Bear with me, compadres.

Ahhh... my first time with internet access not via iTouch. Here we go!
I'm sitting in an open, brick lobby with a large, real fire roaring, leather couches around and vintage decor. On-staff volunteers, visitors, and DTS students from last semester are mingling around me, all of us feeling a little sleepy from lunch's leftovers smorgasbord. Outside = a foggy canyon sprinkled with rocky cliffs and palm trees. Nice.

It's only been, what, four days or so, but there's already far too much to recount in a single blog post (with less than a half-hour before I've got to run). Let's start with my fellow DTS students!

As some of you may be aware, this is a unique group: 5 single girls and a middle-aged couple make up our team. My roommates are Paola from Guatemala City and Michaela, originally from Perth, but for the past 5 months she's been living in Redding with her parents as her dad attends the Bethel School of Ministry. The other two girls are Kenzie from Fresno, and Nelita, another Guatemalan Latina, from Antigua. The couple are David and Katie, and they drove out from Virginia with their four sons, aged 14 (twins), 9, and 3, who are going to the international school on-base. It's been fun getting to know each other, from the moment I burst into my room at half-past 9 to find sleeping roommates (now woken up!), to today, in the first of our classes as we learned about intimacy with God.

Basically, I'm just stuck on this deep inquisitiveness - why did God pick Chico for my base? I find so much peace in the fact that it was His call. A female-saturated team, a "scouting" (think Joshua and Caleb) outreach to the gypsies in Spain... yet I can't let that steal my heart from where I am here and now; what He has for me in this lecture phase. So excited about the prayer room we have - intercession is definitely something I need to dig into, heart and soul.

My prayer for this season is that I would pursue God EXCELLENTLY. Let's give it all while I'm in such a blessed place, a place where I know I've been specifically called. The unfortunate part is that it’s easy to say nice words, and I can theorize all day about how one must “press in” to places where the Lord leads, but the actual logistics of it remains nebulous to me. The essentials: I need to invest my time, my heart, my faith, my dependence, my talents, gifts, and strengths, my weaknesses, shortcomings, and flawed perspectives – all of it needs to be the Lord’s; His to work with and through and despite. So my relationships need to be transparent, full of accountability, and legitimate. Stop the relational wasting :)

Man, that was rambly! Thank you to those of you who suffered through it. Much love to you, and to those who skipped to the end as well. Hopefully my next update will be both shockingly concise and convincingly spiritual ;) God bless!