good gifts

Seeing Sara for 15 hrs.

Always been surprised by God!

Jenis ice cream with my moms

Eva's art... so beautiful!

Debbie visiting, she always reminds me who I am and speaks truth in to me

baby Lizzie and watching Allie hold her

Watching Shelley glow when she thinks about Jonathan

Adrienne home from Italy for a week

Praying for a lady with Tara on High St.

Dreaming about life

Listening to the Bible on CD. It comes alive!

Knowing people are praying for me. 

Thank you! It makes me feel so protected and held up!

real

Sunday was such a great day!

The A'Dam team got prayed for at the services and it felt very emotional, real, and final but also so well timed. Standing up on the stage with the 10 people I've grown to love the past 6 months was very special. I really felt the Holy Spirit present there as we were commissioned and sent out from Vineyard Columbus. The tears were flowing all day! It was a good day! Sunday night was Eric and Julia's last night at Joshua House and Ben Rosen, one of their dear friends organized a big party for them after the service. It was so special. I enjoyed seeing so many lovely friends in one place. Man, this is so hard. The grieving has begun in earnest. 

Please pray that I can sleep. I'm tossing and turning all night and then exhausted all day.

Also, pray that God would set up the perfect apartment for Allie Klein and I as well as a good language school and the appropriate connections and set up stuff that needs to take place!

I leave Saturday for Michigan with my family. My grandpa's memorial service is Saturday afternoon and then we'll head up to the Upper Peninsula for our annual family reunion at the cottage in honor of Grandpa Davies for a week! 

After a deep breath...

This past weekend I went away for a last hurrah with my community here in Columbus, Joshua House. It was a delight! We were out in a field, over 800 of us. It was a gorgeous sunny warm 3 days. .... and I FINALLY started to cry! It was wonderful! Saturday night during worship, singing a song with a line that says... " the day true love died...." (talking about Jesus) it just hit me... the beautiful privilege and joy it is to be moving to Amsterdam but then the grief of leaving Columbus, these people, this community hit me just as hard and that's when I started to cry. I haven't been able to really cry until now, and for me, for how I process it's really important to be able to do it. So, hurray it's started!!!

Also, it was so refreshingly powerful to see the Holy Spirit at work. I need more faith, more.. more.. because I want to see the stuff in Amsterdam, I long to see my future old neighbor walk for the first time in 10 years, and the shop girl down the street healed of scoliosis and my Muslim friend woken up in the middle of night with Jesus speaking to her. It's this stuff that gives me chills, that I can't wait to see. So I started to practice... I watched, and it was thrilling!

Also, I got to help baptize my dear friend Laura. I've always cried at baptisms.. it's such an amazing image of the new life we get when we give in and say yes to Jesus... but it was even more powerful to be in the water and a part of it. Wow.

Thank God for Breathe, for camp fires, for sun, for dirt, for fields, for Joshua House, for home, for Amsterdam, for what You have planned, for doing what You do in spite of us. For letting us watch.

the good stuff

Today I was thinking of the things I've loved about life here in Columbus over the past few months...

The movie "Once"

Regina Spektor music

Waking up and brushing my teeth with my sister

Learning to ride a bike sorta well

Jeni's ice cream

Knowing people at Midwest Photo

Old Polaroid camera

Seeing my cousin 3 times this summer

N.C.

The A Team

Holding Grayson while worshiping

Gigi, Connor, and Lucas

Zenias

Chicago art museum

Hand made things

Special gifts

Special friends

Summer rain

My new mac

Lime green and purple

Wearing clothes I rarely wear

Taking naps on the white couch

Looking through old photos

Check off things on my to do list

Singing real loud in the yard....

It's almost the end of the world as I know it....

Hello friends!! I'm very sorry.. it's been a while since I've been on here. I got back from vacation a few weeks ago and things started moving at hyper speed and it took me a bit to catch up. Let's see, what's happened since then? 

1. I am now at 100% raised monthly support, praise the Lord!!! 

2. I bought my plane ticket. August 18th 3:20pm!!! I'll be in Amsterdam by 7am on the 19th!

3. I visited friends in Chicago for the last time.. goodbye my college town!

4. I've started saying my goodbyes

5. I have 2 bags in the basement with "take" items in them. I'm trying to figure out how to cram    some of my art in the bags as well (without breaking anything!)

6. My brain hurts from trying to figure out finance questions

That's all I can think of right now! Every day I wake up feeling slightly insane but then once I've showered, had some breakfast, a read and written in my journal then I feel like I can face the day. God is so good and so kind to me. I feel like he's giving me so much room to live big and make mistakes and as he watches my back in the process. It's a good feeling. Especially since I have only 6 weeks till I get on a plane to start my new adventure in a new city with my new team and my new computer and new to me vintage polaroid camera. Oh God, oh God, oh God!!!!