Freedom to Feel

As I see God working in people around me and in my own life, I find myself thinking, "This is what it's supposed to be like!" God is broadening and deepening my understanding of what "community" is all about. It's so cool that I can minister to and be ministered to all in the same place/physical location! It's really freeing to not be locked into either of those roles (giving/being given to) and to be able to oscillate between either role within a matter of hours or even minutes.

It has been an exhausting, intense, emotional, worthwhile experience training here in Florida. There are some really hard, low, I-did-not-realize-that-about-myself-until-right-now days (i.e. times of conviction)...and there are times of joyful celebration! There are days when it is so obvious that God is at work and days were it is so obvious that Satan opposes all the teaching, growth, honest conversation, and revelation that is taking place here. I've experienced both of these extremes within the past week, even! It's pretty intense! I am learning that it's a blessing (not a curse) to be able to feel deeply and mourn and celebrate with those around me.

As far as the celebrating goes....a few of us from the COAT training program went to Busch Gardens in Tampa this weekend. It was good to have a "play day" amidst all the work!

One of the first things we did was visit the tigers....

We really loved the gorillas...

Later we saw some hippos....

They're not as friendly as they look...

It was one exhausting day....

Sweet Melissa

This is one of the coolest roomates ever! We have a lot of fun together and I feel so comfortable and safe and happy when I talk to her! She's ALWAYS smiling!

I Have Arrived!

I've safely arrived in Florida and am sharing a room with a girl named Melissa, who is hoping to move to Rwanda this October to do a variety of things, one of which includes humanitarian relief. There are also three other girls living in our house who work at the Center for Global Outreach (CGO) a.k.a. the New Mission Systems Office here in Fort Myers and another girl in COAT that plans to go to Thailand.

It has been kind of hard to connect with people since most of the others have been here almost two weeks already, but I have to keep reminding myself that I've only actually been here for a day and half! There are about 20 other people going through COAT training right now and I have almost learned all of thier names... There was one familair face, however, who is also going through COAT right now... Helen from Kenya/NMSI Training in January. She has such a sweet spirit! I arrived to find a card waiting on my bed that she'd had everyone sign. Her message read, "I'm so insanely glad you're here and I'm here and we're here at COAT together! Love and so many hugs, Helen." That really encouraged me! I think I've probably read it over seven or eight times in the last day and a half and each time it makes me smile! Pray that God would deepen our friendship and us to encourage and restore one another! Pray that He would show me which friendships to pursue and give me courage to initiate "hanging out" times with others.

One of the times that I think has the potential to be the most deep and vulnerable while I'm hereat COAT is a three hour small group called TrueFaced on Friday mornings. The whole title of the book we're studying is TrueFaced: trust God and others with who you really are. It's all about taking off various masks you wear and letting people see the real you, which usually results in a lot of teary, deep discussions and confessions that are recieved with love and prayed for. We got off to a great start, with everyone crying and being real in the first session.

There are nine of us in that group and it's led by a girl named Kylee, who I'm sure I'll tell you more about another time because she's awesome! Very full of grace and peace and wisdom....very good at listening, knowing when and which questions to ask, and mourning alongside of others. When I told Joe Belzer (Campus Minister with CCF in college) I was going to affiliate with NMSI, he said there's a lot of great people down there (which is true) and specfically listed Kylee and her husband Matt on the list of awesome individuals that I should get to know. Being awesome himself, Joe has a pretty good ability at pointing out awesomeness in others and was right on with both Kylee and Matt. Thanks for the recommendation, Joe!