I'm finally here!

Well, here I am, in Philly!!! It's been a long day since I got maybe 3 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours...

I was so so blessed to be able to have a little roomie reunion with my 2007 VA Beach summer project roomates in South Bend, IN! Words can't even describe what it was like to be with these AH-MAZING women of God that had contributed so much to my spiritual growth all this year!! It was incredible to hear what God is doing in their lives and to pray together before we went our separate ways again. I will miss them tremendously.

Then, as planned, I met up with a girl from South Bend to carpool along with another girl from Flint, MI and we left for Philly at 8pm, driving through the night. It took about 12 hours and it went by so fast...probably because I told them 2 hour long stories, LOL! One of the girls has an amazing musical talent and she rapped some of her original stuff and it was tight!

I have been looking so forward to this summer project ALL YEAR. I know God wants to teach me amazing things and I've only gotten an eensy little foretaste! But God says, "TASTE and SEE that the LORD is GOOD!" And I believe I truly will while here in Philly. We got our binders for the project today and I'm not kidding you, it is literally 2.5 inches thick of print outs for all the topics we'll be covering. The tabs are labeled "Orientation, Small Group, Tribals, Hindus, Muslims, Unreligious, Buddists, Cults, Jews, Perspectives, Evangelism, and lastly and most massively stacked is Mobilization". That is what I am going to be learning about for the next 7 weeks in a very simplistic neat little list I guess! I took a look at the June Calendar with one of my 2 roomates (who also make up my small group along with a student leader as our 4th small group member and mentor) and my roomate was like, "Wow, they really weren't kidding when they said 'intense' were they?!" Let's just say, I will be living, breathing, and dreaming anything having to do with world missions and Christ's purpose in the world for the next 2 months--and hopefully for the rest of my life.

Today we just took it easy since everyone was traveling from so far. We went out to lunch, those of us who had already arrived and then in the afternoon as a whole group had a tour of Palmer Theological Seminary's campus which is so qaint and pretty, I love it already! I feel at home here. The study halls have big beautiful windows that let in the sunlight from a yard with big oak trees and benches and flowers spilling into the room full of tables and big fluffy chairs that are calling for me to curl up into with a big book on some aspect of Christian Theology. I can't wait to answer that call one of these days... So, there is a small library and a cafe, and in my room we have hard wood floors with dark furniture and a little fireplace built into the cream colored walls. We've already made ourselves at home. There is a community kitchen down the hall and a dining hall where we'll be able to get lunch and dinner during the week. After the tour we were served The Original Infamous Philly Cheesesteak Subs that is an absolute must for anyone's first visit to the city, and were also served a very warm Philly welcome by the staff team from around our nation. There are 5 male students on the project and 21 females. Some very favorable odds for the boys, lol. Then we all played a huge game of Mafia and made short introductions and just got to know each other. Most of us went back to our rooms to finish unpacking and hanging out with roomates before finally allowing our heads to rest on a pillow, oh man does that ever sound like the best thing in the world right now! I have been looking forward all day to that blessed moment when my head hits my fluffy pillow...

Tomorrow is Orientation and I'll find out more in depth what we're doing this summer and about the Perspectives course. Now off to bed for me! There will be more later!