June - Whewwww

June was insane. Crazy.  Like, I-can-just-barely-keep-my nose-above-water NUTS.
The long and short of it goes like this:

June 1 was the official start date of "Sarah as full-time Mozambique Initiative Coordinator".  AWESOME...aaaannndd just the slightest bit overwhelming.  Carol (my predecessor) and I had our last week of overlap before the Missouri Methodists' Mayhem Meeting (otherwise known as Annual Conference), where Carol was honored for her 13 years of service and I was introduced to the conference at large as the new Coordinator.  There was pomp, there was circumstance, there was a huge Mozambican hut set up as a display...every time I turned around I was meeting a new person, and shaking hands with another church leader.

                                                                

In addition to this introduction to the Conference, my band was asked to lead the music at the Sunday morning worship service. This was no ordinary worship service - this was the largest group I had ever played for in my entire life. From the piano, I looked out onto a crowd of 2,000ish people who were all very excited to see what the music is like at The Gathering UMC, and who were on the edge of their seats waiting to hear how rock-n-roll and Jesus make a pretty darn good mix.  I must say, it was a delightfully amazing event in every way.

I took a couple of days to rest after this whirlwind of adrenaline, and woke up bright and early that following work day.  I walked into the World Head Quarters of the Mozambique Initiative (read: my home office), and felt a sudden twinge of panic... along the lines of....OMG, what did I just do?? ...similar to that feeling I had after I got that first tattoo when I was 18... you know the one....

But then I skyped with our representative in Mozambique, got to work drilling a safe water well at the Carolyn Belshe Orphanage, and a wave of relief hit me because I knew that I was exactly where I belonged doing exactly what I love.