The Perfect Fit

I never realized how much Papa actually cared about what I love doing until now. I guess after watching Soul Surfer and several other videos about Bethany Hamilton, especially her documentary “Heart of a Soul Surfer,” I should have picked up on that. The way that he gave Bethany her dream of glorifying him while doing the one thing that she absolutely loves! I don’t have such a passion I guess, I mean something so clear-cut, so I guess that I doubted that he cared about the passions that I do have.

Over time, especially my time overseas, I have seen him giving me many of my hearts desires, even ones that I didn’t realize that I had. He has been revealing my passions to me, as well as allowing me to live out those passions as a part of his work.  It is a beautiful thing the way that he has been unfolding my dreams ever so slowly and placing my desires before me to take hold of.

This past week I have seen this more concretely than any other time. I have held this desire, this hope inside of me for some time now. I have thought about it and dreamed about it several times, but continued to push it back in my mind and in my heart because most of the time it seemed impossible or impractical. But now I have seen this dream realized and I couldn’t be more excited and more in awe of the Father’s love for me and knowledge of who I am and what my passions are.

I can remember two years ago when hearing about the café project thinking about how I really wanted to be a big part of it. As you know it has taken time for the opening of the café to come about for various reasons, but it did in September 2011 and since than I have been working there.  I have been loving this part of my work and feeling less and less passion for my role as a teacher and more passion for my role as part of the Café team.

But it didn’t seem practical to work in the café more full-time and there were a few different things stopping me from saying that I would do it, such as my need to spend several hours studying language. I also never expressed to my leaders that this was a desire of mine, and in some ways I didn’t realize that it was a desire or that it could even work.

You see, they have been looking for a local operations manager for some time now and they finally found one a few weeks ago since our current manager will be leaving for the states. He will be gone temporarily, but when he comes back he plans to commit more time to another project that he is working on, therefore there is a need for a permanent manager who can do what he has been doing and work along side him as he continues to lead the vision of the café.

The operations manager that they found seemed like a perfect fit! He was friendly, he spoke great English, and he loved the job… Until, he got a better offer in another city. After two weeks of training he notified us that this wasn’t the perfect fit for him, he had found something better.

When I heard this, I was thinking, “What are we going to do our manager is leaving in a few weeks for the states and we have no one to do it, except… ME!” This seemed like the only easy solution and the more I thought about it and talked with Curtis about it, the more I realized that this was my dream. We also found quickly that the timing was perfect because we had just gotten a new teacher from the UK who could teach my class while I work in the Café.

As quickly as I realized this, my dream was realized. I talked to our manager the next day about it and everyone in leadership agreed that it was a perfect fit and that it was most definitely orchestrated by our father in he*ven. They know me and understood that this role fits with many of my passions.

I could not be more thrilled about what Dad has me doing. I really feel that this has been perfectly orchestrated and that it truly fits who Dad made me to be. It suits many of my passions including: coffee, baking, decorating, socializing, loving and communicating with people, creating new things and the list goes on and on. I am also a good point with language and will be able to do much of the needed communication in Russian, which will give me even more practice than I am getting now.

Please talk with Dad for me as I enter into this position. I am so excited about it, I know that I love doing most of what it takes to fill this role, but I am sure that it will be trying in some ways too. I am also entering into a leadership position and that is no small thing, so I could really use your chats in this area.

Thank you all so much for your continual support! I cannot tell you how excited I was to share this news with you. I am in love with being in the cafe, working with people there, helping with the vision and coming up with new food and drink ideas. I love the café team, our excellent baker, magnificent barista and two energetic young volunteers. I love the atmosphere and want to work on communicating the vision through the design. I am just so excited and couldn’t think of a better place for me!