Mountains & Ministry

I love the mountains. Everything about being in the mountains reveals God to me. His beauty, love, detail, power, divinity, all of it is evident to me by the mountains and it's scenery. One day I hope we'll live in some mountain town. We would go on hikes and camp all the time. I might even have dreads. Last Saturday night we had a mini family vacay to the mountains. A friend had encouraged us to get away, so we did. A friend let us go to their beautiful mountain house in Blowing Rock for the night. There is a lot that goes into getting away with a kid, but we felt it was important so we did it. And it was the BEST time ever. It snowed and we got to cozy up to the fire. There wasn't laundry or dishes that I "needed" to do. I left my computer at home. Charis slept more than normal, which is already a lot. And Adam and I had a yummy dinner with wonderful conversation. It's hard to always connect with everything we are going through. Oftentimes we miss each other, so this was an opportunity for us to talk and share our hearts. It was so life giving to both of us.

Just a day after this we got to go up to Windy Gap for Young Life. It was our annual Winter Staff Conference and Christmas party. My boss had an incredible treat in store for the staff, which means lots of preparation. Although it's work for me, it is so good to be with the rest of the Young Life staff. It's also great to be with my family at Windy Gap, one of my favorite places. Since it is work for me it's often hard for me to go to the meetings, but I made an effort to go to a couple of them. Our boss' boss shared about Zechariah and Elizabeth from Luke 1. I'm not going to go into everything he said because it wouldn't be so eloquent. One thing that stuck out to me was that together Zechariah & Elizabeth's names mean "God remembers His promise." He also said something about praying for God to disrupt our lives and all I could think about was how it feels like our life has been in disruption. Yet God remembers His promise. Adam and I have been talking about what this means for us. What is His promise for us?
The other times I made an effort to attend was worship, which was so sweet for me. Another gift from this time came from a couple conversations I had with two of the guys on staff. Both are dads who pray with their daughters every day. Both talked about how this time has been sweet for them and a learning experience about kids and praying. Both told me how their daughters always ask about me, especially when they are coming to a YL event and will see me. I was so touched by this in many ways. I know there are many people praying for us which I'm incredibly humbled by, and there was something about these two little girls whose hearts care about me enough to pray for me and ask about me. I love being a part of Young Life for many reasons...loving on high school kids, being a part of the community, caring for staff, and getting to go to Windy Gap.

I wish I had pictures of both of these trips, but the first one we forgot our camera and the second we brought it but were apparently too busy to take any. boo.