Brilliant Yet Blonde

2010-04-22T16:11:00.002-04:00

Dear God, You are huge. There is so much to who You are and the things You've done in human history and in my life and You teach us so much in scripture. The overwhelming weight of how important all of that is and how i need to be able to synthesise everything I'm learning to be able to use practically has just come crashing down around me. I want so badly to be passionate about You and the work that I'm doing here but there is SO MUCH TO KNOW and I know I'll never know it all, and I'm overwhelmed because my ability to know this, and know it well, and use it well is necessary for my survival and the survival of those around me. This is a lot of pressure so, if You could keep me feeling the weight of this for the rest of my life so I never forget how much of everything depends on you but you could remind me that it isn't a weight I have to carry all alone, and its not nearly as heavy as the weight You gave to Jesus to carry for all of us, I would be really grateful. I love you sooooooo much! ~me

Best Recipe Ever

2010-04-14T19:35:00.006-04:00

So last weekend I just had to go home, I couldn't stand the school pressure anymore! So Thursday saw me driving up 95 and Friday saw me at the grocery dragging along poor boyfriend and apparently planning to feed an army. The butternut squash lasagna is not worth mentioning, probably the most depressing failure of my life, the blackberry rasberry pie was magnificent, I'm quite proud, the asparagus pasta was just thrown together like everyday mundane food, but the BEST RECIPE EVER was discovered. Yup, thats right the best thing I've ever done with chicken or any other food and it was EASY AND CHEAP, what? pigs are flying you say? Well just check this mess out. There I was Inocently and halfheartedly browsing along cooks.com and this happens:

Mediteranean Chicken

1 lb chicken breasts or thighs (I used a bigger pot and about 2 lbs but it didn't change anything)

1 small can black olives

1 jar roasted red peppers

1 can mushrooms (or fresh)

1 box frozen artichoke hearts or 2 cans canned artichoke (didn't even know it existed but the frozen was really good and way cheaper than the canned)

1 package sun dried tomatoes 1 1/2 cup Ken's Italian Marinade dressing or Ceasar Dressing (used ceasar, didn't measure :) )

Don't even bother to drain this stuff, just dump it all in a huge pan or crock pot and let it go for at least two hours, adjust heat according to how long you want it to be, I put it on low for about 4 hours and it was fine, amazingly flavorful and one of few ways to make sure your chicken isn't dry! When you serve it you can use a slotted spoon and have lots of yummy chicken and veggies (the picture does not do the veggies justice) or eat it like soup, it is absolutely amazing and even healthy! It does not get better people! I'm actually thinking about adding baby corn or rice or practically anything would be good in this. I know I'm gushing but get this, it was so good that Levi wants me to make it for his Birthday dinner! huge deal! fantastic chicken! All other news pales in comparison, I don't even remember what I was going to write about, probably complaints and self-praise about the ridiculous amount of homework I have and how I've managed to stay on top of it all, thus the extra time for blogging. OH and Dr Who is back! I, the most devoted of David Tennent fans was a little aprehensive about Matt but I gotta say, the Doctor is still the Doctor so props to that and I like this Amy Pond girl, but the whole romance thing is getting a bit stale but we shall see. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about check it out. Well thats all, but exciting changes are comming to the blog, maybe a bit of spring cleaning, so get excited!

Spring

2010-04-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

It is spring and there is pollen everywhere, it looks like some manic kid shredded yellow sidewalk chalk all over everything! Fun stuff. However, overlooking the sneezing, roomie and i decided to make Easter weekend count. Friday saw us driving up to charlotte NC to visit a real mall with multiple floors and everthing! hooray for civilization! where we both bought super pretty dresses, roomie for a formal and me for the summer cruise with the greatest family in the world. (Cruise Countdown: 38 days). After driving back from our shopping adventure we watched LOTR: Two Towers the Special extended version, which I had not seen and I've got to say the extendedness is pretty sweet. Then to waffle house at like 1 in the morning, an excursion that seems to be becoming more of a habit for me, probably not wise, but fun. Saturday, naturally was spent in bed recovering. Easter Sunday was fantastic, in spite of getting up late but still determined to make it to the 9:15 service anyway. I only missed the first song a Decemberradio cover which I have now discovered I ADORE. The service was amazing, I mean I knew Newspring was amazing but this was just wow. If you haven't heard Phil Wickham's song 'True Love' before, this is the way to hear it, I was in tears, just be aware of some graphic images. Just check out the Newspring Homepage for about the next week, the song starts about 12:40 in the video. Perry's message was beautiful, True, powerful and saving, seeing someone realize the sacrifice and love of God for the first time: Never. Gets. Old. After church roomie and I adventured to Lake Murray for the first time, the beach was nice but unimpressive, still a good spot to enjoy our lunch of amazing bread, cheese and carrots while browsing through an issue of Architectural Digest. But the highlight of the day was walking across the dam. Two miles both ways and the amazing smell of water! I'd forgotten what a radical difference it is to breathe water all the time. How refreshing! That pretty much wrapped up the weekend perfectly, then Monday rolled around and I had to closet myself in the library finishing my herm midterm, but it got done and I can now tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Acts 1:8 which is actually pretty cool.

Mourning the loss of my Kitchen

2010-03-24T10:09:00.006-04:00

So, right now I should be reading the first three books of Augustine's Confessions, which I was supposed to have read by yesterday however the adjustment of returning from spring break is killing me and my roomies are asleep so why not just blog? Plus I just caught up on reading some of my fav. blogs that I missed over the past few weeks and I feel inspired by the wonderful food adventures of these brilliant webmistresses (esp. this one) to blog about my own.

So last Saturday being the first official day of spring break and the day of the OV all out St. Patrick's Day parade called for some serious food celebration. After parading in the rain and consuming unhealthy amounts of corned beef and cabbage my might-as-well-be-sister Stacie, Gramma and I were engaged in a healthy debate over the identity of the "mystery Gaither" when Stacie stumbled across this recipe for Irish soda bread that we HAD to make right then.

It was pretty amazing, slightly sweet and worked really well with some butter and apple cinnamon jelly to counter the sourness of my morning grapefruit half for the rest of the week.

After a fun filled week of churchyness, ignoring homework, chillin with my peeps and all around settling in to life at home the weekend rolled around bringing with it the depression of an impending return to school. To combat this I invited over the boyfriend for Food! What else could I do really? A moments pause to reflect on my roomie's comment that He could be a leprechaun:

And then we cooked, yes I actually put him to work in the kitchen. After teaching him how to make tacos from a box I figured he could handle Steak, fresh baby spinach and Twice baked potatoes which were amazing. I love twice baked potatoes because you can style them to fit your taste and what you have in your fridge at the time. We used some sharp cheddar cheese, broccoli, sour cream, bacon bits, mild pearl onion, chives and butter, but guess who forgot the salt? Yup, I'm guilty of the cardinal potato sin, so sue me. But they were still pretty:

Then came the ultimate most amazing thing I cooked all week. DONUT BREAD PUDDING!!! "oh heck yeah dude!" (copyright: Monster) A special thanks has to go out here to our 'Windex pastor' affectionately known as Mama for suggesting this little Paula Dean gem (although I used the Michael Chiarello version with my own twist like who has heavy cream? So I just used milk, it didn't change anything).

Then on Sunday Levi barbecued chicken on the grill and I got to lay around in the grass and relax with his dog Cali and enjoy life a little. Now its back to textbooks and caf food until summer.

I'm baaaaaaaack!

2010-01-24T20:53:00.007-05:00

So, Christmas break is not exactly the time to be blogging as i am sooo busy, but luckily my wonderful boyfriend who bought me this amazing new ipod nano that takes video was on the ball and vlogged a bit for me so here it is my christmas break in a nutshell:

A Long December

2009-12-04T17:15:00.003-05:00

I really wanted to blog yesterday and now I don't remember what about. Things are starting to get super busy which means that I want to procrastinate more than ever. I picked out my classes for the spring and apparently I'm a bit masochistic. I have hermeneutics, intro. to world religions, New Testament survey, Evangelism & Discipleship and I get to retake Philosophy cuz TCC didn't challenge my Biblical World View enough lol. It's going to be a massive amount of work, but that's probably a good thing, it will make me learn to get my butt in gear.

In other news, my desk looks like Christmas exploded on it which is fine for a little while, notice the sparkly snow flakes, yeah they got glitter ev-er-y-where. Last night was a holiday party in which you dress up as your favorite holiday, which is a great albeit, very sparkly idea, it was cute and fun for the prospective students we have visiting this weekend. I'm sure my fantasticly belted with ribbon and jinglebells (oh yes we are that creative) roomie will soon post pics on FB.

Ok, my work here is done, I've prevented myself from doing any work until dinner time, so off to eat.

But first a preview of future blogs: I really have learned a lot this semester apart from picking a church is hard and you really can make it from Columbia to Norfolk in 5 and 1/2 hours and Future posts will include what God has revealed to me through my classes this semester. And a pretty picture of new york, which since its Christmas time I feel like i should be there...

2009-10-25T17:44:00.005-04:00

So, went to Newspring Church Columbia today. We got there slightly late, could hear the bass in the parking lot. At first it was very distracting, between all the "welcome to newspring" people and the loudness and the flashy color-changing backgrounds and the shiny red Les Paul right in front of me, it was a bit concert-y. During the first song I pretty much just oogled. Then the most recognizable drum intro in all of Christian music (you know what I'm talking about) brought me back to reality and I could focus. After which, an amazing version of I Surrender All. The message was surprisingly fabulous. What with the seeker-oriented event type vibe when the pastor speaking, Clayton King, said he was going to talk about hell, I was thinking 'oh man here we go...' But it was really in depth, he gave some context, used some Greek, and passages from Revelation to supplement his main message from Luke 16. Did a really great job presenting a basic salvation message and some food for the already saved. Overall, its size and style makes it not quite what I think I'll settle into as a home church, but then again, maybe something different is what I need. I also feel like this sort of church is quickly becoming more common and the old school 'my great great grandmother was rocked in the same nursery as my grandchildren' churches are sort of being phased out. I'll pray about it for sure, as usual. It is getting really frustrating not having a place to put down my roots around here, I miss knowing people at church and being able to just randomly take over in child care or teller office or whatever, oh and knowing where stuff is, that would be useful. Regardless of where I end up, I will definitely be listening to some of Newspring's messages online, next week they're starting a "don't get married until..." series, very exciting. Now that I think about it actually, I haven't felt this conflicted about any other church I've visited. I really like the preaching and the music, but will I be distracted too much? I don't know If I'm holding back because I'll be uncomfortable with the service opportunities there or because I don't know anyone who will go with me. But then again, do I like it because the preaching and music style is comfortable? The only other church I liked is Faith Pres. and I love the diversity in their church body, I feel like it will be very easy for me to get back to the nursery duty routine, but is that what I need? I'm used to a leadership role in our youth group and I'd really like to be able to be a leader in whatever new context I end up in and I feel like Newspring, being a younger church has room for that where as a family, deacon oriented older church might not, plus I'm not sure I agree with the whole Presbyterian thing. Going into this, I don't think I was looking for a new church home, just a temporary place to worship while I'm away from OVBC, but now I guess I'm finally grasping the gravity of the situation and sort of realizing how scary this is. Ugh, I need someone to prioritise for me. God give me clear leadership towards a church where you can use me and I can know you more, please!

A Sort of Homecoming

2009-10-04T12:52:00.017-04:00

I have no idea where to start at all, so I'm just going to do this chronologically and let the pictures fall where they may :). Yesterday I woke up off schedule at 7, zipped through shower and getting stuff together and got on the road. Lots of poor bambies on the sides, stay far far away from 95 poor deer! So got into Raleigh around noon after having a VISA not working fiasco and amazing Gramma to the rescue solution, and missing my exit and the Ihop we were going to meet at being nonexistent(!) it was really great to see Levi and park my car (in a $5 downtown lot and be done with it! So then we went to lunch at KFC and went to find the theater showing It was amazing! I love the dynamics of Jimmy Page, Edge and Jack White together. The film making was great, the way that the stories of all three were spliced together by like category, not chronologically or one person at a time. The music was great they picked songs that really fit the mood of the part of the movie. Edge is just Edge, I can't give a non biased review of his bit of the film, He's so experimental and technical I loves it! and the fact that Dallas (the guitar tech) gets to go everywhere with him, its cute. Jack White has lots to contribute even though he's a little strange. I think U2 could definitely learn SPONTANEITY from him, we can tell Bono, when you've told the same joke 5 nights in a row, we know. Jimmy Page,what can you even say, I mean He's JIMMY PAGE, like half Rock god half cute little old man, the best part of the whole movie is watching him play air guitar along to one of his favorite records, his face is priceless! So after the movie it was time for the show!! squee! OK, so we get to the lot and park and start walking towards the staduim and its awesome because people are tailgating and everything and from any given point you can hear 4 different u2 songs at one, (my fav combination was Angel of Harlem/Dicotheque (with BoomChas)/ Elevation). This is the first thing that caught my eye:Yay! THE CLAW! It is amazing and I loves it! Its so huge, apparently they had two feet of clearance, without that it would have been too big to fit in a football field! How cool is that? Ok so we were second in line in our gate and we got to hear soundcheck! They did some Gavin Friday stuff, rehearsing for today, and Jean Genie by David Bowie, YES! U2 & Bowie my two faves! According to Levi Bono had an 'Aaron moment' in the middle of hmmmm I don't remember the song, something from No Line... i think, you hear Bono go "wait, stop, I can't hear myself in the monitors!" It was priceless. Although I'm a little peeved because some of our ticket takers were students who had no idea what they were doing and at quarter to five started letting some people in before this older woman in charge rushed over to make them stop. So a few people who were in front of us got to SEE sound check, not just hear it, I'm happy for them though. So when the gates finally opened, we went straight to the merch stands with everyone else, I bought a program and a "future needs a big kiss" shirt which I'll eventually take a picture of, but not today. So we found our seats and THEY DIDN'T SUCK!!! I was amazed, we had the cheapest possible tickets and our seats were actually quite good, that means that a bad seat really isn't possible! We also had a great view of backstage area, so I got to watch all the techs run around and set things up which was cool, Saw Stu, Dallas, Sam and even Joe O'Herlihy, not that anyone other than me knows who they are ;). So we settled in to watch Muse. View from seats, Dallas (the tiny dot with the guitar), Muse:

When Muse finished, it took about 15 mins to tear down their stuff and set up for the lads. When the Arctic Monkeys/Coldplay mix (blech!) they played to keep us entertained finally died down and Space Oddity started up the crowd went crazy. I finally understand what Bono means when he says that when the audience screams, they're not screaming for the band, but for themselves. I agree completely, its like getting away from everything, its like "look, here I am, to enjoy music and comradery and time off..." the atmosphere just changes its like electric and peaceful all at the same time.

So larry walked out and started playing the first beats of 'Breathe' and it was so powerful, He just unleashed himself on the drums, wow, loud amazingness! And then Edge and Adam were there filling in on either side of him, and then Bono walked out with his usual flair and we were off! Instead of the dreadful 4 new song opening they did in Europe, we got 'Breathe' followed by 'Boots' and then a lovely break with Edge's rickenbacker came out for 'Mysterious Ways' (the spirit was movin in the house!) and then, 'Beautiful Day' with, in all of its 33 year old, pure sound beautiful body splendor, THE EXPLORER! (iwasinaroomwiththeexplorer!) It was spectacular, Edge is so attentive to the back of the stage too, sweet man, he, more than any of the others ventured behind the drum kit to visit us! After those little bits of amazing, they got back into boosting sales (lol, riiiiight) with 'No Line...' and 'Magnificent' which truely is! I will never forget going to chapel at CIU preview days in march and hearing them play that song, wow! The truth in it is spectacular to behold, really cool and kind of sad to think that some fans there don't even know who they should really be singing that hymn to. After the always potent 'Elevation' we got a real treat with 'In a Little While' I love that song sooooo much and there was no indication that they would play it, so when we heard a snippet during sound check i was already calling them teases in my head but they did! And it was mind blowing, the goal is soul? Well they accomplished that on this one.

Next was 'New Years Day' and Adam took a little walk to see us, good thing to since he was the one most hidden by the leg of the claw in our way, i have tons of pictures of blank space where he stepped in front of it for just a minute only to pop behind it again before my camera caught up, its cool though, He did come visit on occasion. 'Still Haven't Found...' was next with an awesome snip of 'Stand by Me' Bono even let the crowd sing a bit solo, it was really cool, so loud! lots of us singing together makes a big noise! My fav. version (ACCOUSTIC!) of 'Stuck in a Moment' was next, the bridge almost brought me to tears as usual. 'The Unforgettable Fire' was next, I still think its a little strange that of all the really great old songs to bring back they chose that one, but thats probably just because I'm biased towards War. City of Blinding lights brought out the magnificence of the claw wow wow wow, it was so beautiful, I almost forgot to watch the band! As per the new norm, Bono plucked somebody's young son out of the crowd for a lap around the outter rim of the stage, and even let him wear the shades for a little while. Nonexistant Adam, Shadeless Bono and accoustic bliss pictured below:

'Vertigo' was next, I don't remember anything being spectacular about it, its just vertigo other than more fun screen shiny effects. The absolute highlight of the show, most amazing song awesomness, was the Redanka remix of '...Crazy Tonight' wow, the whole in the round thing really came out during this song. Larry was able to play his 'very own conga' so he wasn't trapped behind his drooms, and all four of them were on the outer circle rotating slowly so that everybody got to see everybody which was fantastic, the graphics on the screen were great too, the heads of the band bobbing to the music, with an occassional Bono snarl, very funky I loved it!! They followed that by spinning Larry's drums towards the back (us) for a green revolution version of 'Bloody Sunday' very powerful and dude Edge solo guh! mind-blowing as usual. This was followed by a snip of 'People Get Ready' Bono was so funny, holding out his mike to a fan and saying something like, "I'm gonna give this to you so you can sing alright. Be cool." like a lecturing father lol, the fan btw sang very well and knew the words better than the B man himself. so there.

Things slowed down after that with 'MLK' leading into 'Walk On' and a snip of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' for Aung San Suu Kyi, really moving, what a woman (google her, I don't have enough space to describe her incredible courage here) That was the end of the main set, time for a break to change camera batteries lol. Some of my faves mostly from 'Crazy':

The two encores that followed were wonderful, 'One' actually didn't bore me to death like Ithought it would and 'Amazing Grace' after it was probably the musical highlight of my life. Wow wow wow, it was so pure, just Spirit-filled, everybody singing from their hearts. Superb.

'Streets' was the first song of the second encore, they're back to the original red background not the African flags, which I think is a good decision, its much cooler that way. I love that song because you can just let go and belt it! Watching Bono play with his flashy red wheel mike and laser jacket during 'Ultraviolet' was fun, I got to sing 'Baby baby baby light my way' to my love, I'm so glad he was there, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun with anybody else! Thanks Levi! 'With or Without You' was just as good the thousandth time as it was the first, such a pretty instrumental bit. They closed with the new 'Moment of Surrender' I love that song, it was a fitting end, serene, hopeful, personal, spiritual, touching, it summed up the night really well. (But it wasn't '40' just sayin')

I'm so thankful that I was blessed enough to be able to go and share it with someone special, this blog is more for me that you guys, its so that I don't forget what happened at the concert because its so crowded with my own spin on it. The things I'll remember from yesterday are losing a whole parking lot (only us!) but getting through it, hearing Levi confess that it was cool at Ihop, making plans for next time (GA baby, somebody find me a tent and some MREs!) and the look on Levi's face as he watched the look on my face and the reminder of the reason I love U2. Because they are like home, they're comforting, reassuring, fun, flirty, challenging and easy, serious but not pretentious and all about Love. Somehow these four guys have stayed together and not killed each other for 30+ years, if they can get through all the crap that comes with that, the rest of us can pretty much make it through anything!

"...Through the sleet and driving snow, across the fields of mourning, lights in the distance...I'll be there, I'll be there..."

Playing Catch Up

2009-10-02T13:55:00.006-04:00

Ok so the past two weeks have been super evenful, a lovely combination of need to blog and lack of time to do so. The church we went to two weeks ago was a presbyterian church, It was amahhhhzing. The message was a really cool look into their series on Judges and the music was not that bad, although probably better than I thought, I'm a little biased ;) There was lots of prayer, super Bible based, it was a nice size and really great mixture of ages from kids, youth, our age, young families and seniors, which was way cool. The best part may be that there are lots of opportunities to get involved and serve. Last week we went to an evangelical church, it wasn't really my thing, the music was about at current at nsync and the sermon wasn't challenging, anyone can google and rant, it wasn't given by the senior pastor though so maybe we'll have to go back and hear him. Lots of CIU people there and very missions focussed, so not all bad. Onward to non-church news, God is working some amazing things down here, He's teaching me discipline over and over again in every aspect of my life. Roomie and I are eating healthier and she's teaching me how to exercise, i know, everybody gasp! Also how to make sure I get my God time on the daily aside from classwork. I'm really starting to apply the whole, if God can trust you with something little like taking care of your body and making it through school, then He can trust you with an even bigger part of His plan, how cool is that?

Both Sides Now

2009-09-14T21:12:00.002-04:00

So Sunday was quite interesting. My roomie and I decided to try an Anglican church that meets in the State Museum for morning service, my gps said it would take 12 minutes to get there so we left 20 mins before the service started. We were 15 mins late! I Love construction, its just like home! So we got there about half way through the message, it was really good, in Mark 8 about how Peter was at the top of his game, finally agknowledged Jesus as Christ and then totaly blew it when Jesus started talking about his death. Really applicable to life, great message. So then we all stood up and said the Nicean Creed, and then shook hands, quickly changed our 'how are you's to 'God's peace' and then did some more liturgy. We did this prayer thing that everyone said and then had a few minutes in between topics to pray on our own, had our little confession/absolution cross yourself moment and then did communion! ooooo fun. Sang something, maybe Chris Tomlin? the the doxology and offering, then the Sanctus benedictus thingy then we actually sang a bunch of songs from some old school Delerious? to Be Thou My Vision (which is quickly becoming level with Victory in Jesus and Come Thou Fount as my fav hymns)while communion itself happened. Everyone gets to go down to the front and get their bread and blessing from one guy and then their wine (yuck i'd forgotten how alcohol tastes like something spoiled to me) from the cup barer which is way awkward, he's trying to pour, you're trying to guide him, everyone else has just used the same cup. Just weird all the way around. But not necessarily bad. Some of the CIU people there were not people i would have placed in an Anglican church but I guess we get enough modern worship at school during the week so that Sundays liturgy isn't that bad. It was an interesting learning expirience to have. The same night we decided to try Midtown Fellowship, which ironically, meets in the same room as the Anglicans. This was like home! Just like Wednesday, good music, some BlueTree version of God of this City, some other k-love songs, goodness. People our age! The message was on Rom. 12:12-13 i think, they're doing a series through Romans 12, the pastor was a younger guy who really spoke on our level and made the verses totally apply to anyone's situation in everyday life which was cool, but it wasn't like one of those younger crowd messages that makes you feel good and avoids that whole sin is bad and God wants something from you thing which was really great to find in a younger church. They also kept using the word family instead of congregation it just really felt close knit in spite of the fact that they fill up the 250 seat room for 3 night services every sunday and one service at a bigger campus. I think that we will most deff be going back even if we pick a morning church to be our home while here. In non-church hunting news, anybody want to go to Chincoteague? I dunno what I was doing but I just had this thought the other day that I haven't been in forever and its so pretty and I'd really love to see Surfer Dude again (he's the pony I love, he's tall, blonde, has a great deep tan and he's 17, o yeah!) So some time when I'm home this Christmas someone needs to go up with me just to hit the wildlife Res. on Assateague for a day. Babe? Space? Gma? Dearest Aunt? Whos up for it?

Another Day

2009-09-03T19:28:00.004-04:00

So The pics are of the prayer towers from the back and the bench that I usually sit on for prayer and thinkin, its my new favorite spot in the world. So you have pics from this angle because I didn't want you to have to see the brochure view from the front for the thousandth time! I love to take walks with my Father around the lake behind the towers, its the best, the air is so full of grace its amazing! Today was lazy, I did mostly all of my reading for this week and next week yesterday until I couldn't comprehend any more and today after classes I took a NAP! yes, it was incredible, except people kept bothering me, according to one roomate I said very sweetly to someone "go away" I have no memory of this. So now I'm going to go listen to the 18 hour U2009 marathon and then call Levi. After which I get to go dress up in blue because its blue and go to the freshman meeting there will probably be pics of that on Facebook too!

What's gone on so Far

2009-09-02T14:14:00.000-04:00

Ok, I don’t even know where to begin. The past two weeks have been the busiest and most radical change of my life. So in order to remember it all I’m going to have to reference my calendar. I got here on Wednesday, August 19 with my lovely entourage of Gramma, Stacie and Ms. Robin and found out that the room it said I was in online was completely wrong, which is cool because I love my roommates. One is local and one is an mk from France. Our room is sort of messy but we’re getting the hang of decorating, we have a rug and a sheet we made into curtains so it’s starting to come together. The first week here was “welcome week” pretty much full of random getting to know you activities and talks on how CIU works. Once we got passed all of that, classes started on Tuesday the 25th. I have five classes, CIU 101 its required, its basically there to make sure I go to church, don’t get too depressed, know my strengths. Then Old Testament Survey every day, that’s my most favorite class, the teacher is cool and really excited about his subject, the prof. is also single handedly bringing back hymns, beware you never know when one could happen! I also have gen. psych which I’ve already had but not with a Christian perspective so I get to take it again, it’s not gonna be too bad though, the teacher reminds me of what Cpt. Ahab or the ancient mariner or somebody should look like I dunno something to do with the tan and the white beard. My last two classes are ICS, intercultural studies classes, one is Intro. To the World Christian Movement which is somewhat interesting, we’re reading Peace Child for that class right now which is good. The other is technically called Foundations of Missions but it could be titled, “If you want an easy life, be a systematic theologian: An introduction to missiology and why you need to know a little bit of everything” it’s really interesting! So yeah, um, we have chapel everyday at 10:45, its mandatory which is cool. We have some sweet speakers lined up for this year. Um, o the food is good, baked potato bar is gonna get me in trouble though! So yes, we’ve had some interesting adventures, there’s a rule that at least 3 students from CIU must be at every walmart in the Columbia area at all times and we've done our fair share of shifts. Sunday my roommate and I went to a community church about ten minutes away. It was a fairly cozy building, the sanctuary looking more than half full with about 75 people. They congregation was really friendly, there were a few CIU students and staff there. The music was similar to our church back home with a sprinkling of 1 or 2 hymns and 3ish praise songs. They do communion every Sunday which is weird for me personally but they use real bread, which is a plus. The service wasn’t really liturgical, but there were some readings that were call and response with the pastor that took me back to my elementary days. As far as the sermon, it was basically verse by verse through psalm 73 with commentary by the pastor. It was interesting but not really teaching, we’ve decided to go back at some point to see if he’s like that every week. When we got back, I locked my keys in my car, but luckily one of our new church friends and his pal were mks in Africa and were able to use a door wedge and coat hanger to unlock the doors (yes there are pictures on facebook). I think you’re pretty much caught up now, o Monday roomie and I made about 60 muffins to give to our hall and just walk around randomly handing to people, and it was awesome! So yes that’s the brief version, more detail in future as my life unfolds before your very computer screen!

Because...

2009-09-01T23:31:00.001-04:00

I promised Levi I'd update tonight, but i have a sleeping roomate and my keyboard is LOUD, so I'll write my novella about whats been happening in the life of the college kid at some point tomorrow! Night all.