It's all up to God

Minneapolis City Hall,
the beautiful building across
the street from where I work

Right now I'm in my cubicle downtown, finishing up my work at my internship with the City of Minneapolis. I'm doing research here and its one of those projects that is never-ending. Thankfully, my boss here has graciously told me to pick a point at which I am done so that I will be fully focused on my next job--my internship with EMI. So, today is my last day, and I just finished the last documents I'm writing up!

My plan throughout the summer was to start packing/preparing to leave at the end of July. Ha, I haven't really started that yet and it's August 4!! For me, "packing" is always a process; it looks like this: pack a bit, run errands, pack more, make sure I have all the electronics I need & clothes washed, spend time with family & friends, pack more, and it goes on until right before I leave. This time, I'm starting to feel a little anxious realizing that this is the longest I've been away from home before,and I'll be doing all sorts of traveling--so it's a little bigger process than usual! I also need to make sure I take time to stop, breathe, and continually focus on the Lord's hand in my life. Things will get done, spending time with people I care about is important, and if I forget something--it's ok.

Me and Laura with El Toro
saying goodbye

As a blessing in disguise, God decided to end the functional life of El Toro (the car my sister and I have been sharing all summer) yesterday. I say it's a blessing because though it will seem like an inconvenience for the few days I am still here, running around, it will also keep me at home, getting things done rather than galavanting around town like I usually end up doing ;)

There are also still things up in the air regarding my time with EMI. The first one is the fact that I don't yet know where I'm living in Colorado!! I'm not worried because I know God has it under control (and EMI is doing the legwork to set us up with housing), so most likely I will find out before I get there where it is I will be staying (and who I will be living with!). Please pray for the team working on this at EMI to be trusting in God's timing for housing to come through for us! I also don't know how long or when exactly I will be out of the country. It's not super important that I know right now, but I'm a planner and I like to know. But, God has been making it clear to me throughout this entire process that I need to stop planning all the time and just let Him be in control. After all, there are so many parts of this process that have happened over the past six months that I could have never imagined!

One last exciting piece of information-- I've gotten in touch with the person we'll be staying with in Rapid City next week! His name is Jeff and he is a friend of my former pastor, Dave Greenlund. I was talking about my internship with Pastor Dave a month ago and happened to mention that Aaron (my fellow intern who I am catching a ride with to CO) and I didn't know where we were going to stay in Rapid City on our way out. He said that since he used to work out there, that he had a couple people in mind! So, by God's blessing, we got connected with Jeff, who lives in an earth-berm house, off the grid, in the Black Hills National Forest! Sounds like this house is pretty sweet, and it's going to be fun staying in such a beautiful place! Praise the Lord for the great adventures He keeps laying ahead and for such great hospitality shown to us!