Hopeful

Patience: an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.

That's one of the definitions dictionary.com provided. There are some key words in there that are applying to my life right now. Suppress, restlessness, and delay are some of the big ones.

I've been in Cardiff for about two and half weeks, not that long to be honest. However, in my mind, I would like to be good friends with at least 10 people by now and have a University Ministry plan already underway. In reality, I'm no where near that point!

Patience has always been an issue with me. I'm very proactive in getting things done, if I can do it now why wait? If there's a decision to be made, well let's hurry up and decide!... That's how my mind works.... However, at this time God has placed me in a very slow-paced environment, which is challenging for me to say the least! Our church has literally JUST begun. We're in the infant stages of this community, and it takes time to grow-up in a healthy way. A part of me really just wants to be busy, and be validated by the amount of work I get done and the fruit that is produced by that labor. Right now, I'm honestly not that busy. It's not because I'm avoiding things that need to get done, it just takes time to get acclimated and get plans in place.

Even though this is challenging for me, I'm thankful for this phase of the journey. It's taking a lot of faith and a lot of patience (which we all know I'm not very good at!) to keep going. It's very easy to question whether or not things are happening like they should. I was reading in Psalms the other day and I came across this verse, "For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation" Psalm 100:5. That's what I'm holding onto. God is good, He is love, and He is faithful... He told me to come and paved the way to make it possible. I need to continue to trust Him through each stage of the journey, even the slow ones!

With all this said, I'm hopeful for the months to come, and I have made some friends with the staff at Starbucks in the Student Union of Cardiff Metropolitan University. These two ladies have questioned me about everything from the weather to prayer to sin to Jesus Himself! We had a great conversation a few days ago, and when I stopped in yesterday they fixed me my chi tea latte and gave to me for free!

Progress has been made with ministry plans for the campus. I finally found out who I need to talk to about doing things on campus, and tomorrow I meet with someone from a student group called the Christian Union. We're going to discuss ministry ideas and a possible partnership. We are also having an open house this Saturday at the Elliotts home, our temporary meeting place for the church. We've been going around the neighborhood stuffing flyers in everyone's mailboxes, I think we're getting close to about 1,000 flyers passed out! We have several more "getting to know people" events planned for the next few weeks as well.

Progress is being made and I'm learning to have some patience. I keep reminding myself that God is good, He is loving, and He is faithful.... I know God is teaching me patience, but I believe He is also teaching me to remain faithful, even when it feels like I'm not doing much at all. My value and self-worth needs to stem from who I am in Christ, not how much busy work I get done, or how many lives I see changed. I'm here to be a witness for Jesus, that's it. He's doing the rest.

God is good.

God is loving.

God is faithful.

And I... am hopeful.