So typical.

It is so typical for me to stay consistent with something for a while, and suddenly without warning of schedule changes emotions or logical reason, I'm horribly inconsistant.

So to those of you who regularly check my blog, I'm sorry.

It's not even that I've not had the time, I've just not done it.

Let me catch you up on the last few weeks. I'll post about some of these adventures later.

I finished up SLA (second language awuisition), a two week course on how you learn a language and practice with a language helper. Gloria, from Columbia, helped me get over my deer in the headlights feelings. I seem to consistant respond to new languages with wide eyes and closed mouths. (:

I took a two day trip to Oconomowac, Wisconsin, to be with my dear friend and old roommate, Linnea, for the funeral and burial of Nancy Spransy, her grandmother.

Then trucked back down to Elgin, IL, hoping to hang out with some friends, who didn't return from a trip to Virgina, but was suprised to find a letter from Spain! It was my letter of invitation from La Vida Nueva, a church.

So the next morning I got all me things together, put on some mascara, and wound my way down and then through Chicago to the Consulate Gereral of Spain. Found an amazing parking spot and nerveously entered the 15th floor office. It was quite an experience. After all was said and done, I just enjoyed the streets of downtown Chicago, walking and thinking, and loving the brisk fall weather and the countless people on the streets. What a great day! It ended even better with tea and cookies at my friend, Sarah Sikkema's house, and a mid-night visit with Gina Boettcher.

At 5am the next morning, I was up and off. It's much better to start before you're really coherant. It was the best 8 hour drivve of my life.

So now here I sit, at the kitchen table of 8816 Woodland, Kansas City, MO, in the home of Sarah Beth Cox, one of my very best friends. Whose home I share with her for the next 6 weeks. God is so kind to me. He placed me in a home when I was struggling to feel like I had a home, but I had no forwarning that I would feel so homeless. He knows and cared for me better than I do myself.

on the road...

One thing I've learned so far...

Life is a journey. Oh, how I wish sometimes that I could just ARRIVE. But each little part of the road is necessary to reach the destination. I am thankful for the road God has taken me on so far. Training has been a wonderful time to get tools to help us as we enter into our new areas of ministry and enjoy new friendship with other missionaries. God has exposed my heart again, and I need His transforming way in my heart and life.

Often I've tried to map out this "journey" of my life. I would get an idea and begin to try and try and try to make it happen. Often met with dissappointment and fustration, I would give up, and wrestle with God about His goodness and love. Always, in His way, He would bring around the things my heart had desired, and give them to me in the most creative of ways and really much more deeply fulfilling. If I could only trust God to begin with. It would save me the fustration. Gosh.

Even now, my biggest struggles are with trying to anticipate the future and not taking care of my responsibilites or myself, here and now. Not that I want to be self-centered. I want to be at peace with the place God has called me for this day and let Him lead me into the days ahead. right now - I suck at this!

So, I'm on this road towards Santiago. I wanted it to be quick and easy, to just arrive and be the wonderful person I am. Wooing people through my smile towards Jesus, or was it towards myself? Either way, God is way concerned with the state of my heart. And, I have given Him access to it, several times over, and what I am finding is that HE wants to be central in my life, heart, desires, and emotions. He wants all my trust to be in Him and His power. And all my confidence found in Him and His love, and my deepest fulfillment to come from His tender and loving care.

I make things so difficult on myself.

Cafe Terra Nova

The cafe I am headed to in Spain just got a new website up... Check it out!

cafeterranova.com

Midnight snacks.

Since I was a little girl, I would wake up around 2 or 3 am and eat a snack. Ususally a cracker or two, sometimes a cookie, other times Cheerios.

Because of this habit I developed gingivitis two years ago. My poor little gums were just getting eaten away. So I broke that habit. It was hard, but I forced myself to wait until morning.

But these past few months, It began again. I can't sleep through the night and I wake up STARVING hungry at 2 or 3 am.

So after my 3rd wake up last night, around 4:30am. I gave in. Kefir and Dark Chocolate Brownies. What a snack!