I’ve experienced a plethora of emotions while living here at Joshua. Each day is loaded with different things, varying from classes, activities, work, events, and more. Sometimes it feels like I can never catch a break and I’m left feeling stressed and overwhelmed. However, I realized there is something that we do every single day in Joshua that gives us some much-needed relief. That thing is solo time.
Solo time is one hour every morning when we get to be alone with God. This time is useful for prayer, meditation, memorization, or anything we feel is necessary. I’ve found this to be the most valuable hour of my day because it has allowed me to grow in the way that I intended to before coming to Joshua.
It’s easy to get absorbed by everything happening and to lose sight of why I came here in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, classes, events, and community are all great and super important; the alone time with God is just absolutely essential. Solo time has helped me recapture my purpose of attending Joshua, which is to further my walk with God and to make Christ the #1 priority in my life.
One of my favorite things to do during solo time is to simply read through an entire book of the Bible. I’ve only done this a few times but I’ve found it to be crucial in my spiritual growth. So far I have read through John, Galatians, James, 1 Thessalonians, and Revelation. Diving straight into the Word of God has been the most fruitful exercise for me and has helped push me toward my goal of becoming a better disciple.
To whoever reads this, I’m praying for you.
-Seth Ondo
As we prepare to depart to Hume SoCal next week for our first big trip, we have been enjoying a week of rest. We are still busy all the time, but our schedule has been a little more relaxing the past few days.
Each week we have a new speaker who comes and preaches and speaks to us after dinner four nights of the week, but we didn’t have a speaker this week and instead filled that time with a game night, Joshua soccer game, fantasy-themed dinner night, and a movie night! It’s been good to spend time taking in all the information and relaxing. We all missed having a speaker though and look forward to our next speaker after our week at Hume SoCal.
Our schedules are pretty rigorous, but we are finding intentional time to learn more about each other and God in all that we do. One of my favorite aspects of Joshua is the community. I love living in a big house in the woods with a bunch of my best friends. They truly feel like family and on hard days I feel immeasurably loved and cared for. Breakout worship sessions, surprise adventures in the woods, finding new shortcuts to work, talking about life, and hiding little baby dolls all over the building have been some fun ways we’ve bonded.
While the community is so good, it can be overwhelming at times. This week I struggled personally as I battled through some things, but there is no better place to take on challenging truths and ask hard questions than at Joshua. There is such a strong, faith-led, loving community that had prayed over me in moments of hurt and confusion. It’s been such a beautiful glimpse of the body of Christ and the strong community that can be found in faith.
Classes have been so amazing and we are learning so much every day. Every week we’ve been here so far, God has lined up what we are learning about in every class, book discussion, and sermon we hear. Last week everything happened to be about the attributes of God and the realities of sin. Isn’t that neat?
We also had our first catalyst this week! Our catalyst couples are people who have lived lives worthy of the gospel. They come and stay with us and bake cookies, join us for classes and events, pray with us, and share deep wisdom. It was such a blessing to glean advice from them and have them love on us this week. This particular couple will be back in March to see how much we’ve grown and spend another week with us. We are so excited!
I ask that you pray for our trip to Hume SoCal, that we can be the hands and feet of Jesus and get lots of work done! We are excited for a change of pace and a chance to get off the hill and go on a road trip! We also are excited about the opportunities to serve and learn more about Jesus down there.
Talk to you guys soon!
Cassidy Voss