A journey never really feels over until I open my journal. Even though I've been home a day now it wasn't until I gathered the scraps of paper and fabric that symbolised different parts of my journey and filled a few more pages of my nearly finished journal did I feel like my Kansas City adventure was behind me...
My boarding cards - lovely peaceful journeys full of productive work time, movies (Reader *****, Changeling ***, Frost/Nixon ****) and books (nearly finished and absolutely LOVING Tom Wright's commentary on 1 Corinthians).
A welcome card from the Kansas City Boiler Room Community - what an incredible bunch of people. They're maturity and knowledge and passion for God inspire me every time I'm with them. This trip was no exception - it was a delight to join them at one of their main gatherings and see how the community is growing.
I didn't stick it in my journal (obviously) but our snazzy little 24-7 USB sticks which to me symbolise months of dreaming and scheming. Why are you dreaming about a USB device you may wonder... well I haven't really - it's what's on them I've loved. 24-7 grows so fast that better equipping and training our prayer leaders in each national team has really weighed on my mind. Along with my team I've been condensing years of experience resourcing 24-7 Prayer into a training strategy and block of free resources. The idea is we don't do it all the same, but that we adapt the best from our brothers and sisters around the globe to see prayer spread in our nation. Susanna Rychiger and I had two fantastic days with Kathryn Hawkins who currently heads up prayer in the US and Daria Tomiuk who's championing 24-7 like crazy in Canada. Firstly - wow - what fantastic women. I absolutely LOVED hanging out with them. They were great. We had a brilliant time sharing experience, challenges and questions and as we explored everything we'd prepared and it was so satisfying to see real value in training and equipping them.
Food - the photo above is of a gorgeous breakfast that the lovely Anna Walker and household prepared for us. In fact the KC community were incredibly hospitable and most meals were eaten at one house or another as different Boiler Room members welcomed us to their nation. Particular highlights include BBQs, the breakfast I've already mentioned and the most fantastic steak and live Jazz at the Majestic... yum, yum...
This leads me quite nicely onto how the USA rated on my infalable system of judgement... (for those of you who haven't heard me speak about this before let me state that it is ironic ;)
Criteria 1: Do I eat well?
Answer 1: Yes! For all the reasons stated above (though I did feast on brown rice and veg when I got home)
Criteria 2: Did I sleep well?
Answer 2: Yes! Thank you Thad's for your kind hospitality!
Criteria 3: Does my hair look good here?
Answer 3: For the non-curly among you this may seem like an odd question... the truth is things like water softness and humidity affect how nicely your hair curls. Thankfully, despite a few muggy days, my hair pretty much rocked ;)
Criteria 4: Am I funny here?
Answer 4: I had my moments (the English gifts story being a particular highlight)
So all in all the USA, and Kansas City more specifically, rate highly in my scientific system of assessment. I had a fantastic time and was a little sad I couldn't bring Steve and all my friends with me to enjoy it... xc