More Dinner Pics!

Chipo, our student from Zimbabwe, had to eat pig's stomach. Marcie this picture is for you!



Johnathan had to eat 100 year old eggs. He said they didn't taste too bad...until after he had eaten them, they after taste got to him a bit.



Kim! This picture says it all about their dinner that night.



The boys congratulating themselves on a job well done!

Dinner's Served...um...dinner? Really?

Dinner for the 16 students...including pig kidneys, pig heart, tripe, live crickets, cow tongue, pig bung (yes it's butt!), dried seaweed, jelly fish, and the list goes on.....



Dustin got a bowfull of live worms for his dinner. It really freaked him out when they decided to put salt on them, for better taste, and the worms reacted by exploding up and out of the bowl. I've never seen someone jump so high and so fast.



Dustin couldn't eat the worms, so he decided to have them blended and then proceeded to drink them. Taste good?



Bryan got Sushi for dinner....which meant 6 live goldfish. He chugged one and then the other boys convinced him to chug a lug the whole bowl of fish. WOW!!

Boat Time

Looks cold out on that boat! They are getting ready to jump from the boat to a raft and then to another raft. Yes, in Kirkland on a rainy day, and very very cold! We said it was intense.



Here is what the boat and water looked like!

Team Activities

At Golden Garden Park, in Ballard, they had to do some team activities. Which included being tied together and golfing, playing basketball, and volleyball.



The students didn't reach a challenge in time, so they received a delay...all 16 students had to put a roll of pennies into the pig at Pike Place Market.

Getting Started

Here we are getting ready for the day...listening to the rules and still not knowing what they are getting into!



Yes, we blindfolded them at the beginning of the day!

MC Amazing Race/Fear Factor

Our MC program has what we call intensives, of which we have four every year. Our first intensive was a spiritual intensive, our second is a team building intensive, our third is evangelism, and our fourth is a physical intensive. What does intensive mean? It is literally an intense 24 hours in which the team does various activities that teach them various lessons.

This past Friday, we had our second intensive which started with a wake up call by the students houseparents at 3am!!! Needless to say, our houseparents loved waking their students up. I got the opportunity to get up a 2:30 am and drive over to a house and wake up a couple of girls whose houseparents were out of town. They then had to be at the church by 5:30am for a packed filled day.

Some of the things they did were: ride the Sounder to Seattle, go on a hunt for picture clues around Seattle (via communication between two teams on walkie talkies), games at Golden Garden Park in Ballard, activities at the International Fountain, a bus trip to Northwest College, a boat ride on the lake (COLD!!), and fear factor eating up in Snoqualmie, team building activities at GHCC in Maple Valley, and dinner at a pizza joint. At each pit stop they received an envelope that had a team challenge within, and that they had to pass! It was great fun.

We had a tremendously long day....they didn't get back to the church until 12:40 am on Sat!!!! But it is one of the best opportunities they have to build unity within their team, to encourage one another, and push past what they thought they never could do. It also helps as we are getting ready for our mission's trip and they really need to work together as a team!

Enjoy the Pictures!

Genuine Conference 2006

Our young adult group, The Connection, went up to Vancouver, BC this weekend for our annual winter conference/retreat. We stayed two nights at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Vancouver. Just a side note...if you ever want a nice hotel to stay at, the Hyatt is great and the people are wonderful to you. We had an amazing speaker for the weekend, his name is Charles Lee. He is a professor at Life Pacific College in California, as well as the pastor of New Hope South Bay in the Redondo Beach area.

I didn't get to hear the message Friday night; however, the two sessions we had on Saturday were tremendous. You can definitely tell that Charles has a heart to see his world changed. He is very active in seeing that social justice is accomplished within the church. So, I wanted to just leave with you all the bare bones of his two sessions Saturday.

**Sorry about the spacing and how it looks, as I am still learing the html codes and stuff for blogging**

January 21, 2006 "Community"

Partial Truths about Community:
1. Geographical Proximity: Distance at times deepens relationships, not weakens them
2. Frequency of Gatherings: Paul and the Church of Ephesus shared from a distance without numerous gatherings
3. Purpose is Accountability
4. Structured Activities: Structure needs to be submitted to the Spirit of God
5. Created in Small Groups: Small groups are great; however, are people going to truly share their deepest fears and concerns with someone they just met?

Concepts of Genuine Community:

1. Birthed in Solitude: Mt 14:13--14
a. Solitude prioritizes our values
b. Solitude creates necessary space
c. Solitude is communal in nature

2. Intricate by Nature: Romans 12:4--5
a. Unity
b. Equality
c. Mutuality
d. Necessity
e. Diversity

3. Nurtured by Spatial Hospitality: Eph 4: 1--3
a. Journey from hostility to hospitality

4. Imprinted with an Ethos of Love: ICor 12: 4--7
a. Posture of love is selfless
b. Purifier of love is conflict
c. Power of love is forgiveness
d. Cry of love is justice
e. Outlook of love is optimistic
f. Committment of love is everlasting

5. Missional in Outlook: John 17: 20--23

January 21, 2006 "Missional Hope"

Becoming the Church God Dreams About....

1. Our purpose: Mt28:18--20

a. An empowered purpose

b. A motion sensory purpose

c. A creative purpose

d. A partnering purpose

2. Our priorities: Mt 22: 34--40

a. A non-religious priority

b. A priority of experiencing God

c. A priority of embracing humanity

3. Our plan: James 1:22--27

a. Live out your faith

b. Recapture the power of words

c. Engage pure religion

4. Our posture: Phil 2:1--5

a. Compassion

b. Unity

c. Humility

d. Posture for the other

5. Our promise: ICor 15:58

what would you dream tonight? be specific, God will use me to impact souls. as passionate as I am about my future, God is more passionate about my future.

I hope that you can glean even one tiny new truth out of these messages. I know that it is not the same as sitting in the same room and listening and taking your own notes; however, I believe God can impart truth to those that are just reading through people's blogs and stumble across something that God pressed upon us to write.

Over the Hills and through the Woods....

to Grandma's house I go! Yes, I got to go visit my Grandpa Shorty and Grandma Pat (Maternal Grandparents) in Spokane, WA. It was a very, very short visit, but it was so good to see them. I left on Friday morning and flew over on an express flight, one of those planes that has room for about 15 people.

I got the opportunity to visit with my Aunt Colleen, Cousin Kendra and her two cuties Kennedy and Dawson. I also got to talk with April...sorry that I didn't get to visit you...next time!!!

From Spokane, we headed to LaCrosse where my grandparents live. I really did nothing this weekend but eat Grandma's cooking and watch football with Grandpa (Yeah Seahawks). I had to leave on Sunday afternoon, so we left their house about 1:30 pm so that I could get to the airport by 3:30pm.

All in all it was a great visit. The only downer is that my Grandpa has been sick, and he wasn't feeling well this weekend either. It is hard to see your Grandparents get old and sick and know that they won't be with you forever. This is especially hard for me to grasp as I have not yet lost a grandparent. If you think about it, please send up a prayer for my Grandfather (Shorty) as he goes through another round of chemotherapy.

ER Visit

Ok, so I am 31 and have never had to visit an emergency room for myself ever. Not one broken bone growing up, no appendicitis, no major wounds....nothing, zilch, nada, zip. And quite honestly, I would have preferred keeping it that way forever!

So, because I went hiking on Friday I aggravated my asthma. Keeping in mind that I haven't had an issue with asthma or bronchitis in over 7 years, and I have never had an asthma attack. On Saturday I was having a little bit of shortness of breath, didn't think anything of it since it didn't seem to be a big deal. On Saturday night, I couldn't sleep a wink as it was hard to draw in breath...finally got up at 5am and sat on the couch and tried to sleep sitting up. On Sunday, catching my breath was getting really hard, and it was starting to make me panic; however, as someone who doesn't have insurance, doesn't have money and doesn't think to highly of going to the doctor...I put it off and thought that taking a nap would make me feel better.

Woke up at 5:30 yesterday (Sunday) and felt so bad, my chest hurt, my throat hurt, I couldn't breathe (deep or otherwise)...it just felt so bad. And not only couldn't I breathe, but my whole body hurt. I'm not sure if that was from me trying to breathe and my muscles all over were working overtime or what. But shoulders hurt, my head hurt, everything....

The lovely people I live with said I'm taking you to the ER...this time I didn't argue. I spent from 6pm--10:30 in the ER on Sunday...talk about not fun. Two respitory treatments, one strep test, and one chest x-ray later I was finally able to go home. So what was the dianosis? A severe bronchial asthmatic attack.

Not being able to breathe was probably one of the scariest things I've been through. Because even in scary situations, you are able to breathe.

So, I went to bed round bout midnight (after going to get prescriptions, having to come home and eat so that I could take my prednisone steroid pills) and slept until 11:30 this morning. I feel so much better, and will never take for granted the ability to breathe. I am just taking it easy today by laying around and watching tv.

Psalm 150:6 "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!"

Kickin' Butt!

Since I am not working, it is a perfect opportunity to join in some of our Masters Commission activities. Fridays are what we call Family Day, as we do some activity together as a family. One activity that is done numerous times throughout the year is hiking. This is in order to get trained for climbing a Mountain in May (2 day event, and they try to reach the summit of some great mountain around WA State).

We went hiking today in North Bend, to a place called Twin Falls. OMG....I am so dreadfully out of shape and unprepared for hiking mountains. My goal was to finish strong! Which I did! But goodnes, my feet are killing me right now. I was all prepared to share with you the agony of hiking; however, I want you all to know that if I can hike almost 5 miles, then you can too. It may seem like agony at the beginning, and each step is harder to take, yet when you look back at what you accomplished everything doesn't seem so hard.

It was beautiful when we got to the bridge that spans the river and then to look up at the falls....beautiful creation of God. As the psalmist says, "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." Psalm 42:7

On our way back down, everyone on the hike participates in building a monument of thankfulness to God. Each person finds a rock, we find a place to build our monument, then we go around and explain why you chose that rock and what you are thankful for and then place the rock on the monument. I wasn't clearly aware of what and why we were doing this; however, God showed me truth even in the simplicity of picking out a rock to express my thankfulness. My rock was one of those that you need to kick at with your heel to loosen it from the dirt and then you wiggle it back and forth until it is loose enough to come out. My words of thankfulness? Thankful that God kicks me in the butt, and digs me out of the dirt in order to see me succeed. Isn't God good, in that He wants us to succeed to our highest ability

Even if you don't have the chance to go out and hike 5 miles today, take a moment to stop and reflect on the creation around us that God has given us for our pleasure and in turn His pleasure at seeing His children content.

God is so GOOD!

WOW!

I was working down at my church today since I don't have to go to work right now. I plan on spending the days down there trying to get caught up on paperwork and other miscellaneous stuff that needs to be done. It is actually really nice being able to go down there and be apart of the comings and goings. Before I had my full time job, I was going down there once a week to work on Masters Commission stuff.

So what is the WOW part? Let me remind you that someone had donated $950 for my trip a month or so ago. Well, today someone sent me another check for $1000. WOW...WOW...WOW!!! God is so Good, and He knows just how to take care of me.

On another note, thank you to everyone who has been praying for me due to my current lack of employment. I am doing good (YES, I was a bit emotional last week...that was the initial "What the.." talking). I am submitting applications to various places, both here in WA and in CA. The reason for CA is that I was planning on moving there in a year or so anyway, so if God says move earlier than I will. I am picking up some work with KMPS. So, God has me covered and I trust completely in Him.

Blessings!