Hey Fam,
Jonny with his goddaughter
To reiterate my last update: I'd love to meet you if I don't know you or talk to you more if I only know you a little bit. A massive part of how amazing this year has been for me is feeling more known by Emmanuel Church and meeting amazing people and families that I haven't met before and generally being a part of the (part of the) body of Christ that Emmanuel Church is. I love serving you guys and I love doing church with you. I'm hopefully relatively approachable so please do say hi whenever!
Silence with God
Since Christmas, God's slowly been growing me. One thing I wanted to implement into my internship year is an hour a day in silence with God. Now this has been really hard and I haven't been able to do this everyday for example Sundays are packed every week but I have been implementing that into my daily life slowly. So, I sit on a chair facing the wall or facing outside, I turn my phone off and I sit. And I sit and I sit. For the first couple of weeks this was really hard. 15 mins is okay but the next 45 minutes are severely hard and in some cases painful. But as I said in my last update, to pray is to change and I really feel that God's been changing my heart through this time. Usually I find the first 30 mins are me talking to God about my current situation but then the last half of the time I suddenly find myself going deeper. I start talking about what's really going on with my heart
what are my passions?
why does seeing that news article make me feel really upset?
why when I do 'this' do I feel really alive?
why when I do 'this' do I feel really annoyed with myself?
what's my heart really wanting to talk to God about?
It's been a journey and will definitely continue to be but John Parker told me that this is a period of a spiritual growth spurt for me and I feel that this hour a day is the greatest way I feel I grow. I hope all that made sense - please talk to me if it didn't (or if it did).
The students and 20s weekend away
Students and 20s Weekend Away
I did a write-up of the weekend away which you can find here. As someone who is really stuck into the vision of the students and 20s team, the weekend away is so important. One thing I asked God for this year is to give me great relationships with the first years and I feel that prayer has been answered and to see them integrate and become just as much part of the student body as anyone else at the weekend away was so special to see. The weekend bought such fun and gladness to my heart. I led a seminar called 'hunger for the Word' with a student called Joel and through that I loved that part of the fun together was encouraging each other to get stuck into the Bible.
I'd love to encourage you, whoever you are, to try and chat to some of the students and 20s whenever you can. There is so much that they can learn from you and also so much that you can learn from them.
Blessings to you all. Doing church with you is so great. I look forward to Sundays all the way through the week. Thanks for supporting us 3 interns so well.