I am one measly presentation away from finishing my first year in graduate school. For said presentation my only preparation was to print off pdf fact sheets about the Prison Industrial Complex to use in our small group discussions tomorrow during class. At approximately 5:30pm tomorrow evening. My year will be over, and a new phase will begin. I will no longer be Phyllis Chill- student in graduate level courses. But Phyllis Chill Master of Arts in Social Justice Candidate and Site Director at the Osage Reservation Site with Youthworks Inc. I am still a student, but no more classwork. Hurray. My mom just said "yeah right, you'll find another degree to get." haha. Yeah.. probably so. But not yet!!!! NOT YET!! I am excited to see where my summer brings me, where this degree brings me and the further stretching to come. This time next year I will hopefully in the graduation process. That means I'll have my Masters at 24. I am not going to lie. I am proud of my work this year, and excited to put it to use in the coming year.

Now that that is done..

I drive to Michigan on Sunday and fly to Minneapolis on Monday. What a whirlwind. I am super excited to finally meet my staff, start our training, and get to work for the summer.

Right now I am going to go pull together all the stuff I have been learning about the Osage so that my staff can learn as well. I don't want us all going into a situation we know nothing about. Should be fun.

God has been teaching me something lately. I am amazed at how he works sometimes. I have been doing my best to be obedient and read daily, to pray when I stress rather than whine, and to verbally process with him rather than dumping on those around me. I keep failing miserably but the one thing that keeps coming back to me is the phrase "Take up your mat and walk". Something that has always been a struggle for me is to just make a decision and change a behavior. They say if you do something for 28 days it becomes a habit and you are more likely to stick with it. You just have to force yourself to be intentional about it for 28 days. Lately when things come up that I want to be doing (or not doing), the phrase "Take up your mat and walk" rings through my head. I think just make the decision to ____ and start doing it. Yeah you won't be perfect but you don't just wake up one day and _____ you have to work at it. And to work at it you have to start doing it. So just take up your mat and _____. There are a lot of things that might be inserted into the ____: read daily, pray daily, be patient, love people, don't lie, be responsible, don't pinch people etc. There's a lot of things. And one by one each day I am trying to be intentional about my decisions. So if you see me waddling around struggling with something awkward and heavy. It's probably just my mat. It's ok though. I can tell Jesus has the other end of it.. its like those machines that help you do chin-ups..