Churches

Well folks, this is the second post within seven days and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself!

Things in Aus are going along swimmingly... Except for me, since it is in fact too cold to swim. We begin our three week break on Friday, and I'm hoping that when we get up to Sydney it will be much warmer and worthy of time at the beach :-) All my other plans you'll just have to wait for so I can tell you about them after they happen :-D

I have been so blessed with my church situation here. I absolutely love the services at St. Paul's, and have had an amazing time getting to know and participate in the liturgy, as well as weekly communion. There is so much that happens in the weekly service, and so much more than simply worship, offering, announcements, and sermon. And the sermon is way shorter than the typical half-an-hour tirade that I'm used to. Not that I don't appreciate and grow through that, I just think that there is more to be offered in a church service than that. Not only that, but I've also met some amazing people at St. Paul's as well.

To start, two of the pastor's there have made the effort to talk to us every time we go (it's usually Becky, Bekah and I that go every week) and they are starting to get to know us and we them, and it's really good. Pastor Jim (lol) is going to NYC today to spend a couple weeks with his son, who teaches school there.
We've also met a family that has already been such a blessing to us. When we went three weeks ago, we just sat at the end of a pew not paying attention to who was there. After the service, the dad (Matt) came down and introduced himself to us, and talked to us for half an hour to forty-five minutes. We also got to meet his wife, Jo, and their four kids. Later on we met Fiona, Jo's sister, and talked with them about the joys and frustrations of homeschooling - they have all 6 of their kids doing it, and all three of us have had some experience with it as well (Bekah was homeschooled until going to college).
Last week was amazing getting to talk to them - Fiona's younger daughter has some pretty serious medical issues, that will leaver her open to the possibility of having regular seizures for about the next six months. As I was talking with Matt about it, he said something that just floored me: "We aren't asking God "Why would you do this to us" we are just trying to ask Him what this means for us now, and how we should act; and more importantly, we are trying to just be still and know that He is sovereign and in control of all things and that He loves us." I was absolutely amazed to see that kind of faith - because I know that I certainly don't have it!

The week between those two Jeremiah and Aimee and Lydia and Becky and I all did some special music at a Chinese church. We sang a couple four part hymns (I miss choir!) and did some more modern songs in the second service. The hymns went really well... The modern songs were the worst musical experience that I've ever been involved in.
Luckily it was made better this last week. I have been going to St. Paul's Anglican in the morning, and then I catch the train back and get picked up at Kingsley to go to Hilton St. Wesleyan-Methodist (if you want to know why the denoms are combined, ask me and I'll explain later...). I have been doing some kids ministry affiliated with that church - I may end up at family camp and helping do a religious education class at a local school because of that as well (and I may actually preach once...!). It's been pretty great. My friend David, who lives in the dorms at Kingsley, leads worship for the afternoon service at Hilton, and he's amazing. But this last week he just asked me to come up and jam with him while he led, and I got to play the piano, and it was fantastic! I mean, I don't know how it sounded out there, but I just had such a wonderful time getting to do that. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy using the piano as a color instrument instead of a lead instrument, since that's what I do so much of the time.

I do miss that a lot though - Kingsley has a 15 minute devotional every morning, but it's not the same as having chapel three times a week and MercySeat (OneThing) or Koinonia on a regular basis as well. We tried to set up a worship service the second week here, but no one came :-( I may put together a couple more later on in the semester, but with break coming up it won't happen for a while.

I miss home more and more. There is much drama at Houghton right now with the possibility of the Soc. department becoming defunct, and it's casting a lot of doubt onto my future. Not that I really had much of any plans for anything after graduation... But my thought now is to be confirmed in the idea that if I do go to grad school at some point, it will probably be after a couple years spent at home. I wouldn't quite call what I feel homesickness, but I am incredibly excited to spend a good long chunk of time there at Christmas.

I struggle so much with spending the time in meditation or in prayer trying to figure out where the Lord wants my future to go, and I'm so bad at it. I know that it is a discipline, and a process, but that still doesn't mean that I don't want results now! Patience, I suppose, is a fruit of the Spirit and I could do well to develop all of them and just wait on the Lord. Be still and know is what I need to do; but I struggle with both.

Oh, and the new set of pictures:

http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010339&l=f2af8&id=100301115