Finally! After a whole summer of anticipation, I’ve moved to the City of Oaks. And so far, it’s been everything and more!
Love and selflessness have been a common theme since arriving in Raleigh. Right of the bat, my host family (Shea and Julie Tisdale) and my co-host brother/fellow (Alec Kuthan) greeted me before I even got out of my car. This sense of love and selflessness seems to be at the heart of the Fellows community and has helped reassure my decision to even come to Raleigh.
While it has only been a little more than 3 weeks since we all arrived in Raleigh, it feels like its been seven years. I could write a dissertation on what we have done and how God has shown himself in these past weeks, but instead I wanted to focus on what God has been putting on my heart since becoming a Raleigh Fellow.
If you could see the inner workings of my mind, you would see how squirrel-minded I am. I often have several thoughts and stresses bouncing around in my head, leading me to be very disconnected and not fully present in a given moment. Particularly in the first week of the Fellows program, these thoughts and stresses had to do with what comes after Fellows for me. Quickly, however, I learned that I needed to be more intentional with my time here and feel that God revealed that to me through getting to know the other Fellows, COTA community, and co-workers at Refugee Hope Partners. It has been a blessing to get to know all these wonderful people and grateful that God has shown me benefits of slowing down to enjoy this time.
I came into the Fellows program with a general sense of what I expected to get out of it, but I’ve already been shown how wrong I was in assuming I knew what God had in-store for me. With eight months still to go, I hope to prayerfully walk into every day with open hands, willing to allow God to shape me in whatever ways He has planned.
IMA