Well, this week was a good week but very hard. We had the conclusion of the Discipleship Training School. It means that the students left and returned to their homes. It is rather lonely here without them, of course there is other staff here but when I have spent 5 months hanging out with this group of friends and now I have to adjust to not having them around it's not that easy. We were able to have a nice graduation dinner on Thursday night and then graduation on Friday evening. It was a nice time we allowed some of the students to talk about their experience and how God has changed them and then we handed out their certificates and had desserts and hung out til the late hours of the night. It didn't take long for some of them to leave, the first one left at 5:30 Saturday morning and then by 9 am two more left. By the time dinner on Saturday came there were only 2 left. It was SOO hard to say goodbye to them all, man it was horrible. Sunday though was an incredible day with the remaining students. One of them had her parents here so they taxied us to the beach and we went on a hike to some tide pools and hung out at the beach!! It was great, such a fun, relaxing, and awesome day to remember!! Now there is only one student left, my little Swiss friend Jonas, who PRAISE GOD is here until the 28th!!! It makes it easy to have the students leave with time in between and not all at once, I mean Saturday was a horrible day having to say goodbye to so many. Like I said it is very quiet here, I've had this week off to catch up on what I wasn't able to do while being gone for 6 weeks but in my free time aside from catching up I think about going and seeing what the students are up to then I realize THEY AREN'T HERE!!! I'm not quite sure what I'm suppose to do now, i have this whole week off then I start back at work but with no students I'm not sure where they will put me. I know we have teams coming off and on and then a 6 week training course in may/june but other than doing that I don't know what the next 6 months will hold for me. I am kinda excited just to see what area God is going to put me in, but I think it will be a very trying period since my heart is for discipling and right now I have no opportunities to disciple. Ecclesiastes 3 has become my favorite chapter to read lately my two favorite verses are
3:1 "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven." and 3:12 "So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can." Just a little encouragement for me in this new season I'm coming into, to see that I must look for the good even if I don't feel like I'm being used in the way I feel I should be. It's all about being a servant to those around me. Having the attitude of Christ in all situations. Doing what I need to do for those around me and not complaining, having fun because I'm still doing the work God wants me to do I'm just not overseas like I want to be!!