December Daze

I'm taking a bit of a break from my preparation for my final sermon here in Assiniboia as an intern. We're into the second week of advent, and my topic is about Jesus being a better judge. This whole series of topics for this year's advent at this church is pretty interesting, and I like it a lot. It's a bit harder for me to prepare for because it's a little beyond my natural interests in terms of things to talk about in the Bible. However, I am thankful that from reading through the book of Judges a couple times, I've really found an interest for the book.

So I've only got two and a half week left in this internship, but there is no slowing down! Because people are busy during this time of year, some of my helpers in Club DJ are away, so I've been needing to take over for some of the things that they are normally in charge of. I'm just glad that I have enough experience in working with kids that I am not BSing this ministry.

On top of preaching and running Club DJ, there's several Christmas functions that I'll be participating in. Somtimes I wonder why people would ask me to do something for these types of community events because I have lived here for seven months and really hold no reputation in the community at all. So, I guess that in many ways, being asked is quite the honour for me. Speaking of being honored, I found out that because of what I've been able to do here, this church is already looking into another potential intern next summer/fall (aw yeah). That's really awesome for me to hear. The only thing I need to caution, though they probably already know, is that no matter how the next inern does here, they can't compare him to me. Whether he makes me look like a scrub or vice versa, it'll be important to let him develop his own connections and impact in this community. But because the people here are so good, they'll probably be able to do just that.

A few weeks back, I was asked to preach at NEAC at the end of the month, right after Christmas. I thought about it, and actually got pretty excited about it. In the end, though, I chose to decline this invitation because, at this point in my life, I think spending time with my family and being able to relax is a little more important for me. It's not that I don't get to spend time with family if I had to preach, but I'm not at a point where preparing for a message during the week I need to preach is comfortable for me yet. It's actually quite crazy. I've been nervous for things before, but my days leading up to when I preach on a Sunday, it's a feeling I've never felt before - it happens every single time.

Well, my last official day here in Assiniboia is the 22nd. I do hope that I will be home on the evening of the 23rd, because my dad deserves a couple days to rest too. He'll be driving down to help me move back up.

I'll probably blog again before I'm done here; but in the case that I don't, it's been a blast, Assiniboia. I never thought that my life would've lead me here, but I'm so glad it did; and if I had the chance to redo my life so that I'd end up here again for my internship, I would do it again 10/10 times.

Stay warm.