grace, love and the metro.

Things here in Virginia have been going wonderful.  I can honestly say that I am well adjusted and am enjoying my internship (I have been for a while, this is just a late message).  This past week has flown by I can't believe I only have one and a half weeks left here.

The metro is probably the place where I have done the most thinking this summer.  The place where I have realized how stinking blessed I am.  I have a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, friends and family that love me to pieces and a God that offers me never ending grace.  Coming here has made me realize how much support I have back home; I have wonderful friends, families and neighbors.  If I would have stayed at home for my practicum credit this summer I would have never realized how much I am loved.  While also being here, I've seen how awesome Jesus really is and how much love and grace He has poured onto my life.  A love so great that shouldn't be kept all to myself, but one that should be shared.  Shared in the states and across the world; like Thailand.  Which I'm excited about, super excited, but I'm trying to focus on finishing up my internship first.

Along with blessings, I've realized how broken and powerless I really am.  That I was worthless, yet God still gave up His son for me.  Seeing how powerless I am this summer, helped me see how powerful my Jesus really is and how wonderful it is that He is able to work through me if I allow Him.  Oh man, it overwhelms me how awesome Jesus is, while at the same time makes my heart smile.

work, but no cheezburgers.

I feel like I never tell you guys about what I'm actually doing with my internship.  That is mostly because nothing too exciting happens while I am work.  I'm not bored to death or anything, but no fascinating stories to share with the world.  Well the other day as I was drinking my chai I almost died from choking on it, but that's about all my excitement here.  Speaking of chai no where around here sells chocolate chai; only good ol Olney,IL has it apparently.  Anyways...

I'm still updating/formatting CV's and starting to work on setting up LEAD's email update (which you should all join).  Last week wasn't too busy, but it was productive.  We were all able to stay at the office all week and attack our to do lists and pwn them.  Which has been nice, because the last few weeks things have been crazy and we didn't have much time to just set and do our work.  I feel like this coming week will also be a laid back week, but watch me eat my words on Wednesday.  So yes, just fun office work for me to do, it's actually not that bad, just something I wouldn't want to do for the rest of my life.  For this summer though this work has been entertaining.  Even though its not as fun as finger painting, taking naps, and having picnics with my bff 3-5 year olds, a lot of growth has occurred.  Growth this old bird needed to partake in.

Half Way Suckers!

The beginning of this week marked the halfway point for my internship. Woah dang!  It went faster than what I thought.  I remember the first week thinking, what did I get myself into, this is going to take forever and a day.
Yet I'm half way through thinking I survived and there is little time left. Ha sometimes I am a drama queen.

Being half way through this journey God has blessed me with (yes blessed), I can't help but be thankful for what Jesus has done for this poor soul.  I'm not going to lie the first couple weeks were slightly miserable (remember dramatic).  Jesus was stretching me and I was being a complete grumpy pants with Him.  However, that stretching process was what I needed.  I needed to be thrown out in the deep end and have absolutely no control, to where all I could do was hold on to Jesus and trust Him with my life. With the stretch I was able to learn and see that I actually have no control what so ever, that I am completely powerless; that I just need to trust Him and everything will be ok.  Granted I haven't mastered this and will have to work on it my entire life, and God's wonderful sense of humor will always reminds me of that.  I've also learned that I'm going to have to make a conscious choice every day to turn and follow Jesus.  My whole life is going to be a stretching process.  It might not be the most enjoy thing, but will be the most beneficial.

Along with being halfway, leadership roles of Wycliffe staff are passed down to the interns.  So my leadership position is for being the leader of the leadership development team.  The leadership development team has to conduct a Thursday class to help the interns become leaders. So part of my task is making sure the class goes good and everything gets done; fun times for me.  It's really not that bad, I just need to get off my lazy butt and do it.

paths.

"I think God is teaching you how to be still" is the quote from my mentor this week. ummm Jesus why do you always have to be correct.


So this week, I have realized some amazing things.  At first with this internship, I was wondering what on earth I was doing here, but this week I remembered that the main reason for this internship was to see what I wanted to do with my life.  With talking to numerous people about life and what I should do, my brain kept coming back to social work.  People were like so how does Wycliffe fit in with CRJ...umm it doesn't is usually what I would answer.    Then I would talk about how I would probably end up doing social work or working with people. 
So this week I went to a home group/bible study, but before it the lady picking me up, was actually a social worker and knew I was thinking about doing social work with my life.  So, being a good social worker she gave me encouragement to be one and tried to recruit me to her field.  Then we talked about our strengths in our leadership class and when thinking about my new ones and how I use them; all my responses were all like I wan't to help mend broken people or help build up people and such.  These were all little nudges from Jesus.


During all this happening in my life, I still had forgot that my plan for this internship was to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  Then out of the blue, I remembered and was like oh yeah, Jesus thanks for reminding me.  So, even though I won't be working with Wycliffe for my life, I know I will be working in the social work field.  Which is really broad and I'm not for sure where in this field I'll be working, but I know Jesus has a plan.  I'm excited about this plan though, I love helping people and that is what is in store for my future.  I guess people helping was something I was always going to do, but never accepted the thought.  I didn't think I would be cut out for it, but Jesus has equipped me with the tools and now I know a small detail of my future plans.