ADRIANA'S BACK!

Adriana is back from Mexico and the fun times are rolling!

Last night Lindsay and I were up on the 3rd floor watching Beth Moore and when it was finished Adriana came up and we all started talking and stuff. Then we were hungry so we went downstairs to eat chips and salsa, and it turns out it was 2 in the morning! AH! So I ended up not going to bed until 2:45 and I slept through my alarms and was 45 minutes late to work today. All this after I just got a raise at work last week, and the chapter we just did in our catalyst book was all about integrity and we talked about it for like an hour during our meeting last week. And I couldn't figure out anything I really wanted to give up for Lent this year and then it hit me the day Lent started that I should give up sleeping past my first alarm. I will (supposedly) sacrifice all that extra snooze time. I even wrote an email to my roommates letting them that if they hear my alarm go off twice in one morning to pull me out of bed and punt me down the stairs. There were other graphic details in the email besides that but I am not allowed to share those things on the internet. I am failing miserably at life! At least I'm a happy failure : ) I have not gotten up at the first alarm once, but tomorrow is a new day, and I am determined.

But the none the less it was worth it to stay up til 2:45 last night. I was talking to someone the other day who said he wouldn't mind living alone. I can't fathom that. I love love love LOVE having people around all the time. 8 is the perfect number of roommates, or maybe even more. Take last night for instance, that would never happen if I lived alone, or even with only one other person. There is always someone around to talk to, always someone to hang out with, eat with, etc. I love community living and can't imagine life any other way. Which brings me to marriage. How can I live with just one other person?! What if he wants to go to bed early and I'm not tired? What would I do? Or say he comes home late from work, I would be so lonely without others constantly around : (  Especially without girls around who want to talk, and talk about everything. And half the time we are talking about sex ... once we are all married and actually having sex we aren't gonna have anything to talk about!!!! I LIKE LIVING WITH GIRLS! This is when Lindsay Kerr calls me a lesbian. Imagining eating meals almost every night with just one other person is heart-breaking because I'm so used to the kitchen bustling with like 5 other people trying to cook different things at the same time. But a bigger part of me thinks, what if I never get married?! That's an even worse thought. I guess I can sacrifice living with friends for the joys and trials of marriage and kids and raising my own big family. I guess eventually that kitchen will fill up with people, people who look, talk, and act like me, wahahahhaha!!

I hope next year we have as much fun in the house as I've had the last 2.75 years!! When Adriana moves out is also going to be a sad sad day, just like when Lindsay leaves me for the bliss of LA. Last night Adriana was saying how she's lived there for 4 years and she's gonna have to go around and collect all her stuff from each room. The house will definitely feel different. She was my first friend when I subleased the summer before all my friends moved in and I didn't know anyone in the house. At least she has helped us prepare by leaving us for Mexico for months at a time. I guess I survived that, I can survive her moving 10 minutes away, although it will put a damper on some of my fun. I don't know who is going to be the inappropriate one in the house after she moves out, or who is going to be blasting the sweet dance music, or bringing hot latino guys over, or yelling out the windows with me at strangers walking by : (

VDAY is coming up!! Do I have a date?! NOPE! Do I ever have a date, honestly! That's ok because Jenalee Jamie Steph Lindsay and I are going to have our own special vday funness! I don't know what I'm going to do for valentines day once Jenalee moves away. That will practically be like losing my boyfriend. Hopefully she stays in Cbus. All in all I am projecting an entertaining night full of laughter, good food, good friends, and good wine (from Santa Cruz, yay project!). That sounds like the best valentines day that I can imagine.

Going to LA this weekend with Brooksy Moshie and Steph to visit the one and only ANN YEH! It's 70's right now and I can't freaking wait to be in the warm weather soaking up the rays with all those fun people. I'll keep readers posted on any happenings that go on while we are there. In the before trip emails that have been floating around supposedly we are ending up at a club with the Olsen twins fri or sat night and Brooksy calls the rehab one.

slash

Remember that time ... we used to say "slash" alllllll the time? I want to start doing that again. I haven't said slash out loud in a long time, and I was just journaling and I wrote out "slash" instead of just making a slash bc I wanted the effect of saying it out loud slash I am a loser who lives (or has lived) with a bunch of other fun losers and they have way too much influence over me : )

Let the slashing begin. My goal, three times today. This might be tough since I have meetings all day slash night. I can't say slash at a church meeting slash I could but I would feel like a renard. Only my roommates could truly appreciate a slash the way it should be appreciated. Slash Adriana is home from Mexico and she always brings out the best of the slashes in us. I love starting sentences with slash. One time Adriana Lindsay and I sat in the kitchen and started every sentence with slash for like half an hour. It was good times.

When Lindsay Kerr is gone from the kingdom it is going to be a sad sad day and I am NOT looking forward to it slash I know she is moving on to a new exciting chapter in her life. 

Booo for friends moving out of c-bus, yaaaaaay for God teaching me contentment. Slash I want to throw slash into everything now, dang it! And now the word is becoming all twisty and weird and not sounding like a real word anymore.

Slash writing this felt reallllllly good because slash has been dying to come out and I've been ignoring it.

ME JOB!

Can I just say I love my job!! It's incredible to me how God placed me at Bethel and knows exactly where I'll thrive and what I'll enjoy doing. First of all during the service in the morning I was looking around and even though it's a pretty small church there are so many crusade people there. TONS! And it makes me happy to know people at church. Secondly, I love the middle schoolers. I think around 15 of them came to the superbowl party and they are so fun to hang around. I love being around people and hanging out and eating and thats all I did yesterday for 5 hours, and I got paid to do it, which seems ridiculous to me! ps, the middle schoolers are CRAZY, but so much fun. Lastly, Bethel is starting to feel like home. I'm starting to know more people, feel more comfortable, joke around with the kids more, there are actually young adults that hang out sundays after church and at the hub, and it's awesome!

God is crazy good and provided for me in so many ways. I had no idea what to do or where to go after college, and of course God has provided me housing, friends, a job, ministry to be involved in, ways to get poured into, and all that good stuff he promises in his Word, ""Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[a]?

 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Church job does come with it's ups and downs, I had a parent mad at me saturday morning, and I spend about 5 hours a week driving middle schoolers to and from their house which in turn, turns into about $500 dollars a week in gas, and there are definitely frustrating aspects to the job, but coming off of a great weekend I am so satisfied there, and happy that God knows what He is doing with my life, even though I don't.

And I got to take home leftovers so I have a huge ziploc bag of little bbq wieners, a footlong loaded sub, and a tray of DELICIOUS buffalo chicken chip dip waiting for me for lunch today. yummy.

One bad thing about bethel is that the only young adult guys are ones that I know already and would not date, so that leaves me with no options for potential boyfriend/spouse. But that just leaves it open for God to bring a guy into my life from some crazy situation, or make me wait until I leave c-bus in a few years. If all else fails there's always Ann with her seminary connections at Fuller, maybe I'll have to end up with some hot californian surfer dude who loves Jesus.

One more thing, our house is doing a fruit and veggie competition to see who can eat the most servings of fruits and vegetables between jan 12th and Feb 12th, and I AM WINNING!!! No one else is too competitive so it's not really a challenge, but STILL, I'M WINNING!!!!

McFatty

Pizza and "common misconceptions about Islam" was faaaaaantastic.

The classroom discussion didn't get as lively as I hoped, but it was very informative and interesting. We talked about Islam being oppressive to women, what they believe about Jesus, why people think it is a violent religion, etc. Afterwards Mallory, Kelly, and I sat around with 4 Muslim women and asked them questions about their faith. That was a lot of fun. Although my heart breaks for people who live their lives never being sure of if they are going to heaven. These women said you don't worry about that, you live a good life, you try to get closer to God, and in the end if you've lived a good enough life you go to heaven. One girl even said, "You never know, that one day you didn't pray 5 times, that could be what sends you to hell." How awful. Very interesting faith though, I would like to get my hands on the Quran and read through it.

Anyways, the real reason for this entry is that I can hear myself getting fatter at work. Everyone brought in leftover halloween candy and we already keep all the office candy in the drawers of my desk and in a bowl on my desk, and no one is around me so I eat it all day!!! And it's getting pretty bad. This morning I had a chocolate doughnut, then right before lunch I downed 3 packets of peanut M&Ms, then just a few minutes ago I tore through 3 mini snickers in a row. AND on top of this I have been eating random starbursts and tootsie rolls throughout the day!! Sick, I am disgusted with myself. And to make matters worse. I have to eat at T. Bell or Wendys tonight. Next time you see me I will probably be waddling around.

If you recognize me, roll me home please.

PIZZA and MUSLIMS!

Tonight Mallory is taking me to eat pizza and have discussion with Muslims and others!!! I have pretty much only been hanging out with Christians for a long long time now, so I am super excited and kind of nervous., weird huh?! Should be a good time : ) And hopefully I can start making non-Christian connections.

I have felt really convicted about the way myself and every other christian I know lives their lives from reading Shane Claibornes book Irresistable Revolution. None of us have really and truly "taken up our cross" and "given our life to Jesus." We all live in comfortable America where we have no need for God. Every one of our needs is met, that leaves no room to depend on God. No room to experience God, experience his miracles. Life is different when you give your life to the homeless. He started hanging out with the homeless all the time (bc thats what Jesus did) and eventually started sleeping on the streets with them. It was a miracle when they would wake up with blankets on them. Also, all these homeless people moved into an abandoned old catholic church and the archdiocese and city officials kept wanting to quietly evict them. But Shane and the other people at his school would take shifts being there so that there would be too many people there supporting the homeless for them to do anything about it. They bought a cell phone and an airhorn, and the people at the church would call someone on campus if the authorities were coming, Shane or someone would go to the center of the campus (small christian school) and blow the airhorn and whoever could would get in cars and drive to the church so that they couldnt force the homeless people out. THEN the fire marshall was going to come look through it so he could evict them. The night before he was supposed to come and inspect there was a knock at the door at midnight and it was two firefighters. They walked through the church and pointed out everything they needed to do before the next morning. THEN THEY DROVE THEM TO THE FIRESTATION AND GAVE THEM BOXES AND BOXES AND SMOKE DETECTORS AND HELPED THEM EXIT SIGNS AND FIRE EXTINGUISHERS. The Marshall came through the next day and couldn't evict them. I want to see and experience God's miracles like that.

And another funny story about the homeless living in the church situation. "One day we recieved a box of donations from one of the wealthy congregations near our college. Written on the box were the words, 'for the homeless'. Excited, I opened it up to find the entire box filled with microwave popcorn. My first instinct was to laugh. We barely had electricity, much less a microwave, and popcorn wasn't on the top of the needs list. My second instinct was to cry because of how far the church had become removed from the poor. Later that week another group of folks brought donations by St. Ed's - the mafia. With the media jumping on the story, the mafia had came by and gave bikes to each of the kids, turkeys to each family, and thousands of dollars to the organization. I thought to myself, I guess God can use the mafia, but I would like God to use the church."

How awesome would it be to be a part of their community?! I really need to start hanging out with homeless people. Anyone with me? I wish I could take the middle schoolers to eat with a homeless person but I have a feeling their parents would FREAK! Anyways, I probably won't do much by myself but if anyone wants to come alongside me and start building relationships with the poor and homeless of columbus ohio let me know.