Ohana

So nannies aren't exactly the most noticed people at the YWAM base. I get to participate in activities when I'm not watching the kids, but it's not the easiest position. The enemy's been trying to tell me that I'm not going to get anything out of this, that this is for students and not for me, that I'm not going to be here long enough, etc. Jordan and Danielle prayed for me this morning and called me out on it, and I repented and asked for God's grace.
The day was fun, in town with the Boleys and then a rather stressful afternoon with the kids. At night there was a dessert social for all the students, and after eating a lot of wonderful sweets we sat at tables and were told to each answer 3 questions.

#1. How did you come to know the Lord?
#2. What has been your biggest struggle/the hardest thing you've had to come through?
#3. What's your biggest, ultimate dream?

There were 8 of us at my table, and we ended up talking for probably 2 hours. Simple icebreaker questions, but something happened. The Holy Spirit came and we were all overwhelmed, we finished our talking by praising God and praying for each other. Suddenly I saw and experienced what I had been hearing over and over again the past couple of days: ohana. It's Hawaiian for family (think Lilo & Stitch), and the leaders have been impressing it on everyone that this is who we are now.

I know that I need to go back. I miss my friends, I really miss Jason, and I don't think I could survive Hawaii once the weather isn't "mild." But tonight I actually wished that I could stay for longer. Ohana made me long to stay.

P.S.- My allergies are doing a lot better. I actually wore contacts today! Keep praying, though. :)

Next Adventure: Kona!!!

Okay, so it hasn't quite been a year since the last post. It just feels like it. It was almost a year ago that I stepped on the plane to London, and just yesterday I stepped on another plane to go west.
My dear friends Jordan and Danielle Boley felt called to pack up everything and take their family to do a Discipleship Training School with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) in Kona, Hawaii. Not only do I love them, but I adore their kids, too. So when they needed a nanny, they asked me to come along with them. Unfortunately, I can't stay for the entire 3 months because of school, but I am totally blessed to be able to nanny for them for the first month of their DTS. The decision was made and forms were filled out in the nick of time, and suddenly I found myself in a tropical climate for the first time ever.
I have some amazing roommates from all over the world- Norway, Canada, Russia, and Hawaii! Most of them are doing their own DTS programs, but one other is a nanny. It feels very much like camp- camp food, a small room with bunk beds, lots and lots of unfamiliar faces, ants . . . During the weekdays I get to hang out with the Boley girls while mom and dad are in school. Raegan is 3 and adjusting well, although it's very confusing and hard for her. Anabelle is 10 months and just starting to walk, which makes it that much more challenging to keep those girls occupied! They are very sweet girls, though, and I feel super blessed to be here.

Random: I saw a strange animal by the playground, a little girl informed me that it was a mongoose. I heard they eat snakes, so I now really like them.
More random information: The moon is upside down! The moon was a sliver last night, and the sliver was on the bottom instead of the side. It was very bizarre. I keep on reminding myself I'm in another state, not another country.

If you read this, please pray for my health. I've been having eye problems, and it's hard to stay upbeat and to focus on things when my eye is hurting. I think my allergies are acting up, too, which isn't helping. Praise the Lord, I got a nap in today!

I'll keep you updated!

Just Me and My God

When I went to London, I went to London alone. Many nights were spent frustrated, crying, and feeling absolutely alone. I was never able to plug into a church, and 99% of the students at my program didn't know the Lord or knew a false idea of Him. It was in the loneliness that God met me and showed me more of Who He was, not Who everyone else was telling me He was. I was given the ability to adore His beauty and to see it in things I hadn't seen it in before. I was able to seek Him before humans because He was the only one to help me sometimes. And in the midst of all this I learned to love the sinner without trying to save them myself.

Now, in Tacoma, I've faced a different sort of loneliness. For a great deal of my summer most of my closest friends have been absent in one way or another. I've had to learn to seek the Lord before my friends, even now that my friends aren't several thousand miles away. And you know what it's done? It's forced me to trust my God.

I've had to learn to trust God and not my own understanding or others' understanding. I'm still learning to trust Him even when I don't have a job or a place set up for the fall. I've just barely begun to stop setting my eyes on myself and see that God has much bigger things going on around me.

School probably shows best what God is doing in me right now. I've never thought that I was a poet. In fact, I didn't really like poetry. That is, until last January when, by the grace of God, my professor taught me the basics and then told me that I was incredibly gifted and should pursue poetry. Through a strange series of events God stripped me of my own attempts at planning my school year. He kept me from choosing what I felt I could have done by my own power pretty easily. And then, in His own ways, He confirmed that I was to take more poetry classes. Scared to death, I enrolled in Intermediate Poetry in order to take the poetry capstone in the spring, making my entire PLU career focused on poetry.

I can't write poetry on my own. I can't be a poet without God directly working in me. It needs to be God. Where before school was my comfort zone, now God has made it someplace where I need to be completely dependent on Him. And it's exciting. I have my loved ones close to me again, but now I get to be blessed by them while trusting my God to sustain me. Praise God!

Football, Temper Tantrums, and Bookstores

Two months back in the States. Is it possible? Most of my British mannerisms seem to be gone, although it was really hard to say the word soccer during the World Cup. It makes more sense to call it football, especially since most of the world does!

I'm nannying Mondays and Thursdays this summer for a family with 6 kids. It's been challenging, to be sure, but also kind of fun. I'm learning so much, too. For instance, children cannot comprehend the big picture. You tell them they can't eat a snack at 4:30 because dinner's at 5:00, and they wonder why you're so mean as to starve them like that. After I'm done getting impatient, I realize how similar I am to that child. After all, I like to pretend that I know what I need better than God does. How could He delay giving me what I ask Him? Doesn't He know I need it right now? How many times have I thrown my own adult temper tantrums because God didn't allow me to spoil my appetite for the good things He had planned for me?

I'm really enjoying not being in a long distance relationship. Jason and I have been able to spend lots of quality time together, and the Lord has totally been working in both of us together. This last week we spent a day in Port Townsend, where we had a picnic, explored a creepy old fort, and visited the really cool Victorian downtown. The highlight was for sure the old bookstore we found- by the grace of God, I was able to limit myself to buying only 3 books!

I'm missing London a lot, but God is blessing me this summer. :)

A Fond Farewell

Today I went to Borough Market with Lizzie and Hannah Lee and roamed the food market (like Pike's Place, but very much a London market). We ordered pies and a pasty for lunch and ate in the courtyard of the church where Shakespeare worshiped, down the road from the Globe. We had a long conversation with the distinctly English man selling us fresh Turkish Delight, and we bought hot mulled wine from two men who told us their recipe and how they don't add sugar like other mulled wine makers. Lizzie and I took our last double-decker bus to Waterloo Station and then crossing the foot bridge, saying goodbye to Big Ben and the London Eye from our view above the Thames River. I went off on my own to the National Portrait Gallery, said hi to Henry VIII and William Morris and Queen Elizabeth II and Oscar Wilde. I visited the tea shop on the Strand, bought myself a tea tidy so I can make a proper cup of tea back in the States. Then, picking up a London Evening Standard, I descended into Charing Cross Underground Station and took the Tube back to Alice's house.

Farewell, London, my dear, dear friend. I will return.

Restlessness

I can't concentrate on anything.
Sleep doesn't come easily, and when it comes it's too long or too short.
I'm not worried about finals, and it's hard to force myself to study.
A large suitcase sits underneath my desk, a duffel bag next to my chair, and every so often I get the urge to add things to their half-empty bodies.
My shelves are half-filled, a large stack of books now transferred to my dresser where they await their return to the AHA building.
I'm constantly trying to think of things I can leave behind or use up so that my luggage will be lighter for travel.
I treat myself to drinks or scones or other British food, knowing that it might be my last chance to savour these things for a long time.
I tell my heart to be still, my mind to focus on homework, my restless body to settle down; it doesn't work.


I'm leaving my home.

I'm going home.

Beatles, Cricket, a Punt, Fish, and a Box

So I'm currently in a rush to try and mark things off my "To Do Before I Leave London" list. Here's some of the highlights of this past week:

*Some friends and I went to Abbey Road.


*My history class visited Lord's Cricket Grounds, the center of cricket. I'm still pretty foggy on the rules of cricket, but I did sort of figure it out by the time we left the match.


*I saw the play Women Beware Women, the musical Billy Elliot, and Riverdance. The play was really twisted but in an odd way beautiful, the musical had incredible dancing and one of the best child actors I've ever seen, and Riverdance was way overpriced but beautiful and fun.

*I got to hang out with Jason's roommate from last year, Luke, and his friend from his study abroad program in Ireland. It was fun to catch up and show them around. I've missed Luke!

*Katy and our friend Corinne and I went back to Oxford on Friday. We tried a punt (those long boats with poles that you use to push it through the river) and utterly failed, so we ended up taking a pedal boat down the river. We went back to the Eagle and Child, and we bought university clothing. This time I got to go see the Magdalen College, where C. S. Lewis taught! It was incredible, I nearly cried. Everyone was so nice to us, too. The porter at Magdalen let us each get in for one pound "on account of the bad weather" (it's normally 3 pound fifty each). Afterward when we went to Merton College (the one where Tolkien taught), the porter let us in for free instead of the usual two pound fifty. The picture below is of Lewis's rooms at Magdalen.


*On Saturday some friends and I went to Brighton, a hippie town by the sea. It was beautiful, much like a colder British version of a South California beach town. We rode a carousel, went to a pub, went shopping, relaxed on the rocky shore. Oh, and I ate fish and chips for the first time in England. I know, I know, how could I spend 3 months in England and not eat fish and chips? Well, I don't like fish, so this was a breakthrough for me. I made it through, but I think that I've had enough breakthrough in this area to last me awhile. I'll stick to steak and ale pie. ;)

I'm having a great time, and I'm loving London more and more. Yet, the best part of this week came Thursday night, when I got home late and found a package waiting for me on my bed. Whitney had brought it back for me (she had class and so got to the mail when I didn't), and she had placed an airmail sticker on the customs form to cover up what was inside the box. I waited until I had finished up my other tasks for the night. I crawled into bed, exhausted, kind of grumpy, frustrated over plans; I picked up the box. Opening it, all I did was read the introduction letter from Jason before I started crying. Jason had asked my friends to write letters and notes of encouragement to me, and he had sent them all to me via ridiculously expensive and slow air mail. As I read the notes one by one, I was overcome by how much I am loved- by Jason, by my friends, by God! The words were right on, and the encouragement was exactly what I needed at that moment.

I love London, but I can't wait to see my amazing friends in person. The box is helping me last until May 15th. :)