Woolacombe

Kiri, Catrin, and I (l to r) sitting in the Red Barn restaurant eating rock cakes and having mocha/hot chocolate. And Woolacombe Bay with a bit of sunshine (which there wasn't a lot of).

Pronounced Wool-a-come. But I guess the b has to be in there cause it is cool that way. I don't know. I think that the English like doing things the hard way. Cause many times they don't really make sense, they just like to pretend it does. Anyway, I went to Woolacombe this weekend. It was great to get away for a while. I think that I have been letting a "goodness, I'm the only one in my course that is a Christian and the salvation of these other eight people are weighing on my shoulders" mentality to get a hold of me. Granted the weight is still there, and probably should be there to remind me, but it was getting very heavy. So it was great to get away with a bunch of other Christians.

The heavy feeling mentioned above is very real and very prevalent to me right now. A couple of weeks ago I went out with some friends and just heard a bunch of things about them that broke my heart. They are all searching for love in the wrong places. So I know what my job is this year. But I also realized that it is my responsibility, I don't have any other Christians in my course to help share the burden of reaching them. It is mine. I've never been in this situation before. I don't know how to do this. It has been six years since I've been in a 'secular' community. So part of me is foundering around wondering if I can do this. I'm not the kind of person that just goes up to a person and says "you need God." I can't do that. I don't have that in me. Like most things in my life, I have nuance to how I approach it. But I don't have time for that. The first term is almost done and I haven't accomplished much of anything.

So Woolacombe was a time for that to be released to God, to allow God to work in my heart. I know that responsibility is still there, but the worry and stress isn't quite as much as it was before. We had worship services in the evening. Mostly just allowing us to come into the presence of God. I spend the first night thinking about the above mentioned things. The second night was just a time of rejoicing. It has been a while since I just rejoiced in the Lord. I think a lot of time we spend repenting and humbling ourselves, which is needed, but then we miss our chance to glorify the Lord. I was smiling quite a bit during that. (It was also a bit awkward cause others were having a repenting and humbling time, while I was smiling-weird.) But it was good.

I also went to the beach and strolled around town. I played Dance Dance Revolution for the first time with Kiri. We had great fun. Then we watched others do and I have to say that Mike was the most entertaining. He had very jerky movements and then kind of flapped-ish his arms like a chicken. Candy did the cooking. It was yummy! I did the dishes once. It was supposed to be the boy's responsibility, but they were all off doing other things and the dishes weren't getting done when the needed to be done for dinner. So I just did it. But I like doing that. I also played Texas Hold'em poker and lost by one card. Craziness of poker. But it was great fun losing. It was a great refreshing weekend.