Another update...about time

Dear amazingly patient, forgiving, and loving friends and family,

Well, one of my personal goals for this year has been to become more disciplined, but as is evident by my lack of updates, I sill need to work on that…I will do better in the future. There are several things that you need to be updated on, beginning with work. Soon after I was rehired by World Vision, I was offered a position that would eventually become a permanent position after 13 weeks of training. I have an amazing group of friends at work and we were all in a two-week classroom together with an amazing trainer. The class was all girls who are good friends with a male trainer; you can imagine how much fun we had, or how much havoc we wreaked on our poor defenseless trainer, whichever way you want to look at it! Just recently the 13 week training period ended and got a raise AND benefits. This is all very new to me, I actually have life insurance now, and paid vacation time, it’s a little crazy. I am truly blessed to be working at World Vision because I truly love what the organization is about even if I have qualms about some of the practices, and I have been blessed with some amazing friends there. Through my relationships at work I am really seeing the diversity of the Christian faith, and learning how to work through that. There are two girls in particular that are really close with me, Anna and Olivia. The verse “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Prov 27:17) comes to mind when I think about our friendship. Anna and I always talk about how we stretch each other which can be a painful process sometimes but in the end it is always good.
One of the other big parts of my life right now is my work at the Juvenile Detention Center. I am there as much as my schedule allows me to be, and often doing phone work outside of the office. One of the main things I do is set up the calendar of groups coming in to lead chapel services on Sunday nights. I enjoy it because I am building relationships with churches in the Seattle community and several para-church ministry groups. I also set up for and attend chapel services, which is one of the only times I get to spend with the kids right now. Once school is out for the summer, my schedule will give me more opportunity to spend time with the kids in detention, and counseling with them. I am really looking forward to that. And I couldn’t ask for a better “boss”. Steve is an amazing leader, and mentor. The funny thing is, I rarely see him, and if I do, it’s most likely not at the office. Our schedules are pretty different, and Steve is always out of town, so most of our communication is by phone. It’s pretty crazy, but I love every minute of it.

One of my other commitments is the Girls Group every week with the middle school girls. I have really grown close to these girls this year. We’ve been meeting over at our house for the last few months and they love it. Katie, who I usually co-lead the bible study with is in Europe for the next month, so I am leading the bible study myself and we’re talking about boys…it’s interesting but it’s going well. I’m excited to say that one of the girls who regularly attends Girl’s Group, Tori, was baptized this Sunday in our church and I am very proud of her because this decision to go through the process was something she initiated.

As for my housemates and I, we have been doing well, and we’ve being more intentional about spending time together and really building the community of our house. We also just went on a house retreat to a town called Plain, WA. We had a good time on the retreat and were really able to open up with each other and our Site Coordinator, Michelle. The place where we did our retreat was up in the mountains, and absolutely beautiful, except for the rain. We participated in some team building exercises, and we able to talk about ways we had seen each other improve and ways that we felt each other could still use some improvement. Overall the retreat went well; I just wish we had been able to do it sooner. Other than that, Jeff and I are trying to adjust to there being only two of us in the house. Hailey decided to leave the house early and move back to San Antonio before heading to seminary in the fall. She left at the end of May, and I definitely miss her. Jeff and I are sort of opposite personalities, and Hailey was in the middle of us, personality-wise, so it is definitely taking some getting used to, but we’re making it work.

I have officially made the decision to stay another year in White Center, living in the Intentional Community house. I was struggling with this decision for several reasons. I knew God was calling me to stay here for another year, and I knew that pretty early on. But with all of the changes in the program this year and that fact that the program was not what I expected when I moved out here, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to live in the house again. So, the search began for another place to live, and some options were available to me…a friend at work was considering moving, or a friend of a friend was looking for a new apartment, and needed a roommate, or, best of all, one of the young women at my church had just moved back to White Center, and was looking for a roommate in August because her current roommate was moving out. After discussing my options for moving out of the house, I talked with Michelle about the prospects for incoming young adult volunteers and what her vision for the program is. After talking with Michelle, and praying for discernment, I decided to accept the offer to live in the house next year, and I am happy with that decision.

I can really see myself growing here mentally and spiritually. I feel like I am living my faith in everything I do right now, and that is a really awesome feeling. I didn’t talk about it openly but when I first moved to Seattle, I really struggled. I knew that I was supposed to be here but I felt really distant from God. I struggled with that for quite a while. I just felt like I wasn’t being filled and that God wasn’t speaking to me. It wasn’t just something I was feeling, people were noticing it too. I figured out that in everything here—my job, my volunteering, my house, my church—I was giving, and I wasn’t taking any time to receive. Until recently, I was always on the receiving side of ministry, and I didn’t realize how much you HAVE to feed yourself so you don’t burn out. I was starting to burn out pretty early on in my year, and at Christmas, I made the decision to not do EVERYTHING. I made some decisions to cut back in certain areas, and to intentionally make time just for me and God. I also added more prayer time and study time. I have some really great friends and housemates who keep me accountable and are incredibly encouraging. I still have my struggles, mostly with giving up control to God on everything and being disciplined in my prayer and study life. So, please pray for me on that!

On the seminary front, I am still undecided on where and when, but definitely going. I am gearing up for going in Fall 2009 but I’m not entirely sure. I am looking at Princeton, Louisville, McCormick (in Chicago), Fuller Northwest, and Bakke Graduate University. The latter two are local to the Seattle area. I don’t know yet if I can leave Seattle, the winters are HORRIBLE but it’s totally worth it in the summer! It’s not just that, I am in love with the White Center community and my church community. I’ll probably apply to several, and see where God leads me. I am currently working on my essays for McCormick and Princeton (the questions are incredibly similar), so some progress is being made.

I think that covers just about everything so I just have one more thing to share. On May 29, my car died. On I-5. At 2 am. It was a little stressful, and has been ever since. My car needs a new engine. I put a big hole in it ( I still don’t know how??). So, needless to say, that’s a pretty expensive venture. I decided in the beginning that I needed to just let God take care of it, and that meant I couldn’t worry, and I needed to pray. The whole thing has been a God story….My car died just a few days before my mom was coming to visit. So I stayed with a friend for two nights and she took me to work, and then I didn’t have to worry about it for a few days. I called around to a few people who co-workers and church members had recommended. No luck. I needed to move it from the shop it was at, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I had it towed to my house. Apparently (I didn’t know it at the time), there is a guy who lives behind our church, who is a certified mechanic but does independent work. Well, he was doing some contract work at our church and he saw my car being towed to my house and offers to fix it…without even knowing what’s wrong. A few minutes later, two of my girls from girl’s group are beating on my back door, and tell me to come to the church. I tell Don what’s wrong my car, and he tells me he’ll fix it for less than $1000, which is quite a steal. Don is looking for an engine, and for the time being I am relying on friends, the bus, and recently someone from work was gracious enough to let me borrow their extra car for as long as needed. Don has been looking for an engine for about 3 weeks now, and if one isn’t found in three more weeks, I think I’m going to scrap my car and look around for a new one. But…I’m not worried about it because I’m trusting God. As my man, Kirk Franklin says, He will supply!

Well, as always, thanks for reading, and just a side note, I LOVE it when you reply/leave me notes!

Shalom,

Kelli