Airport Campout

What do you do when your diary is so outdated you feel like you don’t even know the person who wrote the last entry... and it was you!? You start writing again... and hope your diary will forgive you for losing touch. You might have guessed it... you’re the diary and I’m the writer. I hope I haven’t completely lost the faith of those of you kind enough to check out my blog and keep up to speed (as much as I allow you to!) on the goings-on in my life.

I’m currently writing you from the Boston airport in good old US of A. I was supposed to leave 4 hours ago, but thunderstorms seem to have encompassed the Boston and Toronto areas... my places of departure and destination. So what better time to do some writing than dead time at the airport? I’m headed onto Regina after Toronto (weather permitting). Anyways, the part you’re here for... an update on life. Here’s a quick (hopefully) Coles Notes version of my most recent adventures (and the normal things I do in life!):

-I’m working for the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region in the Palliative Care office. One of the things I got to do was help organize a weekend camp for bereaving children at Dallas Valley. It was an amazing experience. I might have to re-think my job aspirations... helping those kids and connecting with them was extremely rewarding. It was sweet to spend the weekend working with my mom, too, as she’s a social worker in Palliative Care and volunteered to come. I got to witness just how clearly God has called her into this profession for a reason!

-April and May saw a special visitor come to Canada. A teammate of mine from my team in Prague spent 3 weeks at our house; she trained Canadian-style, got to experience Canadian culture and I think had a really great time. We had some great conversations and I was able to get a Czech bible into my hands to pass onto her. I also got to tell her about Jesus, which was really cool. She’s got lots of questions and I think she was challenged to think about things she’d never thought about before. A very cool experience for all!

-The beginning of June I set off for Prague, CZ, for our team’s training camp. I went with Jackie and a new teammate we’ve recruited from Canada, Jeni. Our flight got into Prague at 2:30PM on a Friday – that evening we packed onto the bus to drive to Croatia for 12 hours. Saturday was a pretty rough day. We started working out a few hours after we got off the bus and hardly stopped to breathe all week. It was an interesting mix of pain and pleasure as we ranged from running sprints, doing aerobics, lying on the beach, doing weight lifting circuits and taking ferries to quaint little cities to enjoy dinner on a rooftop restaurant!

-I had my flight home from Prague routed home through Boston so I could visit a friend I met on tour with Athletes in Action this past August. Sarah just finished her fourth year at Northeastern so I got to experience the campus culture here and have a fun week enjoying her company, meeting her friends and getting to be a part of the awesome fellowship she experiences here! She and I marvelled at the fact that before this week together we’d only known each other for 10 days on tour. God is good and it’s been awesome to stay in touch since tour, pray for one another and build one another up as we walk with the Lord and strive to love Jesus in our daily lives. God is SO good! His timing has been all over our friendship from day one.

So now I head home to work for another month, spend as much time as possible with my family, continue support raising (please talk to me if you’re interested in joining my team!), and enjoy Canadian life for a bit longer. I have one more excursion on a jet plane before I leave for a while. In July I’m speaking at an Alliance women’s conference in Ottawa. I’m really excited to get to share with the ladies present, about my walk, pursuing Christ and what God has done in my life as a woman of God and an athlete.

The day approaches (July 20th – don’t remind my mom if you see her!) when I will pack up for another year and head to Prague. Only He knows what good things are in store. I pray today you are experiencing Jesus – his peace and love that can overcome all things!

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

Čelza (my Czech spelling)