Praises

Ok, so I had such a crazy great morning I had to write about it. Most of the people that will be reading this are the same people that have been praying for me to find a good church home and community up here. Today marks exactly 2 months of living in Rochester. I've been on the church hunt since my first week here, going off of leads to sister churches to mine back in KC, KCBT, and recommendations of trusted friends and my supervisor at my internship. Last week I went to one that I finally felt could be a good fit. They seemed to have a lot of people around my age, something all the other churches I visited lacked, but first and foremost they preached Jesus in a truthful and relevant way. People brought their bibles, and actually opened them (gasp), and they appear to be all about missions and fellowship. They had a guest speaker, who was excellent, so I decided to go back this week and see how I felt about the senior pastor. Last night Jesus and I had a pretty deep heart to heart. I journaled like 9 pages about all the things that have been on my heart lately, things I'm learning, things I know I need to be learning, questions, doubts, fears, confessions, praises, you name it, it was in the chat :) But one of this things I earnestly asked was for confirmation as to whether or not this is the church he would have me stay at and that I would make some more friends. I said, "Lord, just let one person say hello to me." And I made up my mind that no matter what, I would get some guts and go to the welcome center after service and meet some people. So I'm pulling into the church this morning and I notice that the person in front of me has Nebraska plates. I think to myself, "Hmm, maybe this is another new comer." I basically swerve into oncoming traffic to see if the driver was a male or female, and sure enough, a young looking girl. I hear a tiny little voice inside my head say, "This is it, meet her." So I follow her and park just a couple cars down. This is when I start to doubt myself, I think "What am I gonna do? Tackle her and say- Hey, I was just stalking you in the parking lot, are you from the Midwest? Me too! Do you wanna be my friend?" And I realize that instead of being 10 mins late like I was the week before, I'm 15 mins early. What am I gonna do with these 15 mins? By the time I've thought all of this, she's out of her car and in the building. Way to go me. I saw she was wearing a white coat, so I think maybe I'll try and find her when I go in. I stay in my car and read some proverbs, you know for wisdom, and to kill time haha. I finally head in and find my way through a maze of halls to the sanctuary and plant myself more toward the middle than my usual back row choice, tryin to be bold here. I grab a "New Visitor" card and start to fill it out. Two girls who look around my age come sit right in front of me, and one of them turns and introduces herself, Nicole. She's wearing a white coat. She asks if its my first Sunday, and where I'm from. I say it's my second and that I'm from Kansas, to which she replies, "Oh really! I'm from Nebraska!" So even after my failure to be bold the Lord brings me to her anyway, but that's not all. She introduces me to her friend, Abbie, who just happens to be starting a small group for new people next week. God is too darn good to be sometimes. So we exchange emails, and they invite me to an event for college age people this Friday. After service, I use my new found confidence to go to the welcome center, and who do I see again, Nicole, she's part of the new comers ministry, good at it too I might add. I also meet two other young ladies that are planning to come to the event on Friday. 

Friends, fellowship, community. Ask and you shall recieve.