ugh.

breakdown.
burn out.
bottom hit.

I want to go home. I don't want to have any more responsibilities, any more deadlines, any more plans. No more coordinating of anything, no more cooking for anyone, ahhhh no more!!!

I don't have the motivation to eat, drink, or move. I would rather sit here and wait for Sunday to come. I don't even have motivation to do my devotions, which is pretty lame, and something I'd rather not be confessing to, but here you are, admitted.

I love my job, my life, my friends. But I have reached a breaking point, where I am much happier to not be involved in anything right now.

I have one more party (have already been through 5 or 6) and then I can go home.

Going home is going to be the best thing in the whole world, but it will be very hard to come back.

its been 5 months and 10 days since I left home. It feels like its been longer and shorter all at the same time. And now I can't help but feel like I am going home for good, but that's an out of place feeling because I am only going home for 2 weeks.

anyway, the emotions needed out.

pray for me.

pray for everyone in this world who is feeling like poo. lol.

I will never lose my motivation for prayer, for it is my one comfort, my one hope, my lifeline. If I didn't have God to cling to, and heaven to look forward to, I don't know what I would do.

America in 8 days

So I go home in 9 days. well wait its midnight! I go home in 8 days. And there is a happy part and a sad part about that. The happy part is I AM COMING HOME, the sad part is, I know the 2 weeks at home will go by as quickly as the time until I leave is going by. Which is, btw, fast.

I am def. ready to go home. I need a break. I'm on the verge of BURN OUT.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But, it's emotionally, and physically, exhausting. It's that constant feeling of letting people down, mixed in with sometimes getting it right, and never ever getting enough sleep. I catch a cold about every 2 weeks, and I eat pretty healthy. RIDICULOUS haha. I am just really busy, and a "holiday" will be so good.

I have realized so much in the past 5 months and would not trade my experience for anything.

Some things I have realized:

1. Working in a church = stress, and I know understand why pastors get burned out
2. You will never please everyone , so have tough skin
3. You will be let down, but you will let people down as well
4. those basic necesities like eating, sleeping, and exercising, become less basic when you have a busy life, and you find yourself compromising the very things that make you able to be alive, lol.
5. Why is it that I work for a church, for God, and yet, it seems so hard to find time for just God and I!?
6. The church needs more single people, those with families are too busy to be spending so much time helping , churches need more volunteers, it takes A LOT of work to run a church!!!
7. Home is a nice place to be.

I have learned a lot, but I will leave it at 7 for now.

Anyway I am totally ready to go home, but it will be weird to come back, even though I do want to. I can't wait to be with my mom, dad, and brother. I love them even more than I did 5 months ago.

I have close friends here in England, but sometimes you just long to be hugged by your family, people who love you unconditionally and you know you can't really let down. A love hug. :).

I am so blessed to have the family that I do have and I hope I never stop thanking God for them.

I wrote something today about Chris, and almost didn't post it but then I was like hey, whatever.

To: one.

and I want you to know that I’d rather be in our memories than here right now
and I want you to know that I cry for you daily
if only we could have all that time back, but how?
Promises, promises, that were oh-so deadly
so deadly in fact that I ended up killing every last one
and my only escape plan was to run, run, run...
And I want you to know that my nightmares are less than heavenly
and I want you to know that my recovery has not yet begun

...

Well goodnight :).

acr.

Giant Cookie

So I found an awesome recipe for making GIANT choc. chip cookies and have started making them a lot...here is a picture of one I made for some people :). I am really excited to come home and show my family me new cookie baking skills haha...Jesus loves you! Here is the link if you want to recipe...http://allrecipes.com/recipe/giant-chocolate-chip-cookie/detail.aspx...and the trick is to put parchment paper over a pizza pan...fill it with cookie dough about 1/2 inch thick leaving 4 inches from the edge, then make a "crust" of cookie dough about 2 inches wide all around the outer edge of the pizza pan. So there should be about 2 inches between the crust and the dough in the center, it expans while cooking so don't worry :). Voila! Then they are no burnt edges!

Thanksgiving Abroad

Well this past Thanksgiving wasn't my first away from home, but it was my first away from relatives.

I am not sure if it was even my idea, or one of my friends, but we decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner together, which is really cool of them.
So it ended up being Dan and Diana, Dejan and Deanna, Etienne and Cyril, Evangelina, Jo and Andy, Anne and Daniel and Keziah and Zoe, Anca, Jason, and myself. Plus Keith and Melody showed up for a little while.

We had all the food I normally had at Thanksgiving thanks to everyone bringing part of the meal, and I had the experience of making my first Pumpkin Pies, my first tofu loaf, my first cranberry sauce, and my first cranberry relish. It was stressful. and it took me 6 hours just to make those four things. An obvious clue to my lack of experience. I am thinking, Thanksgiving is a lot of work, haha.

But the best part wasn't the food, it was my friends, my family.I love everyone here and I feel so blessed (and thankful) to have these people in my life. To have that many people come together, and celebrate a holiday they never have before, makes me feel so loved. And I am thinking how much I will miss them in 7 months when I leave. And that makes me sad.But at the moment there is no time to waste on sadness. Only time to soak up all the happiness the people in my life bring to me.

So to all my friends who came and spent Thanksgiving with me, Thank you. I love that you are in my life, and truly appreciate you. I can still say that I have never spent a Thanksgiving with out my family :).

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but becareful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.-E.P.Powell

audrey.

What do I do with my life? Read on...

Monday Morning. It's cloudy outside. Gray. Windy. Damp. The rain comes and goes.
11:00. Where has the day gone already? Quiet. Still. But the computer growls.

I have been crazy busy until this morning.
It started on Thursday. I woke up. I made roughly 150 copies for a Bible Study. Then went out to eat with the Pastor and Youth Pastor and other girl, Diana, who I work with, it was for her birthday :). We went to Nandos which has the best chicken ever but I get the veggie burger. We eat for awhile. And then they all leave. I have to stay in the town center to find 3 things. 80 trays. 2 Angel cookie cutters. and a present for Diana. I spent roughly 2 hours searching. I am at John Lewis (department store) and I ask a lady who works there "Do you happen to have angel cookie cutters??" she replies "Ummm...yes!" I SCREAM "REALLY!?! AHH! YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY. You seriously saved me I am so happy thank you so much!" she looks scared "Glad I could help you...?". Hahahahaha. so funny. I needed these cookie cutters for Messy Church which is one of the largest productions the church here puts on ( it is in teh afternoon for families with kids ages 0-13, it is 2 and 1/2 hours long, we have crafts, songs, stories, games, and then we all eat a meal together), and I am in charge of organizing crafts. We need the cutters to make angel gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate. So I am stoked that I found them. I go on to find 40 plastic trays (this is for one group of kids to make gingerbread stables on, because Jesus was born in a stable) I find them..and buy them.. with many strange looks from all around me...I insist on walking the 30-40 minutes back to the church because I think paying for a bus is a waste of money. But I won't lie, it was really heavy, and I was discouraged at times lol. I get back. I have an hour until Health Evangelism. I juice a bunch of veggies because I am trying to fight off a cold. I go to H. E. and am there helping set-up, serve, and clean up until about 10 (I love the people who put it on and love helping them, they are my friends). At 10 I start making my first batch ever of Communion Bread, which by the way is really easy luckily for me. Afterwards I organize the 150 copies I had made earlier. I get to bad at 12:30. I get up the next morning at 7:15. I get in the shower. I make oatmeal and run downstairs. (I have a meeting at 8). The church rents out the rooms to different organizations for them to have meetings and stuff and the student missionaries help set up tea/coffee/biscuits/AV for them. I get there and one room had been set up wrong on accident so spent 20 or so minutes sorting that out (becoming later and later for my meeting)...Finally at 9 my meeting with Lorna can start. What are we doing today? Making gingerbread...We made gingerbread from 9 in the morning until 11 at night. The goal was to make enough for 80 kids to make stables, we made enough for 40...ran to hobby craft and came up with something for the other 40 kids to do (all for messy church)...and everything worked out. Went to bed by midnight. Got up at 7:00. Finished preparing my Sabbath School lesson. Led the Youth Sabbath school...helped make sure everything was ok for the Parallel modern Church Service...went to Church...ate lunch...started setting up for Messy Church...had Messy Church (CRAZY)... was the MC for Messy Church...helped clean up from Messy Church...went to see 2012 with one of the teens :)...got to bed by 1 a.m....got up Sunday morning went to a Pathfinders meeting from 10-12...checked on the center which was being rented for a birthday party...slept from 2-3...showered...went to a birthday dinner...came back...went to prayer meeting where I read the Scripture for the evening...watched Flash Forward in the flat...Called my mom...Dad...and Brother...went to bed by 12...got up at 9 this morning...did my devotional finally...got on here...and now I am going to clean the flat which is TRASHED. So now you know how 4 and 1/2 days of my life have gone. Haha. But I love it. I love being busy and knowing I am here for a reason, Knowing that I am helping God and this church.

"The Demise of Our Love"

I will post birthday pics later :). But for now here is something I wrote and finally finished editing today.

peaceandlove..audreychristine.

Realizing what needs to be realized.

Stanborough Park Church :).
Well Today is October 12. It has been a few days over 3 months since I got here. WHOAH 3 MONTHS! Time has gone by so quickly, and now I am realizing it is time for me to decide what I am going to do with my life next. I rarely have time to think about this kind of stuff anymore, but I need to. I know that I need to stop being immature and accept the fact that college is a necessary step to take. So now that I have stopped denying that, it is only a matter of where. There is Newbold, which, though low on degree options (Iwas thinking about film and media), is less than a fourth of how much it cost me to go to PUC, plus I am already in England. There is PUC...I loved PUC, it was gorgeous, I really like the school, I liked san fran being close, I just loved it really. There is La Sierra, one of my best friends will be there, the other at Loma Linda (both in socal), so if I wanted to do nursing that would be my best option. There is ACA (Adventist Colleges Abroad) in Spain, which considering I want a spanish emphasis on whatever I do decide on, this is a necessary step at some point. . . and there of course is always the option of Colorado. Going to CSU or some other public college and paying way way less, but not getting the enviroment of an adventist or even just christian university. . .



I have had too much time to think this morning. Or maybe not. I love having mornings like this. so rare. to be able to spend a few hours just turning things over in my mind. realizing what needs to be realized.



the past.



haunting.

taunting.

reminding.

unburying that which I buried in my mind.

six feet deep.

with cold dirt.

and darkness.

but now exposed to the light of this day.



I HAVE TOTALLY GREAT NEWS. I am coming home for Christmas :). I cannot wait to get home and see my family, and friends hopefully. I am a little home sick. Mostly because I know how easy it is to be at home. With no expectations, no e-mails, no planner... But I chose this because God wanted me to, and I am still choosing it every day because I want to. I want to be here, I want to make a difference, I want to do what God has planned for me because if he planned it then it is destined for greatness, whether I realize that now or 10 years later. God is good. God is here. God loves you and God loves me and as long as we remember that much we will be alright.



a.