San Diego 2010

Dear Friends, 
 

As some of you know now, I am returning to San Diego this summer. I had the immense pleasure of spending 10 weeks of summer 09’ out there as a student on Summer Project and this year I have applied and been accepted to be a Student Staff member. This means another 8 weeks in the beautiful place that is San Diego, California. 
 

Some of you may be wondering what Summer Project is? Well I can answer that…
 

   It is an adventure during which life change happens. On Summer Project you spend time in a new place, with all new people and meet the Lord, who has always been there, in a completely new way. On the full length projects (10-12 weekers) students get jobs which they work at during the day, and then at night and on the weekends participate in ministry activities such as Men’s/Women’s Times, Friday Night Live “FNL”, Services, Night of Reflection “NOR”, Bible Study, Outreach on the beach & boardwalk, Church, Growth Group times and in general fellowship. 
 

   Basically, it’s an amazing time. With in the first week of project students meet their growth group leaders (that’ll be me this year) and the other students who will be in their group and share their story with them. And by story I mean the whole sha-bang… life before Christ, how you came to know the Lord, and life after you did, with all the details included. So with in the first week you already very close with these people who met just 7 days ago, and you only get closer as the weeks go on. Students are also placed on a ministry team, there are have 7 (Evangelism, Prayer & World Vision, Community Life, Communication, FNL, Fireseeds, & Training team) , who they work with to plan the events and different aspects of project.  
 

   Aside from that it’s also a blast because of the location. We live on Santa Clara Pl (if you want to google maps it) which is about 2 blocks from Mission Beach and 1 block from Santa Clara Bay… SO BEAUTIFUL! Consequently a lot of our free time is spent playing on the beach, surfing, riding bikes around the Bay, or just hanging out in the sun, all while experiencing the the Lord’s love through fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. wonderful, can’t say it enough. 

OKAY So, Here’s why I’m telling you all about this.
 

Firstly, You are my dear friends and I am so grateful that you are in my life in the various and sometimes random ways that you are and I want to keep in contact with you. This is made a little easier through the internet… okay let’s be honest, it’s made possible through the internet. I will be trying to keep up with this blog during my time out in SD this summer, writing about all that will be happening from simple hang outs to the moving stories of God’s grace, mercy and power. I would love if you read this and kept in contact with me either via facebook or texting or email (S501650@nwmissouri.edu) or whatever! And I mean if you’re ever out in San Diego May 19th- July 3rd I’d love to see you! 
 

Secondly, Summer Project costs and because I’m Student Staff this summer I won’t be able to get a job. So I’m asking for your help. The project itself cost about $2000 and then I’ll need to raise additional funds for food, so I won’t get even skinnier while I’m out there, and transportation. I have been SO BLESSED by my family who have already sent support and am already down to only needing the base $2000.  
 

SO… I if you can in anyway support me in this trip I would be seriously so grateful. Here’s how you can do it: 
 

Mail cash or checks to: 
 

Rachel Rittman
14150 NW 65th Court
Parkville, MO 64152
 

checks should be made out to [Campus Crusade for Christ] and will be tax deductible
 

Or you can donate online.. There is a "donate" button on the side of this page,  I’ve set up an account with paypal that will allow me to accept donations safely online they just won’t be tax-deductible.  
 

Thank you so much for reading all of this! and Thank you ahead of time for all of you who support me, whether that be financially or through prayer. 

this is my heart right now.

"How miserable I am

I feel like a fruit-picker who arrived here

After the harvest

There's nothing here at all

There's nothing at all here that could placate my hunger

The godly people are all gone

There's not one honest soul left alive

Here on the planet

We're all murderers and thieves

Setting traps here for even our brothers

And both of our hands

Are equally skilled

At doing evil

Equally skilled

At bribing the judges

Equally skilled

At perverting justice

Both of our hands

Both of our hands

The day of justice comes

And is even now swiftly arriving

Don't trust anyone at all

Not your best friend or even your wife

For the son hates the father

The daughter despises even her mother

Look, your enemies are right

in the room of your very household

And both of their hands

Are equally skilled

At doing evil

Equally skilled

At bribing the judges

Equally skilled

At perverting justice

Both of their hands

Both of their hands

No, don't gloat over me

For though I fall, though I fall

I will rise again

Though I sit here in darkness

The Lord, the Lord alone

He will be my light

I will be patient as the Lord

Punishes me for the wrongs I've done

Against Him

After that, He'll take my case

Bringing me to light and to justice

For all I have suffered

And both of His hands

Are equally skilled

At ruining evil

Equally skilled

At judging the judges

Equally skilled

Administering justice

Both of His hands

Both of His hands

Are equally skilled

At showing me mercy

Equally skilled

At loving the loveless

Equally skilled

Administering justice

Both of His hands

Both of His hands"

Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss.

In response to this past week, all I can think to say is... wow, He loves us. 

Our savior is incredibly beautiful. And I sit here contemplating a way that I could articulate exactly how perfect He is and how perfect what He did on this earth was, and how incredibly real He is but my vernacular is not capable of it. When I reflect on my walk with the Lord and the moments with Him that caused me to stop in my tracks and revel in his awe, they are rarely because of how someone else worded the truth; they have most often been because of the word itself and the Spirit coming alive in my life. The cause of my submission to the Lord was not because of the words of someone like me or you, it was caused by the breaking of my spirit by the Lord and then the words I read from his Holy book, those words are the ones that have proven most effective in my life. They have slapped me across the face, taught me, held me in times of sorrow, made me laugh out loud, caused me joy, convicted me, made me feel so small and yet so important, they have given me salvation for my life and daily from my self. 
Every time I have opened the Bible lately I have had to stop and let those around me know the truth that I had just read. It is so relatable to our lives, it blows my mind. 

Life. 

I have been so busy lately with the beauty of what the Lord is doing around here that I feel like a whirl wind of life has gone on around me and I am caught up in all of it so much that I'm finding it hard to include things that aren't immediately apart of the day to day schedule I have going on. I want to apologize to anyone that is reading this, still waiting in expectation of a letter from me or a call from me...I want to say that it will be coming soon, but I honestly don't know... I do know, that I wish all of you could be experiencing what I am though. This may come off conceded, but right now I wish my life could be up on a movie screen and everyone watching it...not because I want to be the star or the center of it, but because I wish everyone could see the amazing things the Lord has been doing...it would be a testament to His word, for reals. 

Fireseeds. (the ministry team)

It has been good. (thats with a long "o", as in gooood) It's my favorite word lately I guess. When asked by others how my day has been or my quite times, its my general response; not because I don't want to elaborate, but because it truly is an articulation of how things have been. I also like it because when I think about it the Lord is great, right, and when He made the earth, he made sure it was good. (Genesis 1). So lately what I can say is that the Lord has saw that my life be good. But to be more specific with the details. I've been doing full time ministry on Mesa campus these weeks I've been out here, it's a community college with a smaller campus which has its up s and downs, but I like to think mostly ups. Because of the size the campus is really manageable, as far as being able to reach out to most of it on a daily basis and because its small once you've made contact with someone you are bound to run into them again. The last few weeks we've been on campus we've been doing a lot of personal outreach, walking around, asking people if they would like to do the survey we have, and sharing the gospel with them, and if they are interested inviting them to bible study and our friday night services. This way of outreach seemed like the only way we were going to be able to do things because the campus doesn't have anything going on in the summers, other than classes, literally no campus organization is doing anything, so our hopes of hosting an activity or event was very limited, but good news came about in the last week :) We found out we could table on campus in the free speech areas and basically do anything at those tables that we wish to, which I have really high hopes for because the other campus teams that have tabled have had awesome success in getting contacts and reaching people who are interested in bible studies and being apart of a ministry movement for their campuses. So I can only pray that we would have that same success mimicked at Mesa. Seriously being on campus and sharing my faith everyday, was not something I expected to do out here, as I wrote in a previous post, and its been challenging nearly everyday. Yet the Lord has proved so faithful through it all, even when I've lacked the faith that I should have, which just reminds me so much of Romans 3, when it talks about God's faithfulness. I love it when the word comes to life in my life and I can see tangible example of it. I think these examples have been present through out my whole life, but only now since I have an open heart to recognizing them and have been spending so much time in the word can I clearly see them when they arise. The word truly is living, which is a fundamental thing we as Christians are expected to accept and understand right, but is none the less a very profound thing which I think will be re-realized again and again as we live in God's spirit. 

Alright so, Women's times. 

This last weekend we had Women's retreat. SO GOOOD! The boy's left thursday for their retreat, so it was just girls hanging around the condo's and spending time with one another which was the start of the excellent weekend that was to follow. That day, thursday, we made decorations for the boys doors (encouraging verses from the Bible and cute name things, because that's what boys like right lol) and hung a huge banner that said 'Welcome Home Boys!" with Psalm 133:1 on it. Then Friday the boys came home from the desert and we packed up and left for it. I got to leave early and ride with Holly Allen, the women director who does all of our women's times talks, and I am so glad that I got to ride with her. Getting to know this women has been such a blessing to me. trust. She has so much wisdom and is so genuine in listening and speaking to us ladies, I will miss her greatly when staff leave this friday. But anyways, I got to ride with her on the way out there and back which was awesome. While there we had two talks from her and two talks from Marta, our other women director, who is also a legit lady that just spits the truth. The talks were so good. We wrapped up the women's study on what it means to be a distinguished women of the Lord by talking about Ruth and Boaz and THAT is a good story. Ruth is seriously only 4 chapters and I would suggest it to every women to read. Read it and then read Proverbs 31 and compare Ruth to the Proverbs 31 women, its just good to see how those qualities can be and were lived out in women. Other than the awesome talks the trip was also good on the level that all us girls just got to hang out and we go to do a wicked obstacle course. This obstacle course tore us up, ha literally my arm was scratched up pretty bad along with my knees, but it was so good because we got to get down and dirty and get physically competitive...which was just good. Then the last night we had a really awesome ceremony which I can't write about because it's top secret :) but just know that it was excellent. The weekend was overall just grand because the Lord loves His ladies.:)

Exciting and Startling news. 

So as I kind of mentioned when talking about Holly. The staff for project and all the student staff leave this friday. Which is so saddening because I will genuinely miss my growth group leader Riane (such an awesome name, right?) I don't think i've written much about her on here, but she is an amazing lady of the Lord who is just bold, honest and wise; and has built into me these weeks I've been out here, challenging me and pouring the truth into me. So why wouldn't I miss her? I will also miss Hilarie who has been out here with me and just in general all the other staff members that I have grown close with, but this is not the exciting or startling news because I've known the staff leave July 3rd since I got here June 1st. The news is that before they leave the staff has to pick Student Leaders to fill their positions. Since what I've been learning a lot from the Lord is humility and brokenness, I hadn't thought a lot about leadership honestly. I've been learning how to be a leader through encouraging others and building them up as leaders...so the idea of actually being a designated leader seemed out of the question for me, mainly because these lessons of humility and brokenness and being a leader through encouragement hadn't come easy; my nature inclination is to be a "head-honcho" kind of leader, always immediately stepping up "the leader" and the Lord has definitely been breaking me of that mentality through teaching me how to submit to guy leadership and not always take all the responsibilities on myself but allowing others, even if I don't think they could do it "as good as me" to have opportunities to take things on. So anyways the thing is I've been learning to be "a leader" but not "the leader" and it's not been an easy lesson, but it's been a good one and much needed one and I am a much more humble person because of it, so as the staff leave I was not expecting a leadership position AT ALL. But the Lord completely proved himself to be rewarder, by offering me a position on leadership as the women leader of the Fireseeds team. (I don't mean the Lord literally came down and offered me the position, but he led the staff to offer it to me, ha just for clarification) The whole situation just showed me that when you stop taking things into your hands and start submitting to what the Lord has for you and has to teach you, He will reward you and give you ways to serve Him best. I feel so blessed to be on Leadership with the group of student leaders that we have. The team is full, FULL of people who are just chasing after the Lord with teachable hearts and a will to do His will. It's so beautiful to be around and to be apart of. So beautiful. 

Quite times.

So this summer I've gone through Mark, Ephesians, and 1 & 2 Corinthians. I just finished up 2 Corinthians actually and am about to start Romans. This is the most I've ever read for the word and when I think back on it, it doesn't seem like I've read that much, but I honestly have gone through quite a few books in a short amount of time. I've just been eating it up learning and absorbing as much as I can. One thing I wanted to leave you guys with is something that has just been impressed upon me lately...there's so many more things than this that I have learned, but I thought it better to just pick one than to ramble on and on, I might loose the few of you that are still reading all the way down to here if I were to just keep going and going ;)

So anyways. What I've been learning is, and I'm going to put it in a very sunday school fashion, but it is that we can ONLY boast in our weaknesses, because it is in those that the Lord is proven strong. 2 corinthians 12. check it. Also 2 corinthians 5-6.  It just ties in perfectly to what I've experienced with the whole leadership thing. When they asked me or invited me to be on leadership, I was shocked because this has seriously the first time that I've felt and known in my heart that I am inadequate to lead others. This inadequate feeling though has made me rely on the Lord so much for what leadership I have had to do, and I can honestly say that all I have learned and done has been from Him. When I look around our leadership team, the consistent thing about each of us is that we are all at this place of recognizing that WE are WEAK, and He is strong...so sunday school, I know. But so true. We all are at a place of teachability because we KNOW that none of what we have done that was seen as GOOD, was of us, but was of the Lord. The only thing we can boast in as leaders is that we are weak and that the Lord is stepping in for us and being strong and leading through us, which totally takes me back to 2 corinthians 3: 4-6. 2 corinthians was such a good book for me, if you want to know my heart right now, read it. :)

That's all I really have as far as my update goes...you're basically caught up now. I'm confident there will be more to come and more news of the Lord's crazy awesome power and glory being demonstrated out here in San Dan. I'll apologize in advance if it doesn't get posted in a timely manner :/ I'll try my best to make time to do this more often. 

OH. Prayer request.

I am currently $700 short of all the support I needed, which I look at and am just so thankful because that means the Lord helped me raise $2300 plus my plane ticket and most of my food money while i've been out here. I have been blessed for sure. But if you could keep in your prayers about the 700 more dollars i'll need to finish up my support raising, it would be much appreciated. I'll be sending out some support letters soon, so you could just be praying that those would be well received that people would just be drawn to donate support :)

Thanks so much guys! 

much love to ALL!

-Rae

realization.

Okay so I realized I never explained what I meant by the title of the last post so here it goes: 

Since being out here I've learned to rely on the Lord a lot and in that I've learned to pray expectantly. A lot of the time we pray with doubt in mind. We doubt whether or not the Lord can actually do what we are asking, or we pray to because we think it will sound good. So bogus of us. Upon reflection of the times that I have prayed sincerely to the Lord asking him for things with out regard to what I was really asking for, but knowing that in some way he would provide, every time he has provided; not always in the the ways that I would have chosen for him too, which could explain my delayed appreciation or reaction, but none the less every one of the prayers have been answered and in awe inspiring ways...that have simply made me sit in awe of him and the way he moves in our lives and the world. literally when these things dawned on me I sat in awe, and could think of nothing better to do than thank and praise him.

I guess I'll give you an example of this...

The first time I prayed to the Lord out loud, this last year, first semester after the first GAL bible study, I poured everything out to him. everything. and essentially begged for a relationship with him because I desperately wanted to change the way I thought about things and the emotions I let control my life. I remember asking him to help keep me always desiring him and seeking him. I had not thought about that until a few days ago. I had been getting so, so busy here and let myself go two days with out having a solid quite time with the him. I felt like crap. I had been flying high literally 3 days prior. all it took was 2 days without my seeking him out to feel like that happiness he had been supplying me with, stripped from my being. And this isn't the first time this has happened, thinking back on it, every time I have avoided quite times with the Lord, those times have been the ones when I've felt most drained, been rude and irritable, and overall just not as good as I would normally be. To put it plainly, every time I avoid the Lord or just don't seek time with him, I feel incredibly burdened by the world  and things around me. 

As soon as I sought the Lord out in his word and in prayer, I felt as restored as I had been 3 days prior. It was truly humbling. My happiness and ease of life rests in my hands to the extent that to have it I must choose to seek the Lord and desire him, but they are truly contingent upon the Lord. I can not make my own happiness or force myself through will power to be the person that I get to be when I seek the Lord. 

So Ask of the Lord, and don't hold back with those request. I am confident that he will provide for you exactly what you're needing. 

Mark 11: 22-24

"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this 

mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes 

that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you 

ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Ask for it. And in this case, don't be careful.

I honestly do not remember what I wrote in my last post, but since then life has been challenging, stretching, and draining. And the Lord has moved beautifully through out to prove time and time again that He is restoring. 

Since I've gotten here I have built an incredible dependence on the Lord and trust in Him, and it's been scary and rattling at times but only because I'm a doubter and, as I believe He would say, of little faith; but it's changing.

It's all changing. My plans for how I was going to grow and what I was going to learn are different than I could have ever guessed ahead of time. What I am doing and how I'm spending my days, were never apart of my "san diego plan". The people that I've fallen in love with, empathized with, and had compassion on, had never fit my criteria for that until now. My idea's of what my future looked like have transformed and I am certain will continue to. The way I live and interact with my brother's in Christ looks completely different, because for the first time I don't want to be a person of the Lord, I want to be a woman of the Lord. 

The lessons I have learned from the Lord are basics, that I think we all as people pursuing the Lord and growing in faith learn repeatedly, but they are none the less powerful and moving. When I came out to San Diego I had a plan drawn up that I was going to get a job, have fun, share my faith some with my co-workers, send a lot of time in the word and in prayer, and be a leader. No where in that plan was joining Fireseeds (the full time movement launching team) and  no where in that plan was learning not to always be the leader. No where in my plan did I leave room for what the Lord could do and has done. But the thing about our Father is that He knows what His children need and His plan has been so much more fulfilling than mine ever had the promise of being. 

I am now apart of the Fireseeds team, which means very little to those of you back home. Basically Fireseeds is a team of about 20 of us students who have chosen to give up getting jobs in the community in order to take on the full time job of outreaching on the college campuses around the San Diego area in hopes of starting movements there that will continue on after we have gone home gaining momentum and igniting a love for Christ on their campuses. What this means is that Monday-Friday I go to Mesa Community College Campus with 4 other "Fireseeds". This last week was our first week. We spent it getting to know the campus, prayer walking around and doing surveys with students who we approached and sharing our faith when the opportunity was given to us. We basically scoped the place out, so that this week (today) we could lead the rest of the students as they joined us on campus. So today those students who were assigned to come to campus once a week on mondays came with us and we all went out and started spiritual conversations with students on campus and invited them to the Bible Study we had on campus today at 1:45. We probably had about 30-40 conversations today and had 5-10 students express interest in either coming to our Bible Study every week or Friday Night Live service. Tomorrow will basically look the same. I wish I could write all about the beautiful details of the day and how much the Lord has blessed us on this campus but it would turn into such a lengthy story...so i'll refrain, but know that Lord is moving at Mesa and it is going to be amazing and you will hear more about it. 

I kind of want to go back to before I even started Fireseeds though and let you in on the process that has happened with in me to let all of this happen. As I said earlier, this was not a part of my plan. I had completely ruled this out actually, because I believed that I needed to make a certain amount of money for the summer, $500 bare minimum, to cover myself for the semester coming up and more than that if I wanted to live comfortably at all, and when I first heard about the team it was going to be an unpaid position. Also I wasn't big on the idea of going out and sharing my faith EVERY day, I came here to be stretched but in my mind that was just pushing it. Well I had been thinking more and more before I came out here about how even if I only made $500 this summer I could be fine for the next semester as a way of prepping myself incase I didn't get a job immediately. Then at one of our first group meetings our leaders started talking about the team and announced that they had moved some funds around and would be able to give whoever applied for the team $500 for serving on it this summer. I immediately felt drawn to it, it was NO coincidence what I had been thinking about the couple of weeks prior to being there about my wages and financial needs, but at the same time I was still having my reserves. If I were to join fireseeds I wouldn't be able to be on another ministry team out here that I was feeling very drawn towards... I could not decide where the Lord wanted me and it got to a point where I could convince myself to do or not do it. So I asked the Lord for a tangible sign as to whether I should or should not. 15 min before the application was due I was having anxiety and decided I needed to call my mom, when I got my phone out I saw that I had actually missed a call from her like 1 min prior...I definitely needed to call her, so I did. I was fully expecting her to tell me that I needed to get a job and could not afford not to,this is how I knew the response she gave me was a sure sign that I was suppose to be on Fireseeds. With out hesitation my mother told me that if it had been laid on my heart I needed to apply, that I should apply to be on the team. Whether my mom knew it or not, the Lord used her to answer my prayer for guidance. Amazing, and my first lesson in if you ask of the Lord and trust that He will provide, He will. 

And with that one alteration to "the plan" all my plans were gone, and I am so very grateful. Every lesson that has happened has been in some way linked to the decision to join Fireseeds. I have been humbled in multiple way during the process and have had the Lord push me in subtle ways, other than the obvious, that have made all the difference to my heart and relationship with Him. 

During our women's times we are going over what it means to be a women of the Lord; what it looks like, feels like, and what characteristics define one. Proverbs 31 is an obvious go to for such a study, but more than that our leader Holly is taking us through the Bible and showing us women in it that displayed these things or in Eve's case how they did not. The creation story and the fall of man have never had such depth and meaning as they do now, at least for me. I realized how similar I am to Eve. I would embellish but I'm running out of time to write on here...yikes! 

Okay so there's so much more to this story! Trust. But I have to get ready for our evening activities and what not...So i'll have to get back to it later! 

-Rae

 

Let Him take control in San Diego.

Sea gulls, Pelicans, the Bay to my left and the Beach to my right. These are beautiful parts of my life right now. But that definitely is not all that is my life is right now. 

Firstly, and it may seem cliche, but it has been 4 days and feels rather like 4 weeks have gone by. It has already proved challenging, provoking, aggravating, and at the same time beautiful, easy, and utterly enjoyable at times. I'll start by outlining my days as such: I am going to be rather brave and type up my journal entries for each day. This will be me uncensored; then as I feel the need to I will comment or explain more about those entries. deal? deal. 

Day 1 June 1st

Title: Flying to San Diego

I am currently on the plane that will take me to San Diego. I am sitting next to the window :) an empty seat and a lady who is consumed with her own notebook. We are currently taking off. My ears will hurt in about 10 seconds. Yup. I'm sitting right next to the turbine and when I looked at it, I couldn't help but think how much it would suck to be sucked up into that-watch out little birdies. 

Okay, so I haven't read my letters from Suzy or Whit, I'm waiting a bit because it's a 3 hour flight and I need to save some stuff for entertainment. But i did read in Mark already and dang am I glad that I've started reading it. I love reading how Jesus interacted with people and the disciples. He has such personality and "put up" with so much from all and still had compassion on them. It reminds me of Pastor Clays message and how much that spoke to my heart. We should not get annoyed or angry at those around us that we typically would, like the example Pastor gave of those being rude in the shopping center because they're in such a rush. These people are distressed and burdened by this world because they do not know their savior, because they are so caught up in the crap and can't and possible aren't even looking for a way out of the toilet bowl. We have to have compassion for them. We have to give them good news. 

-Letter time-

Dang it, Suzy made me need to blow my nose...awkward on a plane with out tissues. But I love her and Whit Tuck so much. The letters were incredible and Suzy spoke with such, authority and convition, I can not ignore it. Nor do I want to. I don't even think I can comment much on those letters, they speak for themselves and say everything. Suzanne called my out for where I was witht he Lord when I left the Ville, and I only have the Lord to thank for my not being in that same position. It is seriously as Suzy put it, we much "Let him". It took me just letting Him move in my life, to be filled again with the hope and love and freedom I had in Christ before. I still see myself choosing "Rae" over Christ, but I want to dwell on -letting him- this summer. I need to let Him take over. 

"I will open my mouth and He will speak for me" 

San Diego, Maryville, KC, get ready to listen. 

-rae

Recap: So one this I need to say is the letters from Suzy and Whit really were such encouragers and basically they provided that encouragement by understanding where I was at and feeding me scripture and things that they had been learning and felt would tie back to me well. Such a beautiful thing, I am so thankful to these ladies. 

Next I didn't comment too much on the first day and how it went down, but here is a small quick one (I have to be back for ministry teams in 15 min and my laptop dies in 10 so I have to rap it up but here it is briefly) I got off the plane and met up with Tyler Stevens when his plane got in, then we headed to the shuttle were we met up with 4 other Crusaders and road to Santa Clara. Once we got there I got out of the shuttle (hitting my head on the door, only the start of my clumsiness for the day lol) and walked into orientation. We got our room assignments, met our growth groups and played games to get to know some others on project. I live in Condo 1 with 13 others, there are 6 of us in my room and its actually very comfortable. That first night we put all out clothes away, there is surprisingly enough room for all of our stuff too, even with my over-packing :) And we also went to the grocery store. So after the first night I felt settled in and ready to eat. 

Tomorrow will be my 5th day here but I will try to catch this up sometime tomorrow. I'm gonna say I might not be as consistent at I had hoped to be, just because there is so much to do! But I will be trying my best. :)

I love you all back at home and hope all is well for you! 

Be keeping me in your prayers! I have a job interview for next tuesday and a couple applications in other than that!

Much love, 

rae