I Will Attempt To Describe... (week 2)

By far one of the best weeks of my life thus far! Bold statement to open with right?!? Well i can/will attempt to back it up.

So first let me tell you about my new favorite place. It is the prayer room here at North Dock. Despite my continual failures over the past year to set up and maintain a consistent prayer life He has not given up on me. I have spent more time in prayer in the past week than in all 3 of the previous months. This statistic is both an example of how little i normally spend praying, and also the crazy amount of praying that we have been doing lately. If you remember last week i asked people to pray for "Discipline to be in the word on my OWN despite all the time we will be in fellowship." WHAT AN ANSWER TO PRAYER! This week God has used the story of Hosea to reveal to me that i am that prostitute that God commands Hosea to marry. And even when Hosea(Jesus) saves me from my adulterous ways, i still choose to turn away. And EVEN though i fail He NEVER stops pursuing me. For some reason this came into my head the other day and it has stuck. I'm not sure if i copied this from someone, or if it is even theologically sound, but i like it: "I know i will never be perfect, but i will never let that fact stop me from trying to be like Jesus."

I have already begun to see crazy amounts of change in my heart and mind through my alone time with Him. I know i will not always have this much free time to devote to my prayer life, but God has blessed me so much this week by allowing me to see Him in a new way; a God in pursuit. So often i trick myself into thinking that i am the one who is doing all the work by pursuing God. In reality i may pursue Him during a couple hours here or there during my day, but he is always following after me with open arms.

Sorry that this update didn't really have any logistical information in it (like what i have actually been doing all day everyday), but i figured i would tell you the most important part of my week. So i did. I figure that there are plenty weeks to come where i can share that other information (like the classes i am taking, and where my community placement is and such) but for now i just wanted to encourage you all by sharing that God is at work here in Llanelli :D

PRAYER: (pray with confidence that He is answering/will answer!)
-Spiritual battles (with different distractions and temptations. The devil is trying to stop us from learning/being used)
-Maintain daily devotions and prayer life
-Pride broken so that my heart can be shaped and molded however God wills it

P.S. i will be contacting you next weekend (if you returned a support card to me, and are supporting me in prayer) with specific prayer requests and to remind you of what days you committed to pray! Thank You for your love and support!

I have a WALE of a tale!

I can't believe that i have only been in Wales for four days! We have already done SO much, and we haven't even officially started classes yet. Thanks to all who prayed for safe travels, Michelle and i made it safe and sound. However, we did run into a few problems, our flight from San Fran was an hour late, and our flight from Calgary was 3 hours late which means we landed over 4 hours later than we had expected. Then, (after waiting an hour for our luggage to come) we realized it wasnt coming so we asked and found out the couldnt even find it with the tracker.  They said they would send it to us in the next few days when they find it.  Somehow we met up with Joe in London Heathrow and took a 4 hour bus right to our new home for the next 3 months. SO EXCITING.

The next few days they set aside for us to re-coop, and get acquainted with Llanelli.  Four ex-gappers were here all of last week showing us how things are run, showing us around the town, and just sharing in community and fellowship with us. The people here are SO great. i love the fact that i cant be in a conversation with a person from the states, England, Wales, and Ireland at the same time. We find delight in making fun of each other's accents and weird word usages.

Cultural Differences Update:
-Cars drive on left
-Dont use napkins
-No salad dressing (possibly olive oil)
-"Pants" are not what you think they are... (underwear)
-To say "i like faggots" does not mean you are in support of the homosexual movement. But rather that you love a very Welsh dish made up of pig live and entrails. (tastes like gross meatloaf...kinda)
-Spotted Dick=delicious cake desert that one eats with tea (yes we ate spotted dick)
-Who knew? Welsh people love American accents, but English hate us... big surprise.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday we are here, and Monday will be our first REAL day of training. Sooo exciting.

PRAY: (dont forget about your prayer commitments to pray!)
-Discipline to be in the word on my OWN despite all the time we will be in fellowship with other christians. That one on one time is vital for me and i havent been prioritizing correctly yet.
-Open heart. to what ever HE will have me learn this week!

Off to Wales

September 7, 2011

Just four more days and my teammates and I will be leaving for Wales!  I am super stoked that the time has finally arrived.  All of our hard work and preparation (visas, raising support, background checks, and endless emails to and from World Horizons) is almost over, and the adventure is at our doorstep.  Praise the Lord!  This is my first "test" blog and, hopefully, my next blog will be from Wales.

Prayer Requests:
- safe travels
- final goodbyes to Gapper parents may be difficult (for them!...just kidding)
- need last fourth of financial support

And that's the way the cookie crumbles,
Blake McCormick