Old man, this was a really busy week. I think I kind of went very much up and down this week in my leadership abilities some days there was great success some days not so much but I guess that's life.
On Sunday I was in charge of practical ministries. If you never been YWAM you might not know what a practical ministry is. Every day every student has a role on campus, whether that be working in offices or maintenance, housekeeping, Hospitality or kitchen. On the weekends we give the students a bit of a break from their weekly routine and we have one staff who's in charge of just five students to do all of the jobs for the day but we pair the load down. They're just in charge of preparing breakfast and dinner making sure that the lunch meats and loaves of bread are out at breakfast time so people can prepare lunch and then they do basic housekeeping. I knew ahead of time that I was having this job for the weekend and so I planned out the meal that I wanted to be responsible for cooking. Everyone here loves my homemade tomato bisque and grilled cheese sandwiches so this week I really tried to plan ahead and the boys who are in charge of shopping were able to get us pre-sliced bread and sliced cheese that was not wrapped and then say this about two hours of work! I just get so much joy from people enjoying food or gifts or anything like that. It's so good to have everyone super excited and really happy to have a good comforting meal on a Sunday night was such a joy to me I love being able to bless people like that. My team of students were a joy to work with and kept saying how much they enjoyed cooking the meal :) It's also a meal with very few dishes, so bonus perk!
On Monday after such a yummy and warm meal it actually snowed again, it was actually really crazy for me because not only as the snow thing new for me but the fact that it doesn't have to be freezing for it to snow is definitely something that I did not quite understand. it was the warmest day of the past few weeks, like 7 or 8c when it started sprinkling and then it started pouring and then there were awful wind and thunder and then all of a sudden the rain started swirling and I quickly realized that it was no longer rain but it was snow and it was still thundering so it's like a thunder snowstorm what the heck even is that? And it snowed pretty consistently for about 25 minutes and everything turned white but also within the next two hours the sun came out and all of the sudden was all of the snow was gone so you're Florida girls a little bit in out of her element.
I once again held Ministry circle on Monday, It was a fail for me. I had a project planned for our love feast, to make card for our local guests... but the project was cut and I didn't have time to bounce back like I would have liked, but we ended up making cards to bless friends and classmates with on campus which was a great alternative... just wish i had more time to plan it.
This week I also began the process of upgrading my office so I did a new layout with all of my equipment I got new computer screens a new wireless keyboard and mouse system setup and next week I'll transfer over to a more powerful computer. Why am I doing this this week? Well, I'm getting prepared for the March meetings. The March meetings are the yearly gathering of the leaders and directors of the largest YWAM bases all over the world. This year it's happening in Mexico. They host the gathering so that they can plan for the year and what that looks like and also discuss any changes or updates that are happening between YWAM and the University of the nations. In preparation for this event, I am creating all of the booklets and presentations and name tags and promotional things. Prayerfully, I might even get to go I would be so stoked I find out this week.
A lot of these files are very big so upgrading my computer will help me in this process and as I move forward in my role here at YWAM. One of my other responsibilities is working alongside and Hospitality in the guest services area so daily i receive all the incoming emails with requests for staying in our Hospitality facilities. I also help to facilitate deciding if we received these guests or not and what rooms they should go into. I just make sure that everything is working smoothly between ourselves and the housekeeping team the hospitality team and the guests that are arriving. It's definitely been a learning curve for me but it's new skills that I am happy to be learning. Along with those responsibilities I'm also in charge of creating the main class and actually stepping into a project of redesigning the main classroom but in the weeks prior just taking little baby steps. We've been putting bouquets into the classroom each week but we quickly realized that our main classroom which often has over fifty students in it at any given time gets really hot and the bouquets you do not survive so this week. I was sent on the mission of getting some plants to put in the main classroom that can survive the heat and I was able to create a very fun and dynamic tropical plant creation. I got a really cool wicker basket that is on light wooden legs and I got all sorts of tropical plants and orchids and little palm trees and ferns and just made a really fun planter to put in the classroom. It is just the first step of some renovations coming along just to bring more of homie and family feel to the space.
On Friday I was honored to be able to take one of our guests that's been staying with us to the airport which set off really great talk. I have never met him before I just really encouraged me in a lot of places in my life and my future and my roles here at YWAM. In one of the very random but encouraging things we spoke on was how he and his wife had not met until he was 38 and she was 39 and I just very rare especially in missions to hear that and as someone who turns 36 in one month it was super encouraging. I just really got to hear his heart for missions and really be blessed with getting to drive him. While I was in Geneva I popped over to France... (That sounds so unreal) It was my first time personally driving across a foreign border pretty exciting. It was only like a 15-minute drive but I went to my favorite craft store and pick up supplies for my Ministry circle.
I then came back to prepare for the following day is the send in Brazil where they hosted over a hundred thousand people in three stadiums to prepare and challenge their hearts for missions, the calling of adoption and prayer in schools. we had a team there it was super exciting! We got the news today that the president of Brazil was in attendance. He joined the team on stage and declared that while currently, Brazil does not have a designated Religion but as a president, he was now a Christian! Incredible! In response to tens of thousands of people getting ignited for missions, we will be running a bilingual English Portuguese DTS in our 4th quarter of 2020! I set up the classroom and ran a live stream it was a really nice opportunity for our students and staff to get to participate in this activity.
Today I spent the day cleaning my room, getting everything in order kind of straightening out my life before we jump into this crazy presidents gathering season I feel really accomplished and I'm excited for what God has set up for me I know that starting with a clean slate going into the season is going to be refreshing and a nice way to get things going I'm excited to see what he has planned for me.
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