Salad Days

Love from afar

2012-02-12T22:49:00.000-08:00

Goodbyes are hard. We love "sending" our friends off into the world to do great things that have an eternal impact... but it still tugs at the heart strings.

I am thankful for our sweet faraway friends, and I am SO thankful for Skype

Charli made me a valentine and tried to stuff it in the cd-drive :)

Steven came home soon and joined us, so Keith perked up.

Skype makes the distance seem smaller sometimes :)

Hummus Recipe

2012-02-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sipping tea and snacking on a tupperware full of homemade hummus that cost about $0.00058743 to make. And since the most time-consuming part of the process is just letting the beans soak and cook, it really only required about 5 minutes of hands-on time. Tasty, healthy, cheap, and easy! That's my kind of snack!

Dried beans are the Methuselah's of pantry foods. I don't think they ever spoil. And they're way cheaper than canned, so I bought a bag of garbanzo beans last year. They're still good! Soaked ½ cup of them in water for a day, then changed the water and crockpotted them overnight. Drained them and went on campus while they cooled off. When I came home, I dumped them in the food processor with:

3 Tbs tahini (available at the Middle Eastern-owned Yolo Fruit Stand)
2 Tbs lemon juice (a teammate has a lemon tree and brought a big box of lemons to the pool to share)
½ tsp salt
1 garlic clove

Blend it all up, then let the processor run while drizzling in olive oil through the chute until the hummus is the smoothness you like. I think I added about 1 Tbs of olive oil. This is just a scaled down version of this hummus recipe from Allrecipes.

Tea and hummus... reminiscent of my STINT days in the Middle East!

Don't Wait Until Race Day

2012-02-08T23:43:00.000-08:00

This week during Community Group ("Commie Group," as I like to call it), we discussed chapter 3 of Crazy Love by Francis Chan. We got to talking about what helps us stay grounded in God's love when life gets hard.

We all agreed that it's what we do when the heat's NOT on us that helps us stay grounded in God's love. Praying, soaking up God's Word, submitting to His will, relying on the Holy Spirit, putting others' needs above our own... those are all muscles we have to exercise daily. It doesn't make sense to be lazy in spiritual disciplines until we NEED something-- blurting out a prayer when we're in crisis, fasting only when you're deciding whether or not to date a guy, or searching the Bible for wisdom only when deciding on a career.

I know God is in the business of changing lives, and far be it for me to put a formula to when, whose, or how. But from what I've read in the Bible and observed from life, spiritual growth is a partnership, like the partnership between a sailor and the wind. The Thirsty devotional likens it to crossing an ocean:

"Some people try, day after day, to be good, to become spiritually mature. That's like taking a rowboat across the ocean; it's exhausting and usually unsuccessful. Others have given up trying and throw themselves entirely upon 'relying on God's grace.' They're like drifters on a raft; they do nothing but hang on and hope God gets them there. Neither trying nor drifting are effective in bringing about spiritual transformation. A better image is the sailboat, which if it moves at all it's a gift of the wind. We can't control the wind, but a good sailor discerns where the wind is blowing and adjusts the sails accordingly."

It takes time to learn those skills, and the spiritual muscles that respond to the Lord and raise the metaphorical sails need constant exercise if they're going to do the right thing when needed.

I understand why the Bible uses so many metaphors to describe the Christian life that entail constant work with gradual, though often unnoticeable progress, until some big day. Metaphors pertaining to:

Agriculture (eg: 2 Timonthy 2:6): You wake up early and tend the fields day after day. Eventually, you reap a harvest.
Sports (eg: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27): You train, eat carbs, do lunges and windsprints. Eventually, it's race day.
Military (eg: 2 Timonthy 2:4): You leave familiar comforts, endure boot camp, run for miles with full packs, forgo sleep. Eventually, it's time for battle.

It would be silly to plow the fields at harvest; it would be silly to do lunge-walks around the track on race day; it would be silly to drop and do 100 push-ups during battle. But we so often do this in our spiritual lives when we experience hardship and think, "Time to start reading my Bible more," or "This is when I should pray more."

Triathletes often press the importance of having no surprises on race day. I joined the Davis Tri team during my senior year of college, wanting to complete an olympic distance triathlon before graduating. My teammates would often go out toward Lake Berryessa to get in some hill training. I never joined them because the loops through the local farmlands are far more comfortable!

My first race was in San Luis Obispo, and it was HILLY. I had trained exclusively in Davis, where it is NOT hilly. I don't know what I was thinking. Trucking up a steep hill near the end of the 26-mile bike leg, my legs burned. I was going SO SLOWLY that I actually lost ALL momentum and tipped over, with my feet still clipped in the pedals. It wasn't a proud moment.

Likewise, I don't expect to understand the Bible, hear God's voice clearly, or be selfless in a high-stress situation if I'm not training for it day in and day out.

Today when we went sharing at noon, Cameron, Alana, and I talked with a really sweet girl named Ayaca. She asserted that while life was good, she saw no reason to turn to God. He seems to her like someone living behind a glass door that reads "in case of emergency, break glass."

I didn't know how to communicate the urgency to Ayaca... Wake up, girl! NOW is the time to learn what the gospel says about God. NOW is the time to learn what the gospel says about you! And NOW is the time to surrender to Jesus! Don't wait until race day! He is worth following TODAY!

This is true for all of us-- Christian or not.

I made the decision to surrender to Jesus for the first time many years back. But that doesn't mean that I'm any better than Ayaca. I often find myself face-to-face with a hard truth that requires a disciplined, painful response... and I choose to postpone obedience.

Just to clarify, the gospel does NOT say "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make yourself a better person." It says that we are utterly incapable of changing ourselves, but God has covered over all those inadequacies. He rescued us from that reality. He gives us a new life, and if we accept this gift, He renovates us from the inside out. It's a process that requires daily surrender, though, much like agriculture, athletic training, or military conditioning.

One big area in my life where this convicts me is in the area of FASTING. The Bible talks about it as a spiritual discipline that everyone does-- not just the super-elite-hyper-spiritual. I know that Jesus gave us commands for WHEN we fast, not IF we fast. And I know that we don't need a special occasion to fast. It's enough reason to simply want to obey Him, become more aware of my need for God, hear His voice more clearly, and understand His will.

"But I've had such ROUGH fasting experiences," I whine. "I get so NAUSEOUS when I'm hungry! And cranky!" Thoughts of self-pity... not thoughts of Jesus-worship... consume my brain. (I guess that's revealing and convicting in itself, that when I'm weak, I turn to myself instead of to God.) But instead of obeying God through the difficulty and seeking His will, I've brushed off fasting as something I don't need right now.

And then a couple weeks ago the Holy Spirit started convicting me from all angles-- discussions with staff/core team, community group, sharing with Ayaca today, the Thirsty devotional we're going through... I'm putting my comfort above God's will and postponing obedience.

I'm seeing that NOW is the time to train. NOW is the time to trust God. He's rescued me and will never leave or forsake me; He gives me the ability to live for Him. Trusting Him and getting to know Him better is well worth my comfort.

Do YOU ever postpone obedience, since it's not yet "race day," and you don't yet feel the urgency?

RIP, Slagathor

2012-02-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

This cut cable lock, dangling on the bike rack, was all that remained of Slagathor, my amazing, trusty Jamis Commuter, who served me well for nearly 3 years. The U-lock that secured the front tire to the frame was probably sawed off later.

Slagathor was a masculine nickname given to a woman on "Scrubs." It suited my bike because it used to be a man's bike-- black paint, no frills. But I added floral handlebar grips and baskets when I bought it. Slaggy took me all over Davis, carried home groceries, and even went on summer project with us to Santa Monica. We had some good times together.

I checked Craigslist for my bike. I checked several times a day for weeks... until I realized that it probably wasn't good for my sanity. I even met someone downtown who was selling a bike that slightly resembled mine. It clearly was not my bike. I just sheepishly told her, "This isn't really what I was looking for. But you should have no problem selling it. Jamis Commuters are awesome bikes... "

Patrick Symmes, a writer for Outside magazine, writes in his article about bike theft:

In America’s rough streets, there are four forms of currency—cash, sex, drugs, and bicycles. Of those, only one is routinely left outside unattended.

Who knew Davis was such a rough town?

I enjoyed some good, empathetic chuckles while reading his article: Who Pinched my Ride? Tiring of bike theft, he glued tiny GPS trackers under bait bikes and hunted down the thiefs.

I love how he got Bike #6 back. After awhile of cordial/nutty conversation, Symmes simply pointed to the helmet he was carrying and remarked, "I have a helmet but no bike."

The thief understood and handed the bike over! Ha! Not unlike the vigilante bike justice in which we engaged last year!

It's amazing that I experienced no bike theft until my 7th year in Davis-- a town where bikes outnumber people, and bike theft is the most common crime. And I'm grateful that Desyre let me use her bike while she's in South Africa for STINT. It's green and beautiful with great shocks. Included in the lender were 2 very sturdy locks.

This one stays INSIDE the apartment with us!

Succulents

2012-01-30T15:01:00.000-08:00

It was sad coming home from South Africa to a dead succulent. They're supposed to be among the sturdiest plants, requiring hardly any water. They're related to cacti, which added insult to injury because, as Demetri Martin puts it, its death meant that I am less nurturing than a desert.

I've been trying to grow another succulent since then... this time noting that they DO need SOME water. But the big limiting factor to its growth has been LIGHT.

We live in an apartment with just 3 windows, and they all face east. Even in the morning hours, when the sun is rising, we get relatively little light because tall trees and more apartments block the sun.

So cute, right?

I brought home another succulent when a woman on my swim team was clearing out her yard. Apparently, they're SO easy to grow that they had multiplied and spread all over her garden. (Jealous.)

Re-using a mason jar that once contained homemade apple butter from my dear friend, Anna, I made it a nice little home and set it next to the other succulent. Oh, my. It rapidly became clear which had been living in our apartment, starved for light, and which had been enjoying the great outdoors.

I imagine it to be like in Toy Story when Woody entered Sid's house and proceeded with caution in this foreign environment... only to be greeted by abused, grotesque, disfigured toys who represented his possible fate.

What did this new succulent THINK when it met this pale, wilted plant?!

"GAH! What are YOU?! Will that be ME in a few weeks?!?!"

Some Googling told me that the sad succulent is suffering from etiolation, and it needs more light. Incandescent light doesn't do much for plants, since the bulbs burn too hot, and it scorches leaves without providing much useful, blue light. Fortunately, we have fluorescent bulbs.

During these cloudy, winter days, when setting the plants by a window just won't cut it, I'm employing this lamp to babysit my succulents. All day. Every day.

Keep your eye on them for me.

I will not have another succulent die! Not on my watch!

4020

2012-01-28T13:39:00.000-08:00

Every year my swim team participates in the 1-Hour Postal Swim. Masters swimmers all over the country compete to see how many yards they can swim in 1 hour.

Partway through the swim last year, I thought to myself, "Phew! This hurts! I am NOT going to do this again." But when I finished at 3990 yards-- just 10 yards short of my goal-- I knew I had to try again.

My old managerial economics professor, swam 4150 this year, and he's 40 years my senior. He promised me some guff if I failed to hit my goal of 4000 yards this year. That's motivation for ya!

This morning, Steven wielded a stopwatch for me and sat at the head of my lane, dutifully recording splits for a full hour. My goal was to surpass last year's yardage by a mere 10 yards... and I hit that goal! In fact, when I touched the wall at 4000 yards, I still had 15 seconds left, so I sprinted to the other end of the pool. Couldn't quite touch the other wall before time was called, but I was ecstatic!

Tired, sore, noodle-armed, and ecstatic.

4020! What a beautiful number.

Steven took me out to lunch to celebrate. We went to perhaps the happiest place in Davis-- Nugget Supermarket! I think the whole store was celebrating my personal Postal Swim victory because they set out the most amazing samples ever: jalapeño bread, asiago bread, lemon squares, entire slices of pizza, and baklava.

I might have had 3 pieces of free baklava. And felt no shame.

Nugget sandwiches, beet juice, free samples, and copious amounts of baklava. WHAT a way to celebrate!

"Home" is...

2011-12-20T23:21:00.000-08:00

"Wait-- do you mean where I live, or where I grew up?"

A guy I met at swim practice asked me this clarifying question the other day when I asked, in light of holiday travels, "Where's home for you?"

It's interesting how our definition of "home" evolves as we get older.

Visiting my parents' house (on Google maps)

For most of us, "home" is where we grew up.

Then, we move away, and while we refer to our dorm/apartment/rented house as the "home" to which we must return at the end of the day, we still talk about "going home" for the holidays, or "friends from home" coming to visit.

After college, we move from place to place as further schooling, jobs, or (in my case) missionary assignments make different "homes." We call wherever we rest our head at night "home," but I definitely felt "homesick" for my college town, Davis, and I still called my hometown, Fremont, my home. So... I had at least 3 "homes."

And then we got married, and in the spirit of leaving and cleaving, Steven and I retrained our verbage to refer to the apartment we share as "home," and to call our parents' house as just that-- our parents' house.

Nowadays, I have no connection at all to my parents' house-- the house I grew up in. Strangers are renting it out while my parents live in Shanghai for a couple years. Last time we were in Fremont, I envisioned the persimmon tree in the backyard, undoubtedly ripe for picking, and I wanted to knock on the front door and ask if I could pick their persimmons. (Or, if no one answered the door, just let myself into the backyard through the side gate.)

Steven cited social unacceptability and prohibited me from basically burglarizing the tenants.

"What if I explain who I am?"

No.

"But what if they don't know what persimmons are, and they're letting them fall to the ground and rot?!?!"

Nope... still socially unacceptable.

Darn.

I've been enjoying a relaxing few days at home during this break from campus... the home where we don't have YEARS of memories, but it's undoubtedly HOME.

It's the home where students come over for Bible study and Bananagrams, where we unpacked our wedding presents and moved in tons of Craigslist furniture, where Steven makes me laugh, where we consume metric tons of kettle corn while playing games with our friends.

Home is where all that stuff happens.

And I can still enjoy persimmons at home... I just have to buy them.

Loving him some Samples

2011-12-17T15:22:00.001-08:00

This afternoon, I was tap-tapping away on my computer, preparing to teach Sunday School tomorrow at church and also a seminar on personal finances at San Diego Winter Conference, when all of a sudden, I got the sweetest, most random, no-occasion text from my man:

"You're the best wife ever."

Of course, this made my heart melt a little. Curious as to what prompted this, I replied, "Why is that?"

In my head, I speculated: Is it because I brought him breakfast in bed today? Is it because I've been so good about sticking to our budget, even with holiday spending?

No-- none of those things. My man simply loves him some Costco samples.

Pretty gifts

2011-12-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

I am NOT a crafty person.

My sister-in-law, Emily, and I will both be aunties in April, and she is the craftiest, most artistic person I know. I envision that she will bedeck our nephew in all things adorable and homemade, and I will serve as a workhorse. I'll vacuum, change his diapers, and do the laundry. I leave the crafting to other people!

But every now and then I discover something so simple that even I can do it.

My afternoon has consisted of baking and gift-wrapping, with Dave Ramsey in the background. My idea of a relaxing time.

Desyre gave me these pompon makers for Christmas, and I used them to wrap some presents à la this idea from Pinterest:

And I dug out an accessory made of felt circles that I'd saved from a gift awhile back-- it was from Anthropologie. I realized that it would be incredibly easy to make!

Just fold some felt circles into quarters and make a tiny snip.

It's look like this when you unfold it:

Thread a ribbon through them.

Then scrunch them up and tie a knot.

It makes a cute little accessory. Not sure what to call it. It's not a bow. I'll call it a... felt strata gift embellishment orb.

Yup.

There. Now you can make your OWN felt strata gift embellishment orb!

Spikeball

2011-11-27T17:32:00.001-08:00

God changed my life at Fall Retreat. He spoke through the weekend's speaker... and introduced us all to SPIKEBALL.

The game is 2-on-2 volleyball, except instead of making a big ball go over a net, you make a SMALL ball bounce OFF a net.

We brought it back to Davis, and it's one of my new favorite sports :)

Donuts vs. Flowers

2011-11-27T17:19:00.001-08:00

Steven and I had a cross-cultural experience the other day while talking with each other. Sometimes it's so funny how differently the genders think.

We were staying with some dear friends for a couple days, and we wanted to get them a little gift as a thank you.

Me: We should get them flowers! Look how pretty these are!
Steven: We should get them DONUTS! Donuts are awesome!

We went back and forth arguing the thoughtfulness of either gift... I pointed out that flowers' ephemerality make them special and extra-appreciated while they're around. Steven rebutted with the fact that delicious donuts are highly ephemeral, since they get eaten quickly.

I wonder if coming home with a dozen donuts for Steven would have the same effect on him as it does on ME when he comes home with surprise flowers. Something to test...

Date Night at 99 Ranch

2011-10-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

Monday night = date night = walking hand in hand through 99 Ranch.

If you live near an Asian supermarket like Lion or 99 Ranch, these places are no big deal... maybe even a chore to visit. But we've been apart from China, Chinese family, Chinatown, and Chinese food for a long time, so when Steven told me we were going to the 99 Ranch in Sac for date night, I was giddy.

Both our dinners in total cost $7-- dim sum in the evening! Then we perused the shelves.

Coconut sport balls? Yam jam, anyone?

Ouch!

We brought home lychee mochi and lychee jellies. I used to eat these jelly cups by the pound in junior high!

And Steven was stoked to get some fresh custard-swirl bread from the bakery.

Not your average date, but we loved it! Thanks for the creative, thoughtful, fun, romantic evening, Sweet Man!

Taking turns on the swings

2011-09-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Use those muscles, Cooper. I know it's hard.

Babysitting a couple weekends ago, we took the triplets to the park near their house. As we pushed them on the swings, they SCREAMED worship songs, as well as a rewritten version of "I believe I can fly" that went "I believe I can DIE" over and over again. If they weren't laughing so hard at their song parody, we would have been concerned.

Paisley's homemade superhero cape (or, as she calls it, her "Wobbin cape," presumably as in "Batman and Wobbin") flapped in the wind.

After about 20 minutes of this, Steven declared, "My turn now!" and sat down. Cooper audibly strained, trying SO hard to push this man who is easily 5 times his weight.

It was a crackup to watch :)

Eventually, he gave up and started throwing toy cars down the slide with a new friend. He didn't seem bothered by his defeat.

South Africa Summer Project... in rhyme

2011-09-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

LAX, JFK

Joburg, PE

How many bags made it with us? Just three!

This is our team.

Here is Ethan, darted.

Our egg-loving friend, James. Remember when he sharted?

Brrr it's cold!

Rooibos tea break

10 people in a car-- piece of cake!

Monkey food thief

Loud hadida bird

HOW long is that Xhosa word?!?!

We went surfing.

I got a traffic citation.

Steven's image of Heaven is male lactation.

Xhosa has clicks

Afrikaans is like Dutch

Why do the guys love that pole so much?

The end.

Learn a new world

2011-09-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

The 4 L's of overseas ministry with Cru are:

Love the Lord
Love your team
Learn a new world
Launch a movement

The most fun memories usually come from the 3rd L: learning a new world. Here are a few random glimpses of our culture-embracing experiences:

South Africans love braai's-- similar to barbeques, but they use wood instead of charcoal, and the food is cooked over an open pit.

Eagle Scout Javan manned the fire.

July and August are WINTER months in the Southern Hemisphere! With no heat, we bundled up, even at home.

Since South Africa was once a British colony, there are lots of British influences, such as breaks throughout the day with tea and biscuits...

Rachel, Amelia, and Anna in the STINTers' lovely flat

... and driving on the left side of the road.

It's no small feet to master stick shift using your left hand, driving on the left side of the road!

Caravanning behind Tyler through the Sundays River Valley

Afrikaaners often go out sans shoes-- to the mall, grocery store, wherever. The bowling alley even gave us the option of renting shoes OR going barefoot.

We went to a rugby game, cheered for the Eastern Cape Kings, and had a BLAST!

Cricket is still a mystery to me, though.

We tried the different flavors of snack foods they have out there.

They weren't ALL wins.

We learned to make do when American appliances wouldn't work in the foreign outlets.

Taxis were big vans stuffed with 20+ people... we similarly learned how to cram lots of people into a car!

We tried traditional foods such as...

... biltong-- similar to beef jerky, but far saltier

... samp and beans-- like clumps of cornmeal grits with beans and peanuts. This, with an over-easy egg was my favorite breakfast of the whole trip.

... pap-- a corn porridge

... bacon banana pizza

... chicken head, feet, and liver.

We sang in Xhosa

We couldn't always read fast enough to follow, but we tried!

All those experiences and more helped us laugh at ourselves fall in love with the culture. It was sad to say goodbye to all our friends in South Africa!

Ministry in South Africa

2011-09-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

By the numbers, it was a wildly successful summer. I honestly did not expect to see so many people respond so humbly to the gospel, erroneously thinking that nearly everyone in South Africa was raised in church; they've already heard the gospel, and if they're not walking with the Lord by college-age, it's because of an informed decision. I thought we'd mostly be surfacing Christians and sharing with them the power of the Holy Spirit, equipping them to be effective amongst their peers-- studying the Bible, understanding and articulating the gospel, loving God and people tangibly. I didn't expect to see many new believers this summer!

Reality was quite different. True, nearly everyone grew up going to church, but for many of the hundreds of students with whom we talked during our 4 weeks serving at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), students had heard and understood PARTS of the gospel... but needed a little bit of help piecing it together.

It's not too different from the U.S., in that the average church-goer still has a lot of BIG questions unanswered:

Yes, God is real and loving, and He came to earth as a man... but why did He have to die?
If He died in my place to pay the debt for my sins... then why did he raise again if the deed was done on the cross?
How can I be 100% sure that God accepts me when I backslide so much?
If we're not saved by works, what impact does behavior have in my spiritual life?
I BELIEVE all the stuff stated in the gospel, but how do I RECEIVE and EXPERIENCE the abundant life Jesus promised?
What IS the abundant life? Is God's idea of an abundant life the same as mine???

Each weekday, after morning prayer and worship, our team would break off into pairs and share the gospel with students for 4 or 5 hours. NMMU students are VERY friendly and open; some even remarked that our foreign-ness was evident by our asking permission to sit and join them to chat. South Africans commonly just crash a group's hanging out and make some new friends right there.

The average conversation would last about an hour; we'd go through a gospel booklet cover to cover; and the group would grow in size the whole time, as more and more friends joined and chimed in.

By summer's end, we'd seen over 30 students surrender their lives to Jesus, and 19 of them began follow-up. Many of them also began getting plugged in to the Cru movement at NMMU, signing up for discipleship groups, and taking the initiative themselves to pass on the good news of the gospel.

Yonela is one of those students. Amelia, one of the girls on our team, and I met her while sharing one day. She is smiley, bubbly, loves musicals and singing, and her popularity was marked by her constantly waving and shouting hey to passersby as we chatted at a table outside the library.

Amelia, Yonela, Anele, and Blondie

We shared the gospel with Yonela, and though she was active in her church, she had never heard the Bible's message explained so clearly before. She kept the booklet we gave her and put it up on her bedroom wall, sharing it with friends who visited her. Though generous to let them read it, she always demanded of them (semi-jokingly, semi-seriously), "You have to give it back. That's the only one I have."

Amelia and I cracked up when she told us that. After all, our team brought about 300 of those booklets to South Africa with us; we could definitely spare a few! Yonela excitedly accepted 10 more, and I swear, not even 30 seconds had lapsed after I gave them to her that a nearby friend saw the pile and eagerly snatched one to read.

Yonela began going to Cru's weekly meetings at NMMU and making friends there. We saw many students get plugged in to Cru, and we pray for still more to discover it as a safe place for questions, a reliable place to hear the gospel, a greenhouse for growth in wisdom and understanding, a challenging place to be trained and equipped! I'm excited to see how the Lord will work in and through the students we met this summer.

Greetings from Port Elizabeth, South Africa!

2011-08-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

Molweni!

I'm doing the typical American tourist thing right now and writing a quick post from an internet cafe. Our team of 14 is in our 5th and final week in Port Elizabeth... man, has it been an adventure!

Pictures and stories to come, but here are some glimpses into what life has involved this summer:

We travelled over 24 hours to get here, and only 3 of our 14 checked bags made it to PE with us, initially!
We spent a week mostly getting to know the culture and helping with an after school program at a local township. Most of us had never witnessed such poverty before-- kids without shoes on their feet or food in their stomachs! Some of us really bonded with the kids, and we were sad to go. We hope and pray the gospel message we shared with them in so many ways (songs, stories, crafts, games) sticks!
Over 20 students have already begun relationships with Jesus Christ through our team. A bunch of them have begun follow-up and are getting plugged in to the local Cru movement and church.
We drink TONS of rooibos tea. With lots of milk and sugar. Sometimes we dip in rusks-- sweet, hard, dry biscuits that taste awesome when soggy.
Monkeys are all over campus... you have to protect your food from them. We witnessed a monkey-brawl last week. One broke the other's tail!
A few weeks ago I entered church late and got to say for the first and probably only time in my life, "Sorry I'm late; there were zebras!!!"
South Africans love decorating places with mirrors. They also love feta. And biltong (kind of like beef jerky).
We drive stick shift on the left side of the road.
In a country where red lights seem optional; no one yields to pedestrians; and seat belts are seldom buckled... I managed to get a traffic ticket. It was for driving without my international license with me.
Steven and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary! He ate springbok on our date.
We live in a house with 7 single women. The men on our team live 2 houses down.
Our team has been studying 1 Thessalonians this summer, since Paul's time in Thessalonica was brief but fruitful, just like we want our time out here to be!

Blessbock stew is tasty.

We ate blessbok stew.
We're learning a lot about the 4 L's: Love the Lord, Love your team, Learn a new culture, Launch a movement.
It is COLD here! We were not prepared for that.
A hyrax lives in our backyard.
We're unbelievably grateful that God's called us out here to share with students that they can know Him personally. Please pray that we cling to Him and love others out of an overflow.

We'll be back in Davis in 10 days. Whew! I'll share some pictures then :)

Geocaching

2011-06-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

She got us addicted.

It's been awhile since my last blog post-- over 2 months have lapsed. What have we been up to? Well... there has been one activity that seems to arch over all our other doings. GEOCACHING.

What is geocaching, you ask? It's a treasure-hunting game that one of our students, Marissa, got us into. Actually, she's gotten a LOT of us at Davis Cru turned onto it!

People hide containers all over the world and post coordinates and clues online at Geocaching.com. Using a handheld GPS, iPhone, or paper maps, geocachers hunt for the containers, which are often filled with trinkets to trade. At the very least, they contain a paper log to sign to document the successful hunt!

The amazing thing about this game is that we're ALL surrounded by geocaches, and most of us have NO IDEA. It's this whole secret world. There are 1,428,896 geocaches worldwide right now-- they're even in Antarctica and on the International Space Station. We were AMAZED when we typed in our address for the first time that there were 60 within a mile of our apartment... including one just 200 feet from our door!

Shortly after the triathlon in April, I tested out my new iPhone geocaching app and navigated to a cache hidden near Marissa's dorm. She came out to help me hunt, and I was hooked!


It was just a rusty, old Altoid container, but it contained a log to sign and little tradeables.

I got some grief from Steven and Keith at first ("Do you realize you have an old man's hobby?"), but soon they became far more obsessed than I.

Breaks in between appointments with students? We went geocaching.

Keith and Steven have time to kill between 6am men's time and their first appoinment? Geocaching.

Weekly date night? We went geocaching.

We geocache with our students.

We geocache with our little friends.

Cooper's envying those toy grapes. Meh, they're probably sour anyway.

We geocache with Lucy, my sister's dog.

Sorry, girl. Nothing edible inside.

Steven has even gotten really into "Puzzle Caches," which entail answering questions or solving some puzzles to figure out the coordinates of the cache. He's a Sudoku/Crossword/puzzle machine, so it's no surprise that 17 of his 130 caches found so far are puzzle caches.

Steven and Keith solving a KenKen to find a cache's coordinates.

He's also really good at finding teeny tiny micro caches that are often camouflaged and magnetic.

Yes, that's a cemetery.

The last couple months have included a spring retreat in Soda Springs, where we prepped next year's movement leaders to serve. During the free afternoon we took a group geocaching.

We had a staff retreat in Oxnard and geocached.

We visited friends in the Bay Area and geocached.

See what I mean when I say this activity has linked pretty much all our haps as of late?

And for my birthday, Steven gave me lots of thoughtful gifts, including...

A Travel Bug tag and Geocoins! These are items that we can place in caches and track their travels online! I've had the privilege of moving some Travel Bugs... both had traveled to California from England over the years, moving from geocache to geocache. I wonder where our bugs will travel!

The next big thing coming up for us is a 6-week summer project to South Africa. Guess what we'll make sure we down there???

Triathlon break-fast

2011-04-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I competed in my first triathlon in over 4 years. WHAT a blast! The area around Folsom Lake is beautiful, and contrary to my expectations, I totally ENJOYED the rolling hills-- big difference from my first triathlon, where the hills whooped me so hard, my climbing slowed to zero mph, and I just tipped over on my bike with my feet still clipped into the pedals! Haha! No tipping over on Sunday... so the race was a success! :)

Dave and Arijaan raced with me. It was their first triathlon, and they did great!

My favorite picture of the whole day:

Our cheering section, patiently killing lots of time in between brief moments of holding signs and hollering as we ran by. Keith started and finished a book on his Kindle.

Our champ triathlete and champ photographer

Cheering is hard work.

It was an amazing day with great friends. I think I'm re-hooked :)

Weekend to Remember

2011-04-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

Last spring, we had the privilege of talking with Dennis Rainey. He's the author of the premarital counseling book we were going through at the time, and also co-founder of Family Life, Campus Crusade for Christ's ministry to develop healthy marriages and families.

He gave us two nuggets of wisdom: pray together daily, and attend a Family Life Weekend to Remember marriage getaway before our first anniversary. Steven immediately started leading us in putting the first nugget into action, and this weekend, we had our first of many Weekends to Remember!

With two other newlywed couples on staff with us, we headed off to wine country Friday afternoon.

By the way, if you look closely at that sign we're mimicking, you'll see that the wife is wearing Crocs.

Yup. The poster-wife of a happy marriage wears Crocs. Just thought I'd point that out. :)

Anyway, we had a BLAST. The speakers were SO wise and HILARIOUS! We learned so much-- about conflict, sex, why marriages fail, communication, parenthood, and more. The conference consisted of talks and also projects for us to complete on our own and as couples. My favorite part of the conference was Saturday night-- DATE night.

My man Yelp'ed the area and took me out to a very authentic Indian restaurant called Torch of India. I LOVE the curries we had for dinner, but my favorite part of the meal was the sticky-sweet gulab jamun we got for dessert. It's one of Steven's favorite things, and I had never had it before. I LOVE trying new foods!

This is what they look like. Deep-fried dough-balls soaked in sticky rose-syrup. Mmmmmm...

I wish I had pictures of our delicious dinner... but really, the scraped-clean dishes are much stronger testaments to how delicious our dinner was :)

Aside from the engaged couples, we were the 2nd most novice married people there. Some couples were there for a regular marriage tune-up, and some were there as their last hope... but I know that the conference impacted all of them in some way. I made 3 commitments to take home this weekend:

Be Steven's cheerleader even when (ESPECIALLY when) I would have done things differently.
Give him focused attention-- talk in the same room, with eye contact, not multi-tasking.
Practice giving him "words of silence," especially as we're going to sleep. (ie: If I have a grievance, talk with God about it, check my heart, and don't bring it up right then, as we're going to sleep. That's a thing I do that I know does not bless my husband!)

Some people read their take-home commitments out loud. One man read, "I will go home and tell my kids how much I love their mother." Rachelle, our friend sitting beside me, and I sighed at the beauty of that, and even Steven whispered, "I want to marry THAT guy!"

Despite that brief moment of difficulty for Steven (we are joking, of course), we learned a ton and drew closer to God and each other. We know that marriage is a LOT of work, but it is worth it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

2011-04-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished an amazing book-- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A month ago I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and I immediately put myself on the library waiting list. Finally, I got it.

In 1951 a tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks was admitted into the colored ward of Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. She had cervical cancer that advanced so rapidly, it killed her in 8 months. Her autopsy revealed white tumors covering all her organs so densely that it appeared, "as if someone had filled her with pearls."

Before she died, though, her doctor took a dime-sized tissue sample from her original tumor, and sent it to the lab to attempt a cell culture... despite the fact that scientists had been unsuccessfully trying to culture human cells for years. It's like incubating your fingernail clippings, hoping they'll continue to grow in length while separated from your body.

But these cells DID grow. They doubled every 24 hours, and their growth had no limit-- they'd grow to take up as much space as they were given. Henrietta Lacks' were the first human cells to ever be successfully cultured. For decades, they've been known to the scientific community as HeLa (HEE-lah).

What scientists couldn't infect live human beings with, they infected HeLa cells with, then studied their responses. Those cells are responsible for our current understanding of cancer, chromosomes, and viruses; the development of the polio vaccine, cornea transplant technology, invitro fertilization; and countless other medical advancements. Henrietta Lacks' cells were the first human cells to go into space, or to experience the affects o the atomic bomb. HeLa cells are so ubiquitous in biological research that if you could pile all HeLa cells ever cultured onto a scale, they'd weigh over 50 million metric tons.

But Henrietta Lacks' family knew nothing about all this until 1973-- over 20 years after her death. Despite her contributing so much to modern medicine, her descendants were living in poverty, ironically unable to afford health care.

The stress from this news gave Henrietta Lacks' daughter, Deborah, hives, hypertension, and several strokes. Uneducated and unable to understand the scientific and legal jargon surrounding HeLa, she feared there were clones of her mother walking around Europe. When she found out that her mother's cells were fused with mouse cells, she became terrified of man-sized mice. When she learned that HeLa cells were injected with polio, HIV, and other debilitating, crippling diseases, Deborah thought her mother could FEEL all that pain, and she's been suffering for decades.

What struck me most about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was not the scientific advances that came from this one woman's tumor. It was the importance of empathy.

The book tells a lot about power-- the power of the HeLa cells, the power of science, and the power of money. All those powerful elements wreaked a lot of damage on the Lacks family. Indignant, they felt robbed, exploited, and violated; their beloved Henrietta had been sold for billions of dollars of profit. Consequently, they distrusted anyone interested in HeLa until just a few years ago, when the book's author asked permission to come alongside them in their journey. It was the power of empathy that finally allowed them to heal a little.

I was SO moved, reading about how Deborah and her brother's hearts softened as people entered their world of suffering and empathized with their pain. My favorite chapter of the book describes a day in 2001 when the author took Deborah and Zakariyya-- two of Henrietta Lacks' five children-- to Johns Hopkins to actually SEE their mom's live cells.

Zakariyya was an angry man. He went by Joe (or "Crazy Joe" because of his temper) until he converted to Islam while serving time for violent crimes-- assault, drunken violence, murder. When Cristoph Lengauer, the scientist at Johns Hopkins who'd invited them, reached out to shake Zakariyya's hand, he didn't move. Earlier, he'd spat bitterly about the scientist who first cultured HeLa, "I hope he burn in hell. If he were here right now, I'd kill him dead."

Cristoph Lengauer, though, he genuinely cared for them. Months earlier, as sort of an olive branch, he sent them a framed picture of their mother's cells, dyed fluourescent colors so you could see the nuclei and mitochondria. He attached a message explaining what the picture was and said that he'd be happy to have them at his lab any time to show them those cells in person.

I love how he explained things to them without being patronizing. Deborah and Zakariyya were startled when he opened the freezer door, releasing a cloud of steam with a hiss. "Don't worry," he said, "It's not dangerous, it's just cold. They're not minus 20 degrees celsius like your freezer at home; they're minus 80. That's why when I open them smoke comes out. It's all full of her cells."

The tour continues, and it's beautiful how he excitedly, lovingly explains basic biology to the Lackses, drawing diagrams on scratch paper. Deborah felt safe enough to ask what ARE cells and DNA... terms she'd been hearing for decades now, but no one ever took the time to explain to her. One doctor years earlier gave her a textbook he'd written and autographed the inside cover, but he didn't answer her questions or explain to her what the heck the text meant!

Langauer eased their fears and answers their questions; he shows them HeLa cells splitting before their eyes. And then he says something beautiful. "Hopkins pretty much screwed up, I think."

"Deborah bolted upright and looked at him, stunned to hear a scientist-- one at Hopkins, no less-- say such a thing. Then she looked back into the microscope and said, 'John Hopkin is a school for learning, and that's important. But that is my mother. Nobody seem to get that.'

" 'It's true, Cristoph said. 'Whenever we read books about science, it's always HeLa this and HeLa that. Some people know those are the initials of a person, but they don't know who that person is. That's important history.'

"Deborah looked like she wanted to hug him. 'This is amazing,' she said, shaking her head and looking at him like he was a mirage... 'Zakariyya has a lot of anger with all this that's been goin on,' she told Christoph. 'I been trying to keep him calm. Sometime he explode, but he's trying.'

'I don't blame you for being angry,' Christoph said."

I got near misty, seeing how a simple act of empathy softened a hard, angry, embittered criminal. Before leaving the lab, Zakariyya touched Christoph on the back and said thank you, and did the same to Rebecca Skloot, then turned and caught the bus home.

Deborah Lacks had just seen the living, multiplying cells of her mother who died 50 years ago... but it was witnessing that tiny thaw in her brother's heart that prompted her to say, "Girl, you just witnessed a miracle."

Biblical Dysfunction

2011-04-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

This week Steven's been preparing a talk on the centrality of the gospel. Like Tim Keller said, the gospel isn't the ABC's of the Christian life; it's the A-Z.
When I find myself in a draining relationship, my thinking is, "I'm tired, and this person isn't worth my energy." But according to the gospel, God's declared this person is worth dying for.

When I find myself angry over a past hurt, my thinking is, "That person needs to KNOW they hurt me. I want an apology." But according to the gospel, my pain is already known and understood. And neither party needs to be a slave to bitterness because Jesus already dealt with that sin.

When I see people, myself included, repeat the same selfish, hurtful behavior over and over, my thinking is, "People don't change. This is hopeless." But according to the gospel, God renovates hearts and lives.

Genesis has been part of my regular Bible-reading lately, and I'm amazed at the dysfunction of the founding family of the world's 3 major religions. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all about deceit, distrust, and adultery. Abram told strange men that his wife was actually his sister and whored her out; Sarai had her husband sleep with her servant; Isaac and Ishmael were brothers who hated each other; Isaac and Rebekah played favorites; she and Jacob teamed up to deceive Isaac and steal from Esau... and lots more infidelity and whoring out of wives. Sounds like a soap opera, no?

And yet God continued to unconditionally love and bless their family-- not because they earned it, but because it was a huge testament to His power. Today, I can see the gospel message in their story and have hope for my dysfunctional relationships because I follow a God who redeems what's broken in this world.

∞

2011-03-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

With a skein and a half of leftover yarn from my first project, I decided to take a stab at an infinity scarf. I've seen them around on my stylish friends, and I love the way they look!

Last week, while the students were in finals, the staff team had days of planning meetings, and while I'm totally passionate about win-build-send strategies, the 5-year-old with ADHD within me has a HARD time sitting still and focusing for more than 15 minutes. It helps me SO much to have something to do with my hands. I sacrifice courteous eye contact, but at least I can stay engaged!

After a week of staff planning, we ended up with a strategic plan for spring quarter AND... a new silver-blue infinity scarf!

It's definitely novice-made, as I just repeated row after row of knitting, and I didn't know how to make the beginning and end join seamlessly.

See? There's the seam! Couldn't figure out how to hide it.

But that's okay-- I can just wear the seam in the back. I'm happy with the way it turned out!

Staying inside with my husband and sister, listening to podcasts, and knitting contentedly... blissful way to spend a stormy day!

Finished the scarf!

2011-03-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

With just a couple days left of winter... I finally finished my first knitting project!

I think I'll just toss this scarf over my shoulder and be on my merry way! Pip pip!

Yay! I really feel like I've got knitting and purling down. Maybe next I'll try something that's not a rectangle! Maybe.

Bible Study Reunion

2011-02-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

When you join a Bible study in college, you don't JUST study the Bible together...

You sit together at Cru.


June 2007

You dress up together as Super Mario characters for Christmas (not Halloween. Christmas.)


December 2003

You take pictures together, even if no one's ready.

October 2006: Fall Retreat

You love and listen to your leader.


June 2007

You might even do a triathlon with that leader.

April 2007

That leader might send some of you off to the world when you graduate.

June 2007

You fly to Rome and check out the Colosseum together.

December 2007

You feel shameful, proud, and pensive together at a food court in the Middle East.

November 2007

SUCH sweet memories.

A few engagements, weddings, new jobs, moves all around the world, and a bun in the oven later... we decided to reunite in Santa Barbara last weekend. I love these people.

December 2006?

It was 80º and sunny. We went wine-tasting and picnicked at a beautiful winery called Roblar.

Swirling, sniffing, and gabbing about men, jobs, church, life...

Joe was very kind to cater.

We reminisced, caught up, ate, laughed, and of COURSE, spooned.

It's amazing how God's brought us to such different places, but we have the same fun memories and a growing love for the same God.

Vigilantes Retrieve Stolen Bike

2011-01-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, Steven gave me a kiss goodbye and left for his first appointment of the day. He returned to the apartment a minute later and announced angrily, "Someone stole my bike."

This is ESPECIALLY sad considering that Steven's been living in Davis only a little over a year now, and this was his THIRD bike. He LOVES his bikes and even names them when he buys them.

Monty, purchased January 2010: stolen on summer project in Santa Monica
Shelby, purchased September 2010: fell apart AS Steven was riding it
Sheldon, purchased November 2010: stolen from our apartment complex parking lot Thursday night.

Around noon, a local seller advertised a bike on Craigslist that looked EXACTLY like Steven's stolen bike. I emailed the guy and made an appointment to meet him that afternoon.

Davis police told me there was no way to prove the bike was ours (we bought it off Craigslist for cash, and we didn't register it), so there was no legal way to demand it back. The officer just advised us to be honest and wise as we met the Craigslist seller.

I honestly lack an intimidating presence, so we wisely called up our big friends, Brian and Andrew (from the Cru movement we lead). And it doesn't hurt that Brian has a beard. As we pulled up to meet the seller downtown, his affable smile VANISHED when he saw 3 guys exit the car.

After a little conversation, Steven said, "The reason I'm looking for a bike is because my bike was stolen just last night. And it looked exactly like this one." He even pointed out some features unique to the bike, like the brand new front tire, and the broken first gear.

Craigslist seller: "Oh, man, that's really shady. I feel pretty shady having bought the bike from the guy who must have stolen it... well if you say it's yours, then you can have it back."

We don't believe his story, but we're glad he had the sense to give the bike back, knowing he was caught. As he walked away, he said, "Way to bring your bruiser friends."

We're grateful for our "bruiser" friends (who might actually be the kindest men in Davis) and for Sheldon sitting in our living room as we speak. Even though we got multiple locks to keep this from happening again, Steven would still rather keep him inside for awhile, and I'm okay with that.

That's one point for the vigilantes!

Merry Fake Christmas!!!

2011-01-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

With my parents in Shanghai and my sister and brother-in-law spending Christmas with them, we didn't get to celebrate Christmas with them until this past weekend. I was SO excited when we pulled up to their house and saw that they'd even kept their tree up this whole time :)

Indee the "why do you do this to me?" reindeer

Merry fake Christmas!!!

Texas

2011-01-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

We were in Dallas, Texas last week for Summer Project Directors' Training.

The place lived up to a lot of its stereotypes-- super friendly waitresses, gigantic portions, gigantic everything, and steak.

Lots of steak.

There comes a point when you realize the fork and knife are just slowing you down.

This picture was snapped at a steakhouse, which was next to another steakhouse, across the street from a BBQ/smokehouse, which sat next to a steakhouse.

Happiest Place on Earth

2011-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

As I write this I'm on the 10th floor of a hotel in Dallas. Steven and I are here for a week learning what the heck we're doing, leading a team of students to South Africa for the summer! It's summer project directors' training, and there are hundreds of leaders here, representing teams going to over 20 different countries!

This is our 5th trip in the last month... our suitcases are getting SO much love.

Winter Conference was awesome. (It always is.)

Mini summer project reunion at the western-themed New Years Eve party

How could amazingness NOT happen when you combine 800 college students, dynamic speakers, a killer band, and a "day of faith," when we all go out into the San Diego community and initiate spiritual conversations? We talked with SO many people about God, and 37 decided that day to say yes to God and begin relationships with Him! A local church called The Rock is following up on them and all the other spiritually interested people we met.

Steven's and my conference job was working the bookstore. Mostly, that meant loading/unloading the boxes and boxes (and boxes!) of books, and working the "Genius Bar," teaching people how to use different evangelism tools, like Soularium and Perspective cards.

And THEN... On New Years Day, the MacMillans, along with Steven and I, woke up at 4:30 to make our way up to Orange County. Disneyland awaited!

Christmas decorations!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!!

We had WAY too much fun with the polarized 3D glasses.

Entering the park at 8am, we ran from ride to ride, LOVING the short lines. Before 11am we had already conquered: Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Indiana Jones Adventure, Matterhorn Bobsleds, AND saw Captain EO!

That was NOT a staged picture. We were wiped out.

But some calories and caffeine make a huge difference... especially when you stir 8 packets of sugar into your coffee (that was Steven). Refueled, we park-hopped over to California Adventure. We LOVED Tower of Terror, and ESPECIALLY California Screamin', which we rode THREE times!

And fresh, warm tortillas! That's another attraction we visited multiple times.

Our friend, Gen Nakamura, who would LIVE at Disneyland if Mickey let him, convinced me a couple years ago that Disneyland at Christmastime is a must-see. He said the park is beautiful, and the fireworks show is the best. "Be careful who you stand next to, because you WILL fall in love."

The park totally lived up to his hype. The fireworks truly WERE brilliant, and I'm totally in love with the dude who stood next to me. Thankfully, it was my husband. :)

Best double-date ever!

4th Annual Skates Dinner

2010-12-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

I LOVE my college girlfriends. I hear that it's pretty common in college to move around a lot and change roommates from year to year, but I never experienced that. We pretty much hit the jackpot our first year out of the dorms, and we've stayed close since.

Summer 2007 when we graduated, we got together for a nice dinner at Skates on the Bay in Berkeley. I was about to fly off to the Middle East for a year, and they gave me incredibly thoughtful gift of a pretty Jill Bliss stationary set, along with all their addresses. It was hard leaving those women!

Since then, I've returned to the States, but life continues to pull us all over. Natalie got her masters in art history at Davis then moved to Washington, DC to work at the National Gallery of Art; Heidi moved to New York for med school; Anna just finished her masters in Evolution and Ecology at UC Davis (#1 program in the nation!), and she's been doing field work with oysters out in Petaluma; Erin's been a working lady in SF...

But we still get together for our annual dinner at Skates!


Okay, so sometimes med school doesn't permit a cross-country flight to see your girlfriends for one evening. But Heidi was there in spirit... and on a stick.

Thanks, ladies. I love you!!!

"I can't believe I'm knitting!"

2010-12-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of crafts, but alas, I lack any creative skill whatsoever. I LOVE following directions, though. When it comes to arts and crafts, I am an obedient sheep. So knitting seemed like a worthwhile hobby to pick up. You follow a pattern, which yields an expected result.

Easy... right?

After over an hour perusing the shelves at Michael's, I purchased this book:


She's so crafty, she's incredulous!

According to the back cover, this is one book of many in the "I Can't Believe I'm " series of crafts books. "I Can't Believe I'm... "

Quilting
Knitting
Crocheting
Felting
Sewing
Jewelry
Clay

That is the ACTUAL list on the back of the book. Someone out there cannot believe they're clay.

I found a project in the book that I'd like to attempt, and I bought the necessary equipment, including 3 skeins of bluish-grayish yarn. I know it's quality because it's what Vanna White uses.

Knitting is proving more difficult than expected, though. I "cast on" 12 stitches, then practiced knitting and purling for awhile... after several rows I had successfully knit a trapezoid with a few holes, and I ended up with 16 stitches.

Okay, that was good practice. *Unravel*

Time to get cracking on my first project from a pattern. It's a classic beginner's project:

SC_RF

Vanna, can we buy a vowel?

Wise decision making

2010-12-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, Steven and I had the privilege of MCing our region's Crossroads Conference. It's a weekend for juniors and seniors in college who are thinking about their futures.

He shared something this year that we remember from attending this conference as students in 2005. Without ever consulting our conference notes or listening to the talk's mp3, these nuggets of wisdom stuck with us because it was common sense yet so applicable.

I'm sharing them with you today:

How do you make a wise decision? Here are 3 guides that are helpful but NOT authoritative and too-often abused:

1. A peaceful feeling

How do you know that peace is godly? Is it just the path of least resistance?
Feelings are legitimate but not authoritative!

2. Impressions

The Holy Spirit speaks to us and leads us, but be careful because we often don't know if it's God or our own strong desire.
Test impressions against Scripture.
Test it against the wise counsel of other believers.

3. Circumstances (like open and closed doors, eg: Acts 16)

How do you distinguish a closed door from an invitation to trust Him, persevere, and see Him glorified? What if Moses had seen the Red Sea as a closed door?

The lifeblood of making wise decisions is to remember that God's given us the sanctified mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:14-16), so we ought to engage our MINDS in decision making, not some mystical call. We should ask:

What are my gifts and abilities?
What are the needs of the world and the church?
What are my desires and passions?

Still, after asking the right questions, seeking counsel from the right people, and doing the necessary research, we have to make a decision by FAITH. Faith is not waiting until you know something 100%. It's taking all that you DO know, taking steps, and trusting God to guide you and cover for your mistakes. Our calling is primarily to God, and it's more a calling of who to BE rather than what to DO.

"God, I trust YOU more than my ability to make a decision."

Thankful for...

2010-11-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

In no particular order:

A fun family who keeps growing by marriage
A sister who does double-duty also as a best friend
A sister who humors my crockpot-obsession by entrusting to me not one, but TWO, veggie side dishes (despite disliking soft, crockpotted veggies).
PIE!!!!
Word games
A brother-in-law who speed-charades like a pro
A studious sister-in-law swamped with grad school work but still able to come over and hang out
Family willing to travel long hours to enjoy a meal together
LEFTOVER PIE!!!
A relaxing, lazy post-Thanksgiving day

Produce from another world

2010-11-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

I love venturing out to the Yolo Fruit Stand to buy produce and spices-- it's local, affordable, AND I run into really awesome, bizarre stuff!

Like this giganto squash! I put an apple on top of one to give you a sense of scale.


Who would buy this? And how would he go about cooking it?!?!

And PURPLE and ORANGE cauliflower!

So pretty! I love how food is a feast for your eyes before it hits your mouth.

Thanksgiving shopping was fun... as has been Thanksgiving cooking. Thanksgiving EATING will be the best part, I know for sure :)

Turkey harvest stew

2010-11-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Tried yet another tasty recipe from Crockpot365-- Harvest Stew. I can't believe how easy and inexpensive this was! Just dump it all into a 6-quart crockpot:

1 pound lean ground turkey, browned
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can kidney beans
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
½ butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 pound frozen corn
4 cups chicken broth (which I ALSO made in the crockpot, thanks to Crockpot365!)
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

The squash, pumpkin pie spices, sweet potatoes, and turkey smell and taste like AUTUMN. Next time, I'd like to try adding chard, wild rice, and carrots! It's the perfect thing to eat while admiring the growing pile of yellow, crunchy leaves out our window.

Lately, while admiring leaves on the ground, leaves changing colors on the trees, and leaves all around... it's been blowing my mind how no 2 vein patterns are alike. Just a random aside...

I give this recipe an 8 (which is the yummiest thing our taste buds can handle in our not-yet-glorified bodies), while Steven gives it a 4. He's just not that into soups and stews. Ironic, considering that he married a crockpot-obsessed girl, huh?

Definition of angels

2010-11-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

This morning, over breakfast...

Steven: Where do you think we get our stereotypical image of angels from?

Sam: Oh, you mean like how in the Bible angels have multiple eyes, and multiple wings, and wheels for feet, and stuff?

Steven: Yeah. They're never described as chubby babies with wings.

Sam: Or like normal people, dressed in white, with wings...

Steven: And every time they see someone, the first thing the angel usually says is "Don't be afraid." Apparently these people see the angel, and they're about to crap themselves. Angels are beings that make you want to crap yourself.

Money well spent

2010-11-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

We didn't spend much money on our honeymoon; that's the nature of a cruise, where your meals and entertainment are pretty much all provided. But we DID invest in a towel animal folding book. And it was money well spent.

Welcome to our home, Jeff! Steven, this elephant, and I are stoked to have you for the weekend.

Part 8: How they are NOT alike

2010-11-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

We've talked about many ways in which marriage (non-coincidentally) parallels our relationship with God. But there are some major ways that the two are NOT similar.

Firstly, if a wedding were designed around God's relationship with people, I think it would be a lot more about the groom than the bride. The groom would wear white, and all eyes would be on him as he walks down the aisle toward the bride. He's the pursuer, and all the bride can do... is say, "I do."

The Bible says that without Christ in our lives, we're spiritually dead. Not spiritually weak... or spiritually struggling... but spiritually dead. This makes a lot of sense since we have in us an innate awareness of eternity, as well as a humbling awareness of our finiteness.

If we all have a sense of GOOD... and ALL of us fall short of even our own moral standards... how much good can we really do? We're finite creatures reaching for the infinite! If we're trying to get closer to God, we're not just struggling on the road. We're roadkill, making zero progress on an infinitely long road. Dead.

Instead of letting us reach and struggle forever, aching for a healer, a rescuer, a lover... God walks toward us. It sounds odd for the bride to be still and the groom to walk down the aisle toward her, but He's the pursuer from beginning until end. All we can do is accept, say "I do"... and begin this new life together, learning to love, be loved, and let Him lead.

The BIGGEST way, though, in which marriage differs from a relationship with God is that, while both are beautiful and GOOD, one of those relationships fulfills, and the other doesn't. Can you guess which is which?

Comparing a life centered around merely what we can see, and a life surrendered to Him, Jesus said,

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."

Steven is a great husband in many ways. I think the REASON he's such a great husband is because he loves God even more than he loves his spouse, and he encourages me to do the same.

Marriage is only beautiful because it's a reflection of how God loves and pursues us. Only He satisfies!

Ice Climbers

2010-10-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Part 7: The "S" Word

2010-10-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

No marriage topic makes people bristle quite like SUBMISSION. Especially in the 21st century, in a college town filled with intelligent, independent, progressive women.

I consider myself one of these women, and I believe that submission is vital to enjoying the relationships in my life.

The Bible is clear that part of God's loving plan for people is for us to submit to Him. That is, voluntarily put aside our preferences, trusting that His plan is best. It's essentially pulling over the car, walking around to the passenger side, and giving the car keys to Him. "YOU drive. YOU know the roads. I'll sit in the passenger seat and relinquish control of the steering wheel to you. I trust that you love me and won't drive us off any cliffs."

And since He created marriage to reflect that relationship between Him and us... He commands husbands to love and women to submit. It sounds like male chauvinism, but men could be just as livid about this commandment as women. Truth is, we're BOTH called to serve each other in impossibly huge ways!

In the Bible (Ephesians 5:21-30), God tells us to "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." The passage goes on to spell out what that looks like between a husband and wife.

"Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord."

In reaction to this, the average wife thinks, "What?! I don't like that word-- submit. I can submit to the Lord, fine. He's omniscient and omni-other-things, so I'll trust Him. But I honestly think I'm smarter than my husband sometimes."

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... "

In reaction to this, the average husband thinks, "What?! I have to give myself up for this woman?! 'Just as Christ loved the church?' Christ loved the church so much He DIED for us! I'm supposed to willingly DIE?!?! I wanted to get married to be HAPPY!"

These days, a "submissive wife" seems synonymous with an "abused wife," but that's not what God desires for marriage. A Christ-like husband has his wife's best interests at heart, just like how Jesus put HIS bride (us!) before Himself.

Neither husband nor wife submitting = selfishness

One spouse submitting while the other doesn't = abuse

Mutual submission = the kind of marriage God wants for us

God commands husbands and wives to submit to each other because marriage is modeled after mutual submission between us and God.

Yes, even the Lord of the universe submits to us. He didn't have to, but He lovingly chose to invade this world, full of pain and sin. He came to heal bodies, mend lives, comfort the afflicted, and to SERVE! Ultimately, by giving up His life so that ALL people could have an opportunity to have a personal relationship with God. He came to save us, at the heavy cost of His own comfort and life.

God commands us to submit to Him, NOT so that we lose our identities and become brainwashed Christian robots. It's because only through HIM can we live the life we've always wanted. Only through submitting to Him can we enjoy true freedom and learn to trust an all-loving being. It's for His glory, but really, it's best for us, too!

Similarly, He calls me as a wife to submit to my husband, NOT so that I become a spineless, battered wife. It's because God's called Steven to love me like God loves me; Steven cares for my needs above his own. Submitting to him is how I learn to trust, love, and serve. It's how I can be free to enjoy the good things Steven has for me.

The first time this clicked for me was while we were engaged. Steven and I were discussing where we would spend our wedding night. I wanted to save a couple hundred dollars and just drive back to our apartment in Davis. Steven was indifferent concerning the setting of that night, but he knew that I'd be too distracted by a messy apartment to enjoy myself or feel romantic, so he wanted to spend money on a nice hotel room.

We went back and forth about this for a long time, until Steven looked me in the eye and gently asked, "Sam, would you please submit to me in this?"

I think this was the first time he asked me to submit to him, using that exact word (the "S" word!), and I realized, "Wow-- this man is actually trying to spoil me! He's trying to spend money on me and create a memorable evening I can enjoy! He loves me, and out of respect and appreciation, yes, I'll gladly submit to this man."

I know there will be times in our married life when I'll be challenged to submit to him when we DON'T agree. At those times I'll have to TRUST, based on what I know about this man, that he loves me and won't "drive us off a cliff" if I entrust to him the car keys to my life.

Leading in love and submitting in respect... those are really difficult things. IMPOSSIBLE, even!

Thankfully, when we each as individuals submit to God and give HIM our car keys... God controls how we relate to each other. I'm not naturally a super encouraging person, but when I submit to God, He enables me to speak encouraging words to my husband. Steven's not naturally a good gift-giver, but when he submits to God, He enables Steven to bless me with thoughtful gifts.

The "S" word makes relationships rich and beautiful. Not such a bad word, after all!

Next part in the series: How Marriage is NOT like our Relationship with God

Jack-o-lanterns

2010-10-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

A little break in the series to show you the fun surprise Steven planned for us last night!

I LOVE carving stenciled jack-o-lanterns, but I wasn't planning on carving any this year. So I was ESPECIALLY surprised and delighted when he let me uncover my eyes and there were 2 pumpkins on our table in front of me!


Thank you for the pretty Anthro apron, Jennie!!!

Part 6: "We do"

2010-10-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

You can't do it alone. This is true about both marriage and your relationship with God.

I love how at some weddings, the guests take a vow, too. "Do you promise to love and pray for ____ and ____? To give them grace and truth and point them to Christ?"

Hundreds of voices promise, "We do."

On the wedding day, friends and family are there to witness your commitment and help you celebrate. I find it interesting that you cannot get married with just you and your fiance(è) present. You need a justice of the peace and at least one witness. Even though it's about a commitment between these two people, it can't happen in a vaccuum!

AFTER the wedding, you CONTINUE relying on people for friendship, advice, prayer, conversations, levity... for sharing some pizzas and beers to break up a busy week.

In the same way, PEOPLE are part of God's plan for your life. Broken relationships with people and God are a result of sin, and when we let Jesus invade and renovate our lives, He restores BOTH.

Our relationship with God cannot grow unless we're in community with like-minded, supportive people who are committed to pointing us to Christ. That means these Christian friends give us grace, truth, and advice. (And also share some pizzas and beers to break up a busy week.)

Christians worldwide are referred to as "the body" of Christ. We're called to be like God's mouth, hands, and feet, letting Him control us as we help the poor, speak encouraging words, and preach the gospel all over (to people who haven't heard and also to people who HAVE... since we ALWAYS need reminders).

If you want to engage with God privately and NOT engage with people (eg: in a church, Bible study, community group, Cru, etc... ), then you need to know that it is impossible. Because people who love Him ARE His body. The Church, with the very Spirit of God dwelling in us, is the actual physical presence of Jesus on earth today!

Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend write in How People Grow, "We cannot do what we have never seen done. We need models to show us how."

Steven and I have relied on friends to show us how to love the Lord and each other. I don't know how we'd do it in isolation... thank God we were never meant to try!

Next time, let's talk about the "S" word... submission.

Part 5: The Now and Not Yet

2010-10-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

"I now pronounce you man and wife."

THOSE were sweet words to hear!!

At that moment, I was officially a wife. I had answered a huge calling to be married and live with another person's interests above my own. But wait... I don't know HOW to be a wife! I'm a selfish person!

And at that moment, when I became a wife, I didn't share a bank account with this man; I still had my maiden last name; and I hadn't even kissed my husband!!! Was I FULLY a wife?

Yup! As declared by Pastor Josh, backed by the powerful State of California.

We'll spend the next few decades figuring out how to actually BE husband and wife. But the new identity comes first, THEN we grow into that role.

The same is true in our walks with God. Jesus has conquered sin, pain, evil, and suffering. At the moment you receive Jesus into your life by faith, as an act of the will, all your sins (past, present, and future) were wiped away. You started a loving relationship with God, letting Him steer your life.

Then why is there still evil in the world? And why are Christians always sinning and directing their own lives?

We live in an in-between phase in God's plan of redemption sometimes referred to as "The Now and Not Yet." Jesus has come, and He's ALREADY conquered all the crap we see around us. Because of my personal choice to trust Him, God DOES see me as sinless! I am His and He is mine, regardless of how many Christians books I've read or how many Sundays I've attended or skipped church. He DOES command my destiny! These things are true NOW.

I get to spend the rest of my years growing into those truths. Yes, I still sin. A lot. But in a crazy upside-down act of grace, God sees me as sinless, because Jesus' payment was THAT powerful.

Just like with marriage, we get the new identity right away, and as continue to trust Jesus, He grows us into it. (The Christian-ese word for that is "sanctification.")

And one day in the future, Jesus will come back to put all things right and restore this world to a place that perfectly reflects God's goodness and glory.

The end of the story has already been written... it just hasn't come... YET.

Next up: Witnesses

Part 4: When you don't FEEL it

2010-10-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

I believe love is not a feeling, nor is it something you fall into. It's a choice and a commitment. COMMITMENT is a major similarity between traditional marriage and our relationship with God.

Time to pull a C.S. Lewis book off the shelf. We keep Lewis near Tolkien in our bookcase because they were friends in real life-- professors together at Oxford and frequent drinking buddies. We figure their books might enjoy the close proximity, too.

ANYway... he writes in Mere Christianity about marriage vows:

"The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry."

Today, Steven and I have been married 70 blissful days, and we are incredibly attracted to each other. We love each other.

There will inevitably come times in the not-too-distant future when we'll scream at each other and hurt each other to the point of tears... and we'll love each other on those days, too.

Our feelings change all the time, and maintaining the commitment to put the other person's best interest before our own, regardless of feelings or desire, is love.

Two summers ago I took some seminary classes as part of New Staff Training with Campus Crusade for Christ. Our professor talked about a 3 Greek words for love:

Phileo: deep friendship; a bond based on shared values, interests, or experiences (root of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly kindness)
Eros: attraction to a real or imaginary trait in another person (root of erotic)
Agape: not a feeling; a decision of the will to do and say that which will bring the greatest good to another; unconditional

Agape is the word used in the Bible's original Greek when describing God's commitment to us. It's also the "brand" of love off of which marital love is based.

I'm grateful that my husband is a man who pursues me, even when he encounters unattractive sides to me. Yes, we have lovey-dovey feelings for each other, but our relationship is NOT based on feelings.

I'm also grateful that our standing with God is also not based on feeling. He's committed to His children unconditionally, with agape love, and that's a fact.

Our relationship with God is like a 3-car train.
It's driven by FACT: God is real, and He loves us. We were designed for relationships, and we need Him. We could never reach Him on our own, so He reached down to us, despite our being rebellious and undeserving. If we have willfully accepted Jesus' payment for our rebellion, we have an indestructible relationship with God. He has erased sin from our record, and He lives in us and changes us from the inside-out.

FAITH is trust. You gotta trust in things that are trustWORTHY. I trust in the Bible not because it gives me a good feeling. I trust its claims because they hold up archaeologically, historically, and logically. Its claims are supported by evidence I see around us in everyday life.

Because of who God is and what He's done (those things are FACT and never change), we can TRUST Him. FAITH follows FACT.

As a result, we experience FEELINGS. We might feel happy, forgiven, and free. But feelings don't drive our salvation. It's just the caboose.

On days when I feel stoked on God, awestruck, and my faith is strong, I am in an indestructible relationship with God. These facts are true: He loves me; He's forgiven me; He lives in me; He works in and through me; and I'll be with Him forever when I die.

On other days when I feel angry, doubtful if He's even real, and riddled in guilt and shame, I am in an indestructible relationship with God. These facts are true: He loves me; He's forgiven me; He lives in me; He works in and through me; and I'll be with Him forever when I die.

This is helpful to remember especially when we do faith-stretching things like, say, raising support. You might lament, "I need thousands of dollars to pay for this trip, but it's so much money! I lack faith that God can provide!"

Well... the FACT is that God CAN provide. He IS a provider! (It's not just a pleasant thought-- it's in the Bible.) So He can bring in all the money regardless of whether or not you believe He can.

Truth is truth regardless of the day and regardless of fluctuating feelings. God is not an imaginary friend whose character traits change based on what you believe or desire that day.

Not sure if God is even real? Well, if He IS real, He wouldn't go away just because you feel uncertain of His reality. He's not Santa Claus, who relies on belief and Christmas spirit to exist!

So non-Christians can also bank on this FACT-FAITH-FEELING train. You don't need an emotional experience to surrender your life to God. Investigate the facts. (When I started investigating, I found A Case for Faith and More than a Carpenter to be helpful books.)

If you find the facts trustworthy, place your trust in them.

Feelings follow. We don't follow feelings.

Next in this series... Part 5: The Now and Not Yet

Part 3: "I went to the zoo, and now I'm a koala bear!"

2010-10-22T13:18:00.001-07:00

Another parallel between traditional marriage and our relationship with God: where actions come into play.

Quick! Name things that husbands and wives traditionally do:

Share a home
Sleep together
Have a joint bank account
Make and eat meals together
Go on dates
Serve each other
Apologize when they've screwed up
Wear rings

Do non-married couples do these things? Sure! Does that make them married? No.

Quick! Now name some things Christians do:

Pray
Go to church
Read the Bible
Donate money
Keep an even temper
Volunteer
Talk with friends about Jesus
Lift their hands and spin around...

Sometimes when I ask people about their spiritual backgrounds, they say, "I'm Christian because I grew up going to church."

This is kind of funny in my head because I think of the Friends episode where Rachel uses the same logic to declare, "I went to the zoo, and now I'm a koala bear."

I do those wifely things BECAUSE I'm a wife-- not vice-versa. And I do those Christian things BECAUSE I have a relationship with God. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian; in fact, I believe there will be many people in Hell who had perfect church attendance.

Actions happen as a RESULT of love. Being wholly known and wholly accepted changes you from the inside-out. Every worldview out there promotes being a good person-- even Satanism. Christianity is the only "religion" that actually gives you the power to change instead of demanding that you try harder.

Yesterday I behaved really hurtfully toward Steven. He wanted to talk and hang out, while I was selfish, impatient, and valuing my own quiet, alone-time over his feelings. He made it clear that I had hurt him, but then we had to table the discussion for a few hours as we went on campus.

During those few hours apart, I really wanted to apologize to the man... not to win him back, since he was never lost. But BECAUSE I am his, and he is mine, I was eager to apologize, despite my being a stubborn, proud person.

Love does funky things to people... even stubborn, proud people.

When I surrendered control of my life to God 7 years ago, basically saying "I do" to Him, changes started happening. They didn't happen all at once, but there WAS a difference.

For example, I go to church. Church is a group of people who get together to grow, serve, and worship God together. I go because I have a relationship with God, and He's been changing my desires to look more like His. HE desires for me to grow, serve, and worship Him. So this is something I want, too. Going to church doesn't make me a Christian. I AM a Christian; therefore, I want to be involved in a church community.

But God is in the business of changing hearts and lives-- not activities and to-do lists. So how about an example of a heart-renovation I've seen God do in my life?

In high school, I used to get in such violent fights with my parents that my bedroom door frame was broken from my slamming my door so many times. I'm not proud to admit it, but the foulest language I've ever used in my life was probably screamed in anger toward my mom.

You might not guess it by my recent admission to having yelled at my mom over a slide show not too long ago, but my demeanor toward my parents changed so much after accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, that during my first summer home, my parents said, "We can fix Sam's door frame... she's nice now." The progress has been slow, but definitely noticeable. We now have calm conversations and seek to understand each other.

We often say to people, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. What do you think that plan is?"

It's shocking how many Christians answer, "To be a good person."

Yes, our God loves goodness, justice, righteousness, and selflessness. But even our best efforts to pursue those virtues haven't gotten us very far. This world is broken. There is corruption, poverty, loneliness, and pain aplenty. And that's just MY assessment; imagine how unimpressed an infinitely holy being would be watching our efforts! (∞ - n = ∞)

And besides... shouldn't being a CHRISTian have something to do with CHRIST?!?!

Some people might say, "I believe I have a relationship with God and will spend forever with Him when I die because I'm a pretty good person! I'm not perfect, but I try my best, and that's what matters."

Oh! So you don't need a Savior! Your good deeds have saved yourself (Wishing there existed a punctuation mark to denote sarcasm)

I believe God is much greater than that, and I am much lesser. I am 100% sure that I have an indestructible relationship with God and will spend forever with Him when I die. I don't deserve this, even on my best day. But this isn't about ME or what I'VE done. Only because of JESUS and what HE'S done to conquer evil can I be confident in my standing before God. I am His, and He is mine.

Because this relationship isn't based on my actions, there are times when I lose my temper, get impatient with slow customer service, or prioritize items on my to-do list over people... and I am still His, graciously. His grip is strong.

There are other days when I'm in awe of who God is, how huge His love is, and how the King of the flippin' UNIVERSE would choose to know and love ME... and I act out in love, as a response.

It's like Donald Miller says in Blue Like Jazz,

"When you don't love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve. I didn't love God because I didn't know God."

Tomorrow... Part 4: Love is not a feeling

Part 2: "I am a whore, I do confess..."

2010-10-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

God IS love, and He created marriage as a reflection of His pursuit of us. Continuing on the topic of parallels between marriage traditions and our relationship with God, we move on to part 2:

A New Identity

Wedding dresses are traditionally white, associating the bride with purity. I don't care whether the bride is a virgin or not... no bride deserves that association. Sin isn't just what we do-- it's the bend of our hearts. And our hearts LOVE what's wrong.

Even aside from sex, each bride is stained with all kinds of sin. 2 days before the wedding, I yelled at my mom over a difference in opinion over a slide show. My own mother!

And yet on my wedding day, I wore white. Steven knows my sins, and he'll keep discovering more, but he chooses to see me as God sees me-- pure.

In the same way, when Jesus lived the perfect life but suffered the penalty for sin that WE deserved, He wiped our record clean. We're debt-free!

Not because of anything we've done... it's because God has chosen to accept, love, and REDEEM us.

When Steven was a student at Berkeley, Cru had an outreach called "Jesus is." People wore buttons that said "Jesus is... " and they filled in what they thought. People would comment on each other's buttons, and interesting conversations would happen.

His friend, Barry, wrote on his button "Jesus is an orange balloon."

Huh?

When you look through an inflated latex balloon, everything you see is orange. Barry envisioned a big, orange, helium balloon that has floated up between him and God. When God looks at Barry, he looks orange. To Barry, Jesus is that balloon.

Barry may not be selfless, but Jesus is. So when God looks at Barry through Christ, He sees selflessness.

Barry may not be quick to forgive people who piss him off, but Jesus is. So when God looks at Barry through Christ, He sees a forgiving man. Etc.

We're all trying to be good people, but we all fall short of even our own standards. Jesus is the only way we can be acceptable in the eyes of a perfectly holy being.

Though we have hearts stained with sin, if we say "yes" to Jesus' proposal and accept His payment for our sins, God sees us as pure, wearing white.

Changing your name is a major symbol of this new identity. It sounds like archaic male chauvinism, but it's no coincidence that the woman traditionally takes her husband's last name. When you look at me, you see a Mockford now. Just like how when God examines and judges my heart, He sees Jesus' pure righteousness.

Like that song goes, "I am a whore, I do confess. I put You on just like a wedding dress... "

But doesn't this just give us license to do wrong and hurt people? Let's talk about that tomorrow... Part 3: Where do actions come into play?

Part 1: A Man, a Plan, and a Proposal

2010-10-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Being "married to Christ" can sound cheesy. You usually hear this phrase at women's retreats and in sentences like, "Oh, my stars. I would never listen to Eminem. I'm married to Christ."

But I like this phrase. It IS a Biblical reference, and I do appreciate a good analogy. And the Bible.

Having been recently married, it's fun looking at some of the ways that traditional marriage parallels our relationship with Christ. Over the weekend, I started jotting down as many parallels as I could think of, and I wrote down 16 off the top of my head! It's really beautiful how He gave us marriage as a glimpse of how He loves us.

I'm going to spend the next week or so expounding upon many of these parallels.

1. A man, a plan, and a proposal

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for you life. The main idea of that plan is to be in a relationship with Him. He desires for us to live a life of purpose, love, growth, eternal impact... it's the life we've always wanted, and we can only find it in a relationship with Him!

In the same way, when a guy proposes, he's pitching his plan for a life together. The main part of that plan is to be with HIM. And just like when God offers us this life together, the ball is in our court to say yes or no.

I even find it interesting that traditionally, when a man proposes, he gets down on one knee. It shows humility. "I am crazy about you. I'm bigger and stronger than you, and I COULD fireman-carry you to the nearest justice of peace to get my way, but I won't. I'll woo you, get down on one knee, and await your reply."

On the spiritual side of the parallel, can you think of anything more humbling than the Lord of the universe voluntarily being squeezed out of a teenage girl's birth canal, in an animal stable, living as a nomad, and dying a criminal's death on a cross, hanging in his underwear?

He created us to have righteousness and justice on their hearts, but we're all frustrated with the brokenness of the world and our inability to live up to even our own moral standards. There are terrible, negative consequences for our selfishness and greed. Suffering, pain, broken hearts, poverty, and ultimately, separation from the God we were designed to love.

Even though WE incurred these consequences to our choices, HE humbled Himself by paying for those consequences. He experienced pain and rejection on our behalf because He loves us.

Talk about a humble proposal.

Tomorrow: on wearing white...

Thanksgiving

2010-10-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have so many things to thank God for in this season of life. Here are a few:

1. Steven

Today is our 2 month anniversary! This man is a constant source of laughter and encouragement, and he points me to Jesus! He is SO wise, and I love working with him. He fights to do the dishes, gives me no-occasion flowers, calls me nicknames, and prays with me every night. He's the world's greatest husband.

2. Our church-- Discovery

What a sweet church community that God's given us! We can feel confident inviting friends and students because they preach the gospel and are such friendly, inviting people. It's been easy getting plugged in to serve-- just got fingerprinted to help with kids' Sunday school this afternoon!

And what an awesome community group we've met through Discovery! We can talk, laugh, grow, learn, and have fun with these people. On Saturday Justin initiated a trip to the Dixon Corn Maze. One of the kids had a few emergencies, and let's just say that I wouldn't feel too great about eating that corn anymore. Haha!

But the maze was a blast, and thanks to Justin's navigational skills... we got out in 90 minutes. (That's GOOD!) Later that evening, we got together again at the Hendricks' house to study about discipleship in Luke, coo at their spunky toddler, and eat whirly-pop-made popcorn.

I'm also so grateful for how this church partners with Campus Crusade for Christ at Davis, helping us with outreaches, giving financial support, and providing a church home for our movement. It's awesome having like-minded friends in the community.

3. Our staff friends

It's not every job where you find yourself losing track of time, chatting with your boss/coworkers until late into the night. We are SO grateful that the Lord's brought Keith and Desyre, our interns, onto our team full-time.

We also love our team leaders, the Goffeneys. Highlight of last week, hands down, was babysitting their 3-year-old triplets Friday night. How does so much poop come out of such little people?!?! I had poop in my HAIR! Cooper had poop in his SHOES!

You KNOW they must be insanely sweet kids for me to leave the evening with poop in my hair and deem it the highlight of my week :)

Ellie and I had a conversation about twins and triplets.

Me: You know, you're pretty special. Most people are born alone.

Ellie: Really?

Me: Yeah. I was born alone.

Ellie: Not with Steven?

And we always look forward to seeing our faraway staff friends at CCC conferences. I totally understand why Judy Douglas, the president's wife, said, "Welcome to the family" when we graduated from New Staff Training.

4. Our students

Sure, working with teenagers can mean drama and late nights. But I love talking with them, hearing about their lives, journeying with them to bring their lives to the cross. We have such awesome, humble leaders with bold faith. It's so cool seeing God use them.

Hanging out with these students almost makes me want to have kids right away so that our kids can grow up with these Davis students around.

(ALMOST.)

5. Our ministry partners

We have everything we need, and we are so grateful for the hundreds of people who give (often sacrificially) to the Lord by supporting our personal ministry. They are faithful prayer warriors. And some even give us thoughtful gifts like a knit blanket, a DVD about world missions, a homemade toy for my family's dog, book recommendations...

Grace is an undeserved gift, unmerited favor. The hugest example of grace is how God offers us a relationship with Him, King of the universe, and rains down blessings on us as His heirs. One major way God demonstrates His grace to Steven and me is through our team of ministry partners.

6. DAM-- Davis Aquatic Masters

I joined a masters swim team last month, and I LOVE it. My lanemates are friendly, and the coaches really know their stuff! I've missed the water so much!

Plus, it's fun making jokes when a team's abbreviated name is DAM. Eg: "I have DAM swim practice at 7am."

I could go on and on with the thanking. God is good.

What is Cru?

2010-10-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

To give you an idea of what we do on campus:

Just a little more...

2010-09-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

"I did it-- I'm the number one tennis player on earth, and yet I feel empty. If being number one feels empty, unsatisfying, what's the point? Why not just retire?"

This is what Andre Agassi thought to himself upon reaching the top of the tennis world at age 25.

Knowing I love non-fiction, Steven got me this book as a gift, and it's been difficult to put down between sittings.

While engrossing, this autobiography is also pretty sad. This guy is trapped in his job, having hated tennis since childhood. For lack of other options, he continues pursuing this lifestyle that deeply dissatisfies.

"I tell myself that you can't be unhappy when you have money in the bank and own your own plane. But I can't help it. I feel listless, hopeless, trapped in a life I didn't choose, hounded by people I can't see. And I can't discuss any of it with Brooke, because I can't admit to such weakness."

By the way, that Brooke to whom he refers-- that's Brooke Shields. International supermodel and actress. At the end of a day of raking in the G's, he curled up in bed next to HER for years. And yet, it was still dissatisfying.

Even winning an Olympic gold gave him a very ephemeral high.

"Days later, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, the Olympic afterglow is gone. I'm on the court in Cincinnati, losing my mind. Playing for myself again, I'm smashing my racket in a fit of rage."

I think of the thousands of students we've met this past week while passing out Cru water bottles in exchange for spiritual surveys. We called/emailed the students who indicated interest in discussing spiritual things.

We invite them to chat with us over coffee, and also to our events, like weekly Bible study in their dorms and our Cru meeting and pizza feed. Not everyone we invite comes, and that's fine and expected. It makes me sad, though, when it's evident their negative RSVP is because they are heartily pursuing something temporary that will eventually disappoint.

A few years ago, my high school English teacher mailed to our parents' houses these letters we wrote to our future selves. 16-year-old Sam wrote to college-student-Sam about her hopes that I was getting good grades, landing an internship that would help me get a good job that would someday make me 6 figures.

Why? I'm not sure. I didn't put a ton of thought into that goal. I am 100% sure, though, that if I were to one day GET that 6-figure salary, I would NOT contentedly sigh, "Yes. I am now fulfilled."

What sad, small dreams I had!

Academic diligence, money, parties, friends, and family are all GREAT things! But we were made for so much MORE. We're relational beings, and our short lives can be spent investing in things that LAST-- our relationship with God, and our relationships with others.

Will that 4.0 satisfy? Will that guy's attention satisfy? Will the approval of your parents satisfy? I don't think so.

Andre Agassi could tell you-- it doesn't even satisfy to be the world's greatest in your field and marry a supermodel.

Our thirst is infinite, and only someone infinite could satisfy it. There's a part in the Bible when Jesus compares literal water to the life He offers. He offers a personal relationship with God, through trusting Him.

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

That's the kind of water I want. Because I love them, that's the kind of satisfying water I want to share with students and friends.

Water Bottles

2010-09-18T10:02:00.001-07:00

Last night about 30 of us prepared Cru water bottles to give away during Welcome Week. There were about 3000 water bottles to uncap, empty of last year's flyers, recap, clean, dry, uncap, stuff with this year's flyers, recap, and stuffed into bags.

Our uber-efficient assembly line was working like a well-oiled machine.

My favorite quote from the evening:

Kelly: Guys, I think we've done more bottles than we have left.
Me: I concur
Tim: For the placebo effect, I also concur.

We worked until we ran out of flyers-- that's 2000 bottles cleaned, stuffed, and ready to go to students eager for free swag!

Bring it on, Welcome Week!

Forgotten Cookies

2010-09-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

The school year started for the staff team today! Kyra made us yummy pumpkin nut muffins; we gabbed about our summers; we planned leadership retreat; and got our tushes back into campus ministry mode.

At the end of the meeting, Kyra came over with the triplets, and I had a blast chasing them up and down our hallway, which Cooper called "the tunnel." Maybe it's because he's so into trains?

They climbed onto our bed and looked out the window, asking about several passersby, "Is HE your neighbor?" "Is SHE your neighbor?"

Looking around, they spied the apartment complex' swimming pool, where we swam Sunday after church, and they exclaimed that they saw "Steven's pool," where they "went underwater and paddled."

I LOVE how much they talk!!

After they went to Nut Tree for an afternoon o' family fun, I rolled up my sleeves to try baking something I read in a friend's blog: nighty night cookies. Christine (that friend) is on staff with Crusade in San Francisco, and she and her husband just had their first baby. Hi, Baby!!

These cookies are also known as forgotten cookies because you pop them into an oven and "forget" about them overnight. Or for 6 hours during the day, if you can't wait until evening to make them, like I couldn't.

Here are the ingredients:

5 egg whites
¼ tsp. cream of tartar
pinch of salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1½ cups chocolate chips
1½ cups chopped pecans

As the oven preheated to 400º, I whipped up the egg whites, cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla until it was foamy. Then, I gradually added the sugar and kept beating until stiff, glossy peaks formed. Then, I folded in the yummy chunks and scooped these into little plops onto a Silpat.

Lastly, I popped them into the oven, turned off the heat, and put a post-it on the door handle.

Christine's blog post said no peeking!

At 9pm, I taste-tested the "forgotten cookies" that I had been thinking about ALL DAY.

They are sweet and chunky and delicious... but not airy and crunchy like meringue cookies are in the supermarket.

How did I manage to botch these? They're called FORGOTTEN cookies! Neglect is in their NAME!

After licking the yummy stickiness off my fingers, I googled "soft sticky meringue" and learned that meringues come out like this when you:

Make it on a rainy or humid day... much like today was
Fail to add the sugar gradually enough. I added it in quarter cupfuls at a time, as opposed to spoonfuls.
Have an oven that's too hot
Beat egg whites that are cold instead of room temperature

Harumph! Temperamental meringue has bested me yet again! Reminds me of the time Jennie and I attempted to make lemon meringue pies while we were on STINT in the Middle East.

Oh, well. They're still good. REALLY good.

They're like loaded up marshmallows. We've already eaten 7. And they used up the whites I had left over from making creme brulee in the crockpot yesterday. (YES. You CAN make creme brulee in the crockpot!)

Steven's been working hard on combining our databases of ministry partners-- that's over 600 people!!!!

He deserves a treat.

Epilogue:

It's now Friday morning, and I had the cookies sitting in the oven on the "warm" setting for a couple hours last night before we went to bed. Then killed the heat and went to sleep. They are much lighter this morning! Not crumbly like meringues are supposed to be, but they took a big step in the right direction.

I guess you really do just have to FORGET about them for a long time!

Mmmmmm... it's not exactly the breakfast of champions, but 1 or 2 go great alongside my oatmeal!

Slow cooking

2010-09-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Steven and I had a 48-hour gift-opening and thank-you-card-writing marathon when we got back from our honeymoon. We felt so loved, opening all those cards and seeing our home come together! AND I love admiring my stud of a husband who selflessly breaks down hundreds of boxes from Bed Bath and Beyond and makes trips out to the recycling pile throughout the afternoon on a 108º day.

2 of our gifts go so well together, and I've been going bonkers with them. An AMAZING crockpot cookbook and a 3-size slow cooker (the smallest size is perfect to make dinner for a wee family of 2).

I've been reading the cookbook like a novel, marking the recipes that I must. Make. Right away.

I know of the author from her awesome blog, A Year of Slow Cooking, which she started because of a new year's resolution in 2008 to use her crockpot every day for a year.

I've made so many of her recipes... 2 of them on our wedding day, in fact! 5 of my closest girlfriends were spending the night, and we had to wake up REEEEEEEEALLY early to start getting ready. It was a BLAST switching on the crockpot after the rehearsal dinner, and then waking up to the smell of ultimate breakfast casserole and apple cinnamon oatmeal.

'Twill probably be the only hot meal I will ever serve at 4:30 am.

I've slow-cooked a majority of last week's dinners, including a couple recipes that give me fond memories of our college apartment-- Natalie's sundried tomato beef stew and Heidi's Hawaiian chicken. Yum!

I love making and sharing meals with my husband!

Tonight we had Italian pulled beef sandwiches.

You must be VERY careful when eating sandwiches with Steven. He's incredibly skilled at a game that involves punching sandwiches.

No sandwiches were harmed in tonight's dinner. We enjoyed our slow-cooked Italian beef sandwiches with roasted onions and peppers, pepper jack cheese, and Cholula.

Ooh. And corn on the cob. Steven taught me that there's no such thing as "the shuck." You remove the HUSKS when you SHUCK corn... there is no shuck.

Marriage is FULL of learning and growing.

I'll teach YOU something now. Did you know that Subway's official policy is to tessellate their cheese now? We Mockfords tessellate OUR cheese.

We also floss after eating corn on the cob. They should stock the floss next to the ears of corn in the supermarket. Grocers would make millions.

Wedding Slideshow

2010-09-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful photographer put up a slideshow of pictures from our wedding!

Money and Mousetrap

2010-07-30T22:17:00.001-07:00

As Steven and I plan a wedding, honeymoon, and a lifetime together... we're dealing with a lot of money issues. It blows my mind that if I'm careless and spend more money than I was supposed to, it not only affects me... it affects HIM! And since we're trying to save for the distant future... an impulse buy NOW even affects our KIDS! ("Sorry, kids. You have to put yourself through college because Mom bought kitchen gadgets she didn't need and then dipped into savings to pay off her credit card.")

This afternoon, Steven dropped me off downtown to inquire at a framing shop about altering a matte we had... I also liked the idea of matting and framing one of our engagement pictures... it's a nice picture, so we'll make it big... oh, double-mattes look much nicer. Yes, let's do that... before I knew it, I had spent $60 without even consulting Steven. I had even SAID on the car ride over that I'd just ask how much it'd cost, then check in with him before buying. At the framing shop, calling Steven didn't even cross my mind. I'm so used to making decisions as a single; I was on single-girl autopilot!

Steven was VERY gracious. And on the car ride home, I kept thinking of how the next year or two is going to be such an adventure! Even mundane things like running errands or grocery shopping is going to be different because it will be for TWO people. I can't run on my single-girl autopilot anymore!

Marriage is going to be QUITE an adventure.

Tonight was our last evening together before I spend several days with my college girlfriends, celebrating their 25th birthdays and my getting married soon! How did Steven and I spend our evening?

We redeemed a free sandwich from Nugget, made strawberry mango smoothies (using a blender salvaged from Jen Ip's garage for free last year!), cuddled and talked, and ate leftover homemade blueberry cobbler with ice cream Jeanine left in our fridge. Blissful.

Oh, and we played Mouse Trap for the first time in our adult lives.

Game face.
That's a styrafoam cup we cut in half to be the replacement washbasin... I seem to have lost that piece sometime in the last 18 years.

After an eternity circling the cheese wheel, he trapped my mouse.

Salty cheese, yet bitter defeat. :(

It was still a wonderful day, though. I don't think I could ever get bored with this man.

Summer "break"

2010-07-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

We're back from Santa Monica Summer Project! It was intense and awesome! Here are some highlights:

Working alongside my fiance, Steven, on a team of 28 amazing staff people.
Having 1-on-1 discipleship appointments with the women I led, talking with them over cupcakes or coffee, about living a gospel-centered life. Seeing how Christ gave both grace and truth and seeking to do the same by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Seeing God grow students in humility and teachability.
Leading a girl named Heather to Christ while my disciple, Danielle, and I were sharing our faith together 2 weeks ago.
Eating at hole-in-the-wall beachside stands that served shockingly good food!
Hearing one of Steven's disciples share with passion about why he needs to tell people about Christ. “They deserve to know!”
Being trained by Randy Newman, the wise and hilarious author of Questioning Evangelism.
Playing games and eating cake at my first ever surprise birthday party... and I was REALLY surprised!
Seeing students move from apathy to grief as God grew their heart for the lost.
Talking with students as they consider giving up a summer, year, or more to bring the gospel to the nations!
Hearing the delightful surprise in a student's voice as she realized that evangelism isn’t as scary as she’d made it out to be. “It’s just like having a conversation! I’ve done THAT lots of times!”

It feels good to be back in Davis, though it doesn't feel like "home" without Jeanine (my roommate last year), and without students! And every time Steven comes over, he brings some of his stuff to move in. It's bizarre having his things here, even though it's just books and DVD's!

We are SO grateful to have a job that goes by the school years, so we pretty much have from now until fall quarter to raise/maintain support and GET MARRIED!!!

28 days to go!

Mom's Engrish

2010-07-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Sam,

Talk to Steven and his parents, see if they have any more relatives and close friends want to invite to the wedding banquet on Sunday. Please feel free to let me know. It’s our horror for them to come to celebrate on your wedding.

Love,
Mom

"I'M LEARNING!!!!!"

2010-06-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

I heard something funny on the Promenade yesterday. A thuggish-looking teenager was listening to a street preacher while his friends were talking next to him. He must have had a hard time hearing the preacher over his friends' voices because he turned to his chatty friends and screamed, "WILL YOU SHUT UP?! I'M LEARNING!!! I'M F***ING LEARNING!!!!!"

That is some intense thirst for knowledge! And probably the most interest in a street preacher that I've ever witnessed.

Sigh...

2010-06-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

Rachel sighed one day and found out that the dogs mimicked her sighing. Then the other dog would mimic the first dog, and they'd get louder and louder... one thing led to another, and they discovered they could make them do this:

Santa Monica Summer Project

2010-06-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

Some events from the past week:

1. Steven's college roommate, Daniel, got married last Saturday. It was a beautiful wedding in Fremont. The homily was on 2 Peter 1:5-7:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love."

The pastor talked about these verses and the surrounding verses, too. He exorted them to seek to be a lovER-- not just to be loved, and he pointed out that Peter shows us that love is something you WORK AT and BUILD. It isn't something that happens to you; people don't just effortlessly fall in love; we're to make every effort to build it. The precious hope we have is in verse 3 preceding it-- that God's given us everything we need for life and godliness through knowing Him.

2. We packed up our car and drove to SLO for 2 nights. We have awesome friends there from summer projects and STINT.

And we made 2 new friends:

Bret

and Jemaine.

3. After 2 blissful days with wonderful friends, we drove down to Santa Monica for summer project! Woohoo!

The 29 staff have a week to prepare and train before students arrive. With the new city and freaky worldviews (eg: Aliens put us here; if we all just smoked more pot and listened to Bob Marley our problems would disappear... ), I'm feeling out of my element when it comes to evangelism! It's fun, though... and a wonderful reminder of how desperately we need the Holy Spirit!

Today we got our action groups-- these are the women we'll disciple all summer. They'll live together in a shared room; we'll share our faith together; learn and grow together; be stretched and probably cry together... it's awesome being able to pray for them by NAME!

Gonna go call them now... see what their travel plans are, so I can pick them up from the airport when they arrive on Thursday!

Jambalaya

2010-05-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first time ever cooking shrimp! Seafood kind of intimidates me, and I may or may not be allergic to much of it. But after a shrimpy dinner last night (and lunch today), I'm still hive-free, so I think shrimp and I are on good terms!

Whenever I think of jambalaya, this scene from "Scrubs" come to mind:

Heehee! Ohhhh, JD.

I made this slow cooker jambalaya from Allrecipes. It was so easy!

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch-cubes
1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 large onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chopped celery (next time I'll try okra! That sounds tasty!)
1 cup chicken broth
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. parsley
2 tsp. Cajun seasoning (Are Cajun and Creole the same? I used Creole... )
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1 14-oz can tomato sauce (my addition)
1 14-oz can kidney beans (my addition)
1 pound frozen cooked shrimp, tail on (okay, so I didn't COOK the shrimp at home. But I thawed it!)

Dump it all into a crockpot except for the shrimp. Stir that in 30 minutes before serving. Cook on high 3-4 hours or low for 7-8 hours. Serve over rice.

Not only was this uber easy, but it was good, too! Steven gave it a score of 7, which is actually really good on our 1-10 scale. 8 is the highest thing our tastebuds can perceive in our not-yet-glorified bodies.

And because I suck at scaling recipes... we have enough jambalaya for the next few weeks.

Come on over if you're in the mood for jambalaya! :)

My nemesis

2010-05-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

"I haven't been too impressed with your bacon-cooking skills... "

Steven's usually pretty rave-y and encouraging when it comes to eating food that I make. I mean, this guy's not picky... he eats like a bachelor, with BBQ sauce sandwiches as a dietary staple in college!

But this honest comment came after I burnt our bacon for the 100th time. Ooooh, bacon. You are dang tasty but so tricky to cook!

You'd think it's simple-- just put it on a hot surface. No measuring or mixing required! But I ALWAYS manage to biff it up!

Fortunately, I'm marrying a bacon connoisseur. Steven is an expert in all bacon-related matters-- cooking, eating, weaving into a mat to roll around a log of Italian sausage wrapped around more bacon... and HE will man the bacon in our life together.

Hooray for complimentarianism!

P.S. The recipe for which I was cooking bacon was bacon, ranch, and chicken mac and cheese from Cooking Light. We quadrupled the bacon. Not so light anymore... but worth it!

Going cordless

2010-05-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon my sister and I hauled bags and bags of stuff out of our parents' house to toss, donate, or recycle. My dad got a job in Shanghai, and he's moving out there tomorrow. We've accumulated a lot of stuff in this house over the past 20+ years!

We took the Disney characters and Britney Spears posters down from my wall. The only things we couldn't take down were some dinosaur decals I stuck to the window about 18 years ago that have melted into some sort of fusion with the glass and hundreds of glow-in-the-dark star stickers all over the ceiling. It'd be easier to just paint over those things.

I used to LOVE collecting interesting coins. Elementary-school-age me would have a FIT if she knew I was spending the collection as normal currency. The dozens of bicentennial drummer boy quarters have gone into my laundry fund. Think Safeway will accept $2 bills and Kennedy half-dollars?

*Whew!* What productive work! The room I've had since I was 2 has been reduced to just 2 boxes to store-- mostly old yearbooks and school notes from my favorite subjects growing up. And a stack of our favorite books that we hope to read with our kids someday.

Our most exciting engagement-purchase thus far

2010-05-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

Our wedding rings are on their way!

I think my heart fluttered a bit when we were in the jewelry store, trying on wedding bands for size.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Mark Driscoll and Roy from "The Office"

2010-03-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else see the resemblance??

Drool.

2010-03-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Steven,

Sorry I doubted. The cookie-cake-pie we made was miiiiiiiiiiiiiiighty tasty!!

Love,
Sam

That's a chocolate chip cookie dough "crust" baked with strawberry pie filling, devil's food cake, homemade whipped cream, and strawberries. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Some perspective during finals

2010-03-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

I'm at Common Grounds coffee shop in South Davis right now. There's a table of students prepping for exams nearby, and the edge of one guy's textbook is DENSE with those sticky-note tabs. I wonder how he's going to commit ALL those pages to memory!

It's amazing how MUCH information we can cram into our heads to prepare for an exam, and we probably won't even have understood 50% of everything in that textbook. Even if you commit to one field of study for decades (like a lot of smart people at Davis have!), what percentage of all the knowledge in that field would you say you've understood? 90%? 50%? 10%? 1%?

Then step back and look at all the knowledge there is in the UNIVERSE. Think of the most learned person you know. What percentage of all the knowledge in the universe do you think that person understands? Probably less than 1%! A certified genius at a top technical university in the world once told me that he probably knows less than 1% of 1% of everything there is to know.

Yet there is a God out there who DOES know everything. Psalm 147:5 says His understanding has no limit. NO LIMIT! He's the Person I trust to pilot my life.

Last year, I was praying with a dear friend whose doctor found some tumors in her, and she was awaiting test results that would reveal whether they were benign or malignant. I was praying, asking God to make those tumors benign, but... but... and she finished my sentence: "But thy will be done."

I stopped praying and protested to her, "That sounds like a terrible prayer!"

"But it's a GOOD prayer!"

Later, she emailed me:

"Never hesitate praying 'Thy will be done'. That’s the only place we want to be – in the center of His will. He knows what’s best and see’s the big picture (well, He created the big picture!) while we see only in part. I’m reminded of that so many times."

The tumors were benign, but the doctors are keeping a close eye on them for the next several years. That was a big relief to us, but I know this woman would have been at peace either way, since she trusts the One who sees the big picture!

As you study for finals and are overwhelmed by all the knowledge there is out there... take heart in knowing that there is a God great enough to understand it all, and we can trust Him with our lives-- including finals.

My favorite Satanist

2010-02-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

I met a wonderful Satanist today. Jen, Steven, and I went sharing on campus, and we struck up a conversation with David-- a card-carrying Satanist.

He clarified that Satanism is not worship of Satan; in fact, the founder of Satanism, Anton LaVey, was totally atheist. Satan is more of an allegory, like how we view Uncle Sam. Satanism is the worship of self.

We asked him to summarize the message of the Satanic Bible. It basically teaches:

Worship yourself. How can you make others happy if you're not happy first? Tend to your own needs above all else.
Give love where love is due and hatred where hatred is due. It's a twist on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as they do unto you.

I don't agree with David's beliefs, but I would have loved to continue talking with him for a long time. He was kind, intelligent, amiable, articulate, rational, respectful, and really sweet to his girlfriend.

Based on what he explained about Satanism, I think most people ARE Satanists, though they haven't filled out an application for the Church of Satan, like David did... they're just generally moral people who look out for themselves as #1.

David explained, "I didn't look for Satanism and then follow its beliefs. I came across Satanism and realized that I already AM a Satanist."

Confession: A lot of the time, I act like a Satanist. Caring primarily for your own well being? Sounds like we're all BORN Satanists!! I wonder how many people out there are Satanists and don't even know it.

Crocs for Valentine's Day

2010-02-16T13:24:00.001-08:00

Because Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year fell on the same day this year, Steven and I celebrated Valentine's Day on the 13th.

Our morning/afternoon consisted of:

Babysitting for the Nords with Stephanie. Shon stepped outside and knocked on the doorbell, pretending to pick up his wife for their date. It was so sweet :)
After lots of games and books, Stephanie, Steven, and I got Subway sandwiches. I hadn't had Subway in YEARS, but Steven LOVES them. So we went, and it was kind of a disappointment, but what do you expect after eating Nugget sandwiches for months?? At least we got to teach Stephanie how to play The Sandwich Game!
We drove to the Bay for our FIRST premarital counseling session with Josh.

Throughout the day, starting at 7:20 in the morning, I was finding little notes from Steven that he had hidden in my stuff, bags, car... There was even one that he sneakily snuck into my sweatshirt pocket when he gave me a hug, like a ninja!!
His gift to me makes me laugh so hard. When we got to Fremont, I opened the present to find... CROCS... in HIS size!

I got really into wearing Crocs around my last year of college because I was working about 50 hours per week at various pools in the area, and Crocs are uber comfy, waterproof, and popular among the kids I with whom I worked.

STINTing in the Middle East perpetuated this love of Crocs. I had a friend there who wore bright yellow ones to work, at her office job with an IT firm! EVERYONE wears them there!

When I came back to the States, my sister (among others) gave me scorn for wearing them, so I've since foregone the light, cushy comfort... until Steven explained his gift to me.

I generally don't wear Crocs in the U.S. because I feel silly. Well, he bought himself a pair (despite his agreeing that they look silly) to wear with me on our date that night! Then he pulled out of his bag MY Crocs, which he had stolen from my apartment in Davis earlier!!

Looking silly together in our Crocs, we listened to a bluegrass band as we enjoyed dinner at Mission Pizza, then we hung out at Baystreet for awhile... Fremont mainstays.

There was MORE to his aresenal of surprises! After we had settled down with our hot drinks at Baystreet, Steven pulled a Soularium out of his backpack and a bunch of questions he had thought up. We took turns answering questions about our lives, our relationship, ministry, thoughts/feelings about marriage, etc...

Our Valentine's Day "date" last year was a 7½-hour-long Skype conversation.
We never ran out of things to talk about! This year things like the Soularium remind us that there is still so much to learn and talk about! I love getting to know this guy better.

And just like this time last year, he's still pursuing me like he's trying to win me over, despite the fact that he's given me a ring, and I've already told him I'm his!

It was a happy Valentine's Day, indeed. :)

Envelopes

2010-02-10T23:23:00.000-08:00

2 weeks ago, Steven and I attended a financial management conference to learn how to become

Diligent earners
Generous givers
Wise savers
Cautious debtors
Prudent consumers

When I tell people about that week, the short version is: Learned a lot, cried a little, saw some dolphins.

Overall, it was a really REALLY great conference. I think it was time and money well invested in our future.

5ish years ago, I got my first credit card. It had 5% cash back on groceries, drug store purchases, and gas station purchases... and since I was the primary shopper in a household of 4 girls who all shared food, I got a LOT of cash back! It was great!

I grew to get REALLY excited about cash back, dividends, points, travel miles/dollars... so I was reluctant to consider the conference speaker's advice about trying a cash budgeting system. I thought, "I pay my bill on time each month, why would I want to forgo the rewards I earn?"

But then I learned an alarming statistic: Spending rises 20-30% when people use credit cards, versus cash. If I end up spending 20-30% less each month, that would definitely be worth missing out on my travel rewards!

So on the 1st of this month, I went to the bank, got my paycheck in small(ish) bills, and divvied them up among a bunch of envelopes, one for each budget item that isn't a monthly bill.

Today I saw a really neat bike accessory. I checked my envelope and realized that I don't have enough to buy it this month, so I had to say no. At first I was sad, but then I realized, "WOAH! I would have spent this money if I were charging it! The envelopes are working!!!"

THAT was a fun epiphany!

And last night, I actually DREAMT about my envelopes! In my dream, I was at Nugget supermarket, wanting to buy a Microplane. Dream-me rationalized, though, that I needed to go home to get my envelope first.

When I woke up, I thought, "Hmm. I really DO want a Microplane!" So I got out of bed, checked my envelope, saw that there was plenty there, compared prices online... and... I purchased a new Microplane!

I am having SO MUCH FUN!

Does anyone have something that needs zesting?

Poor boy...

2010-01-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

From the crying 2-year-old on the plane yesterday:

"I can't hear my ears!!!"

A good question

2010-01-23T12:55:00.000-08:00

This email I recently received probably voices a question that's on many people's hearts. (These are the first 2 emails out of 20 in Vinnie's and my dialogue.)

Got a Question? -EveryStudent.com

Vinnie to me, Jan 14

Where was your loving god when the earthquake hit Haiti?

This message was sent by a visitor of EveryStudent.com after reading http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html?gclid=CPGR-dfvj58CFaM45QodyUsoLw

Samantha to Vinnie, Jan 14

Dear Vinnie,

The earthquake in Haiti was a terrible tragedy, and it breaks my heart to check the news and see the death toll rise even more, and to see the anguish on people's faces. I believe God is real, but you're right-- none of us can "prove" God's existence. And as heart-breaking as it is for US to see the suffering in Haiti, I know that it must break God's heart even more, since He actually KNOWS, LOVES, and CREATED those people!

I don't know the big picture; I can't understand why God allowed such a terrible thing to happen. But I can offer pieces of the big picture.

We wonder, "God, you claim to be loving; why don't you reduce all this suffering?!" The truth is, unless God reduced all suffering to ZERO, we'd still think it's way too much. What if He worked so that the earthquake death toll were only 10,000? That would still be a terribly tragedy! What about 5? What if just 5 people died innocently? That would still be a tragedy! What if the earthquake never happened, and Haitians continued living in poverty? That would STILL be terrible! God may have already greatly reduced the suffering in Haiti, and we wouldn't know, because ANY suffering is too much suffering.

Sometimes loving, powerful people allow some suffering to happen for good. For instance, when a father holds his son still in order to let him get a shot from a doctor, he is doing so because he loves his child. The child will scream and cry, but he cannot understand the good that comes from the shot.

In the same way, we cannot understand how a loving God could allow so much pain. But He is our Father, and we can trust that He knows what He's doing, and He hears the Haitians' cries... and even grieves with them.

If you have a Bible, look at John 11:35. It is one of the many examples where God grieves with us in our human suffering. It's a short verse: "Jesus wept."

God is no stranger to suffering. This world is full of pain, suffering, and death, like there is in Haiti right now. How did God respond to this? He gave us a way out by choosing to ENTER our world of suffering, live completely innocently, and die a painful physical death, as well as a spiritual death, which is complete separation from Goodness.

When He rose from the dead, though, He conquered it all! Vinnie, while the situation in Haiti might seem terribly bleak, Haitians who know God personally can rest in the hope that He has prepared a place for people that is completely free of pain and suffering, and we can live there forever.

We cannot EARN our way into this presence, since this place is perfect, and none of us is perfect.

Only one person lived a perfect life, and that was Jesus. If we let His death pay for our imperfections, we can experience a personal relationship with God and be with Him forever, even after we die. He can give us hope and peace even amidst tragedy, like what's happening in Haiti.

I'm heart-broken over Haiti, just like you are, Vinnie. But my tears are temporary. Because I know God personally, I can look forward to a time when earthquakes and pain will not exist!

In the meantime, I don't have proof of God's existence, or His love. I just cling to a trust that He's there, He's good, and He hears our prayers. I can trust this because I know Him personally.

Vinnie, it's good that you're asking questions about God's existence. If He were real, would you want to know Him personally?

Samantha

Dear Craig, I love your list. Sincerely, Sam

2010-01-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

I don't want to brag... okay, yes I do. The last few months have been AMAZING for Craigslist finds. Since moving to Davis in the fall, Craigslist has supplied me with:

My bed
Bookshelf
Couch and chaise
Coffee table
TV stand
Vaccuum cleaner
Plates, bowls, mugs, etc... a pretty matching set
New DVD player
My wedding dress! (I'm proudest of this one.)

And more stuff I can't think of right now.

Hoooray for deals, huh?! Thanks, Craig! Your list is great!

Jeanine's dealer: Uncle Ben

2010-01-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

My roommate, Jeanine, shares a memory from her childhood:

"My uncle used to make us stovetop popcorn. He had a big tupperware labeled 'MSG,' and he'd take some of that and sprinkle it on top... we ate that popcorn like it was CRACK!!!"

Splashes of color

2010-01-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

After walking around campus with soggy socks all of Tuesday, I invested in a pretty pair of boots, and my feet have been LOVING their cozy new shelter from the rain since.

It's been so much fun, too, noticing all the funky-patterned boots around campus. Their brightness breaks up the otherwise gray views of the outdoors these days.

I LOVE RAIN BOOTS!!!

Staying dry and healthily uncomfortable

2010-01-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

Today kicked off our 2nd of 4 weeks of evangelism training. Throughout the week, students are meeting in 13 small groups to learn how to dialogue about their faith more comfortably.

38 students are going through this training, learning how to take the initiative to share the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results to God.

It has been wet and stormy in Davis these last couple days, and I was worried that there would be high competition for the tables in the Memorial Union, leaving our training groups without a functional place to meet.

I led 3 sessions today, and during all 3 of those sessions, we had a big table in an MU lounge. What a sweet gift!

Also, despite the torrential rain, MORE people came out this week than they did last week!

Despite pursuing the comfort of dryness, we were embracing and overcoming the initial DIScomfort of talking about God. I'm love to witness Christians move from timidity to equipped boldness.

Here are a couple pairs, practicing sharing the Gospel using the Knowing God Personally booklet:

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore,
to send out workers into his harvest field.
Matthew 9:38

God provides!!! He provides workers to send into the field-- in this case, 38 students into UC Davis. And He even provides logistical needs like a dry place for us to meet.

What a glorious morning on campus, with a bunch of blessedly dry, warm, and uncomfortable students :)

Winter Conference 2010

2010-01-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

5 intense days of speakers, seminars, training, equipping, vision casting, faith challenges, memories with friends, worship... and a killer New Years Eve party to finish it off.

There were about 20 schools present. Our movement brought about 30 students.

The band was awesome-- a Keynote musician named Seth held auditions all over the region and picked the 11 best students to help him lead worship.

All the staff had conference jobs. Steven worked in the back of the main meetings, working the camera or spotlight or dimmer switch.

This was our first conference together as a couple! YAAAY for being in the same place as each other!!
And I helped train students for the Day of Faith. I loved looking around Little Italy and recognizing our students all over, engaging in Spiritual conversations.

Later, back at the conference center, students shared stories from the afternoon of sharing. This guy named Josue from UCLA shared about how the Spirit told him, "Follow that dog," so he did. The dog led Josue to its owner, and they got to talking. The Spirit prompted him to share the Gospel, and Josue led the dog's owner to Christ!WHAT a memorable week! A lot of students made bold decisions for Christ that week-- decisions like:

Start talking about God more back at Davis
Surrender my life to Jesus
Go on a summer project in 2010
STINT next year

Insane! What an amazing few days!

Christmas with the Mockfords

2010-01-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

Aside from my year interning in the Middle East, this was my first Christmas away from my family. I spent about a full week with Steven's family in Auburn.

A few sweet highlights:

Seeing some AMAZING Christmas lights with Steven and his mom on Christmas Eve

Finally seeing Steven's dad play handbells

Being incredibly touched by how warm and welcoming the Mockfords are... Bev sewed Steven's brother's girlfriend, Macy, and me stockings that match the rest of the family's.

Seeing delight in the eyes of Steven and his brother as they made Bacon Explosion-- bacon wrapped in sausage wrapped in bacon with layers of dry rub and barbeque sauce in between.

Honestly, the delight left their eyes as they were eating it. It was very... thirst-inducing!

FOND memories. I think I'll like being a Mockford. :)

Trudy

2009-12-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

Steven's uber-loving dog, Trudy, recognized my voice on Skype, but she was SO confused as to where it was coming from!

Snow Day

2009-12-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Steven and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary! It's so crazy to think that last December, he told me he liked me... and less than a year later, we put down a deposit on our wedding site!

The highlight of our weekend was not planned. It was staying at his family's house and waking up to THIS on Monday morning:

Steven said he doesn't remember it snowing this much in Auburn ever-- the town's elevation is only 1200 feet! And plus, it was neither snowing nor raining the day before when we headed in. All this snow fell while we were sleeping!

A happy dance was in order.

We went for a walk along the path that leads to the river near his house. Funnily, the last time we walked that trail, it was after swimming in the river, and we were sweating buckets in the August heat.

It was SO pretty and peaceful walking around, making fresh tracks in the snow. I said to Steven, "If you hadn't already proposed, this would have been a great day to do it!"

So he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him (again). I said yes, and now we can say he asked me to marry him in the snow after a surprise flurry. Yes, we were already engaged when this happened, but the story is true, nonetheless.

After making a snowdog, our toes were sufficiently cold, so we went back inside and enjoyed hot chai and a crossword. :)

Demola

2009-11-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today, I met up with some students for Tuesday morning prayer at 8am. Kyle-- a sophomore-- initiated this! Isn't that awesome?!

I had a lunch appointment at noon, so I just stayed on campus with my friend, Leanne. (She's one of the freshmen in the dorm Bible study I lead.) She had poli sci reading to do, and I had a New Testament Survey final to study for, so we just grabbed a table in Griffin Lounge and buried our noses in our books.

Griffin Lounge got pretty crowded, so around 11 a guy asked if he could join us at our table. We said sure, and the 3 of us continued working, mostly silently.

A little before noon, Leanne and I got up to go get lunch, and as we're collecting our things, the guy says kind of quietly, "You forgot to share your faith with me."

"What?!"

"You guys are leaving, and you didn't share your faith with me. You're Christians, right?" (I was studying for a Christian class, so I had my Bible out.)

"Yeah... were you EXPECTING us to share with you?"

Turns out, he already has a relationship with God, but it was still a missed opportunity because initiating in a spiritual conversation with him would have been an obedient step of faith!

But I'm grateful that the guy-- Demola was his name-- seized the opportunity to encourage his sisters in Christ. He took a step of faith, himself, reminding us to talk about the Gospel. And Leanne and I won't forget it.

¡Fiesta!

2009-11-13T01:56:00.000-08:00

Ken educated us all in pupusa-making and pupusa-eating. They are thick corn tortillas made with a filling in the middle. We made them with cheese, with intentional cracks in the dough, so that the cheese oozed out.

You top them with curtido (kind of like Mexican saurkraut), some salsa (which Daniel-- the pupusa-flipper from above-- made from scratch the day before!), and a pinch of salt. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. They were a big hit!

Not as many students came as we had hoped, but Dave and Lily got a few quality contacts. Those students are amped about meeting together as Latinos, seeking to grow in their faith and multiply their faith!

And that's how Destino began at San Jose State!

Cross 09: Free tacos and pupusas

2009-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

November 9-11 all campus teams in the U.S. are crossing cultures to launch ethnic student ministries in major cities.

Staff and interns from Berkeley, San Francisco, and Davis are joining the San Jose State team to launch Destino on the campus. (Destino is CCC's ministry to raise up Christian Latino leaders.)

We've been doing spiritual surveys and passing out flyers to a fiesta Wednesday afternoon. Free tacos and pupusas!

Monday morning I looked at the flyers and thought, "What are papusas??" Prime example of why I am not the target demographic of this party. (But when we hand flyers to Latino students, they exclaim, "Oooooh! Pupusas?!?!")

We've met with a lot of key Latino students on campus who further confirmed the fact that there is little Hispanic community at SJ State, and NO organizations working to meet their spiritual needs.

I learned that I am terrible at identifying Hispanic people... but I've gotten in some neat conversations with Persians and Filipinos!

Major highlight of Cross 09 so far: Having my wonderful friend (and bridesmaid!), Noemma, join us for some evangelism and flyering Monday afternoon. We enjoyed some girl-talk over sandwiches and then went sharing together. I love her testimony, and I love being a witness to how well she relates to people.

Tomorrow is the fiesta! We're hoping at least 100 students come, and from there, we'll gather interested contacts to start Bible studies and discipleship!

We're making pupusas tomorrow morning at 10:30 am. There, I will see firsthand what these things are.

Mumble and ET

2009-10-31T22:00:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I've enjoyed some downtime at my parents' house. They're on vacation, and I'm helping take care of the dog. When ministry and wedding-planning can make me feel in over my head... it's nice to relax in my pajamas, munch on persimmons from our backyard, and carve pumpkins :)

Happy Halloween!!

Polygamy

2009-10-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

I asked my good friend and pastor, Josh, to officiate Steven's and my wedding:

Me: Will you marry us?
Josh: Wow! No one's ever asked me to enter a polygamous union before.

"YES!!!"

2009-09-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Steven came out to the Bay Area for MPD (but not purely MPD, as I found out), so we made plans to go on a date on Tuesday. After a nice dinner, we drove to the top of this hill in Berkeley that overlooks the entire Bay Area, and you can see the city lights in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, the Golden Gate Bridge, the other bridges... it's beautiful! (But hard to capture on camera.)

As the sun was setting, he gave me a crossword puzzle he made. (We like doing crossword puzzles together.) This one was all from our inside jokes or things from our relationship. Certain boxes had asterisks, and when I was done, when I strung together the starred letters, they spelled "WILL YOU MARRY ME." I actually just read "WIL-- " and stopped and just looked straight ahead, kind of stunned.

He got on one knee, showed me a beautiful ring (and I backed away, pretty shocked), said some sweet words, and asked me to marry him. I said YES, and he put this beautiful, sparkly thing on my finger... and now we're engaged!

I love my fiance!

My face hurts from smiling so much. It's worth the pain. :)

New York trip: Heidi

2009-09-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

For the last few days of my trip, I stayed with Heidi at her dorm in Brooklyn. She's a 1st year med student at SUNY Downstate-- she has a white coat and everything!

She was the SWEETEST hostess, and I'm so glad that she took some time away from her books to spend with me!

Friday night: We met up with Justine and Jillian, Heidi's childhood friends, in the Meatpacking District for dinner. We were early, though, so the 2 of us explored the area... commented on window displays, admired the goods in a florist's shop, and got a free hand-washing/exfoliating/moisturizing at a soap shop. We could NOT stop rubbing our hands together like praying mantises after that... our hands felt so goooooooood!

We also walked along the High Line-- a rooftop walkway with lounge chairs, gardens, and a great view of the water and city lights.

Eventually, her friends made it to the city, and we had a great Cuban dinner at Son Cubano. Tasty food, live music, and fun company!

We've missed each other :)

After dinner, I wanted to be a homebody, but Heidi suggested we go to ONE bar and then go home. I'm glad she said that because we went to a really fun place called 675 Bar that played good music, had a mature crowd, and we had a good time!

Saturday morning, Heidi and I hit up the local farmers market. I LOVE farmers markets!

Yes, farmers markets are high on my list of loves. Also on that list: used cds! A guy in the neighborhood was getting ready to move and was selling his cd collection on the sidewalk outside his house. I had a LOT of fun perusing his collection, making inferences based on his cd's, and talking with him to see which inferences checked out.

This was in Park Slope-- a cute neighborhood of Brooklyn where, in Heidi's words, "30-something-year-olds with cute kids and cute dogs spawn." We did, indeed, see some young families and cute dogs. There were also pretty brownstones, unique coffee shops, and an insanely affordable breakfast place where we each got an omelette with potatoes, toast, and coffee/tea for less than $6!! Of course, we supplemented this amazing brunch with our farmers' market purchases: cherry tomatoes, raisin walnut bread, and peaches.

What a sweet day that was! And a wonderful trip overall. I met with family and friends whom I hadn't seen in YEARS; explored some of the city, met some amazing NEW people, AND, before I got on the plane to come home, God brought in all the financial support I need in order to report to campus!

Last week was a beautiful mix of business and pleasure.

New York trip: the Village

2009-09-27T17:01:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday, my aunt and uncle took me out for a delicious, garlicky lunch of felafel at a place called Urban Pita in Greenwich Village. It was the best, most authentic felafel I've had since STINTing in the Middle East!

They accidentally wore matching outfits. We joked that it was the family uniform :)

They pointed out the Empire State Building in the distance.

After some felafel and tart froyo, I met up with a friend and ministry partner for coffee. I love exploring local coffee shops. After a fun catching-up sesh, I sat at Washington Square Park and worked on some correspondence.

For entertainment, there was a homeless guy singing, some intense hackey-sackers, a djembe-player, and some little kids learning how to ride one of those swivelly-skateboards. I love people-watching!

New York trip: Central Park

2009-09-27T16:50:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday, I had a VERY productive morning/afternoon of MPD calls and New Testament Survey classwork. As a reward, I spent a few hours wandering around Central Park.

Belvedere Castle

The Lake

A beautiful fountain, where there were tap dancers performing for money, and a guy making gigantic soap bubbles!

I looked at my watch and realized I had to get back in time for dinner! So I power-walked home along the Museum Mile and snapped pictures of the beautiful buildings.

I made it back in time to watch others prepare yummy tacos. Wish I could say I helped, but I only helped eat them. And they were good. My aunt and uncle have such wonderful people in their small group!

New York trip: my cousins

2009-09-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

En-Szu just moved across the country to start her first year at Reed College in Portland, so I didn't get to see her on this trip. Not in the flesh, at least. It was sweet video-chatting, though!

It was interesting being on the PARENTS' side of that conversation. I'm so accustomed to being on the receiving end of parental questions like "Are you taking vitamins?" and "Are you getting enough sleep?" :)

And here's my younger cousin, En-Wei, playing video games with his friend from school. Boys and their video games!

After his friend left, I played with him a bit... and was reminded again of how badly I suck at video games!

New York trip: View from the 35th floor

2009-09-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

One morning, my Aunt Ying-Hwa took me to the top (35th) floor of their apartment building, where there's a sweet lounge area and an amazing view.

This is the East River

... and a bridge whose name currently evades me

New York trip: Arrival

2009-09-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to some sweet American Express travel rewards, I just got back from spending a week in New York, visiting family, friends, and ministry partners.

When I arrived at the airport last Saturday, my 15-year-old cousin greeted me. He was 8 last time I saw him... and now he's 6 feet tall!!! Such a gigantic, sweet kid! :)

That evening, I not only got to see my relatives for the first time in 7 years, but I also got to meet for the first time some wonderful ministry partners who have been giving and praying for over 2 years... without having even met me! We had a delicious dinner and chatted until late. WHAT a sweet evening!!

The next morning, I went with my aunt and uncle to church at the Times Building. Afterwards, we took a scenic route home, as it was my first time in the city since I was about 6 years old.

Our eyes were always UP, as all the sites are TALL.

We walked to Grand Central Station and took the train home from there, so that I could see the beautiful train terminal.

Also on our walk home, my aunt rapped on the window of a bank vestibule and waved at the family inside. It was their neighbors! It boggles my mind how, in a packed city of 8 million people, you can run into people you know outside of your own neighborhood!

Firelands

2009-09-17T15:46:00.001-07:00

A little ditty about New Staff Training

2009-08-18T00:10:00.001-07:00

10 things from the last 10 days

2009-08-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

1. Saw my wonderful boyfriend, Steven, for the first time since we started dating (mostly via Skype and emails) over 7 months ago! Had an amazing time with him in Colorado and driving back to California, despite our literally shaky start from being so freaked out!
2. Had to pack up my dorm at CSU, which was home for about 6 weeks... and also say goodbye to some really dear friends.

3. Saw a 20-foot-tall baby in some fields while driving through Arizona. This guy slowed down traffic.

4. Arrived in Tempe, Arizona (home of the ASU Sundevils) around 11pm... and it was 104ºF outside.

5. Was wowed by the grandiosity of cacti out there!

6. Stayed with Kyle, one of Steven's STINT friends from East Asia. It is both trippy and humbling witnessing white people speak East Asian SO WELL, especially for me, as an Asian person who ironically does NOT speak, read, or write.

7. Learned a mafia-themed card game called "Family Business." Revenge, honor, hit lists... good times.

8. Spent 2 nights in Clovis with Jon Roper's family. With our 2-hour-nap following church on Sunday and our conversations about fiber intake and regularity... we realized that we're not as young as we used to be.

9. Met Steven's parents. I was really needlessly nervous. What sweet people! And they taught me THE card game from the midwest-- Euchre. I stink, but I had fun. :)

10. Staying with my sister and brother-in-law for a couple days. Their adorable but gassy dog vaccilates between loving me and fearing me. (Maybe it's both. She fears how much she loves me.) I told my mom about her capricious behavior, and my mom couldn't think of the English word to describe the dog.

Mom: You know, when women are over 45 years old, and they have babies?
Me: And the babies are retarded?
Mom: Yeah, retarded. That's the word I'm looking for.

Enjoyed some glorious In-n-Out shortly after crossing the Colorado River... it's good to be back in California!

July Prayer Letter: Cal Poly Pomona

2009-07-17T15:02:00.000-07:00