The last two weeks were really fun and out of the ordinary. Thursday and Friday I attended a missions focus seminar from 8am to 3pm. We learned a lot from John White, a pioneer in simple churches. Did I just call someone a pioneer?!? Anyway, he's learning a lot about doing church in homes, and is teaching people about it. We talked a lot about listening to God, which was pretty awesome. I've also decided that working only two hours a day is pretty wonderful...I think I'll do it everyday (just kidding Lana). Seriously though, being able to take off time pretty much whenever I want (as long as I have the unused time) is a huge blessing. I work with very understaning people who really appreciate me.
On Saturday Jenica, Gregory, and I hit the road for Conroe, Texas (near Houston). Matt met up with us later that night. The drive to Houston was really beautiful, and the long road trip gave us the opportunity to listen to music that each of us likes. I think you can learn a lot about a person by listening to the music they listen to on a regular basis. We were visiting the Houston area to share our team's presentation with a church there. Jenica did an internship at the church a few summers ago, and she just loved it. After our visit with them, we loved them too! Everyone we met on Sunday morning and Sunday evening encouraged us so much, it blew our minds. We'll hear back from them in about two weeks to see how God wants them to help us.
Fast forward a week to this past weekend. Matt and I had our three year anniversary last week, so we went to Lake Brownwood State Park last weekend to celebrate. Sounds romantic, huh? It really was fun though...I better have liked it since I was the one who planned it! We stayed at a cabin at the state park. It was nice, but bugs ate us alive. Matt also got a tick that he had to burn off his thigh. We were really roughing it! We took the boat with us and fished everyday, and the weather could not have been better. I've fished most of my life, but I must admit that I've never unhooked my own fish. Matt's a wonderful teacher and encourager, and he managed to get me to unhook my own fish (all but the ones where the hook managed to get in their eyes, I made him do those). It was a wonderful trip. We'll see if I get around to posting some pictures from it.
A lot has happened since my last posting, but I've found lately that the last thing I want to do at night is get back on the computer after being on it all day. I'm pretty sure I've said that before...which shows how adamant I am about it. However, a lot of cool things have happened so I need to catch up on them.
The rest of my teammates got a little fire lit under them at our module, and Jenica has been doing an awesome job of contacting churches to help support us. She got a visit set up with a church in Houston and one in San Antonio, so May is traveling month for the team! We're really excited, because one of the things we realized at our module is that God has not only called us to share the Gospel with the people of Australia, but also to tell North Americans that God loves and cares about the people of Australia. Sometimes we feel like people don't think Australians need to know God, because Australia is not an underdeveloped country. However, so little people there know Him, and they're trying to fill their lives with other things that won't last. God has big plans for Australia, and we are excited to tell people about that.
One of the other cool things that happened was our mentor Gary contacted another church on our behalf, and we sent them a few of our fundraising packets this week. We got together twice last week to polish up the packet, and those two nights were really fun. We're opening up so much as a team, just having fun and being crazy around one another. One thing I found out about Gregory is that he's a pretty great dancer! He was not afraid to show off his moves as we listened to music....
I've also had some really good conversations with a man from the church my sister attends in Idaho. Their church just did a fundraising weekend for missions, and he was talking about the possibility of helping Matt and me a little out of that contribution. As is the case with almost every church we've talked to this year, he said unfortunately people are not giving as much as they did a few years ago (which is understandable, but still frustrating!) What has really struck me though is this, he has been amazing about keeping in touch with me to let me know the status of the church. He has also been really encouraging as to what we'll be doing in Australia. Most churches we contacted never even returned our emails...pretty crazy right? It's much better to get a no than nothing at all! As I told my sister last week, even if the church is not able to help us monetarily, the fact that they are praying for us and he has been so encouraging has been a huge blessing.
On a different note, another thing that has kept me really busy since last Saturday is painting our kitchen cabinets. We're doing this for two reasons, one being that they're really ugly and need to be painted white to help freshen up our kitchen, and the other is that we think painting them will help us sell this house. It's been a great first house, but there have been a lot of things that we've gotten used to being here everyday that are really quite ugly! It's little things really, like grungy looking light switches and a poor quality paint job on the walls. Needless to say, our Saturdays are going to be busy with little remodels here and there for quite a few months!
