A new season

I woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rain on my window, it was the first morning in a while when it was really, really hard to get out of bed, and I thought to myself, Autumn is very much here, and not even just pretty autumn, leaves changing colour and all that, but the real Autumn, cold wet days thrown in there too!!

I have spent the morning finishing my article for the Intern magazine that will go out each month from the church. I had to write a little bit about myself, and then take a picture of myself with a pumpkin - we decided that we would make the pictures Autumn appropriate and since pumpkins are everywhere now, it seemed like a good idea?!! What do you think?



Last week, we had a staff retreat with the rest of the Bethany Community Church staff and interns. We talked a lot about casting a vision, and that for each different area of ministry we have to know our vision, refine our vision and be able to cast that vision ina way that others can grasp and be excited about too. It made me think a lot about YWAM and also my time with Bethany this year.

I feel a little bit detached from my vision at the moment, I have become focussed on doing what I am doing, but without the larger focus of why I am doing it. This is when things can start to seem emtpy. This new internship at church and the new phase YWAM is in seems like the perfect opportunity to take stock, recast a vision.

There will be a lot of challenges this year as I am working to create more opportunities to serve our community. My vision is to see everyone have an opportunity to use their unique gifts, talents, passions and skills in reaching people for the Lord. I realise of course that before people can do this, they must first understand more of who they are in Christ. In YWAM and the local church I have the chance to do this. In all I am doing and all the connections I am making, the priority is building up individuals. Helping them believe in themselves and see who they are, and who they were created to be.

Please be praying for me to find a good balance in my life, with all the different hats I am wearing.
Please pray for the relationships I am building and that they will lead to us serving our community well.
Please pray for YWAM as we continue to wrok through this new and strange season.

A whole lot of wedding!!

On Saturday I went to 2 weddings. Actually, one was a reception for a wedding that happened out of State, but still it was an excuse to get dresesd up and enjoy the good company of good friends.

In the morning, my good friends, and old small group leaders Tim and Sarah got married. It was a beautiful wedding, the sun was shining which was a good thing because the wedding was outside on a dock! I did a couple of readings in the wedding, and my true British came out for all to hear. I read Pooh Bear quotes...this is why Sarah and I are such good friends, our mutual love of all things Pooh. My favourite was this one...

"Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent.
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh" said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh "What do you say Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet
"Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing" he said.

Instead of lighting the unity candle, they poured sand. This was a practical choice because it would have been hard to light the candle with the wind blowing, but actually the sand ceremony turned out really well, and was another place their personalities and humor shone through, as Sarah's sand seemed to have a mind of it's own.




My friend Wendy and I with Sarah

I am so blessed to have friends like this and felt very honored tp be a part of their special day. The following lunch and specially created cocktails was an added treat, and after the toast and rounds of fantastic chocolate cake we all left feeling very stuffed.

Round two happened a little later in the evening, and after a nap!! John and Britta are another couple from the same small group and they got married in Colorado, where Britta is from In August. John is from Washington so this was their reception/celebration for friends and family who couldn't make it out to the wedding.

More food, amazing food again and then dancing (to work off all of the food)

As you can see most of us took full advantage of the dual event day and managed an outfit change!!


Me with my friends Brice and Rachel

Me with Britta (the bride, in red) and Aaron and Nicole

Birthday!

I had a very special birthday - thank you for all your cards and messages, i felt very loved!

I just thought I would share a pic from my celebrations.

Here are Zara and I getting cupcakes at my favourite place, Cupcake Royale.

First week

Last week, I had a few meetings at Bethany to talk more about what I will be doing this year. I am going to be overseeing developing local missions for the church. The church is just a couple of blocks from a main road in Seattle called Aurora. The Aurora area is known for its high drug and prostitution activity. A task force of 8 people from Bethany have compiled a ton of information and research about the area and discovered that living amongst the crime and poverty, there are also more wealthy homes, there are families living in the motels and lots of children growing up in the area too. The research was to determine how Bethany could best serve this local community, what were the highest areas of need.

The research concluded that there wasn't one specific need that stood out. Instead it simply concluded that there was a whole community living there, and all areas of it have needs, Bethany church houses a woman's shelter in our basement for a few nights a week. This ministry, Tabitha place was established about a year ago and is the first stage of a bigger vision for our local area. The idea is to start new outreaches that can come under the umbrella of the Tabitha ministry and that it would keep the same standards and be run in the same way in regards to the ways volunteers are trained, cared for and brought in to the team. The volunteers with Tabitha are so well and intentionally taken care of that they have had a very low turnover and people still love what they are doing!

I am going to be exploring possible ways to serve and get more of the church body involved with local mission. It will be a challenge, but i am excited for it!!

I am also going to be working with the missions board to create standards for the short term mission trips that Bethany takes each year. This is where my YWAM years will come in handy!!! I look forward to sharing some of the things we have learnt and helping the church to make these trips the most impacting for the people going and the people they are serving.

I am also going to be working with Megan, the college Pastor to plan the College groups mission trip to Mississippi in March.

This week will be my first real week. A totally new schedule. YWAM and Bethany work fitting in to my week. Discipline needed to get all i need to do done!! I am also seeing how much better i need to be at planning ahead, things like packing lunches in the morning and taking them with me, and also going grocery shop isn't able to be such a spontaneous decision and i need to plan or I won't eat!

My birthday is this Thursday but I won't be celebrating until the following weekend because this Saturday I have a special wedding to go to. My old small group leaders from church, now very special friends Tim and Sarah are getting married. I am reading in the wedding - my barely recognisable British accent seems to get me a lot of such gigs!!!!

I look forward to updating you again soon with more news from both YWAM and the church...and i also will try to find fun and interesting things to take pictures of and post them.

Watch this space.

It's September already!

It's September, and in my head this marks the start of a new year - I have just never left 'School year' mode.

I am excited to let you know that my internship with Bethany Community Church begins this week! I am so looking forward to this new challenge and work environment. I am working with the MIssions Pastor, Chris and the College and Community Pastor, Megan.

I had a meeting this morning and we discussed the needs that they have and the time commitments for those, to try and make a schedule of some sort for my week. The Internship involves also attending the weekly staff meetings, meeting one on one with the Pastors I am working with and also a Theology meeting each week. I look forward to having some more input in my week.

It looks like my main responsibility will be developing local missions in the community around the church. I will be putting teams together and training, briefing and de-breifing them as they serve. I hope to develop opportunities for all ages in the church community to be involved in serviing.

This is a pretty broad description, but I hope as I get started, as i meet with people and begin to have conversations, it will take a more specific shape. I am also excited to work with other areas of the church, in the Sunday school and college ministry talking about missions and living a missional life.

With the rest of my time, I am involved in YWAM meetings and discussing our future. I am beginning to meet regularly with a couple of other staff to really pray and focus on the DTS program. We have LOTS to do to get the program up and running the way we want for next year, but I believe God will be leading us in the direction we need to go, and trust that it to His hands.

So I am in the posture of taking a deep breath, poised with anticipation, knowing things are about to really pick up pace!
I look forward to running the next year with you!