He said, “Ask and you’ll receive…”

Jesus… can I please have a macbook pro… and a digital SLR camera… and an ipod… and a cellphone that actually receives calls…

Browsing technology websites is a bad idea when you get pretty close to minimum wage…

Sometimes I wish I was more decisive…

I just spent $460.00 on flights to Tahiti for March….

Approximately 3 minutes later, I cancelled them.

Ask me in twelve months…

Isaiah 38: 

 15 But what can I say?
       He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.
       I will walk humbly all my years
       because of this anguish of my soul.

 16 Lord, by such things men live;
       and my spirit finds life in them too.
       You restored me to health
       and let me live.

 17 Surely it was for my benefit
       that I suffered such anguish.
       In your love you kept me
       from the pit of destruction;
       you have put all my sins
       behind your back.

Internship Countdown

In five Sundays, we will be commissioning eighteen interns… eleven on the young adult daytime course, and seven on the Nocturnal internship… and then, as one of the asssistant leaders, I’m going to be trying to walk through twenty disruptive, life-changing, intrusive, destructive, rebuilding weeks with them…

I have a strange feeling that I’m going to come out more changed than some of the interns will. Don’t ask me why, I just think that I will.

So until then… I’m working on visas and checking up on accommodation and writing classes and creating ideas… and getting myself into the prayer room downstairs a whole lot more… because thisis either going to be a fanstastic, crazy, amazing adventure, or no one will ever do internship ever again.

YWAM and their wild edge

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-mission18dec18,1,7786491.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

This article sums up YWAM pretty well… I have to laugh at the small-worldness of it though… “20-year-old, tongue-pierced daughter, Noelle, just finished a YWAM mission to India, where she nursed sick villagers and was attacked by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists.”

While she was attacked by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists… I was at the Prasads mall meeting people and doing friendship evangelism stuff… we got called by the other team, and were told not to go back to the YMCA where we were staying, so we went to the guesthome of our local team co-ordinator and watched DVDs.

What do you want?

For the last few months whenever I’ve quieted myself and asked God to speak, the thing I think that he’s been saying is “What do you want?” Usually I dismiss it with a bit of the ‘that’s just me again’ because it hasn’t made any sense… I haven’t known what I wanted. I’ve never had an answer.

Today it went further: I asked him why he was asking me that… and in the way that the Lord does, he pointed out “You don’t know where you’re going, until you know what you want.” Of course, it suddenly all makes sense…! I have lots of unanswered (and unasked) questions about some future decisions I have to make, which I’m kind of just letting sit for now since I want to see how things are this year before I make decisions… but perhaps the fact that I don’t fully yet know what I want, means that I don’t know where I should be going.

Proverbs 16:9… in his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord directs his footsteps… good stuff.

Sucker for dates…

Honestly, I’m a sucker for dates.

Remind me of an anniversary (and, my gosh, I don’t even HAVE any “us” or “our” anniversaries yet… single till Jesus comes back or I find a husband) and I’ll immediately remember where I was a year ago. Current example: a year ago, I was halfway through my first week of DTS, I’d been in Perth for a week, and if I remember correctly I was pretty homesick and peopled-out. Girls weren’t allowed to go offbase alone by themselves at dark, so I took to going and sitting behind the auditorium building, on the volleyball field with all the bugs and nasty things, journalling and probably doing a wee bit of crying. I was frustrated, not sure why I was there, but at the same time wanting to give it all that I had.

2007 was a pretty amazing year… I spent six months outside of my nation, in Australia for half of that with 105 other young people ‘wasting’ their lives and money on training to go to the nations… and then I went to India for another three months and experienced the joys of rickshaws, 45degree heat and punjabis… it seems so incredibly distant now.

2008 … assistant leading the young adults internship, and my intention is to be around the nocturnal adults internship enough that I can build relationships that allow me to speak into their lives… come July, I’m not sure whether I’m going to stick around here or head off into the nations… but we’ll see

I miss being a PA…

I’m such a nerd. Honestly, I know.

Today I was doing some stuff in the office… and then tonight I’ve been clearing out some old emails from 2005-2006… and I wish that I had someone to be working  alongside this year. I’ll be administrating the internship… so working with the two leaders of the different ones (Onething and Nocturnal)… and organising flights and hospitality for our visiting speakers… but its not the same. I like working alongside someone specific.

The Lord’s been pretty faithful about bringing incredible people into and around my life… about four years ago I started to ask God to give me some older people (but not old people) to be friends with… friends that could speak into my life… and that’s really happened, in my ministry workplace, I have a fantastic mentor (even if she has just moved to the South Island… so we will now be communicating by Skype and email…), in many of the friendships I’ve made both with locals and with various people around the world. These guys are amazing… my DTS staff, some of the people I met at IHOP and continue to dialogue with online, some of the adults at church that I’ve started to get to know better.

Some of the more influential people in my life have moved on recently… but I’m trusting that the Lord will continue to put people around me…. and that ultimately, He is the leader!