Standing in Awe

As promised, a post just for the El Salvador trip.  I was in La Libertad, El Salvador last week, and many of you helped to make that possible.  I owe you the deepest thanks, and sincerely hope that this letter encourages you.  If you have read any of my older blog posts, or even just talked to me, you may know that I absolutely love the sunrise.  I find them so renewing and love the promise of a new day.  The picture above is just that: a promise of a new day, and particularly special because it was in La Libertad, a place so near to my heart.  I woke early each morning to exercise on the beach as well as just sit and take in the first warm rays of the morning.  I meditated a lot on God's power and his ability to make everything new as I watched each wave washing up onto the shore. This past week was so good for my life and for my spirit.  I was able to reconnect with many of my friends there that I have grown close to over the past 4 years a...

I know I talked in a previous post about graduating and things changing, but I would like to explain a bit more about where I am at in life right now and what God is doing.  Praise to God, I was accepted to go on staff with Great Commission Ministries at New Life Church, and at the start of February I headed down to Orlando for new staff training.  I learned all about how to share with others about the ministry I am involved in and how they can be involved.  I have since been working full time doing Ministry Team Development (MTD) and have also done a bit of traveling. Not really work related, I had the opportunity to travel to Arizona in mid February as well to run the Ragnar relay with my sister and her family.  We ran 202 miles in 30 hours.  It was a lot of fun and great sibling bonding.  Even though running through the desert is probably not my favorite thing to do, spending time with people is.  In a way I think God used the trip to show me how...

I realize that it has been many months since I have last posted.  I think what I found is that my life back home is not anything I thought anyone would care to read.  Then I realized that God does absolutely amazing things regardless of where I am and what I am doing at the current moment in my life.  A lot of big things have happened since I last posted: I got to witness my big sister cross the finish line of her first marathon, I became an aunt to a set of beautiful twins, I graduated from college, and the whole family was in the same place for the first time in two years.  It has been a lot of accomplishments and endings, but as the title suggests, rather than feeling like the beginning of the end, it has all felt like the end of a beginning. When I returned to Ann Arbor at the beginning of the month I assumed it would feel weird to walk around campus and not be going to classes.  I was weirdly surprised that it did not feel strange or out of place at all....

So as you can probably tell from the extreme absence of my writing, it has been quite a process coming back.  After a health scare with Megan on the way home, some vomiting, and an extremely janky plane ride across the Atlantic, we made it back to Chicago.  As we made our way through the airport and through the dreaded US Customs, I appreciated how familiar and yet how foreign everything around me seemed.  People speaking English, all the signs in English, and huge toilets, all seemed familiar, but almost from a past life.  I was warmly greeted by Celeste in the airport and was so grateful to see a familiar face.  By the time we had landed Megan was feeling better and we got her on the Megabus with no problems.  Going out into the big city was very strange.  All the cars were huge, it was busy, and people seemed to be in such a rush, but to be honest I was so content just to be with family that I could not even begin to process everything, and my mind...

Firstly I want to thank my family who, after my last post, was so encouraging and comforting. I am most definitely savoring these last 48 hours. It is a bitter sweet in every sense; the sweetness of the fresh honey from Crete with my yogurt this morning and yet the bitterness of my inbox filling up with innumerable emails wanting me to schedule, plan, and prepare. Greece has been the perfect end to an amazing trip. Our hostel is unreal with air conditioning, in room bathrooms, free breakfast, a rooftop terrace that overlooks the acropolis and a beautifully remodeled home with wood floors and real mattresses. It is insane. We arrived late last night and ate here at the hostel where I enjoyed and incredibly fresh Greek salad complete with a large slab of feta on top. After a great sleep in our luxurious beds we enjoyed the wonderful breakfast and then went to the famous and huge flea market. There was shop after shop filled with hand made leather sandals, ouzo, luggage, baklava, and tri...

So I know I haven't posted in a while and I apologize. As my mother has noticed I am growing weary. I am still enjoying the amazing experience, but living out of a backpack and constantly packing and repacking is getting old. A while ago Megan and I made a rule saying we need to stop talking about home because we are going to miss what is right in front of us, but somehow we find ourselves breaking this rule more and more with each passing day. Small things like "second to last time packing," or "this time next week...". All that being said we have still been having a great time in Italy. From Switzerland we got on a train and headed south through the mountains to the Cinque Terra on the northwest coast of Italy. It is a series of 5 small towns with hardly any traffic nada slow paced lifestyle. As soon as we got there and found Barbara, the adorable little women we rented a room from (which is more common than hotels in these small towns) we headed strait for ...

Another day in paradise. So yesterday we decided to just relax in the morning. After the 6 hour hike the previous day we were pretty tired and a bit sore. After a while reading and soaking in the sun we decided to hike up to a big waterfall with our new British friends. The hike was a but more uphill than expected but totally worth it. We walked up through the grassy hills and into a big pine forest. After traversing across the hill and swinging down and around a large rock, we were staring the waterfall In face. It was huge and showered down onto a bunch of flat rocks creating mini frigid world pools everywhere. We hiked down prepared with our swimsuits and plunged into the glacial cascade. We were instantly frozen, but some how extremely alive at the same time. With the waterfall to your back looking out through two huge vertical rocks that have been sliced by the water you can see the snow capped mountains beyond. It was unbelievable. After warming up in the sun a bit we headed back...