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Back from Iowa

I've been back for a few days now but thought I could give a quick update on how Iowa went. I had a great time working with the team and found myself counting the blessings God poured out on us each day. Some examples of these unexpected blessings are:
- a woman from another team let me take her boots to use for the week. I had been given men's boots size 13 and soon realized that it would be nearly impossible to get the work done in them. A woman whose team was leaving as my team was arriving gave me her boots which fit perfectly. Praise God!
- I got to spend some quality time with Tom Tomer, one of the leaders in my church, as we did laundry and other errands for the rest of the team. It was so cool to get to hear about his family and see how God was using such a godly man. Praise God!
- I didn't get hurt at all on the job and in fact had more energy than I had expected to have throughout the day. Praise God!
- I didn't bring a blow up mattress but realized that we were sleeping on concrete and my sleeping bag wouldn't be enough. The church we were staying at had some extra mattesses and I was able to have one for the whole week. Praise God!
- I didn't get a single asthma attack the whole week (never once pulled out my inhaler!) even though I was working in a small enclosed space that had mold growing all over it. Praise God!
- The weather was amazing. Just awesome. It wasn't as hot as the week before, and rarely rained while we worked. Praise God!
- When I felt sad and disheartened from lack of physical affection (surprisingly didn't get a ton of physically affection from the 14 year old boys nor the 49 year old men!) , some of the women from another church took me in their arms and hugged me. Arms of God, I swear. Praise God!

So those are just some examples of how God poured forth blessings this past week. He is good, isn't He?
And during the week I was struck by how much I really liked doing what we were doing. I mean, constructions (or really, deconstruction) isn't my thing normally, but I really wanted to stay a second week. I like the organizational part of the show too. I know I have more lives that I want to live than can possibly be lived by one person, but I was thinking about how much I would like to work for a relief organization. That would be cool. We'll see. For now, I am trying to patient and wait at least until I'm closer to graduation before I run off.

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