"Consider the Ravens..."

Dear readers

Last week was one of the most healing and restorative weeks in literally years.  God truly can restore more in a week than I could in a year and this blog post is a short list of some of the incredible miracles He's done in my heart and my life during this very adventurous week.

The next two days of training were spent in deep discussions about spiritual formation in our students and ourselves, and a review and expansion of cultural adaptation techniques.  The five of us became very comfortable sharing funny stories of cultural "oops" moments and growing together on the common ground of "I totally understand how you feel!"  It was so good to know that the good and the bad of last year could be shared and even seconded by people who experienced similar things in completely different countries.  God knew what He was doing when He brought the five of us together!  I was very encouraged by the wisdom of the other women and by Friday morning I was not l…

Here's the final post of the shortest summer of my life.  It feels like 3 days ago that I got off the plane at Home and breathed, thinking, "Finally, I can slow down.  It's summer."  And then I blinked.  Okay... in actuality, I've done a lot in 5 weeks: met with 7 different churches and organizations, gave over a dozen presentations, drove nearly 3,500 miles, saw both Grandma's twice, ate what seemed like everything "American" in sight, and managed to raise some support and plan some lessons in the process.  Today was day 2 of 5 in my journey back to Manila.

I'm currently in a crash-course training for second year missionaries.  We were jokingly warned that by the end of Day 1, we'll feel like we've been drinking from a fire hydrant.  He was right -- my mind is saturated with notions about Biblical Integration.  But in so many ways, I've been drinking from a fire hydrant all summer long...

Perhaps one of the oddest phenomenons I'…

Signs of a great summer...
1) You forget about the blog you created and don't update it for nearly two months...  My apologies!

2) You're so busy catching up with people and driving hundreds of miles that you nearly forget that the date of return to Manila is looming.

3) Conversations with friends shift from, "How was the Philippines?" to "So, how has your week been?"

4) There is no shortage of flavored coffee creamer and whip cream.  God bless America!

Well, friends... my sincerest apologies to those who might've been looking for an update along the lines of "I'm back in America..."  I was so excited to do all the American things I'd been missing that blogging became a less necessary way of communicating.  I'd be lying if I said the thrill of being home hasn't worn off a little, but there are still a plethora of odd comments that come out of my mouth.  In case you didn't follow the thread on Twitter (#statementsofreentry),…