I wish I was better at writing. I find that when I sit down and start to type, I have so many thoughts and things to write about that I regret not writing more often. So to myself I will apologize and hope that I will be better at this.
My life, my beautiful, crazy, confusing and adventure-filled life. I have been so blessed since moving here. (Colorado.) In march I got on a bus with 13 strangers and we went to Mexico. We camped together in the desert and built a house for a family through Amor ministries and when we returned, we were family. We slept in tents under a starry Mexican sky, cooked over a propane stove, roasted marshmallows together at night, and best of all, we build a home with our bare hands. We sweated a LOT and didn’t have real showers, but we had buckets of clean water and that was a really cool experience. We had it pretty good. We had clothes on our backs, a bus with gas in it, yummy food, and JESUS! We spent that week together in a beautiful mixture of hard work, fellowship and real, hurt-your-belly and fall-off-your-chair laughter. I mean we laughed. Never before have I become so close with total strangers so quickly. I have a new family and it is awesome. We got to witness Jesus do some really cool stuff. The family we built a home for was wonderful to us, and though they didn’t speak a lick of English and I not an ounce of Spanish, we became one family because of Jesus.
That experience is one I will treasure, and I now have lifetime friends because of it. Just today I had the whole team over for a potluck and we made authentic Mexican food (plus a little bit extra American cuisine to go with it). The feeling of filling up my home with these wonderful people was so wonderful. It sounded just right to have voices fill up my kitchen and dining room and it looked like my living room was designed to fit all of us together. It was so awesome to not have my house feel so empty. Today, my home was full, and my heart even fuller.
My life, my beautiful, crazy, confusing and adventure-filled life. I have been so blessed since moving here. (Colorado.) In march I got on a bus with 13 strangers and we went to Mexico. We camped together in the desert and built a house for a family through Amor ministries and when we returned, we were family. We slept in tents under a starry Mexican sky, cooked over a propane stove, roasted marshmallows together at night, and best of all, we build a home with our bare hands. We sweated a LOT and didn’t have real showers, but we had buckets of clean water and that was a really cool experience. We had it pretty good. We had clothes on our backs, a bus with gas in it, yummy food, and JESUS! We spent that week together in a beautiful mixture of hard work, fellowship and real, hurt-your-belly and fall-off-your-chair laughter. I mean we laughed. Never before have I become so close with total strangers so quickly. I have a new family and it is awesome. We got to witness Jesus do some really cool stuff. The family we built a home for was wonderful to us, and though they didn’t speak a lick of English and I not an ounce of Spanish, we became one family because of Jesus.
That experience is one I will treasure, and I now have lifetime friends because of it. Just today I had the whole team over for a potluck and we made authentic Mexican food (plus a little bit extra American cuisine to go with it). The feeling of filling up my home with these wonderful people was so wonderful. It sounded just right to have voices fill up my kitchen and dining room and it looked like my living room was designed to fit all of us together. It was so awesome to not have my house feel so empty. Today, my home was full, and my heart even fuller.
Guys, let me tell you, Jesus is working! He is stitching together this beautiful quilt and I get to be in some of his patches. I’m not really sure what the finished product is going to look like, and I may not ever see every single part, but being a part of this is really cool. I moved here almost blindly. No job, no friends here, and these four months I have met and connected with so many wonderful souls. I’m still not sure how I’m doing this because I’m living off of almost no income, but I’m experiencing life to the fullest! God’s incredible grace continues to remind me that my best days are not behind me! They are every single day I have in my future. I am finding the joy in silence, in adventuring alone, and spending time just watching this world go!
So. An update on my future. I don’t know much, except that my full application to SIM (Serving In Missions) was ACCEPTED last week! THIS IS HUGE PEOPLE! I have applied to at least 15 different small organizations in Uganda and got ZERO responses. The first big mission organization I contacted called me within days, and I spent more than 3 hours on the phone with representatives helping me figure out what I’m pursuing. There is now a super long process of figuring out how SIM and I are going to fit together, but STUFF IS HAPPENING! A year from today I could quite possibly have a plan of how I am going to get to Africa. That is really exciting. I often look through photos of the beautiful faces of little kids that I got to play with in the Sahara and my heart aches to return. I will probably never see any of those same faces again, but to be back on the land where I discovered my desire and passion to be with these people and to let go of all the American distractions I have to really live to the fullest and to tell them about their Savior excites me more than I can express. So, like I said, I’m not sure what is going to happen, but Jesus is working and stuff is being set into motion.
My time here at LifePointe church is treating me wonderfully. I am taking a small group of middle school girls to camp in June and I’m greatly looking forward to spending time with them. It’s going to be a challenge for me because I’m discovering in the real world, when one needs to make money, taking a week off is awfully tough, but God is in control and I have the rest of my life to be worried about making money.
The last three weeks have been exceptionally awesome because I’ve plugged into College Young Life here on CSU’s campus. I have met so many awesome like-minded girls and I haven’t had this much fun in a while. It’s nice to have some girls my age that I can just randomly invite over for a movie night and to eat junk food with. The amount of amazing conversation I have had recently has been so refreshing for me and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Three weeks from today my cousin Emily will be flying into Denver to visit me! I couldn’t be more excited. She’s the closest thing I’ll have had to home since I moved and the tears are going to flow when she steps off of that plane. Family is everything to me and she has been there since we were infants. I have so many things I can’t wait to show her and so many people I want to introduce her to. After her visit is my middle school camp trip and then after that is even more fun summer youth events. I have a busy few months ahead of me and I’m thrilled. Now that the weather is starting to be fantastic all I want to do is be outside.
I want to tell you a story. My friend Tyra came to Colorado just for a weekend on her way back from a ski trip in Utah. We didn’t do anything too crazy but we did hike Horsetooth Rock, and though it wasn’t a terribly challenging hike, it really pushed me mentally. We had to scramble up the summit and at some points I was pretty nervous. I’m not a huge fan of heights and I sometimes can freak myself out. Tyra climbed faster than I did, which I was okay with because I really, really wanted to take my time. I carefully evaluated each foothold I took because there was no harness to catch me if I slipped. When I reached the summit, Tyra was on a different side and out of my sight. I immediately began to tear up the moment I saw the Rocky Mountains from the top. Disclaimer – Horsetooth isn’t even remotely close to any of the 14 thousand foot Rockies, but it was close enough to see a lot of them. I was in awe of the majesty of it all, and I just plopped myself down on that summit and stared. God made it all and I’m not sure how anyone can climb a mountain and not see that. I was so proud of myself for not whining and for not chickening out when we reached the base of the rock summit. We climbed a really steep grade and even Tyra told me she was impressed. I was at the perfect height of emotion and exhaustion and at that moment, God spoke to me. I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I was reminded of this. I am His treasured daughter, and money shouldn’t be why I do things. He should be why I do things. Here’s the biggest thing – while sitting there on that summit and while the wind, His wind, threw my hair around my face, I felt His peace. I am not alone in this life and I will be okay. He will give me everything that He knows I need and that is enough for me.
Guys, He has given us an incredible life. It’s time we started living every moment like the gift that it is. I want to die knowing that everyone I met saw that I was different, that I embraced this life and lived it with joy and confidence, because I am HIS! (And gosh darn I wanna be fierce!)
So. An update on my future. I don’t know much, except that my full application to SIM (Serving In Missions) was ACCEPTED last week! THIS IS HUGE PEOPLE! I have applied to at least 15 different small organizations in Uganda and got ZERO responses. The first big mission organization I contacted called me within days, and I spent more than 3 hours on the phone with representatives helping me figure out what I’m pursuing. There is now a super long process of figuring out how SIM and I are going to fit together, but STUFF IS HAPPENING! A year from today I could quite possibly have a plan of how I am going to get to Africa. That is really exciting. I often look through photos of the beautiful faces of little kids that I got to play with in the Sahara and my heart aches to return. I will probably never see any of those same faces again, but to be back on the land where I discovered my desire and passion to be with these people and to let go of all the American distractions I have to really live to the fullest and to tell them about their Savior excites me more than I can express. So, like I said, I’m not sure what is going to happen, but Jesus is working and stuff is being set into motion.
My time here at LifePointe church is treating me wonderfully. I am taking a small group of middle school girls to camp in June and I’m greatly looking forward to spending time with them. It’s going to be a challenge for me because I’m discovering in the real world, when one needs to make money, taking a week off is awfully tough, but God is in control and I have the rest of my life to be worried about making money.
The last three weeks have been exceptionally awesome because I’ve plugged into College Young Life here on CSU’s campus. I have met so many awesome like-minded girls and I haven’t had this much fun in a while. It’s nice to have some girls my age that I can just randomly invite over for a movie night and to eat junk food with. The amount of amazing conversation I have had recently has been so refreshing for me and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Three weeks from today my cousin Emily will be flying into Denver to visit me! I couldn’t be more excited. She’s the closest thing I’ll have had to home since I moved and the tears are going to flow when she steps off of that plane. Family is everything to me and she has been there since we were infants. I have so many things I can’t wait to show her and so many people I want to introduce her to. After her visit is my middle school camp trip and then after that is even more fun summer youth events. I have a busy few months ahead of me and I’m thrilled. Now that the weather is starting to be fantastic all I want to do is be outside.
I want to tell you a story. My friend Tyra came to Colorado just for a weekend on her way back from a ski trip in Utah. We didn’t do anything too crazy but we did hike Horsetooth Rock, and though it wasn’t a terribly challenging hike, it really pushed me mentally. We had to scramble up the summit and at some points I was pretty nervous. I’m not a huge fan of heights and I sometimes can freak myself out. Tyra climbed faster than I did, which I was okay with because I really, really wanted to take my time. I carefully evaluated each foothold I took because there was no harness to catch me if I slipped. When I reached the summit, Tyra was on a different side and out of my sight. I immediately began to tear up the moment I saw the Rocky Mountains from the top. Disclaimer – Horsetooth isn’t even remotely close to any of the 14 thousand foot Rockies, but it was close enough to see a lot of them. I was in awe of the majesty of it all, and I just plopped myself down on that summit and stared. God made it all and I’m not sure how anyone can climb a mountain and not see that. I was so proud of myself for not whining and for not chickening out when we reached the base of the rock summit. We climbed a really steep grade and even Tyra told me she was impressed. I was at the perfect height of emotion and exhaustion and at that moment, God spoke to me. I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I was reminded of this. I am His treasured daughter, and money shouldn’t be why I do things. He should be why I do things. Here’s the biggest thing – while sitting there on that summit and while the wind, His wind, threw my hair around my face, I felt His peace. I am not alone in this life and I will be okay. He will give me everything that He knows I need and that is enough for me.
Guys, He has given us an incredible life. It’s time we started living every moment like the gift that it is. I want to die knowing that everyone I met saw that I was different, that I embraced this life and lived it with joy and confidence, because I am HIS! (And gosh darn I wanna be fierce!)