I realize that a month and a half is a LONG time to go without
updating you on my life on Francis Street. Hopefully, if you've been
receiving my monthly newsletters you've been a bit in the know about
what has been going on here in Houston. If I was to make excuses I would tell
you that I was: Things have been really busy; I have been laid back
and lazy; I’m really good at making excuse for why I haven’t been
blogging.
When I got back from break, I realized that the first trimester of
Mission Year was a season where God was really showing me who I am and where I
want to be by the end of the year. There are many times in my life where I
would sit and write and think often of how I want to improve emotionally,
physically, and spiritually. Oftentimes, those hopes would just fall on paper
and never come into fruition. There is not much time in Mission Year to sit and
just ponder about what we all want to improve in our lives. Because we live in
intentional community – whether we like it or not – we all bring out the good
and the bad in each other forcing us to work on these things and become better
a better family and neighbors. Although I really enjoyed being home for break –
catching up with my dearest friends, visiting my alma mater (yep, I feel cool
saying that), and being home with my family – it was refreshing to come back
because I recognize God’s purpose for me being in Mission Year in this season
of my life.
I thought a lot about what I wanted to do differently when I got
back. Over break, I recognized that I wasn't interacting with the
kids in the neighborhood the way I hoped when I first signed up for Mission
Year. I love children. I recognize that God has provided friendships and
deep relationships with many of our neighbors – mainly children. Last week, we
had community dinner and out of the 30 people that ended up stopping by, 20 of
them were kids! I’ll save the details of this day for another time – but we all
recognized that this is God’s favor upon us to have kids naturally want to
spend time with us.
When I was at home, I began to crave deeper relationships
with our community children (neighborhood and from church) when I returned to
Houston. As many of you know, I’ve started a creative art project called Create
with Me. Create with Me is a personal desire to build one
on one relationship with the children of this community. As I discover more of
this neighborhood, it has been difficult for me to see the wonderful
possibilities and growth that could happen in years to come. The only agenda in
this project is to spend quality time with our neighborhood kids, discover the
beauty of this neighborhood, and create all types of art using water colors,
crayons, markers, paint, etc. In our neighborhood many kids don’t get the
opportunity to express themselves through art. Although I don’t consider myself
artsy, I know that my desire to be creative through art is a quest to discover
the beauty of God in a broken world. (Please contact me in how you can support
me specifically in this mini-venture!)
I also thought a lot about church.
Holman Street Baptist Church is a wonderful community. Now, I
cannot honestly say that we immediately felt at home. I grew up in a
church-going, Bible-believing, daily-a-Christian type of home. By my mom and
dad’s example, I acknowledged Jesus’ love for me every day in every
situation. So growing up, I naturally got involved with church. If
you were to go back in time with me to my Sunday’s – you’d find me teaching
Sunday school or taking care of children at conferences. Throughout my time at
SPU – you’d find me at my small group on Monday nights, Generation Church on
Wednesdays, and the nursery for the first service on Sunday and attending the
second service. So, imagine for the first three months of Mission Year, just sitting
through a service. We were being spectators, when in fact everyone
at church was excited for us to be participators in the church
community.
In response to this, I returned with the excitement to get
involved. Shealy and I started to attend Youth Discipleship Ministry on
Saturday mornings. I help teach the 4-5 year olds. To step outside of my
comfort zone, I also joined the choir! Although with our schedule it has been
difficult to make it to practices, it has been a joy to participate every chance
that I've gotten. I have so much fun and I've felt at home.
There are moments where I do draw on the group to continue to motivate me to be
consistent as much as I can be. After singing with the young adult choir for
the first time, our friend Curtis (who plays a mean tambourine) mentioned that
we are now seen as part of the family.
This is a lot to take in, I know. I feel like I've been
hoarding valuable information about my life from you. I plan on blogging so
much more that you’ll probably be too informed about my Mission Year experience
so I’ll save more for later…
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