five months gone!

The last couple of days have flown by. Tuesday was my day off, so I went to the gym and did a couple things around the house. After lunch, me and Sam went down to the beach to baste in the suns rays. Don't worry: we put on lots of sunscreen. Later that night, we had the girls Bible study at Helen's house. We are actually taking a 12-week missions course starting next week called Perspectives at the Theological College in Perth; I'm really looking forward to that. Wednesday was a big work day; I spent most of the day in front of a computer screen, putting lots of things together for church. Wednesday night was the high school girls group that me and Cath do together. We made mexican and played taboo at Cath's house. 14-year-old high school girls are NUTS!!! But extremely entertaining! Thursday I visited the gym in the morning and then caught the train into the city to eat lunch with Hayley. I love catching the train, it makes me wish Nashville had a safe public transportation system. I also love pepole watching, but usually I don't know the line between making observations and blatent staring. After lunch with Hayley, I caught up with Ilona for a coffee. The photos are from our afternoon in the city. Ilona is heading over to Ireland for about 11 months on a working visa, she leaves on March 10. I'm sad that she's leaving, but excited for the opportunity she has to go and explore more of the world. Thursday night, I had dinner with a couple from church, John and Margaret Barton, they are wonderful. They always make me feel apart of their family and I feel so blessed to have people over here that are looking after me.

After dinner, several of us went to a fund raiser for our friend Michael, who has started up an organization called Mercy Aid that will be based out of Indonesia. His vision is to build community centers for several of the islands destroyed by the tsunami, which would provide food, shelter, supplies and different kinds of resources for the survivors. He leaves in just a few days and it was so encouraging to hear about what God is doing over there. I felt really empowered to go and be apart of something bigger; when you think about your everyday life and your surroundings, you realize that we are so blessed. We have such an opportunity to reach out to a dying world around us, but it is so easy to ignore that reality when we are consumed by our comfortable everyday lives. A verse that has really spoken to me recently is Matthew 25:35-40:
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"