Living on the J-Life farm has been a lot nicer than we thought it would be.
Down-side – our flat is just a bedroom and a bathroom. So we have to go up to use the campsite kitchen to cook our food. And no living room. The internet is so slow it’s almost non-existent.There are a lot of flies, and if the wind blows in a certain direction, all you can smell is cow manure. We are 30 minutes from shopping (Heidelberg) and 1 hour from our church, running club, and most of our friends. It’s funny how you just adjust though. When we go to town, we just make a full day of it, and it doesn’t work out so bad.
Up-side – Just to give you a picture, last week Michelle and I helped with a 7th grade school camp. I woke up to the sight of the rising sun on beautiful green mountains/hills (if you’re from Colorado or Switzerland they are definitely hills; if you’re from Michigan or Texas they are definitely mountains) and the sound of birds. The grass was still wet from the last night’s thunderstorm as I made myself coffee and sat on the veranda. Then I realized my schedule for the day was:
Play soccer
Breakfast
Hike up the mountain
Paintball/ life lessons
Lunch
Raft building/ life lessons
Dinner
Capture the flag
Bonfire
That was my day of “work”. And I wondered if life gets any better than that.
The end is near for Michelle and I and our time with J-Life. And we trust that God has bigger and better things in store for us over the next stage of life. Right now we are pretty much working on the projects that we need to finish by next February. These include finishing our training material for J-Life’s new training model which we’re calling GC2 groups. We are thankful for some of the new staff members that will be joining J-Life next year and we trust that they will be taking the movement forward with great gusto!
Applications for the South African team, 2011, are rolling in. On top of that, many new additions to the J-Life headquarters are nearing completion including the new toilet and shower block, accommodation in some old farm silos, and the new hall/training facility. We have a team from Iowa coming to put the roof on the new accommodation later this month!
We are also gearing up for our annual summer camp and hoping that 240 teenagers will show up. Our theme this year is “Your Story,” challenging kids to see their lives as part of God’s story in the world.
Our next trip to Liberia is also fast approaching. Praise God for those who gave to make it possible for Michelle to be involved! We will be heading there for 2 weeks right after the New Year! J-Life is seeking God’s direction in starting work in 2 new countries next year. It looks like Congo is a definite. Other options include Uganda, Egypt, and Togo. It’s sad to think that we won’t be able to help with those!
As our time for leaving approaches we also spend more time thinking about life after J-Life. Michelle is working on graduate school applications and I’m trying to figure out what kind of work I would like to do. I do have a lot of peace about everything right now, which is about all I could ask for.
Posted by miah at 12:57 PM. Filed under:
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