So I got tagged by Karisse. She's hit me up for 7 weird/strange items about myself.
The rules of the game:
*Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
*Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.
*Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
*Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
soooo, without further ado...
#7 i will always chew gum. peppermint orbit is my favorite. "fresh breath is a priority in my life." (movie reference? anyone?) i chew gum as a nervous habit, when im excited, when i cant brush my teeth, and just because. i love gum. my good friend anne rut attributes the first time she met me to the way i was chewing my gum. i like gum.
#6 i adore all things theater. i love the ballet, the opera, musicals...if its on stage, i want to see it. ever since my grandma took me to san fransisco to see the phantom of the opera (which really should be its own number, my love affair with it) when i was in sixth grade, ive had an affinity for all productions stage-oriented. when im watching a show, i feel like i belong there, im in my element, and all is right with the world for the time i am in the audience being swept up to the safari plains of africa, wrapped in a technicolor dream-coat, or fiddling on a roof. i love the theater.
#5 im the older sister. i have a sister three years younger than me, and in my growing days, ive come to realize that i completely embody the older sister (duh) in all relationships in my life. when im with younger sisters, i tend to look out for them more and make sure they know whats going on. when im with the middle or older sisters, i sometimes feel the equal, sometimes a bit intimidated, but im never far from the thoughts and feelings associated with being the older sister; explaining everything to them, making sure everyone is taken care of, just generally looking out for them. just don't catch me with my little sis, im completely nuts.
#4 i love tofu. its true. and don't say its because im from california, i dont buy it, too many people i know don't like it who live here also. but its true, it's one of my favorite foods. i had it for dinner tonight, actually, mongolian tofu from a local chinese restaurant. mmmmm, delicious! but i guess i am a true californian though, because "california cuisine" is definitely some of my favorites: avocados, cottage cheese, tofu. yumm-o!
#3 if you want me to fall in love with you, treat me to starbucks. (ok that only applies to guys, haha, but the point gets across). i absolutely adore starbucks. as a matter of fact, my mom knows that if im not at home, and haven't told her what im doing, im at starbucks. the coffee is the best ive ever tasted, dark and strong roasts that smell heavenly when you open a new bag (definitely one of my top three favorite smells; a brand new bag of coffee being opened). its the perfect place to meet an old friend to catch up, or to stay connected with a current friend. its casual enough to hang out with a guy and not make assumptions, the atmosphere is just perfect. and they are all over the world, so you always know what you're getting, it always tastes the same.
#2 im an ENFJ and my strengths finder results are communication, woo, input, harmony, and positivity. ok enfj: extrovert, intuitive, feeler, judgement. it would take waaaay too long to type and read the more precise definitions of those, but suffice it to say that i draw energy from people, i tend to fill in the blanks, (to be exact, my N and S are equal, intuitive and sensing, which is basically following a pattern, having the steps laid out, so i switch between both, depending on the circumstance), i operate from my feelings, and i like lists and order. the words for my sf are pretty self-explanatory, although im absolutely nuts over the different personality tests, so feel free to message me to talk more at-length about it.
#1 Jesus has changed me life. i have fallen in love, and there is no going back. with him, ive been able to travel around the world, sharing the love that he is constantly pouring into me. experiencing life filled with his grace and love, walking around this earth knowing how unworthy i am, and yet knowing that he has chosen me, is an experience that cant help but change you. i am so in love with him, and everyday that we spend together, i learn a little more about his character, and fall deeper and deeper. its the biggest thrill ride i have ever been on, and im allowed to ride forever!!
whew, i could keep going and going! im pretty sure that will do. so im supposed to tag 7 people here...i dont really know many people with blogs (that i know about, any way), so ill link to their facebooks or myspace, i guess...well, the lucky people tonight shall be...my little sister megan, my best friend trisha, my awesome roommate amy, and my wonderful friends tony, j.t. santos, and jenn. have fun guys!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
YWAM shootings.
i know this happened a while ago now, i came across this the other day and wanted to make mention of it. i would love to talk with anyone who has questions, or just want to discuss this situation, or anything else at all...
Then his passport was stolen and he took shelter with a group of missionaries who had moved to Kabul to help wanderers on the hippie trail. "They looked just like me," Filidis said.
The missionaries took Filidis in and helped him get a new passport. Filidis, who had believed Christianity was only for old people, eventually became a convert. He has spent the last three decades with that group, Youth With a Mission. His 20-year-old, tongue-pierced daughter, Noelle, just finished a YWAM mission to India, where she nursed sick villagers and was attacked by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists.
The mission "gave an opportunity to kids to go out," Noelle said. "Like kids can impact the world."
Youth With a Mission is a nondenominational Christian network that takes in just about anyone -- punk rockers, misfits, retired engineers, schoolteachers, fresh-faced teens. After a little training, they are sent to preach the Gospel in some of the most dangerous parts of the globe.
That nonconformist approach brought tragedy to the group last week when Matthew Murray, who had been expelled for apparent mental health problems, fatally shot four people -- two at the Arvada Youth With a Mission office near Denver and two at New Life Church in Colorado Springs -- before killing himself.
The attack exposed what Youth With a Mission members acknowledged was the group's greatest vulnerability and its greatest strength.
"YWAM has been known as a mission that believes in young people and gives them a chance," said Jarod Marshall, 32, a staffer in the Colorado Springs branch. "You believe in people, and there's a risk in that -- but it's a risk worth taking."
Youth With a Mission is considered avant-garde, on the "bleeding edge" of the evangelical movement, said A. Scott Moreau, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois who studies mission programs.
"They are passionate, they are a bit wild," Moreau said. "A lot of agencies are wondering how they're going to mobilize this generation. YWAM has figured it out."
One veteran calls YWAM (the acronym is regularly pronounced Why-Wham and members are known as YWAMers) a Christian Peace Corps. Projects include working with prostitutes in Holland and orphans in Mexico, and providing clean drinking water or dental care in Third World countries. Youth With a Mission also launched the Reconciliation Walk, a 1,500-mile trek through Turkey and the Middle East to atone for violence perpetrated in the name of Christianity during the Crusades.
In places where Christian missionaries are typically not welcome, such as Afghanistan or the Middle East, Youth With a Mission operates under other names and does not publicly proselytize. The group believes that doing good works is the best way to save people's souls, members say.
Youth With a Mission is non-hierarchical, allowing any of its 16,000 staffers or the 3 million people it estimates have gone through its training programs to develop their own mission and go anywhere to pursue it.
"There's this growing sense among younger people that they want to be part of something that's bigger than themselves," Marshall said. "YWAM's in a position to say, 'You want to do something? We can help you go abroad and make a difference in somebody's life.' "
Marshall joined the group when he was a teenager after taking one of its trips to the Caribbean. "I was smacked in the face by the huge distance between people in the world -- our affluence and their extreme poverty," he said.
Marshall and his wife, Carly, also a missionary, are leaving for Thailand next month to work in refugee camps along the border with Myanmar, also known as Burma. Another YWAMer they know invited them -- a typically informal way for a mission to start.
The mission group was the brainchild of Loren Cunningham, who was a Pentecostal college student on summer break in the Bahamas when he had a vision of waves of young people crashing onto the shores of all continents. He founded Youth With a Mission after he graduated in 1960. He still works out of the group's main office in Hawaii.
"He wanted to reach young people, especially college-age people, before they got stuck with a job," said Filidis, 57, who works in the group's communications office.
Filidis took a break from the mission in the late 1970s to get his degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. He also worked at Christian ministries in Glendale and Seattle. But the experience drove him back to Youth With a Mission.
It was "the attitude in YWAM that wants to serve, that wants to take the lower road rather than the higher road, that will do the dirty work," Filidis said. "I'd rather take those attitudes than those of organizations that want to be on power trips."
Filidis recounted one mission that he views as emblematic of YWAM's hands-on approach -- working in refugee camps in Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon, since renamed Ho Chi Minh City. YWAMers volunteered to take care of the latrines and spent hours standing in human excrement. A U.N. report noted the group's commitment to doing practical work, no matter how unpleasant. "I hope we never lose that," he said.
Mark Lang dropped out of college in 1983 to join Youth With a Mission. Raised in a Lutheran household, he had longed for missionary work.
"If I was going to become a Lutheran missionary, I would have had to go to four years of college and four years of seminary," said Lang, 43. "Would you like to do that or go to school for three months and go out and do something? You go make that choice when you're 18."
Lang joined a theater troupe that performed allegorical religious plays. He moved to Europe, traveled with the company through Greece and Italy camping on beaches, then worked in the Youth With a Mission branch in Amsterdam, which ran a nightclub on a houseboat that featured a band called No Longer Music.
"YWAM kind of pioneers a lot of things in ministries that are later replicated or perfected by other groups," said Lang, who is based in Colorado Springs. He oversees health projects in a central Asian country he would not name for fear that the Muslim nation would shut down the operations if it realized they were directed by missionaries.
The intention is not simply to rack up converts, he said. "We can't provide a spiritual solution" to poor people, Lang said, "unless we can come into their lives and provide practical solutions as well."
The group's 1,000 bases are linked solely by the three-month training course consisting of lectures and workshops on biblical principles, plus an official set of shared values. The bases independently stage missions.
"It's so decentralized that it's very difficult, even for them, to tell you everything they're doing," said Jonathan Bonk, executive director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Conn.
The bases are a cross between Christian crash pads and college dorms. The Colorado Springs branch is in a former hotel. The dining room has been converted into a coffee bar -- fixed up with worn couches, tables and board games -- that is the scene for all-night discussions. Many of the 120 staffers live in the hotel rooms, as do the few dozen students who cycle through every three months.
Andrew Williams, 23, is the campus barista. He prides himself on mixing new blends of teas. He heard of Youth With a Mission at his church in Sonora, Calif., in 2005 and has stayed partly because of the sense of community. "Just the relationships I have with people here is amazing," Williams said.
Gil Datz, the base's worship coordinator, said that the emphasis on communal learning and living means YWAMers learn a lot about their colleagues. "It means a guy like Matt cannot hide," he said.
Murray enrolled in 2002 at the base in Arvada, about 80 miles from here. Staffers there decided he should not finish the program because of unspecified health problems that would have made it "unsafe," so he left.
He returned five years later, just after midnight on Sunday, Dec. 9, and asked to stay the night. Staffers said no. He opened fire, wounding two and killing Philip Crouse, 24, and Tiffany Johnson, 26. Twelve hours later he killed two teenage girls at New Life Church in Colorado Springs before being shot by an armed volunteer security guard. Murray then killed himself.
Crouse and Johnson embodied Youth With a Mission's edgy approach. Crouch was a former skinhead who hoped to reach angry teens; Johnson had started a skateboarding ministry to help alienated youths.
Many YWAMers point out that Murray was the sort of person they would want to help. "That's what makes the issue with Matthew so painful," said Jeremy Pyhala, 33, a Colorado Springs staffer. "We look at him with potential."
Youth With a Mission takes in just about anyone -- even an unstable young man who would later shoot and kill 4 in Colorado.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Paul Filidis thought little of Christianity as he backpacked through Afghanistan in the early 1970s, searching for top-grade hashish and Eastern enlightenment.Then his passport was stolen and he took shelter with a group of missionaries who had moved to Kabul to help wanderers on the hippie trail. "They looked just like me," Filidis said.
The missionaries took Filidis in and helped him get a new passport. Filidis, who had believed Christianity was only for old people, eventually became a convert. He has spent the last three decades with that group, Youth With a Mission. His 20-year-old, tongue-pierced daughter, Noelle, just finished a YWAM mission to India, where she nursed sick villagers and was attacked by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists.
The mission "gave an opportunity to kids to go out," Noelle said. "Like kids can impact the world."
Youth With a Mission is a nondenominational Christian network that takes in just about anyone -- punk rockers, misfits, retired engineers, schoolteachers, fresh-faced teens. After a little training, they are sent to preach the Gospel in some of the most dangerous parts of the globe.
That nonconformist approach brought tragedy to the group last week when Matthew Murray, who had been expelled for apparent mental health problems, fatally shot four people -- two at the Arvada Youth With a Mission office near Denver and two at New Life Church in Colorado Springs -- before killing himself.
The attack exposed what Youth With a Mission members acknowledged was the group's greatest vulnerability and its greatest strength.
"YWAM has been known as a mission that believes in young people and gives them a chance," said Jarod Marshall, 32, a staffer in the Colorado Springs branch. "You believe in people, and there's a risk in that -- but it's a risk worth taking."
Youth With a Mission is considered avant-garde, on the "bleeding edge" of the evangelical movement, said A. Scott Moreau, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois who studies mission programs.
"They are passionate, they are a bit wild," Moreau said. "A lot of agencies are wondering how they're going to mobilize this generation. YWAM has figured it out."
One veteran calls YWAM (the acronym is regularly pronounced Why-Wham and members are known as YWAMers) a Christian Peace Corps. Projects include working with prostitutes in Holland and orphans in Mexico, and providing clean drinking water or dental care in Third World countries. Youth With a Mission also launched the Reconciliation Walk, a 1,500-mile trek through Turkey and the Middle East to atone for violence perpetrated in the name of Christianity during the Crusades.
In places where Christian missionaries are typically not welcome, such as Afghanistan or the Middle East, Youth With a Mission operates under other names and does not publicly proselytize. The group believes that doing good works is the best way to save people's souls, members say.
Youth With a Mission is non-hierarchical, allowing any of its 16,000 staffers or the 3 million people it estimates have gone through its training programs to develop their own mission and go anywhere to pursue it.
"There's this growing sense among younger people that they want to be part of something that's bigger than themselves," Marshall said. "YWAM's in a position to say, 'You want to do something? We can help you go abroad and make a difference in somebody's life.' "
Marshall joined the group when he was a teenager after taking one of its trips to the Caribbean. "I was smacked in the face by the huge distance between people in the world -- our affluence and their extreme poverty," he said.
Marshall and his wife, Carly, also a missionary, are leaving for Thailand next month to work in refugee camps along the border with Myanmar, also known as Burma. Another YWAMer they know invited them -- a typically informal way for a mission to start.
The mission group was the brainchild of Loren Cunningham, who was a Pentecostal college student on summer break in the Bahamas when he had a vision of waves of young people crashing onto the shores of all continents. He founded Youth With a Mission after he graduated in 1960. He still works out of the group's main office in Hawaii.
"He wanted to reach young people, especially college-age people, before they got stuck with a job," said Filidis, 57, who works in the group's communications office.
Filidis took a break from the mission in the late 1970s to get his degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. He also worked at Christian ministries in Glendale and Seattle. But the experience drove him back to Youth With a Mission.
It was "the attitude in YWAM that wants to serve, that wants to take the lower road rather than the higher road, that will do the dirty work," Filidis said. "I'd rather take those attitudes than those of organizations that want to be on power trips."
Filidis recounted one mission that he views as emblematic of YWAM's hands-on approach -- working in refugee camps in Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon, since renamed Ho Chi Minh City. YWAMers volunteered to take care of the latrines and spent hours standing in human excrement. A U.N. report noted the group's commitment to doing practical work, no matter how unpleasant. "I hope we never lose that," he said.
Mark Lang dropped out of college in 1983 to join Youth With a Mission. Raised in a Lutheran household, he had longed for missionary work.
"If I was going to become a Lutheran missionary, I would have had to go to four years of college and four years of seminary," said Lang, 43. "Would you like to do that or go to school for three months and go out and do something? You go make that choice when you're 18."
Lang joined a theater troupe that performed allegorical religious plays. He moved to Europe, traveled with the company through Greece and Italy camping on beaches, then worked in the Youth With a Mission branch in Amsterdam, which ran a nightclub on a houseboat that featured a band called No Longer Music.
"YWAM kind of pioneers a lot of things in ministries that are later replicated or perfected by other groups," said Lang, who is based in Colorado Springs. He oversees health projects in a central Asian country he would not name for fear that the Muslim nation would shut down the operations if it realized they were directed by missionaries.
The intention is not simply to rack up converts, he said. "We can't provide a spiritual solution" to poor people, Lang said, "unless we can come into their lives and provide practical solutions as well."
The group's 1,000 bases are linked solely by the three-month training course consisting of lectures and workshops on biblical principles, plus an official set of shared values. The bases independently stage missions.
"It's so decentralized that it's very difficult, even for them, to tell you everything they're doing," said Jonathan Bonk, executive director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Conn.
The bases are a cross between Christian crash pads and college dorms. The Colorado Springs branch is in a former hotel. The dining room has been converted into a coffee bar -- fixed up with worn couches, tables and board games -- that is the scene for all-night discussions. Many of the 120 staffers live in the hotel rooms, as do the few dozen students who cycle through every three months.
Andrew Williams, 23, is the campus barista. He prides himself on mixing new blends of teas. He heard of Youth With a Mission at his church in Sonora, Calif., in 2005 and has stayed partly because of the sense of community. "Just the relationships I have with people here is amazing," Williams said.
Gil Datz, the base's worship coordinator, said that the emphasis on communal learning and living means YWAMers learn a lot about their colleagues. "It means a guy like Matt cannot hide," he said.
Murray enrolled in 2002 at the base in Arvada, about 80 miles from here. Staffers there decided he should not finish the program because of unspecified health problems that would have made it "unsafe," so he left.
He returned five years later, just after midnight on Sunday, Dec. 9, and asked to stay the night. Staffers said no. He opened fire, wounding two and killing Philip Crouse, 24, and Tiffany Johnson, 26. Twelve hours later he killed two teenage girls at New Life Church in Colorado Springs before being shot by an armed volunteer security guard. Murray then killed himself.
Crouse and Johnson embodied Youth With a Mission's edgy approach. Crouch was a former skinhead who hoped to reach angry teens; Johnson had started a skateboarding ministry to help alienated youths.
Many YWAMers point out that Murray was the sort of person they would want to help. "That's what makes the issue with Matthew so painful," said Jeremy Pyhala, 33, a Colorado Springs staffer. "We look at him with potential."
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
a good quote...a long thought.
"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." Audrey Hepburn
i came across this quote the other day, (i ADORE everything audrey hepburn!), and it gave me pause, for quite some time.
you see, we were created, all of us, for people. we were created for relationship with our Father, and for fellowship with each other.
without knowing it (i guess), ms. hepburn is pointing to God, for He is all of these things to us, He has done all of these things for us.
renewed:
colossians 3:10 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him
revived:
psalm 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction,That Your word has revived me.
redeemed:
isaiah 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,And He who formed you, O Israel,"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine!
the biggest thing ive learned from this quote, in the few minutes ive spent processing it, is the dire importance of our availability to people, and in being available to them, showing them, through our lifestyles, the love of Jesus, that has compelled us to bring that to all around us, to live from our souls and constantly move forward with that love. christians are supposed to be known, and set apart from other religions, by our love. one thing i know is that in my flesh i can not produce the kind of love demanded by Jesus shown to His people, but living in His grace is teaching me how to live in His love, and in doing so, out-pouring that love to others. i fail at this everyday, and fall far short of my potential, but the word grace is so much bigger than a five letter word, and its only by living in that that i can love at all. im far too selfish and self-serving otherwise. 'never throw anyone out". people are obviously important to Jesus, and He loves every single person so much that He saw everyone from then to eternity and determined them worth dying for. according to matthew 28 and mark 16, its essential that we go out into the world (whether that's across the street or across the world), and show them Him, let them decide what to do with Him. our job is to bring love into this world, a world filled with pride (and many other things, all which can be summed up with the word pride...it is the root of all evil). every single person is valuable on this earth, and God has a celestial plan for their life. so we must go out there and love, and point Gods precious people in the direction that plan could be in.
i came across this quote the other day, (i ADORE everything audrey hepburn!), and it gave me pause, for quite some time.
you see, we were created, all of us, for people. we were created for relationship with our Father, and for fellowship with each other.
without knowing it (i guess), ms. hepburn is pointing to God, for He is all of these things to us, He has done all of these things for us.
restored:
job 33:26 He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state.renewed:
colossians 3:10 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him
revived:
psalm 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction,That Your word has revived me.
reclaimed:
ok, bible gateway couldn't find any verses that specifically said the word reclaimed, but there are tons of references using similar words stating such, with israel, and the land, and our souls, throughout the old and new testaments.redeemed:
isaiah 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,And He who formed you, O Israel,"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine!
the biggest thing ive learned from this quote, in the few minutes ive spent processing it, is the dire importance of our availability to people, and in being available to them, showing them, through our lifestyles, the love of Jesus, that has compelled us to bring that to all around us, to live from our souls and constantly move forward with that love. christians are supposed to be known, and set apart from other religions, by our love. one thing i know is that in my flesh i can not produce the kind of love demanded by Jesus shown to His people, but living in His grace is teaching me how to live in His love, and in doing so, out-pouring that love to others. i fail at this everyday, and fall far short of my potential, but the word grace is so much bigger than a five letter word, and its only by living in that that i can love at all. im far too selfish and self-serving otherwise. 'never throw anyone out". people are obviously important to Jesus, and He loves every single person so much that He saw everyone from then to eternity and determined them worth dying for. according to matthew 28 and mark 16, its essential that we go out into the world (whether that's across the street or across the world), and show them Him, let them decide what to do with Him. our job is to bring love into this world, a world filled with pride (and many other things, all which can be summed up with the word pride...it is the root of all evil). every single person is valuable on this earth, and God has a celestial plan for their life. so we must go out there and love, and point Gods precious people in the direction that plan could be in.
Monday, December 3, 2007
christmas tiiiimee is here...
so we've decorated our lovely little house for christmas. check it out...
a homemade wreath made from tree droppings decorated with dollar store decorations!
our christmas advent candle
my little dollar store wreath (its really small)
ornaments in my ikea bowl...so festive.
amy and i also put a strand of lights around our window facing out, but i couldnt get a good shot of it.
as nice as all this is (and im totally listening to christmas music now, you better believe!...charlie browns christmas :), i am soooo ready to go home and be surrounded by all the christmas decorations and festivities there! we have the base christmas party in about an hour, so off i must go to get ready for a night of festivities, talent, and fellowship with my other family!
a homemade wreath made from tree droppings decorated with dollar store decorations!
our christmas advent candle
my little dollar store wreath (its really small)
ornaments in my ikea bowl...so festive.
amy and i also put a strand of lights around our window facing out, but i couldnt get a good shot of it.
as nice as all this is (and im totally listening to christmas music now, you better believe!...charlie browns christmas :), i am soooo ready to go home and be surrounded by all the christmas decorations and festivities there! we have the base christmas party in about an hour, so off i must go to get ready for a night of festivities, talent, and fellowship with my other family!
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