The first weekend this month Dad and Mom came up to see me!
They “kidnapped” me for the weekend, and we went camping outside of Asheville,
NC. We did a lot of hiking that
weekend, mostly to see waterfalls along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are
definitely some gorgeous ones!!!
It was really good to get to spend some time with my parents,
and fun to get out and see some of the beauty of western North Carolina! On
Friday before we headed out of Boone, I also got to introduce them to some of
my co-workers and show them around the department a bit, so that was good too.
I’m not nearly doing that weekend justice….you can look at
my Facebook photo album to see my pictures from it, and they have more
description of what we did.
The next week (Aug. 5-10) was another adventure. The first
two days I was at work, like normal. That Monday night the church small group
that my hosts are part of went out together to do miniature golf. It was
definitely the craziest putt putt course I’ve ever seen, up a steep hill! I
somehow managed to win in our group of four.
On Wednesday, I headed out for my reporting trip to New
York. Driving down to Charlotte I experienced thick fog for at least 30
minutes, which made for some tense driving. Then when I got to New York, I
picked up my rental car and headed out to find my hotel. Which was also a
driving adventure, because my directions were wrong, since the hotel was in an
odd place. And it was NY driving, so that made it interesting in and of itself!
A few things I noticed: They evidently don’t believe in turn
lanes or having an arrow in the light signal. People definitely use their horns
a lot more. And there are just way too many people and cars. But I survived
three days of driving there, so I consider that a success!
On Thursday morning I had breakfast with the SP staff and
volunteers at their church headquarters. It was fun because the site managers
were the same people who had been in Joplin, and the same videographer came out
to cover the dedication.
I spent the day interviewing a few volunteers and watching
them work on the two houses that were in process there. That evening, the
owners of the house that would be dedicated the next day came to the church to
be interviewed. It was really neat to get to hear their story, and so good to
get to know them.
The next morning, they took the videographer and me out to
show us around their little town. They had lots of stories to tell, since the
house that Hurricane Sandy destroyed had been owned by their family all their
lives.
That afternoon, around 100 people flooded their large yard
to celebrate with them the dedication of the first house rebuilt by Samaritan’s
Purse since the storm nine months ago. To read more about that, you can check
out the article I wrote posted on the SP website!
As in Joplin, I was so blessed by everyone I interacted
with. Since it is still early in the rebuild process in New York, I didn’t talk
to as many homeowners. But the staff and volunteers again provided wonderful
testimony to the work God is doing in and through them.
That Friday evening, after I had fellowshipped with the
people at the church for a while, I went down to the beach to go wading in the
ocean a bit. I had quite an adventure, as you can read in my previous blog
post! God certainly provided J
The next day I guess I felt like I hadn’t had enough
adventures, so I decided to drive up into Manhattan a bit to see more of NYC
before I left, since I had been away from the main part of the city for most of
my trip. Traffic was worse than I expected on a Saturday morning, and before
long I was ready to leave the big city behind for a while. Barely made it to
the airport in time, but again everything worked out.
Thankfully I had a day and a half to “recover” from my trip
before heading back to work again. I was pretty apprehensive about how that
Monday would go, because the Monday after my Joplin trip was tough and because
the two days before my trip had been rough too. But on Sunday, God did some
needed work on my heart, and He really turned my attitude around. You can read more
about it on my spiritual blog, starting here.
So thanks to that, instead of being hard Monday was one of
the best days. For the first time, I felt completely at peace with where I was.
It was a huge blessing and an answer to many people’s prayers!
The next day came a conversation I had been expecting for a
while. My supervisors informed me that they had an open position in the
communications department, and asked if I would be interested in applying. Long
story short, God continued working in my heart that week and the next to give
me an increasing sense of peace with pursuing staying on at SP.
The job opening was posted on Friday, and I submitted my
application on my last Monday. On my last day (Aug. 23), I had an “interview”
with my supervisors. They let me know that they’ve got a couple other
candidates they’re looking at, and I let them know that I would definitely love
to join the team, if that’s what they think would be a good fit.
Since nothing was finalized yet, I said all my farewells and
packed up all my stuff to fly back home the next day. And now I’m kind of just
playing the waiting game….waiting to see whether God will open that door, or
whether He has something else in store for me. While I’m not excited to just be
waiting again, I’m glad to have some time at home. And I know God will continue
faithfully leading J
(To read what I wrote for SP about the Joplin trip last month, check out the article here and my blog post for them here.)
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