me all sideways and stoked wearing the jelly fish hat from tif tif













so i haven't really written anything since i got home but life has been interesting since the last post.
i am running hard after god and i feel like i am actually getting some where this time. the stuff he has crammed into my brian the past four months is coming out of the deepest darkest parts of my mind that i had no idea had been filled with stuff. i feel like my brain is the old card filing system in libraries, there are so many little cards in all those little drawers that when you open one up, there are so many different ideas and lessons sitting inside just waiting for the moment when some one is looking for that specific one. and it's not like i know which ones i will be pulling out at any given minute they just fly into my mouth like those balls pop up for the lotto into the lady's hand. she has no control over which number comes up, but she holds out her hand with confidence knowing that a number will be there for her to read aloud. i have lately been thinking about the gifts god has given me and how he calls me to use them everyday to strengthen the body of christ. i at times can be ungrateful for what he has given me and i am sorry. i am beginning to see how exciting it is that god is using me and i am more willing now to let him work through me even more.

i will write more,but it's late and i am tired. god is showing me cool stuff and i am trying to write it down so i can share it with others better. ask me about it next time you see me

home again

so here i am up at 5:30 before the sun is even up for the 3rd day in a row. why you may ask.
1) i'm still sick so i'm sleeping a ton
2) i'm still jetlaged so my time clock is all off,
3) 1 + 2= wierd sleeping schedule for the bear.

it's so nice to be home, to sleep in my bed and to smell the smells of my home. to eat amazing food made by my momma, to see my friends from church, to hear my pastor speak, to snuggle with my momma and to catching my dad looking at me like he has never seen me before looking so grown up. i love having jo come in my room and filling me in with the high school drama and being able to just nod and understand and not try to fix it like parents do. i love seeing my dogs even though mine has tripled in size and Xena is quickly shrinking.


but i miss my room mates, i miss going down stairs to find amee and erin. i miss the vomit room with the many brain vomits held there weekly. i miss crazy dance parties to music too weird to admit we like, and boy band fest where we would just belt them out un ashamed. i miss tiffany and her whining and the magic appron. i miss hannah and her "not liking mike" talks. i miss the truly edifying talks in my room with helen and brit. i miss reading song of solomon with helena and her amazing intrpretations with canada blushing the whole time. tea parties to avoid homewrok with heather in their flat and hanging out with ramzy and isaac. i even miss chris and his out there ways.


but most of all i miss Aaron and his touch. i miss holding his hand and falling asleep on him in the garage. i miss praying with him and talking about the bible. telling him something cool i learned and asking him if he knew it yet. ( he did the guy was in his 4 semseter he was already taught it) i miss him waithing for me before church so we could walk together at exactly 10:23 and i miss comming downstiars cause some girl ran up telling me that my man was at the back door waiting for me again. i miss sitting next to him during worship hearing his beautiful voice knowing he will know every word to this song. and i miss him singing to me as we walked down the street. i even miss when he would grab me and not let go untill he was done singing his made up songs about how much he loves me.


i'm glad i'm home don't get me wrong, but there is so much i wish i could have brought back here with me.

know that these lists do not fully express themselves, there is more to each one that would take me for ever to write.

a note of love for momma bear

hey momma i am almost over being sick so that is good. sorry we couldn't talk last night, but i really needed sleep. so aaron is quite possibly thebest boyfriend in the world, i had felt sick the night before and he went out the next morning and came to our door with a gift bag. inside was a bear, and nose meds. then later when he found out my nose was hurting from the toliet paper he went out and bought special klennex. it was super cute anyways just thought i'd gush a bit

ps check out the post i put up about doing devos it's two post down

well the past 24 hours has been really cool and a little insane.
lauren heather and i went to leeds to do some shopping so we get on the train we were planing on taking and it turns out it was cancelled so every one is getting off the train in a hurry becuase there is another one that hasn't left the station yet. so we followed the crowd to the train and sit down. the seats we sat down in are 3 all facing the same way with another infront of us faceing to our left not sure if that makes sense btu the jist is that we can see you it is sitting in front of us and we can talk with them. it was a lady on her cell phone about the age of our parents and she is drinking a beer. so as the train gets going she looks over and lauren and points to her lip and asks lauren if it hurt( the piercing) lauren tells here is did and so the lady tells us yeah that's why i wont get one, cause i don't do well with pain. so we are talking wiht her about where we are from, what we think about hte war, what we think about our president, why we are here ... and she askes us what do you do at bible college so we tell here we study teh bible and stuff. now keep in mind all this is with a few somewhat ackward pauses between each topic. then see looks at us and asks us if we pray a lot and we tell her yes we do every day. and she asks if we would pray for her. so i ask her what she would like us to pray for her about and she tells us that she does not have a home and she is living in a hostel at the moment. so we tell here we will then she tells us about how she was given a bible once and she was told to start in mark and so she did and she read about the beattitudes and she really like the blessed are the poor in spirit becuase she was poor and it ment something to her.
she got a phone call so she starts talking to some one on the phone and then she starts to cry and my heart broke for her. so when she gets off the phone she it trying to pulle herself together and then she was telling us about how she read 1st corinthinans and she started quoting love is patient love is kind... an then she said her favorite part was 1st corinthinans 13:13 faith love and hpe but the greatest of these is love. and by then we are all geeking out and lauren takes of the ring that mom gae us and she tells her about how we got these rings before we came here and that they have the same verse she had jsut told us and that lauren wanted her to have her ring and to know that every time she sees it we are praying for her. then heather tells her that God loves her and she can pray to God too and He will hear her prayers and that the bible is talking about the love God has for her. then we encouraged her to keep reading the bible. so she has the ring and she put it on her
middle finger like lauren and i wear it and it fit her. so she keeps looking down at it and turning it just a little over her finger and she obviously is so touched and loves it. then she looks back up at us says " we were ment to meet today" and we were like yeah totaly God brought us together today and He eanted us to talk to you. it was so cool every time i look at the ring on my finger i think about meeting helen and i pray for her and robert ( the 16 year old kid who lives next door to her)

so that was really cool then later we were sitting down on the sidewalk eatting subway watching this guy yell and scream preaching fire and brimstone causing people to mock jesus's name and it was as if God was laying it out so clearly telling me this is not how you bring people to me, you do it by loving them and through your life as an example like i had you do on the train.

so we went shopping and it was good heather and i both got some pants and lauren found a sweater for luke that she had been looking for ages for.

we came home and i had a diner party type deal that we had planned a while ago. ( we were making diner for some of the guys) so we get dinner going and i'm super stoked about what god had shown me earlier and i'm telling all sorts of people about it and amee and i started talking about what god is doing in our lives and we we just geeking out over God it was super sweet. so we ate dinner and we had a lot of fun i made mashed potatoes with brandon and he mashed the pot up for me it was pretty funny.

open flat night was almost over and most of the guys had left except for aaron and brandon and a few others and next thing i know erin is crying. she had been sick for a while and had hurt her back from coughing so hard we thought she had popped her rib out of place( later we found out not true) so she had been in some pain and to see her crying was really scary. so i get up off the couch and run over to her and as her what is wrong. she tells me she can't get up and is still crying so i didn't kow what to do i mean i know a lot of 1st aid, but this was different. so i prayed and i prayed menwhile everyone else is seeing this and for all i know they are jsut stareing but i kept going. i just kept asking god to fix it and help her to calm down. i didn't have anything else on my mind but asking god to fix it. so after a few minutes i look up and every one else was praying and she had calmed down but was still in a lot of pain and from there we figured out what to do. we get kalen and rachel and we go and get amee. by the time rachel and kalen get here amme is tlaking to her mom on skype and one of the boys called an ambulance. we tried to get people out of the room, so most of the guys left and they went to pray for her in the garage and then the paramedics came in and they were talking with erin. and they take her away. amee goes with her as well as rachel and i am like the communication center between the girls and their parents. so after they left we really didn't know what to do so we busted out the crayons that i brought and paper and starting making get well signs but then we went a little over board cause canada, tif and i made enough signs to cover the living room as well as some for the closet and the doors. but they were fun. any ways it was pretty late so i slept down stairs so i would know when they got home and everyone else pretty much went to bed. they cam e home around 3 ish in the morning and found out she had torn the muscle between her ribs hence the pain. so we mad a little bed for her on the couch downstairs and i slept on thebig one and we went to "sleep" ( we didn't really sleep cause every time she would start coughing we would wake up cause she was in soo much pain and could not take pain killers so i would wake up with her and pray till we could go back to sleep) so i was super tired in the morning and i skipped out on church the next day and went to night service.



ok i know this is way over due and weeks old news, but i promised that i would post this thing and i needed to get it done. it was mocking me and so here ya go. i still need to post stuff from portugal but that will be another time folks. i love you and i hope this is satisfying enough.

Jelly Doughnuts

i did a devo this morning it was insane. i kept saying i would never get up and speak, but god had other plans as usual.
it all started this friday when we were praying for the out reach and i asked god to make me a great speaker for him. you know when you pray something and you mean it, but you don't think god will actually take you up on it, or you expect him to do it in a different way. that was what was going on in my mind. i in no way believed that i would be doing a devo that next wednesday.

so jason comes up to me during my M-1 mums and tots and tells me "you are doing a devo on wednseday get ready" oh my gosh i freaked out i almost cried right there in front of every one. it was terrifying so i was freaking out and we argued back and forth untill he finaly just told me to read the chapters for this week out loud to him. now keep in mind jason is this big local who could definatly take me out so when he tells you to read a passage out of the bible you just do it. so i did it. reading them out loud didn't really calm my nevers any and i was still scared like no other but i had to finish up my M-1 so i did. after wew were done i went out for a walk and brought my bible and my note book and started praying on the wall and going through the chapters. i was pleading wiht god to just tell me what he wanted me to speak on, but i was secretly hoping i wouldn't have to do it at all. it was incredibly windy and cold out side and no matter how many corners of the wall i tucked myself into i could not stop being bombarded with freezing wind. so i tried working in walmgate, but it was weird cause people were doing home work, and there was a couple cuddleing while i was trying to figure out what god wanted me to tell the whole bible college about in the early morning hour. so needless to say (even though i will) this too was not working for me.
i went to pee. right now......
so i came back to the flat and just stewed in my worry (i tried to find other words to describe it, but i keep coming back to worry so i will take it) it wasn't till the day before when i was talking with Amee that i realized what the chapters ment to me so even though i knew what i was talking about there was still the small issue of actually speaking in front of everyone.
so i got up early the next morning at 6 and started praying. and it was weird cause honestly i fell asleep for a little bit and the only reason i know this is becasue i was dreaming that one of the professors was passing out jelly doughnuts while i was up there preaching my heart out and his goal was to win the crowd over for me with the gift of sugary goodness early in the morn. when i woke up i still had tons of time so i went down to the garage and sat in teh front row and started praying some more. and then i felt weird sitting in there by myself so i came back all the while about ready to puke i was soo nervous. so i made some calming tea, and went back down and sat in my seat. more people were in there by this time, so i just chilled and a constant flow of prayer was coming out of my brain straight to god. so we did worship and all was good, infact i was able to still worship with out being distracted by the thoughts of failure that i felt was eminant. then the time had come

i got up and sat down on the stool and opened with a word of prayer. and while i wish i could tell you right now what i said in that prayer i'm pretty sure i will not know untill i get to heaven and god can tell me. i just don't remeber much of what i said, but tha tis cool cause i had been asking god to jsut use me and since it wasn't me talking i guess my brain just didn't want to remember it. i do know tha ti started by telling them how much i didn't want to do it, and how jason stronge armed me into it. i talked about my main points which were finishing strong and about serving each other and i know i ripped on chuck smith which was cool cause people laughed at it and didn't stone me right on the spot. and i think i might have even encouraged every one to be nice and serve one another that day. then i closed in prayer and it was over.

i've been told it was good, but to be honest it really wasn't me i had very little to do with it and i'm very ok with that.
helen had told me earlier that week when i was freaking out that that if you don't have to be on your face in prayer before you speak you might be too confidant in what you are saying and you could be blocking waht work the lord wants to do through you. that's a cool thought and i will think of it every time i go to speak cause i wil always be nervous and i will always need to pray on my face on teh dirty rug that has not been vacumed in ages all the while dreaming of lemon jelly filled doughnuts and randal

getting in the groove of things

i woke up earlier this morning @ 7 an i'm trying to get back into being the morning person i was. i miss being awake by myself so early and right now i'm the only one downstairs. it's pretty sweet.
a lot has been going on in my life and i have been trying to sort out the crazy whirl wind that is Aaron and I. it's really hard trying to figure every thing out when you life in a fish bowl crammed with 60 other fish. we're still not sure what God has for us after this semester both individually and toegether. there is a lot on our plates here though so we really can't worry about what will be after the semster.
this weekend in the rome trip, and while i understand why some people backed out, i'm a little miffed still. but the trip is going to be brilliant. we finally hammered out the final details and are pretty much ready to go. it is good.
then two weeks later lauren, aaron and i will be in Portugal with our out reach team. it's gonna be sweet.
i know this isn't the greatest blog ever but, it's a start, and i kow how much ou guys crave information.

Ham, Love, Life

ok i know i haven't posted any thing in a looong loong while but tons has bee going on.
ham fest was amazing and arron and the girls in my flat made it the best birthday i have ever had. in order to make it the most perfect birthday in the history of man, my family would have been there. but i got to talk to you guys so it made me happy. i guess my birthday offically started at midnight when the girls and arron cordinated to have him sing to me outside my window with a single rose in front of our flats with all his boys hanging out thewindows to watch us. it was the sweetest thing. i was utterly surprised and delighted. i was giddy all night and did not go to sleep for hours afterwards and when i did i was still smiling. then next day in devos every one sang happey birthday to me and when mike d was saying prayer for the day he inclueded me in it. :) heather leaned over to me at one point and say "if you don't kow you are loved by now there is somehting wrong with you" haha. then the ham we had ordered special from the pastors meat guy dropped it off and i got an amazing deal on it. half the price it would have been at the store. after our last class we cooked and cooked and one of the guys that works here jason helped us cook teh ham. hamfest was held at walm gate bar, a part of the walk with stones init from the temple in Jerusalem. it was amazing so many peole showed up and theybrought great food with them. my cake was german chocolate made from scratch and the hams were amazing. some of the boys bought fire works so we walked down to the river and lit them off. i got to do the last one and it was really cool. for my brthday arron gave me a silver cross necklace and i loved it. so many people wished me happy birthday and i could tel that it was sincere. i will post pictures in a lil bit once i gather them all of from people plus the viedo of arron singing. ;D
here are some from what's been going on in general