This, That and Everything else

Good Evening!

Things have settled down abit coming back from Africa. I loved africa and want to go back. Who knows what the Lord will have in store for me. I want to spend sometime in telling you about daily life here in Colchester. I live in a 2 bedroom flat with one roommate. Monica is from Brazil and speaks english fairly well. She spend a few months in the states working.

Work is monday to friday from 8:30am to 5pm. We start each morning with a devotion. I lead them on tuesdays. Our office is located in Colchester Baptist Church in town about a 15 minute walk from our flat, which is totally sweet. Friday afternoon we have an hour devotion doing whatever the Lord leads. Now that we are back from Africa we have to take all the information and put it into a working project. I have been currently working on Google Sketch-up which is a pretty cool program for being free. I am putting all the buildings that are staying the same, as well as the new buildings into a 3d model with the new paths, gardens and roads to make a fly through so the client can get a sense of what the final layout and look of the property will be. We are planning on changes for the next 10, 20 years. Not just what they need now but what they will need. We had 4 medical staff with us, which was a huge blessing. Praise the Lord for them. One of the medical staff that came with us go to the church that our office is in, so it makes it fairly easy to continue to communicate with her. The goal is to finish this before my internship ends... its alot of work so who knows.

The church has a ministry called Open Door (http://www.opendoorcolchester.org.uk/) which is open 3 days a week, I help out on mondays from 10am to about 2pm in the afternoon. We serve tea, coffee, ceral, porriage, and sometimes sandwiches for a small price. They also help with debit management, advice on a range of issues such as welfare and housing and a few other things. The patrons are typically homeless, just making it, or in other situations in life.

After work, things are abit different here. Retail stores typically close about 5/6pm in the evening which doesn't leave much left to do except for a movie or pub. Its usually a night home relaxing. Wednesday night I have been attending what they call "cell group" which is basically a small group kinda of like a house group except younger generation. The cell group is from St. Johns which I have attended on sunday evenings. I have also gone to another church called Fordem, to get a feel of another church. Both churches are anglican. Its been hard finding a church and getting contected because I am only here for a couple of months and by the time you take away the time in africa its even less. The cell group has been good though. Tonight we had an treasure hunt. We were put into teams and had to follow clues all over the center of town. My team won. Started the evening at the Playhouse Pub, use to be an old theater. We sat right on stage and when you look out they have scenes from different plays on the balcony seats. We ended at the Castle Pub. It was fun and different.

We are also getting a volunteer from Eygpt! He recieved his visa a couple days ago and will be here for 3 months. He will also be going to Northern Ireland with us. Which will be wonderful with a day trip to Dublin. In addition to that we have a young lady who will be helping out a couple times a week as well. Praise the Lord. Its cool to see how the Lord works.

Unfornatly I don't have all my funds in for my internship. It must be all in before I leave. I came here with the 2/3rds that I needed in order to come but I still need the rest. I came trusting, having faith that the Lord will provide. I know he will. I still need 1,800 dollars. The donations feed me, pay for the flat, flights, project trip, and travel insurance. It MUST come in before I leave. Please continue to pray for this and if the Lord leads you to donate, you can donate online at http://www.emiusa.org/ and it will ask for the intern or volunteers name and you can put my name.

I am getting so much out of this internship and its crazy that i have less than 2 months left. The Lord is amazing! Africa was breathtaking. England is amazing. The weather is great and there is no snow! or box elders bugs!!!!!!!

Prayer points:
- the project
- Rwanda
- my last couple of months
- finances: 1,800 dollars

I pray that you are all well and glorifying him.
God Bless,

Laura