What I've Been Up To

The last couple days have been very eventful here.  In case you didn't know, we arrived at Colorado Wednesday evening.  I love Colorado, I really do.  The woods here are just better, the colors more vibrant than overcast New York, and the weather is right up my alley.

So, Thursday we did some devotional catch up, acapella worship, and a missions report.  We went to garden of the gods in the evening and had a blast scrabbling over and hiding in the red rock formations, and walking through the picturesque landscape.  I impaled my finger on a plant that was apparently a cactus with venom that makes you go a little numb.  I just had to touch it.  We watched the sun set over the mountains, went home and watched The Blind Side.  Love it.

Friday we had speakers again.  We actually got to have a super informative session with the financial adviser at HISG (the sister company to GOV).  It was all about God and money and which comes first.  At the end we got to have a Q&A time where I asked lots of questions about things I don't understand, like investing, loans, money in ministry etc.  Moral of the lecture, money makes a great servant, but a horrible master.  Later that day we got to hear from a missionary from Nigeria named Amos.  He was traveling through Colorado Springs on business and we happened to catch him.  Wow, his testimony and his message was so simple, yet so powerful.  Jesus is our Savior, but also our Lord, we can't say no to Him.  Be obedient even to death.  His passion for the gospel and God's Word was so moving.

Yesterday, oh yesterday.  Things were really interesting.  One of our leaders signed us up to do some community service.  A local church has a ministry for foster care boys.  They give them the tools they need to live godly, and fruitful lifestyles when they are no longer minors and have to live on their own.  So yesterday we worked with these wonderfully devoted and enthusiastic people to do the landscaping on the yard of a house that was slowly turning into livable housing for these boys.  Basically the place had been empty for years and the yard showed in.  No landscaping whatsoever, just tufts of weeds and rusty pieces of metal and broken down fence.  We rolled up our sleeves and cleared it all out, making it a clean slate for the mulch, plants, edging, and gravel to replace it.  We even put down a tiny lawn with some fresh sod.  And it didn't stop there, we still had plenty of materials left so we went knocking on neighbors doors and put in some great landscaping over in their yard too!  It was a long day, almost 8 hours of shoveling, raking, hauling, and digging.  We are all in physical pain today, but it was so worth it.  It really cheered my heart to see the local church reaching out in such an encouraging way, impacting the community.

And today?  I know we're going to a mega church service very soon, but other than that I have no idea.  Hopefully we're getting the day off so I can do a little reading and/or sleeping, and some fun time in the woods doing a little escrema.....maybe a little tree climbing, call my family, all that fun stuff.

So, that's what I've been up to, just thought I'd keep you posted.