Arrival & Restoration...

Before I got here, I feared a lack of community, but the opposite has been the case. I love the interns in my internship and then Julie, Angie, and Hakeem are in the Pursuit (young adult day time internship) and I enjoy spending time with them as well! Everyone I have met here is so honest and after God’s heart.

Staying with my Aunt June has also been a blessing. I LOVE getting to know her. She has such a beautiful, kind, and generous heart. And I’ve been able to see my cousins a bit. My schedule is pretty busy…but hopefully I’ll see them more. I did spend my first snow day with them!!

So, when I first got here, a couple people heard my testimony and said that they really felt like God was saying Song of Soloman 2: 10 - 13 to me…"Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in or land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” Some people even gave me this verse as they felt God saying it over me - when they had not even met me or heard about my testimony. This is a verse I often read and in spring of 2007, I thought, ‘ok – the winter is gone and the rains are over, but the debris is still here and the flowers are not yet in bloom.’ This season has been a season of mending and restoring and removing the debris (more on that later!). The first few days here, singers in the prayer room would sing songs related to Psalm 84:5 (which God gave me in spring of '07 in a cool way that I described in that long story about my heart coming out here. It says, "Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage") and Song of Soloman 2: 10-13. In one song, the singer was singing, “It’s been a long, long winter, but you say come away…” I was in shock and tears just streamed down my face because these words seemed like they came right out of my prayers and were being sung over me. There were also songs about restoration in the first few weeks that spoke right to me. It was so good! Our first week started with a 12-hour day of consecration in the prayer room the entire day and then the week exceeded my expectations. During the first two weeks, the Lord really spoke to me through the gospel of Mark as I was finishing up my study through it. I can share more on that in another entry. It’s good stuff!! Then the second week, we started all of our classes, and my mind felt like it was on overload! I have since become used to the plethora of teachings and have come to digest some of it and accept the fact that I can process and study some of it at another point. So, I think that should suffice for a description of my arrival and first two weeks here. Hope it works for you! Any questions, feel free to ask!

(This picture is of all the interns (The Watch, Pursuit, & Intro interns) and the leaders of the internships).