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  So it has been entirely too long! I just haven't been able to keep up with a blog and a newsletter so far, but maybe someday I will be able to accomplish it. So for now I am just going to post my monthly newsletters on here, just in case some of you don't get them...

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          "Well I think that I may be finally getting settled back into American culture. It has been a process of unpacking 16 months of living in another culture.  I had heard of reverse culture shock, its symptoms and ways to help debrief, however I quickly learned it is one thing to learn about it, and it is quite another to live it. However, it has been such a precious time for me because I truly have felt God lead me through each stage, and help me through each emotion and each question while providing many encouraging people and situations along the way.

This time has certainly been a time of learning to trust God more and more. I have needed to trust that He would supply all my needs from everyday living expenses to all my trainings and travels, to supply me with enough energy and patience to do all that needs to be done during this time, and even to trust that He would continue to guide my steps and show me that Spain is indeed where He desires me to go. I feel Him leading me into a new place of relying on Him and seeing allowing Him to lead in every situation from small things in everyday life to larger things that will affect the rest of my life.

As I was thinking about this and just rejoicing that God has been faithful in each of these things that I listed above so far, God led me to 1 Samuel 7:1-13. This is the story of one of the times when the Israelites repented of their unfaithfulness to God, and begged Him to save them from the Philistines. Then after God saved them by His mighty power, they set up a stone, to remember what God had done calling it Ebenezer, which means “Thus far, the Lord has helped us.”

As I was mediating on this story I was reminded of something that I had read in a Beth Moore Bible study. I had read that in 1 Peter 2:5 we are called living stones or living Ebenezers for Christ. This means that my life, and yours as well should look in a way that reminds those around us, that the Lord has helped us this far. We are the living stones the living reminders of God, and He will continue to help us.   So even though this time may not be the altogether easy , it may come with a lot of questions, and a lot of emotions, and just require a lot of me, I can rejoice because especially in this time I can say along with all of you that God has helped us this far!

“And you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple. What’s more, you are His holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.” -1 Peter 2:5 (NLT)