Hellos and goodbyes. Or, my attempt to summarize Connect, Vienna, and saying farewell to Andi.

It's been a rather eventful couple of weeks since I last blogged. Since my last post, I have traveled to 2 countries I had never before been to, reunited with a few hundred of my favorite people, celebrated the engagement of 2 dear friends, said farewell to one of my dearest friends, and finally finished unpacking since moving into my apartment 3 months ago.

I had a wonderful week at CA's staff conference (newly named Connect) in Hungary! It was a week so packed full of great stuff that I could probably write a novel, so I'll try to give a few highlights:
--reuniting with so many cool CA people that are serving Jesus all over Europe. It was so great to spend an entire week hanging out and hearing their stories and laughing and learning about how God is moving in all these little corners of the world.
--worshipworshipworshipworshipworship. In a related note, Kendall Payne is awesome.
--The concert of prayer (which was completely organized by Andi, Teal, Darrin, and Julie- way to go friends!). It was an incredibly powerful time, all of us joining together and pray that God would move powerfully in Europe.
--the women's lunch. After a delicious Laina-catered picnic, we broke into small groups. Praying, crying, sharing our hearts, and spending time in the presence of Jesus with the women of the Aix team was one of my week's highlights.
--late nights outside on the patio. (and that memorable late night life-size chess game).
--a refreshing reminder that God is not finished with Europe!

After Connect, the Aix team spent a few days in Vienna for a little team bonding. We've been apart all summer, with half the team in the States, so it was so wonderful to reconnect and spend a few days just playing together. Highlight: the first night in Vienna, my teammate Dominic and my flatmate Hilary got engaged!!! So we had an awesome two-day engagement celebration. (By the way, I am in love with Vienna. I think it's one of my new favorite European cities.)

I've been back from Vienna for a week now, and it has been simultaneously an extremely fun and horribly sad week. This week was Andi's last week here in Aix. For those who don't know, Andi is one of the original Aix team members, and after four years of serving at ICCP, is moving to Portland to continue her education. So we've been doing lots of fun activities this week to wish her farewell. Andi has been a significant part of my life ever since I moved to Aix for the first time in 2003, and words cannot express how important she is in my life and how hard it is to see her go. She has been my friend, roommate, confidant, discipler, teammate, and so much more. And she has had an enormous impact on the lives of so many people in Aix over the past four years. It is so hard to say goodbye, but God is very clearly calling her to spread her wings and move to the next adventure. She will be dearly missed.

As jam packed as the past 2 weeks have been, it's only going to get more crazy from here on out. It's still August now, but as soon as September rolls around, everything starts up. I'm super excited about everything we'll be doing this year, especially a few brand new shiny ministry opportunities I have this year. So hold on tight, there's much more to come...