Halfway!?

Wow. It's hard to believe that I'm nearly halfway through my time here at Kaleo. The end of this week marks four and a half weeks here in Gulf Shores and four full weeks working at OTP. It's amazing how it seems like such a long time and so short all at once!

I apologize for the lack of updates. I feel like they are getting fewer and farther in between!

Last Thursday our StuMo night was focused on the topic of prayer. I am beginning to realize just how important prayer is, and I'm only starting to realized it because it was lacking in my life and now that I'm focusing on it more and putting it into practice more diligently the difference is incredible. Prayer is the other half of our communication cycle with God. He's given us his Word, the Bible, and praying is our way of talking back and really understanding what He says in his word. It was a great message and I loved just soaking it all in!

Friday we had a surprise social planned that turned out to be a picture scavenger hunt! It was a blast hanging out with the guys group we were paired with and getting some really goofy pictures to remember the adventure by! A few of my favorites included spelling out "Kaleo" with our bodies in front of McDonald's, singing to a stranger, and duck duck goose in the parking lot.

Saturday was beach evangelism. Our training in the morning focused on our testimonies, something that we hadn't really been focusing on yet. It was interesting to write out my testimony and realize that this is my way of making the gospel personal to someone. When they can see it transform someone's life it becomes more real and therefore more effective. Great learning experience.

Sunday we went to the college-aged Sunday school class at First Baptist... we basically WERE the Sunday school class. It will be interesting to see how that progresses, more details after more time there. Nicole, Kelsey and I were asked to work in the nursery during the service so I missed the speaker but the rest of the group filled us in as much as they could afterward.

Monday, instead of Inductive Training (since there are only three parts and we've already covered all of them) we had a workshop about holiness in the media. We looked at the reasons we should be careful what we let our minds take in and excuses that we use that keep us from living it out. The area that really hit me was music. When I put my iTunes on shuffle and just let it play am I hearing songs that are helping to keep my mind pure. There are the obvious offenders, like hip-hop and rap, but also the overlooked ones, like country. Stephen compared our minds to the airport security after 9/11, how it was so tight and everything was triple-checked to ensure safety. But what if there had been a side door that anyone could enter. This was so convicting. I think that music is the one that is hardest also to put into practice. I've been going through my iTunes library and I'm seeing all the money spent on these songs that are not helping to keep my mind and thoughts pure. Definitely challenging.

Tuesday we had our team leader, Kara, over for dinner and D-Group time. She is so wise and also extremely willing to share that wisdom with others. Then for World Prayer we learned about Buddhism. I never realized how many people believe in some form of buddhism without even consciously trying to. The example of karma? Yeah, we hear it all the time. It's a lot closer that I realized which makes it a lot more of a reality that there are people all around me who need the gospel.

Thanks for tuning in! Until next time...

Sarah
XOXO

Prayer requests:
*The buddhists of the world- for God to be working in their hearts and for them to be open to hearing the gospel and also for laborers who are willing to take the gospel to them.
*Kandra- one of my coworkers, that I would have the opportunity and the courage to have an intentional conversation with her and begin to get to know her spiritual background
*time- there's not a whole lot left, that none of us would waste the time we do have here and we would be bold with our time and opportunities!