California Party & Ethan's 22 Years of Life

So my awesome roommates decided to throw me a party to celebrate my OFFICIAL california residency AND the fact that I finally did get hired at CBUT (man there was a lot of waiting and a need to CELEBRATE). The day we planned it also happened to be on Ethan's (co-worker & seminary buddy) Birthday! So we decided to share our thunder and celebrate together!!!
Ethan and I both felt very loved by our CBU community/family. It really is the people that make this place and man everyone was ready to come and CELEBRATE!! This is what the body of Christ is for .... celebrating life and accomplishments ...and that is what we did!!



Some of the highlights of the party:-
- The California themed food
- Four men on a Couch
- Cool fall weather
- The California music mix
- The OSU/Missouri football game
- The In-n-Out french fries (for Hillary and Tessa)

-The blueberry birthday pie
- Apples to Apples
- And all the awesome people that came!!!

This picture is a bonus cause it just makes my heart so happy!!

International Service Projects Coordinator

After 3 years and 5 months of successfully avoiding the 8-5 job, Monday, I will be JOYFULLY embracing the 8-5 job! On Friday, California Baptist University offered me a full-time staff position in the Office of Global Mobilization!! Thank you for all of you who have prayed for me, asked about my job, and provided huge amounts of support and love!

I have spent a lot of time this past week and weekend reflecting on the journey God put me on to get me to California. The only words that come to mind are completely insufficient to accurately describe who God has been to me in this journey. But I declare to you that God is FAITHFUL, God is GREATER than any situation, and He is PROVIDER. God has been pursuing me to come to California since the day I started my journeyman term. And even in this time of waiting, God called me to walk in Faith and wait for the job. When surveying my life and God's plans it honestly seemed more ridiculous NOT to trust him. I am not surprised right now as I type that God was faithful to give me the job he told me I had, but I am that much more in love with my God who persistently PURSUES my future, is FULLY trustworthy, and cannot help but be FAITHFUL to His daughter.

Not come across at too spiritual, but I cannot post about my job and my excitement without declaring praises for WHAT HE DID. So my joy and excitement for this job is fully HIM and want to say...PRAISE THE LORD. If I was David in the Bible- then this is where I would insert my awesome sonnet, or song, or long stanzas of poetry BUT it's just me...so I hope this post will do!

SELAH.

Roommate Blogs

You guys need to keep up with my roomies and their blogs. I really enjoy their blogs and it will give you insight into the roomies in my life!!
Becka- http://wwwbecks.blogspot.com/
Sarah- http://sarahgonzalez.wordpress.com/

Marathon Week Training #1-

I decided to keep up with my running and thoughts on my marathon training on this here blog. I am not sure if anyone still reads it, but mostly these marathon entries will be for me and my ability to debrief my weekly marathon progress.

WHY- Every week I will choose one word to describe my weekly running experience. This week the word is "why". All week I thought... "why, I am I doing this?"... "why are my muscles so sore?"... "why do i suck so bad at running?"... and "why the heck do i want to run a marathon?" I think the answer to why is- running is hard- especially when you first start. I am reminded from past running experience that this too shall pass.

Saturdays is when we will do our long runs. For this first week the long run is only 4 miles. I actually think that running this marathon is going to be a spiritual journey for me. While living in India, I learned something about myself that I am not proud of. If I think that I am not good at something, I will not do it. I am afraid of failure. I only like to do things that I know I am good at and that I will succeed at. I am running this marathon scared to death that I will fail at it. I know that I am not a runner. But I can't let my fear of failure keep me from attempting great things like running marathons. So today, as I sucked at running (even for my record) and finished almost last, I was reminded to swallow my pride and remember that it is just the first week of running. There is another week of training and getting in shape and conquering those 4 miles with grace. So here's me saying, me running this marathon is going to be a little bit of a spiritual victory of sorts and to prove to myself that I don't have to be perfect at everything and its okay to learn and suck when you first start.

So that is where I am right now in my marathon mindset. I am laughing to myself cause I sound like a debbie downer, but I needed to process of that out loud and let you know where I am at. I need to sometimes swallow my pride and not always be so hard on myself. Thanks for those of you who care and read this. I am excited about giving my muscles some time off tomorrow, but I hit the pavement again on Monday for week 2 of 18.

Peace out A town.