one more day

Leaving for London tomorrow morning. Bye bye Belgium! I hope you will find a government before I come home...

ready to go?

How many times have I been asked: 'And? Are you ready to go?'
response: 'Well, emm ... '

oops... I hope my mom doesn't see this ;)

I'm sure I will get in London and get a little nervous about all the things I was not able to bring or forgot to pack, but little by little things are getting where they have to be.

The 'farewell'-stage started & I started packing. One suitcase is ready for the move... and my room is a mess. Still some work to do here :)


Next to that, I think God has been giving some winks too...
I'll share one story.

Middle of July I realize my temporary license expires in September 2012. 

Great! One more year... oh, wait...

Just a little worried I open my computer to try to find a exam-appointment before 1st of September. Preferably the latest possible, because I am not at all ready for this exam. After having to fill a lot of boxes with names and numbers and dates, I finally get the news that the first possible appointment is 4th of September.

A little more worried I call the exam-center and ask if people sometimes happen to cancel their exams. And if it is possible to contact me if something opens up before 1st of September because ... (the whole story).

'Missy, we are not a call center and we do not use our time, calling people just like that' - very long awkward silence - 'all right, I'll see what I can do.'

A few days later I get a phone call: 'There is a place opening up in 10 days at 7.30AM.' 

'10 days?? That's too soon!'

'I will not call you any more for this. You take it or leave it...'

gulps...

For around 6 days we have been practicing day and night. I'm not lying if I told you we drove at least 6 hours a day.

The next 4 days my parents left for the PTI in Poland, so I wasn't able to exercise any more. I was getting more nervous by the day.

Extremely worried and very early in the morning I leave for the exam-center with a friend of my parents (In Belgium you have to bring someone to accompany you during the exam, normally this is your teacher). 

After more or less one hour I hear it was not good enough, I failed. But I could always try to make a new appointment at the desk.

I go to the desk and even before asking, the woman sais: 'For new appointments, subscribe by internet, the next possible date is in October.'

*sigh*

Driving back, a little disappointed, I reason that it's only the start of august and that things still have the time to arrange themselves, so I decide to start checking the possible dates several times a day to see if there is a new opening somewhere.

Back home, first thing I do is check for a new opening. Very surprised I see there is one! The day after I get back from Adelante... not at all the best timing, but at least a new chance. To make the appointment I need my id-card. Worried that someone else would take this place, I run to the car to get my card, start filling those million boxes again and click the button 'check next available exam-moments'. 

I can't believe what I see, so I refresh the page... nope, it's still there. A new possibility came up during the 2 minutes I just spent: 25th of august, a completely full day just came up, I was the first to see this and could choose exactly what time I wanted to go. 

A 'wee' miracle just there...

Everything that followed went as smoothly as possible. And I passed my exam with zero mistakes. 

One less thing to worry about! Thank God :)

A lot of people prayed for this... do you think having my drivers license in my pocket could have anything to do with this? :)

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iAdelante, hermanos en fe, esperanza y en amor!

Adelante as a preparation time for this GAP-year...

Just back from an overwhelming experience.
What a week!
Very challenging, but eye-opening time.
400 young men/women coming together to deepen their relationship with the Lord.



Here is a little random taste of Adelante in a Spanish newspaper: http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/08/11/paisvasco/1313071009.html
Thanks to everybody who made this happen. And especially to the 'mysterious donor'. I hope this message will reach you one way or another :)

Later on I spent two days in Madrid, enjoying the sight of the World Youth Days.
Madrid is crazy at the moment. Streets are filled with people wearing very colourful t-shirts and hats. It's 38°C in the shadow and melting in the sun. Flags are filling the horizon. Really! I'm not even close to exaggerating :)
An amazing witness! We are not standing on our own...

Opening Mass shot

Loved spending this time with Mercedes, Martha and Nathalie!

Now I'm back in Belgium where we had to stop the car driving home today since we couldn't see anything because of the heavy rainstorm... :) I will miss you, Belgium!

Uh oh!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14460554

Let's hope those riots calm down soon! 

London youth, we need to talk! :)

What's the plan? Some explanation in letter form...

Dear,

As you might know, I am leaving first of september for 10 months to London.
The idea is to serve there as a full-time Kairos Gapper.
Here is a short explanation.

GAP? Never heard of it…

“The practical and spiritual lessons of this past year will be of use for a lifetime.”

Kairos GAP is more than a year out. It is a year of your life invested in service, training and mentoring.

Service
The gappers typically spend around six hours a day in some kind of Christian volunteer service capacity.

This could be serving the desperately poor living on the rubbish dumps of Manila or speaking to college students in Minnesota about Jesus Christ.

It could be helping with a youth outreach in Latin America or running a street mission in inner city Dublin.

Training
Over the course of the year, the average gapper spends around 400 hours exploring training from life skill topics such as self-management and intercultural awareness to more discipleship topics such as service and scripture.

Given that a normal college class can take around 40 hours of your time, the GAP year is a bit like 10 classes over a year.

The high training input that goes on in the year is the reason why many gappers point to their GAP year as a foundational year of service and learning impacting the rest of their lives.

Indeed one of the most valued aspects of the year is the space to develop and think about longer term vision for life.

(http://www.kairos-eme.org/Training/GAP/Vision)

More specific GAP in Londen:

My service will mostly be in Koinonia. This is a mission which reaches university students in London. (Similar to Pharos here in Leuven.)

Most of my work will be reaching out to students in London to tell them about Christ. Alongside the evangelism I will be involved with some administrative tasks for Koinonia, helping out with some youth work in community (Antioch) and a few other service opportunities.

The training consists of:
1. Evangelisation
2. Scripture study
3. project management
4. Local mission – improving as a mission worker

reassurance :)

In case you were wondering. I am indeed going to interrupt my studies for this year of service. Because it is the end of my theoretical studies, it is a good time to serve in another community. After my year of service, I will return to my studies and begin two years of practical studies.
So do not fret, I am looking forward to starting my internships as soon as I come back :)

More questions?
Ask them here and answers will follow!

salut!
Marie-Sophie

more information about GAP: http://www.kairos-eme.org/Training/GAP
more information about Koinonia: http://site.koinonia.co.uk./

To blog, or not to blog... that's the question!

Hello everyone!

I finally decided to make a blog instead of writing too much email-updates...
The idea for the blog is to make it possible for us to live this London-adventure together in this way.
I will try to put up regular short updates and pictures.
It would be nice if I could hear something back from you from time to time, so please react as much as you want :)

I am writing the blogs in English to avoid having to translate it into Dutch, French and English. And since London is a main theme, I guess it is not completely out of place...
I hope you'll be able to watch my English improve over the year, so forgive me my beginners-mistakes. :)

That's it for now... first a few weeks of Adelante, preparations and farewells...