So...Mondays

I don't work on Mondays and today was a perfect day off.

The sun shone all day, I read a book, watched TV, listened to music and spent a lot of time outside. I enjoyed drinking ice cold water dispensed directly from the fridge with my own choice of cubed or crushed ice. I loved that the only sound I could hear was the water feature in the back yard. I even remembered to switch my phone alerts to "sabbath" so that I didn't get email alerts.

The last few years has taught me that I could live anywhere in the world, wherever God leads me to serve Him...but there's definitely some great perks living in California!

So...online registration

We've just about got through the first weekend of Summer Camp online registration. Here's what I've learned...

1. Technology is your best friend when it's working and your worst enemy when it isn't
2. Life demands too many passwords and usenames
3. No matter how many possible scenarios you prepare for, there will ALWAYS be a student or a parent that will present just one more
4. A paperless registration process is incredible, despite the minor hiccups we've had, the set up looks clean and professional (and I'm not carrying large wads of cash and checks around with me)
5. Online registration seems to encourage people to email questions rather than speak to someone in person or by phone, allowing me to respond within hours
6. NOBODY enters telephone numbers in the following format (xxx)xxx-xxxx which is unfortuante because that's the only acceptable format for our system
7. Old people type SUPER slow
8. Young people assume that every monitor is a touch screen, despite the presence of a keyboard
9. Despite all the fancy programs we have installed on our computers, the easiest and quickest way to get an image onto a screen is good ol' fashioned Powerpoint.
10. Sitting on a bar stool but working on a regular height table is a very quick way to develop pain in your neck and spine

Overall I'm super happy with how it's going, just a few kinks to iron out and then keep praying for those sign ups to start pouring in!

So...being disorganiSed

I like to be organiSed, possibly a little too much. I think this is one of the reasons I work well running large events. I like order and systems and plans. I like things to match in some way or another, I like symmetry and patterns.

We just finished installing shelves into our new closet space...I really want to buy new matching storage stubs but I also enjoy not spending money frivolously so haven't.

Last month I led a mission trip to New Mexico and we took 200 people, out of the four charter buses, one was slightly older and different....that was irritating.

When I helped lead a Summer Camp many years ago (FAB for those reading who remember the LCET days) and as a gift one of the other leaders arranged all the coloUred cups in such a way that each table had their own coloUr rather than a mismatched non-complimenting array of bright tones...I almost cried it was so great.

I could never wear socks that didn't match, one year for Christmas I was given a set of 7 pairs with the days of the week on. I hardly wore them because I could never find the right day.

There's no real point to this post other than I was thinking about this yesterday as I was working to get our Summer Camp registration online (solely online, there is no other way to sign up). It's up and running but I had to ask about a million time for "one last change" which I'm sure was not only annoying for the IT guy but was killing me for being so disorganiSed.

And this is only the beginning! Summer Camp only 8 weeks away and we have the possibility of taking 700 people so it's going to be a busy few weeks! I might need to get some matching file folders or something to help me through!

So Mother's Day...

There are a few differences to get used to when living in a different country to where you grew up. Some of these are easy to adapt to (driving on the right or using dollars instead of pounds for example). Other differences are much easier to forget...like when Mother's Day is.

In the UK, Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent (March 14th 2010) and is traditionally the Sunday where people would meet in their "Mother Church", the cathedral of the diocese. More recently, it has adopted the name and nature of the US equivalent.

This year in the US, Mother's Day is May 9th. So my usually dependence on Greeting Cards advertising is not helpful.

So inspired by Allison's recent blog post, I have purchased a belated UK Mother's Day gift (or an advance US Mother's Day gift) from Charity:water.

I'm not asking you to give, but I would encourage you to poke around their website.

So the result of my musings...

I have posted very rarely over the past few months. One of the reasons for this is that I have felt the need to process what God is saying to me before I can really develop some answers to my previous posts. Below is an overview of where God led me as I thought and prayed through the questions...Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

Purpose

My purpose is to glorify God through my thoughts, words and actions, to maintain and develop a deep personal relationship with Him and share His love with the world.

Values

Identity: spending quality time with God

Integrity: maintaining God’s standards in life and leadership

Growth: continual learning and developing

Leadership: being an effective steward in ministry

Discipleship: nurturing others

Fellowship: sharing life with others

Encouragement: empowering others

Appreciation: showing gratitude towards others

Awareness: being aware of the needs in my immediate surroundings and the wider world

Advocacy: supporting and standing up for the broken, the needy, the hurting

Action: more than just thought and reflection, being someone of action, making vision a reality and meeting needs head on

Vision

As I continue my walk with Christ I dedicate myself to the following six principles:

In my life I will honoUr His authority

(by nurturing a deep relationship with Him)

In my service I will glorify His name

(by working selflessly and sacrificially to lead others to Him)

In my witness I will declare His grace

(by outwardly expressing my faith to the world)

In my leadership I will fulfil His mission

(by steering people towards His purpose)

In my relationships I will reflect His love

(by generating opportunities for fellowship, accountability and discipleship)

In my community & world I will be someone of action

(by turning vision to reality, plans into programs and by meeting the needs that God places on my heart

---

So...back from Kenya

I want to write a debrief of our short mission trip to Africa. I want to explain how I feel when I'm in Africa. I want to describe every detail, every smile, every laugh, every story of hurt, of hope, of perseverance. I want to share a message of hope and faith from a country with so little. I want to verbaliSe what God has done in me through this trip to Africa, how He picked up where he left off when I was last there 8 years ago. I want to tell you about the role I see myself having in God's plan for Kitale...

That's what I want to do, but I don't have the words.

The words of the previous post to this one, that I wrote many months ago, echo in my heart...

Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I doing?

Who...Where...What

I was recently challenged to consider the following questions...

Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I doing?

Although this seems simple enough at first glance, these questions have challenged me.

Who am I? Not "who do I what people to believe that I am", or "who do I wish I was" or "who will I one day become". What defines who we are?
Where am I? Not geographically, but in life, with regards to progression and growth. How do you measure where you are?
What am I doing? Who am I influencing, where is my energy spent, how am I making a difference?

Tonight we saw the new Hillsong movie "We're all in this together" and through the images and stories of a world in need I kept thinking of those three questions. We watched images of people hurting, struggling, fighting to survive. We heard stories of slavery, sexual exploitation and violent oppression. We saw the damage of hatred and the power of love.

As I begin to process the message of social injustice from the movie my thoughts have naturally turned to what I can do, where I could go and where I could start to make a difference. I can't help but consider how that affects my answers to those three questions...

Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I doing?