Marge at Large

Not even 24 hours after getting of the plane, I found myself at the top of the Swiss Alps, snowboard in hand, still not exactly sure how I got here or how I was going to get down.

But as soon as you tip your board forward, gravity does all the work.

When I first sensed that my time with YWAM wasn’t over when my DTS was, I was scared. I wanted to return to the comforts of home, to a normal paycheck, normal friends, normal classes. I was ready to stop living out of a suitcase, start showering regularly and yearned for the solitude of my own room. But once I got it, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I found that the paycheck didn’t seem to matter as much, my friends were busy with their own lives, I made my sister sleep in the same room as me to avoid being alone and I still didn’t shower regularly. But now I had no excuse.

I needed to get back to YWAM.

I had two weeks to raise enough money to make it back to the base in time to train to staff the boarders
DTS, and after looking at my bank account balance, things seemed pretty bleak. But I knew I was supposed to be there.

With just under a week to go, God provided through several people just enough to get me back to the chalet. And the airline provided the chocolate bar. Welcome to Switzerland.

But my work is just beginning.

Myself, along with 6 other talented young people, will be staffing a five month long Discipleship Training School, which includes three months of lecture and two of outreach. We will be shepherding and guiding the 26 youth arriving in just over a week to go through the same process that brought me to Brazil just one month ago.  And my excitement for them is currently through the roof. They have no idea what they’re getting into. And they’ll probably never want out.

If their DTS is anything like mine, they’ll spend the next half year learning more about themselves, the world, and God than they have in their entire lives. They’ll never be able to settle for “the normal life” again. Or Hershey chocolate.

So here I am now, about to ring in 2009 in the winter wonderland of Lausanne, Switzerland - you can call it Narnia  -  with no idea even of what continent I will be on in a matter of three months, or how I am going to get there. And somehow, I feel more secure than I ever have.

And that’s not just the sparkling cider talking.

Outside the chalet on New Year's Day.