The First Week

Today marks my ninth day of being back in this incredible city, and I am loving every minute of it. I feel like I’m truly starting to settle in and get into the swing of things. My first week of work went very well! It’s always a little overwhelming being the “new” one, but everyone has been so welcoming and has helped make me feel right at home.

My first big task will be mapping out a media communications strategy for the Foundation. They haven’t ever had anyone on staff to focus primarily on communications. There are many aspects of that area that they have been wanting to do for a while, but they haven’t been able to because of a lack of time and resources. Although many people from the church communications team help out when they can, the Foundation has been in need of someone to put a lot of effort into that area. I’m SO excited to be here to help! I’ll also be getting out of the office from time to time and participating in the many projects the Foundation has started in and around the city. I did some of that this week and am already blown away by the incredible things that God is doing here.

Everyone in this church is so passionate and on fire for the Lord. It is such an encouraging environment to be in, and I am continuously being inspired by stories I hear and conversations I have with people about the ways God is working in and through their lives. 

I haven’t had the chance to do very much exploring yet, but I went the Old Biscuit Mill with several other Foundation interns on Saturday. I would describe it as a large, vibrant outdoor market with a wide variety of goods including food, crafts, clothes, instruments, and so much more. I had been told by multiple people to go check it out, and I’m very glad I did! It was fantastic experience. To the right are a couple of pictures from the day!

Sundays are a full day of work for us, so we have Mondays and Saturdays off. This week, healing evangelist Andrew Kabala was the guest pastor at church. He held several healing services throughout the week and at each of the five services on Sunday. Having grown up in a very traditional church, I’ll be honest that attending those was a very new and different experience. I hadn’t ever witnessed God work through someone with the spiritual gift of healing before. An incredible amount of people were touched by God, and it was a very powerful and moving week in the church.

He also took some time to preach on the topic of healing, and one particular question he asked really caused me to do a lot of personal reflection. “Where do you go with your problems? Is He the first one you take them to?”

Psalms 121 says: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

I think, without really realizing it, it can be easy to look many places for answers before we go to God. We’re used to going to doctors, teachers, counselors, parents, friends, etc., for the various types of problems that we are having in our lives. We think we need to be doing or seeing something tangible in order to solve those problems and get results. However, the first thing we should do with our problems is take them to Him. We should allow Him to work and do something about it.

During one of the services Andrew said, “Don’t forget He’s real. You can’t believe in healing unless you really believe in Him. He is real. He is big. He has the ability to do what is required in your life.”

I’m challenging myself to truly go to Him and 

make Him a priority in every struggle or challenge that I might come to face, including those that I generally try to fight on my own.

Side note: To all of my fellow KU fans out there, I am still mourning the loss against Wichita State on Sunday. That would have been a great one to win. Interestingly, I actually watched it with someone I had just met the day before who also is a KU fan and is originally from Kansas. What are the odds of that?