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!! :)

Spring break!!

I cannot believe that spring break was only little more than a week ago - it seems so much longer! Christian Challenge went to Colorado Springs and stayed at Glen Eyrie, which is a retreat center owned by the Navigator ministry. It is a beautiful castle surrounded by lovely trees and red rocks.


mmmm, the castle, how I miss it so...

The weather was surprisingly nice too, no snow this time which was a bit sad, but then again it was beautiful regardless! We had three speakers:
- Brett Yohn who is the Challenge director of University of Nebraska
- Jim Peterson who lived in Brazil for over 30 years, has written multiple books, 2 of which I have read and LOVED - The Insider and Living Proof - highly, *highly* recommend you read them because they helped to re-shape my concept of evangelism!!
- Jim Downing, who is a whopping 97 years old and is still going strong for Christ! He was in Pearl Harbor, yes you read that right, he was actually IN Pearl Harbor!! He is now retired but still speaks all around the nation (and world I think) about walking with Christ.


Jim as he spoke to the USC and California Baptist Univ. groups

The conference was long, but it was not exhausting. The schedule has a good amount of free time and so even though the mornings were packed with breakfast (we had crepes one day, CREPES!! the food there was crazy delicious and not at all what you would expect at a retreat center :), then main session followed by a work shop we still had the afternoons free! It was lovely and I am still in the process of re-writing my notes so that I can organize them better because they gave us a notebook, but in order to have them handy by topic I thought I'd re-write them, plus helps me to go over them at the same time so it's a win-win!!

I'll update more tomorrow and this week with updates of things I learned, but for now here are some pictures :)


this is a bird's eye view of the Great Hall where we would have our main sessions. Lots of people as you can see! We maxed out the castle with bringing 350 people :)


This is a pic of Olivia, myself and Makena. Both Olivia and Makena are freshmen, even though I look like I'm the youngster because they are a FOOT taller than me!! Makena said they were just being my bodyguards for the day, so I'll take that :)


Rebekah and I :) she is in my life group and really has the strong desire to grow in her walk with God!!


This is a photo of the USC group on the last day. It had snowed a little bit and we were just about to leave but you can't leave before taking a group photo right?


and of course you need a fun one right? ;)


we also had a large group photo of all 350 of us, and of course the USC-ers in the back had to flash the victory sign :)

and now for the piece de resistance, I will end this post with a video from spring break. The last night we have what is called "Follies" which is basically a funny talent show. This year saw everything from a kazoo choir from Oklahoma State "kazoo-ing" Katy Perry's "Firework" to Spartan cheerleaders from Univ. of Oklahoma (a la Will Ferrell and Cheri O'teri) and a lip-synch to Mulan's "I'll make a man out of you." My personal favorite, however, was a joint effort between the schools. There was a band called the Shnazzy Shoes and the lead singer was USC's very own worship leader, back-up was an Oklahoma State-an and playing the djembe was a guy from OU. Their song? "Metabolism Baby" and it is crazy catchy and everyone was singing it that night! I have since watched it a few times on youtube :) So without further ado, I give you "Metabolism Baby"

It's a Girl Thing

So thankfully my weekend after the Superbowl was pretty awesome and free from my team getting beaten by cheeseheads. My work, Christian Challenge, had a woman's retreat all day Saturday with the option of having the girls sleep over at some of the staff women's places. We called it "It's a Girl Thing" and the theme was all about relationships, specifically woman friendships. Myself and 2 of the other staff women ran around all day Friday like we were chickens with our heads cut off getting everything we needed and cleaning and shopping and sweeping and oh my goodness it was crazy.

Saturday started at 10am for the girls and we were there at 8am to help with all the last minute stuff. Once all the girls arrived we had brunch with delicious egg & sausage casserole, cinnamon rolls, fruit salad and juice!! There were about 30 of us total, including a few of our alums we asked to stop by. Once we were all finished our first of two speakers got there. We asked Mary Ross, a Challenge alum, to share about what friendship is to her and how God has designed it from His Word. She graduated in 2007 and is finishing up her last year at UCLA law school (yes, she's at UCLA but she's a Trojan at heart :) and Mary hit the ball out of the park! She was a very good speaker, had a lot of good examples from her own life and challenged the girls to really take the time to initiate friendships with their peers in college because the old adage is true - once you graduate it's a whole lot harder to make friends!

She talked about how a friend is someone you can laugh with, cry with and wait with. She said that our culture is of the mind to just "have a lot of friends!!" but how true friends are hard to come by and it's worth it to just have a few of those heart friends to live life with. The thing I liked the most was when she said that we really only have 2 kinds of relationships that we can control - our relationship with God and our relationships with friends. We can't control the romantic relationships but we can control the other two! And how those 2 kinds of relationships FAR outlive other tangibles in our lives like what kind of job we have, the kind of house we live in, etc.

She talked about John 15:12-15 where Jesus calls the disciples His friends, and how He has called you and me His friends, how He has invited us into friendship with Him, the Creator of the universe!! Jesus chose to get involved in our lives and we need to choose the same with the relationships that He has given us now.

Then after Mary spoke we decoupaged picture frames!! It was so super much fun and I definitely want to do it again in the future!!


so pretty right? well, I was pleased with it, it came out a lot better than I thought!! We laid out all the frames and it was really cool to see all the different styles of the girls come out in how they decorated their frames!

Then we mingled some more, snacked on veggies, pita chips and hummus, then heard from our second speaker, Stacey Klepzig. She graduated in the early 90's and now has 2 kids and we wanted 2 different ages and stages of our speakers so that the girls could see people putting God's Word into action a few years removed from college and then decades later too! She was fantastic and brought props too! She said that God's design for us as we relate is to give our lives away and ask Him for His heart for people. She talked about some of the obstacles we face in doing that (our lack of prayer, "not enough time," lack of forgiveness, faulty concept of God and/or people among others) and the blessings we get when we decide to open ourselves up to people. It certainly gave me a lot to think about! Then we had mini discussions with the other alumni who were there and it was great to see the girls opening up with each other!! :)

Then more mingling and then it was time for dinner! We all made it together - pork, chicken and veggie kababs, rice pilaf (I was the leader of that team seeing as how I think I was the only one who had ever had it!!) and fatoosh salad!! It was stinkin' delicious and fun to kick back with the girls!!

Then some of the girls left early and we also had fruit salsa and tortilla chips that we made which were dusted with cinnamon sugar - ridiculously good!! Then we made fun headbands or hair clips, and one of our girls brought henna so we got tattoos :)


The flower is mine and the other is Jessyka, one of our freshmen :)


Melinda even got one!! A heart with a flag inside waving the name "Neil" - so cute and hilarious!!!

We left Melinda's place at 10:30pm, then slept and my roomie Erin and I had breakfast with Melinda and the girls who slept over at her place - waffles!! It was a crazy fun weekend but I am also glad to have a night off tonight and recouperate!!

Hope you're having a great Valentine's Day!!!

Superbowl sadness :(

So it has now been one week and a day since the bad guys (aka the Green Bay Packers) won the Superbowl and I am still upset. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it or anything, because I'm sure my boys will be back soon, but it is still annoying. More so because when I came to USC for work the next day I saw no less than 4 Packers jerseys AND a girl wearing a cheesehead!!! She was going into Starbucks and as hilarious as that is, I do have to tip my hat to her for actually wearing that embarrassing thing on her head (it looked really old and beaten up too...)


GROSS. The only good thing is that Clay Matthews now has a ring...


This is me with my friend Jimmy who is a HUGE Packers fan - notice the cheesehead AND jersey - yes his team won the game on the field, but I'd still rather be a Steelers fan than a Packers fan :)

Steelers! Steelers! Steelers!!!!

In case you are not a football fan, you might not know the match-up of the Superbowl this year. Next Sunday, Feb. 6th, is the showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. The Packers are a good team, they have a great quarterback in Aaron Rodgers, he is ridiculously good. He played an almost perfect game against USC in 2004 and they really outplayed us, but with some luck we won out. I knew he was going to be good in the pros...

Another reason the Packers got this far is this guy right here:



That crazy long-haired man is Clay Matthews, who was also a Trojan, which is probably why he is so good. He is crazy, and his hair is even crazier, as proven by this:



BUT

the Packers are playing a little-known team known as the Steelers, which basically means they'll lose. The Steelers are the best team in NFL history. How can I possibly say that? Well, let me put it this way. They are the only team that needs TWO FISTS in order to show off all their Superbowl rings. They have 6 rings, soon to be 7 (hopefully) and they also have a guy named TROY POLAMALU:



And yes, again he is a Trojan :)



That man is a BEAST and will take down anyone and anything in his way. So go Steelers and go Troy!!!

I really should be better at this by now

Hello again,

I just want to start off by saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't update this as much as I said I would and that the layout is laughingly bare...still. I aim to do better this semester and post a couple times a week so check back for my progress. I cannot promise that it will always make you smile, or giggle, or marvel at my non-existent writing skills, but I shall post! It might just be a picture, but hey, pictures are cool right so that will be okay.

Anyhoo - to re-cap winter break, it went like this:

GO GO GO PARTY GO GO GO FOOD GO GO TOO MUCH FOOD GO GO PARTY GO GO STOP! relax, rest, sleep, repeat and finally feel refres-START SEMESTER AGAIN!

That is honestly how it went, and it usually does that too - with tons of things to do before Christmas, fun things like parties with Challenge and family, and then driving all around LA delivering gifts for my Dad (in the RAIN - 9 hours, I counted) and then it was blissfully over after Christmas and I got to relax, shop and sleep which was pretty much the best part.

How did God work in my life during the aforementioned break? Well, He first made me continue to lean on Him as my rheumatoid arthritis (doesn't that sound like a great evil doctor genius name? "Oh NO!! Here comes the evil doctor genius Dr. Rheumatoid-Arthritis!!") came back sooner than last time, and this *after* we had increased my medication dosage!



It has been slowly but steadily coming back now since August of last year, showing signs at 6 weeks, 5.5 weeks and then 4 weeks this past break. I checked the calendar when I was starting to feel more signs and I thought surely it must be at least 6 weeks by now, but nope! Exactly at the 4 week mark, the Wednesday before Christmas. So that has been another intense lesson in leaning on God 100% because I literally cannot get through a day on my own strength and energy. Like the title of this blog, His strength is my strength and He gave me what I needed when I needed it! Yes, there were and are still times of pain and wondering "why God? why now? Why is this stupid thing back??" but the thing is, I trust that God knows *exactly* what He is doing. That even though I do not understand it or like it, I have 2 choices: 1) get increasingly bitter and angry over my lot in life and thus give up on God because what kind of god allows this OR 2) continue to walk with God because I know that He will give me what I need and the tools to deal with this thing in the best way. No-brainer really. Yes, I'd like to be all Wonder-Woman (or old-school Batman, because Batman is amazing) and just KA-POW this evil doctor genius in the face and watch it die, but I can't really do that, with or without God's help because that is UNREALISTIC. Fun to think about though...there could be a short comic series in that.



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Oh, so how about right now? What is God teaching me? So glad you asked! He is teaching me about faithfulness and diligence through one of my newest favorite characters in the Bible - Joshua. I am reading through Joshua right now and holy MOLY that guy is awesome!!! He does what is asked of him, he obeys completely and does not question God's orders, even and especially when they are super weird. Example of this is when God tells Joshua to overthrow the city of Jericho, but not the normal "fight! fight! fight!" way, but by marching around the city walls once a day for six days, and on the 7th day to walk around it 7 times, have their priests blow their trumpets and the walls will miraculously fall down and they'll be able to waltz right into the city and take it. Now, Joshua is a fighting man, and this seems pretty ODD instructions, but he doesn't question it nor does he delay in obeying it! He does everything *exactly* as God told him and VOILA!! the walls came down and they took the city!! You can read more about it in Joshua 5-6, it's pretty awesome.

In fact, the verse I'm memorizing this week is Joshua 11:15 which says, "As the Lord commanded His servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses."

He did everything he was asked, and did it with excellence. That is why he is fastly becoming one of my favorite characters in the Bible - he knows what needs to be done and he does it, with excellence. That is a pretty good example to follow.

Hokay, my hands are a little sore from all this writing, but I shall leave you with this, the funny of the day to make you laugh, because laughing is awesome and extends your life right?