Day 148: Getting closer

So today was awesome. It started bright and early at good ol' 5:45 a.m. for chapel rehearsal. It went pretty quick, which was a surprise; the guys really stepped it up today. During Old Testament, Catrina spoke on the minor prophets, which is a subject you don't really hear from often. It was a very informative perspective on those books people tend to skim over, and in the next few weeks we're going to be touching on Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, which I think will be good. Chapel was amazing; probably one of the best. All the musos did an excellent job (including in the special song today, where we got to finally see "Toast" use his beatboxing skills that people thought was a myth.) Duncan spoke on identifying what makes it clear that we've grown; it was a powerful message, as are all of Duncan's preachings and teachings.
After a quick chapel debrief and some packing down, I went with Donny and Becca Potter to Subway; today was their big promotion day where you could get a free footlong sandwich with the purchase of a footlong/soda combo. I blessed Donny with the extra footlong, since he's pretty much broke until next week. After that scrumptious lunch, it was off to Personal Leadership tutorial! We started off with a game called Signs (I'm so bringing this game back with me for vacation); it's similar to the Animal Game I learned here in Australia 3 years ago, but with a stealthy twist to it. It was loads of fun. Then we talked about emotional leadership, which was a subject that I feel we all benefitted from. For today's encouragement, we picked Texas Taylor; her flatmate Bec got her some coffee from her favorite cafe, as well as the card I made. Here's where it got interesting: So last night I was drawing this thing, and for a reference photo's sake I used sunflowers as part of the design. I figured sunflowers would be a good choice to add some extra color, so I added them in. I had no idea that sunflowers were Taylor's favorite kind of flower. That was such an amazing moment to see that I got to put in that extra bit of effort only to find out it was the perfect addition. God's cool like that, I suppose. Anita's advice for my devotion journal has helped me tremendously; I've been doing a lot better on it than before in this semester. I still have a ways to go to finish it, but I'm believing I will. She decided to speak to us for a little bit on the Heart For the House offering coming up in 5 weeks; this specific offering's amount goes to the many different goals set at the beginning of the year through the vision for the church's year. This year's goals are the school in Watoto, South Africa, the Hillsong New York church, A21 (an organization against human trafficking) and our very own CityCare ministry. Please keep this offering in prayer; there's a big need that Hillsong is trying to accomplish, and we need all the support we can get.
After a great class, I got a little bit of down time before I went to the first songwriting group meeting; I have THE Luke Guevara as our leader, Eldon from Canada, and Jessica from Canada too (as well as a friend from my first mission trip to Australia almost 4 years ago; WOW that's a long time back!) It was good; I think we're trying to focus on a theme of refreshment that comes from God, and so far what we have has a lot of potential. Then we all just chatted for a while about all kinds of stuff; it was a good break from not doing anything in my place. I also got to help one of the girls in my Personal Leadership tutorial finish her assessment since I finished that one a long time ago; if I had someone to help me during my break, I would have finished much earlier. But it's okay, because it was fun too. My day was just really good; all I have left is my devotion journal entry for today, the pushup schedule, and then SLEEP.

God bless,
Steven