Catching up

I am so richly blessed.

I've had a very full week - we've been a little short-staffed due to people being sick or on holiday. My best friend here had to go to the hospital at 2am on Wednesday (first time I got to ride in an ambulance!) and we spent over three hours there. Thank you everyone who prayed for her, she woke up this morning with no pain at all! After catching up on missed sleep from that adventure, Pedro's parents arrived yesterday and the Brazilians (the vote is that I'm 37% Brazilian now, you can ask me later for details) took them downtown to see Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral at night.

Today I am working a morning shift and also the evening dinner hour, which makes for a long Saturday. The upside is that I have no supervisors working today, so the atmosphere in the office is very relaxed. After work, I will probably work on my "speech" for the first prayer service that I'll lead.

Every morning, Mon-Sat, we meet in the chapel at 7:30 for "morning prayers" which is really just a short worship service. Community members take it in turn to lead the service, balancing out to about one per month. New community members who are still working on their English are usually paired up with a more senior community member for the first few months. Apparently my English is more than adequate, though, because I'm the only new person to go by myself. I prefer it that way, I've always been better at individual projects than group projects :)

The morning prayer service is half an hour and usually consists of singing one or two praise songs, the "speech" (which is the term everyone here uses for the exposition), and intercessory prayers. These last two weeks we've been going through Mark, and my passage is when Jesus calms the storm out on the lake. I'm excited about preparing the service because its such a good passage to talk about, but I'm a little disappointed because I happen to be doing my prayers during Rest Week, which means that the service is at 2pm and is only 20 minutes long instead of 30. I'll just have to be succinct for once.

Next week is Rest Week because about 10 staff members are going to Lee Abbey Devon on retreat. If you work here for one year, you get an all-expense paid retreat at this beautiful conference ground in Devon. I'll probably get to go in March, they don't usually send new people right away because its meant to be something to refresh you after working for a while. I'm having a hard time imagining what it will be like to have 10 of my brothers and sisters gone - its been odd enough with only 3 gone these past eight days.

Pray requests for the week:
1. Second meeting of Alpha course on Monday evening (mid-morning for you Yanks)
Please pray that God would draw the residents who need to hear about Jesus's Resurrection to the meeting - especially for Kevin, a resident who came last week.

2. Rest Week - that all of the community would benefit from rest week and that the staffers leaving for Devon would have a safe and refreshing trip. ALSO - pray that the remaining staff stays healthy as we will be working on a skeleton crew as it is.

3. Opportunities with residents - please pray that I would use my breaks, meal times, and evenings at the coffee bar to further develop the friendships I've started with residents. Pray that God would give me opportunities (as he has already been doing this week) to discuss meaningful subjects rather than staying with the shallow "How was school?"

Thank you so much, my friends!!!