time is flying...

It is getting closer to Christmas. I am definitely not having a white one but it is still
a special one. We have so many different traditions that we are seeing come
through from different members of our team. We have an advent calendar,
stockings up, and even a Hanukkah candles that are being lit every night. It is fun
to see all these traditions shine through and be able to be apart of them all.

Our lives here have been busy and full. We are one week away from being done
with all of our lectures! Next week is our last week. We are officially half way
through this school! I can’t believe it. These amazing women and families have
become my family over these past 6 months. It makes me sad to think that we
only have six more months to go.

I have about four weeks left here in Africa. If there is one thing that I can’t get
over these days it is how God has just brought life to me. I think it has been a
collection of months of growing and letting God do a lot of healing in me, so now I
am starting to see the results. The new joy and life in my spirit. I now enjoy and
desire to soak up everything and live in the moment of today. I still look forward to
the future but I don;t ignore the present. The hardest thing for me in growing
with God, in my relationships, in different cultures, and the travel in these past
couple of months has been that I wasn’t slowing down in my mind or actions to
enjoy and take it all in. I was so busy trying to get to the next thing that I was
missing the opportunities that were right in front of me. I think this was a defense
mechanism that I had built up from my past. If you are always living in the future,
looking to the future for “better life” then you don’t stop and stare at the reality of
how ugly your life is at that moment or how beautiful it is. So these last months I have been stopped and I have stood face to face with today. It hasn’t been fun, most of it hard and painful.
The result though is magnificent. I really don’t know if I can do justice in
explaining the way that my spirit awakens everyday with an excitement and love
for life and today. This new excitement, love, and ability to face today makes me
even more captivated by Jesus. I often think that I need to come up with some
new angle to present Jesus because of all the material that is out in the world
today and with all the different views and theologies. I want to attract every one to
Him, but the truth is i always get back to the basics when i really want to
know or share about what he is doing in my life. Jesus saved me, over and over again. He has been doing this for 23 years and will continue too. He has brought me through a lot. Not very much of it being easy but the process and especially the end result He has brought me so much
healing, joy, love, freedom, life, and excitement.

So I am super excited about our last few weeks here but a little nervous that it is
going to fly by because our first two and a half months did. I am looking forward
to being back in Perth. I am blessed because my mom and little brother are
coming to see me when I go back to Australia in January! I am so excited! It will
have been exactly one year from the time that I last saw them that they will be
there!

Christmas is soon... I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!


You are blessed to be a blessing.