuaded to do so. Its too bad that that probably held me back a little bit. Either way I will somehow produce some kind of art with my life, although right now I'm more passionate about finding ways to bring practical justice...justice being one of the most vague words available. What I mean is, I want to really truly help other people and better their situation, and also show them the Jesus that I love and who loves me. Thats all.
I also went to Ottawa this weekend. Nicolas went to France this past week with Paul Goulet, a Pastor at the International Church of Las Vegas, where we are moving next year. Nicolas has a job at the church being the francophone director of Jesus Said Go (jesussaidgo.com). It’s a missions/internship organization that connects people to the missions field. Basically, for 500 dollars a month (for food, transportation, housing), the organization connects your talents to somewhere in the world that needs an intern for that. Say you’ve been to bible school, but have no real world experience....here is your chance. Say you’re a doctor who wants to spend a month per year on the missions field putting your skills to use...voila! Anyway so after Nick got back from France, I met him and Paul in Montreal and we went to this church in Ottawa, Ontario to promote Jesus Said Go a bit and to hear Paul speak at their Holy Spirit Conference. We stayed with an awesome and extremely hospitable couple who were on the leadership team of the church. The church was french but they had a translator in a secret corner and some little earphones...I got the gist of it. There were two little girls who kept following me around, which is exactly the sort of thing I love, but they just don’t understand when someone does not speak the same language as them. Blah.
Luckily I’ll soon be able to start taking french classes for an hour and a half a day once our French teacher gets better.
And now that Nick is back, we shall master the kitchen together.
Also, our friend Evanne from Indiana is back at the base! She will be staffing the Arts & Music DTS as well, and for now is helping in the kitchen in the mornings and then working with hospitality (which involves making muffins and folding sheets).
There’s a lot of things to do during the offseason of our DTS. There are three DTS’ a year and right now the Compassions DTS is running. There are 10 students and only 2 staff! But they are an awesome bunch. We start praying as a team for the Arts and Music DTS this thursday! Woohoo!
