YAGM Orientation: Day 4

Orientation Update:

It's Saturday, and orientation is awesome! I love Chicago, I love the other young adults participating in YAGM with me, I love small group, I love meal time discussions with whoever I end up eating with, I love connecting with the girls and guys in my UK country group, I love making new friends, I love this experience, this journey! I am so blessed! I'm glad that God provided this opportunity for me, and that I heeded this call. Sometimes I can't comprehend God's Will for my life, but right now, this is it. It's good to feel so confident in that.

I am so excited to live with the people of Langham and Boxted, to get to know them, and to be a servant to them. I want to cultivate a servant heart in myself. I want to rely on interdependence that is created between the community and myself. I want to breathe in another culture and exhale a love and passion for the people who are letting me serve them. My heart is already close to bursting with love for this community I haven't even met yet.

YAGM Orientation in Chicago!

I'm flying out this morning for orientation, whoot! So excited :)

Also I found out that I can receive mail while I'm there. If you are so inclined, please write!

Tricia Ernst - YAGM
c/o Becky Sorenson - LSTC
1100 E 55th St
Chicago, IL 60615

Love you all! Keep me in your prayers!

Getting ready for Orientation

Just came back from a week at Colonial Beach with Jesse. It was so relaxing and was exactly what I needed! We sunbathed at the beach a lot, took many golf cart trips around the neighborhood and town, got yelled at for going on private property, went hiking, went to a berry farm and picked blackberries off the vine ($2.10 a pound! fantastic!), did a wine tasting at Ingleside Winery, and met Lisa, Vicky, and Ryan in Fredericksburg for dinner and drinks; the thing we did most though was cook food and lounge around the beach house, reading. It was paradise. Except for finding a black widow spider chilling right outside the beach house... now I am paranoid that one might have gotten into my luggage and I've now released it into the house by unpacking... /sigh.

Next thing for me will be packing for orientation! I'm really excited because orientation is being held at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, which is one of the seminaries I'm considering attending for grad school! I fly out to Chicago on 18 August and fly home 25 August, and then fly to England 2 September. Most people are flying out to their appointed countries at the end of orientation, but I have to wait and fly out on my own. I was a little sad first hearing that; since then, however, I've run into some complications with my Visa for my passport, so the longer I'm in the States, the better chance I have of getting my passport back before I am scheduled to leave. A blessing in disguise? Quite possibly :) Please pray for me that I get my passport back in time!

Also, I got my netbook in the mail today, a HP DM1z. I'm pretty excited. It's very different from my laptop and I'm having a bit of trouble getting used to it, but I'm sure I will. Well, time to unpack from the beach and repack for orientation. Cheers!

Success!

I am starting to get really excited about serving in England! I've gotten a letter from a member of the congregation, I've exchanged emails with Rev Tim and my host family (the Maggs family), I've become facebook friends with people from the youth group, and I just cannot wait. There is still 2 weeks until orientation, and 4 weeks until I fly out to England. One month from now, I will be driving to the airport to fly to the UK; it will be my last day in the US for a year!

The UK Dinner Event went really well! I raised $2600 that night, and as of now, I have raised $3900. Now that the money has been fund-raised, this whole experience is really starting to sink in. This will be such a great time of development and discernment for me. I am blessed to have found this program, and chosen to be a part of it. I want to thank everyone who's helped me along the way, supporting me. I couldn't ask for a better support system; thanks everyone!