I arrived back home late Sunday night from BC, after some crazy security lines in the airports! I can only be in one place at once, so it always takes me a couple of days after leaving a place for my mind to leave it too. For the past 2 days my mind has still been on Thetis Island, so if I haven't answered phone calls, then that is why. It takes me a while to re-adjust my heart and mind before I start picking up all of the strands of my life here again!
It has been a wonderful six weeks at Capernwray Harbour, and I feel so privileged to have the chance to spend summers there during these formative years of my life. I was able to learn a lot about myself, through situations, relationships and listening to the Lord reveal things to me. We were able to invest in the lives of some pretty special teenagers, and share truth with them. I came away with a renewed sense of confidence in my identity, who I am, and where my values lie. I'm so thankful to belong to someone so much greater than me, and I want to choose him every day that I live in this world, because he came to bring life in its fullness, and that life is HIS life in ME. I will never understand this, but I believe it.
I learnt to wakeboard.
I love wakeboarding.
The day after I came home, I went to a lunch downtown with my parents, which was a part of the international HIV/AIDS conference that is taking place in Toronto this week. The lunch was for only about 20 people, and was led by Rick Warren (author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of Saddleback church in California). I was a bit intimidated to be sitting around a table with a bunch of hot shots in black suits, but then I decided that there was really no point being intimidated by such people, and so I struck up conversation with the "hot shots" around me and had a great time! Rick Warren even announced that he wants his son to marry me.
It was a really informative time, and many things that were said were nuggets of truth and wisdom that I wish I could have scribbled down on paper because the talk was so rich with them.
It's funny where each day leads us....one day I am scrambling around in the ocean with a bunch of kids with salt in my hair and dirt all over me, and the next day I am sitting in an exlusive hotel board room eating lunch with exlusive members of society. Life is an adventure and each day is to be embraced. We should never stop stepping out of our comfort zone. Never.
Last night I was in the house alone and I got scared because I kept hearing banging from what sounded like the basement. I went out onto the porch to call someone to come over because I was nervous that there was a scary man downstairs. Just as I was making the call, Mike Middleton came around the corner followed by Jacob- I've never been so relieved to see anyone in my life! They ended up rescuing me for the night, and I went back this morning and searched around, and whatever/whoever it was seems to have gone. I think I was just nervous because I spent 6 weeks on an Island in a TOTALLY safe environment and now I am all alone in a house on a street. It's funny how everything seems 100 times more sinister at night time.
I'm sure there will be more stories from BC, but I have to jet right now for a meeting with Dave Roberts about being missions co-ordinator at Tyndale this year. It is something I am really anticipating and looking forward to.
