6 months away from home, begins here.

hello!

wow so i`m actually blogging. writing to an internet community who are probably mostly my family and friends, but still, who knew!

well, it`s been nearly a week since i got here and things are so awesome :) i am making lots of new friends and hanging out with them has been incredible. everyone here loves Jesus so much; it is so insipiring and i am realizing yet again how much i have to learn about God, His love, and my walk with Him.

there are 5 girls and 5 guys here, as well as 3 interns and luke, the director of trek. one of the guys here is what`s called a `global servant`. that means that he has worked with missionaries before who have asked him to come back to work with them again, but in a longer and deeper capacity this time. he is here to be trained for stm (short term missions). the other 9 of us will be split into 2 teams, one team of 4 and one team of 5.

my mondays through fridays are mostly scheduled with sessions and a small connecting time with God in the morning. we are doing a study on a book called `your ears will hear` and it has been very good so far! it`s about listening to God`s voice as a lifestyle as opposed to an activity. the guy who started trek, steve klassen, also wrote this book. he and his wife evy have compiled stories about their experiences with hearing God`s voice from the everyday to devoted times of study. i think God will meet more than one of us in this book and i am excited to really get into the `grit` (so to speak) of the book!

we also had a speaker named david manuel come talk to us. he`s a little east indian man (my homeboy, so pumped ;) ) who is SO on fire for Jesus! it was so exciting and inspiring to hear about the work that God has done in his life thus far and it reminds me to remain hopeful for God`s ultimate plan for my life.

my roommates, charis (`karis`) and ashley, are super awesome! we have bonded really well already and we have a lot of fun together :) we went shopping a couple times - once to an mcc thrift store about a 12 minute walk from here! it was a huge success :) i will be proudly wearing my new old man sweater with leggings. regularly.

we have church tomorrow! first time here. i`m looking forward to it :) we are going with ashley to her friend`s church and then to that friend`s house for lunch. this will be an adventure because i don`t know ashley`s friend, that church, or the friend`s parents... hooray for being outgoing!

well, that`s all for now. ì`ll try to keep this updated fairly regularly, but my apologies if up to 10 days go by between posts.

lots of love,
tejal :)