Aldates No. 9 - A New Beginning

Well here I am I guess, a week into my new life, though it certainly doesn't feel like it. Maybe it's just because of all the shenanigans going on right now with covid, but despite having only known these guys for a total of 9 days it already feels like we've been friends for a lifetime. The sense of community spirit in this house is unreal. Communitas, as Mark Brickman put it in his induction talk:  "the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group." Growing together as equals in Christ.

This week has been pretty crazy at times, though I haven't really been hugely "busy" as such, going back into a church setting after so long away due to covid has been an incredibly strange - but very very welcome - experience. Things might be completely different, with socially distanced chairs and in particular, no singing, but despite everything God has still been able to move in a big way and it has been a really good reminder that we really don't need big flashy lights or loud music for the Spirit to move. As it says in 1 Kings 19, the Lord is in the whisper. Not the storm, the earthquake, or the fire, but the whisper.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I've realised though is that, for all the anxiety I had coming into this internship about sharing a room and, consequently, not having my computer (my single biggest coping mechanism on bad days) I can honestly say I don't miss it. Not having it there to retreat to has in some ways forced me to be more "me" as weird as that sounds. People here see me as I am, not just the version of me I want to show them, and that has been incredibly freeing in a lot of ways. I might try and write some more on this at some point as it's been a pretty big thing for me this week, but I make no promises.

I really wish I could say more about how things are going right now, but I'm not sure I can really do justice to the experiences I have had these past days in something as simple as a blog post, but because you probably want to know how things are going (or you wouldn't have clicked on this to read it) just know that I'm fine, stuff is going really well so far, and the people here are amazing. I've only been here a week, but it already feels like home.

I just want to end by saying an absolutely massive thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and supporting me through this transition. It's definitely been one of the scarier things I've had to do, but I said even before I started here that I couldn't do it if God wasn't in it, and if there's one thing that has become very clear to me over the course of this week, He absolutely *IS* in it, and he's got my back.

Thanks guys.