Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-style-parent:””;
line-height:115%;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
New people come in and close friends leave. This seems to
be the cycle of things around AIM. Driver,
who has been a spiritual role model for me over this last year, is heading off
to Kenya today. My intern team from last year, three of the girls are here in Georgia, getting ready to leave for Africa for 9 months. Others are heading off on The World Race, and some are finding
the Lord is calling them to other places around the world. It has been such a
blessing to get to know all these new people over the last year, and being
accepted into this community. It’s a total change of lifestyle, and I would be
lying to you if I said it was an easy adjustment for me, I think I am still
working out some of it. It really only works too if your all in. If your confused
at where I am going with this, let me back up a bit and catch you up.
After last year working at AIM as an intern, I had the
feeling that God really wanted me to stay here and work on staff. It was a
great opportunity and I would get to work on web development and marketing, two
things I have a passion for. After leading a trip to Swaziland, I came back to
live with my new roomie Jimmy. He is a World Race alumnus and is now the main
setup guy for the World Race. He is an awesome dude and is really a great role
model to have around the house. After thinking it was just going to be him and I,
one of the new “interns” needed a place to stay and we offered our house for
the year. His name is Barton and has turned out to be a great guy as well. We
all live really well together and complement each other a lot.
Back to my original point, after last year, living with 3
guys, I really was ready to not share a room and kind of live on my own-as much
as I could. So, when hearing that I was going to be doing this again, I was put
off a little bit. Every day that I came home after work, the apartment was full
of people all hanging out and sometimes I just wanted my time to myself. After
praying a lot about it, I realized that this was much more than hanging out, it
was community. People that come and just live out life together, whatever way they
can. I get the opportunity to have
people over, with two other God loving men, and just love on people. It’s was a
hard adjustment at times, but once I put my selfishness to the side; it really
is a beautiful thing. I think it is so hard because society doesn’t really
express this community as a good thing. I’ve always felt that once I get on my
own, I don’t need community as much. Turns out, I do. They keep me accountable
in my walk with the Lord and challenge me daily with new things. Jimmy and I
have started the book “The Shack,” which if you haven’t read this, I strongly
recommend it. It is about a grief-stricken father in mid-life about to have an
extraordinary experience with God. His great sadness began four years
ago on a weekend camping trip, when his 6-year-old daughter, Missy, was
murdered. What he couldn’t know then, but is about to learn, was God’s
purpose for Missy’s death. I am only 80 pages in, but already it has hit me hard. I am
planning to do a little recap of this later on.
close friends leaving. I am excited about the chance I have to get to know
these new people and grow more in community with them. This is so much more
than just a job; it is becoming a way of life. I am so grateful that I get to
be a part of their lives, and they can be a part of mine. Thank you for your
prayers and support, it allows me to be where I am and experience all that is
happening around me.
