September 5th came so quickly; I felt like I really didn't have time to fully prepare myself, even just mentally to come here and start this brand new adventure with Jesus and a team of 5 other of His eager followers. But really, I don't think there's anything I could have done to fully prepare myself beforehand. So much of this new chapter of life, I've had to just trust fall into, counting on Jesus to catch me and make a way. And, (of course) in His faithfulness, He has.
I do sincerely apologize that it's taken me this long to write an update. We've been here over 3 weeks now, which is still so crazy to me! It's definitely taken awhile to find the new routine and new normal here, but things are finally beginning to settle into place.
Okay, I keep saying "here", but where exactly is "here"?Â
"Here" is Missoula Montana- beautiful North West America- covered in breathtaking mountains, sparkling rivers, and so many precious hearts God wants to invite into His family.Â
"Here" is a small 2 bedroom apartment I live in now with the 3 other girls on the team (a 5 minute walk from where the 2 boys on our team live).Â
"Here" is 2 miles from the University of Montana campus where I now work on site with Cru to reach students there.
"Here" is just where I want to be, because
"Here" is where God has brought me to after leading me through deep valleys and over glorious mountain tops to give me a story that I hope and pray can be used by Him to touch even a single life here to point them to Him.
Before sharing about schedules, before giving house tours, before writing out introductions, and before even showing pictures (and I'm so excited to share pictures of how beautiful it is here!), I first just need to praise the One I'm here for, and declare His goodness and glory. The first few weeks have been hard. They've been challenging and at times depressing and lonely, but He's been here with me. He's never left my side. He's been faithful to me, and has even so graciously begun to let me see the ways He's taking care of me here.Â
Over our first two weeks here, we went through so many different training sessions with different Cru leaders. But the one that stood out to me the most was so simple. But so incredible in reminding me again of why I'm here - not just on this trip - but on this earth.Â
"The goal of my life this side of heaven, is simply to fall more deeply in love with the King of the universe"Â - Kevin YoungÂ
And...I think...I think I am. :) I think I am falling in love. With Him. More deeply than ever before. He's brought me so much comfort in His Word. His company and encouragement has become so dear to me. More than anything, He wants us to be satisfied in Him. He wants to be the One to meet our every need. And when we let Him...that's when we are satisfied.
To be honest, the first weeks here, I felt so empty. So alone. So tired and worn. I didn't feel satisfied. I felt discouraged with old struggles, and old temptations and just a longing to be loved in my loneliness. And...that's where He met me. And I want to do better. I want to more often live in the truth that He is enough for me. And that He is my joy and my life, and that I can be more than satisfied through Him.Â
I want the goal of my life to simply be falling more in love with Him. And that's His goal for us too. Which was crazy to realize. Even in bringing me here, more than using me to bring people into His Kingdom (though that is such an honor and joy to get to join Him in!), even more important to Him in our relationship is that I would learn to love Him more.Â
My prayer in the weeks before I came, became a desperate cry that He would heal my heart's hurts...so that I could love. Like He did. So that I wouldn't have to be held back by my own pain, or trauma, or fears. But that I could be healed to love. Because that's what I'm here on this earth to do. To lay down my life like He did. He's given in all. I just want to be able to give that back to Him.Â
Now, I can see Him answering those prayers...by Him loving me. His love heals. His love transforms. His love changes everything.
Okay, I know you're all probably getting a little impatient by now to hear even what I've been doing the past few weeks, and what my new life is like. So, I'll try and write out some of what it's been like so far. I wish I'd done it sooner so I didn't have so much to catch up on now, all at once, but I guess that's my fault. ;P
My Team
Is amazing. I know I've gone through and listed them all before for you, but it's been infinitely better now getting to know each of them and love each of them. God really answered the prayers I'd prayed from the beginning for special, deep unity and love within our team for each other. We're all so close (even after the first 3 days, we couldn't believe we'd only known each other for so short an amount of time! We felt so integrated into each other's lives and hearts already) We're all pretty much the same age, but we've all just kind of naturally fallen into "our spots" in our sibling line up.Â
Sully plays "big brother" so well to us all. He's genuine and observant, kind and easy to get along with. He's also an amazing chef and has helped so much in running the kitchen here.
Gabriel would be next in the lineup. He's definitely little brother to Sully (Sully's 6'3" and Gabriel's 5'10" - not that height matters, but... it gives a good picture), while at the same time, He's also definitely big brother to all of us girls. He watches out for us, defends us, entertains us, and maybe teases us some. ;P
Dani and I "big sister" each other and the other girls. She and I are roommates in our apartment and share everything...including the task of taking care of our "little sisters": Hannah and Ira.
Hannah is so sympathetic, caring, and sweet. She's always cleaning, always serving, always giving of herself for everyone else. We all adore her, and try to convince her to take a break sometimes and let us take care of her. <3
Ira is our "baby". She's so tiny and adorable. (she's 5'1"!) She's the one I get to cuddle with the most, and who will lay her head on my shoulder, or just skip around holding hands with me. ;) BUT...she's also like super smart. We all discovered early on that she's always right, and without her, we'd be lost in the city, and hopelessly lost in our budgeting and technical stuff. So...Ira is quite simply, our queen. :D Whatever she says goes.
If you want to read each of my teammate's perspectives on everything (including me, I'm sure :P) they have done a much better job finding time to blog and have written some awesome posts already they said I could share. So you should definitely subscribe to them all. :) Especially since probably every single one of them is better at remembering to take pictures than I am and post some really pretty ones. :)
Gabriel: https://mycrugapyear.wordpress.com/
Also with our team are our leaders: Bob and Deanne Reid. Who are amazing. They have invested so much in our little team. They've trained us, cared about us, discipled us, and walked right along side us in all the ups and downs of figuring out our new lives here. They both love God so much, and it just pours out of them to everyone around them. They exude such confidence in their God who they are so passionate to serve and share with the students here at University of Montana. They're the ones who run Cru at UM, and all of us, from Cru student leaders, to brand new club attendees are accepted and invested in so fully by them both. It's been such a blessing to work with them, and just see how much they love what they do here and how well they do it by His strength and provision. They've also been so intentional about building deeper relationships with each of the 6 of us on my team to not just lead us, but love and understand us. They are such a gift from the Lord. God's goodness is so clear in His allowing them to be our leaders for these next 9 months.
Where I live
Well, you all know I'm in Missoula. It's so so beautiful here! And not humid! ;P We girls all share an amazing 2nd story apartment in a super great complex that offers a pool, clubhouse, workout room, grill, etc. It's felt pretty luxurious here actually. Especially the balcony we get. ;) I can watch the sunset and sunrise from it, see the stars at night, and see the breathtaking mountains on all sides around us. We even have little fairy-lights out there, so I'm happy. ;)
As I mentioned before, our house is situated a couple blocks from Sully and Gabriel's place, a 40 minute walk along the most beautiful trail to campus, 4 miles from the church we're all attending together here, and a short bus trip up to Target and Walmart. We don't have a car, so we do mostly walk, bike, or bus places. But that's just added to the adventure, and provided more time in the lovely, fresh, Montana air for me. So it's been great.
Ministry
Clearly, our main priority in coming here for ministry is working with Cru on campus at UM. But, Bob and Deanne have found other areas we get to jump into loving and serving Missoula here in other ways too. The way I'm most excited about has been Young Life, high school ministry here. We got to attend our first club with the kids last Monday evening, and it was so wonderful to get to meet and love on the kids. I'm so, so looking forward to doing that each week and developing relationships with those kids to show them how important and valued they each are- most of all to God. Kate is the Missoula Young Life leader her. She is so much fun to work with. She's so passionate about what she does, and she's also so good at it. She's exuberant, bold, and determined. She and Bob and Deanne are good friends, and when she heard that we "Gappers" were coming, she was so excited! She'd been praying for God to send more helpers who could love on "her kids" she's been ministering too. I'm so glad we get to.
Life
Our weeks are pretty busy (now that we finished our 2 week quarantine from campus students) We're on campus a few times a week at least for different activities (prayer walks, Cru meetings, Cru clubs, meeting with students, Cru Bible studies, etc) In between being on campus we have lots of team training sessions plus one on one times with Bob and Deanne usually back here at the apartments. We do Young Life on Monday nights, and soon will have opportunities to tutor a family's younger kids, get more involved in ministry among the Congolese refugees here, and do more one on one meetings with students we meet on university or the high school kids we do Young Life with. Then, there's also our own team times we want to spend together, cooking dinners, budgeting and shopping for all the food we need, etc. Thankfully, every Wednesday, Bob and Deanne have scheduled in a half day with the Lord for us. And that's been sooo wonderful. I found the most beautiful secret place along the Milwauke Trail to campus where I can go and sit with my feet in the brook, hidden by the tall golden grass, but still be able to see the mountains all around and breathe in the wonderful, crisp, clean air here. It's my favorite spot now...
along with the cutest little coffee shop we discovered just a 10 minute walk from our apartment. ;)Â And the coffee shop is nice since it's heated as the days start to get chillier here. ;P
I know there's still so much I haven't gotten to mention yet, but hopefully as I get to start writing my updates more regularly (you can pray for me on that one ;P) I'll get to share more and paint a better picture of what it's like here.
Oh! And speaking of pictures...I'm so excited to show you all my pictures! Okay, I admit, I hardly ever actually remember to pictures in the moment myself...so most of these pictures are ones I stole off of my teammates who are better at that kind of thing. :) But some of my teammates also happen to be really great photographers, so their pictures are probably better than anything I would have taken anyways. So, you're welcome for that. :)
Prayer
Even deeper love and unity within our team and with our leaders, Bob and Deanne
Ability through Covid restrictions to still be on campus and interact with students as much as possible
Learning how to balance finding all I need in Christ while still knowing how to ask for what I need and tap into the communities here (and back home) He wants to provide for me through.
The time I need with the Lord each day to be refreshed by His Word and be refocused each morning on Him.
Thank you all so much for all your prayers. He's done so much work here already just within our team.
I'm going to send this now because I don't want you to have to wait any longer, but please don't judge. It's midnight here as I'm trying to get this posted for you. ;P
In Him,
~Etsy