Well, Here I Am...

Here I am, sitting in a Tulane dorm room, reading TFA materials, writing copious notes, feeling exhausted at 11:10. Tomorrow is the first day of Greater New Orleans 2010 Induction: Registration, Opening Sessions, City Tour, Welcome Dinner, running from 8 to 8. I got to go eat with my bff Caleb at the cost of the informal pizza dinner, but I feel like I made the right choice. I'll get a month in Atlanta following this week with these people; Mr. Hogan is decidedly more absent from my life.

I am here, in my pj's, waiting expectantly for tomorrow. Waiting expectantly for Institute in Atlanta (teaching summer school in the inner city, and probably failing a lot more than succeeding to start with).

Waiting expectantly for God to show up: to do with me what He will.

I know already, exhausted from a rather unimpressive day, that God will sustain me; because I know he brought me to this point for a reason. What reason? To teach, to impact, to change the course of kids' lives; I hope all of the above. To teach me, to impact me, to change the course of my life; I pray for that. To help me to better understand more of his creation, to better love it, and to better minister to it. I know that the tools and the experiences I take from TFA will affect the way I conduct myself in my interactions forever.

I pray for God's passion for his creation. All of it: the beautiful, the ugly, the broken beyond repair. I pray that God would give me his eyes for his children, that he would bless me with understanding. That he would bless me with peace. That he would bless me with his presence. I know going into this two year commitment that God must be at the forefront. God must be pleased by my efforts. Only then will this work mean anything.

I ask that you would pray for me during this time of preparation, that God would prepare my heart for my students and for the work we will have in front of us to catch up to where we need to be. I ask that you would lift up my future students.