vacation.

Today was my last day of vacation... And it was virtually perfect. I'm going to describe it in excruciating detail, so feel free to NOT read if that sort of thig bores you. I won't be offended. :)

Spontaneously decided to have lunch on Clearwater Beach because I missed the smell of salt water. We decided on Frenchy's Saltwater Cafe. We sat outside and the weather was PERFECT. Sunny, breezy, warm yet cool... Fresh. I could smell the salt.

I had a fried grouper sandwich, and it was perfect too.

Ryan and I talked about ministry, and the dreams we have for our international ministry. It was really fruitful and refreshing. For once, we were more on the same page than not. It was nice to dream and plan together.

We found a geocahe on the trail by the bridge... It was right by the water, and again, just beautiful. Perfect weather.

We saw a thick sea fog roll in, and cover the entire barrier island in minutes. It was really cool to watch... We went on the beach, and it was so thick that we couldn't see the water in front of us or the buildings behind us. It felt like walkin on a cloud.

We stopped for ice cream while we were walking down the street and back to the car. I had birthday cake ice cream on a waffle cone, and it was amazing!! So tasty.

As we drove away and left the beach, we could see the fog behind us, sitting there, blotting out the sun from everything below... Yet as soon as we left the islands, it was clear and sunny again. So strange!

We picked up WeiWei from the airport, and that was fun too because I love the airport! I like how it smells. It smells like excitement and adventures that are about to happen.

I asked if she was hungry, she said yes, so she came to our house and I cooked pasta. Whole wheat spaghetti, with zucchini and mushrooms added into the sauce. Yum!! I cleaned up the dishes after, so the kitchen still looks good... I love having a clean house. I feel so much more peaceful when everything is put away and tidy.

We played with the Wii U after dinner, and it was fun... WeiWei is so funny!! She likes to scream when she is getting really competitive, and so do I. Good times. :)

Ryan took her home, and then we watched Netflix for an hour or so... One episode of Parks and Rec, and one episode from season 2 of Portlandia, which is FINALLY on Netflix! I see a hipster party and Portlandia marathon in our future...  Then we ended the night listening to Pandora and just relaxing. 

I can't think of a single thig that would have made this day better. I wanted to preserve it to the best of my abilities, because days like this are few and far between, and they are a gift from God. I feel refreshed, and almost ready for another semester of work, ministry, and all around busy-ness. 

Almost. :)

everything is everything.

Sometimes it seems
We'll touch that dream
But things come slow or not at all
And the ones on top
Won't make it stop
So convinced that they might fall
Let's love ourselves then we can't fail
To make a better situation
Tomorrow, our seeds will grow
All we need is dedication

{lauryn hill}

typical.

Come on, can't I dream for one day
There's nothing that can't be done
But how long should it take somebody
Before they can be someone?

Cause I know there's got to be another level
Somewhere closer to the other side
And I'm feeling like it's now or never...
Can I break the spell of the typical?

I'm not a consistent blogger.

You probably already knew that, though.

Anyway. Life is life, and things are moving along at quite the pace. Our small group for international students suddenly became... not small. Awesome, and slightly overwhelming! Ha. Luckily, our team of co-leaders has also grown, and I feel like we're still managing to make everyone feel welcomed. We may need to split into two small groups if everyone keeps coming consistently through the semester... we'll see!!

We're also hoping to start having leadership meetings with our core international students. First one is scheduled for this Sunday. I keep fluctuating between being really excited and having "OH MY GOD WE ARE NOT QUALIFIED FOR THIS" types of emotions. It's probably a healthy balance. :)

Jesus Encounter is soon. This was a really defining moment in the lives of some of our students last year. I am praying that most of them will come back to serve and volunteer, and that others will go through as participants! Although, I think this time we probably won't host them all in our house. Having 11 people in our apartment, while fun, was slightly insane. But it's okay... as someone once told me, "students are stackable!"

Seriously, though. Stackable or not, I don't think we could have fit a single additional person into our house. Preparing meals (mainly breakfast) for that sizeable crew was both fun and exhausting, too... I felt like a house mother in some kind of boarding school. :)

So thankful for this international student ministry... for having Casey, Ryan, and Josh as co-laborers, and for having a couple more awesome people joining us... for the leadership of Jeremy and our fellow Mobile-ites... for God sustaining this outreach even when we were doing almost everything wrong, and giving us a chance to do it well... for the students who come to a stranger's home and bless us in ways that they don't even know... for their insight, and the joy they bring me when we look at a passage together... we are so blessed to be a part of this. So thankful that God uses us, imperfect as we are, to be involved in this ministry.

Jesus, please help us to grow this ministry into what you want it to be. I pray there is fruit in the lives of our students, and that we live up to the responsibility that you have placed on us to lead them. I pray they become leaders too, and that they would live for you and do amazing things in your name!! Guide us as we try to better define our vision, and lead us in the ways that you want us to go. amen.

fun!!

Tomorrow should be a fun day...

1. Graduate with my Master's in Linguistics (9:00 am)
2. Lunch at our place with the fam and a few friends (11:30 am)
3. Hop on a plane to VEGAS!! (7:00 pm)

Can't wait!! XD

compassion.

RADICAL COMPASSION-- saw this on reddit and had to share:

Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. 

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. 

In the arrangement of "lawfulness" in Jesus' time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. 

Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Empires live by numbness. Empires, in their militarism, expect numbness about the human cost of war. Corporate economies expect blindness to the cost in terms of poverty and exploitation. Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. 

Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and with his compassion takes the first step by making visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual. Thus compassion that might be seen simply as generous goodwill is in fact criticism of the system, forces, and ideologies that produce the hurt.

 ~ Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination pp 88-89

I love this... because it rings so true in our culture today as well. Allowing yourself to feel compassion is painful and even overwhelming, because when you open your eyes, there is SO much hurt in the world... in our country... even in Tampa. 

Compassion is not easily structured or contrived. Showing compassion will often interrupt your plans, and it does not fit into "business as usual," but it is such a right emotion to experience. 

Compassion leads us to ask the question "why." Why is there so much pain, so much evil in this world? It leads us to look around honestly at our culture and the systems within it... and, if we are being honest, it makes us examine our own hearts and selfish nature as well. And this, in turn, leads back to the cross-- to our loving God who is the king of compassion, to the extent that he gave his own son for us to be healed and fully restored. 

Compassion is a radical act... and essential in order to truly follow Jesus.

break.

Taking a break from my final paper to make a post... I don't know what I'm going to write about, so this could be either special and unique or rambling and nonsensical.

I've been sick for over a week... finally starting to feel better after getting some antibiotics a few days ago. Started with a really bad sore throat & cough, and while they both got less intense they didn't go away. Then I started getting really bad sinus headaches, and THEN something really interesting and gross happened-- it spread to my eye!! Wow! I was grossed out and intrigued... I've never seen my eye do anything like it! It got really red and swollen to the point where I could only open it about halfway, and kept oozing this thick yellow goo... and that's probably TMI already. But I was impressed, really. I think it somehow spread via my sinuses and tear ducts or something. With some antibiotic eyedrops, I'm now on the up and up... which is a lucky break for anyone who has to look at me. haha. :)

In other news... I took a hiatus from reading comments on news articles for a while, but I'm back to doing it again... it's like some sick pleasure. I can't stop myself. It's just a source of ignorance, bias, hatred, racism, and spouting off things that someone heard somebody else say... there is truly no value to them. And yet, I read an article online about whatever current event or pop culture happening is in the news, and without fail I scroll to the bottom... and I read, read, read. Can't stop reading... it's always been my blessing and my curse for as long as I can remember. A blessing because it makes academics come very easily to me, and I can quickly inform myself on just about any topic... but a curse because I can't stop, even when in the midst of complete tripe. I wish there was something like Ad-Block for comments... if anyone has an idea of how to help me with this stupid compulsion, I am open for suggestion.

Also!! My Snoops is moving in with us soon!! I am looking forward to this a lot... hoping to begin regaining more of a sense of community, and fighting my anti-social tendencies that just won't leave me. And besides that, she's one of my favorite people and I am HOPING that it will be mostly fun, with minimal conflict... and that any conflicts or discrepancies that arise can at least be dealt with in a healthy way. I am looking forward to having one of my best friends around just to chill and talk and catch up on everything. :)

The downside of this is that we need to clean... and not just clean, but DOWNSIZE to a fairly significant degree. Nothing that drastic I guess, but definitely moreso than Ryan and I have downsized since getting married. We seem to just expand to fill whatever space we occupy, and that's a pattern that needs to stop. We've been working on budgeting, and while that's a work in progress, I'd say we continue to grow increasingly mindful of our purchases, with only the occasional lapse into unnecessary purchases. But now the issue is weeding things out, and striving towards simplicity... I am a person who likes to save and prepare, and it is VERY hard for me to part with anything that might be remotely of use in the future. I know it needs to happen, though. I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have sometimes, and I feel like it ties us down and restricts our freedom to some degree. I am hoping to start the process of breaking those chains as soon as this paper is done! I just want to hold on to EVERYthing... particularly my clothes. Realistically, I probably have at least double the amount of clothing that I need. But I feel like I need to hold onto it all "just in case" there is that one PERFECT opportunity to wear something! How crazy is that.

Sad, but true. Unfortunately.

I think it goes deeper than just having too much crap around the house. It goes further, down into my very identity, and the way that I feel that my clothing and my appearance in general is this critical aspect of who I am. I am a byproduct of my culture, for sure... and that's the hard part. It's not just stuff. It's what the stuff represents. On the surface level, I can say that my identity is in Jesus, but dig down and it gets a lot messier. So, I think this will be both painful and healthy... looking forward to the end result when we have less stuff, less clutter, less junk to weigh us down... and more freedom to live for Jesus, in the center of his love, identity, and purpose. le sigh... can I fast forward a little bit, please??

...and there you go. I think it ended up being on the rambling end. I'll try to wait until I really have something to say before I post again... XD