Sunday

This last Sunday my friend Kristi invited me to go to Church with her. She's been after me to visit this church for over a month now, and finally it worked out for me to go. Neither of us have cars (or at least legally drivable cars yet) so her friend Adam said he would pick us up. I had no idea that the Adam was THE Adam I've had class with for the last two semesters and we were both surprised when he pulled up to discover that we semi-knew each other already.
The church was nestled in the heart of 'Kentucky backwoods' and we drove through miles of rolling hills just starting to become green. Acres of picket fences lined the fields that weren't covered by scraggly stands of trees, and old Southern style farmhouses were dotted here and there. They were far different from the farmhouses in the upper Midwest where my parents are. Instead of little boxes with a welcoming porch with steps leading up to it, and very pointy roofs to shed the heavy snows in the winter times these were little boxes with a porch ground level with whitewashed pillars leading up to the roof on the second-story. I'm not really sure what it is with the Southerners and their pillars, but they seem to be the preferred style of decor on buildings of any significance. Maybe its kind of like sweet tea: if you are native, you completely understand. If you are foreign, ya just never quite get it, and still rebel and go back to taking your tea HOT with sugar and, gasp of gasps, creamer or milk in it.
Anyway. Back to my poetic description of the scenery I drank in as we sped along. (We made it rather early, and the chauffeur WAS a fellow, single, male college student, which makes me think we weren't going strictly the speed limit. But hey, five mile over rule, right?) It was surprising to me how much I felt encouraged by watching cows grazing while their calves frolicked beside them and saw homesteads with the typical assortment of acreage maintaining equipment and odd junk that is usually collected by country homes. If nothing else, the visit was worth the ride.
We soon were weaving up and down and around hills with young woods and little "cow-towns'' with old trucks and rusty cars. Ahhh... refreshing. Nice cars are nice, and although I am quite capable of thriving in more elite circles, I always feel more at home and relaxed amongst grass-root (or 'peasant' if going with european terms) mid-to-lower middle class settings. I don't think my Hungarian host mom every quite understood why on earth I took such joy in what she called her 'primitive' home. (to her joy the house has been remodeled with modern appliances. I'm happy for her, but miss the old corn-cob burning stoves)
The church service was refreshing as well. Kristi taught Sunday-school for kids, and so I went to the Women's Sunday school by myself. I was the youngest by far there, but felt put at ease at once as they all jumped up and gave me hugs and showed me where the coffee was and asked me about myself. While I definitely respect my elders, there was no condescension amongst these ladies and I felt as at home with them as I used to when visiting with the mom's of the ladies in the Homeschool groups my mom ran.
We had a time of prayer requests and I shared some things that was going on in my life after some hesitation. They were sympathetic but quick to point out all the ways in which God's hand was being seen and referenced many Scriptural Truths that I knew but still needed reminded of.
There was no judgment, only a desire to encourage and build up in the faith.
Perhaps I am painting a rather perfectionist picture of my day. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly encouraging.
The service was in a style of worship similar to that which I had grown up with. At the end of which Adam, Kristi and I were invited to one of the homes of the ladies in the Sunday school I attended for lunch. So after Adam finished helping to break down the church (they met in a high-school building and had to put everything away after each service on Sundays) Kristi and I made our way towards Adam's car. Two kids were waiting for us, a little girl and boy. The girl was whistling at the top of her lungs.
"Hey bird! Pipe down, will ya?" Adam yelled at her.
"Shut up!" she retorted.
Kristi and I exchanged glances. The next ten minutes was spent watching Adam and the two kids move stuff from his backseat into his car and exchange a volley of insults that stemmed from a long history of familial affection. Kristi whispered to me that this family had 'adopted' Adam into their hearts and the kids saw him as their big brother.
I hoped and maybe even prayed that the home we were going to wasn't a very fancy one, full of matching decorations and coffee-toned paint on the walls that all coordinated with the dishware. Silly of me perhaps, but I was enjoying the country feel of things. To my great delight, we pulled up to a little cottage/farmhouse that was obviously well loved and being renovated by the owners over a period of years. A wooden picket fence surrounded the backyard and a goldfish pond and fountain was sectioned off by the fence in a little cloistered area between the house and the garage (both of which looked to be about 80 years old). To further my joy, the lady of the house loved gardens, and crocuses and other flowering plants were peeping up through the mud. We walked into the house to a living room with mis-matched furniture -just what I was used to - and Kristi and I made our way into the kitchen. It was painted dark red with white cabinets, and hand-made wooden shelves were tucked here and there to hold Pampered Chef apparatus. I wanted to laugh with joy.
We were fed grilled pork chops, biscuits, baked and grilled potatoes, canned green beans, and our choice of an assortment of soda, sweet tea, juice, or water.
The drive back to campus was very quiet, as we had all eaten our fill and were all struggling to stay awake. Adam turned on some upbeat jazz music.

That evening I made some chicken-vegetable soup and shared it with my friends the Tant family. Aaron is at Seminary and his wife Lisa is expecting their second child, and little Eli has just entered the "Terrible Two" stage. They've been struggling financially, and since my morning was so blessed I decided to bless them with dinner. All I had was soup and laughter at their retelling of how they started dating interrupted sporadically with scolding little Eli who thought that everyone else's food looked better than his own, and kept getting down from his seat to go find something tucked away in different corners that weren't supposed to be excavated by little fingers. But they appreciated it and I appreciated them as well.

It was a nice breather because this week has been full of catering events, which I love working, but always finish exhausted. Yesterday Andrei and I were behind while setting up, and somehow an entire table ended up without napkins at any of the place settings. Not just paper napkins, the snazy cloth napkins specially folded elegantly. After we opened the doors and five people nicely informed us of the napkin-lack, I told Andrei I'd get the napkins. That involved running down three floors of stairs at the hotel, across a parking lot, through the cafeteria, into the kitchen - which was full of two flustered chefs who were behind on things themselves - into the back where the linens were, grabbing the napkins, dashing back through the cafeteria, almost crashing into a poor student simply trying to pay for his meal, back across the parking lot up the three flights of stairs and almost running into Andrei who wondered if I had gotten the sodium-free meal for one guest on a special diet for health reasons. Whew. Dashing back down across and through to learn from the one flustered-chef that the other flustered-chef had just left with the meal while I was busy dashing about.
I decided to walk slowly back to the catering event and let my sweat dry before I started serving sweet tea.

Speaking of which, I must go get ready to work my second shift of the day in said cafeteria. *sigh* My pocket-book is glad for so many extra hours. However my room mate wants me to work the 6 AM event on Saturday (which means up at 5 am again) and I already work 11-2:30 on Saturday... I pulled a 6am-2:30 pm last Saturday... not sure I want to do it again this weekend.... We'll see.

~Princess Ouch~

Open Sea!!

A good friend of the family from England lent my family a CD by Eden's Bridge about five years ago and there was this song I absolutally loved. It had great visuals and cool lyrics, but I haven't heard it since then. This evening I was procrastinating writing a paper and found the song on Youtube!!! So I thought I'd share with you and then get back to the paper. (Its not a PAPER paper, its more a weekly report. Only about a page and a half long. Teeheehee...) Anyway hope you enjoy. The lyrics (as near as I could make them out) are under the video. It seems rather relevant to the season God has me in right now, or at least what I hope the result I hope for at the end of this season :-)



Cast adrift, there's time for me
to think of all that I have been
that I have been

To wonder upon Your word to me
to all the gifts You've given to me

With the turning tide
and the falling leaves
with the drifting snow
I begin to see
The dawning day
opening for me
the meaning of Your Word to me

Be at peace
Upon the open sea
Accept and know
Your word to me

With the turning tide
and the falling leaves
with the drifting snow
I begin to see
The dawning day
opening for me
the meaning of Your Word to me

Share the gift
wherever you may be
and ever only always sing to me

With the turning tide
and the falling leaves
with the drifting snow
I begin to see
the dawning day
opening for me
the meaning of your word to me

share the gift wherever you be
and ever only always sing to me
OH and give as freely
as I have given to you
and serve your brother
whom my love reaches through you

Adventure

Went on another 'field trip' today. This time to two homeless shelters in the city. The first one was fine. The director was passionate, Baptist, graduate of the seminary, started several programs for people around the country to come live for 3 months to a year and volunteer. They have a 'post office' of sorts, where about 2,500 homeless people have their mail delivered and can pick it up whenever they need. They have programs for families, drug addicts, alcoholics, job training, discipleship. Inspirational but not my cup of tea.
The second place we visited was, in all honesty, what my idea of purgatory would be like. Just the construction of the building, the hospital-ness of it, bare walls and old tile floors. The atmosphere in general - the smell of cigarettes on the people who walked by.
The staff did their best to make the renovated nursing home as home-like as possible for the 650 or more people who slept there every night and thousands more who passed through every day for a hot meal and sack lunch. When we drove up, we had to stand outside for about five minutes while we figured out the parking meters with our guides. Several men stared at us through the ceiling-to-floor length windows in the dining hall. I was glad we had arrived in a pack.
I hate being stared at. I sort of get used to it whenever I'm overseas. But when one is overseas, one simply gets used to things that are not required to be used to when one is at home. I especially don't like being stared at by huge men who have more tattoos than I have freckles and look like they brush their teeth with the cigarettes they smoke. It didn't help any that I had planned on grabbing lunch in the coffee shop before class but when I got there discovered I hadn't given myself enough time, had two minutes to run across campus and anyway the line for food was out the door and into the hallway. I always face heathens and Spiritual Warfare better on a full stomach.
We walked into the building and the stares continued. Our 'tour guide' explained that they had a beauty salon for their visitors to have haircuts, which was especially nice for the women. They a had a 'library,' where books were donated and anyone could take them or return them as they saw fit. I saw "A man called Peter" on one of the shelves and smiled. I haven't read it, but I want to, and I saw the movie version of it as a kid. I liked it.
We moved on through the kitchen into the dining hall. It was empty at this point. Several men from the kitchen called out friendly greetings and we responded cheerfully. I listened but was also wondering why on earth I felt happier and safer in a Gypsy village where the people lived exactly like those in this homeless shelter if not worse. I suppose it might have had something to do with the fact that the Gypsy village is surrounded by green nature, rolling hills, sheep and roaming horses and this homeless shelter was surrounded by horrible broken concrete, dilapidated buildings and wandering people with no light in their eyes.
Upstairs we were shown the mens dormitory. The walls were painted a sort of pastel hospital green. Do you ever get the feeling that you are surrounded by germs? I felt like that, and tried to not touch anything. I felt very very snobby, and hoped it didn't show on my face.
The third floor was for physically or mentally handicapped persons who had proven that they would be responsible if given a place to stay but needed help getting affordable safe housing. We then went and sat down in a conference room that was hot and humid. Outside I could see the freeway and once again wished to be out of the inner city.
After class was done we filed out. I breathed deep breaths of glorious outside air once we left the building.
When I was in Europe this last summer, I would get so frustrated when I would hear my friends commend me for my desire to do Gypsy ministry but always end it with, "But I could never do it." It frustrated me that they were fine with me doing ministry in an area they recognized needed it, yet didn't see any need to join in it. However, I found myself feeling something similar to that homeless ministry: I was so thankful there were people passionate about that ministry who were doing work that needed to be done. If the Lord called me to do it, I would, and gladly, but don't feel that He has called me there at this point in my life. It demonstrated once again how the Lord grants each of us different gifts and callings. Its not wrong for us to not desire someone else's calling, as long as we are mindful of our own and are fulfilling it.
As horrible a picture as I may be painting, I was very glad for the field trip and for seeing a different sort of ministry than perhaps I have been used to. How easy it is in our safe 'God bubble" of Bible College to forget that there is a dying world just off our campus that needs saved. Not that we forget, exactly, that it's there, but the urgency is perhaps glossed over in our thoughts as we prepare for exams and write our papers.
Anyway I've been praying for the Lord to give me an opportunity to start teaching again, preferably in a ministry setting. I have no idea where or what that will look like at this point, its still just in the prayer stage. I'd prefer in a more volunteer setting with kids who want to be there, as opposed to a tutoring position like I had before where it was a constant battle to get the kids from good christian homes and safe environments to realize the gift God was giving them through an opportunity to be educated.
My dad pointed out last night that we think pain and difficulty are things to be avoided, but they can be very good things. No, he's not a masochist, although some might accuse him of it. But we were discussing how God teaches and refines through tough experiences. I like the result just not the process, but am finding joy in the process too. For example, fasting is rough, but that first meal when breaking the fast... *sigh of euphoria* you realize just how wonderful healthy food is. And you don't want junk food, just good healthy food. Its a wonderful feeling.

Well, I confess, a big part of my writing this is procrastination on writing my response paper to last week's field trip, which is due by midnight tonight. So I shall cease my ramblings and musings for this entry and get back to school work. Good grief. Was I griping earlier about kids who grew up in good Christian homes not appreciating the opportunity to be educated? I stand self-condemned: my attitude towards homework has been pitiful, pathetic, somewhat apathetic, and in sore need of correction. I'm getting it done, but not doing it as unto the Lord. Now see that's another topic for ranting: realizing that change must occur, praying for change to continue, but trusting the Lord to do the change and not striving to do it myself. Its a fine balance because once again, realizing that change must take place is important, recognizing opportunities to act on that change are important, but I also must not obsess about undertaking that change in my own strength. Hang it all. I vote we skip this whole fallible human thing with all the humdrum of making mistakes, and just go straight to being perfected creatures already.
Ha! I effectively procrastinated another five minutes.
But, as Mary Poppins says, enough is as good as a feast. And that is enough of procrastination.
Cheers,

~Princess Ouch~

Camping at college...as it were

Yesterday was GORGEOUS weather, but I wasn't able to spend as much time outside as I wanted to. This was due to the fact that I was having a sort of "Visiting Romania while not in Romania" day - that is, going to church with my Romanian friend Andrei and his wife and gorgeous baby, then after having lunch with them having very nice conversations with my friend Ramona and Corina.
So after going to a praise and worship meeting here on campus (which has been creatively entitled "The Sing Thing") I wanted to walk around outside. My friend Laura also wanted to walk around outside. The great thing was it was raining lightly and we still both wanted to walk around outside!
So we went and sat on a hill overlooking the city and shared what was going on. We hadn't really had a lot of opportunities to hang out and catch up since the semester started. It was awesome because we've both kind of been going through the same thing this week emotionally and spiritually, so we took turns laughing and crying and sharing what God is teaching us.
We started to get cold so I suggested we run inside and get some blankets. On our way inside and outside, we discovered that we both had an impulsive desire to simply camp outside for the night.
"Dude, that would be so AWESOME!" Laura exclaimed, "Well until Security found us and wondered what on earth we were doing!"
"Yeah... and we'd wake up all sore and stiff and covered in dew..."
but we both decided that it would be worth it.
No we didn't actually end up spending the entire night outside... but we did make it until 11:30 pm :-)
And we discovered that one of the branches looks like a duck flying if you look at it at just the right angle.
I wish we could actually go camping, but between our class and work schedules, and our lack of camping equipment, I highly doubt that wish will become a reality in the near future.
Alright must run to class now.
~Princess Ouch~

Dried roses

I dried the bouquet of flowers I had received for valentines day, and a friend asked me why I did that, as now the flowers were all brittle. I must admit, a rather lengthy reply formed in my brain as to the reasoning of saving something beautiful even though it is now delicate and fragile, whereas before it was strong and vibrant. However, I decided to hold my tongue at the time. But later on that night, a poem formed itself in my brain and I thought I would share it with you:

Why do I like dried flowers?
Its a simple matter, you see.
Because I have no garden
filled with ones living.

Either because it's winter
and outside all green things are dead
or because I own no ground
on which my seeds can go to bed.

So I cherish these few cut roses
given to me by a friend
and not let them die and wither
by hanging them up on end.

Yes now they are far more brittle
a delicate, fragile thing.
Yet I'd rather have these remainders
then simply sweet memories.

So the solution you see is simple,
though not exactly cheap.
Either give me a tiny garden,
or buy me cut flowers every week!

Holy is the Lord

Not sure if the Isaac I'm laying on the alter is really a lamb that needs to be slaughtered or if what He calls me to lay down will be exchanged for a ram hiding in the bushes. But in either event, the Lord has been teaching me newer, deeper lessons about Faith.
Thank You, Lord, for these lessons and for good, godly, dear friends who remind me constantly of Your Truths!!

~Princess Ouch~

"Do you like working here?"

I've never been asked that question at this job. But there I was, half a burrito made on the plate I held, listening to that question being offered me the second time today.
"Do you like working here?"
I smiled and shrugged. To be honest, I FAR prefer my old job of teaching in home school groups to food service. I really miss my position of teaching first and second graders zoology and drama. And to be brutally honest, I woke up this morning an hour before I had to go to work and spent the next five minutes whining to the Lord about how I really didn't want to go to work today, I REALLY wanted to just lay in bed and listen to the Narnia soundtrack and think about wandering the hills right outside Ipp and returning to my Hungarian host mom's kitchen laden with a bouquet of wildflowers and drinking her mint tea afterward.
However, grownups have to stop daydreaming before their mom walks in and chases them out of bed, especially when their mom lives several hundred miles away. And even though I didn't want to be at work, I wanted even less to get fired.
So I grudgingly rolled out of bed and began to get ready for the day.
But I kept praying as I went through my normal morning activities. And I found myself reminiscing back to the good ol' days in 2003 when I had just gotten back from my mission trip to Ecuador and was completely on fire for the Lord (obnoxiously so, or so I've been told) and really working hard at being totally submitted to WHATEVER (and wherever and whenever) the Lord wanted me to do, 24/7.
And I decided that I was going to try and live my workday in the same vein.
I felt a lot happier throughout the day.
Which might be why I was receiving those questions.
I wish I could say I kept up the great attitude the entire day but only made it to about the end of my shift when one of my friends at work asked me a question and I ended up griping about something that has been bugging me for a while. I apologized at the end of it and she offered up a really beautiful prayer for me after smiling and saying somewhat angelically that she appreciated knowing how to better pray for me.
*sigh*
Which it is pretty amazing being in an environment where sisters genuinely appreciate knowing how to pray for one another. And it is cool that the feeling is mutual, not just one-way. And so again, even though I felt like I was failing in my commitment that I made that morning to be just joyful and chipper and proactively serving with gladness, I was shown a measure of undeserved grace.

So not sure if any of that made sense but I thought I'd pass it on to the cyberspace and hopefully someone was encouraged by it. :-)

~Princess Ouch~