Fall Conference FUN!

So our Fall Discipleship Conference was a few weekends back and wanted to put up some photos of what all we did and learned about so without further ado, here is a snapshot of our time in Big Bear!

Who: The Christian Challenges from USC, San Diego State Univ and Cal Baptist Univ

What: retreat to get away, grow closer in walk with God and be refreshed for the last bit of the semester

Where: Camp Cedar Lake in Big Bear

Some photos:

Becky and I as we were helping to set up the bookstore, attired in USC garb of course!

Jessyka, Katy, Makena & Michelle having a grand 'ole time :)

Myself and Emily with our matching white sunglasses :)

Makena and I "heisman-ing" (the latest craze after "Tebow-ing")

Baby Samantha (our mascot if you will) surrounded by some of her fans :) Isn't she crazy cute?!?!

Josephine and I chilling in our room before a session! See that blue and orange bag in the lower right corner? I got that my *freshman year of high school*!!! As in, fall of '98, and that bag is still going strong!! One of the best purchases I've ever made :)

Rebakah, me and Jessyka chillaxing during some of the free time



And lastly, here is the funny/sad of the day. Some poor dog's owners are *super* big Star Wars fans, dressing up their pooch to look like an AT-AT from Episode V. And yes, I knew what it was called without having to look it up...

12 is an awesome number

I have decided that 12 is an extremely awesome number. Why you ask? Why 12, of all the other numbers out there? Why is 12 now so special? Here are some fun facts about the number 12:

- it's Tom Brady's number, and he's a pretty good qb... (it's also Andrew Luck's number, but he's lame so I don't count him)

- it's the name of a Russian film from 2007 that is a loose re-make of 12 Angry Men

- it's the largest number with a single-morpheme name in English

- it's the atomic number for magnesium in the periodic table

- the average human has 12 cranial nerves

- has to do with the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples of Jesus

- there are 12 days of Christmas

- there are 12 months in a year

- 12 people have walked on the moon

lastly,

- it's also the number of my current sedimentation rate!!!!! My sedimentation rate, or sed rate for short, is a basic barometer of how my RA is doing b/c it measures inflammation in my joints. The normal adult's range is between 10-20 and mine have usually been upwards of 50. In the summer it was a 69, then it was a 44 and just last week found out it is now a TWELVE!!! Now do you see the amazingness that is the number 12?? Now, I know my sed rate will continue to fluctuate the rest of my life, but I will enjoy having it at a 12 for right now :)

yay 12!!!!

and now here is the funny of the day:

Birthday Blast weekend

So Sunday was my birthday and it was stinkin' amazing. The whole weekend was a birthday bash of sorts, starting off with a Trojan VICTORY!!! This is a 1875% increase over last year, when my birthday actually fell on a HOME game against Washington.......which we subsequently lost.....so that wasn't the best starter for my birthday last year but I'm happy that Lane, Matt and the rest of the Trojan men were able to overcome a shootout with Arizona to win the game. (side note: Zona has one of the worst defenses in the nation, and we still had a hard time putting them away!)

Man our boys look good in cardinal and gold!

Also took my friends Mallory and Sarah to the game with me and it was a blast, except for the fact that it was stinkin' HOT. The cool thing is that it was their breast cancer awareness game so all the security people, instead of wearing their normal bright yellow jackets wore pink ones instead. We even got free pink bracelets (a la the Live strong rubber ones) so I took a few extra for my mom :) (breast cancer survivor for 20 years!!!)

After the game Sarah and I met a few of our other friends at a Tunisian/Moroccan restaurant in Hollywood called the Moun of Tunis. I had been twice before, and it was pretty darn good. You sit in these booths, eat with your hands and towards the end of the meal a belly dancer comes out! It's a fun experience :)

mmmm, b'stilla..... (basically it's a pastry of sorts with meat and egg inside, that's covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon - odd combo to be sure, but it's still delicious!)

After the b'stilla, we also received brik, salad, couscous and lemon herb chicken! it is a TON of food, but it's all very delicious so we were good with that!

Then came the present openings!

I got a lot of movie passes for my birthday...almost like my friends know I love going!! Squeee!!! And it's perfect timing of course b/c in the fall all the best movies come out so I am *set*

Of course my friend Lindsay got me leopard flats (she works at Shoe Dazzle after all...) but she knows I love the leopard print and with it being in fashion now it's a lot easier to get :)

After all the food and present opening came tea in little cups that look suspicious, but fear not, it's only TEA inside!!

We thought it'd be funny to get a picture of us all with our tea :)

Whew! So that was all Saturday, and now onto the actual day itself. Had church, then a bbq for college students right after (including us college staffers) and everyone sang to me there which was embarrassing but also really fun :) Then went to my parent's house in Pasadena and watched some football (including a great run by Joe McKnight for the Jets!) then had an amazing dinner! I asked my mom to make me my favorite dish, BBQ chicken pot pie which she got out of a Cooking Lite magazine years ago but doesn't make all that often. She even made TWO dishes of it so that I could take one home with me!!

mmmmm, I'm having some for lunch too and I think I'm starting to get hungry for it looking at these photos....

My mom also used a bright orange tablecloth that I know she got just for me because she is not the biggest fan of orange (she was happy when I got into USC because she thought my orange "phase" would be over now that my school colors were red and yellow instead of orange and blue, but I told her that red and yellow together make orange, so really, orange is a super spirited USC color :)

I got to see almost my whole family (minus my oldest sister and her husband, because, you know, Hawaii is a little far away for a weekend jaunt) and my nephews!!!

My youngest nephew, who is about 8 months and already wearing 1 year clothes :)

To cap off the night my mom and I (joined later by my dad) watched X-Men First Class because that movie is awesome and all sorts of amazing

Not to mention that Michael Fassbender is quite the stud in it....

Then on Monday (whew!) went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory at the Americana with a good friend of mine from college and it was so fun! We ate, laughed, she gave me Hunger Games themed presents (which are AWESOME, and technically still being sent but I am so excited to have them!!) we walked around a bit and then called it a night. She makes me laugh like no other so I was really looking forward to seeing her and it was a great night!!

This was my free "dessert" from Cheesecake, and I put dessert in quotation marks because it was basically whipped cream with some fudge...so I guess the recession hit them too !

So it was a great celebratory weekend and even last night at Life group the girls made me brownies with orange frosting and they all signed a card for me which was super sweet and I def made myself wait until I got in the car to read it in case it made me teary :)

Birthdays are awesome and wonderful but after this weekend I'm fine with waiting another year!

And lastly, here is the funny of the day :)

Guilty pleasure...

Okay, so I blame one of the girls in my Life group for this, but recently I have grown into a big Taylor Swift fan. Yes, it's true. This whole last week whenever I have had to work on something in the computer labs on campus I have listened to the Taylor Swift channel on youtube (and yes, I'm even doing it now...)

So say what you will about Tay Swift, but her songs are catchy, they have good stories and her videos are super cute and fun. There. I said it. I like Taylor Swift. Is she the best singer ever? No, but she is pretty good. Would I see her in concert over U2, whom I have already seen 3 times in concert? No way, U2 will always be number 1 and any chance to see them = bliss and top priority. But if I could see U2 PLUS Tay Swift, then I would do it.


do YOU have any guilty pleasures?

**UPDATE: so that same friend of mine who got me hooked on Tay Swift just gave me a mix cd of her songs last night at Life group!! 19 songs!!! I know some of them but most of them are new, which means happiness in my car for days :) Thanks Rebekah!!! :D

Who's in your Top Five?

I don't know if you will remember but one of the phone companies had a "who's in your top 5?" slogan a few years back b/c the idea was that the exclusive top five friends/family of yours that you talk to the most would become your "top 5" and they would be free mobile-to-mobile calling. So then the thought becomes, "well, gee, who is lucky enough to be in my inner circle??" and then rate your friends/family accordingly. Now, I'm making this out to be a bad thing and it's not, I'm just taking some thoughts about it to the extreme :)

But my boss, Neil, had a talk around that time taking the idea of a Top Five and putting it to ministry purposes. He said we should have a top 5 list of people we are praying for, and at the time I thought that was a nice idea but didn't really do anything with that. But starting this past summer I took that idea in earnest and had a group of 5 friends that I have been praying for every day that they would come to know Jesus personally b/c they are all very dear to me and could care less about God. As this school year has started, I have seen many more opportunities to share my testimony with them, the gospel with two of them and just get more time with them and see where they're coming from. I can't see this as a coincidence. For one of them, we got together every now and then last year, but this year she has been initiating more time together and I can only attribute the change to God working in her heart!!*

It has been SO EXCITING to see God working in this area!! I know God is infinitely powerful and also intimately personal, so why does it surprise me when He answers prayer? He is more than capable to handle anything and everything I throw at Him, and then some! (Ephesians 3:20-21) I mean, isn't it so amazing that God CAN handle anything?? and not that He is struggling to juggle my issues with my friend's and also with a guy in Ukraine, no, He doesn't struggle with anything because He can handle it! He is everywhere at once, with everyone, at all times!! It feels so secure knowing that God is helping me out 100% yet not ignoring anyone else, that He is helping each and every one of us at 100% of His power!

So yes, prayer WORKS and it is so exciting to see God working in people's lives!!

*UPDATE: just had lunch with one of my Top 5, well, we didn't just have lunch, but we made it! Pasta with roasted red bell pepper sauce!! and yes, it tasted as good as it sounds, but that's neither here nor there, the *point* is that I was praying for a chance to share with her and God again gave me an opportunity! She was talking about her philosophy class and how she had to write a paper discussing Rene Decartes and his philosophy that God is perfect and how she didn't agree because of people born with birth defects and such. So we talked about that and I was able to share the gospel with her! Not very coherently mind you, I was so excited that I had to tell myself to slow down and get the right points across, and even now I am kicking myself for not saying something, but hopefully that means we can pick up the conversation the next time!! She is still not searching, but it has been exciting and really fun getting to know her better b/c she is an amazing woman! So I am continuing to pray for her b/c as we know, prayer works!!

Any fun stories you have of prayer working??

Welcome Back frenzy!!

So it is the middle of the second week of classes and we have had 3 welcome back events with 2 more on the way!! Whew!! It's been a little tiring but it's also been really great! Been able to meet a ton of new folks which has been a joy :)

Starting off we had a Dessert & Games night the Sunday before classes started. It was directly after a Christian group fair from 12-3 so this party started at 3:30 and went past 7pm!! We had TONS of desserts, everything from cookies and brownies, to red velvet cupcakes and rice krispies and if all that wasn't enough one of our guys brought root beer floats!! And all those desserts I mentioned? Yeah, there were at least 2 if not THREE trays of each of those!! Some store-bought, some homemade, all delicious. I had a couple of them myself and oh man they were good!!

We also got to meet a lot of new freshmen because we had a great location, right by some of the dorms with a huge lawn perfect for the guys playing football, then frisbee and finally wiffle ball!

do you see those yummy desserts?? Oh man, salivating just looking at them (haven't eaten in a few hours, it's getting near my dinner time!)

Students hanging out at the food table (obviously, where else would you be?) and Elizabeth and Makena were super excited about it :)

So then we had our annual Pizza Party Bash on the first Thursday of classes. It was in a park right by the bookstore so it had maximum visibility which was very helpful! We had around 20 boxes of pizza and they were all gone by the end!! It was awesome meeting tons of people there, and usually after dinner time students tend to not stop by anymore but this year we had a steady stream trickle in and ask us what Christian Challenge was all about! It was great :) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but I'm pretty sure one of our seniors did so I'll try to get some from him later! In the meantime:

Oh, and funny fact. I met a freshman guy who is half-Armenian (like me), grew up in Pasadena (like me) and even goes to the church that a lot of my extended family goes to - United Armenian Congregational Church (UACC)!! How weird is that?!! Small world right??

The very next day we had a bonfire at Dockweiler Beach and it was great - another TON of students were there, so much so that a few of our drivers had to pull double-duty and take a car to the beach, drop them off, come back to USC and get another car full! I am so grateful for our students' servant hearts - I heard no complaining or grumbling!


ok, so that bring us up to this week! We have a tailgater this coming Saturday for USC's first game of the season (Beat the Golden Gophers!!) and we're having it after the game. We're calling it a "5th Quarter Party" which I know doesn't make mathematical sense, but it's a fun name though right? (One of our student leaders came up with the title, she's a screenwriting major so she has major creativity!)

I'll let you know how it goes!! Here is the funny for the day:

Recap of the summer

So I have about 2 weeks left until stuff for USC begins to start up again, so I thought I would reflect on this summer so far and give you some highlights:

- starting it off with a week in Lake Arrowhead, totally alone, as a personal retreat of-sorts and it was amazing. Even though the ride up there cost me about 5 years of my life (free tip: don't drive up a mountain late at night with really bad fog - it's absolutely terrifying)

- been raising more support and almost to my goal so please pray that I will reach my goal by Aug. 12th!!

- I've been able to meet up with a few of the girls in my small group from this past year and even found out that one of them turned from being a vegan to an all-out carnivore because, as she says, "being a vegan was just too hard" so now I don't have to look up vegan cookie recipes anymore!!

- I've seen Harry Potter 7.2 (twice and it was great), Midnight in Paris (surprisingly fun and good), X-Men: First Class (twice, really liked it!), Bridesmaids (ehhh, had some really funny parts but the raunchiness factor was a bit too much) and Pirates 4 (ehh, it was entertaining but nothing to write home about)

- went surfing once and it was amazing and fantastic and all sorts of wonderful. I hadn't been in almost a year due to my stupid RA coming back and being all unpredictable and I went with 2 good friends of mine and it was absolutely lovely. I couldn't stop smiling because it felt so great to get back out there and enjoy the waves!! Surfing is seriously becoming my favorite sport. I love Volleyball and all, and it's a heck of a lot easier to include people with a volleyball, and surfing is a somewhat expensive sport for all the equipment that is involved, but holy cow it is crazy fun and exhilarating, like woah. My dad loves the fact that I am getting more and more into it and he even got me a wetsuit! So now all I need is a board, so I'll be searching craigslist for that :)

- went to a beach bonfire for one of our fellow staffers, celebrating her 10 years being in California and with USC Christian Challenge :)

- attended the Hollywood Bowl and the theme was "Michael Feinstein and the singing stars of television" and while the host, Michael Feinstein, was a bit of a tool, the guests (Florence Henderson, aka Momma Brady, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady and my personal favorite, Dick Van Dyke!!!!) I love the HB, simply love it, I think it is bar none one of the coolest and most fun things to do in LA, to hear music under the stars :)

- Caught up with "Bones" season 5, now I just need to watch some season 6 and find out what happens next!

- had some good crying moments with God over my RA

- worked on assignments for my boss

- slept!!

And now the summer is officially over because tomorrow is USC's move-in day!!! So I'm hoping to get a chance to meet and get to know some new folks and help some of the older ones move in too :)

Psalm 111 en francais

Louez tous l'Eternel!
Je mettrai tout mon cœur à louer l'Eternel
dans l'assemblée, dans le conseil des justes.

2 L'Eternel accomplit des œuvres admirables,
elles sont méditées par tous ceux qui les aiment.


3 Ses actes manifestent sa gloire et sa splendeur.
Pour toute éternité, subsiste sa justice.


4 Il veut qu'on se souvienne de toutes ses merveilles.
Oui, l'Eternel est bon et il fait grâce.


5 Il pourvoit aux besoins de ceux qui le révèrent.
Il se souvient toujours de son alliance.


6 Il a manifesté sa puissance à son peuple en agissant pour lui
quand il lui a donné le pays d'autres peuples.


7 Tout ce qu'il fait témoigne qu'il est fidèle et juste,
tous ses commandements sont dignes de confiance,


8 ils sont bien établis pour toute éternité,
fondés sur la justice et la fidélité.


9 Il envoie le salut pour délivrer son peuple,
il conclut avec lui une alliance éternelle.
C'est un Dieu saint et redoutable.


10 La clé de la sagesse, c'est de révérer l'Eternel.
Ceux qui s'y tiennent ont une saine intelligence.
Qui observe ses lois est vraiment avisé.
Sa louange subsiste jusqu'en l'éternité.

There is just something so beautiful about reading and speaking God's Word in French! I know I am biased because I love French, but still, the Bible is beautiful anyways, and then you go and put it in a beautiful language and the beautifulness gets squared. (Maybe that's not entirely scientifically accurate, but you get the idea :)

I ordered a French Bible my senior year of college and I love reading it and going to my favorite verses in English and then seeing how they're different in French, much like different translations will hit you differently, the different language is simply that, another translation, and some of the verses in French hit me harder in French than in English. Plus, the French is just so delightful :) Vive la France!


Ahhhh, La Tour Eiffel :)


and of course, this character is everyone's perception of french people, esp the french language! I can't tell you how many times whenever I tell people I speak french they automatically go "French? like 'hhhhee hhhhee hhhhon hhhhon!' " imitating this french chef and I have to say, "no, not quite like that..." every time, like in the tv show "Friends" when Phoebe tries to teach Joey how to speak French and he crashes and burns horribly :)

Harry Potter, I love you

Ok, so the last time I posted it was a mere three days before the end of Potter, and now I have already seen it twice (in one weekend no less, yes I am that much of a nerd) and I loved it. Some of my friends didn't like it because it deviated from the book but I liked it. I think the deviations keep it fresh in our minds as we won't know completely what to expect when we watch the final product on screen.

Why did I watch it twice in one weekend you ask? Well, the 17th was my mom's birthday so we took most of the family and some family friends to see it together. The only problem is that we went to a high-class theater in Pasadena, one that, let's just say the younger crowd doesn't frequent because the tickets are too expensive. So the crowds there are generally older and don't get as excited during movies. So I watched it with my friend Lindsay on opening night (fellow Potter enthusiast and also fellow staffer with me at USC Christian Challenge :) and we saw it at LA Live in downtown and the crowds there were a ton more fun, as I expected. There were clappings, hootin' and hollerin' and some sniffles in the theater that night. It was awesome. Yours truly cried a couple times, and at the same parts of the film both times I saw it. It was epic and action-packed but still packed an emotional wallop too. It was sad to say goodbye to some of my favorite characters over the years but it had to end at some time right? And whatta way to end it!!

Below is a link to pictures of the main Harry Potter stars with every premiere of each film, going back to 2011 all the way until this movie came out. They all look so cute in the beginning!! Such a great casting job...

http://www.empireonline.com/features/harry-potter-premieres

Now there is nothing to look forward to - no book, no movie, they're all done. So now all that's left is to re-read and re-watch the books and movies, which isn't a huge deal because they're just so darn readable :)

Thank you Harry Potter for being a great and engaging story. It was great growing with you for the last 10+ years!

IT'S COMING!!!

It is finally coming. The end. The final goodbye. The last hurrah if you will. I'm talking, of course, about Harry Potter. As it is the 12th of July we only have THREE more days until we finally get to see in movie form what we already know from the books (if you've read them) or what we've always hoped would happen if we've only seen the movies.

I have seen all the movies and read all the books and I tend to re-read them at random times and out of order. For instance, during July 4th weekend I was in Lake Arrowhead at my parent's cabin and they had Potter books 2 & 3 there so I re-read book 3 and I remember why it's one of my favorites. All the action, intrigue, revelations, etc. Actually, I love books 3 and 6 the best, the movies too for that matter. I mean, really, how amazing a feat is it to create an entire world with a different vocabulary and have it be so enticing to such a huge population??

I was writing some thank you notes the other day and I flipped my computer to youtube to put on some background music and I see a line at the top of the screen - "click here to see the Harry Potter world premiere live in London" ummm, WHAT?? So I click it and get to see Trafalgar Square transformed into a red carpet premiere with thousands upon thousands of fans waiting for even a hint of a glimpse of someone related to the movies to walk by. Some of the London-ers had been camping out for 3 days. That, my friends, is Star Wars mega-fan territory. I wouldn't personally do it, but hey, all the more power to them for doing so! But it was fun to watch for a while as I was writing notes and see the stars in their "normal" attire (normal is relative of course, b/c while they weren't in wizarding robes, they were also all gussied up for the event, so, yeah).

But just THREE DAYS people!! I just got my movie tickets, yes, I know I am late, but I still got tickets and thankfully the theater I'm going to doesn't have assigned seating, so as long as me and my equally-obsessed-with-all-things-Potter-friend Lindsay get there early, we should be fine. Plus, there are only 2 of us, we don't need to worry or coordinate with 10 people (which would be darn fun though, but alas a lot of our Potter friends are out of state right now).

So without further ado, I present you with the trailer for HP7.2, which, judging from the advance reviews, is gonna be a doozy:

http://youtu.be/I_kDb-pRCds

oh, did I mention that I'm seeing it twice opening weekend? Once on opening night of course, couldn't miss that, and again with family on Sunday for my mom's birthday :)

Things I like right now :)

Ok, so I thought I'd let you know what I love right now:

1) the tv show "Bones," which I used to make fun of actually because I called it "Law & Order:SVU lite" because it uses more humor and not as much demented-ness as SVU. I love my SVU and it's gritty drama, but I have to say, Bones is equally as fun to watch and the characters are the ones that really make the show. The two main characters, Booth and Bones, are great, but so are the other peripheral ones! They are so fun to watch as they interact together and they have real stories behind them to make me want to keep watching. Thank you Hart Hanson for a creative and fun show!



2) Tangled, the newest Disney film which also happens to be their 50th film and I think there's a reason they had this come out after Princess and the Frog because it is obviously a better film. Now, I know not everyone loves this movie, I don't really expect people to love every film I do (case in point, the movie Death Becomes Her, I love it and always have and people either haven't heard of it or it's too wacky for them...)



http://youtu.be/9oWhovB02Hg
This is a video of the entire studio lip-synching to the last song of the movie and this seriously makes Disney look like the most fun place to work, I mean, I know it's not, but it still makes it seem awesome :)

http://youtu.be/GaJqdSNFB4s
this is a video that the production assistants made that re-makes the first song of the film, and my friend Heather is the blond one!!

3) BOBA TEA!!!
This is definitely a new thing, because I used to vehemently hate boba, I thought it was an unholy union of drink + tapioca because who really wants to chew their drink right? But about a year ago I tried it again and I wasn't horrified, so then I didn't hate it anymore. Then I tried it again this past spring, and really liked it, then I had it more and more and my favorite flavor is thai tea boba, oh MAN it's good!!

Whew!!!!

Well the semester is officially over for USC and while it was a crazy finish, what with end of year events, it was all fun but stinkin' tiring!! We had our last Life group meeting where we ate at Jacks n Joe, a new pancake shop literally across the street from USC. While I am not the biggest pancake fan, I had heard many good things about this place so I decided to give it a whirl.



I was not disappointed! I had the Jack's Banana Pancakes ("3 banana pancakes topped with walnuts - pretend like it's the weekend now") and they were incredibly delicious!! I couldn't finish mine, mostly because their 3 pancakes are stinkin' HUGE, but that suited me just fine because that just meant that I could take them home and have them again! Such yumminess :)

Then we also had our celebrations for the Discipleship Team (DT - mostly for underclassmen who want to focus on the basics of the Christian walk) and the Ministry Team (MT - upperclassmen who wanted more training in how to help others come to know Christ). For the former we had a pool party which was quite fun, as most of the students got in the pool and went crazy! For the latter, we went to a family-fun place where we all played 2 rounds of laser tag (my team won both times...naturally) and go-karting with some mini-golf thrown in for good measure!


Austin gettin' ready to rev up!!


Melinda had quite the good time racing everyone :)

Finally, last but not least, was our end of year celebration honoring our senior students and all of Christian Challenge is invited! This year we went to Pizza Place California which always holds a special place in my heart because that's also where we went my first two years of school, so I have fond memories of that restaurant! Everyone got dressed up too and there were cries of "ooooo!!" and "that's such a pretty dress!" coming from the girls all night :) The guys didn't look too bad either, with their suits and ties, and it was just fun all around!!


picture with some of the classy ladies :)


and now some of the gentlemen...


followed by a photo of my Life group (Charlene, Rebekah, Lauren, myself and Alex). Taylor and Kaila couldn't make it, but it was still a fun time :)

And then, once everything was over, I took a week by myself and went to Lake Arrowhead where my parents graciously allowed me to use their cabin the whole time. It. Was. Amazing, and just what the doctor ordered!! I almost killed myself getting there because it was so stinkin' foggy on the way up, but Jesus got me through it! I was praying to Him literally every other second. Other than that lovely start, the week was glorious and I made 2 dishes that lasted me the whole week (spaghetti bolognese and tuna pasta salad) and I simply read, studied the Word, took long walks with God (when the weather permitted) and worked on some things. It was so great!! And I was apprehensive about spending a whole week alone because while I am an introvert, that doesn't mean that I don't like people! But it was a good week and sometimes I'd go into the village and walk around just so I could be near people :)

And with that, we're all caught up!! Summer Christian Challenge started last week and will continue throughout the summer, so there is that plus other projects to be working on!

I hope this finds you well and I'll be posting shortly! (really!)

Solus Veritas

"Solus Veritas" means "one truth" in Latin. The reason I bring this up is that tonight at USC we are having an event called The Veritas Forum. It started at Harvard in 1992 and has since expanded to universities all across the nation and even globe! It is basically an academic look at Christianity. Officially "Veritas Forums are university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life. We seek to inspire the shapers of tomorrow's culture to connect their hardest questions with the person and story of Jesus Christ."

"The Veritas Forum was started at Harvard in 1992 by a group of students, faculty, and ministers, led by Kelly Monroe Kullberg, as a response to an emptiness on campus. Universities, they perceived, had stopped addressing the most important questions of life: “What does it mean to be human? Why is there evil and suffering? Is there any meaning in death?” These questions cannot be avoided: in fact, an ongoing UCLA study shows that over 50% of entering freshmen hope to explore and define their beliefs during college. Yet the classroom rarely allows students to engage questions of meaning, purpose or faith.

And, in marginalizing such questions, universities fail to provide students room to develop a coherent worldview, making it difficult for many to integrate their academic knowledge with their lives. Veritas steps into this void, creating a space where people of all religious and cultural backgrounds are welcomed to explore ideas. Veritas encourages students to pursue Truth, connect their academic and vocational life to Christ, and emerge with clarity and hopeful vision for our world." (from veritas.org)

The topics range from "A thinking person's quest for meaning" and "What does it mean to be good? Two scholars, Christian and Secular, share their views" or "Does religion make a difference in academic life? Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Atheist perspectives."

The one tonight is "Same Evidence, Different Conclusions: Why? Is 'objective belief' an oxymoron?" featuring Oxford math professor John Lennox. He is in the same vein as C.S. Lewis because he offers a completely rational, logical and accessible view from Christianity. He has debated many prominent atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He also has about four degrees after his name, because one Masters and PhD isn't enough :)

Prof. Lennox was also at Stanford, Berkley and UCLA this week, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, and I heard from the National Veritas regional coordinator (who also happened to be on the planning team with me for the very first Veritas Forum at USC in 2004 - small world!) that Lennox knocked the ball outta the park all three days! Stanford had 450, Berkely had 800 and UCLA had 1,000 and still had to turn away 200!!! I don't think USC will get 1000, but oh my gosh!! These are questions that people want answers to that are not getting them answered in the classrooms!!

This is the first time Veritas has been at USC in five years, because the last Veritas Forum we had was when I was a senior in college and I was its director! We had it 3 years in a row, from 2004-2006, but after that it never got off the ground. This year we are just doing a one-day event, as opposed to the three-day venture it has been in the past. I LOVE Veritas because it shows a different side to Christianity that people don't normally think about, namely, that there is a purely logical and rational side to it. So many times I feel people take me down a few intellectual pegs when they find out I am a believer in Christ because "that's just hogwash/a crutch to make you feel better/no scientific evidence for it, etc" when really, I have checked out a lot of the major world religions and Christianity is the one that makes the most logical sense to me. There is an abundance of not only scientific, but also historical and archeological evidence for it, not to mention it makes the most sense philosophically to me for those deep questions that people have about the world. If you would like to chat further about that I am totally open, I have had many theological discussions with my friends where we talk about our specific worldviews and what led us to adopt them and they're just that, discussions.

I have heard it many times from speakers that people haven't rejected God, they have simply rejected their concept of Him. In my experience my friends that don't think anything of God have a skewed view of Him, mixed from bad experiences in the past, the media and their friends. That is why I love Veritas because it shows people that Christianity can indeed be logical because all the speakers we get have PhDs, so you know they're a smart bunch!

Our goal is NOT that everyone would convert to Christianity at all, but rather, that seekers, agnostics, atheists, other worldview holders would walk out of the event with a more favorable view of God and Jesus Christ. If someone comes to the event and they could care less about Jesus because He is an irrational fairy tale, yet they leave thinking there might be more to this Jesus guy, then that is a win in my mind! The purpose is not making everyone believe what we believe, but to introduce the topic of Christ into the deep, hard questions of life and see how He fits in. It is meant to be a discussion, not a lecture, and everyone from Christians to Jews to Muslims to Buddhists to atheists are all welcome to come and ask questions. I am so happy for this event to come back to USC!!

Below is a link to a 2 min preview of the topic "Same evidence, different conclusions, why?"

http://johnlennox.org/index.php/en/resource/same_evidence_different_conclusions_how/

Where my title came from...

So I was talking to a girl in my life group the other day about my blog and she asked me where I can up with the title and when I told her she got a good laugh. So I thought I should tell all three of you who read this about it so you can perhaps laugh too :)

"His strength, my strength." I wish I could say I came up with that on my own, but alas I cannot. I was inspired by a stranger at the beach. I was at Huntington Beach over a year ago and as I was walking down the strand, I noticed a guy washing off in those showers they have. I noticed him because not only was he good-looking but he had a cool tattoo on his side. He had this image on his right side:



No, it wasn't purple, but it was this exact shape in the tattoo green, with "His strength, my strength" written underneath and VOILA! the title for this blog was born :)

My friend couldn't believe that some random guy's tattoo was the inspiration, but I told her it was a pretty cool tattoo as far as tattoos go and I really liked the phrase he had! So now you know, hope that was a fun tidbit of information for you!

Living with Purpose

So over spring break we heard from 3 different speakers so I thought I would give each of them a day in which to let you know some things they talked about!

The first guy was Brett Yohn, the Christian Challenge director from the University of Nebraska. He is super awesome and so easy to talk to! He had four tips for living with purpose and the fun thing was that he introduced every one of them with clips from Lord of the Rings!!

In order for us to live with purpose we have to...

1) Enter in, idea of entering into people's lives and not staying content being in our holy huddles. The clip he showed was from Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo brought the ring to the Elf council and everyone was trying to figure out what to do with it when Frodo decides to "enter into" the story of the ring and take it himself. He didn't just sit back and let the others figure out what to do with the ring, but he took it upon himself to get involved in the saga of the ring's fate.

- Brett talked about how living the Christian life is a daily commitment and that we need to leave the confines of our homes and pursue relationships with those around me. He made the analogy of our lives being like a castle, where we could just chill with being by ourselves and be fine, but how we need to let down the drawbridge and enter into people's lives.

-- Genesis 12:1-3, God called Abraham, when he was 75, to uproot himself and his family and way of life and travel to the promised land.
-- Isaiah 49:5-6, "And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength— he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
--Psalm 2:8, "Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession."
--John 1:14, Jesus entered into human history and changed the course of this world forever, and if even He did that, and we are called to follow His example, we should get involved with people too!

2) Journey With, clip from Fellowship again, at the end, when Frodo tries to leave without Sam and Sam is determined to go and journey with Frodo no matter where that may lead them.

- Brett's point was that the Christian walk is not an individual sport, it's a team and a community and to find common interests/ground with others. He mentioned that whenever the apostles went out in the New Testament they usually went with teams, not alone. (Acts 3:1-6)

3) Impacted By, clip from The Two Towers, when Frodo and Sam are walking together and Sam asks whether or not people will tell stories about them to their kids and he mentions Frodo as being the hero to the story. Frodo then points out that Sam would be just as great a character as Frodo and how that reveals they both impacted each other.

- Brett talked about how we need to identify with the joys and sorrows of each other, how we need to not give up on each other.

-- 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, how we are called to share with people the message of reconciliation to Christ

- Brett mentioned that a deadly growth-killer is judging others, however, and how living by rules only and judging people is toxic because it leads to guilt and avoidance.

-- John 11:32-35, Jesus was so involved in people's lives that their pain became His pain

4) To Breathe Life Into, clip from Return of the King, when Frodo and Sam are on Mount Doom and Frodo can't go any further, Sam then decides to carry him to the top
- Brett talked about how we need to invest in a life-giving way to others and how we can only breathe out what we breathe in. When we attempt to live in the Spirit of God He will breathe life into us and into the lives of people we are trying to reach for Him.

- One thing I really liked that Brett asked was why don't people enter in, journey with and impact each other? Is it because we don't know about it?? NO! It's because doing these four steps costs too much!

Just because it's always fun to have pictures too, here are a few :)


This is the bus ride over, our seats were red and yellow, and yes, we also watched Aladdin :)


I called this one "the rise of man"


Picture of Lindsay and I as we were at the Garden of the Gods!! :)