summer.

Welp, summer is coming to a close. So many things are ending, so many things are beginning, so many things have happened.

Happened....

I got to visit the place that will be my new home (Managua, Nicaragua) for 3 years! I will admit, I was nervous going into it...what if I don't like it? What if I just committed to living somewhere that I hate? What if no one there likes me?? These were all my fears going into this trip... but the Lord was faithful, yet again. He literally surrounded me with a peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7). It was a very affirming trip - even amidst the meeting (what felt like) a million new people, the language barrier, the poverty, the food, the new surroundings, it still just felt right. I could feel the Lord speaking straight to my heart, affirming my heart's desire to move to Central America and dissipating all my fears. Praise.

I got the privilege to make my last trip with Columbia Young Life to a Young Life camp in Georgia, SharpTop Cove. Three of my high school friends came with me, along with 4 other girls from Flora and another leader. It was a great last trip - God was faithful in answering prayers and I got to spend one last full week with some of my favorite people. :)

Ending...

Next week marks the end of an era (so it seems...). I have had the blessing (and I do not use that word lightly) to live with my best friend for the past year. We've laughed until our stomach ached too many times to count and we've cried until our eyes were swollen shut too many times then I'd like to admit. But next week, I will move home. I'm not worried about living with my parents again, I am just sad that I won't be living with my best friend any more. Not to mention, 3 of my other best friends live right down the road. Duncan Street has literally been the best this year! Countless times we have been able to simply walk to and fro our houses, see each other driving down the street, borrow movies or cooking supplies from one another. And although I am only moving about 10 minutes away, it seems like it will be eternity.

Oh, Columbia Young Life... how strange and humbling it is to have to let go of something that you have spent the past 5 years investing in. Strange because something that was such a big piece of you is now gone. Humbling because guess what? It goes on without you. Everything still functions the same with or without you. So you have no choice but to let go.

Beginning...

As sad as I am to be leaving Duncan Street, I get to live with some of the most loving and selfless people I know...my parents. Never thought I'd be that girl to go back and live with her parents (but then again, does anyone really ever expect to do that?) - still, in my last months in America for a while, I can't think of anyone else I would rather get to be around!

eucharisteo.

I finally found the perfect name for my blog. I have been through a couple. They usual hold my excitement and attention for about a week before I tire of it and am searching for the next. But this one...it has stuck. It comes from a book I read a few weeks back called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Vaskamp. Basically, she is on the search to find joy. And she finds it...through eucharisteo.

Eucharisteo is latin for "thanksgiving." It it most commonly found in the Bible when Jesus is attending the Last Supper; as he breaks the breaks the bread and drinks the wine, He gives thanks to God. And all this before the most excruciating 24 hours of His life. The word eucharisteo is derived from two other Latin words: charis, which translates to grace, and chara, which translates to joy. Basically, "deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving." It's an interesting and seemingly simple concept - when we give thanks, we get joy. Vaskamp walks through her journey towards joy through the mundane, simple, confusing, painful and heartbreaking things that life brings. She begins with a list. A list of a thousand things she is thankful for. A list kept for months and months. A list that changes her life. Because as she begins to ask for the Lord to open the eyes of her heart to see "grace moments" - the little gifts that the Lord showers on us daily - her heart is softened and she begins to experience joy...real, deep, lasting joy...in a life that seems hopeless. So all these things tie together to form life to the fullest. God gives us moments of grace (even in the midst of our most tragic trial or the most ordinary day), we give thanks to Him and then we get the joy! Grace creates thanksgiving which creates joy. Sounds simple right? Ha! It is an everyday, tiresome practice to attempt to look for the small gifts of grace the Lord gives us. It is a discipline.

This book inspired me. Inspired me to live a eucharisteo life. Inspired me to begin my own list of one thousand gifts. Inspired me to be a hunter of beauty, a seeker of joy, a giver of thanks. And this, my friends, is why I decided to name my blog Eucharisteo.

Below you will find some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Every sin is an attempt to fly away from emptiness."

"Eucharisteo - thanksgiving - always precedes the miracle."

"Slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life...life changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time."

"Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living."

"The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration. It does not grow elsewhere."

"The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace."

"These are for you - gifts - these are for you - grace - these are for you - God...so count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can't help but turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful, and you can slow and you can trust and you can receive each moment as grace."

"God is always good and I am always loved."

word vomit.

So many thoughts going through my head right now so I'm just going to let them flow...

First, welcome to what is about to become my new life. Doing ministry with youth and college aged students in Managua, Nicaragua. I am laughing to myself even as I write this because if you had asked me a year ago if I ever imagine that I would be moving overseas to be on Young Life staff, I would have laughed in your face. But the Lord has a funny way of working things out in the least expected way. More on that later.

Second, I just got my first wave of sadness about leaving. It's really happening. I'm really going to live in another country for (at least) the next three years of my life. I am leaving everything I have known for the past 23 years of my life. Sometimes I think to myself "Jesus, wouldn't it be easier if I just stayed here? Lived in this little duplex with my lovely roommate for the next few years? Life would be comfortable and known and not scary...nothing would have to change."

Oh, but isn't that the beauty of this life? There are only two things that are for certain: God and change. And coming to acceptance with this truth is a hard pill to swallow.

It's all becoming real to me. Leaving. Moving. Changing. Beginning. Ending. Opportunity.

So I guess the real questions for the next few months is how do I say goodbye? To friends, family, Columbia Young Life, 2507 Duncan Street, Diet Dr. Pepper, AC Flora Young Life...