Holiday season!

It's here, it's finally here!! It's the Holiday Season!!!! Christmas music, Christmas goodies, Christmas desserts, Christmas colors and scents and yet it's still about a month away. Thanksgiving is here though, and it can't come fast enough! I am super looking forward to the delectable food, the couple days off and and then the rush to Christmas!

In my last post I discussed Harry Potter and I saw it at 12:20am on Thursday night/Friday morning. We had our large group Christian Challenge meeting that night, so my friend and fellow staffer Lindsay left right away with a couple students to save us seats in line while I and another girl stayed behind because I had to tear down my area. So we left and got to L.A. Live at about 9:30 and had a looooooong time to wait!! The girls we took were seeing the 12:10am showing, so they were in a different line. Lindsay and I just chilled for a good while, chatting with all the other Potter nerds around us, I was falling asleep, then it was time to go in!


I wore my Harry Potter Griffyndor/USC scarf :)

Thankfully Lindsay was a forward-thinker and got us a diet coke and sour patch kids to keep our sugar up and our eyes open! I was fine during and even after the film, was wide awake at 3am, but before the movie I was fading fast.


We were in line for a long time - we took to making faces for the camera to pass the time :)

It was amazing though and I am definitely going to see it again!! I think the most fun part came from driving home at 3:30am, because the freeways were CLEAR!! As in, no cars in front of me on the 10 freeway at all - which of course only happens at that time, so that was pretty fun.

Saturday was USC's community service day called Friends & Neighbors Day. You can sign up to help out local non-profits and some of my friends from Challenge did one that was feeding the homeless, and at first I was scheduled to do that one with them, but it was like 7 Challenge peeps and I thought that was quite enough, seeing as how the whole idea for us doing it is to spread ourselves thin and meet new students. It wasn't their fault either. It was 2 small groups that chose the same one independently! So I changed to walking dogs at a place called Bark Avenue :) I went with a freshman in Challenge and got to meet a couple new people so it was really fun! It was just a LOT of walking. We walked to the place which was pretty close, but then we walked dogs for about 2.5 hours! They needed help because they're under-staffed and they want to make sure all the dogs get enough exercise so we helped out :)


Maddie with Othello, the dog I spent the most time with, although he also had some digestive issues....


Adorable pic of one of my favorites, Hollister - he was a bit tired by this point :)

So this weekend was really fun, and I cannot wait until tomorrow because that will mean just ONE more day until Turkey Day!!! As for me, I'm most looking forward to the stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie! I love all things pumpkin and I made pumpkin brownies the other night and they were delicious - YUM!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!


just had to show another photo of Hollister - I mean, just look at this face!!! so much cuteness here, I can't help but smile when I see this one

HP7.1

It's here. It's now. This is it. It is finally opening weekend of HP7.1. For those of you not in the know (which you should be because, let's face it, HP is flippin' awesome), "HP7.1" refers to "Harry Potter 7, part 1" because TOMORROW is the day when it comes out!!! It is currently 1:53pm in Cali, and I'm seeing it at 12:20am, so basically I have less than 12 hours, LESS THAN 12 HOURS PEOPLE!!!! Holy moly I am getting so excited I almost can't take it. I might have to stupefy myself to contain myself. Why Potter you ask? Well, firstly, because it's awesome. Secondly, it's really awesome. Thirdly, it's a great story. No, really. I know it was originally for kids, but by about book 4 the author J.K.Rowling goes all crazy and kills someone, and she never looked back. If you try reading book 6 to a 10 year old they'll probably be traumatized. She kills off about half the Potter universe in the last book, and not just the peripheral characters either. She goes big so she doesn't have to go home. But in all seriousness, Potter has to be good quality to engage the world right?? Well, okay, that same argument could be made for "Twilight" but I haven't read the books and I don't plan on it - I read the synopsis on Wikipedia so I know what people were talking about, but that's it. Most of my friends who have read it concede that yes, while it is an addicting story, it is by no means Shakespeare. Heck, they didn't even say it was Dan Brown level. One of my good friends was an English major and she said it was just horribly written. Another friend of mine (AKJackso shout out!) told me that if I was ever depressed I should read those books because they're so badly written I will start laughing as I'm reading and thus put me in a better mood :)

No, Potter is well-written and it gets better as she goes along. The first 2 books are my least favorites because they tend to be slow and plodding and repeat a lot. But trudge through those books and you won't be able to put them down. My mom convinced me to read the first 3 books while we were looking at colleges for a week my senior year. I shrugged her off because I said they were kid's books and I am by no means a kid anymore. She then said she had read them and my oldest sister too, and how they both enjoyed them. Ok fine, just to placate my mom I bought the first 3 in paperback and in about 4 days they were all read. Yeah. So from them on I was hopelessly addicted. Book 5 came out when I was a sophomore in college, and I had to force myself to do homework instead of read Potter. I would "reward" myself by working for a good hour, then reading a chapter, then working for an hour and reading a chapter and then I'd stay up later at night reading a few chapters at a time. So it both helped and hindered my studies :)

But I have also really enjoyed the movies. Films 3 and 6 are my current favorites. I know some people hate the fact that the movies tweak or leave out parts of the books, but let's be honest, if they included everything in their right order then the movie would be like 6 hours long. I love Potter but my rear would not. I really enjoy the liberties they take because it keeps it fresh. Plus the music in film 6 is awesome, like woah.

SO, all of that to say that I am SUPER PUMPED for Potter 7 tonight/tomorrow morning. The only thing I am not looking forward to is the pain factor because my rheumatoid arthritis has come back and it gets wicked bad the later it gets, like at 10pm it's horrible, so 4am should be interesting :)

Now, while I am indeed pumped to see it, I am not as bad as this guy:



Harry Potter is cool and all, but it's not LIFE. Sheesh. That should be left to Calvin and Hobbes. ha haaa, just kidding. But take a look at the trailer!!!



a-MAZE-ing right?!?! oh man, just get goosebumps watching it :) cannot WAIT until tonight!!

And until then, this is pretty funny too:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

T-minus 10 hours and counting...

Lessons from Demas

So last night I had my LIFE group and this semester we are looking at the book of Philippians as a canvas to study the Bible in different ways (looking at the background of a book, cross references, verse summaries, etc) and last night was biographical studies. It went really well!! We looked at how you would start and if it's your first few times we suggested a more obscure character so you don't get overwhelmed with too many verses to go through. I had our group (total of 8!! although one girl came pretty late, so it was mostly 7, which is still awesome!) divide up into 2 groups to each study a different character. My co-leader Josephine took the reins for her group and they looked at the person of Epaphroditus and looked up any verses that mentioned him, any insights they could glean, any chronological order they could make of his life, positive and negative character qualities they saw of him and then the main lesson they could learn from his life. Their main lesson was to be a serving person and put others' needs ahead of your own. Very good thought!! Paul mentioned that exact thing in Phil. 2:3-4 :)

My group looked at Demas who only has a grand total of THREE verses about him in the entire Bible:

Colossians 4:14, Philemon 1:24 and 2 Timothy 4:10.

From the first 2 verses we gleaned that Demas was a fellow worker of Paul and was faithful to him, seeing as how Paul had exacting standards for people he decided to work with (he refused to take Mark along with him during his second missionary journey because Mark had left him during his first one), so for Paul to call Demas "my fellow worker" meant that he had to be doing something right! Then the 2 Timothy verse says that Demas deserted Paul because he loved this present world. What a sad letdown!! Here was this great guy, has credentials from PAUL who wrote most of the New Testament, and he "deserted" Paul, which we discussed was always a negative verb and intentional too. It wasn't like Demas accidentally chose something else and that made him not be able to work with Paul, no, he deserted him which means it was a deliberate choice to leave the things of God and focus only on the things of this present world. The main lesson we got from it was that no matter who you are, you are never far from falling away. The Christian walk is hard and tiring and it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's very easy to be pumped for God for a few years, maybe even a decade, and then settle into a stagnant walk with Him (going to church, praying every now and then) because Satan is constantly trying to get us out of commission for God and he will throw anything he can at us to make us ineffective for Christ. Do I always want to walk with God? nope. Do I always get excited about spending time with the Creator of the universe? I would like to, but nope, not every day! Do I always want to memorize verses or read books that can help me grow? Nope! But I know myself, and if I give myself a little leeway, all of a sudden it will become 2 days without time with God, then 3 days, then forget to memorize Scripture altogether, then just blindly doing a routine and forgetting that God has the PATH OF LIFE in His hands and it would behoove me to humbly submit my mind, heart and soul to Him in order to have real, true and eternal life. Because, after all, if God created the earth and everyone/everything in it, wouldn't it be a good idea to get to know Him in order to have the wisdom I need to walk through this life?? That's how I can get all I need!! It just requires a submission of my stubborn and rebellious will that says, "no thanks God, I got this"

How did I even come up with Demas for us to look at? It was a few years ago when I was on my boss' ministry team (student leadership team within Challenge) and he had us look at Demas one night and no, I had never heard of him till then, or if I did, I just glossed over his name. But in studying those 3 verses his example has always stood out to me. It's a timeless example that we are never far away from falling away from God. As Neil says, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. Demas didn't finish. He started well, and I'm sure people of his day thought he was a great and strong follower of God which I'm sure he was, but the love of this world choked out any heart he had for God and he walked away intentionally.

This is not to be a downer session, I walked away from last night and even still this morning smiling at God's grace and how well it went last night, but I think Demas has implications for us all at all times. Are you like Demas? Have you gotten comfortable into a rut of Christian activity because you feel that's what you "should" do? Or have you even given up the guise of being a believer because it doesn't matter anymore? God is real and He wants you to be in a thriving and close personal relationship with Him, and yes it is hard, but He will give you the tools you need to walk victoriously with Him!!

Ezekiel 36:26 - "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Isaiah 41:13 - "For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you.' "

Isaiah 41:9-10 - "I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

2 Timothy 4:7 - "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."


This one was for you Amy :)


this guy's photo title was "applauding turtle" so it's like he's urging you on right?? right?? hmm, maybe not....but worth a try :)

What steps will you take today to be more like Paul than Demas?

Does God use Facebook?

This year my boss Neil has asked me to lead the sister Challenge ministry we have over at Santa Monica College once a week and Tuesdays are my days to go over there and lead a small group and get to know some of the students there. Usually I try to get there around 11am, prayer-walk a bit, start the study (and lunch :) at 11:30 and go from there. Today didn't get there till almost noon because of stinkin' TRAFFIC - ugh. I seriously hate the 10 freeway, along with the 5, the 101 and the 405...all of them really. But I digress. I decided to to a 4 week study focusing on God and Facebook (yes, Facebook, I figure if everyone goes on it all the time it'd be good to use that to my advantage, plus, I love FB :) at the beginning and kind of see where the students are that come to the small group and I thought I'd use a series I came up with last year - really God gave me the creativity though because I know myself and I am not this creative :)

Week 1 is "God has friended you" and uses the Facebook analogy of God friend-ing us and how He gives us the choice to confirm or ignore His request. I love doing studies like this because even though I went through it last year I always get something new out of it with whoever I'm having the study with.

We looked at many verses about God taking the initiative with us, how He has been pursuing us since the beginning and how courteous He is, because He literally does give us the choice to confirm Him as the God we live for or ignore His request and continue living for ourselves. One passage we looked at was Exodus 3:1-6 when God initiated an encounter with Moses through the burning bush. He tells Moses to take off his sandals because he is standing on sacred ground and one of the girls there today, Kelly, said that it really underlines our unworthiness compared to God, that no matter who we are we're still not good enough for God and how knowing this, God still reaches out to us. I had never thought of it that way before and it was a really cool insight! I was feverishly writing it down as she was talking :) But really, it's so true - we're not good enough for God, but through *His* pursuing *us* and giving us the greatest gift in the sacrifice of His Son He made a way for us to come to Him and receive true and eternal LIFE!!! So amazing to think about!! That God cared that much about every single one of us that He initiated His Son coming down to us as God incarnate and giving us a way to know Him personally!! wow, I say again, WOW!! God is so good!!!

So next week we will be talking about the importance of community through "God's Facebook Network." Week 3 is "Does God change His status?" asking the question, "is God even involved in our lives? Does He care?" and we will end with "God wants to see your whole profile" with the idea being that just like how on Facebook you can "hide" certain aspects of your profile from certain people, God does not want that - He wants ALL of us, not just part of us. I'm excited for next week and what I'll learn from the students!


and with that, here is the funny of the day - whoever comes up with these espn and college gameday commercials is a genius and I love it!!

Fall Conference!!

As promised, here is an update from our annual Fall Discipleship Conference.

The location was Big Bear and it was heavenly! I LOVE that smoky, mountain smell and as soon as you exit your car in the mountains you can smell it!! Such a nice change from the icky, smoggy air :) The speaker was Dudley Callison, who also spoke at my freshmen Fall Conference, the one that changed my life, literally! It wasn't really anything he said, although I do still remember the constant question he would ask us, "to what end?" As in, "Ok, you're studying hard right now so you can get good grades. To what end? To get a good job. To what end? To make money. To what end? So that I can pay for my apt/house. To what end? So I can be rested and go to work. To what end? So that I can make money to buy clothes. To what end? So that I can wear those clothes to work. To what end? To what end? To what end???" So that we could really figure out what/who we were living for.

But the reason that specific fall conference changed my life is that the weeks leading up to it, both my Bible study leaders had told me a couple ways I could get to know Jesus Christ personally and I had always brushed them off, mostly because they required effort on my part and I wasn't ready for that. One of those ways they told me about was having a daily time with God, (Quiet Time, Time With God, whatever phrase you use :) reading His Word and journaling about what I find. So that conference weekend rolls around and low and behold, the girls I was rooming with all did their Quiet Times!! That was the thing that threw me. These girls actually *walked the walk*!! I had talked the talk my whole life, but these people actually did those things they told me to do! That was the biggest thing. So that Monday after the conference, I got out my Bible and journal, told God that I while I had always believed in Him I was finally going to commit myself to Him and let Him have the driver's seat to my life now, and then it felt like a new beginning to my life!! Such awesome times, God is so awesome I can't stand it sometimes, like woah.

But I digress, this is supposed to be about Fall Conference 2010, not 2002! So Dudley was our speaker and the theme was Lifestyle Discipleship and it was really great to re-align my perspective and get energy and motivated for the 2nd half of the semester!!

Here are some photos of the event:


ahhhhhhhhhhh, Big Bear, how I love thy clean air!!


Brittany, Josephine (my co-leader), myself and Christina :)


I think these girls were having a good time, don't you? :)


Me with Sydney and Jessyka, and we all found out we love the show "Arrested Development" and plan on having an "AD" party soon!


Went hiking and rock climbing - ohb yeah!!


USC Christian Challenge staff 2010-2011!! Aren't we a good-looking bunch? :P

There was also a bonfire with s'mores which was delicious, and extremely sugar-y, I was only able to have one!! The funny thing is that even though it was only last weekend, it feels like *forever* ago!! Goodness....

It was amazing though, more updates to come later so stay tuned :)



In honor of Halloween coming up and just the fact that I love espn commercials, here is the funny of the day!!

Catch-up

So it's been about a month since I last posted and I'm sorry, I'm going to try to be better at this! Still not used to the whole blogging thing, but I promise I'll get a handle on it :)

Well, many things to go through then! One of them was a very good friend of mine from my college days came out to visit for a couple weeks and it was great to see her again!! We were in my sorority and Christian Challenge together and she just finished law school in Hawaii and took a much-needed break from studying :) I took her on a tour of USC because even though it's only been three years since she was on campus, it's changed a lot! New campus center (thank you Ronald Tutor for donating a bazillion dollars for it!) and new cinema school, and she had never been in Heritage Hall!!! Only where we show off all our athletic trophies! So we made a pit stop there too :)


This is Amy with her favorite bike of all time, the Paul Frank giraffe bike :)

Then we also went by the bookstore and she got a few things because what is a trip to USC without going to the bookstore and checking out all the latest in Trojan fashion??


This was taken post-purchase...and yes we're pseudo-matching with the plaid and no, we didn't mean to!

And of the two times she came to USC to visit, we went to Chick Fil A both times!! Such yummy food :) and as is our custom, we both got the kid's meals :)


I love their chicken nuggets - it's the only thing I've gotten from them!!

We also went to Disneyland and had oodles of fun during Halloween-time!!


in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle...


in front of the HUGE Mickey pumpkin!!


Amy and I fighting on during the Tower of Terror ride, which we rode twice in a row because no line!! Gotta love Disneyland on a dreary day :)

We also watched the USC-Stanford game at one of the staffer's houses (thanks Jeremy and Katy!) and that's all I can really say about that. After the depressing game Amy, myself and another friend of ours Jessa all went to Yogurtland to drown our sorrows in fro yo...


At least I was surrounded by good company right??

Thus begins the first half of the update - the rest will come tomorrow about our annual Fall Discipleship Conference!!

NCAA, how I loathe thee sometimes...

So I don't know if you keep up with college football, but my dear Trojans got slapped with quite a harsh sentence in the post season after the NCAA looked into our program for 4 years and found 2 players had received improper benefits from agents. Now, I am not saying they don't deserve to be punished, it's just that they can't be punished because the culprits (Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo) are currently out of the NCAA's reach and making millions. So they went after the only player they could and it was USC. I realize full well that USC was probably not 100% clean in all of this, but I do think the punishment was a bit harsh - a loss of scholarships, 2 year bowl ban and vacated wins from the years Reggie played and received the benefits. One of the phrases the NCAA used was "a lack of institutional control" about the USC athletic department.

Then, during the summer I am at the gym and watching ESPN when I see a very interesting story running on the ticker on the bottom of the screen. It said that about 10 UVA football players had received improper benefits as well and the NCAA was looking into it. Hmm, funny that it wasn't headline news like it was for USC and they had way more people involved. Ok, well, I expected to hear a harsh sentence concerning them sometime soon.

Fast forward to this morning and I'm reading the LA Times sports page and turns out 2 of their players are only having to deal with a 4 and 6 game ban. The others are being investigated, but if found to have received said benefits, they only have to pay back some of what they took and give it to a charity.

Now, am I the only one who sees a major discrepancy here?? USC was not the victim yes, I'll give you that, but seems that after investigating the school for FOUR years and only finding 2 players, whereas UVA has about TEN might mean that it's UVA with the "lack of institutional control" and not USC. Again, USC was not innocent and they do need to watch their marquee players more, but ONE versus TEN is a BIG difference in my mind. No bowl bans, no vacated wins, no scholarships lost, in fact, those players that broke the rules will still get to play in this season. Awesome. Thanks NCAA for being fair all across the board.

Still annoyed, but then again, can't do anything about it, so oh well. And with that, I leave you with a commercial about why I love sports and ESPN:

Aaaaaaand take two...

So it's been a few weeks but I just wanted to give a quick update on what's been going on at USC!

- A girl named Melody gave her life to Christ a couple weeks ago!! We had a 3 hour dinner and I shared the gospel with her and we talked about a lot of hard things, but by the end of it she was ready to commit!! God is so good :)

- I walked by one of the dorms last week and there was a guy who was yelling the Tarzan call "OOOWWAAAAOOOHHHHH" (spelling??) and saying "TARZAN LIVES!!! have fun in class" and it made me laugh out loud and love the fact that I work at a college campus

- I've experienced some heartache as well because 2 of the girls from last year are taking steps to walk away from their relationship with Christ and I have been sharing truth with them but they seem set on doing things their own way. Sometimes I really wish I had the power to change hearts, but thankfully God does, as it says in Proverbs 21:1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases."

- got to see a "performance piece" yesterday in front of Tommy Trojan as a guy was "showing" the campus the divide between being 100% connected to the world at all times through texting, email and Facebook, but how we've never been more isolated, like there's an invisible wall between people. He "demonstrated" this by having a door frame with a plastic door and running into it over and over and over and over. It was pretty awesome.

and that is just a taste of life at USC!! I'll update later!!

fight on

God is simply amazing

So a few days ago was the move-in day for USC and all of us at Christian Challenge (the staff and student leaders) were helping out all the new freshmen unload and find out where they were staying. It was a long day, but a surprisingly fun and productive one! We were stationed at 3 different spots on campus to make the most of our time and I was with 2 of the guy students, Robbie and Matt. We basically walked up to people with large amounts of boxes and things and offered our services carrying things in! We were also at the New/North dorm, the only dorm, nay, only building on campus without an elevator! But that also gave us more time to talk with the students and their parents so I didn't mind (plus it was my workout for the day - some of those boxes were heavy and I was able to work on my biceps :)

The coolest thing happened within the first hour too. Robbie, Matt and I had met a guy named Nick and we were helping he and his mom carry things to his new room. We learned he was from Hong Kong even though his parents grew up here in the States. When we arrive at his room, however, his name on the door read "Nick Shmitt" and my jaw dropped. Why would I care about a freshman guy's name you might wonder? Glad you asked!! Last weekend was our staff and student leadership retreat and on Monday morning, right before we got started with our day, my boss Neil read aloud an email he had been sent by some parents. The email basically said that they found our group from our website and wanted us to pray for their son who was coming to USC in the fall. They said his name was Nick and he was going to be a cinematic arts major. They also mentioned that while they were both active in their faiths, their son had walked away and they wanted us to pray that he would find Jesus again. They were also from Hong Kong. Now, don't worry, they did not ask us to find him or weird him out by knowing his family history! They just wanted prayers for their son. So when I saw Nick's last name it was *the exact same guy* we had prayed for earlier!! I didn't say anything to his mom or Nick, but when we were finished I told Robbie and Matt who it was we just helped and they were floored at God's providence!!

We moved in a lot more students that day and when we were done, we prayed for all of them, and made special mention of God's good humor that out of all the thousands of people who were on campus that day, we met the one guy we prayed for!! God is so good!!

My old friend has returned

After a three year remission, my rheumatoid arthritis has returned. I don't know what the cause is, perhaps the fact that I got sick right after Hawaii and sickness can cause a flare-up, or maybe the fact that anything past 8 weeks is just too long an interval right now to go without medication, or it could just randomly have shown up. I don't know and I don't even care all that much because how does that affect me? The RA is here, and I get my medication again next week.

At first I was super mad and anxious about it because it's really painful and I'm not looking forward to being in pain all the time again. I was laying in my bed on Sunday night, because that is when my RA was keeping me up with my right shoulder being in pain (thank you to my sister Tiff who is in Hawaii who I called and talked to to get my mind off it!) and I was just thinking to myself, "what if this is my RA coming back for good? What can I do with my life? What kind of life can I have?" basically playing the "woe is me" game and then I remembered something from church that very day. My pastor was talking about the truth of the Scriptures and how its truth can overcome any of my negative thoughts and how the devil can really get me off-balance by feeding me and maintaining those "you're worthless" ideas that come into your head.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we *take captive every thought* to make it obedient to Christ."

We're always going to have those negative thoughts like "you're not good enough" "why should anyone care about you?" or "you can't do it" but those are untruths that the enemy uses because they're so darn effective! But I was able to put a stop to my pity party and tell myself that those thoughts I was having were untrue, that I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life, that I was still going to glorify God and make disciples, and that He was going to give me the strength and energy to make that happen. Right away I felt better because I had attacked those bad thoughts with the truth and didn't dwell on them.

Man, I was so excited about how relevant God's Word is!! It was written so long ago, and yet it still impacts my days in the here and now, I mean, that is awesome and God is so personal!!

So while I am not a fan of my RA being back, I know I can tell myself the truth, that even though I may not like it, I can deal with it God's way and focus on others. Because it's either God's way where I can rest in the fact that even though I don't understand it, He has a perfect plan for it and will give me an abundant life (John 10:10) or I can deal with it my way and try to ignore it, throw myself pity party after pity party, get bitter when people don't understand what I'm going through and be depressed on the inside about how "wrong" my life went. Yeah, no contest!

God is good no matter the circumstances, *no matter the circumstances,* and this may just be a temporary blip on the radar or it could be the beginning of a long relationship with the pain again, I don't know, but God does and He said He can handle it so I am giving it to Him to let Him take that burden (Ps. 55:22 - Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken). My only job is to continue to love and glorify Him and let others know how much He has changed my life and perspective. So no matter what happens or how long I have to deal with the RA, God is still good and He is still worthy of my life.

Back to the daily grind

Got back a few days ago from Hawaii and now I have to deal with life after vacation, which is no fun when your days would consist of beach, pool, food, sleep, repeat, day after day :)

But you know one thing I realized?? As I was chillaxing in the Aloha state I was just amazed at God's creation. I mean, I always love looking around and seeing God at work daily, but when you go somewhere where you can't possibly ignore His creativity it's simply awesome to see His hand every second of every day. The beaches were gorgeous, the views were spectacular and the scenery was beautiful.


This is Waipi'o beach, which is a black sand beach, that's right, BLACK SAND!! It was so awesome :)


This is my cousin David and I at a waterfall, which would normally be a double waterfall but it was a dry season...


This is the view from the hotel lobby and it was so refreshing to see this every day!


We even saw random horses on the way to one of the black sand beaches!! Thanks God for that little fun sight to see :)

Another cool thing is that I was reading in Exodus during my time in Hawaii and it was right at the part about the 10 plagues on Egypt. God just showed me more deeply just how powerful He can be with the double whammy of the plagues and His mighty creation. I mean, if you think about it, we don't even see all of God's power, we just get a glimpse of it from His Word and through our lives but He is capable of SO MUCH MORE!!

Eph. 3:20-21 says it best, "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen."

Now, whenever anyone brings up the 10 plagues most people think about the movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston as Moses:



I'm not bagging on the movie, it's a great depiction really, but the Bible is so much more gripping I think! When I read it this time I was annoyed at how hard-hearted the Pharaoh was being towards Moses and all the people, but then I realized, if the Pharaoh had let the Israelites go at the very beginning, then there would be no record of what all God can do! Because of the Pharaoh's stubbornness, we get a picture of some of the things God can do for all eternity!! That is just plain cool. God always has a plan you know, even if it makes no sense this side of eternity :)

So I would encourage you to take a walk outside and just marvel at God's creation and His ingenuity. Even people-watching can be fun because everyone is so different! I hope you're having a great day today and until next time!



And here is one of my favorite Sportscenter commercials for your enjoyment :)

Orange Crush...crushed...

So the World Cup of futbol is over and now Americans can go back to not caring about soccer until the next one. I include myself in that, and I'm sorry but it's true. I don't watch MLS but the second you put an international spin to it, like curling in the Olympics, then I am down. That being said, I am still sad it's gone. For once everyone was actually interested in something, and that even with the USA out of commission! The finals were Sunday between Spain and the Netherlands and even though I missed them (was at church, just a bit more important :) I got to see the highlights and I am sad to say that my team in orange did not win...again. The Netherlands have now been to the finals THREE times and no dice. Ah well, next time chaps! Below are some pics of the teams:


I love this one, it's of the semi-finals when Netherlands played Uruguay and the positions these players get themselves into is just awesome


people asked me why I was rooting for the Dutch and this picture says it all, I mean, they all wore BRIGHT ORANGE!! who else was I going to root for?? Any team that recognizes the amazing-ness of orange deserves my love and support, so come all future international competitions, I am rooting for them unless they play the USA :)


This was the game-winning shot by Spain and they won 1-0, after 120 minutes of play. Soccer seriously needs more points per goal...

So well done Spain, you did outplay the Netherlands, and in your honor here is your logo, which, incidentally, a friend of mine sent me right after the game. He shall remain nameless, but his name rhymes with the last name of Keyser Soze...



But you know what?? Even though my team lost, I can console myself with the AMAZING news I got from my doctor on Thursday!! I saw him and we decided to take myself OFF my infusion medication!! I've been on it since the summer of 2004 with only a 6 week break, and now I get to be off it for the immediate future!! I made sure this was a good move, asking my doc if this was a normal course of action for patients who showed remission and he said yes, so that means we're a go!



Now, I don't know how long this honeymoon will last with me being off THREE out of my normal four medications in one year, but I'll just cross that bridge when I get to it. God is good no matter the circumstances, no matter if I'm in terrible pain or wonderful joy. He saw me through my years of pain and if and when they come back, He'll see me through those as well.

Plus, not only do I have that news to console myself BUT I also got into the show "Glee" over the weekend because one of my roommates has the first half of the season and I'm hopelessly addicted now :)




And now, for the funny of the day :)

TEAM USA!!!!!!

I'm sure you have all heard or seen by now the AMAZING US match against Algeria in the World Cup. I was lucky enough to catch a fair share of it because I was at the gym early and got to watch some of it (interspersed with Wimbledon of course). But it was also boring for me so I stayed with Wimbledon and got to watch one of my favorite players, Andy Roddick, WIN his match and advance to the next round!! That was actually really cool and I'm super glad I got to see him play :)


After his second round match with Frenchman Micheal Llodra

But the World Cup match was still 0-0 and not terribly exciting for me (not the biggest futbol fan...) so I left the gym, showered and went to Cafe 84 which is right across from the gym on campus to do my Quiet Time there. Well, they had the game on and there was only about 7 minutes left so I decided to watch it because, hey, it's Team USA. There were about 10 people there watching the game, one of whom was wearing a Landon Donovan jersey and was about to burst with every good or bad play we did. But you know what happened next. During injury time (which I found out what it was later) Landon Donovan scored the winning goal in the 92nd minute!!!



GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say I was screaming and clapping and everyone else was too and it was way fun to be able to watch it with some fans who were genuinely interested too!!

Basically Donovan is a stud and I may or may not name my first born son (or daughter) after him.....



and here are some amazing futbol fans from South Africa - I love the kid in the pic below, I can only hope that if God grants me children, they too will dress like crazy people for USA and USC :)





AND not only was the World Cup match awesome and amazing (first time we finished first in our group since 1930!!) but Wimbledon was going crAAAzy too!! In the first round on Tuesday a couple of unknowns, John Isner from the US and Nicolas Mahut from France played. I only hoped Isner would win because he is American. Well, win he did, but not in any fashion that anyone would have guessed. Their epic match went five sets, with the fifth set lasting 8 hours and 11 minutes, for a grand total of ELEVEN HOURS AND FIVE MINUTES!!! Longest match in tennis history - longer than all the time it took Serena Williams to advance through SIX ROUNDS last year!! It started Tuesday, then had to break because was getting too dark to play. They resumed play again on Wednesday, only to have to stop early again due to darkness. They finally finished on Thursday, with Isner pulling out the win and now everyone from here to China knows who he is! The final score was 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 - probably a score not likely ever to be seen again!


Isner is also a tiny 6'9'' so it was a long way for him to fall to the ground in happiness :)


Isner obviously happy to be done with the match, while Monsieur Mahut does not look happy at all...can't really blame the guy, he was prolly about to fall over

Sadly his talent was not to take him through the 2nd round because he lost today in straight sets to Thiemo de Bakker of the Netherlands. Well, that is understandable seeing as how his arm prolly should have fallen off during his match! He was behind schedule too because the match took so stinkin' long so instead of a 2 day reprieve he got less than 24 hours. He took an ice bath, massaged his arm and struggled to eat some pasta just to rejuvenate himself. Andy Roddick even brought him and his coach takeout Tuesday or Wednesday night - gotta love that guy :)

Hope you're having a great Friday and remember to root for Team USA as we play Ghana tomorrow at 11:30am!!!

Law and Order: SVU

Ok, so again it's been a long time since I've updated this, and I'm sorry, my schedule is going bonkers this summer. And I shan't speak about the USC sanctions, not yet at least. I talked about them a lot all this past weekend (not my choice, but the fact that I keep up with USC news makes people think I'm the expert to go to, which I kind of am...) and I explained again and again what the sanctions were and why we got them. I'm a little over-talked out about it. The only thing I'll say about it comes from the immortal words of Celine Dion - my heart will fight on.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I chose the title of "SVU" for this post, and if you weren't wondering before, well, by now you probably are b/c I just said it. Well, I finally watched an episode of "SVU" last night, the first time I've seen a new episode in a long time because we just hooked up our converter box recently so I went all last year and this year with no new "SVU" episodes. Frightening, I know, but somehow I got through it.

Although it got me thinking. Perhaps I like the show too much. Why would I ask this you might wonder? Well, about a month-ish ago a friend of mine went on a blind date. Naturally it was exciting and she told me when she'd probably get back to her place and I expected that I'd receive a text letting me know how it all went. She said she'd be done by 10pm. Well, 10pm came and went. As did 10:15...10:25...by 10:30 I was freaked out of my mind. I wanted to call her and make sure she was okay, because hey, you never know about guys you just met, they could be homicidal killers. But I didn't know if that would annoy her (or her possible strangler) so I thought about texting her to see if she was okay, but then again, how would I know it was she who texted me back? If she was indeed in danger of being killed, how easy would it be for the guy to calmly take her phone as she is tied up and simply text me back saying she's fine and would be back later?? Yes, this seriously went through my mind. After talking to my brother and another friend about my predicament, I resolved to text her and if she didn't respond, or let me know she was back then I'd call her again after 11pm. Well, thankfully I texted her and she texted me right back, and I knew it was her because of her style of texting - WHEW!!! bullet was dodged *there*.

But weirdly enough, when I told my siblings this, they all said that I watch "SVU" way, way, WAY too much if that was my thought process. I still say that I was just being a concerned citizen, looking out for the needs of others, and thinking through possible scenarios. What do you think?


In honor of the World Cup, here is Landon Donovan's ESPN commercial - gosh I love these things!!

Oops again...

Okay, I'm sorry, these days are going by faster than I would like!! Last night was our first summer Christian Challenge meeting and it was a small group with some staff and students going over the Sovereignty of God, and I think it went really well!! The rest of the schedule for the summer is as follows:

June 10: Prayer - the importance of it, the significance of what Jesus taught about it, patience with it

June 17: Service - Of all the kinds of people Jesus could have come to earth and He chose to come as a servant, and how important that is for each one of us

June 24: fun night

July 1: Worth of the Individual - Jesus talking to the woman at the well when in those days it was not cool for men to talk to women, esp. alone, the lepers that society shunned but Jesus loved, tax collectors, prostitutes, Jesus gave them all His time, didn't reject them or get freaked out at non-believers, also the disciples themselves, how they were "nobodies" to the world (fishermen, not the intellectual Pharisees) but He chose them anyways

July 8: Selection - how Jesus was continually looking for the One in the Many to invest His life in, multitudes (hundreds) --> several (70) --> 12 disciples --> 3 (John, James and Peter) --> 1 (John)

July 15: Called to live an upside-down way of life - how becoming like Jesus means the things you value are opposite of what the world/culture says to value and live for

July 22: Expect resistance - Jesus did not receive a welcoming parade in His hometown, He came to make war, not peace, and if you're truly going to follow Him, you can expect some people to not be over the moon about it

July 29: fun night

whew!! It should be a great summer so I'll let you know how it's going!

Hope you have a GREAT Friday and rest of your weekend!

I heart ESPN commercials, and this one is one of my favs :)

Oops, I blame the summer time...

So I am so sorry I have not written in a while, I blame summer and the absence of my normal schedule, but really the blame lies with me :) I just need to make a schedule and stick to it. I've actually slept in almost every day till about 8am or sometimes even later - wow. I don't know what time "sleeping in" is for you, but anything past 8am is like "woah now..." so that's been alternately nice, just to relax and sleep in, but also annoying because then my whole day seems to be a bit off and not as productive as I would like. As I said, I just need to go to bed earlier (not 1am...) and wake up earlier!

This past weekend was really fun, with things I was doing every day! Friday afternoon and evening I went to Costa Mesa to drop off some things for my boss because he is at Project Impact (that summer discipleship training program I've been blessed to do twice!). So I hung out there for a bit because I love that place (they're staying at Vanguard University) and I have SO MANY memories from there from 2 years ago when I was staff there :) I can't go over there without a gigantic smile on my face, just all the memories and people I fell in love with over there, just loverly...... :) here's a few pics for a flashback!


This is when we went to Little Ethiopia for a world prayer night, and the food was DELICIOUS!!


on our tour of Hollywood, and we were at a lookout point for the Hollywood sign, and this is a pic of everyone who wore sunglasses that day - oh yeah...


This was 4th of July, and while I was practicing my skateboarding skillz, they got hold of my camera and took OVER FIFTY pictures...all like this...it was pretty hilarious going through it later though!!

So that was Friday afternoon, and the students had not arrived yet, that came on Saturday, but it was all the leaders and about half of them are from USC! So then I left them and ventured over to Main Street in Huntington Beach to look at Huntington Surf & Sport and Jack's Surfboards because they were having a mondo sale and I just had to check it out, no really, I did! My mission was to find a long wetsuit and find out what size I am, which I DID so that was tres exciting!! Now all I need is to find one :)


This one could work...


...or I could get this one and really be subtle as I'm out on those waves :)

Then Saturday I wen to a Bachelorette party for one of my best friends from high school, Katelin, and it was a crAAAzy party let me tell you! We ate, made wedding dresses out of toilet paper, made Katelin stuff jumbo marsh mellows into her face if she got a question about her fiance wrong, and the other stuff we did, well, I can't really disclose that...it was fun though! I was a dork and forgot to bring my camera so I think Katelin is putting pictures up on her blog tomorrow and I'll snag some :)

Then Sunday was a great time at church and then over to Playa Del Rey to hang with my sister Heidi, brother Mark and some other friends of ours. It was good food and good company, so all in all delicious times!!

Whew! I think that was everything, oh, except for yesterday, when I had a mini-bbq with two friends of mine because one of them is house-sitting for mutual friends of ours, and I don't think he likes being alone all the time, so we had ribs and steak and garlic bread and bbq flavored chips and corn (well, they had corn, I hate the stuff) and I think that was all, oh, and watermelon too :) So it was a fun night!!

Hope your weekends were great and somewhat relaxing and tomorrow I'll let you know the schedule I came up with for summer Christian Challenge, so stay tuned :)



and here is the funny of the day:

Desire v. Effort

I was just re-reading one of my books this morning, The Training of the Twelve, which, incidentally, is an awesome book. It's pretty long (545 pages, still little over 100 to go till I'm done) and some of the wording is hard to get through because it was written in the 1800's, but it is FANTASTIC. The author, A. B. Bruce, goes through the gospels and discusses all the events in them and explains them more fully. It's been really great for me because I've been able to understand them more and get a deeper meaning of how they impacted the times and how revolutionary Jesus truly was. The following excerpt comes from chapter 9, "The Galilean Crisis" in which Bruce was talking about John 6:66-71, where many people decided to leave Jesus right then and there, and Jesus asks His disciples whether they too are going to leave. Peter speaks for them (as he always seemed to do!) and said where would they go, because they knew that Jesus was the true Son of God. Bruce says this about the confidence the 12 disciples had in Jesus to not follow the crowds and fall away too:

"Such implicit confidence as the twelve had in Jesus is possible only through intimate knowledge; for one cannot thus trust a stranger. All, therefore, who desire to get the benefit of this trust, must be willing to spend time and take trouble to get into the heart of the Gospel story, and of its great Subject. The sure anchorage is not attainable by a listless, random reading of the evangelic narratives, but by close careful, prayerful study, pursued it may be for years...Those who grudge the trouble are in imminent danger of the fate which befell the ignorant multitude, being liable to be thrown into panic by every new infidel book, or be scandalized by every strange utterance of the Object of faith."

You're only as close to God as you want to be. Do you truly desire a close relationship with God, or are you okay with doing some good things but still maintain absolute control on your life? I am not asking this to be accusatory, I have to ask this of myself often. It's easy to play the card and sit in church and wax eloquent about God, but do you really *know* Him? Because it takes effort and discipline and energy, but there is no better pursuit in life. If you take the time and truly get to know Him, then you will not regret it. As Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."


If a close relationship with God is a sincere desire of yours, what steps are you taking to get closer to Him today?

Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Daniel Days

One of my favorite people of the Bible is Daniel. Why you ask? For the simple fact that he is a stud. My favorite passage of his book is ch. 6:1-4 because I was stuck on those 4 verses for about 3 weeks two summers ago, right at the beginning of my time doing Project Impact in summer '08. Here they are:

"It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent."

How could I have been stuck on those verses for about 3 weeks? Well, I just couldn't get past them! I was so impressed and challenged by how Daniel conducted himself that I couldn't stop reading and re-reading that passage. It says that Daniel "so distinguished himself" among the others working "by his exceptional qualities." Now, it doesn't say what those qualities were, but we can make educated guesses right? One of the things I love about this is that it gives you great advice for being a leader. His exceptional qualities might have been diligence, faithfulness, initiative-taking, communicative skills, interpersonal skills, etc. PLUS, at the end it says he was trustworthy and "neither corrupt nor negligent." Basically he conducted himself in such a manner that he set himself apart from the daily pack because he made sure he not only did his job but he did it with excellence. And of course, just like what happens today, people got jealous because he was doing so well. Have you ever had that happen to you? You're trying to do the right thing or you're putting a lot of effort into a presentation or just your daily work, and some people label you as a "goody two-shoes" because the norm for American culture is "how much can I not do and still slide by?"

Daniel didn't care that none of the other people weren't doing work to the same caliber as him. He didn't let it phase him that he would stand out and cause some friction with his co-workers. He did it because that is what we are called to do if you've given your life over to Jesus Christ. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." It doesn't say "most things you do" or "just your family/work stuff" but in ALL things, to glorify God in how you do them. How do we do that? By doing our work with excellence, being pro-active, getting the job done, communicating well with the people above and below us, being faithful and diligent, creative and wise, in other words, by being like Daniel.

He gave us an example to follow if we truly want to do our work with excellence. I think one of the reasons it got to me so much is that I was just about to be one of three staff for 19 college students for a whole summer and needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed. But reading this passage over and over gave me some qualities to cultivate and goals to have in order to make sure that no matter what happened, I did my job with excellence.

Ever since I studied the book of Daniel 2 years ago, he still challenges me and encourages me every time I read him. Are there things you could work on to do your work with more excellence? Or even in relationships? Anything you can do to become more faithful/diligent/communicative/observant/etc today? I know for me one thing I can work on is being more diligent with planning the summer Christian Challenge schedule for the next 10 weeks. I have an idea, and now I need to hammer it out. I'll let you know how that goes!




And now for a completely different note, here is the funny of the day:

Need some encouragement?

So I was going to post this on Wednesday, but I had to re-cap the weekend so here is the encouragement you'll need to get through the very last day of the week. I am putting up videos of a guy named Louis Zamperini who I had never heard of until the fall. I heard him speak and this guy is quickly becoming one of my heroes!!

He is from Torrance, CA and now lives in the Hollywood Hills. He is a sprightly 93 years old and still sharp as a tack. He got into trouble a lot growing up but by the time he was in high school he realized he was a fast runner and he entered the Olympics in 1936!! He didn't fare so well though, because he ate too much while he was there! He said that during that time it was hard to have a full meal seeing as how the Depression was going on, and then he comes to these Olympic games and there is food everywhere! He gained about 10 pounds I think and while he finished last in his race, he caught the eye of a Mr. Adolf Hitler! Even though Louis was going to finish last, he wanted to finish well and he apparently gunned it and had a strong finish, so that when he was done Hitler asked for him *by name* to meet him. When they shook hands and met face-to-face, Hitler simply said he was the "boy with the fast finish." Yeah, he shook Hitler's hand AND even stole a Nazi flag, because, hey why not right?

Then he goes to USC and becomes a life-long Trojan, graduates and enters World War II. He was stationed in the Pacific and on a rescue mission his plane was shot down and he and two others were stuck in a raft for over 40 days with no food or water besides the occasional rain. After 40-some days, one of the guys didn't make it, and then they get rescued/captured by the Japanese. He then endures 2 years of beatings, experimentation and starvation and he only gets out once the war is over. He comes back to the US as a national hero, decorated in war, marries a socialite and all is well, until he goes to sleep every night and has nightmares about his POW imprisonment. He and his wife almost get a divorce, but then she went to this event by a little-known guy by the name of Billy Graham. She becomes a Christian and decides she wants to stay in the marriage. This gets Louis' attention, and he goes to the same event and becomes a Christian too and then a year later he flew back to Japan to visit his old captors, who are now in prison, and he hugs and forgives each one of them to their faces!! WOAH!! There was a short video done about his life by CBS during the winter Olympics of 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Louis was one of the torch-bearers and he ran through the streets and even re-visited his old POW camp - it is quite powerful!!

It was so cool to see the power of Christ in one's life and how He can literally change your heart and help you do things you never thought you would, like forgiving those who tortured you and being able to let go of that bitterness. One of the girls in my small group found his video on youtube and it's only 30-ish min so you can't really watch it at work, but it's definitely something to watch when you have the time - there are 4 videos total and I highly highly *highly* recommend you watch them if you haven't already seen them!









This guy is a living and true hero, and you can't help but be inspired at how God saved him time and time again and helped him survive his experiences!! They are trying to make his life into a movie, and have been for quite some time, even starting in the '50's and again in the '60's and then the '90's, but they always want to gloss over Louis' conversion once he got back and Louis won't allow it to be made otherwise, seeing as how that is the whole point of his life now! He won't take any amount of money to have a movie of his life that is not an accurate depiction of what went on, and I hope someday those bigwigs in Hollywood will put aside their biases and make this incredible story because you can't help but get wrapped up in it!!

Hope this was encouraging to you and hope you have a great weekend!!