New chapter of my life

Dear Faithful Readers :)


This blog post shall be my 2nd one of the new year 2012, even though it will be the first one you will probably read. Confused?

Well let me explain. I typed up a blog entry on Jan 7th, 2012 while sitting at the airport waiting for my plane to arrive. The content of that entry was much more depressing than this one will be, I promise. I haven't had the opportunity to upload it yet because being in a "foreign" country means having to adapt to a lot of new things. As I am attempting to adapt to this new culture, so are my all of my electronic devices. They each need adaptors and well I haven't had the chance to purchase adaptors to plug in my laptop/camera/externel hardrive etc..

Do you see what I did there? :) Alright, that was super lame, sorry.

Thankfully, the room I'm in has a computer with wifi so I am able to get on here as often as I want to until my laptop is up and running again! I also have a phone in my room that can call the US for free :D
Both of these things come in quite handy when my jet lag is messing around with my head and the 6 hour difference doesn't allow me to connect as well as i'd like to with my American world.

So far so good. I haven't cried since my departure (definitely did before though), so either I'm still in denial, or all of your prayers have been heard; in which case I thank you.

The actual trip was surprisingly smooth. Got there on time, going thorugh security was a breeze (even though I had no liquids in any zip lock bags and have all of this jewelry on me). The flight itself felt long because I was sitting in between two ladies and could not get comfortable (I took sleeping pills hoping they would help me overlook that but they did not). We landed on time. I met an American girl at the airport and we embarked on a journey to find our luggage which was successfull for both of us! Hoping to meet up with her sometime soon! The people picking me up found me right away (i didnt know who to expect). Got in the car and they drove me straight over to my new neighborhood, home, and life.

I got to Alfortville (10min away from Paris) around 9:40, said hello to my new family (The Peraste family), they invited me to go to church service with them, I said sure, changed real quick and headed out to worship the Lord in French!!!

Service was good. Very different than what I've become used to but also quite similar in different and comforting ways.
It felt good to sing old French worship songs that I grew up singing at home in Senegal. It was also nice to see a few lovely familiar faces that I recognized from the last time I'd been here. I was "forced" to stand up and introduce myself, which I hate doing lol. But it is good for me to do things out of my comfort zone.

Though I've heard better sermons, I was so pleased to hear the Holy Spirit speaking directly to me  throughout the entire service! From the announcements all the way to the final prayer.

The sermon itself was about friendships (real tangible solid neverending friendhsips) and how God doesn't solely view us as His children but also as His friend.
The teacher used the example of being engaged to describe how our relationship with God should be. When two people love each other and get engaged  to each other, they take that time of engagement to really get to know each other. They are so excited about their futur together that they want to spend every second with each other to create a solid foundation for their lives. They constantly talk to each other, and they simply love being in each other's presence.
This should be how our relationship with the Lord is. Yet it's so easy to let other things come in the way of this fire and passion that comes and goes in and out of our daily lives.

Along the lines of frienships and closeness, he talked about the importance of friends. How friends are blessed from above and it is important to not only pray for your friends but also pray for your actual friendships. You know you love someone, when you pray for them, but you also know how much of a value a friend is to you when you begin to ask the Lord to really protect and nourish that friendship. While God uses friendships to challenge us, bless us, ans help us grow, the ennemy tries to tear them appart to keep us from being blessed and growing and being challenged.

This spoke straight to me because I feel as if for some unknown reason the Lord has always blessed me with meaningful friendships. Granted some were only meant to be in my life for a season and accepting that has been quite difficult at times, but either way, no matter where and when, I've been blessed with friends. Everytime I move again, I fear of losing some of these meaningful relationships, but this reminds me that through the distance and the time, if I put an effort  to pray for these friendships, God will continue to bless me with them.
and that was a beautiful reminder.

Another reason this sermon hit home was that secretly, I had decided that my new year's resolution would be to spend more intentional time praying for others once I got here. I say secretly because, year after year I have failed at keeping new year's resolutions, so even though I did make one in my heart, I didn't feel the need to announce it this time around.

Well here I go announcing it again. Maybe God wants me to announce it. Maybe not. Either way it's out and I have even come up with a way to challenge myself with this resolution. I plan on writing down the names of people I want to intentionally pray for and put them in a bowl from which I will pick a name out each day and not only pray for that person but also find a way (facebook, twitter, email, text, phonecall) to contact that person and see how they are doing.

This whole challenge sounds easy to do right now since I am not doing a whole lot but I am sure once work picks up, it will really become a challenge, which I hope you can keep me accountable to..somehow.

Speaking of work, I am sure you are all wondering what the plan is from here on out. Glad you asked. I actually REALLY need prayers on this topic.

I have the opportunity to work as a full time live in nanny in Switzerland for a family that would need me to start in February yet I am currently and actively searching for work here in France. I like the family I live with, I am fairly close to Paris and I can easily meet people and have random conversations with strangers (which I loooove to do) because I speak French (which I would not be able to do as easily in Zurich, since they speak German.) (ps typing on this French keyboard requires a lot of focus and attention!!!).

Here is how I feel right now. I feel as if I want to stay in France in the hopes of finding a job (anything really, it's been so long since I have worked that I am ready to work just about anywhere). The dilemna here is that along with staying here comes more of a chance of making new friends, getting nice and comfy in a completely new environment, loving where I am and eventually having to let go of all of that again and basically go through everything I just went through in my life.
If I were to nanny in Zurich, I would most likely get attached to the family but probably not go out much and the departure would be much easier I feel.

See, the problem is I have no idea how long God wants me here or wherever I am supposed to be so please please pray for guidance and peace in this wholde dilemna going on in my mind. I just want to go where God wants me to be. really that is the bottomline.

I think I've said more than enough for today. Thanks for reading :) BLESSINGS!!!

Dorina

ps pics from my last month in the US coming soon