[month eight]

At the beginning of my time here, my monthly updates were wildly exciting. Another month under my belt! More lessons learned! More culture adjusted to! But now, I find myself dreading them. It's this looming marker that another month is finished-- that I'm closer to the end than to the beginning of my one-year commitment. There are so many things I've grown to love here, perhaps because of the struggle it took to win those victories.

And yet, for all the frustrations (including a trashcan-banging pink dragon with an amp system piping the ruckus through the whole grocery store on Chinese New Years... for the whole hour I was shopping.) I love it here. I love the people. I love the food. I love that relationships are prioritized. I love that there isn't a constant under-girding of high-stress high-performance panic. Aside: did you know in Germany, most employees get 20 days of paid vacation a year? (I have a German friend, and he verified this to be true.) We work so hard in America and I'm starting to think that maybe it isn't healthy. It's not being lazy to build time in your life for rest. Jesus was intentional, but He was never frantic. But, I digress... maybe this will make an appearance in a future post!

I also love that I have had space to grow apart from the "ministry" that I do. In America, I was very committed and entangled (in the best sense of the word!) with ministry. Preparing and facilitating took up a large part of my time and life. I didn't fully realize how much time it took away from my personal spiritual disciplines until I came here, though. Paul Tripp states in his book Dangerous Calling that those in ministry are often "content with a devotional life that doesn't exist or is constantly being kidnapped by preparation." If you've ever led a Bible Study, you know how easily personal time with God is "kidnapped" for the sake of preparation. Moving away from those commitments has allowed me to focus on God-- apart from prepping for small groups, leading devotionals or trying to invest in everyone & everything. It's been a good God-realignment.

And lastly, I love that I've had space to grow as a person. I've decided that I officially like running and my excursions to the parks have become highlights of my days. I love having opportunities to practice hospitality/facilitate community though helping coordinate monthly "family dinner nights" at the guesthouse... it has rekindled my love of feeding people. I love getting to try new things, be it new recipes or new classes. It stretches me and I'm enjoying being stretched.

I have many more thoughts that I'm itching to blog about, but I've been told numerous times that people get bored with my wall-of-words posts, so I'm going include a gratuitous picture and close out this post for now. Thank you again so much for your prayers and support! And expect a couple more posts in the near future (with plenty of related pictures)! :) Happy eight months!!

[Sending my love from a galaxy far, far away...]