Americanized.

My life...

The pictures are: The mountains, Indian night! Kickball, on the way to the mountains, the Wake Foreset Soccer game, Myself & Lauren, Daniel (Michael's brother), Michael and Lauren and the practice Empire State building.

Last weekend was our first free weekend which meant we could do anything we liked...within reason. My friend, Lauren and myself went to Michael (the only guy)'s house. His parents came and picked us up, it only took a couple of hours so it wasn't bad. They live in a place called Winston-Salem. It is a very pretty city with the mixture of modern skycrapers and then the 'old town.' Some of it was quite quaint and almost English like...I felt quite at home. We spent our two days just touring around, going for walks, watching movies, Facebook!, talking and having quality home cooking!!! And yes we also attended Church but on Saturday evening. It's a Presbyterian Church and I haven't been to many of them so it was interesting experience. I only knew one song out of about 8! Oh and I also got to go to my first American Soccer game. It was two colleges playing, one of them called Wake Forest-very well known-and who won the nationals last year. It was a great atmosphere, starting off with the national anthem. It is the city where they did a practice for the Empire State Building.

That Friday also happened to be the day that the leaders decided to drive us into the mountains. It was a surprise so we all just got into the van and drove for 3 1/2 hours wondering where on earth we were going. It was great. We went to a Christian conference centre where they have a chapel near the top of a mountain and a deck where you could just sit. They felt God telling them that they should take us there as that week our guest speaker had been talking to us about mountain top experiences...e.g. Moses. And how we can take these highs down into the valleys. For everyone who went it was a truly incredible experience. We were told to go off wherever we liked for an hour and just be alone with God, including not talking to another human being for an hour. Wonderful! At this time God spoke to me through the passage Psalm 23. Yes it is one of those chapters that we hear and sing all the time, but this time it was totally different to when I'd ever heard it before. I read the chapter and then went back over each verse trying to connect each one with my life. It was amazing what God showed me then, how much He has provided for me and my family, how He has been a protector and a comforter and been present with us. We had been told that week that we need to learn to 'fold ourselves' into the verses and that's what I felt I did on this chapter which I didn't think about until afterwards. I tried to think about all the difficult situations that He's helped me through and what good has come out of troubling experiences. I learnt a lot about my Lord in that hour. Having the beautiful surroundings made it all the more special. The leaves on the trees were turning colour and some of them had the reddest leaves I have ever seen. There was also a stream with a small waterfall and glittering rocks. I would love more mountain top experiences!!!

This last week we had a lady called Anna Cleghorn come and speak to us on studying the Bible. Wow we got a lot of historical background information. My mind is boggling with information. She showed us how we should study the Bible. One point that I found interesting was that it's good to sit down and read one book the whole way through, then go back over it by looking at 'what does the text say?' then 'what did the text mean when it was written?' and then comes the goal of 'how can we apply this now?' and being very specific in that area. She was a lovely lady and had so much to say. We're going to try and study one book as a group sometime soon.

Last week we also had an Indian evening...yes we all got dressed up, listened to Indian music, had lots of food and just enjoyed each others company.

Friday evening was interesting, for me anyway. We all watched Braveheart...I've never seen it before but the response of everyone else was 'Elby, England is horrible!!! They're so mean!' I decided to renounce being English for one evening. I hope you are not offended. ;)

On Saturday we all went to help out at the local Pregnancy Crisis Centre, just helping to sort out and fold baby clothes. It was interesting for the guys to see how all of us girls responded. It was filled with 'awww how cute is that?' They have a great ministry at that place. It is gradually getting bigger and becoming more equipped with offering tests and machines. They offer parenting and Bible classes which they've had a great response to.

Also that day Lauren and I went to see High School Musical 3 with a leader and her daughter. We all had a ton of fun watching it and we came out dancing and singing much to the amusement of everyone else. That same evening The Notebook was on the agenda to watch (just us girls).

Yesterday was mainly filled with watching movies, doing our creative journals, playing Soccer after which I am very sore now, especially as I got kicked in the leg very hard.

We've experienced a lot of spiritual warfare since we've been here, so prayer against that would be great. It is all good preparation though for going into India, such a dark place with all the gods and rituals.

Overall everything is going pretty fantastic and I'm still loving it! Good sign.

I miss you all...it dawned on me quite heavily the other day.

Love you and God bless.