Spring is in the Air

Yes, indeed! This past winter was long and dreary enough after all, and it's great to see that nature comes to live again. Even though I don't have much nature surrounding me, I'm delighted to see each blossoming tree and budding flower around here. The sun is shining warmer and warmer and the days are getting longer. Thank you Lord it's spring again!

A sigh of relief

I gave my health presentation today and it went pretty well. There were about 20 colleagues attending. I had the impression that it was well received by most of the attendees, except one lady who didn't agree with me on some things. I found this a bit difficult to handle, but at the end it was fine. I think that there is still a lot I could improve as for my public speaking skills, but of course the best way is to get up there and talk. So I'm thankful that I had this opportunity and I'm even more grateful that I was able to share the 8 laws of health with some secular people. I think I didn't go too far as for the "trust" part - but  hopefully I gave them some food for thought. The lady from the human resources department came up to me afterwards, telling me that she was planning on starting a working group on "Health and Wellbeing", and that she wanted me to be part of it. Of course I agreed, and I hope that this will give me more opportunities as the Lord leads. My former colleague from Greece also came, even though he works in a different area of town. He sent me an e-mail afterwards, saying: "I can subscribe to 100% of what you said, the only question being how one could put them in practice! We will anyhow discuss more on Thursday..." Yes, I will have a lunch appointment with him then, so I will see!

My cooking class yesterday also went well. I even had two men attending. They always have a lot of questions, and it was pretty exhausting. But I like to do this work, and hopefully next time, I will also have some non-Adventists attending. I was actually able to establish some contacts with people outside the church who were interested, including a couple in the neighborhood, but they couldn't make it this time.

Ok, so what's next? I don't know if there is more I can do other than the things that I've been doing, but I hope the Lord will make things very clear to me. He has me here now for a reason, no doubt about that, however there is always the temptation to get somehow discouraged because my opportunities are so limited. I recently came across an interesting quote of Dr. Charles Stanley, an evangelical pastor:

‎"If God has placed you in a certain position, He will handle all the
details concerning it and your life. Your only responsibility is to obey
Him and leave the consequences to Him."

I find this very encouraging. After all, God is the one who knows all the details of our lives, and He can certainly handle them all. May He help us to obey Him and to listen to His voice today.

What an Opportunity

Winter time is still not over here, however the sun has been shining often these past few days, and this of course makes a big difference. At work, things are going fine. The temporary arrangement with me having to be in the unit's secretariat in the afternoons is actually not that bad. My head of unit is nice to work with after all, and this also gives me more opportunity to socialize with my colleague Cristina.

I'm currently working on the so called Car Price Report. This is a compilation of the prices of the most popular car models marketed in the EU, which is published by our Directorate-General every year. Since our unit deals with this sector, it's up to us to prepare it. So I've been swamped by excel tables which have been filled out by over 20 car manufacturers. It's my task to transfer the data to our tables, add new car models and bring everything into the right format. Another colleague, who is an economist, is going to do some calculations later on and finalize the report. I was joking with him the other day, because of the fact that we are working in this sector, however we both do not even own a car! Last year, there was another colleague who was in charge of this task, and I just assisted her. Now, I'm on my own with it, which I was a bit apprehensive of, since I'm not an expert in excel. But I'm thankful that I have been able to solve every problem so far.

Last week, I received an unexpected e-mail. I had mentioned some time ago that I got to talk to a lady from our Human Resources department on giving health presentations at our DG. She was really open to it and wanted to schedule me, but the problem was that our HR manager wasn't sure whether he wanted to have any training courses offered which are not related to competition policy. I've been put on hold with this again and again, so I didn't really expect it to happen anymore. Well, it seems that he finally made up his mind, because I've now been asked to give a talk! It will take place on 21 March during lunchtime. I'm quite excited and very grateful for this opportunity, but also quite nervous of course. I'm going to give a presentation on the eight laws of health. The day before, on March 20, I had already scheduled another cooking class at my home, so I will be very busy those days! I hope and pray that everything will turn out to God's glory.

Well, I better continue preparing my presentation :-)

On the occasion of the international women's day, one of my male colleagues sent out this mimosa today to all the females in the unit. Very thoughtful, isn't it?