Three Down, Three to Go

This week has been...

This week has been unimaginably difficult.

I handle stress well; in fact, I usually thrive on it. I procrastinate in order to write better papers, I always ask myself what the worst possible outcome could be and dwell on it so that no matter what happens I won't be shocked, and I purposely allot less shower time than I need so that I won't take my time. Maybe I should rephrase: I handle healthy stress well.

This week the teams from the States came. We had people in from Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Four days before they arrived, I was informed that the leader of one team had backed out and I was the new It person. It wasn't a big deal...it only meant living with my team in a very old, very hot and (until we interns cleaned it) very dirty church in the middle of a very seedy part of town, and planning and then vision-casting my ideas to my team on how we would run a children's night, a youth night, and a performing arts night in a church I had never been in before. And I had four days to make it happen.

I was incredibly blessed in that Mark was also running his own team, so we were able to work together and alleviate some of the stress. I was also blessed to find that I was given an amazing group of young women from Iowa to work with, as well as one of the girl's dads, Tom. Our nights were stretching and, in some cases, beyond the stress level they should have been, but overall we had amazing ministry events. On our last night of three we had the Louder than Words performing arts team come and dance, sing and share testimonies with us. What a blessing! I was also able to share a bit of my testimony and speak a salvation message; it wasn't a salvation message in the traditional sense, as everyone there was from the teams or the church, but rather a message on the continuing works and joys and hardships of salvation. I've begun to realize that it is these times spent on stage sharing and teaching and preaching that I feel the most alive.

That night and the following day, I was also able to just chill with a friend from Bible college. He was such a huge encouragement and he made me long for school like I haven't in a long time. I also had the opportunity to have a final hangout with another intern before she left for home.

Then on the Saturday we had our big event of the summer, the Youth Explosion. All the youth from the GTA Foursquare churches came together, and it was an amazing time of worship, fellowship and sharing. We were honoured to have as our guest speaker and worship leader Garry Keane. He's a good man with a good heart, and it was a pleasure getting to know him. Overall the night was a huge success (and Mark and I have chosen to focus on the success story above anything else haha).

Ah, and then the kicker to a crazy week. On the Saturday night at about 10pm, I was told that one of the pastors was sick, so I would be preaching at her church in the morning. Don't get me wrong! I love any opportunity to speak, but this was slightly on the short notice side of things. But it ended up going fairly well and, being the ridiculously awesome supportive people that they are, Tyler and Mark came with me for encouragement (and because Tyler will use any excuse to pick up an instrument and play with other passionate worship-y type people).

So. That was my week. Long, difficult, little breathing space and almost no sleep, but we're through. Less than four weeks left.

And tonight we celebrated with steak!