it's time for a break...

so i'm home for thanksgiving break...this is the only time i've been home since the semester started, it feels a little weird. i'm trying really hard to make myself just rest and not get into too much, i didn't really do much today, and i could tell my body was trying to really just rest up. i did however get a new cell phone today! yippie! my old one wouldn't charge any more so i hadn't had a working once since thursday. i got an alcatel one touch tribe phone, it's fun so far! it almost makes me wish i used my phone more often! i hardly ever have any use for it...but i can do fun things with this one that i couldn't do before. also i had a fun photobooth session today. but i miss my lexington, i think i've officially made the switch of where home really is, what a weird reality.

42 hours

so i pulled my first all nighter, ever. once in high school i stayed up all night at a sleep over and i think i took a short nap that day but other than that i've never been able to stay up for over one day. it was kind of weird, but it was fine and totally worth it. half the time i would think "i can't believe i didn't go to bed last night?!" but it's safe to say i don't really plan on doing it any time soon, i could only do it because i really loved what i was able to do.

this past friday David Crowder*Band gave a concert at my church in lexington! it was pretty awesome and my campus ministry put it on! it's the firs time i had ever seen then in concert and it just made me love them even more. they were so fantastic! and they were fun guys too, i successfully convinced some of the crew guys to eat brussels sprouts and parsnips! i'm such an old lady! it's like i was their mom or something ;) they played with Seabird {representing the NKY, and also Independence!} and Danyew! so basically if you ever get a chance to see them, you should, it'll blow you away. and i may go see Seabird again in december in either Newport or Lexington!

so i read a quote a few weeks ago and it's stuck with me every since...sometimes i think we make God who we want Him to be, but we need to realized who He truley is, whether that's the way we wish he was or not.

"christianity is about acceptance, and if God accepts me as i am, then i had better do the same."

-Hugh Montefiore

and God is accepting of who we are, but He wishes to transform us, we just have to let Him. He doesn't wish to leave us that way because of how great He loves us, because knows we can have a better life His way.

that's all i've got, i'll leave with a few random photobooth pics :)

it's time to take a stand.

from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

“There is so much at stake. The world we live in is under siege—three billion are desperately poor, one billion hungry, millions are trafficked in human slavery, ten million children die needlessly each year, wars and conflict are wreaking havoc, pandemic diseases are spreading, ethnic hatred is flaming, and terrorism is growing. Most of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the developing world live in grinding poverty. And in the midst of this stands the church of Jesus Christ in America, with resources, knowledge, and tools unequaled in the history of Christendom. I believe that we stand on the brink of a defining moment. We have a choice to make. When historians look back in one hundred years, what will they write about the nation with 340,000 churches? What will they say of the Church’s response to the greatest challenges of our time—AIDS, poverty, hunger, terrorism, and war? Will they say that these authentic Christians rose up courageously and responded to the tide of human suffering, that they rushed to the front lines to comfort the afflicted and to douse the flames of hatred? Will they write of an unprecedented outpouring of generosity to meet the urgent needs of the world’s poor? Will they speak of the moral leadership and compelling vision of our leaders? Will they write that this, the beginning of the 21^st century, was the Church’s finest hour? Or will they look back and see a church too comfortable, insulated from the pain of the rest of the world, empty of compassion, and devoid of deeds? Will they write about the people who stood by and watched while a hundred million people died of AIDS and fifty million children were orphaned, of Christians who lived in luxury and self-indulgence while millions died for lack of food and water? Will schoolchildren read in disgust about a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics? In short, will we be remembered as the Church with a gaping hole in our gospel? More is at risk than the lives of the poor and orphaned. The heart and soul of the Church of Jesus Christ, the very integrity of our faith and our relevance in the world, hang in the balance.”

for the least of these....

so this past week at southland we were able to take part in packaging meals for starving people in 3rd world countries--it was awesome! we partnered with a group call Feed My Starving Children. they developed this packaged meal with vegetarian chicken flavoring with added vitamins and minerals (kinda like a supped up ramon noodle packet!), dehydrated veggies, soy protein, and rice. the meal is literally made to provided the nutritional needs for people who are truly starving. one package contains enough food to feed 6 people for a day, since their stomachs are so small they don't need very much but it also contains all the nutritional content they need for the day, it's just not filler! each meal cots 17 cents and our goal was to fill over a million meals, and we did! apparently we beat any records FMSC had had in the past, which is awesome. we ended up filling 1,056,024 meals! and what i thought was really cool is throughout the week when we got a truck load filled they went ahead and just sent that out to make it way to people in need. FMSC partners with other ministries and missionaries to help meet their needs for feeding the people they minister to. they told us this story once that a missionary who used their food told them; this family got a box of food, which would probably be enough food to feed them for a month or so and the family sat there and opened every bag and fingered through it and sat it aside. and the missionary was just confused, so he asked why so they told him it was because they had never gotten a donation of rice that didn't have rocks in it as well. that's just awful. i was so thankful to be able to give up a few hours of my time and some cash to help package and provide meals for those less fortunate than myself. i couldn't even image what it would be like to not be able to eat, even when i don't have much food it's so much more.

*Update...here are all the totals....

1,056,024 meals were packed
4,889 boxes
4,995 volunteers over the course of 1 week
2,893 Kids will eat for a YEAR