The Best White Elephant Gift Ever

I'm not a very hard person to surprise because #1) I'm generally rather skeptical and/or #2) I don't like to spoil surprises so I don't believe what I hear or I purposely forget clues that I see. So if someone had walked up to me and said, on December 8, 2010, before 7:00, "Nate's going to propose to you tonight," I would not have believed them. Nate and I have been talking about our plans for a while, but I wasn't expecting a ring on my finger until after Christmas, for various reasons.

The church Christmas party started out very normally. We walked in, started saying hi and hanging out with the people we love. Mary Ellen showed us her package right away and said, "You guys should pick my gift. It's the best." To which we both replied sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Whatever." (There's generally only one reason people tell you to pick their gift at a white elephant party, and that's because it's the lamest one possible.) Well, then we drew our numbers and Nate got #1. He whined about it dramatically, because if he got something extra dumb, he'd have to be stuck with it the whole time, and couldn't trade with anyone. He joked with someone about trading it, etc. So, everything was normal.

Then we were all there, and got started with the gift exchanging. Since Nate was #1, all eyes were on him, and he made sure that everyone knew he was picking his gift. (He had asked me just before, "Do you think I should pick Mary Ellen's?" She has kept bugging us to pick her's and I was convinced she was actually serious, so I said, "Yeah, I think you'd better.") Nate is 6'8" and when he makes an announcement with his hands in the air most people don't miss it. So he sat down with ME's gift and started unwrapping it. It was a box inside of a box, inside of a box. We were all laughing and it still seemed incredibly normal.

Then he pulled out a ring box. My initial thought was "What a horrible joke!" Nate got down on his knee in front of me and I thought, "And Nate's going along with it!"

"Stop, Nate," I begged him. But then he opened the box. I saw three things: It was a Kay box. It was a real ring. It was just the kind of ring I sort-of specified to him. My mind immediately concluded: This is real!

Everyone was REALLY laughing and cheering now. Then Nate started talking and it got quiet.
"Liz, you got me. I never expected to be in this place with you, but here we are. You've helped me go from being a kid to being a man. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

I could barely gasp out "YES!"

And the rest is history. :) Best White Elephant gift ever. Best proposal ever, to me. :)

Here are a few pictures.

The Shack, a review

*Note * This is rather long for a blog entry, but it's something I worked on this summer and just thought I'd pass it on for anyone interested in reading.



The Shack, William P. Young
A review

“The real underlying flaw in your live, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything – the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives – is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me” (126).

Quotes such as this, where Young tackles the principles behind trusting God in the middle of trials and key aspects of the Christian’s relationship with God, have stimulated Christians who were drawn to read this controversial work, The Shack. Sometimes Young hits the nail on the head with comments like this one. However, what makes this book such a controversy, and are the good points enough to overcome the negative elements within it?

The book is a modern-day allegory of a man whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered while on a family camping trip. Mack struggles for years with anger and bitterness toward the murderer and God and guilt within himself. When he gets a letter from God inviting him to return to the shack where his daughter was found, for the weekend, he accepts the invitation and goes to the shack, where he encounters all three persons of the trinity: Papa, or God the Father, Jesus, and Sarayu, or the Holy Spirit. Through conversations with them and his experiences that weekend, his life is changed and he finds peace with God and himself.

Searching for answers to the problem of pain and evil, The Shack explores what relationship with God truly means for the individual, and includes many excellent principles. Trust is based on relationship, Papa tells Mack. “Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me,” she says to him (126). God is personal – not an angry, spiteful being who is unknowable or vengeful. This is the overall message of the book, and Young does a good job tackling the concept.

In addition, there is a good section in the book that addresses the legalistic approach to salvation. Sarayu tells Mack that rules and principles aren’t the way to know God, and that the law is only a mirror to show man his sin (198, 202). This is a Biblical truth. She addresses the fact that humans turn everything into rules and principles so that they can follow them and hold them up as a standard by which to judge others. People in a relationship have expectancies of each other, but once those are turned into expectations, the relationship deteriorates.

However, blended into the book, with its many conversations between Mack and each person of the Godhead, are many false doctrines and Scriptural errors. Young borrows from many age-old theories and beliefs that have been refuted over and over again by scripturally orthodox Christians.

For example, Papa blatantly contradicts scripture when she says that Jesus was not forsaken on the cross, but that she was there with him all along. Later, she refers to the scars from the cross on herself. This is a heresy known as “patripassionism,” which says that God the Father died with God the Son on the cross. The Bible gives no support for this. On the contrary, it is clear from God’s Word that Jesus was forsaken on the cross as he bore the punishment for man’s sin.
Christ’s death is not seen as atoning, because punishment for sin is overlooked as a necessity: “I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment” (96). Christ’s death, rather, is never clearly defined in the book. Young seems to skirt around the issue. At the end of chapter 12, he even comes close to saying, through the character of Jesus, that a person can adhere to any religion and still know God. He does not say that all roads lead to God, but he leaves the reader hanging concerning that issue.

Additionally, Sophia, or an impersonation of wisdom, contradicts the belief that God condemns people to hell. “You believe he will condemn most to an eternity of torment, away from His presence and apart from His love. Is that not true?” (162). This hints at the belief that there is no hell, or punishment for sin. God is too kind and too loving to condemn men to hell.

Another overwhelming theme in the book is God’s sovereignty, which is excessively downplayed, and man’s freedom, which is almost considered sovereign over God’s will. Jesus says that, in essence, God is submitted to man’s will. The Father is submitted to Jesus and the Spirit as much as either of them are to the Father (145, 122). 1 Corinthians 11, as well as passages in the gospels, clearly contradict this when they say that Jesus was submitted to his Father’s will, but never that the Father was submitted to Jesus.

Evil is not portrayed in the book as being part of God’s plan. “Papa has never needed evil to accomplish his good purposes” Sophia says (165). Also, Papa says, “Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes” (185). However, God says in his word that he chooses to use evil to accomplish his purposes. In fact, in Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.” This statement of God’s also contradicts the definition of sin that is given in The Shack, which is “the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light...Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence” (136).

“’To force my will on you,’ Jesus replied, ‘is exactly what love does not do’” (145). God’s sovereignty is not held in bondage by his love. God is free to do as he chooses to do, and of course, because he is love, everything is for the good of his children and for his glory. However, our human definition of love is not substantial enough to judge when something God does is acted in love or not. This is a contradiction of Young’s basic premise in the book: that we cannot judge God. Who is man to say that for God to work everything out according to his will is not love? “I don’t want slaves to my will,” Jesus says in the book, making submission to God as sovereign Lord seem like something completely wrong because it takes away man’s freedom and control of his own life. God is sovereign and is not subject to man’s free choices.

Another theme is the egalitarianism that infiltrates the book, in numerous references to man’s stupidity and woman’s superior ability to have relationship with God, along with the lack of a need for role differences or authority structures. Jesus actually says, “The world, in many ways, would be a much calmer and gentler place if women ruled” (147-48). According to Young, God doesn’t want men and women to have separate roles, but “to be counterparts, face-to-face equals, each unique and different, distinctive in gender but complementary,” without any structure of roles, especially with any trace of hierarchy (148). Feminism traces its way throughout the conversations in the book.

One of the first things that attracts attention in the book is the fact that God the Father, or Papa, and the Holy Spirit, Sarayu, are both portrayed as women. This is, as explained in the book, because Mack had no good father role to remember, so God portrayed himself as a woman to help soften the lessons he was teaching Mack. Many people threw a fit, myself included, when they read or heard about this element in the book. However, while being clearly feministic in this, the bigger problem is not that God is portrayed as a woman, but that he is portrayed as a human at all. God clearly states in the Bible that no one is to make an image of him, and that no one has seen God at any time. Jesus is the manifestation of God to man and it is idolatry to try to portray God the Father or the Spirit as a human being. Men should refrain from imagining what God is like other than how the Bible clearly shows him to us.

The most dangerous lies are those that are mixed with an element of truth. In an age where people are experimenting with everything they believe and how they can best explain away things that are hard to understand, Young does a superb job of making God much more likeable by talking away his sovereignty over man’s freewill, his just judgment on sin, his sacrifice of his son to pay for the sins of man, and the authority structure he has established, among other things.

Knowing God is not just about the “warm fuzzies” of a nice relationship; our relationship with God has a more complex foundation than that. God did have to punish sin, and he did send his Son to die for man. God does condemn men to hell for their sin, and man is responsible for his response to God. God does set up institutions as well as relationships, although he is more interested in relationship with people than in rules and regulations we impose on ourselves. God is personal, indeed, and far more personal than most people today believe, but he is also greater and more complex than we will ever understand, and he should command our fear and reverence as well as our trust and enjoyment.

Christians should read this book with care, conceding the truth, but constantly comparing it all to the word of God and being ready to refute the error in it.

Sharing Truth

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who was praying for my ESL classes today. I got to share the gospel with both morning and evening classes. It went really well. I didn't particularly use my classroom as a platform for the gospel all summer, even though I could have been free to say/do as much as I wanted. I felt like I should use the time to teach my students English to the best of my ability and not try to use the time they paid for learning English to try to teach them spiritual things. However I asked the Lord for the chance to talk with them at some point about the gospel, and He gave me this idea. I ordered these gospel tracts:
May I Ask You a Question?

During the last 20-25 minutes of class this morning and evening, we read through the tracts together and talked about the vocabulary and concepts used in them. We had good discussions both times about sin and sin's penalty and what trust means. Three of the ladies in the evening class are believers, and it was lovely to go through the gospel with them because I knew they understood and they helped define things and were agreeing with me as I shared. Two of the ladies in the evening class are Chinese, and had never even seen or heard of a Bible before. That kind of rocked me. Wow. It was overwhelming to them to take in all the information about the gospel. Pray for them! The students who were from Peru or Mexico or Thailand just accepted the information, somewhat interestedly, and I could see it making sense to them at some points.

The church also orders Jesus films and booklets called Ultimate Questions in the students' languages to give to them. Thursday is our last class. We'll work for an hour and then have a potluck party and hand out certificates and the gifts. Wow, one more day of teaching. It's so hard to believe. I have a lot to reflect on and sort through. I'm so thankful that God gave me this opportunity. Thanks again, so much, for praying!

Reactive Airway Disease, aka Asthma

So, I've been unofficially diagnosed with asthma by about 4 different doctors in the past two years, and this fall I'm going to do something about it. It's not fun to cough for hours after rigorously exercising, or be sick for months because you're just not clearing up, or to experience pain and tightness in your chest and throat when you exercise outside for any length of time. You know it's a bad sign when you're halfway through an easy-ish walk with 15 lbs of books on your back and you gasp, "Ugh, I hate breathing!" I was laughing at myself after I said that, but it's true. I tend to despise breathing when I exercise. Then, I was looking up breathing exercises online for asthma and I saw this article that began by saying,

"In the normal breathing pattern the diaphragm moves downward when the person inhales and moves upward when the person exhales. An asthma patient breathes in an unnatural way by using only the upper portion of the chest. This is very unnatural for the system as the full chest is not used in this way."

Oops. I thought that was the normal way to breathe. I never use my stomach or diaphragm to breathe, only when I remember to do it. A lot of times when I exercise, I actually forget to breathe at all, and find I've been taking super shallow breaths with my mouth, not even using my nose.

So this is the most random blog entry in the world, possibly, but I was just thinking about it this evening. Mostly why I'm posting this is because I'm wondering if anyone knows anyone who treats asthma naturally and/or has any good breathing exercises to do to help develop in that area. I'm not a big fan of pumping my body full of steroids to "control" my asthma, especially since it's mostly exercise-induced and doesn't bother me regularly (unless I'm sick). I particularly could use a nutritionist in the Dubuque, Iowa, area. Ideas, anyone?

In other news...lol...I'm doing really well in Colorado. God is blessing me so richly with His grace and goodness. Only two more weeks of working and teaching! Wow. :) Thanks for praying! I'll write more soon.

Giving Back

“Hey kids, come look at this.” My mom held out a check for $100. “God provided for our grocery shopping this week.” I grew up seeing God provide regularly for my family. We were a big family growing up on a small farm. Every farmer knows that he has no control over how his crops fare. He is dependent on the Lord, completely. And quite frankly, our farm income was never enough. But it honestly never concerned me, growing up, because I was taught, and saw daily, that God would provide.

I began to realize as I grew older that God used His people as the principle means of providing for each other, whether that was my grandparents giving us money one month or my parents giving my grandparents money the next, or a church unexpectedly giving us their old 12-passenger van when we had twins and outgrew our station wagon. Another thing I realized after becoming an adult was that God’s family takes care of each other socially, emotionally, and spiritually, too. We can’t make it on our own – we are created to need each other.

A beautiful verse about the New Testament era church is Acts 4:34: “There was not a needy person among them.” Of all the people in the world, those who are part of the body of Christ should be the ones who never have need of anything.

We have so many needs as human beings. Sometimes those are financial, such as in the case of the college graduate who doesn’t have a job yet and is struggling to meet his payments. Other times, those are social, like the young couple who haven’t had a night out in weeks because they don’t have anyone willing to watch their six-month-old baby, or the lonely single or widowed woman who doesn’t have a companion at home. Then there are emotional needs, like those of the teenagers who need older friends to love and listen to them, people who have already experienced that hard time in life. And people have real spiritual needs, like the man who is held in bondage with the sin of pornography and needs to be taught and held accountable as he deals with it.

Why are these needs being unmet? Why is anyone in the church struggling alone in any of these areas, or others? What is our excuse for not taking care of each other?

First, I would offer that we just don’t know each other well enough to know what needs we have. “Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus said. Real love is sacrificial, like God’s love for us. It gives up one’s own time to spend with others in the body of Christ. It is willing to be both vulnerable with its own heart and bold to ask hard questions about how others are doing. For instance, it takes asking questions like “How are things going spiritually for you?” instead of a more simple “How are you doing?” This takes sacrifice, for some more than for others, but that doesn’t make it any less important for those who are less naturally social than others.

Then, the culture of the United States has trained our already self-centered hearts to focus even more on our own individual needs and the needs of our families exclusively. Paul wrote, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Our lives are busy, so we have got to be intentional about looking out for each other. A single person should never be alone at home on a Friday night, lonely and discouraged, while a couple with kids are tired and frazzled and wishing for time alone together on the same night. That is inexcusable. The couple should reach out to the single person by asking them to spend quality time with their precious kids (not to mention the quality of the relationship built with between the adults in the situation) and the single person should be giving their time and heart to the family by offering to love the kids and the parents for the evening. Serving has got to stop being a duty and needs to become the desire and joy of our hearts, to the point where the first thing we think of is “How can I serve?” not “What can I do to relax?” Furthermore, often we don’t even plan or think ahead, and being intentional means asking on Tuesday or Wednesday what we can do on the weekend instead of letting time slip by until it’s Sunday morning and we’ve wasted our Friday night and Saturday on ourselves without a purpose at all.

And finally, we are just stingy as a people. God commanded the children of Israel in the law to give, remembering how God had always taken care of them in the past. The problem is that we are faithless. If we truly believed God’s promises connected with giving, such as Luke 6:38: “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (envision a basket full of grain), we would give more and more all the time. If we give our last $20 to a woman in the church who has no money for groceries, we’re not going to be left without a way to pay our other bills. If we give up our weekend for the family who is moving and needs our time to help them, God will take care of the study time we have given up for our test on Monday morning. We may “suffer” a little poverty in money, time, and energy when we give to others (like getting a B on the test because we didn’t study as much as we might have, or not being able to get our usual Starbucks), but there is nothing wrong with that. God is able and eager to pay back in His way and time everything we give up for Him and His people.

I grew up being provided for by God’s family. As an adult, I’ve been privileged to be part of churches whom God has used to provide for me in many different facets. Am I giving back? Are you giving to God? Are our eyes open? Are we active and alert, every day looking out for the needs of the people around us? As the church of Jesus Christ, we have got to be this way. Otherwise, we are just like the world. We should never, without exception, be aware of the needs of others and ignore them or let them slide to the side because we forget about them in our business. When we act like this, John asks, “How does God’s love abide in [us]?”

“Freely you have received, freely give.” Let’s not deceive ourselves into believing that because we smiled and exchanged “how are you’s” with our brothers and sisters on Sunday and prayed for each others’ great uncle on Wednesday that we are really giving. Our God gave Himself completely to meet our greatest need of salvation and eternal life. What are we giving to meet the needs of others around us?

Blessings

In my morning ESL classes I have four ladies who love to laugh. This morning we were all extremely tired for one reason or another, but we still had a good time because we laughed a lot. We were working on past continuous tense, which was in our book, and it was a lot for them to take in at their level, so we did it very slowly. In an hour we covered the basics of it. But the rest of the time we worked on extremely practical things. They were confusing prepositions a lot (it's a common error with Spanish speakers), so we worked on what they meant.
I walked TO the park.
We played AT the park.
There is a swingset IN the park.
My boy was ON the swing.
He got OFF OF the swing.
They loved that, because they take their kids to the park. They also learned the new vocabulary word "swingset." :)
We were talking about our families, then, and our ages, and whether or not I had a boyfriend, and we spent a lot of time laughing, which was lovely.

Then, today, I was blessed with a foot-tall stack of English textbooks from Valery and Arnaud, our Belgian foreign exchange students. They are leaving for Belgium Saturday, and don't want to bring their textbooks with them, so they generously gave them to me. There are about 15 of them, and some that were even on my list of books to get for future reference! Probably about $600 worth of textbooks here! Praise God!

Another blessing was that one of my students, who is from Thailand, who is in my classes, and I also tutor her, asked me if I would play ping pong with her. She goes to a church gym close by here where there are tables set up. So I spent an hour playing table tennis with her. Such fun. :) Her English is very low intermediate, so it's hard to converse (our tutoring times are a challenge), but we laughed a lot and she taught me some things about ping pong. Watch out, family, I might beat you all on Christmas Eve in our annual tournament. I'm going to get pretty good at this. :)

Sometimes the most important things in life aren't on a to-do list...

...but sometimes they are.

I am just fascinated to serve a God who knows exactly what I need. It's been a bit of an ups-and-downsy week, one in which I have been learning to pray this prayer:
Give me greater capacities to suffer and to carry
This cross on my back as I walk to my personal Calvary.
(from a song by Flame)
I am learning what it means to be obedient and faithful to not complain even though I want to more than anything.

So today started out pretty rough: not a ton of sleep, landscaping day ahead of me, certain emotional struggles, etc. I had an hour before work and was miserable. One of the things that has been really hard lately is continually making to-do lists of things like:
Clean room
Write so-n-so
Call so-n-so
Review Greek
Read this
etc.
and I've thrown at least two of them away without accomplishing anything on them. There are not many things in everyday life that frustrate me more than not accomplishing goals, especially if there are no really good reasons for not getting them done, other than general business.

Well, back to this morning, it occurred to me that the day before had included breakfast, but not really lunch or dinner, other than chocolate cake for Arnaud's birthday party (he's a Belgian foreign exchange student living here). So I took time to cook a hearty breakfast of eggs with cheese and toast and milk to drink and thankfully no one else was up yet so I had a quiet meal, which was great.

Then, I just started working on my to-do list, mostly just by cleaning my horribly messy room, but also balancing my checkbook, and other things. It was ridiculous how much better I felt. When I drove to work, even though I hadn't read my Bible before leaving (not something I recommend regularly, but it worked this day), I felt so refreshed and ready for the day. Then I got to string trim instead of rake and haul leaves and branches, so the variation was great. I was introduced by one of my co-workers to a couple new guys as "the best worker we have, when Barney's not here." One of these times I'm going to figure out how to NOT be taken by surprise when a co-worker or employer says that, and point it back to Christ, but so far I'm always just a little stunned and don't know what to say.

The rest of my day, after work, consisted of scratching more things off my list, including a good time of reading and prayer with the Lord (although that wasn't on my list this time :).

God really takes good care of us. I'm very thankful for Him and just knowing that He knows my needs more than I could ever express to Him.

Experiences of the week

Seeing my cousin get married. It was like watching a dream come true. LOVED it! :)

Spending 17 hours in the car with Leah C. She totally smashed me in every car game we played...Would you Rather, I Have Never, Count the Yellow Cars, etc. But we had a wonderful time.

Learning about how the World Cup works through the eyes of a South Korean woman. That was fun. I know nothing about soccer, so I liked learning about it. Pray for this lady, if you would. She is so, SO sweet and has been super encouraging to me. I would love to talk with her about spiritual things.

Watching a Little League baseball game and "dancing" (more like bouncing) at an outdoor concert in the park with Ceddy. Watching the kiddo is a highlight of my week. He's getting used to me, too! He didn't even cry this time. :D

Discovering a Christian coffee shop called "Solid Grounds" that is close-by here. It's a really nice sized one with even an outdoor balcony with flower boxes and umbrellas and everything. Great atmosphere. Now if I just had money to spend on coffee... :)

Being reminded that a "happy life" is not something I am entitled to. I don't deserve anything good...and everything good and happy I have and experience is from God's grace. When you forget that, you start being afraid of God's plan for you, because you forget that He is good even when He sends the hard things. It is good to be humbled and reminded of that.
Daniel 9.

Being told "You work harder than most Mexicans I know" by a Mexican American. :) Landscaping is good but it's hard, HARD work. Thankfully my hours have been reduced and I'm just doing mornings.

Feeling stir-crazy in the city for the first time this summer. I tried to go to Starbucks to study last night around 10 o'clock, but everything was closed...I ended up just driving around for like 20 minutes, and it felt oh, so good to get out of the house. Admittedly, I cried for a while, for Kansas and for the stars and for breathing room, but I survived. :)

Feeling excited and accomplished because my evening class is understanding the progressive tense ("I am working" vs. "I work."). We used Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. It was amazingly helpful. :D God is good. I'm learning that I'm just as dependent on Him in my English teaching as I am in my Bible teaching. It's a good thing to learn. And there's nothing quite like seeing the light that says "I understand!" in your students' eyes. :)

Faith to be strong

Give us faith to be strong
Father, we are so weak
Our bodies are fragile and weary
As we stagger and stumble to walk where you lead
Give us faith to be strong

Give us peace when we're torn
Mend us up when we break
This flesh can be wounded and shaking
When there's much too much trouble for one heart to take
Give us peace when we're torn

Give us hearts to find hope
Father, we cannot see
How the sorrow we feel can bring freedom
And as hard as we try, Lord, it's hard to believe
So, give us hearts to find hope

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong
Give us peace when we're torn
Give us faith, faith to be strong
- A. Peterson

It's been a long week...but God's grace has surrounded me at every turn. I am working 25 more hours now than I was before...15 landscaping and 10 tutoring someone from Saudi Arabia for pay. So my life has kind of drastically changed, schedule-wise. That's been pretty tough. It's what the Lord brought me here for, though, so I am trusting Him to get me through it and learning to let go of my personal goals for my time in the next six weeks.

Yesterday I taught ESL for 7 hours, off and on throughout the day. Then it took me hanging out with a group of young people from the church for an hour and talking to a good friend and eating a bowl of brownies with raspberry ice cream and whipped cream and reading half the book of Daniel to be quiet and rested enough to go to sleep. So, see, even though it's tiring and tough, God knows what I need and He supplies. I never knew you could get so tired of speaking your own language, though.

Oh, and speaking of supplying what I need. Check out this little man who is basically making my summer right now. Ms. Linda, THIS is Cedric. I got to watch him on Wednesday night after 8 hours of working landscaping in the hot sun. It was pure therapy. We smiled a lot at each other and exchanged lots of slobbery kisses and he's a very good listener and I was teaching him how to give a high five. Oh, and Ingrid Michaelson was by far his favorite artist of all the different ones I tried on him, although he liked Best Years of our Lives by the BaHa Men (Shrek soundtrack). HeHe.






This weekend I'm headed home with my friend Leah from Emmaus (from Ft. Collins, north of here), for my cousin Chad's wedding! I'm exhausted through and through so I don't have a lot of energy to be excited, but I'm looking forward to it all. And praying that we'll be safe driving. God is so good to have provided a good friend to come down with me for the 17-hour round trip in one weekend. :) I love how He provides. He is good.

Oh, and PS, Why do I always have to be in the 3% of people who get the side effects in antibiotics? 3% seems like a nice, small, unlikely-that-you'll-get-it number...but it's not encouraging. :P

People are people all over the world.

It's true. Cultures are beautiful. God fashions people with incredible diversity. One has pure black hair and almond-colored skin and by nature is reserved and gentle, another has rich black skin who wears colorful skirts and headscarves and speaks her mind boldly, another freckle-covered skin and dusty brown hair who laughs all the time and loves being around people.

Some people struggle with racism. I think that I have the opposite problem: idolizing people of different ethnicities and criticizing my own culture. But a week and a half into ESL teaching has taught me something. All people have problems. Everyone, of every culture, has a sin nature, and it takes patience to live with all people, no matter where they are from, even if their group-minded, collectivistic culture seems more appealing than my own rugged individualistic culture.

Also, the worldview behind a culture really, truly does affect how people see each other and how they interact. When you see things through a whole different lens, you have to really cooperate to be able to work together, especially if you are learning a third language and culture. I'm not sure that before this summer I would have understood the implications of having a student from Asia and students from Latin America in the same classroom, being taught by an American woman. It's funny, really...sometimes I feel like I'm on display: Here is the example of what an American is like - follow her. I realize that the Asian doesn't want anyone but me telling them what to do. And the Latin American is used to people complying and giving in to each other to keep each other happy. And I see pride written on the Asian's face and irritation on the Hispanic's, and feel discouragement and frustration welling up in my own heart, and then I realize, we're ALL just people who need God's grace.

God, who in His grace is the one who restores, confirms, strengthens, and establishes (1 Pet. 5:10). I love to teach, to help people. But really, only when it's easy. And it's not easy...I think that I forgot that it could be pretty hard. Realistically, helping people IS hard. That's life. You learn to stick with things through thick and thin and give it your all and trust God to be the one who is actually strengthening and enabling you.

I would appreciate prayer for the relationships in my classes, and for wisdom for myself as I try to teach a multi-leveled class in the mornings (ranging from an almost advanced student to one who almost never understands the instructions I give them in class, and all levels in between). So far, I've had three morning classes and have been discouraged all three times after class. But the Lord always gives me grace and cheers me up afterward. I know that it is His class, not mine, so I'm just doing my best...all that He asks of me.

English class and Walking Meditation

Whoosh! So many new people and experiences...all in two weeks. My ESL classes began this week, of course, so I suppose I should start with them.
I am teaching from 9-11 am and 6-8 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I'm tutoring a lady from 8-9 on Tuesday and another from 2-3 on Thursday. Talk about i-n-t-e-n-s-e! That's five hours a day of speaking the slowest, clearest, most basic English that I can, or at least attempting to do so. I am reminded frequently to do better in all those areas when I see blank stares coming at me from around the table. :) So, I'm pretty exhausted after every session, class or tutoring, but it is good, and I'm learning a lot. I have students from countries in almost every continent!
South Korea
China
South Sudan
Russia
Peru
Brazil
Mexico
I love them all and am excited, and overwhelmed, about all I need to learn about their cultures and worldviews and how to best reach each one of them where they are at. Whoosh. :) It's good.

Tomorrow at 7:15 am I'll be starting my landscaping job part of the summer, too. So that will be an experience in itself. And this weekend I'm coming back to KS for my dear cousin Chad's wedding to his lovely Sara.

So, funny story that I promised in my Facebook status. Thursday morning, I was decently prepared for class, with a nice lesson plan written out. My morning students went at a slower rate than my evening students, just fyi. But then, only one of my evening students showed up for class, so I thought I'd just do some one-on-one work with her farther along in the book. Then, one of my least advanced students arrived, and then a new student arrived, so I had three different students than I was expecting and was kind of needing to work from three places in the book. It was insanity, and by the end I felt like a rotten teacher and cried about it over my lunch. The Lord renewed my heart, though, and I was getting ready to do my lesson plan for the evening, when I got two phone calls that took up a couple hours, which was fine, and they were both great conversations, but it just gave me a later start than I expected. Then I remembered I needed to run to Office Depot to pick up ink for the printer here bc I wanted to print some handouts. "That'll only take me 30 minutes or so," I thought, which would still give me an hour to prepare for my lesson. It was 4:20 at that point. Well, I ended up getting royally LOST and drove around for an hour. My reasoning was so confused...why did I do this, why didn't I plan better, why me? Finally I threw my hands in the air (I was stopped at a stoplight, so it was okay) :) and said, "God, I give up! You take over. You be in control. You give me what I need for my lesson tonight." Within two turns, there was the Office Depot, and I knew where I was again. I made it back in time for class and even got my handouts printed (a miracle in itself - since when does a printer do what you want it to do when you're in a rush??). I didn't prepare at all, except for reading through my teacher's book while they were practicing conversations, but the class went amazingly well. My students understood the grammar concepts very well and we were all relaxed and had a great class. I'm telling you, God is pretty crazy awesome. You'd think that I'd learn to give up sooner, and save myself some pain.

Oh, and Walking Meditation. I just read this article on Yahoo about natural ways to feel happier, and one of them was "Walking Meditation." And I quote: "Stride slowly for 20 minutes sans iPod. Stare at the ground 6 feet ahead and focus on the soles of your shoes lifting and dropping."

Yes, well, I walk and meditate at the same time, aka, pray. I just laughed at the article because I felt intelligent. I could have told them that meditating and walking is extremely refreshing. I've found some good routes around the neighborhood, one that includes a little fishing pond. It is so lovely to be out and about and around people. I can't even bring my music with me because there are so many people to say hello to. :) The Lord and I have lots of good conversations on those walks. Yep.

The end. I'm going to go get some sort of refreshing drink, such as strawberry lemonade, or orange juice, or something, and go to bed. :)

Oh, the beauty

I was reading Psalm 17 this morning and was struck by the contrast between the quality of life of the believer and the unsaved.

From "...men of this world whose portion is in this life"
to
"As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness." (from Psalm 17)

I know God. I have the assurance of beholding His face! I am in a relationship with Him that results in a daily changing to be more and more LIKE Him! What beautiful truths! My portion is not in this world - it is in my Savior - in eternity. That is why all true joys here on earth point back to Him and cause our hearts to overflow in thankfulness, and why all sorrow or disappointment draws our hearts to Him for comfort and release.

"I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things." Is. 45:7

He designs everything for His purposes. He wants to make men realize that HE is the fulfillment of all, and only HE is worthy of worship.

Class begins tomorrow!

Lots of work was accomplished today:
- Two hours of Bible study in Daniel this morning
- Hike to the top of Devils Head Trail, about a 1,000 foot climb, 1.4 mile trail that rewarded the hiker with a gorgeous view in every direction, about 4 hours walking and climbing with new friends
- Two hours preparing my first ever real lesson plan for my own real classes that will begin tomorrow!

Pikes Peak...29 air miles away from where I was standing on top of Devils Head



And somewhere behind me is my Kansas...out there, somewhere...

Solitude

"Alone, yet not alone am I,
Though in this solitude so drear;
I feel my Saviour always nigh,
He comes the very hour to cheer;
I am with Him, and He with me,
E'en here alone I cannot be."

About 5 years ago I took the Myers-Briggs personality test, and discovered that I am as extroverted as a person can possibly be, which means I have to deal with almost everything externally, talking it out, getting the opinion, or at least the listening ear, of dozens of people. It also means I need to go to people to recharge my batteries, to be sustained, if you will. People, people, people. They have always been my life. So much so, that other than enough quiet time to make me happy every now and then, I dreaded being alone (although, granted, people and stories even filled my mind when I was alone, so I wasn't even alone then, in reality).

Yet, people are not all. God is all. And in Him is the joy that comes through people as well. There have been many times in my life I have asked God to strip me of my idolatry. My idols aren't silver or gold, but living, breathing people who I allow to consume my heart and mind rather than my God. Last summer was one of those times where I begged Him to smash the idols and teach me to truly love people, and not just use them as my worship, my fulfillment, my affirmation.

That prayer opened the door to a long hard year at school in which God stripped away the people I love the most, and allowed me to respond in anger and frustration, and fall flat on my face in trying to cope. He let me wallow in selfishness for just long enough, then took even more away. When I cried to Him, He showed me that what was lacking was a true desire to love sacrificially. Love, for me, doesn't just mean giving everything to everyone - that has been my problem my whole life. Love is sacrifice, like God's love for us. He gave Himself to save me. Himself. Love, for me, means sacrificing, too, and for me that means withholding and waiting and not always giving all I want. It also means being more selfless, and I never realized how sweet and others-centered you can seem on the outside while being very self-centered within.

That realization began a building process where the stripping away process ended, for that time. There is so much joy in knowing the Lord and loving Him. That is one of the most amazing things I've been discovering lately. When you start to learn what sacrifice means in your life, and start practicing it, you find that you really aren't "sacrificing" anything, because if you are willing to let go, God comes in and fills you with more joy than you ever possessed while you clutched at your idols. And, truthfully, God restores what He takes away, often. He is working in me and my relationships and teaching me how to better love those I thought I loved well before. It's a pretty humbling process, once you start realizing how selfish you've been and how much people have been putting up with you.

I've been alone now for almost a week in Colorado, other than a few intermittent connections with people. He's given me a friend, Ruth, and some lovely people to work with in ESL teaching, and He is preparing my class of students for me, and there are a few others I'm looking forward to being with this summer, like Ryan and Amelia and Ceddy, but for once in my life I'm not somewhere because the people are holding me here. I'm here with the Lord and we are facing the summer together. It is beautiful to know Him and be known by Him. When I was out on the mountains last week, I was happier than I've been for a long, long time, and no person was there to make me happy...only my God. We've had the best time together this week. And I look forward to a lot more solitude with Him this summer...learning to love Him and delight in Him even more. He is so wonderful. I'm so thankful for all He is and all He teaches me.

La semana primero

Technically it hasn't been a whole first week in Colorado, but I arrived in Monday and here it is Friday night, so it feels like the first week has finished, even though I have yet to actually experience a Sunday morning at Littleton Bible Chapel.

This evening I had one of the best meals I've ever eaten, possibly. I took ground beef and made burgers with breadcrumbs, milk, Worchestershire sauce, and various seasonings and grilled them along with green and orange peppers. I boiled quinoa, which is a little grain kind of like a cross between millet and rice and is scrumptious. I mixed olive oil with rosemary and other spices and mixed it in with the quinoa. Then I had ice water in a crystal goblet and ate supper out on the deck under a Denver sunset, reading a book. It was so delightful. And yes, I did just use that word. :)

Tuesday I met with Betty, who is in charge of the ESL classes. We went over the curriculum and talked about the classes. I'll be in charge of the intermediate level of English classes at the church! Wow. I didn't expect that much responsibility, but it makes me super excited. Another lady will help me some, at least in the mornings. On Thursday morning we began registration for the classes. That included testing each person who came in so we could evaluate their level. That was good. About 10 ladies and one man came in. It is a challenge, discerning where people should fit into the program. For instance, one lady is very fluent speaking, but since she speaks Arabic as her primary language, her reading and writing are very weak (different alphabet). So do you put her at a level of speaking that is lower than she is? I am hoping that she can be in my class because I'd like to give her special help, perhaps by assigning special reading and writing assignments. That's my favorite part about English anyway. :) Then there are people who come in and want to learn English but are really too advanced for the classes we offer. They know that they are not as comfortable in English as they'd like to be, so they want to keep studying, but it would be useless for them to take classes that are below their level. However, I talked with Betty and she loved my idea. To these people I've been offering to tutor them on the side, outside of our classes. The Lord has given me two women already who want this, and both want to pay me. So I'll be meeting with a lovely older Brazilian woman who has an incredibly thick accent and wants to become a citizen, and a younger South Korean woman who is a dentist in Korea but doesn't work here yet because her English isn't good enough. With the second lady I'll just be meeting to talk for an hour every week so she can practice her English. What an opportunity for good relationships with these ladies. I'm excited.

Today the only place I went was to the grocery store, and the only thing I planned were my meals. And those I planned right before I ate. :) I was able to read, write, pray, watch Little House on the Prairie, walk, talk to friends long distance, play piano, etc. It has been lovely and relaxing. When I finish here I plan to spend a bit of time in Bible study and maybe Greek, and maybe talk to a couple more people on the phone. And tomorrow I'll be helping with more registration for the classes.

People kept telling me that I'm going to have a wonderful summer. So far it HAS been amazing. I laugh thinking of Ms. Brooke in Anne of Avonlea: And what is to be the pill in all of this jam, Ms. Shirley? I have no promise that the days ahead will or won't be as lovely as the past few have been, but I am so thankful for God's grace and provision this week. He's pretty amazing. My heart's longing is to just love these people who He is giving me to teach and do my best with that, and to keep up with my personal goals in reading and praying and studying. If I can look back on this summer and know I have done my best with those responsibilities, I will be thankful. God's grace is sufficient for all I desire and all He gives me to do.

Press on with joy!

PS funny fact...there are more local TV stations here in Spanish than in English. It's funny to me because there aren't a lot more evidences of a large Latino population, other than seeing many Hispanics around at the parks and stores. I guess I mean, it's not like north Broadway in Wichita, which actually reminds me of the Latin countries I've been to. Oh, I love people, and cultural differences. :) I can't wait to learn from all my English students. It's going to be quite a stretching, growing experience.

PS 2 I went hiking on Wednesday and was so ridiculously happy...kind of giddy, you might even say. :) Here are a couple of pictures. On my way back down through the mountains toward town I stopped at an art gallery tucked away in the mountains and a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where I bought an expresso-flavored ice cream cone. It was happiness in a jar. I can't believe I'm really in Colorado and can DO things like this. :)

And so it begins...

Well, after eight very long hours of driving in extremely high winds on Monday, I made it to Littleton, CO. Praise God! I'm staying with a lovely family. We went out for dinner last night (it was their son's birthday), and they took me on the grand tour of Littleton. I got a wonderful 9 hours of sleep last night and spent the day settling in. I thought I'd post some pictures for those (aka Mom and Grandma, especially) who want to see them. :)

Colorado!



Possibly the funniest road sign I've ever seen. It was convincing enough to make me follow the signs all the way to the Point of Interest. :)



The Point of Interest was this...a tower from which you can allegedly see 6 states. I'm not sure I believe the sign...but if it hadn't been so windy, I would have gone up the tower anyway. It was that bizarre. :)



This is my bedroom. Lovely to have my own room all summer. :)





And these are the mountains you can see from an upstairs window in the house where I'm staying.



I found out this afternoon that I will be the teacher in charge of the intermediate classes morning and evening at the church. The family I'm staying with has left for a 17-day vacation starting this afternoon, so I'm kind of housesitting their big home for them while they're gone. It works out perfectly. I feel a little alone now, though...and pretty nervous...and rather excited. And I don't know where to start on anything. But it's 6:03 pm right now, so maybe I'll start with supper. :)

Quotes of the evening

Suppertime...
(discussing nicknames)
Peter (13): You can just call me Boswell

Later...
Mom: Deborah's in the bathroom so you can't brush your teeth right now
John (13): It's okay...when I can't use my toothbrush I just use my t-shirt and rub my teeth. It works.
Me: That's gross. Stop!
Peter: When I can't find my toothbrush I just use a right-angle grinder :D

Mom: We'll have to call you "Fang"
Me: "Fang Boswell" - has a nice ring to it.

And later still...
(Mom and Deborah (9) discussing a phone message Deborah gave to a neighbor lady. She wasn't really supposed to give the message - she was just repeating what she heard mom say about the situation)
Mom: What?! You said that? I hope she wasn't upset!
Deborah: Oh no, she seemed quite calm.
:) :) :)


Oh, and news of the day...my uncle Danny and his wife Heather had a baby girl today! It was supposed to be a boy, so this is a surprise. :) But baby and mommy are safe and sound so that is happy. :)

Like sister...like sister

Deborah and I had fun with the camera yesterday. She's been a joy to be with this week. I love how she's grown up. When I went to school I was just a bossy older sister and she was an annoying younger one, but now God's changed my heart toward kids and I actually realize that they are beautiful little people who need just as much love and attention as older people do, plus, Deborah has been growing up as a beautiful girl and we connect much better now than we used to. I love it a lot. She's my look-alike and my personality-alike sister. If she were 24 we could pass for twins, I'm pretty sure. But it's a good thing we're 15 years apart, because I'm not sure the world of 2010 could handle two of us at the same time.

Real Love

"Let love be genuine." Romans 12:9

This phrase has been on my mind for the past couple of months. What does it really mean to love with genuine love? Paul wrote that he could be the best speaker, the most faith-filled mountain-mover, and the most giving servant, but still not have love. That threw me when I realized what he was saying. Sometimes it's easy to look like the best Christian person around. Mostly because it's not really a sacrifice to give up or do certain things so that you have a good image.

That's because love is sacrifice. Genuine love means giving up legitimate rights in order to put others before yourself. Sometimes it's easy to give up those rights because you really like the person you're trying to love and want them to be happy. Just because it is easier to love those people doesn't mean that your love isn't genuine - it really can be. Sometimes, though, it's hard to like people because of their weaknesses, or the way their personality clashes with yours, or because they have hurt you. That's when showing genuine love is hard.

"Let us each please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.'" Rom. 15:2-3

Learning to love with genuine love is part of the process of becoming like Jesus. I can't barter my way out of this one. Saying "I love you," isn't enough. I need to lay myself aside and really sacrifice for others. That includes holding my tongue, giving people space, digging in and helping out with the most menial jobs, praising people and listening to people, choosing not to do certain things because they frustrate the people I'm around, etc. And even when it's hard, God's grace is enough.

When God opens a door...

Well, I've promised to blog for the summer, so I'm starting now. I'm going to work on writing again this summer. Being in school has a way of making me forget that I have certain things I like to do besides study, teach, or talk with people. One of those things is writing. There are a few others, which I'll probably talk about at some point on this blog, but for now, suffice it to say that in this blog I don't just want to say "Today I did this and this and this..." but rather actually write stories and devotional notes. I'm not planning on having a lot of time to spend online, but I want to utilize well what I do have.

The Lord has opened wide the door for me to spend the summer in Littleton, CO. I will be living with a Christian family there and going to Littleton Bible Chapel. The church has ESL (English as a Second Language) classes as part of an outreach to the people in their community, and, since I am certified to teach ESL, from Emmaus, I'll be helping out there with the classes, getting some experience working with the believers there. God also provided a part-time landscaping job for me while I'm there, and a 2001 Honda CR-V to drive all summer. I'm pretty excited about the opportunity. Admittedly, I've been dragging my heels to leave Dubuque, because that's where I feel most settled now, with my church the Great Adventure Church, and all the people there, but since I'm not staying there for the summer, I'm glad that God has given me such a great way to spend my summer, in Colorado.

This Kansas farm girl will be living in the suburbs of Denver for the summer. It's a rather interesting concept. I'm pretty sure there won't be wheat fields or combines driving on the roads in Littleton. But recently I was in Chicago for our end-of-the-year school trip, and I was thinking about how I've always wanted to live in a city like Chicago, and it occurred to me that I can be happy wherever God sends me, because life is happy and beautiful when you know the Lord, and when you choose to accept His will for you. I'll miss certain things about a Kansas summer, but I'll get to experience amazing things about a Colorado summer. Most importantly, I'll get to experience knowing the Lord more and more, because that's what life is all about. I love growing and changing and can't wait to look back in August and see how He has stretched me this summer.

God is good! Keep pressing on to know Him more!