rich

Heres a super short clip of "Rich" by Nooma/Rob Bell. I wish there was more of it. There’s a popular bumper sticker that reads “God Bless America,” but hasn’t America already been blessed? It’s easy for us to fall into a mindset of viewing “our” world as “the” world, because it’s all we generally see. We’re constantly bombarded with images of the latest styles and models of everything, and it can easily leave us feeling like what we have isn’t enough because we see people that have even more than us. But how does what we have compare to what most people in the world have? Maybe what we have is enough; maybe it’s more than enough. Maybe God has blessed us with everything we have so we can bless and give to others. -Rob Bell

think about it.

26 mile bike ride.

if brad reads this he's going to say i'm bragging but i frankly don't care haha. so today after church brad and me decided to ride our bikes all the way to danville. to the yogurt shack. anyways we did it and it was a 26 mile ride. it was awesome. we bought lemonade from little kids, acted like robots, pretended to ride backwards, and ate really good and really expensive yogurt. haha get this. it cost 11 bucks for both of us to get yogurt haha. they freaking make you pay like 50 cents per ounce haha. we were laughing for like 20 minutes over that for some reason. anywho go on bike rides. they rock.

i thought this was funny. jenna drew this a while ago. like sophomore year. and i just found it.

funny funny stuff.

today was work was very different then any other day. now i know i write about work a lot, but its because i do spend a fare amount of time there. so for those of you who don't know i work at American Swim Academy in dublin. today was by far one of the funniest/grossest things thats ever happened at work. so today i was on deck and i had to watch kids and make sure that no one died. elli- (another girl at work whos super cute/fun) was also on deck. super funny people were working today, mark being one of them. mark is a big football player from san fran state and hes just hilarious. everything that comes out of his mouth is supper witty. meghan was also working and was in a jolly mood. so i walked over to this girl nicole and her class (she was in a corner class) to ask her about her prom dress (keep in mind that nicole is super bubbly and fun!) So she had two kids haha this little girl and an indian boy who was about 4. so all of a sudden i started seeing all these little brown/orange pieces of things floating all around nicole!!!! then i looked at the 4 year old indian kid and saw diarrhea coming out of the top of his shorts! and everytime he laughed hahahhaa its making me laugh just thinking about it... more watering poop came out. haha so gross. i feel like a boy right now. i apologize but it was just so darn funny. so nicole was freaking out at this point. i was laughing hysterically with Elli. Mark (the fb player) was like "Common guys! someone has had to see CaddyShack here! Come on! this is so the time to talk about it!" Nicole was freaking out because she was swimming in poo pieces hahaha. So i told her to put the kid out of the water. so all the diarrhea literally no joke like shot out like a fountain hahahaha behind him when he sat down. it was the GROSSSSSSEST thing i have ever seen. at this point Elli was dying. i ran inside and told our boss and he told me to clean up all the pieces of di with the leaf picker upper thing for the pool. i gagged nad all the parents saw... and i couldnt stop laughing. we were way dramatic. and all the kids had to get out! and we had to call all the classes and cancel them telling them a kid had diarrhea in the water hahaha. and mark wouldnt stop listing the things the kid ate like curry and carrots hahaha. and oh man. i felt like it should be been on an SNL episode with Will Ferrell.
anyways thats how my night went. it was hilarious. i can't get over it.

hugs hugs hugs.

i thought this was happy and i really admire that guy. good reminder to me to love ALL people.

today was an interesting day to say the least. it was a good day and odd. i'll go ahead and list the way the day went.

1. ms. andrade made andrej sing a frank sinatra song in front of the class for wanting to go on a field trip.
2. lauren, chris, and myself taught mrs. barker how to tread water by sitting in a chair. haha that was rather amusing.
3. we had FISH club and had nothing prepared, except for FISH club application forms. which i made like a hundred typos haha so i apologize to anyone who got one. FISH was just weird today.
5. read the newspaper all during 6th period and found out that abortion is now legal for any reason that someone wants one... in Mexico City. very sad.
6. had a sub who was part of the CIA.
5. i babysat isabella and we danced the night away- that was just cute.

and now i am off to write a 3 page persuasive essay on abortion.

Save Darfur!

today the brilliant people of Ms. DiJobis class (not so sure if i spelt that right) had a wonderful, informative, a hit home presentation for the school. each period about 285 people came and watched their presentation. for those of you who don't know so much about darfur i'll give you a copy-pasted version from savedarfur.org.... here it is folks.

Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

Since early 2003, Sudanese armed forces and Sudanese government-backed militia known as “Janjaweed” have been fighting two rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The stated political aim of the rebels has been to compel the government of Sudan to address underdevelopment and the political marginalization of the region. In response, the Sudanese government’s regular armed forces and the Janjaweed – largely composed of fighters of nomadic background – have targeted civilian populations and ethnic groups from which the rebels primarily draw their support – the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa (notes about our use of ethnic terminology).

The Bush Administration has recognized these atrocities – carried out against civilians primarily by the government of Sudan and its allied Janjaweed militias – as genocide. António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has described the situation in Sudan and Chad as “the largest and most complex humanitarian problem on the globe.” The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias are responsible for the burning and destruction of hundreds of rural villages, the killing of tens of thousands of people and rape and assault of thousands of women and girls.

With much international pressure, the Darfur Peace Agreement was brokered in May 2006 between the government of Sudan and one faction of Darfur rebels. However, deadlines have been ignored and the violence has escalated, with in-fighting among the various rebel groups and factions dramatically increasing and adding a new layer of complexity to the conflict. This violence has made it dangerous, if not impossible, for most of the millions of displaced persons to return to their homes. Humanitarian aid agencies face growing obstacles to bringing widespread relief. In August 2006, the UN's top humanitarian official Jan Egeland stated that the situation in Darfur is "going from real bad to catastrophic." Indeed, the violence in Darfur rages on with government-backed militias still attacking civilian populations with impunity.

On July 30, 2004, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1556 demanding that the government of Sudan disarm the Janjaweed. This same demand is also an important part of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in May of 2006. On August 31, 2006, the Security Council took the further step of authorizing a strong UN peacekeeping force for Darfur by passing resolution 1706. Despite these actions, the Janjaweed are still active and free to commit the same genocidal crimes against civilians in Darfur with the aid of the Sudanese government.

International experts agree that the United Nations Security Council must deploy a peacekeeping force with a mandate to protect civilians immediately. Until it arrives, the under-funded and overwhelmed African Union monitoring mission must be bolstered. And governments and international institutions must provide and ensure access to sufficient humanitarian aid for those in need.

(((sorry i didn't realize it was that long)))
anyways they did a wonderful job! jenna did great! man i love her to pieces. meghan should of just done the presentation, she watched it about 4 times and knew everything. they did a great job of having it be real. imagine alameda, walnut creek, dublin, livermore, pleasanton, danville, san ramon all having a genocide. all those cities add up to 400,000 people DEAD. thats not even the 2.5 million who have fled to refuggee camps, are missing, and ill. so crazy. i hope people who didn't know about it and people who didn't want to know about it... hearts were opened. theres a lot we can do. go to savedarfur.org... and you can just support them with money, by calling congressmen, lobbyists, writing letters, educatiing others and so on. FHS set up an account thats been raising money for savedarfur. http://www.savedarfur.org/page/outreach/view/dollarsfordarfur/foothill.

gracias and buenas noches!

oh and p.s/random note. today at work this kid in my class ate like 5 of his boogers. it was so gross.
and p.s.s. today the mormon speaker came in to comp. religions. ask me about it if you want to know.

world religions and rambling.

so i am taking this rad class called comparative religions. which is also known as world religions. so far we've learned about judaism inside out and Christianity. we've had an orthodox rabbi come in and a SUPER liberal jewish rabbi come in. as for Christianity we've had 2 Jehovah witnesses and today tim came! i can't even begin to share what a blessing it was to our class. i know God's at work in some people lives in my class and its SOO great! its so wonderful to see God at work within people and sharing his love and his message. the truth about who he is, justice, mercy, grace, stories that affirm faith, and how what we believe isn't just because we want to... its because its truth. today at SALT we talked about Julia Dechong (Da Wata Fountin, Punta Gorda, Belize...not returning though after 4 years), Bodi (missionary in Ukraine), and Joseph (missionary in India. Dalitnetwork.org). it was so encouraging praying for them and for the amazing things that they are doing. i feel like its the talk of missions recently. dan bowen, gary, and chris just got back from hungary and ukraine. and in salt we just heard trippy stuff about how babbies are treated there. i wasn't even aware of it. and then lauren went to germany and slovakia. i am so excited for her and for what God's going to do!its getting me so excited for college and for the opportunities that will be there for me. even right here at home, i need to keep in mind theres always people to minister to and to love everyone. if anyone is actually reading this haha and haven't taken a comparative religions class in a secular environment i highly recommend it. it will make your faith stronger, you can share what is truth, and you will be rocked by questions people ask you... that you'll have to figure stuff out. its awesome. its been such a blessing. and side note. tomorrow jenna and the save darfur crew are speaking at school. hopefully it will enlighten people that theres more then just pleasanton.

rock you presents BELIZE/Guatemala pics.. and some of us girls.

weird work

work work work. usually i work on tuesdays and thursdays at american swim academy.. but this week i had to work friday and saturday too.. because i was subbing for people. anyways. this whole week at work has been so weird. tuesday i dont even remember. thursday i was working in the office... and then i walked outside with mark (i made someone come out with me because there was a weird man lurking around) and dave (someone i work with and is a little creepy at times) popped out from behind my car with a scary man mask on and chased me down the street! and mark just stood there! and dave didn't even work on thursday. so weird! haha. and then on friday i was subbing for this one class. and let me just tell you the pool is infested with boogers. i should just say i work at booger swim academy. its so gross. anyways there was this one girl and she had the fattest booger ever. we were doing humpty dumpty and i was like "hey sophia you have a fat booger... wipe it off and put it outside or something"... so i continued to let other kids have turns. anyways i looked back at sophia and she took her tongue to her nose and i saw her eat it! i gagged. i almost barfed. and was yelling eww for atleast 2 minutes. kids are so gross sometimes. and then one time my friend pablo told this kid he had a booger... so he whipped it off.. and it was somewhere in the water. and then he took the next kid to swim and the SAME booger was on the other kid! sooo gross. this is such a gross blog. work today was okay. dave was a little cranky. mark was funny. my voice was gone. but all the kids i had were pretty sweet. its so fun when you have students you've already had before. welp thats all for now. good day.

missing belize and other thoughts.

-->random. but this is a peak preview of biola. i havent even been there for more then 5 minutes haha but trisha and dave took this for me over spring break. theres also a picture of tim and me. cute aren't we? haha just kidding. and then a picture of jenna, chaden, jamika- my fav, and myself in punta gorda, belize.

i think i left my heart in Belize. figuratively speaking obviously. haha how weird would that be if you could. okay besides that weird thought, i really miss it. although i miss it god is working so much at home too. sometimes when i get back from a trip it seems like everything over. well that only happened once. i didn't go into mission trip looking for a high. i went into it wanting to serve him and showing his love. which is what happened. Jesus is my high. and should always be. its been very cool because people at school keep asking how it was. i share with them what god did while we were there. and then what we did. its been awesome because the people who keep asking me in classes are non-Christians and really want to go on a mission trip now! heres another advantage of being a FISH club leader... today the 6 girls from FHS who went to Belize/Guatemala got to share our experiences. i had a sideshow playing, which was fun so people could see the beauty of God. we shared what we did, how God worked, answered prayers and such. every time i think of the answered prayer of having jenna being able to go on belize i cry. and of course i did. it was actually really embarrassing. everyone was starring at me with blank stares and tears welling up. God works in so many ways! his love is overflowing my heart. his love is unexplainable.

besides belize. its been cool hearing about other peoples trips. i keep reading dan bowns and lauren wallace's blogs. but laurens back now, so i really want to hear about her time. be praying for dan and gary! tonight at OC we are going to be sharing about belize again. love it!
as for exciting plans... i am so pumped for college. biola is going to be amazing. i received the community service scholarship. i found out once i got back on sunday. i am pretty stoked! its going to be a great way to meet people, not that that will be a problem. anyways. thanks for everyones prayers. again.

belize&guatemala!

for starters this blog is going to be very hard to write. no words can do this trip justice, but i'll try my best! man belize it was absolutly crazy and so much fun. God did wonders while we were there and there are no words to explain how wonderful he is. his majesty and power worked out some amazing things. so i'm going to give a shortened version of what w edid. i wish i could write more, but its hard to put it into words! so on thurday night we got on a plane to start out journey to belize. we flew to atlanta and decided to get some breakfast while we were there. you'd think that atlanta was warm right? wellp it wasn't. so we took marta. which is pretty much bart, but called marta in atlanta. all of us had our backbacks by our sides. in our backpacks were our passports, camera's and such. we all got off of marta and as we got off the doors closed. and we saw marta going before our eyes. and no joke a lady held up deej's backpack as it was leaving us. his backpack had his passport and a hundred other things he needed. but the passport was key. because without it, he wouldn't of been able to go to belize/guatemala. he thought that it wouldn't be that hard to get. well marta security was on it in a second. all of our stomachs were in knots. and we instantly held hands and prayed for his backpack to appear. we all thought it was the end of it when the backpack wasn't returned or foundw within a couple of hours. but to make the story short... the backpack was returned and delivered to the airport 30 minutes before our flights. we don't know who returned it, how they knew to return it to the airport or anything. TOTALLY answered prayer. it was crazy how faithful God is. what a miracle that is within its self! atlanta was a fun place to be. the restaurant we went to for breakfast was so cute. on the way back i tripped and ate the ground. probably one of the funniest things. cars stopped and laughed, pretty sad. i had a huge disgusting scar on my foot, but it was well worth it. annyways... so we returned to the atlanta airport and flew to belize city. flying into belize was so pretty. it was filled with trees and jungle. so exciting! man this is so hard to write haha. i can't give it justice. anyways we got off the plane and it felt like hell hit us in the face. hell as in heat. haha. but it was so exciting. totally different airport then we were use to. we waited in the belize city airport for our next flight to punta gorda. the plane we took was so small! it was so funny/scary! it held like 15 people. haha it was so funny. i sat infront of deej and sarah and they had such funny commentary. the whole time i couldn't believe i was in belize. it took months of preparation and we were finally there. we arrived in punta gorda. it was so hot and we were exhausted but so excited!!! we met up with Julia. Julia is a girl from our church who is 26. she has been living in punta gorda for the last 4 years. she has an amazing ministry in punta gorda called da wata fountin. we colllected our luggage and walked to the nazarene church, where we stayed in punta gorda. the church was run down and so dirty. but i loved it! we had bunks for the girls and guys. we slept on these littlle foam mattresses. jenna slept above me. the toiletes were gross but it was all good. cold showers, i loved. it would of been disgusting to even think about taking a hot shower. that night we walked around putna gorda to get the feel of it. we ate chinese food haha so random. punta gorda is filled with all different kinds of people. mayans, garafuna, and well others. but i just don't know the names haha. on saturday we did a scavenger hunt with the kids all throughout punta gorda. the scavenger hunt was to find different people that Jesus touched. the main goal was to find Jesus. also on saturday there was the market so it was supper busy on front st. for the scavenger hunt we were all divided up into teams. my team was jenna, ed, kristen... and oh man i already forget! we had the cutest little kids! its crazy what a different life style people in developing countries have. kids wonder all around teh streets. the kids we were with are called walk abouts. one of the key girls of my trip was jamika. LOVED HER. she is 5 years old and garafuna. garafuna is a mix of nigerian and costa rican people. i loved her so much. she lives in an abusive household where her mother is a prostiture and her dad is an alcholic. she has a 10 year old sister Jam, who is always at da wata fountin as well. she has a brother mikey, who is 7, whom i love just as much! her brother jermaine is always there too. hes a doll. and then she has a 16 year old sister who is always with a lot of boys. she never comes though. anyways saturday was a great time to spend with the kids and get to know them. we had to walk so much and we backed them so much. they always said back me. which meant hold me on our backs of shoulders. we loved it. but we were sooo sore. haha. i made charlie hold a ton of kids. man we got to know so many kids that i will never forget. each night there was such loud music! and they would always play don't matter by akon. haha i didn't even know that song until they played it probably 20 times during one devo. sunday was easter! we woke up at 4am to have easter service on the dock. we watched the sun rise! it was so beautiful. a girl played the guitar and we just worshipped. we had breakfast and the whole shabang. later on we went to the most beautiful caves i have ever been to in my life! we had to hike into them and it was rather hard since i wore flip flops haha but we got a lot of laughs out of it later. and let me just tell you.. i don't remember one time on the trip where we weren't laughing. there was always something to laugh about. we all had so much fun. when we got to the caves we swam in them. the more you swam into them, the darker it got. tim took some of us to swim into the dark of the cave. i felt like i was on pirates of the caribbean! i dont think i spelt that right, but oh well! haha. it blew me away to think that God created such a beautiful place. there weer waterfalls and we acted like mermaids. haha. i loved it. later that day we swam with the kids in PG. or maybe it was saturday i'm not sure. and clayton, jermaine, and some other boys put mud all over my feet and were massaging them. it felt amazing! then we sang and had worship. i cried like crazy! the kids were so pure, free, and just worshipping God. they were jumping around and it brought such joy to my heart to see them singing!
okay here is the point where i am goign to start shortening things haha because this could end up being an essay.
monday: dental clinic- steve chew, leah, conner, meghan, and i did hte dental clinic. me and meghan were in charge of flouride. keity was the only one who didn't like his flouride haha. so funny. every monday night da wata fountin has the night where all the walk abouts join together and meet. we had worship and gideon spoke. it was SOOOOOOO MUCH FUN. God worked in so many ways. we did our dramas. sin chair and that one drama that ryan pleau and lynsey macklin did a couple years ago haha i forget what is called. tuesday: we departed from PG and went to guatemala. we went to a disgusting water fall haha. it was sooo dirty in guatemala. spanish was teh fluent language now. so no more english. and not veyr many people undertstood or could speak spanish. we went to tim's brothers house. soooo coool. wednesday: went to el rico and visited a missionary there. el rico is a very ghost like town. not a lot of people. it was so cool to see him. went swimming in a river there and i met my novio. haha he was like the kid from the jungle book. his name was edmund. so cute he was haha. we went back to ronnies house. the missionary. and he spoke to us in spanish. ed translated everything for us. it was so amazing. probably the highlight of a lot of our trips (theres a ton of things we did all these days its just way to much detail!) thursday: we visited disabled kids at the pool. awesome time. very humbling and we just loved on them. then we went to an orphanage. very sad, but cool how God was present. friday: rec day. we went to some water falls before we went to the resort. i got so sick on the bus. we traveled to TI Jaks. a resort there. we slept in bungalows haha. janet lide and me had the honey moon suite. we thought that was hilarious. we went swimming and such. saturday: my sisters bday. tim, meghan, rebecca, and me woke up at 4:30 AM to kayak to an island near by. we saw howler monkies right above our heads. it was awesome! there were 2 people per kayak. so lucky for me i was with tim! that was def one of the cooles things. we took a boat to go back to PG. ate in livingston. said goodbye to some friends who were flying out of guatemala. that night when we went back to PG, it felt like we were at home again. it was such a homie feeling. i loved it. i missed it so much. the kids knew were coming back so they were there. jam was there all the time. on saturday people got baptised. rebecca, zakk, the chew kids, cait, gideon, and my mom got baptised! oh yeah just incase i forgot to say... my mom and my sister went on the trip too. it was sooooo COOOL to see my mom got baptised. theres a big story for that one. sunday: we got on the plane and flew home! it was so sad getting on the plane from PG to belize city. i cried when i saw jamike, mikey, and jam waving goodbye. i love them so much.

in all the trip was absolutly amazing. God was watching over us like crazy. it was so cool because there were only a few of us who got sick. God used us to love on other people because he loved us first. one of my best friends Jenna came on the trip. i've been praying for her for over 2 years now. shes been going to church with me on and off, and i've just been loving on her. she came and realized God's beauty. shes on her way to knowing him. shes on the journey of being saved. its a progress. i am so thankful for her and for her open heart. the holy spirit did so many wonderful things to her. thank you so much for everyone who kept us in there prayers. we had an amazing time. every single person who came with us was meant to be. its crazy how people dropped the trip and people were added. if someone else came on the trip it would of been so different. if someone didn't come who was part of our group it would of been different as well. we all were so encouraged by eachother and got along SO WELL. not clicky. the guys were so good to us and said it was easy to serve the girls. it was so evident that God was answering our prayers and the prayers of others. there was not one time where God felt absent. i know this blog isn't filled with detail and stories... but there are way to many to be told. if anyone would like to know more about our ministry in belize and how God used us, let me know. this experience will always stay with me. i won't let it go. for the world down in C.A. is real. the world here is fake. peoples lives were changed and God's love is never changing. i fell in love with the kids down in belize. i am praying about returning this summer for 2-3 weeks to help out at da wata fountin.
i'll put some pictures up as soon as i upload them!!

thanks for reading and for your prayers!

and here is the theme song of our trip. haha something we heard 20 times during devos, something we slept through, and a dear song that children sang to me over and over and made me cry when i was on the hamock in PG.

[Yes this is don't matter by akon. you better belize it haha]

Konvict Konvict
Oh
Ohoohwooe
Oooh
Ooohhwooe

Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Cause we gon' fight
Oh yes we gon' fight(We gon' fight)
Believe we gon' fight(We gon' fight)

Fight for our right to love yeah
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you

Nobody wanna see us together
Nobody thought we'd last forever
I feel I'm hopin' and prayin'
Things between us gon' get better
Men steady comin' after you
Women steady comin' after me
Seem like everybody wanna go for self
And don't wanna respect boundaries
Tellin' you all those lies
Just to get on your side
But I must admit there was a couple secrets
I held inside
But just know that I tried
To always apologize
And I'ma have you first always in my heart
To keep you satisfied

Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Cause we gon' fight
Oh yes we gon' fight(We gon' fight)
Believe we gon' fight(We gon' fight)

Fight for our right to love yeah
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you

Got every right to wanna leave
Got every right to wanna go
Got every right to hit the road
And never talk to me no more
You don't even have to call
Even check for me at all
[ these lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
Because the way I been actin' lately
Has been off the wall
Especially towards you
Puttin' girls before you
And they watchin' everything I been doin'
Just to hurt you
Most of it just ain't true(Ain't true)
And they won't show you
How much of a queen you are to me
And why I love you baby

Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Cause we gon' fight
Oh yes we gon' fight(We gon' fight)
Believe we gon' fight(We gon' fight)

Fight for our right to love yeah
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you

Oh oh oh oh oh
Cause I got you
Cause I got you
Ooooh
Cause I got you babe
Cause I got you

Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Cause we gon' fight
Oh yes we gon' fight(We gon' fight)
Believe we gon' fight(We gon' fight)

Fight for our right to love yeah
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe
Cause we gon' fight
Oh yes we gon' fight(We gon' fight)
Believe we gon' fight(We gon' fight)

Fight for our right to love yeah
Nobody wanna see us together
But it don't matter no
Cause I got you babe


this could be the worlds longest blog. but i just had to let you know all the people who went.
mark pine, becky pine, conner pine, matt pine, ed bongiorno, david youngblood, cait piekavance, cathy o'callahan, julia johnson, janet lide, cathy farrar, angela blake, christina blake, anita blake, meghan marell, jeremy fraass, jenna hahn, lea hansen, kristen ludt, rachel howde, rebecca howden, dan gillette, charlie meng, tim barley, steve chew, kim chew, lauren chew, micheal chew, stephanie chew, zakk uhler, sarah burns.
all of these people were so spectacular. we were a unit. it was clear to me that God wanted all these people to go on this trip. a tons of laughs, cries of joy, and love.

wound up!

(<- me and oscar)

one word to describe this night-maybe two: wound up. i think i'm gonna wet my pants or something. i feel like a kid in a candy shop. i am so excited for belize! just possibly you might want to hit me or something if you lived in my house hold because i can't stop singing father abraham. if i just knew it in spanish! i need to get on that. i'm really hoping to LOVE this trip. i have a huge feeling that i will. it took so much preparation, money, prayer, stress, and so on. its a weird thing because if you asked me 6 months ago what i was going to do with my life i'd say: move to africa and build an orphanage. which still sounds sweet. but my heart is moving towards south america. and i haven't even been there yet. haha. who knows. i'm so indecisive. but still i am so STOKED! ahhh. so me and meghan are going to be helping dr. chew. and hes a dentist. we are going to be showing little kids how to brush there teeth right and make balloon animals. and then rebecca, tim, and me are on friendship evangelism.. still thinking of some stuff for that. i can't really predict thats going to happy. and for that matter it makes this trip a hundred times more exciting because i have no idea what to expect! ahh so exciting. a whole new adventure. jenna got her passport today! she had to wait in the passport place in SF like all day. she made me laugh so hard by saying it was a billion times worst then the DMV... which is like hell. haha. so mcnerneys secretary called meghan and told her to go to SF to get hers... so she did. it all worked out! praise the LORD!

also i just finished writing an 18 page essay on dantes inferno. except it was based on my own life. i can't really explain it. pretty much i die, go through stages of hell, then reach hell, go through stages of heaven, then reach heaven. and the whole time i have a guide with me... which just so happens to be my sister. so i just had her read it and she was crying haha. i thought it was hilarious. she said it was so sad. oh man.

and i am breaking a sweat from packing. well i'm off to belize in less then 24 hours.
so that means
adios amigos.
i'm gonna come back fluent in spanish and with a farmers tan. haha jk about the spanish. def not about the farmers tan.

prep for belize.

So this is officially my first blog. i think this will help me sort my thoughts out a bit. writing them down for some reason, especially by typing because its so darn easy, makes it a lot easier to organize your mind. i don't know quite why that is. even if i write down a prayer it makes it easier. i don't know, this writing thing works for me and that all i need to know.

so tomorrow is the big Belize getaway. not to mention Guatemala too. i am pretty stoked. i can't really sit still while i am thinking about it. it comes in spurts. i've been packing for the last week and its going pretty smooth. i'm kind of stressing about what i'm going to sleep on and such. not to mention i have zero dollars in my bank account, but its all good... my pay check is tomorrow! thank goodness.

meghan and jenna's passports haven't come yet. i called meg yesterday and talked to dave and he said half the christian community is praying for that haha. i really hope it comes. we called congressmen mcnerney the other day and talked to his secretary and now him and meg are on first name bassis haha. its gonna come for both of them, i know that Lord will have it all work out.

be praying for all of us :)

oh and p.s. that picture above has nothing to do with anything besides the fact that i was playing with it on photoshop last night and liked it haha.