Faithfulness Received

I hope you guys listened to that cd I recommended a few posts ago... Holy. If you didn't, please do. It's amazing.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to upload. I feel like I had a busy Labor Day Weekend...except Labor Day itself where we had a barbecue and saw an old friend of OJ's and his new wife. I spent a lot of the weekend painting a house... one of the leaders here and his wife is gone internationally for a week and a half, so there is a surprise re-vamp of their house going on... I'm thinking they don't read my blog so it's safe to admit it here.

Today was the first day of school for my Eagles Wings crew... and it's kinda weird I'm not in school! Amy pointed something out to me by saying "You've been gone most summers, but then you always came back. This year, you didn't come back." I am kind of wondering if the rest of the year will be different now that I am so starkly doing something other than what everyone else is doing. Of course, I'm surrounded by people here doing the same things I am, only at different ages. Oh well.

I have a new job with TheCall and am feeling very excited about it all. I've gone into the office for two days now, and it is so fun! I feel like I'm part of something, part of a team. I look at pictures and feel like I know people. That, my friends, is a wonderful feeling (especially when you have just moved to a new place). I even went to a party tonight. I love knowing people. Love it, love it. All this to show, Jesus knows perfectly what we need. If He hadn't stuck me in with TheCall I don't know what I would be doing right now. Probably aching for Chicago even worse than I do right now and feeling depressed about how I only know married people here. Jesus is so good and so kind. He certainly did know exactly what I needed and He has provided for it.

I have to also just say how wonderful people here are. If anyone from KC that I have met reads this, please know that in any little way you talked me or treated me like your friend (and I can say that because everyone has treated me like their friend) you have truly, truly impacted me. Being on the receiving end of "don't let anyone look down on you because you are young" isn't always so easy...how do you prevent people from treating you whatever way they're going to treat you? But here in Kansas City, I have been so incredibly blown away by the way I have been welcomed and treated. Not one person I have met has treated me as if I'm "little" or "only a teenager". They get to know me, then they find out I how old I am, then they treat me the same as they did before they knew my age. This blows. my. mind. I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't quite understand/remember from when they were young how much this means. I feel so welcomed as just normal. Not that I was ever abnormal, but I kind of expect people to use me on their team or be nice to me just to take pity on me, because I don't really have anything else to do, or, it just works. But no! I am reminded time after time after time that I have genuinely been accepted here. I work with TheCall and people are happy that I do. Again, it blows my mind.

So, thank you all my new friends in KC. and THANK YOU JESUS. Thank you, thank you, thank you. No one could have set this life in KC up better than You have. I would be nowhere without You, and I am blown away by how You have shown your love in such practical ways in my new life. :)

By the way, Jesus was my superhero in DC. Well, He's still my superhero now, but I have to just say that when I was having difficult moments or feeling discouraged, He (again and again and again) sent someone to encourage me, or specifically gave someone a word to give to me. Jesus is amazing.

Amen. Let's stand. (ha...hahahaha!)