In transition...

Lecture phase is officially over!! Our speaker this week was Kara Thompson, co-director of YWAM Las Vegas. She spoke on relationships - it was amazing. She was definitely a wealth of knowledge on romantic relationships, marriage, sex, etc. The fact that she was hilarious was amusing, too. Funny stories, funny personality... : )

Kara also talked about healing. "God is committed to your healing and wholeness." Sigh. Wow. I want to be better, I really do. But I easily get bogged down and discouraged at how much I fall short. Half the time I'm not even honest with myself about things, so it's even hard to be aware of the things God wants to change in me. But Kara put it in a way that's freeing. God will bring up the things that He wants us to heal and deal with. Let's take care of these things! One thing at a time - or else nothing more than I can handle. I absolutely love this! It encourages me and makes me excited to let God in to show me my brokenness. I want to be more whole, more self-aware, more mature, more self-controlled. Deep breaths... deep breaths...

This week was just really valuable in general. I feel like I got a lot of good information and got to know God more in how relational He is. I have a clearer idea of how He designed relationships to be.

Since this was our last week and people have been heading back home for Christmas break, I've realized that the end of DTS just may kill me. It's been hard to say goodbye to people I've seen everyday for the past two months and have grown so close to even though I'll see them in a week! I'm realizing that the fact that they're my family is so real to me.

I must have attachment issues. : P

So now I'm staying at Carolyn's house with her family for Christmas break. It's definitely waaaaay different than what I'm used to - she has 5 siblings. Ha! It will definitely be an experience to be had --- I'm excited to have "siblings."

Things you guys can pray for:

This was a really hard week for all of us. Just stressful, busy, emotionally draining in so many ways. I myself feel the emotional roller coaster that is the end of lecture phase/preparation for outreach mixed with not being home for Christmas and the crazy weeks we've had recently! It's almost too much. Just pray for calm, comfort, and that we all just take a few breaths.

Outreach. Oh my goodness, it is pretty much here. We leave in 14 days. Fourteen days. Just pray that the prep goes well and that we're able to be there for each other as some of us might just freak out!

For my family. I don't know how not having me there for Christmas will be, but it probably won't be easy. I at least have the comfort of being in a different context. They have all the reminders but no me.

Just some fun pictures!

hahaha... I don't even know.

This is girls' fun night and we went to Dessert Sinsations for cheesecake (soooo good...).

We must've been a little sugar high...

At the movie Australia last week.
As you can see, I'm really good at messing up pictures (sorry, Jas).

Crystal and Jas (who I think looks like ET in the middle of the stuffed animal pile)
with all the kiddos from the kids' program we run twice a week.

We're sleeeeeeepy... this was a regular occurrence over the last two weeks.
Mostly, it was Mike.
Nope, wait, it was only Mike.
But I have to admit - I agree with him in this picture. Zzzzzz...