its just one week...

.. and i will start school. SCHOOL.. wow that word has so much power in it.
everyone, all together now - schoooooool. did you feel it?
hah, naah.. to be rather honest, im not getting it at all. i have no idea whats really going on or that i should start shopping for supplies - notebooks, pens, a laptop (if you have a spare one- i want it!!). I mean, yes i am excited about it - im anxious to write essays and discuss politics, can you believe it? but at the same time, in one year, it is totally possible to lose your connection to any kind of academical environment. That is kinda what i feel like - i have been doing youth work full on for a year, i dont remember anything about textbooks or eloquent speech, and in a crowd of students who just graduated from high school.. i can imagine numerous situations of just saying things out loud too soon or not getting what everyone else thinks of as elementary. Ah, it will be a challenge and I pray to God that He will remind me to have a sense of humor when it comes to awkward situations. Not that I am a stranger to those..:)
So what have i found out about my classes?
the first shock was when i looked at my timetables and saw that i actually have classes only 4 days a month, because im not attending daily classes so i can work. Yet this doesn´t mean any less studying, because i have to get the same amount of points by the end of the year - it just means i have more independent study and more freedom to arrange my time.
I have to admit, at first i was kinda disappointed, because i was ready for a full on weekly study, but the more i think about it - i just see Gods hand in it.
My life is absolutely crazy and where God is leading me is even more beyond me - whether in youth ministry or the FWR project - i need to be more commited and available to both of these things than I have before.
It doesnt make any sense - last year i didnt have college, but as Im starting university, I am expected to commit more to other things in my life? what??
God works in weird ways.. and i guess the more you grow, the more He can trust you with.
I just hope I am able to develop what He gives me to the fullest.

Guys, i am blown away by everything that is happening in my life. It is just..so... BIG. Yeah, sure i am in real life going through a bunch of massive readjustments, but what is going on in my Spirit is just so much more.
I cant really explain it, because i have no control or record over how or when it happened, but i think i have taken leaps in my relationship with God. Or actually, its not so much that i took the jumps - because i doubt i had too much to do with any of it, but God is speaking to me in ways that He hasn´t before. And im experiencing Him in the depths of who i am in new ways.. and as odd as this may seem - for the first time in my life.. i think im having a relationship with God.
Not that He wasn´t active in my life before, or that i didnt hear his voice or talk to him before.. but its like this whole new meaning has entered that relationship and i have come to see that he actually wants to partner with me, not just be Lord, or King.. but (this is going to sound shocking) more like a Lover, a soul mate.
i have always thought of the whole having-a-relationship-with-God thing as well... just being about gods work in my life. His plan.. me as a servant of the Lord. And it has been good and these things still are developing, and i am still in process, but I have never before thought that I, Hanna, am the other part of a relationship and I have to respond to what He is doing as a person in a real relationship. That maybe God wants me to love Him back.. yes, with all I do, but also with all I am. Yeah, i know it sounds like basic stuff.. but if you look at it on a deeper level - the God of the whole Universe wants and maybe even needs, as a person in a relationship, to see and know that you care about who He is.
Wow.. a God who needs.. it sounds so different.. almost revolutionary. "Needing" is probably not a good word to describe what i want to say - because i dont think God lacks anything. Rather, He yearns. He longs for.
Its crazy when you think about it.. He goes through hell, literally, just to get some response from us.
If any of you have been in a relationship where you have to wait for someone to make a step, when you have made yours and you just have no other option but to sit there - it can be absolute agony. You make yourself vulnerable, put your cards on the table and you just watch as the other person either responds or rejects or..delays even more! You cant manipulate - the response has to be real, authentic and meaningful... either in a good way or a painful way.
And just think how God waits for us to go through our motions, He doesn´t push or make us do anything - the response He is after has to come from our heart.
He passionately loves and is willing to do anything to win us to Himself.
It is the most romantic thing i have ever heard of...
and it truly makes me think of how little i know about love. Or, how little i´ve thought of it.

I would like to discuss this topic for forever, but it is getting rather late and i have work tomorrow.. so i´ll leave you with
TO BE CONTINUED

Party at my house, guys...

... because Im moving out!

yes, you heard it right - in about 2 weeks I will pack my stuff and move into an apartment near the city center.
I am so flippin excited i can barely contain myself!
Not that living here, in such an amazing place as Vääna-Jõesuu, right at the beach, is bad. It´s just time for a new episode in my life.

Kinda freaky actually, because this all became clear just this week. When i got back from Norway, gorgeous norway, i was absolutely confused about what i should do next - where or who would pay for my studies, what would happen with my job and where id be living.

But as I got home, it just so happened that all this stuff suddenly became clear to me. I took a student loan, at the same time 3 of my friends were looking for a roommate at this new gorgeous, renovated (with a sauna!) flat.. for the price of just ~2500 kroons per month.
HECK YES ILL MOVE IN :)!

so since you´re all dying to know what my new place looks like, here are a few shots:






I am just on my knees thankful for this opportunity.. and i know that this will be an amazing year, for all of us in that wikid apartment.

so.. ill leave you now, so you can envy me but more importantly plan a date when you can come visit me at my new home. if you can fit in my room - you are welcome to stay :)

catch ya later!

xx

Norway...

... is one of the most gorgeous places i have ever been to in my life. As soon as I got off the plane on the 24th of July, i was stunned.



I mean, honestly wow - you get to wake up in the morning to THIS? The mountains, the fjords, lakes, forests, trees...

When Brett picked me up at the airport in Kristiansand, i kept my nose against the window and there was no end to the sighs that came out of my mouth.
Guys, all the rumors you've heard about Norway being one of the most beautiful places in the world - they´re true.
So how come I ended up going there?
Well, to be rather honest - I don´t know. I made practically no efforts at all to go on this trip. It was just randomly organized for me by people from Foursquare. All I had to do was get on the plane and go.
The whole story started when I met up with Brett & Tammy Toft (pastors from the Foursquare movement and very good family friends) for lunch in Tallinn around April. I never knew them really well, but I just felt this odd urge to go and talk to them. I wasn´t really sure why or what I was supposed to say, but as soon as church ended that day, i couldn´t wait to see him and Tammy.
That lunch ended up being a long serious conversation about my future where God just did something with me. I left with a renewed spirit, a sense of purpose and clarity about where and why God wanted me to go.
But that was it for me. I never thought that dialogue would continue.
Some time later, I received an email from Brett where he invited me to a youth camp as a group leader. Before i could even start thinking about saying no because of financial difficulties, he said i would not have to worry about money.
I was like wow. Allright, i could do that. I could fly to Norway in the summer - id love to! And to a youth camp? Heck yes!
So he got me in touch with Adam, the camp leader. We e-mailed back and forth and in May, I had a cup of coffee with him (+ a few other guys) as well. And throughout this time, i could just feel something build up in me.. this sense that God will do something really significant for everyone involved with this camp.
Every time I met someone who was taking part in organizing it, I got more and more excited. It was the greatest privilege to be a part of something so amazing.
I was asked whether i could be one of the speakers at camp and not giving it too much thought, i said yes (yeah, i know, BIG surprise right there).
Time flew and suddenly it was time to go. I cannot put to words how glad i was to leave Estonia. The past 6 months of my life have probably been the hardest i have ever experienced, so i was on my knees grateful that God knew me better than i did myself, and He took me away before i could work myself to insanity.

The trip started with 4 days of just resting. I ´ll call it a retreat, because that's what it was. My time off from life, responsibilities and pressure. At the airport in Oslo, i had like 6 hours of waiting to do, so i took some time and talked with God. Just listened if He would speak to me.
He did. But in a way i would not have expected. I was all trying to focus and get my thoughts around what He was doing in me, when i suddenly felt Him ask me a question.
He said:"Hanna.. how are you?"
Me(obviously a bit shocked):"emm.. i´m good. there´s so much going on.. but its all going good - university, youth group, work..".
God:"Hanna.. how are you?"
I took my time before answering to that. Because i could suddenly just see my life from another perspective. I saw myself just working so hard towards something.. i called it divine purpose, but in real life, there was really little room for God.

Its kinda freaky the way you just don´t see yourself sometimes. Weariness hardens the heart and in a way makes you blind.

As i realized this at the airport, i was rather shocked. But i also had know idea what i needed to do about it - so i decided that i will just be right who i am... and allow god to do what he wants to do.

and I ended up being more blessed by the whole trip than i can put to words...
At the Toft´s house - just being able to be around them.. go kayaking, sleeep, do nothing, swim in the lakes, eat cherries, sunbathe... ahh guys i know this sounds unreal - but i think i actually had a holiday!!
After 4 days, i was a different person.
I have never really had like a mentor or anything like that in my life.. but God was so directly expanding my heart through who these people are. And it felt so good. So so good. I just let go of things i had been clutching onto in my life.

Then it was time for camp. I was just so excited to go! I didn´t know anyone besides Adam, but i could not wait to see where God was taking me.
And dude, i just LOVE international camps - there were youth there from Norway, Great Britain, Ireland, USA, Estonia.. all together about 60-70 ppl.
I have to admit i was way nervous the first day... i guess not knowing anyone at all can be intimidating. Hah, but when the group of Estonians arrived (i hadn´t met them before) i just felt like at home and got all excited!
This was my first time at a camp like this as a leader. And honestly - i felt like the biggest idiot, because i had no idea what i was supposed to do! Luckily neither did Kaspar, the other Estonian leader :D (tänks mees!!), so we just had a good laugh the first night, when all these instructions were laid before us and we were like... whatta..

Youth work is all about practice. There is very limited amount of theory, mostly just have to jump into something you´ve never done before and see how it goes. And that is just so much fun - its one of the reasons i love being able to do what i do! by the second night, my focus shifted from what i need to do to what God is doing in the kids. Ahh we had heaps of fun. And it was so amazing to see how God just changed the kids and the leaders!

My highlights - meeting absolutely amazing people, whom I hope i get to be friends with for life; seeing God at work so intensely; having a blast at the Bö waterpark...(yes, i did all the big and scary slides)


and getting so much changed in me in the process.

I am astonished...
There was one more significant thing that happened to me there. I totally fell in love with playing the guitar again - which is a huge deal, because i had kinda shut that bit out of my life. And i realized how much i had underestimated the importance of music as a part of who i am. I am so glad i am finding that bit again.. so you can expect to see me play again soon!!

well.. since its late and im getting tired here is my last thought of the day - if god tells you to jump, do it, because youre in for one amazing ride.

ill try to write again soon!

Love ya!