Overdue blog!

I know we haven't posted in a while and I'm sure everyone is on the edge of their seat to know how we are doing! haha, I'm sure this isn't the case but we shall give you an update anyway! First of all and most importantly I have a job!!! You may all now rejoice with us as this has been a trying time of unemployment and little faith at times! But as always God is faithful to us and we have prevailed among our trials. So......I am a waitress, go figure. For some of you who knew already, waitressing was about the only thing I had said I didn't want to do while I was over here and I made that clear to God, however God has in return made it clear to me that waitressing is what I shall do. It is funny because, once I decided that I would apply to be a waitress I had four job offers in one week. For the whole month and a half prior I had only one job offer that didn't even come through. So I know for now I am called to be a waitress, so I will bear my cross...haha. The great thing about the job is that the pay is great and my bosses are working with me on my visa limitations. They are letting me work more than 20hrs. but working it out on my check that I am still taxed for my wages. This means that I am doing it in a semi-legal way, the government still gets their money and my mom can sleep better knowing that I am not working illegally.
I never knew what a blessing it was to actually have a job until I couldn't find one and we were running out of money to pay the bills. God has made it clear to us in this time that we should be thankful for the blessings we have even when we so often do not count them as blessings, but burdens like, "oh man I have to go to work again!". I know I've said that many times.
I am so happy to say that we are really starting to love it here (not enough to stay here, only enough to enjoy it until we get to come back). Things are coming around and we are finally starting to feel adjusted and part of our new church family.
Yesterday we went into the city with a couple friends to visit the city campus of Hillsong church. It is run similar to the way Seacoast does their services but there is a live speaker at the campus. It is much smaller than the Hills campus, the auditorium seats probably about 500 or so, but they have something like 5 services each week. The message was awesome! I will give you a tidbit if you'd like (if not just read ahead). So the pastor spoke on Hebrews 5:11-6:3. In this passage the writer of Hebrews is speaking on spiritual maturity. He scolding the Hebrews that they are not mature enough to receive the solid food of God, that they must be taught the elementary truths of God's word all over again. In the beginning of Chapter six the writer lists the 6 foundations of the Christian life: repentance, faith, baptism, the laying on of hands, resurrection and eternal judgment. The pastor challenged us to see these things as essential for our life in Christ however he also reminded us that just because we know the foundational truths doesn't mean that we are living like Christ. Probably my favorite part was when he addressed a situation that he said sometimes happens at Hillsong. I thought it was so great. He said sometimes a member will come to him and say, "we are going to leave the church because we want to go somewhere where we can get a deeper message". saying, the messages aren't deep enough or exigetical enough. The pastor had the best response to it, He said on average the messages that we hear at Hillsong are not super deep, not so intense that they would maybe stump someone to the point that they would need to get the CD to hear it again because it was packed so full of intense biblical teaching. But more so it is not about what you know or how deep your teaching is but it is about how your life is lived. Does your life reflect the life of Christ, are you living like Jesus did, because if you're not then all your knowledge is to waste. If we are not living out what we already know then we don't need to learn anything else anyway. None of us have mastered the scriptures that we do know to live by, so why demand to know a deeper truth. Our purpose is to become more and more like Christ and live like he lived. I feel like God has been wanting to teach me that recently. That my mission is not to be a famous worship artist to give God glory, but it is to live each day more like Christ. For our lives are not just here on earth but they are eternal. Our work here is only preparation for our work in Heaven, we are preparing for the future. This has been quite difficult for me to grasp, because for the past few years, I have felt that worship art was God's mission for me to reach youth with a call to creative expression of worship. And in certain ways I still feel like it is.... however if my foundation is not a daily expression of Christ in my life, then my mission for art is void.
I don't know how much sense this has made, but it is my heart. Once again thank you so much for reading to the bottom! some day I should figure out how to leave a prize for everyone who reads the whole thing.
We pray blessings over your lives, may you receive God's love anew today. We love you all, and thank you for your support. ~April