"Gist" enough to get by.

What an interesting week I've had so far! Here's the gist of it:

Sunday, 2AM: Power is out.

We live in the middle of nowhere. Therefore, our power is not a priority. Also, when our power dies, the water system calls it quits, as well as the wifi and most people's heating. So the base woke up to cold, dark, parched isolation on Sunday morning.

What an adventure it was! We were blessed blessed blessed with a non-centralized heating system that held up through the storm (we had a few people leech the heat) and a gas stove - the latter coming especially in handy as we roasted marshmallows for s'mores and toasted bagels with Nutella by candlelight - using chopsticks as skewers. What a great time!

We definitely socialized more, which is sort of sad to see that the internet really does suck time from us, but we played boardgames with the guys and watched a movie on the remaining
batteries of a couple laptops and roasted more s'mores than we needed. It was really fun!

Partially due to the power outage, and partially due to some family stuff he needed to be home for, we only had this week's speaker for two days! This was our week on spiritual gifts, important stuff, so we just doubled the class time on Tuesday and Wednesday and then said good bye. Ken Bluemel, a pastor of a church in Sacramento, was an excellent speaker for the time he was here, and we all were for sure encouraged, built up, and inspired with his teaching and application. We talked about baptism of the Spirit, the purpose of the gifts, and identifying gifts in ourselves. It was really fun, and my life was spoken into in huge ways yesterday.

And that's the gist. As for random snippets of information: We have another 300-or-so-attendees conference over this weekend, beginning today, and we had a tornado warning last night, which turned into some gusty wind, and not much more. Hoping to see some sunshine before we leave, though; January was a lot nicer weather than what we've been experiencing this month!

Two weeks until Spain, and we're excited and a little apprehensive. God is still working through some things, we're still working through some things, and plans are coming together. I'll post some more stuff about what outreach is looking like when it's not dinner time!

Ciao :)