Part of me was hoping that the hard times here wouldn't be THIS hard (whatever that means)

We have finally started in on what our 'normal' schedule will be. That has been exciting, but things have been kind of hard lately. No drama per say but their is a certain disconnect that is very uncommon for summer projects. Curtis (who is on staff in Denver and the husband of my discipler) addressed it during our first training time and I think some progress has been made. Please pray that we would grow in love and unity.

I think this city can be hard. Ironically, I feel like I have been experiencing more 'culture stress' here than I ever did in Asia, and as I have talked with some of the other women here, I have discovered I am not the only one.

On top of all of that, so many little things are happening to various members of the project. And (yes I know this is silly) my lap top and the wireless network seem to be united against me blogging because one of the two (and often both) tend to crash every time I try to update - at least once. Annnd subways are a blessing, but sometimes they can add their own stress, like when Sarah and I misread the map and missed meeting with our mentor because we ended up in the Bronx or this morning when I was late to meet with the girls I am discipling because I didn't realize that the E -line has 2 stops that are on 23rd street (one in Manhattan and the other in Queens)and when you get off of the one in Queens you can discover that their is a 44th Avenue, parallel to 44th Street, parallel to 44th Road all in a neat little row .... generally I think that NYC is well designed - that is not an example of that generalization (although I share those anecdotes primarily because I think they are kind of funny - they will be even funnier when I have more distance from them).

Don't get me wrong, I really love it here. This is a beautiful place and it is so exciting to be near so many people who don't like and think like me. It is also exciting to be living with people who love God and want to glorify him in all the crazy ways, but life has been hard for me here - sometime exhausting, sometimes overwhelming, and sometimes just an undefined feeling of funk.

This afternoon I was reading in John Eldridge's "Walking with God" and it really resonated with how I have been feeling here, he talks about how we are to use the idea of fruit Jesus talks about with reference to false teachings in a diagnostic way with the events of our life as well, "What is the fruit of what you are experiencing? What is its effect? If it continues, what will the results be? What will be lost?" I feel like the fruit of so much of what I have felt lately is not the fruit God desires for me personally or our project as a whole.

So I guess what I most covet as far as prayer goes is that the events surrounding us and our heart's responses to them will be the ones which most glorify God.

But as an evidence that not all has been bad (by any means) this is my dgroup family sharing dessert and dinner together. It was delightful.