7th grade girls

This is why I was wiped out at the end of the weekend... so much energy! But I love them to pieces. Mandy's face at the end of the video cracks me up. She feels my pain!

Fuel

This weekend I was on a retreat with the middle school students from my church. We left at 9am on Saturday morning and got back around 5:30pm on Sunday. It was so much fun but so, so, so draining!

The students are so energetic and so demanding of your attention. Always wanting to tell you stories, give you hugs, follow you around, play with you, get you to watch them do something, etc. I love being able to love these students without having to worry about how they receive you because they just need to be loved. But by the end of the weekend, I was ready for some peace and quiet. Here's my favorite picture from the weekend:

The Plain Truth

Tonight at Element (the Lakewood college and 20 something group) had a guest band do praise and worship for us... The Plain Truth. They are from South Africa and they were amazing! I bought their CD and got some of them to sign it and they have the coolest accents ever! Fun group! Check them out! I totally recommend their music!

Spanish for the day:

the 5 W's

Who - Quién

What - Qué

Where - Donde

When - Cuando

Why - Por qué

v. molestar - to bother

(my coworker thought this was funny)

spanish

When I was a sophomore in college, I decided that instead of continuing to be a resident advisor in my dorm the next year, I would find a job in a biochemistry research lab on my campus. I wanted to get some hands on experience with science and have something distinctive to put on my resume when I graduated. Working in a research lab probably changed my life. I met so many people and became friends with people from all over the world... Chinese, Indian, Columbian, Nigerian, British, Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian. I have learned so much from these friendships and I would love sitting in the lab chatting and getting to know them. Deciding to work in a research lab was one of the best decision I made in college.

However, something I noticed from all this interaction with people from different countries is they can all speak atleast 2 languages - English and their native tongue. Something I realized really quick was I can only speak 1 language - English. What do you call someone who can speak 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who can speak 1 language? American. Ughhhhh.

This past summer I became really good friends with an amazing individual who is from Venezuela. And speaks Spanish and English fluently. And I still can only speak English. So I'm finally ready to do something about it. I'm going to learn a second language. It's something I want to do before I die. I actually want to learn 2 languages but I won't get ahead of myself. I've been halfheartedly studying Spanish since this summer but I want to be more devoted to it and this blog is gonna help. My Venezuelan friend's mother suggested I learn one word a day and one sentence a week. I'm gonna challenge myself a bit more and do one noun a day and one verb a day. So every day (hopefully) I will have a post with my words and then once a week I will have a post with my sentence. I'm excited! If you keep up with this and see I'm slacking, get on me!

Day 1:

n. lluvia - rain (because it's pouring as I write this)
v. aprender - to learn

Estoy aprendiendo español en la lluvia.
I am learning spanish in the rain. :)

LIT

One of the great things about living in Houston is I'm in the hometown of Beth Moore. I didn't know who Beth Moore was until right before I graduated college. She's a Bible study writer and teacher. Just this past weekend, the organization she founded Living Proof ministries has served in all 50 states of the U.S.! That's a huge accomplishment. Last fall and last spring I attended her Bible studies at Houston's First Baptist Church and these weren't your typical small group Bible studies... we had 2-3,000 women of all ages and stages of life together. But due to the church remodeling their sanctuary, Beth couldn't do her usual large Bible study so she decided to have a smaller study with only 250 girls from the ages of 18-25. She chose this group because this was the age she was at when she found a passion for studying scripture and her ministry really took off. So the whole course is more like taking a college class on the Bible. We are learning the basics of the Bible and learning how to study the Word on our own. It's been really fun and totally different from what I'm used to and I've learned SO much!

One lesson we did the entire Bible in one night (yes, it was intense)! She started from Genesis and did a summary of the major points of the Bible in the history of God's people all the way to Revelation. How interesting and easy to see the history of humankind as revealed to us in the Bible. Another lesson we studied the languages of the Bible and how we got from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to the English translation I use today. We are also getting into the proper way to study the Bible (hermeneutics and exegesis). So overall it's been way fun and I hope everyone gets a chance to see how well the Bible stands up to criticism, critiques and even... time! It fills me with confidence that I believe and study the truth - the inspired Word of God. You'd be surprised to find how much more reliable the Bible is than some of the texts we study in school that we don't even second guess as accurate. Definitely a faith booster and this information is available to anyone who cares to search for it. The books we are reading in addition to the study are Mark Driscoll's "A book you'll actually read" series on the OT and NT. Great resource!

The Bible study is called "Lit" based on the Jeremiah 23:29 "Is not my Word like fire?"

VOTE '08

Ok, it's crunch time. I would love to care about politics and be able to follow the election process from the very beginning but I just don't. Part of me thinks it's because I'm young and unless you have a special interest in politics from the beginning, you won't really care until you get older and it really starts to affect you. But November 4th is right around the corner and it's time for me to get serious about the election and decide who I'm gonna vote for. And make an informed decision not just one based on how my parent's would vote, how my state would vote, how my church would vote but how I would vote... will vote.

KSBJ, the Christian radio station in Houston, is helping me out a lot because it's kinda overwhelming the amount of information that's out there on each candidate and all the points you should consider. I love how they simplified the decision process.

1. Check out the candidates. Know what they believe and how they'll decide important issues.

2. Prayerfully make your selection.

3. Vote on November 4th!

They have a free, non-partisan voter's guide on their website.

This is so helpful for people like me who feel completely lost in the world of politics. I can't wait to vote as it will be my second presidential election to be of age for! Vote '08!

Paris - 3 weeks

I've lived all my life in Texas. The only time I moved was when I went to college and now I live on my own but it's literally 2 minutes away from where I grew up and obviously I'm still in Houston. Up until about 3 years ago, I didn't really care much about visiting other places... especially outside the States. I enjoyed traveling inside the States but really had no desire to "see the world". Even when 4 years ago (wow, it's been that long) I got to go to Puerto Vallarta for about 4-5 days. I thought it was cool but not much beyond that. But all the sudden, I can't wait to get out and experience different cultures, languages, customs, environments, scenery... anything that's different from America. The world is HUGE and I've only experience a teeny, tiny part of it. I've desired to go to all different kinds of places through the years: Africa, Greece, China, Europe, and just haven't gotten the chance.

But all that is gonna change in 3 weeks when I go to Paris to visit my cousin, Andrea who is studying abroad there for the fall semester. I can not wait. I totally expect it to rock my world and change my perspective on a bunch of things and broaden my horizons. I hope it starts the first of many overseas traveling and even inspires/motivates me to pack up and live abroad for awhile. I'll be there Nov. 6-13th. Just a short time but atleast I will be able to say I've seen it.

Here's one of Andrea's pics from Versailles. This picture speaks volumes to me. Can't wait to see it myself.