Pleasantly Surprised

I've been volunteering with the middle school ministry at Vanguard Church for about 3 1/2 years. There have been good times and hard times, and I keep at it because I feel like it's where God wants me. I don't want to be one who quits when things get hard, so I will stick with it until God tells me I'm done. Sometimes I hope that's soon... that life would just be easier without this piece. But most of the time I hope that time never comes, because it's now a huge part of my life and who I am. I learn so much about being a leader and about loving people and about serving and I could go on and on.

I just realized tonight that I wrote a blog very similar to this one last year at about this time. Apparently the month of February is a good time for students, and therefore encouraging for leaders. Well, it's the time again, and I've been pleasantly surprised.

Throughout my time serving I've gone through very few phases of really feeling like I'm on a strong, committed team (especially on the female side of things), so I've hesitated in getting excited about where we're at right now. There have been far too many times of me being the only committed female leader, which is incredibly rough. I've seriously wondered if I'm the only one out there who cares about middle school girls enough to stick around for a while. (I understand that God may not have called more to join us, and that certain life circumstances lead to other areas of the world or ministries... this isn't about those people.)

Marney changed that about a year ago. From the beginning she has been incredibly committed and ready to serve where needed. I was already thankful for our friendship, but it has grown even more and it has been very fun to serve alongside her. Then came Calli, and she's been great, too. I've just been getting to know her, but I already love how she loves to learn and is ready to jump into any tough situation that comes along. Some days the pessimistic side of me wonders how long this will last. I've seen people come and go so quickly that I have a hard time trusting that they'll show up each week... but I'm slowly being proven wrong. The three of us have been a great team so far and I love that!

Yesterday we hosted lunch for 11 students and it was amazing. I'm not new at having them in my home, and I've had to learn the hard way what they can get into, break, move, ruin, graffiti, eat, clog, etc. They can be quite crazy to say the least. But these girls proved to me that they're not all like that (or at least not always like that). They're very capable of stepping up to help where needed, even in cooking, getting the tables set up and ready, cleaning up... really just serving each other well. Again I was pleasantly surprised. I keep analyzing it because it's hard to believe.

I'm excited about where we are as a team of women leading these girls, and about the girls we get to be part of leading. I'm thankful that God has called me to this place at this time. Even during the rough times when I wonder if anyone is listening or learning anything from anyone, I need to remember these good times to find hope and encouragement. I want to expect big things from these students and from us as leaders.

Here are some pictures from yesterday: