First Day

`Yesterday was the big day. Mom and dad drove me the three hours to National city to the Yugo office. Annie, Gaby, Dave and Tammy picked me and Jemma up. Then it was off to the airport to pick up Micah, Ben, Lauren, and Grace. From there we went to lunch at Panda Express and then a quick Walmart run before the 2 1/2 hr drive down to the Ensenada Campus. 

    When we arrived Osmar and Abi (our intern leaders) and Rebecca (our 6th intern) were there to meet us.  (Will is going to join us in 3 weeks after his high school graduation). We unloaded the van of luggage and Osmar showed us our room.  The three guys will be sharing a room until Will gets here then we’ll split two and two. After throwing our stuff down we left for a quick dinner run to Poblanos tacos and Annie joined us. It was kind of surreal to finally be here with everyone. 

    After dinner we went to Yugo Church’s monthly worship night. It was so sweet to be back in a bilingual worship service. There is absolutely nothing like that to make me think of the throne room in Revelation 7:9-12 where every tongue is worshipping together. At the end of the worship night we had the chance to pray for someone else. There was this emotional man a couple rows back that I asked if I could pray for in Spanish. As Pastor Rey prayed I prayed silently and then when there was a moment I prayed for him in Spanish.  

The whole worship night I had this strong desire to hear from God. I feel like it’s been so easy for me in the business of school, finals, and work to rush through my time with Him. I want to slow down enough to experience his presence and hear from Him. It takes time and intentionality to slow down enough.   As Kosuke Koyama said: “God walks ‘slowly’ because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is “slow” yet it is lord over all other speeds since it is the speed of love.”  I don’t want to be too busy “serving” God to love him. Because 1 Corinthians 13 says that makes it all for nothing. 

    After the worship night we milled around the courtyard and met some of the staff’s families that have made friends with Rebecca while she’s been here this spring and summer. Eventually, we headed back to the room to unpack before finally after our long day of travel, we went to bed for our first night in Mexico.