Beach

I went to the beach today with my roomies. Not many things on this earth that make me more happy than the beach and my two besties.

A Little Sunshine

After two recent depressing posts, I thought it would be appropriate for me to post how great and awesome my day was today!

1. I interfaced with lots of people today starting with my awesome notorious cohort this morning at 8 am! It was nice to have something to wake up for this morning.
2. I got an interview through a temp agency on Tuesday at 9:00 AM.
3. I had lunch with my friend Kim who is two weeks from delivering her second baby!
4. I had FREE Chick-fil-a for lunch with Kim because of coupons.
5. I stopped by my favorite little indian market/store in Riverside. I took it upon myself to try to network to find a job in the Indian community.
6. I got to share the gospel today and have lots of spiritual conversations with the sweet Indian couple.
7. In the process of the conversation, the Indian man asked me if I was experiencing financial hardship, he then gave me $40 in cash from his register. I cried.
8. My sweet friend Natalie came over and we laid by the pool for a little bit. We went to India this summer together and I am going to be mentoring her this semester!! I am somehow funnier and wittier when she is around.
9. I had a club status dance party with my roommate Becka and Natalie to end the evening...there were great tunes, heals, and free-flowing hair. Our apartment might never been the same.

Today was sunshine in the midst of a really stormy and rainy week. God gave me opportunity to share His truth, to invest in a girl i love dearly, and to just have some normal interaction with people!!

I was also completely blessed by the Indian man who gave me $40 for a tank of gas. He's not even in the family of God and he extended to me such kindness. This man doesn't really have any more money than I do. He was so generous and I feel so undeserving. I was just plain blessed by the goodness of God today!!

When It Rains it Pours

This week was the first week where I have actually had the time to deal with my unemployment and lack of cash flow. These are all the things that happened this week to make this week a week that I never want to come back to again.

1. My car got towed and it cost me $275 to get it back.
2. I found out I might not qualify for unemployment after all because I am a graduate student. For the past 3 weeks thought I was collecting and getting some cash flow. I still don't know if get it UI.
3. I realized that even if I get a job at Starbucks at $8 an hour and work full-time I won't make enough money to pay my bills monthly.
4. I got a traffic ticket in the mail.
5. I have less than $200 in my bank account and I have all my bills due in the next two weeks.
6. I have had NO leads on a job WHATSOEVER. I have even sent out tons of Nanny interest and NOTHING.
7. I am becoming socially awkward as I have no social interaction all day long with the actual real world.
8. I officially can't afford Starbucks Coffee.

So that was my week. Yes. Please call me Debbie Downer, I will own up to it. But this week was seriously such a bad week filled with close to mental break-downs and lots of tears. I am not sure what God is doing or what he is teaching me.... this could be a long semester.

The Break-Up

I have somewhat recent news to the world of blogging- I AM UNEMPLOYED. The best metaphor that describes how I feel could be equated with a break-up. The situation of why my employer and I broke-up is complicated at best, as are most relationships. My first reaction was complete peace and acceptance. As a follower of Christ, I know that all things are purposeful- He gives and takes away. But soon followed anger, confusion, and discontentment with the way things ended. All of my love, energy, and passion was in this relationship and community for the past three years that now it's gone. I find myself quite displaced and struggle to understand my own identity in my new context outside of this relationship. After all, it is this relationship that brought me to California. I have left friends and family and everything to serve and to love this employer. All this to say, I am just plain heartbroken and my dream job is gone.

Despite my broken heart, I have hope. I have hope because I serve a God that is bigger than unemployment, failures, and monetary needs. As with all major changes in life, it means that God is at work and HE IS ON THE MOVE IN MY LIFE. Now I get to trust.

Day 3 of 30 of Ramadan- Join me in Praying for Muslims

30-Days of Prayer for the Muslim World
Ramadan 2010 / 1431: August 11 - September 09

The Call of the Muezzin - Friday Prayer Focus For Friday 13 August, Ramadan 2010. "Loving Muslims Through Prayer". Each day across the entire Islamic world, the 'muezzin' call the men to prayer five times per day over a loudspeaker located on a minaret (tower) attached to the mosque: at dawn (fajr), noon (dhuhr), in the afternoon (asr), at sunset (maghrib) and nightfall (isha’a). On Fridays (like today) all male Muslims are supposed to attend the noontime prayers which are usually accompanied by a sermon. Sometimes recordings are used but most people prefer a live voice. In Western and non-Islamic countries muezzin often cannot make the call to prayer except on the radio or in the courtyards of local mosques because of laws restricting loud and intrusive sounds. Their own honour and prestige are temptations, as with any public figures like pastors and politicians.

Prayer Starters:
Pray for the muezzin in your own country and around the world today to have a personal encounter with the living God, through Jesus Christ.
Pray that in the midst of many 'voices' and messages, Muslims will hear the voice of God through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes muezzin become very centred on their role in society. As with any public figures like pastors and politicians some muezzin are tempted to place their own honour and prestige very high on their list of priorities. Pray that all muezzin would be brought to humility before God and truly confounded by His majesty in order that they may truly say "God is great."
Complete article, video and comments: http://www.30-days.net/muslims/featured/the-call-of-the-muezzin/

Flattered or Annoyed?

I am sitting in the San Antonio airport after my 3:00 AM wake-up call this morning waiting to board my plane to Phoenix and something happened this morning that ALWAYS happens. No matter what I am wearing or how my hair is fixed, people always assume that I am a college student barely over twenty. Today is the third time in the past week that people have asked me what college I go to and what I am studying. I realize that I should be flattered and thankful for the fact that I apparently have awesome genes for aging. But every time, I find myself annoyed wishing I looked more distinguished and a "woman of maturity" in my late twenties. Fat chance that is going to happen. I mean what are the perks of being in your late twenties if people always assume you are still a free spirited college student with little real life experience? Now that I recently crossed over into my late-twenties, I feel the need to embrace it fully and benefit from some of the awesome perks worthy of the faces of shock made at me when they find out I am actually "old".

Maybe I should start wearing cardigans and pearls instead of my boyfriend cut VS sweatpants.

Just a little 5AM rant for your enjoyment.
PS. I think my unemployment is allowing me the actual time to write all the posts that I write in my head that never usually would make it on the blog. Yay. ME. and. Lucky. YOU.

Introducing Sultan Qaboos

I bought a purple car in 2007 as most of you know. I also have a love for naming things, something most of you might not know. However, in my two years of owning this little pride and joy, I have been rather unsuccessful in naming him. The crux of the issue really is that he is purple yet very masculine, which is quite the juxtaposition. So I have struggled to find a name that encompasses both of these characteristics of my car. Several people have tried including two different Rebecca's (although different spellings) and Trent. And we have all been unsuccessful. Yes, there has been some creative stabs at naming him, but nothing I knew would stick.

One of the funnest things that came from my summer in Oman was the naming of my car. Only the eleven members of my Notorious Nine cohort will truly appreciate the name, but I don't care. A little history lesson, there are only two Sultans in the world. One in Oman and the other in Brunei. Everyone in Oman LOVES Sultan Qaboos because he basically brought civilization, education, healthcare, jobs, and an easier life to Oman. I mean who wouldn't love the Sultan?

After Trent's brilliant suggestion and three years of namelessness, I have decided to name my car "Sultan Qaboos". Because the Sultan is royalty (hence the purple) and Qaboos (pronounced caboose) is a super fun pronunciation and I might also add... an incredibly masculine name (humor me).

Secondly, if I could be any Disney princess I would want to be Jasmine because let's just be honest, she is a middle eastern hottie of pure exoticness. And who doesn't want to be that? So all of my time in Oman this summer I kept teasing my cohort how I wanted to have a "fling" with the Sultan (after all he is still single and in Oman it is appropriate to have multiple wives). Then I could become the REAL Jasmine and have my own palace. Sadly and shockingly enough, we never met. But now that I named my car, I guess I get to take a ride with the Sultan whenever I want.

In the near future you might find me saying... "Lets take the Sultan", or "put it in the Qaboos", or "shake your Qaboos", or other such awesome phrases. I love that the Sultan finally has a name. It makes the ride oh so much better.

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT.

Damage Control

A very common phrase in the apartment of 611 over the past couple of years has been "damage control." I have received this phrase via text messaging or phone calls from either roommate, Becka or Sarah, which means that whatever plans I had for the night are rescheduled and I am theirs for the night. Breakups, bad news, job losses, last day of jobs, or any type of emotional stress usually results in in the need for damage control. Some of the most common damage control outings involve Target, Chick-fil-a, and Old Navy. Exreme measures and free schedules do indeed call for the beach. Over the years, we have gotten pretty good at determing what each other needs.

On Monday, I resigned from my position at CBU. Despite the fact that I had a peace about it, I was still a complete wreck. I came home to my roommates who had already collaborated the damage control for the evening. At 7 pm, I come home to them telling me to grab a sweat shirt and that we were headed on a road trip. I of course know that we are headed to the beach and I am relieved to know that we are getting out of Riverside. I love the beach more than most things, but I especially love the beach at night. We of course jammed to all our favorite hip hop music cd's we always make for road trips and headed to Laguna Beach. So we put in our names at BJ's and enjoyed all that BJ's has to offer including their amazing Spinach Artichoke Dip and Pizookie's. We were thankful for the dark and handsome waiter but even more thankful for the ridiculous females next to us that were such ridiculous "California Gurls" as snoop dog and perry would say. After filling our bellies, we traveled across the street to the beach where we plopped our bottoms in the sand and talked. The damage control was initially for me, but God is doing big things in all of our lives and I think we all needed the beach. It was just refreshing to be with sisters that loved me unconditionally and know my heart and where I am. The evening ended with us sharing our hearts through prayer requests and then getting the privilege to actually pray for each other right there on the beach for the next half hour or more. We walked away blessed and refreshed. Some of my best memories in Southern California are the ones praying in crazy places of nature with these ladies.

And yes we were all three wearing the Boyfriend Cut Sweat pants.....

I'm Back

As you can see, I have been quite abscent from the world of blogging due to my travels to India and Oman this summer. I honestly have a lot of stuff floating around in my head that I am looking forward to blogging about. The next several posts will probably not be in chronological order, so you will just have to deal.

Oman Update

***here is an email update that I sent out if you are interested in reading it.

Hello Again!

Well I have survived the desert and the village! I have been in Oman now for right at one week. We have done so much in this first week, it feels like we have been here for so long. I will try to tell you a little bit about what we have been up to.

First, our housing in the village is so wonderful! We have great air conditioning, large rooms, and a great big kitchen to cook in. Omani houses, even in villages, apparently are huge. The only sad thing is that what we had planned for internet is NOT working at all. So I am sending this from an internet café. The only internet we will have is when we go back to the capitol for day trips and random trips. So receiving replies from you will just make my day that much more!!

The food has been delicious. We have been eating lots of Schwarma (a Turkish sandwich- a note to be small group- be jealous). And we have been cooking inside our house. I am surprised at how many American types of food are available in local supermarkets. We have also been enjoying Omani style meals of chicken and rice and I am definitely learning to eat with my hands.

As most of you know, the purpose of this trip is research. So a typical day is that we go to a local market in the morning for the purpose of meeting people. We basically try to go to the side of the market where all the women are selling things. We try to strike up conversations with those that either speak English or are willing to have a conversation with us. Then we ask them basic questions about their lives. Once we finish talking to the people that the Father brings in our path, we jot it down in our notebook and then type it up later. We are specifically seeking out information about the Bedouin people. They are the desert nomads of the middle east. They are clearly distinguished by a mask they wear to cover their faces (it looks like a batman mask) and then a specific type of Omani Bedouin dress. In the early afternoon, we have been able to go to remote places and meet in Bedouin homes and we are able to interview the head of the home. The process of interviewing has been really natural and fun. We are basically just talking to people and getting to know about their lives, their culture, and their traditions. The Omani people are very friendly and hospitable and so proud to be Omani!

One thing I have learned about the Bedouin people in that the camel is one of the most important things in their culture! I have seen soo many camels everywhere, even in the back of pick-up trucks! We even had the opportunity to go off-roading into the desert where there was a Bedouin family who raises camels. There we actually all got to ride camels!!

Tomorrow we are leaving for another town that is several hours away where we will be camping in the desert. Yes, I will be sleeping in a sleeping back fully covered camping in the desert! I haven’t decided yet if I am excited or dreading it. Either way, I am sure it will make for some GREAT stories later. J We will leave Saturday and come back on Tuesday.

Between kayaking in the ocean, riding camels in the desert, and meeting in homes of the Bedouin people I am doing fantastic. I feel so honored to be know these people and this country in such a unique way!!

I hope all is well, I would love to hear updates if you have time to share them!!

Adios

I am out. Headed home to the place where my heart....South Asia. I will be leading a team of college students with my good friend Kyle and Mical. Here is a prayer guide of how you can be praying for our team. Sorry to those I didn't get to connect with before I left.

Week One:
May 25- Pray for last minute preparations and rest before we get on the plane.
May 26- Pray for travel safety and for ALL of our luggage to arrive in-country with us.
May 27- We arrive to our city at 6 AM. We have a LONG day to stay awake and to engage. Pray for unity and close bond with our field workers and for our cultural adjustment.
May 28- Pray that we would be LEARNERS as we go through orientation and learn our country, city, and people. Pray for a great love for the people we will be serving. Pray for an adjustment to the intense heat.
May 29- We are a Bible Storying team and will be spending a lot of time learning the art of storytelling. Pray for a love for storytelling and a love for sharing stories with the people we meet.
May 30- We will be worshipping today with local believers. Pray for God to give us a love for the global church and a better understanding of Revelation 7.
May 31- Today will be our first day of teaching ESL storying. Our team will be split for the first time in our trip. Half of the team will go to one location and the other half will go to another location. Please pray for the unity of our team. Pray for immediate connections with our students. Pray for boldness to have spiritual conversations.
June 1- Pray for endurance, strength, and adjustment to the INTENSE HEAT and long days. Pray for brokenness.
June 2- Pray for unity as a team as we are spending most of the day separate from half of our group. Pray for good debriefing and team time in the mornings and evenings. Pray for our spiritual growth and to be refined.

Week Two:
June 3- Pray that God would break the hearts of the people and make their hearts ready for the gospel. Ask that HE would also break our hearts for lostness among the nations.
June 4- Pray for good health and perseverance. Today is our last day of teaching in this location. Pray for good closure and good conversations with our new friends as we say good-bye to the students.
June 5- We will be site-seeing in a city about three hours away. Please pray for smooth logistics, great unity between our team, hydration, and lots of laughter.
June 6- Pray for physical rest today after a long-day of site-seeing. Pray also for spiritual rest as we worship with believers.
June 7- We are in our second and final week of teaching. Pray for new relationships, strength, endurance, and unity. Pray for good health for the team. Pray for salvation for those we meet this week.
June 8- Pray for boldness to share the gospel and for the hearts of our students to be prepared for the gospel.
June 9- Ezekiel 11:19-20 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Pray for perseverance, that we would keep our eyes fixed on the goal, and that we would finish strong as a team.

Week Three:
June 10- Pray for REST for our team and for us to connect and share with those we have not yet been able to. For divine opportunities to share and boldness to do it!
June 11- Today is our last day of teaching. Pray again for good closure and good-byes and we leave the location we have been serving this week.
June 12- Pray for our team as we debrief our experiences in the next couple of days. Pray that God would teach us what we need to learn as we learn from our experiences.
June 13- Pray for good goodbye’s with our new national friends and our field workers.
June 14- Romans 15:20-21 “And thus make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation but as it is written, ‘those who have never been told of him will see and those who have never heard will understand.”
June 15- Pray for safety as we travel back. Also pray… “And he said to them, ‘the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Luke 10:23.

TOP: (left to right) Kyle, Brenton, Chris, Sarah, and Erik
BOTTOM: (left to right) Alicia, Mical, Nicole, and Natalie

May 25-26: Traveling
May 27-30: Orienting
May 31 – June 4: Teaching our first week of ESL Storying
June 5–6: Site-seeing and Resting
June 7-11: Teaching our second week of ESL Storying
June 12-14: Debriefing, Shopping, Resting, and saying Good-bye
June 15: My team leaves and I stay in India a few days longer.

You can read LIVE UPDATES at www.calbaptist.edu/ISP

Click on South Asia Storying Team

An Ode To Pink

My roommate Becka teaches poetry to her sophomore this time each year. Each sophomore writes their own poetry (odes, sonnets, figurative language, onomatopoeia, etc...) and makes a book. Becka chooses to do write poetry alongside her sophomores every year. Last year, I wrote an Ode to my Spurs and this year the roomies and I collectively wrote an ode to our sweatpants. Here it is in all it's glory....

PS. Amanda, I think this will make your English heart, pink heart, and VS heart happy.

Ode to PINK TM

All roomies hail to Victoria
And all her many, saucy secrets.
You make us sing gloria,
5 pairs later, and still no regrets.

Cut like a boyfriend,
Sweatpants so soft you’ve captured our love,
We salute your cotton blend,
You give us sweet TLC like from above.

All the girly colors of the rainbow,
Pink, purple, gray, and black,
You give off that sexy glow,
Cause you always cuddle back.

Like good news, we tell of your wonder
On facebook and twitter, both far and wide,
No other sweatpants could tear us asunder,
We’ll wear you this summer wherever we ride.

We’ve learned we must stagger our swagger,
Cause we wanna wear you all the time,
Hotter and better than Keysha’s Mick Jagger,
The Trifecta together, you ARE that sublime.

Corporate Prayer

Yes, you are getting two posts in one evening. Tonight I was blessed to be a part of the body of Christ working together. There is nothing more powerful to me than corporate prayer. In fact, it is the one thing in my life that is completely absent, which is slightly ridiculous because of the amazing community that I am surrounded with. However, tonight some dear friends asked for prayer for their family and for those that could to come to their house and pray. I JUMPED at the opportunity to go and was honestly just spiritually blessed to get to pray in with other believers. Man how I wish this happened on a weekly basis. I am thankful to the Cordi for asking their communit for prayer. There are some days when all I wish was that someone would offer to pray for me. Maybe I need to be more intentional to ask for it. But today, I was thankful that someone had the guts to ask for the community of God to pray together for a specific need. I am honestly an idiot in my own life for not asking of the same.

SOS

Right now, I am so stressed I can feel the rocks in my shoulders and back. I have 8 days to hold it together before I leave. And yes, I did specifically choose the words "hold it together". It's going to be a rough 8 days. I will be so thankful just to get on the plane and GO. But I am also not going to get any type of physical or spiritual rest before I go. So please pray for me.
#bitter/stressed rant

To the ends of the earth....

Acts 1:8 "...but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

This picture has my mind spinning. My seniors graduated last Friday and these represented in this picture are 1/3 of the California Baptist University population that served on a missions trip during their college experience. The beauty of this picture is the physical representation of the gospel of Jesus Christ lived out among the nations. Many won't stop at graduation and will continue to be the LIGHT to a dark world.

May God continue to send workers from CBU...the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. God give us hearts of obedience to go the corners of the world proclaiming the GOOD NEWS!

***students get to where the Great Comission white stoles at graduation if they participate in an International Service Project while at CBU.

My India Heart

God has given me such a sweet reminder of my heart for India these past couple of weeks. I got the opportunity to host a dozen college girls in my apartment for an evening of Indian festivities. I ordered Indian snacks from a local Indian market, hired a henna wallah, had the Bollywood movie playing, and the chai ready. I can honestly say I haven't been in my element, as much in that moment, for longer than I can remember. I was overwhelmed with emotion getting share a place that has meant so much to me with people in my community here. I love it when people love India, the traditions, and the people.

I was however blessed when God gave me opportunity to share the gospel with "Uncle Ji" at the party. I, of course, had been engaging him in conversation, making him chai, and telling him some of my crazy stories about living in India. We engaged each other in spiritual conversation which at some point involved me sharing the FULL gospel with him. He asked about the purpose of the church, convictions, sin, heaven, and worship. I was reminded how easy it is to have spiritual conversations with Hindu's and how it easily leads to the gospel. The highlight of my evening was when I played Yeshu Bagans (Jesus worship music in Hindu style) and he went on and on about how wonderful they were and even asked for a copy!! I walked away from this evening with a huge part of my heart that had died revived with a new spark and excitement for my upcoming adventures in India again this summer and the Indian people.

God was gracious to me TODAY again in reminding me of my love for India. I went in to the shop where Uncle Ji works to get my eyebrows threaded. And the minute I walked in, Uncle Ji shook my hand and hugged me. I might also add it was a little awkward. An Indian male has never given me a frontal hug before! But it was totally the hug you would give a family member. Then he was quickly on the phone with his wife telling her I was in the shop! He soon mentioned too that He left the Yeshu Bagan CD at my apartment and that I needed to bring it ASAP because he wanted to play it in his shop. I was of course invited to come to his home and eat indian food and to bring my pictures to the shop.

I am most excited that the gospel through song will soon be playing in his shop once I give him the CD.

So today my Indian heart is full, yet again. Full because God sent me there over 5 years ago to fall in love with it's people and it's culture, but more importantly because I have the life giving gospel to share with them. I am so thankful that God connected me with this family. I pray this will be the beginning my ministry to Indians in Southern California!

May 19, 2011

This is the date of my graduation from graduate school.


Just one year and 35 days till I get hooded, but who's counting??

Parental Unit

After 2.5 years, my parents are coming to R-town! I AM STOKED. They will be here for 8 awesome and full days. I even took vacation this Thursday and Friday. I am actually using my vacation for fun and not taking graduate classes. Wahoo!

storms

Today something extraordinary happened.

I experienced a rain storm complete with thunder and lightning.

In my 2 years and 3 months of residence in California this is the FIRST rain storm that I have been apart of! I even went for a run in the rain it is so glorious.

I am truly thankful for the power of God displayed through weather.

As I write this, I am reminded of sleeping Jesus who awoke to a boat full of friends who were scared out their minds because of a crazy rain storm.

Then Jesus simply spoke and immediately the winds and the skies obeyed.

PEACE immediately followed.

The past couple of days, my soul has been in turmoil as I think about this upcoming semester. I have already determined that I CANNOT have another semester like I had last semester. It was a rough one, but last semester I trusted in my own abilities. I did it in my own strength. This semester I am praying that God would strip away my independence and give me a heart that dependent on Him FULLY. So God speak your peace into my life. If you can command the seas, then I know you can command the storm in my soul. You are trustyworthy, increase my trust.

Meanwhile, I am going to enjoy this storm by drinking coffee, snuggled under a warm blanket, listening to the water pour down and pretending that I am reading a great romance novel instead of a boring research textbook.

.

round two

Below you will find my brand-spanking new running shoes! Aren't they some hot looking asics? I personally find there to be something very attractive about running shoes. I bought them to commemorate the training of my second half-marathon. The first time I ran, I ran with the community of Lancers at CBU. This time I am running with my Sandals community. We have all decided to attend the 8:15 service (we lovingly/sarcastically call it the Sunrise service). Then we run our long runs after church! This morning we kicked off the first "long" run of 4 miles....

We will be running the La Jolla Half-marathon on April 25th...

Week one of training down....14 to go!