Twenty-Six and Lookin' for Kicks: your input needed!

saturday night we had some peeps over for a birthday bash. my roommates really made it a special evening: megan made an amazing 4-layer (chocolate and strawberry) cake, and sarah and bethany prepared tons of snacks and desserts. it was fun to have a house full of people, and fun was had by all...even vin diesel showed up ready to party!


Nattie and I check Vin out and admire his crown.


blake sent me this AWESOME "edible arrangement" just in time for the party! I didn't even know this sort of thing existed...isn't it cool?


dimitar and sarah


meghan's my best friend from elementary school, and we still have tons of fun together. it was an honor to have her there from baltimore.


sarah and me


meghan, me, graham, and amado goof around...



dimitar and me.


does anyone else find this photo a bit creepy?


caleb checks out the "yard of bubblegum."


mary washington college, represent! katy, me, robbie (he actually didn't attend MWC, but we let him in the picture anyway), elizabeth, ben, and matt



of course there was hula hooping involved. the guys really got into it.




things got a little crazy when i danced to ace of base's "all that she wants." some consider me outgoing.

the cake looked so bright with 26 candles on it!
i'm sorry to say that it took me two breaths to blow out all those flames...



we played one of my favorite games, "loaded questions," late into the night. (a margarita-umbrella and an empty beer bottle served as extra game-piece-markers.)



rob checks out one of the books from our coffee table.


dimitar shows us "what to wear."


gavin really enjoyed the vibrating ladybug massager...













At the party, I asked my guests to write down their ideas for what "kicks" I should look for this year. Here are some of their ideas, verbatim:

-go scubadiving
-go to trapeeze school in Baltimore
-sing for money in the streets of D.C.
-go skydiving
-take swing dance lessons
-"I'm talking about a place called Aspen."
-vote democrat
-win a roller skating limbo contest
-sky-bungee-jump-boulder-rapell-climbing
-attend a professional wrestling event...and bring a homemade sign.
-audition for American Idol
-see a Broadway show in N.Y.C.
-Jazz @ Lincoln Center

Now, this is a fabulous list. It gives me things to aim for; things to keep the adventure of life going. But I'd love to hear your input. You can either select your favorite from this list, or (better yet) add one or more of your own (keep them PG-rated :).

my trip to colorado: jan 20-23

this past weekend i flew out to colorado to visit with friends and check out denver seminary. i had an awesome time. i'd been out there in the summertime, but never the winter, so it was fun to experience all the snow!

"i thought the rocky mountains would be a lot rockier than this..." -lloyd christmas (dumb & dumber)


saturday night i stayed with family friends, the johnsons, in colorado springs. sunday they hosted lunch and some friends came over. a good time was had by all.

with bill, mary, sam, and mason springston.



with lindsay and jac and kay and mal.

after lunch, kay surprised me with a birthday dessert, complete with candle and gold doily. it was the best ding-dong i've ever tasted! :)

funny story:

on my rental car reservation i requested an economy car, but when i showed up all they had available was a grand caravan! "it's a free upgrade," the car guy said. but in my head i was thinking, "more like a free downgrade." here i was secretly hoping for a jeep liberty or ford escape, and i get stuck with an extra long minivan. did the guy think i had a bunch of kids to take to soccer practice or something? couldn't he see that i'm twenty-five-and-alive (and completely by myself)? i sighed as i stood before the expansive mass of white-ness which would transport my small suitcase and me all weekend.

as i drove down I-25, i couldn't help but laugh. i felt like a mom (which isn't a bad thing, i'm just not there yet...), but without any kids in the back seat. i was tempted to buy a "my kid made the honor roll" or "i love soccer" bumper sticker just to complete the experience, but i figured the rental car place wouldn't appreciate that.

best ride EVER. you wish you could drive this (or maybe you already do).

sunday brought more snow, and as I drove the hour north to denver I realized that minivans aren't really the best vehicles for snow driving.

thank God, i made it safely to megan's apartment in littleton.

monday morning i headed to the campus and spent the day meeting with people...it was great!




sights around campus.


the view from behind campus.


monday night megan introduced me to red robin's endless basket of steak fries and flat-tire beer. so good!
"okay, now a serious one..."


sunset behind the rockies. so pretty!

this semester's classes

spring semester began yesterday (is my month-long break really over already?).

I'm taking World Religions, Missions in the Local Church, New Testament 2 (Acts through Revelation), Church History 2 (starting at the Reformation), and Survey of the Old Testament.

let the reading and studying begin! :)

"hot town, winter in the city..."

we had a fun time in DC on an unusually warm winter day (highs in the mid-70's!).


katie and me outside the sackler gallery of art.


stephanie, ben, kate, and graham enjoy lunch at eastern market.

sunrise: january 6th

from my backyard patio...beautiful!

visit with the wright family...Jan. 2nd

meg and me.





with victoria and emmy. i love these girls!

Ben's funny story from Ghana

my friend, ben cubbage, is a missionary with Mercy Ships. He's been in Ghana, Africa, now for a little over a month.


check out his AWESOME story he shared with us back in early December. it's hilarious. :)

So.

A few days ago I was getting a tour of all the secret nooks and crannies of the Mercy Ship called the "Anastasis," all the holds where we store stuff, the engine room, and the dark recesses of the ship where we put all the extra medical supplies and ropes and sailing doo-dads.

Then (it was about 1 am, since the night watchman at the time was showing me around) I asked if I could see the "bridge," that's the part of the ship with the steering wheel and that fancy brass nautical stuff where you look over the bow from a huge window. So we go up there. And the night watchman proceeds to tell me all about the history of this 50-year old equipment. We play with the steering wheel and the big compass.

I walk over to the window and look out into the harbor. And what catches my eye but a big red lever. Hmmmm?.....What is this? A red lever. I wonder what it does?.....

So the curiousity is too much. And before the watchman can tell me it's not such a good idea, I pulled it!

And then sounded the loudest noise I've ever heard! A foghorn, usually meant for alerting ships several miles away that we may be a crash course. But instead we were in harbor, in the largest port in West Africa, and it was 1 am. And then the captain and all the engineers got up and ran around trying to figure out how to turn the darned thing off. They apparently were unsure about how to go about doing that.

Needless to say, I think I may have woken up almost the entire boat. That's about 300 people aboard a giant hospital ship: patients, doctors, engineers, deck hands, community development folks, you name it. And from outside it sounded like the foghorn reverberated across the whole harbor (which is full of lots of HUMOUNGOUS cargo ships from all over the world)! So I don't even want to know how many people were cursing me under their breath in some foreign language.

But, finally after 20 minutes they turned the valves off for the foghorn's air supply and there was once again silence. The only problem was that the whole ship was awake and the captain was not so happy. So he took me in his office and we had a little chat. He was stern - but gracious. After that I decided to never again touch another mysterious lever.

So - I hadn't been in Africa, or even on the ship, for a week. And I've already gotten to meet the captain. The circumstances were a bit abnormal - but maybe I'll be able to look back on it and laugh :)

insight from Rick Warren

Rick Warren is the pastor of Saddleback Church in California; he's also the author of best-seller PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE.

In this 2005 interview by Paul Bradshaw, Rick said:

People ask me, "What is the purpose of life?" And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God
wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body, but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ-likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountain top, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, inspite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches,equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes for my life? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, "God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better." God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Amber's funny story from Kenya

my friend, Amber, is a missionary teacher at a school called Akiba in Nairobi, Kenya. In a recent email update, she told this story. I think it's so funny I just had to post it. :)

I wanted to give you a quick update on the things that have been going on in my life here in Africa. Akiba ended its school year at the beginning of December...I got to attend my first end-of-the-school-year assembly in Africa. Each class got up in front of the school and did a skit or song. It was tons of fun. The kids were adorable, and many of them are very talented.

The next day the teachers had a teacher party at the school. In the states our teacher parties usually mean going out to a restaurant (or having one cater at the school), but this teacher party was about teamwork. When we arrived we were each put on a team to help. I got put with the women peeling and cutting potatoes (they quickly moved me to cleaning rice after they saw that I couldn't peel quickly using a knife).

The thing that was most shocking was the presence of a sheep when we first arrived. Apparently Abraham the sheep was to be our lunch. I was not too thrilled about the fact that I was watching my lunch eat grass in the courtyard. The male teachers slaughtered the sheep right there in the school's courtyard; I hid so I wouldn't have to watch it. However, one of the guys who works at the school decided to bring over just about every part of the animal for me to see- beginning with the heard as soon as it was cut off. Apparently the fact that I was grossed out by the entire event was humorous to all of the other teachers.

After Abe's death he was roasted over hot coals- Nyama Choma (grilled meat in Kiswahili). At lunch time the table was full of tons of African dishes (and some American cookies made by yours truly) and then the meat was brought it. I watched as the other teachers grabbed a piece as it was being passed around- I politely passed (to the sound of their laughs) and decided to become a veggie for the day.

Farewell Abe, I hear that you made a fantastic meal.

For other great stories, check out her blog at http://runningwithelephants.blogspot.com/

and the "Kenya Connection" website: www.kenyaconnection.org

new year's day at gram and gramps' house

gram and the ham.



dan and the ham. yum.


never too old for the kids' table. (jess, we missed you!)



for once i'm not the one in the spazzy picture. :)

more NYE pics, courtesy of Dimitar :)

yes, i am a dork (in case you didn't already know).