Lessons, missing, happiness & memories:

Time is sadly drawing to an end...
What I’ll miss/memories:
– Cheryl and I hanging out with Jack Bauer. Before we watch 24 one of us will say either "Lets go visit Jack" or "we’ve a date with Jack now" Ill also miss Cheryl and Dana guessing/asking me what’s going to happen with my reply always being… "Dunno" as I’ve seen it before and wont tell them anything!
– Going to Applebees, TGI Fridays or Chili’s after God Squad on a Tuesday night for a wee bit of craic!
- The Milnes family
– Our Wednesday morning Junior high school staff meetings
– The office Banter
– Jimmy John sandwiches
– My massive double bed- I love how you can just leave stuff on one side of the bed and go to sleep without either lying on the stuff during the night or it falling off!
- The snow: even though there is a lack of it here for this time of year
– Constantly reminding myself to drive on the right hand side of the road!
- Driving my jeep in the snow
– Watching Home Improvement between 5-6pm
– Maggie’s [The dog] amusing behavior
- Strawberry gushers
– Thinking I was going to get verbally attacked/chucked out of a café in Chicago for not actually wanting a vegan chocolate brownie [Which was disgusting and tasted of fruit by the way!]
– Discovering cultural/language differences.
– The Steelers winning the super bowl!
- 99.1 WMYX Milwaukee: They have a 9-5 no repeat radio show its great you hear songs you aint heard in years!
-Blankets
- Burning my feet in the shower [Random wierd story]
- "Did you know thats made is Pittsburgh?"/ "thats from Pennsylvania"

What I’ll not miss:
- After 5-6 weeks it gets very tiring to be continually meeting new people and answering the same questions about being from Northern Ireland.
– Always having to ask for no ice as over here they fill the glass with that much ice you barely get any drink! I did get some funny looks at times for not wanting ice and also asked if I was German for some reason!
– Jet Lag [Although I’ve to go through it all over again soon enough!]

What I’m happy about:
- Firmly implanting the words ‘craic’ and ‘wee’ on the minds of my Elmbrook friends.
– Being able to come back and visit.
– Being out of the rut/run of the mill life at home for a while and getting new experiences.

Lessons learnt [written in brief]:
– That I never want to get to the stage where I am hardened to God’s voice.
– I came to realise that no matter what I thought in the past about my relationship with God, that when a lot of things were stripped away here and at home that God wasn’t really my number 1 and I had no idea how to really cling to him and how to be really comforted by him.
– That I want my life to really light up and shine for God.
– That I can adapt to new people and surroundings pretty well and easily- I don't always need a team by my side.
– How much of an impact our decisions make not only on our lives but of people around us, that every decision means something and has consequences. I’m not just talking big decisions like jobs etc but the choice to gossip, to obey your parents wishes, not to watch that film & to keep to the speed limit etc
- That size and money does'nt always mean better ministry

Ok I'm done but there is much much more.