Well friends, its just about that time…

Just a little over a week left of mission. This entry is a bit late so bear with me here. Its the trick to remember far back enough without trampling on the terf of what the last person said already or too far forward for what the next writer is gonna talk about. It's highly delicate and dangerous business this mission blogging...

Anyway, if my memory serves me right, last week was a really good week. Lately it really feels like God’s been saying to celebrate all the amazing things He’s done this summer. It’s crazy how easy it is to get bogged down on the things that didn’t go the way we, well..I wanted them to. Not even big things but even little almost insignificant things. But lately I keep getting that reminder to stop focusing on that. And to look at all the beauty that’s come about here, especially recently. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

We’ve been planning out how things will go after we leave St. Jude as well. After a lot of prayer and discussion, we asked a few parishioners if they would take the challenge to sort of carry the torch when we leave, keeping the Discovery studies and youth group going so that more and more people can be reached. We’ve gotten all yeses so far, which is really cool. It really hit me right before asking one lady if she would be a part of our “new Revive Team” that it really doesn’t matter what I say to her. It doesn’t matter if I use the nicest most elegant words I can think of or if I give her the top 5 best reasons she should want to do this or offer to pay her eight million dollars to do this for us. Because its not about me at all. Its about God. And if He wants her to be on the team than He’ll prepare that call in her heart and give her the grace to answer with a yes. I don’t need to worry about  anything. Its funny because that’s something I’ve told myself and other people for awhile. But I guess I didn’t really believe it myself until then. It's cool. Takes a lot of the pressure off. And it happened. I stumbled awkwardly through what I was asking her and why I was asking it. But she said yes anyway. Because ITS NOT ABOUT ME. Wow that feels great to say. It really isn't. Ok, you guys get it. It's just still new to me. One of those things I'd been struggling with all summer and it just clicked. It's freeing.

And our youth group kids! I could probably write a book on how great the kids in our youth group are. I look back at how completely incapable I felt that first night, how intimidated I was…and I just laugh now. I love them so much. Each and every one of them. I’m dreading having to say goodbye to them, honestly. Its so amazing that God brought each of them into our lives, in the weirdest ways too. They’re an awesome group and we've seen so much growth in them over the past couple of months. I still don't even really understand it. Seeing the same kids who, that first night, were running around screaming about how excited they were to throw paint at each other, run and scream down a hallway after going to confession for the first time in years yelling "I FEEL SO FREE!" You feel kind of like you're dreaming. Yeah, God is good.

And so, that’s all I have to say I think. I guess Marc or Angele will be writing the last blog here. Thank you guys for reading. And thank you for everyone who prayed for us, encouraged us, came to visit us, supported us in any way really. We needed every ounce of it. So thank you J And don’t be scared of what you think you can’t do. God doesn’t ask much. He just wants us to be willing. He does the rest. He does the impossible through our clumsy and incapable hands. So yeah, there’s my piece of cheesy proverb for the day. 

God bless us, everyone ;)

-Mary