reflection

I am not sure what to write to share the experiences of the last couple weeks. It was a busy time with alot of events that all went well. While they were my focus at the moment, they are no longer. I am in a deeper reflective mode currently. Christmas brought a day of relaxation, following a morning of work. New Years Eve was spent with a small group of local friends. New Years Day, I ventured to Santa Monica and enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach. During this time, I had an amazing conversation with a good friend over the phone. Through conversation and follow-up e-mails, I have been challenged to continue to explore who I am made to be. One theme I took away was the need to be present to the moment. Often as a culture, we are focused on what needs to be done next. We fail to be fully present with the person immediately in front of us (whether physcially, phone, or e-mail). My personality is one that seeks order. I am learning to embrace the messy moments of life, when the schedule is thrown out the window. I need to not only be present with others, but with myself as well. I need to understand who I am and what makes me "tick". Whether that is hiking, running, playing video games, movies, building relationships, I need to know what my passions are. I am learning to explore new things and discover other parts of myself. I need to be aware of not only the needs of my community and my house, but of myself. There is great value in sharing our honest needs. Only when the needs are known can they be met, either by the self or by the community. This is a personal challenge of honestly sharing with my house, my needs both physcially and emotionally. After 3.5 months we are fairly comfortable with each other and are identifying LA as home. We have worked through all our little quirks and are able to go deeper. The challenge for each of us is to not settle for the easy answer, but to really step out and challenge one another. I am grateful there are already people in my life who do this for me including the friend who unknowingly inspired this post, but my housemates are alot closer and can push more readily. I can avoid e-mails and phone calls, but I can't avoid my housemates for an extended period. We have become our own little unique family unit with all of the blessing and challenges. This only increases our need to be present for and to each other. While we still have 8 months remaining, it seems like an extended period of time. Yet I know that time will pass more quickly than we can imagine now.
Please be in prayer for each of us: Alison, Stephanine, Sara, and myself. We are entering the hardest part of the year. Homesickness tends to kick in, the pleasantries are over and we are real with each other. We covet your prayers for patience with each other and our various sites, that we discuss issues in a healthy way and deal with problems as they arise, rather than allow them to build up. For the ability to share honestly with one another and to more fully embrace each person as they are.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. If you are planning a trip to LA area and would like to visit, I would love to share with you in person the work I am doing.