Poop

I haven't updated this week because I'm having a bit of writer's block.  So much has happened in the last week and half, and so many times I've thought, "this would be good to share," but I've got nothing. This always happens when I'm working on new songs.  If I'm song writing, my other writing suffers.  Oh well, I'm ok with it.

This week has gone well... extremely fast because I've been extremely busy.  My weeks always start off looking empty, but they always end up being totally booked up.  Because of my schedule, I don't have much of a life outside of church these days.  Aside from some loneliness creeping in, I'm ok with my it.  All things youth seem to be going really well.  I love my kids.  The young adults have been fantastic and I'm really enjoying our very colorful discussions.  It's been really great to work with them.

I'm still adjusting to life in Jersey.  I still have to explain what pop is about once or twice a week.  East coast cars aren't built with cruise control... that, or people don't know how to use it.  The left lane should be the fast lane, but I guess no one here got that memo.  In Chicago, turn signals never turn off, here people just don't use them at all.  I don't know which I despise more.  People here drink wudder instead of water... I'm not sure the school system is teaching correctly.  Maybe once I'm a sub I can actually make a difference.  I think most of the crickets on earth are in this area... and I think they're here just because I'm paralyzed with fear by the mere sound of them.  There are about 5 or 6 in my basement right now which means my laundry is not getting done.  Thus is the life of a single girl.  Moving on...

Since I can't really remember all of the things I've been wanting to share, I'm going to tell you a story from my day.

This morning when I arrived at work, the first thing I noticed was that there was about 3 little piles of poop.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Poop.  While I normally think poop is quite funny, it's a different story when it's all around your office.  The piles were kind of in a line coming from the window where the air conditioner is located.  Looking at the window, I saw that the make-shift side that had been placed there to close the gap between the wall and the air conditioning unit had been knocked away.  Seeing as though my office windows are at ground level, my first thought was that a squirrel had made it way in, pooped, found no food, and left.

So someone came and resealed the gap as I continued to work.  I happened to be working on stenciling words onto the wall, which meant I was on a ladder about 80% of the day.  Being a little jumpy, not knowing if the animal was gone or if it was going to jump out and scare me off the ladder, I tried to remind myself to keep steady.  Once of twice a fly landed on the overhead projector I was using and nearly caused me to jump ship, but in the end I was able to keep from being startled down.

I leave the office a bit early on Thursdays because I have to be there for about 3 hours in the evening.  I got home around 3, went on a 2 mile walk with Piper, dusted the downstairs, did the dishes, and cooked an early dinner.  When I got back to the church at 6, my desk was a mess.  Things had been knocked over, paper was askew, and yes, there was more poop.  This time the poop was all over my desk... right next to my computer, in my African basket with the paper in it, on my transparencies with some names of God on them.  How rude, right?

So I sent an email and within an hour someone was there with a live trap.  He set the trap and will come back and check it before I go into work tomorrow.  Hopefully the little pooper is caught and gone by the time I go in.  If not, I'll be on high alert as I spend tomorrow on the ladder again.  I just hope I don't have to clean up more little gifts from it.  Although, it does remind me of getting to my classroom every morning in Uganda and finding lots and lots of lizard and bat poop everywhere.  It's a memory you'd think I would try to block out, but a memory of my time in Africa is always something I'm thankful for.  The end.

Speaking of Africa, I get to share about my time there tomorrow evening.  I'm really looking forward to  sharing such a huge part of who I am with my church family.  It has very much shaped the person I am today.  Moyo wangu ni kuna.  Afrika mimi nakupenda.

Musicianship

Thank you.  It's very obvious that you all prayed and I'm very appreciative!  This week was SO different from last week.  For starters, I didn't nearly break my foot.  (My foot is still quite sore, especially since I haven't had time for rest, but it will heal!)  That's a win in my book.  Once again, I found myself busy every day and every evening.  Little things always turn into big things.  A "small" project takes, what seems like forever sometimes.  BUT all in all it was a good week.  It seemed like meetings went well and were productive.  Lessons were well planned out.  Both kids and adults showed up to play paintball and for youth group.  Personally, I had some very sweet times with Jesus and though the enemy tried pretty hard to bring me down, it just wasn't happening this week.  I was even able to drive up to North Jersey and see my friend/Uganda roomie who will be moving to Uganda permanently soon.  It was very much a blessing to see her and catch up.

This past Thursday night I was invited to a Tenth Avenue North concert.  I'm always up for a free concert, so of course I went.  It was nice to have a night away!  For those who don't know, Tenth Ave is a Christian band.  They've become increasingly popular over the past few years.  I'm sure that if you listen to Christian radio you're familiar with their music.  They are a very big deal to people around here because one of the band members is from here and I believe he grew up going to Delanco (the camp I've been involved with here).  

We got to the show a bit early and as we waited for the doors to open we chatted a bit and were greeted by people who knew others in my group.  Once we got to our seats, which were very close, we saw even more familiar faces.  It was so strange and yet such a sweet gift to see people I recognize after only being here for 3 months.  

The opening band was called Rend Collective Experiment.  They're an Irish band and I'm pretty sure I've heard of them before, but Thursday night I was blown away by their performance.  Let me preface this by saying that I'm generally pretty critical of musicians.  Not only am I classically trained, but I love music theory and I've been in some sort of band constantly for the past 15 years.  I can hear when the harmony is off, when a guitar is out of tune, or when the drummer speeds up.

Rend Collective Experiment was amazing.  It was difficult to take my eyes off the stage while they were worshiping.  The passion that was exuding from each musician was blatant.  They were having a blast doing what they clearly love to do and drawing us into worship.  Beyond that though, I have never heard a live performance that was so spot on and nearly perfect in my whole life.  I was so mesmerized by them, my focus was completely on the music and the pure, stunning sounds that were being lifted to God.  Every note was crisp.  The harmonies were intricate and perfect.  I'm completely blown away by their extraordinary skill and obvious love of music.  They each seemed to play multiple instruments too (and NOT common instruments either!).  It's so rare to see such a group with such amazing musicianship.  I've seen other bands live who do a great job, but they don't even compare.  Maybe it's because I was there to worship God, but it was just so darn easy to lift my hands to the One who created the earth while I was surrounded by such beauty.  I am not sure that I've ever heard another earthly sound that was so pure and heavenly.  

I've truly heard angels sing during times of worship before and those times were amazing, awe inspiring, and holy.  This experience with Rend Collective Experiment is the closed I've come to hearing such amazing sounds again.  It was incredible.  If I wasn't broke, I'd have bought every piece of music they've ever recorded!  I believe they're on iTunes... I encourage you to check them out.  I'm not sure it will have the same effect as the live versions, but definitely worth it!  

The second act was very good too.  Her voice was very pure and she had amazing control.  Then Tenth Ave came on.  They were very good, high energy, and very genuine.  Their passion for both Jesus and music is very evident.  I was pleasantly surprised... not that I thought they'd be bad, but I'm just not as crazy about them as everyone else around here seems to be.  I would definitely see them again and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing their stories and witnesses to how God has worked in their lives.  Praise be to God! 

Tonight at youth group as we looked at the creation account we decided that God is so kooky... in a good way of course.  I'm excited to see what our kooky God has in store for this busy week ahead.  Thanks again for praying with me last week.  Please let me know how I can be praying for you!

Deeply Bruised, Not Defeated

Gather 'round, it's story time!  Saturday I decided to try something new with Piper, my puppy.  I wanted to see how much of a mess she would make if I left her in the kitchen with nothing on the floor instead of in her crate.  So I picked up the recycle bin and put it on top of the garbage can.  I put the little rug and case of water on one of the stools.  There was nothing on the floor that she could get at to ruin if she didn't do well.  I went over to work for a little while, building trees, getting ready for yesterday's first youth group of the school year.  I was only there for about 45 minutes before I began to feel nervous about her being home.  Walking through the door, I was pleased to see that there weren't any little surprises for me to clean up.  Success!

Not wanting to push my luck, Piper joined me at work.  She loves to be in the youth room.  She hops from couch to couch, finds bugs, eats them, and brings them to me, and she has a special place where she likes to sleep.  It didn't take much longer to finish the trees, look over my lesson, and get a few other things in order.  It was just about dinner time for the puppy anyways.  So we got home, I fed the dog, let her out, played with her, and then started cooking my dinner.  Then it happened.

Wanting to throw something away, I moved the recycle bin back to floor so I could get at the garbage can.  Well apparently in doing so, the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall was bumped and jumped off, right down onto the top of my foot.  My immediate thought was, "oh crap, it's broken... now I'm gonna have to sit at the ER all by myself which is going to take forever!!"  A bit dramatic, I know.  

This was the absolute LAST thing I wanted to deal with after a very challenging week.  In that simple action, it became exceedingly obvious that satan was going to do everything he could in order to stop youth group from taking place.  Sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, super annoyed and feeling a bit defeated, I said aloud, "Youth group is going to happen!!  In the name of Jesus, it's going to happen.  You don't win."  So not only did I look ridiculous because I was sitting in the middle of the floor, but I also looked nuts because I was seemingly talking to myself.  On top of that, Piper was all up in my grill because she obviously knew I was hurting.

My next move was to get some prayer warriors on it.  I called Trent, in Indiana and simply asked for prayer.  He said he'd pray and get others on it too.  Next I just decided that life needed to go on.  I wasn't going to sit in the ER on  a Saturday night alone, so I finished cooking dinner.  Just before I finished cooking a church member called about something completely unrelated.  We chatted for a few and then I asked her to pray.  She offered to go to the hospital with me, but I refused and instead went over and watched a movie with her.  It was swollen and bruised but the pain was manageable, so I figured life would go on.  

The next day, Sunday was booked solid for me.  I was at church by 7:45am and was only home for about an hour during the day before finally getting home at 9 last night.  After that long of a day my foot was not happy.  I had been told by numerous people that I should really go get it an x-ray.  I wouldn't have agreed to go at all if my mom hadn't pointed out that I had a broken bone in my foot that I ignored my freshman year of high school... I later had to have surgery on my foot to repair the damage.  That recovery was the big suck, so this morning when I woke up I decided I'd go have it looked at (although it really didn't look that bad to me today).

The end result?  A "deep bone bruise."  The doctor gave me this ridiculous looking shoe thing to help keep weight off of it... it was that or use a cain.  I may be getting old, but I'm NOT using a cain for a bruise!  How silly.  When I got home the shoe was off within about an hour.  It's too big and it looks so dramatic for something so small.  I googled bone bruises and learned that they might feel like fractures and take a long time to heal properly.  Duh.  The doc said I had to wear the shoe thing for at least a week, but he definitely made it seem like that was just for my own comfort.  I was also told to rest, no sports or exercise.  Um, yeah right.  I have a 5 month old puppy who drives me nuts if she doesn't get energy out on a walk.  

So, on our walk tonight (wearing normal shoes, I might add) I began to feel the repercussions of my choices... quite a bit of pain throbbing through my foot.  My foot may be sore, but I refuse to stop life because of it.

This past week, I was beaten up.  I was bruised badly by the evil one through a few different sources and situations.  There were so many times when I just wanted to lay down and admit defeat.  It reminded me a lot of the last year I spent in Africa.  As you know, I was sick or injured in some way almost the entire year that I was gone.  It gets old, very quickly.  How discouraging, right?  However, God sustained me last year.  I was never so badly beaten that I couldn't move forward in ministry.  His strength sustains.  My joy can't be stolen, Jesus has won, once and for ALL.  How beautiful that the Holy Spirit battles on our behalf!  Thank you, God.

I'll leave you with 2 short passages that have encouraged me lately.

"And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."  Romans 8:26-28


"We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies."  2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Temporary Home

My roommate while in Uganda and very dear friend, Jean drove down here from North Jersey last Thursday so we could head to a wedding of one of our other Uganda roommates in Indiana for the weekend.  Laughter ensued almost immediately as we reunited, talked about Africa, and shared a meal.  My heart was overwhelmed with joy, reminiscing in the memories of a place that has forever ruined me (ruined me in the best way possible).  The next morning we left my house by 6am to start our safari, journey, to Indiana, which included a stop in PA to pick up one of our former students in Uganda.  

The road trip really began after our brief stop in PA.  The three of us laughed, listened to good music, good comedy, and just enjoyed each other's presence.  It was beautiful.  Once we crossed into Ohio, my heart was anxious and ready to be in Indiana.  For so long it was a place of intense pain, although it was mixed with great joy because of the youth kids there.  

The pain that was once crippling is gone and now there's such freedom that I simply couldn't wait to be there, in a place I called home for so many years during and after college.  Crossing into Indiana was beyond exciting!  After being in the car ALL day, I was ready to see my friend and be somewhere so familiar it's like being all the way home.  As we approached my friend's house, my head was pounding.  I simply thought it was due to over excitement and a looooong car ride.

After we got settled in, we went out for dinner and then to an ice cream place owned by some people we know from the church there.  Towards the end of dinner I could tell that something wasn't right; I was feeling super hot and a little bit weak.   Weird because I don't get sick often.  By the time we got to the ice cream place I was ready to be home.  I couldn't even eat my ice cream and it was obvious that I had a fever.  

What a way to begin the week which, by the way, was way over booked in order to see as many people as possible!  I prayed and asked others to pray, went to the pharmacy and got some meds, and we went home.  I did my best to suck it up and have a good time regardless of how I was feeling.  The girls and I were exhausted from the drive anyways, so we all just kind of chilled and played a game.  At about 1am, I was definitely ready to sleep and the others were already in bed or getting ready for bed.  So we ended the game and went to bed.  I was so hot and uncomfortable that I hardly slept at all that night.  It was one of those nights where I kept looking at the clock, thinking about how much time I had left before I had to get up.  Ugh!

So the next day I still wasn't feeling well and now I was exhausted as well.  We went about our day as scheduled.  The girls met up with someone else from Uganda while my friend and I met up with a friend from college.  It was lovely, of course.  By the time we got home, it was time to get ready for the wedding that was that evening.  We got ready and drove the hour and a half to the venue.  I still wasn't feeling awesome, but definitely better than the night before.

My nerves were on high alert as we tried to get there on time and as I thought about the people I'd be reuniting with that evening.  The ceremony was perfect.  It was outdoors at the home of the bride on a beautiful little pond in the middle of nowhere, Indiana.  The weather didn't cooperate so well and it rained during the ceremony, but it was perfect because the bride and groom didn't care.  People brought out some umbrellas and they continued as if nothing were wrong.  Immediately my mind I was thinking about how awful my hair was going to look once it fro-ed out, but as I watched the couple standing there, embracing the weather I did too.  I've been to a lot of weddings where a lot of brides would have panicked in a similar situation, but as we lifted out voices in worship to the Lord, nothing else mattered but bringing Him glory.  It was a little glimpse of heaven.

The reception was fantastic and we had a blast!  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many people I had only seen in Uganda before.  What a joy to celebrate in America together and get caught up on life after serving in Uganda.  There was no discord, only joy and peace.  Thanks be to God.  I count myself blessed to know such a loving, servant-hearted group of people who desire to further God's kingdom in all that they do!

We got home late that evening, but I wanted to take advantage of the short time I had with my Indiana friend.  Instead of going to bed we went out and got dessert and then stayed up until about 2 playing a game.  Around 3:30 I finally drifted off to sleep, only to wake up at 7 to get ready for church.  We went to church where I was greeted by some youth kids that I just love so dearly.  I didn't know that a few of them were even in town, as they're college students right now... what a sweet surprise.  It was awesome to reconnect with the church family there... a place that's been so familiar for the 5.5 years, since my friend has worked there.  I've been blessed to know these kids and watch them grow from middle school to college.  What an extreme honor to be a part of such a group. 

After church we all went out to lunch and hung out for a while before the girls and I got back on the road to come home.  The ride back was not nearly as fun as the ride out.  I was very ready to be home after not sleeping for so long.  Our conversation was good as we tried to keep each other awake.  After dropping our student off in PA, we got home around 1am.  I played with with my puppy until about 2 before feeling so exhausted that I didn't think I would even make it upstairs.  I woke up at 9 or 10 with plans to go back to sleep as soon as I took care of the dog.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend.  Laughing until tears flow is one of my favorite things to do... and it happened a LOT.  Beyond the laughter, the sweet times, good conversations, and memories with everyone I was able to see is what I'm most thankful for.

It was a bit strange to be just one state away from home and to not see my family.  My brain naturally goes west when I'm leaving my friend's apartment.  I wouldn't say it was hard to go east because this place has quickly become home, but it was just different.  It's so interesting how engrained certain things become... how much creatures of habit we actually are. 

I miss hugging my nieces, playing, painting nails,, singing, and putting them to bed.  I miss seeing them everyday, watching them grow, hearing their little voices as they learn new words and concepts.  I miss my brother, sister, brother-in-law, and my parents.  Today I'm resting in the assurance that this is where I've been called, that this is my home for now.  This world is only my temporary home, anyways.  :)

I'll leave you with a quote that I love by Louie Giglio from his book "i am not, but i know I AM"...

Simply because He wanted to, He fashioned each of us to His own image, creating within us the capacity to know Him. And if that wasn't staggering enough, in spite of our foolishness and rebellious hearts, God has pursued us with relentless passion and patience, fully expressing to us His unfathomable love through the mercy and grace of the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ."

Amen.