Week 21 - "Where you invest your love, you invest your life..."

After just starting to get back into my old routine after the holidays, it’s time for a new one in a new place.  Monday morning I moved out of Suzanne’s home to start my time living at AnHouse, the student house for the Anglican Society (AnSoc) at the University of Cape Town.  I love living with Suzanne and her awesome dog Thembi; they were very good hostesses and I was sad to leave. Nevertheless, I am also quite excited to start this new chapter of my time here working with this campus ministry.  Moving into my bedroom at AnHouse on that summery morning felt just like moving into my dorm for another semester at UD! My room has a big window, a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. It’s a not a lot, but it’s all I need.  I’m still getting into my new routine, but I’m excited to be there. I’m significantly closer to the train station but also am significantly uphill from it. Near the train station is a small shopping mall with a pharmacy and a few grocery stores and others stores similar to what you would find in a downtown college area (Newark <3). For now, AnHouse is fairly quiet; the students don’t arrive for fall semester until the first weekend in February and there are only three summer session residents at AnHouse (the house holds 14 students when it’s full).

The whole gang - campers and leaders - at the end of the weekend!

Another recent experience also merits a blog post. Last weekend, I served as a camp leader at Fikelela’s Agents of Change Camp.  Fikelela is the Anglican Church’s HIV/AIDS outreach program in Cape Town and touches local communities in so many ways.  This camp hosted youth and youth leaders from parishes all over the Cape Town diocese and aimed to educate them as peer leaders and their leaders as peer educators to run the Agents of Change program. This program, as outlined in the manual given to each camper, aims to use youth to educate their peers to make responsible decisions in all spheres of their lives, especially when it comes to safe sex and healthy relationships. It was so exciting and inspiring to work with the other leaders to help the youth work toward this goal. I haven’t worked extensively with youth, but sometimes, when I would sit back and watch the more experienced leaders interact with the campers, I thought of my experiences in campus ministry, going from the little freshmen girl in the back of the regional retreat sessions to leading those retreats and helping to plan the 2008-2009 Gather. More than familiar experience though, I could sense that familiar ministry energy – that passion and love of what you’re doing and how you’re answering God’s call!  In addition to inspiring choosing the above line from a Mumford & Sons song as the title for this entry, it reminded me of the Buechner quote I used in my fundraising sermon; “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” So, where is your deep gladness?