Messy, Crazy, Beautiful Life!

The Lord is good!...and faithful, and merciful and loving and about a million other truly wonderful things! I am so thankful for the prayers ya’ll have been lifting up on our island’s account – He has heard them and honored them…let me tell you how!!

Last week we began leader training at Windemere High School (insert loud cheers here!) with two teachers that are going to be leading Campaigners next semester for their high school! I am sooooo excited to watch the Lord’s faithfulness in this. Pray that we have awesome training time and that this couple falls more in love with the Lord through their own involvement with Young Life- that they will then have more to share with kids!

Last week we also had our first club time at the school! Because of the distance between the settlements and the fact that the kids don’t have much mobility outside of the school bus, we have decided to do Campaigners (small groups) by settlement (so 6 different Campaigner’s groups for Central High School) and club during lunchtime at the school! The club situation has been one we have been praying for and studying and trying to figure out the best way to arrange it so the maximum number of kids would have the option to come. Then two Mondays ago at my girls’ choir performance I met a teacher, Shalini, who is very passionate about these kids and loves the Lord. She offered to let us meet in her room (Room 11) on Fridays to have club! I think she would make an incredible leader, pray that she gets a great introduction to Young Life and that as we get to know each other better, I would know that she’s a good fit and she would see the Lord in what we’re doing and be open to being even more involved with it!

I also got to brave my first hurricane on the island the week before last-my kids say I’ve got my “Storm-cred” now, haha! It was just Allie and I in the back room of my house and, while it was not an experience I really want to repeat again, there is something beautiful about knowing that the only thing there was to do was snuggle up with Allie in the dark and pray my heart out. There in an intimacy with the Father that only comes when you feel a desperate, tangible need for Him and His power and comfort-what a blessing for me to be allowed to see my need for Him this way! In the midst of the storm (literally) I found peace the only place it really exists, with Him! Pray with me this week for that same peace to make the way into the hearts of our brothers and sisters up north that are still dealing with the aftermath of that same storm!

Also hurricanes have an effect on the bonding of people, when there’s no power, people don’t go to school or work, everyone sits outside and visits. I met more new people after the hurricane than in the past four months combined!!! You guys had been praying for real friends for me and that is one of the ways I see the Lord answering prayers distinctly right now! I have a family that I am real true friends with on Spanish Wells! Amy and Michael have four adorable kids, and are here working with the Haitian Refugee camps. They get it. It is such a blessing to be with them, their sweet love and trust in the Lord shines in their life and their familiar culture makes their home a restful place when I get to make it over there. Also I have gotten to spend some time with Pam and Gregory’s daughter, Amy. She and her husband Paul are just a couple years older than Ben and I and are Bahamian, but feel very familiar from their extensive time in American culture. Amy is funny, funny, funny and I am so excited to get to know them better!!

God is good to me beyond all I could ask or imagine. We still have struggles, I have a lot of fundraising to do this December before I can come back and continue the work we have begun here, it’s still hard to be away from my fiancé at this point in our lives, and I am still being humbled everyday by how much I still have yet to learn about life here…but it’s not overwhelming. When God is in the center of all of it, the struggles mix in with the blessings and what comes out is a messy, crazy, beautiful life that we are learning to love more and more everyday. Thank you for praying with us, for loving us, for loving this island and walking with us as we continually build this ministry and attempt to create a “life-well lived” among the people we’re here to serve!