UPDATE!

Hey everyone! Here's my blog, back from the dead by the necessity of things happening to me that you might actually want to know about.  So here it is, the long-expected update that you've all been patiently waiting for! (Or not patiently, as the case may be.) I do apologize for my tardiness, but in my defense, a DTS is not called "intensive" for nothing. (You should see the stack of homework I should be doing right now instead of writing, but no matter!) 

Life is smashingly good. You know when something really excites you, but you forget about it and then suddenly remember? Well, a couple of times every day, I do this double take thing: "Wait, I actually *live* on a sailing ship! I'm actually in Europe! This is actual tea and crumpets I'm having!" (Sweet goodness, have you ever had an actual crumpet? If not, go put that on your bucket list right now.)

Ok, so a Discipleship Training School. Without exception, it's the most awesome thing that has ever happened to me. In one way, it's weird to think it's been over a month since I said good-bye to everything familiar, and yet, it's harder to believe that it's *only* been just over a month on this amazing ship; time is quite wibbly-wobbly here. What I do know is that it's been the most amazing month of my life. God has somehow managed to create an experience that seamlessly combines everything I love, which is really quite extraordinary, considering the bizarre variety of my loves and interests.   

One of the things I love is community. I could talk for hours about the benefits of community. That was one of the things that really excited me about the possibility of doing this DTS; the small, close-knit togetherness that happens automatically when you have more than twenty people living in a place where you can never be more than 30 metres away from anyone. (And that would only happen if everyone crowded together on one end of the ship and you were on the other, so that never happens.) I knew within 10 minutes of coming aboard that I was home. I had stepped out of one amazing family and into another, I felt so immediately welcome. Maybe it seems like I've been here for longer than I have because I've already reached a level of closeness to these people that usually takes many times longer. God knew what He was doing when He directed me here for sure. 

I'd love to keep going; I've haven't even scratched the surface of the incredible things that are happening to and inside of me. I could write pages about amazing and crazy experiences, and hopefully I will, but for now, if I actually want to post this, I'll have to stop. Expect many more updates, some short, some long, hopefully fairly often. Have a joy-filled day!