What....?!! April?!!!!

I don't know how it happened so fast, but it is over halfway through April, 2010!!!!  Many changes have transpired since I last wrote.  Mid-March I moved into my new abode in Independence, KC, where I serve as resident manager at a non-profit transitional apartment program for 17-20 year olds who have aged out of foster care or young women with babies who have no other support structure.  I don't receive a salary, but am provided with a two-bedroom apartment and utilities in return for being available evenings and weekends to do resident checks, drive them to get groceries, etc.  I feel very blessed to work with wonderful ladies and have this position where God has brought four young women and one guy into my life to pray for and mentor.  This is a program run through a state grant so I am somewhat limited, though at least one if not two of the ladies who run it are Christians.  Pray for open doors for the gospel to be presented!  Pray for words of knowledge and wisdom and boldness for me to glorify Christ!  I got to pray for healing for one of the girls who had a cold last Saturday.  It didn't lead to too much conversation but I hope and believe it was a step.

My second job is teaching Spanish full-time at a high-quality (read: posh) preschool in Leawood, KS.  I just completed my second full week, and boy am I tired!!!  Learning to tailor lessons for 10 classes of 2-5 year olds and manage two jobs is a challenge!  However, I believe it will only get easier as time goes by.  Pray that I grow in patience and love and work as unto the Lord!

As if this weren't enough, I registered for eschool with the Forerunner School of Ministry at the International House of Prayer-KC this past week and began my first course.  Tentative plans are to complete the first year of the Bible school as I work.  My first course is one I have actually been listening to (on tapes from the 90's!) for the past ten years, Mike Bickle's Song of Solomon course.  I'm excited to study it again in depth though, as life experience has opened the latter part of the book up to me a lot over the past year, but I also feel a need to experience breakthrough in the basic "dark but lovely" reality of a believer.  For though I am dark in my sin and weakness, through Christ I am lovely before God!  Pray that head knowledge moves deep into my heart as I am made perfect in love, to walk boldly and confidently before God!!! (1 John 4:16-18)

God's grace has helped me start getting up early and spending an hour at the IHOP-KC prayer room on my way to work, and what a difference it makes!  I hope to learn to get to bed earlier and soon lengthen that time to two hours.  I would have a lot of trouble being alert to have time in prayer and the Word in my apartment in the mornings, and I'm so thankful to be able to go somewhere that is so focused and energized.  By the time I get there I am wide awake and ready!

I'm super blessed, I can't even say how much, to be dating an amazing man JJ Stratton, who is passionate about God and moving up here to KC in about six weeks!  We had a blast when he came up for the Passion for Jesus conference this past weekend, worshipping and ministering together.  He is also looking into the Forerunner School of Ministry at the International House of Prayer.

Friends in Kansas City, now is when I take a moment to apologize for not looking you up sooner!  I could make all the excuses, transitions are busy, blah, blah, but rather I'll just say, let's get together now!!!!  I don't care much for living alone, though I haven't had much time to think about it the past two weeks, and I'm eager to prioritize friendships, if you will all forgive me!  :)