solitude

part of my job is that i am required to take one day of solitude every month. it's not a day off or a time to do whatever i want, it is scheduled time to rest. to be quiet. to listen. apparently young life staff people have tendencies to overwork and give and give until they are empty. to not take the time they need to be spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally...etc....well. as a person who has a really hard time resting, this is a great thing for me. no way around it. one day a month i have to tune the world out and listen to myself.

so yesterday i took my first day of solitude. i got up, ran, ate breakfast, laid on my floor, and had no idea what else to do. i do not do well with doing nothing. so i read for a while. which is allowed. after i couldn't process any more of the master plan of evangelism, i laid back on my floor and tried to quiet my mind. things i suck at. for me, the best place i can rest is in my hammock. so i found a park. i set up my hammock in a tree by a lake. and i laid. for hours. i prayed i read i wrote i listened to podcasts. i literally just hung out with jesus. all day. it was glorious. i had no phone and no one to talk to. (except for the lovely gentleman who asked me if i was homeless...really?) i quieted my soul. something that is not very easy for me. i rested. and goodness i was so energized afterwards. so ready to take on the world. it was so good for me.

young life full throttle

it has begun. young life is in full swing. it is crazy. it is a lot. it is what i came here to do.

my teammate jorge and i have been going to lunch at coronado to hand out otter pops. the school loves us and lets us come on campus whenever we want as long as we sign in. it's nuts. so easy. love it. the first time was weird and we met a lot of kids but nobody knew who we were or why we were there. this week was a lot more fun as we are getting to know tons of kids. we started our first club on friday. club at coronado has been during lunch at school in the hallway outside the gym. this concept is something i'm not used to at all and quite frankly wasn't really prepared for. it is fast and you have to be on your toes. 25 minutes to do the whole thing. we had 80 kids come due to some serious advertising from our wonderful campaigners. it went well and we met a ton of kids! hard to start real relationships in that time with that many kids, but the first club was a success.

pudding eating contest. out of a diaper.

that friday night i went to the football game with a bunch of girls. remember two weeks ago when i went by myself? this week i was in the middle of the student section. with blue and red ribbons starting chants. we won the game and i met even more kids. i ended up having 8 girls sleep over my house that night. 2 freshman 3 sophomores a junior and 2 seniors. such a random group of girls and half of them didn't know each other but they stayed up until 6am on my living room floor watching mean girls and laughing and eating big cookie (i copped out at 3. i'm old) 

i am getting the feel of what this job is and how i can spread my time between being with kids and doing office work. so far i love it. fundraising is still the largest time consumer. it's coming slowly but it's hard. one of my goals with coronado is to move club out of school to monday nights like the rest of the clubs in our area. this will give us way more time to do club and to hang out with kids and get to know them. we had a pool party last night to get kids used to young life outside of school. 21 kids came and we had a blast. not bad for our first time and we are planning on starting club next monday! please be praying, we have no idea what to expect and may have a hard time getting kids to come to stuff outside school.

young life is on. full throttle. i am doing my job now. hanging out with kids and talking about jesus. i love it. the rest of arizona is still wonderful too. really hot. last night i watched the season premiere of how i met your mother with jorge matt carter and alexa. my friends. things are falling into place here. and i am so blessed to be here.

soulful singing in the southwest

this weekend we got to go to leadership weekend for young life at lost canyon in northern arizona. the southwest region split into two weekends so we went with about 300 leaders. leadership weekend is not a new ordeal for me, consisting of leaders coming together to get rejuvenated and excited about the upcoming school year. it's one of my favorite young life events of the year.

while i've met most of the leaders briefly at leadership and around the office, i was going into this knowing few people. i got to bring three of the campaigner girls from coronado high school, where i'm leading, who are going to be junior leaders this year. driving up with them and another junior leader from saguaro high school was a blast and a great bonding opportunity. these are now my girls. i am their young life leader. and i'm so excited to get started with this ministry.

now i know the name and school of almost every leader and junior leader in scottsdale. something that completely overwhelmed me when i first got here. and lord almighty are they great people. so fun. so loving. we truly came together as a community this weekend. between large sessions and smaller seminars we hung out. laid in the grass. talked and laughed. got to know each other. sweet time. the sessions were insane. i will tell you one thing, the southwest knows how to worship. they touched on some of the greats: how he loves, set a fire, beautiful things. and they do it right, so loud that you get lost in the music and scream out as loud as you can to god. i love it. my kind of worship. i was brought to tears. that doesn't happen to me every day. i got time to reflect on the past two weeks and what god has already done in my life here. it is mind blowing. it doesn't make sense. but it is so so good. we got to pray over each other. i prayed for girls i had just met the day before. girls i will be leading beside for the next couple years. strong community. i am surrounded by people who all out love jesus. 

it was a fantastic weekend. everything i needed. lost canyon is beautiful. i have dozens of new friends in the area. i am excited about ministry this year. we are starting club this week and i have four campaigner kids who get it and are ready to come alongside jorge and me to make this thing happen. against all odds and plenty of reasons why coronado young life should not work, we are going to do this. to give our all and serve. to love these kids. i cannot wait.

i truly love it here.

jumping, falling, and being caught

week one down. and oh what a ride it has been.

things only got crazier after the initial tornado of leadership. meetings and meetings and people and people. i haven't counted exactly but i know i have met over 100 people. being in a region where i don't know anyone is hard. i'm used to the chesapeake bay region where i know people. i am known. i have to start over here. which is hard but also exciting. i have been welcomed better than i ever could have imagined and it has been such a blessing.

in a time of spoken praise during our regional area director meeting the other day i shared how God has provided for me. and it really is insane. i mean it makes no sense. there are so many things that went into me getting here. so many reasons it shouldn't have worked out. so many things i didn't even consider or think about in terms of planning- but He has gone before me. He has paved the way. i jumped- fell, and He caught me. i have never seen trust played out as clearly as it has in the past week. and i am so blessed. and exactly where i'm supposed to be.


young life is different out here. but good. i'm adjusting. rick, my boss, is the best and understands. he's from the east coast. and open to suggestion. we're having a bar at the banquet- different. my bible study is called the BB's (bible...witches? close enough.) funny. different. due to some complications with leaders i haven't been able to really start doing ministry. so i've just been going to the school and praying. i went to the football game friday...by myself. an adventure for sure. i actually met some kids and got connected with one of our few campaigner girls who is involved. i'm excited. ready to take off. to get to the heart of my job. to get past this fundraising and getting started. speaking of... (sorry for this shameless plug) fundraising is a huge part of my job. i don't get paid if i don't get funded. it's coming along...slowly. if you have not yet received a letter/phone call and are interested in financially supporting me follow this link. much appreciated. seriously.


my roommates are the best. we laugh and quote movies and eat. our house is perfect...and my room is almost done! i need one more frame to hang my wassily kandinsky poster above my bed and i will be done. oh and i need a stand thing for my record player but that can wait. here's my setup...

built that desk all by myself. i mean it came from ikea with instructions but it still took me three hours and some creativity with the few tools i had. anyway i was proud of myself. again a million thanks to the chiappettis for the rest of the free furniture. gotta love family.

yesterday two of my roommates, sarah and madisen, and their boyfriends, kendall and robbie, and my fifth-wheeling-self went skydiving. kind of a welcome to az thing for me and robbie who is visiting from california. so we went. i never really got scared. this is going to sound lame and grossly cliche but i honestly feel fearless after moving here. i have so much trust in the lord that it would be hard to phase me right now. to put me in a situation where i was truly uncomfortable. so i flew 13,000 feet up in an airplane. and then i jumped out (attached to a man named aaron who knew what he was doing of course). and free fell for almost a minute before the parachute deployed. i jumped. fell. and was caught. regardless of how many papers they make you sign acknowledging the fact that you can die doing this, i never really considered the danger. and because of that i had such a fun fall. i wasn't worrying about whether or not i would be caught, i just fell and trusted that the parachute that was supposed to catch me would catch me. and it did.  i loved it. completely exhilarating. crazy view. and, for me, very spiritual. if i hadn't spun so much on the way down and gotten uncomfortably nautious for the next hour i may be addicted to it. so, for now, it will go down as a great experience and be crossed off my bucket list.

story of my life right now: jumping, falling, being caught. it has yet to fail me.

deep in the valley

i am here! after five days of some hilarious, incredibly adventurous roadtripping- i am here. it's hot. i'm home.

driving with lauren was perfect. between music, listening to harry potter on tape, and chatting each others' ears off we never got sick of each other. go figure. we started out west heading for indiana to stay with some of her family. it turns out we love indiana and it was so sweet to see the haubers and hang out with them for a while. from there we hit missouri. first we stopped in st. louis and rode up the giant arch. a bit nerve racking and jittery but so worth it from the top. so worth it. missouri is beautiful- who knew? we loved springfield where we stayed with lauren's old work crew friend and her husband. they had a tent set up on the floor from when their nephew stayed with them which made for a sweet campout night for us. we woke up to rain- and lots of it. thanks a mill hurricane isaac. our rooftop carrier proved to be waterproof, yet the straps holding it on were not. they soaked through and brought significant water into the car soaking our seats and some items in the backseat. luckily nothing was ruined but many of my cookbooks are stuck and my car smells awful. but we moved on. this day was our least favorite drive- oklahoma isn't the most interesting of states. by the time we got to texas we were pretty exhausted. we were greeted by a gorgeous sunset and a lovely family who was eager to make us dinner and chat. we had never met the youngs before, relatives of my boss this summer, but instantly felt at home. we crashed and woke up the next day ready to take on the west. we had been driving around 8 or 9 hours a day until this day when it only took 4.5 to get from texas to new mexico. we loved this drive and were free to stop wherever and whenever we wanted. we drove on route 66 a while and ended up at this hole in the wall little diner which felt straight out of a movie. after receiving an email from our host family the night before that they would be out of town, we ended up with a house to ourselves in albuquerque. we chilled and watched movies and went out to dinner. albuquerque is the best- our favorite place we stayed. we would both live there. finally we set out on our final drive to arizona. this was about 7 hours but by then we were a bit impatient and just ready to be there. new mexico to az has to be the best drive in the country. seriously so beautiful. after a few hours we made it! we easily found my new condo and met my awesome roommates. the place is huge and i live on the third floor with madisen and sarah. sarah's sister julie lives on the first floor and our kitchen and living room is on the second. life her is going to be great. i know it. it's really hot. but i am so happy to be here!

since i was driving i didn't get to take too many pictures...but we did manage to take a picture with every state sign we drove through! thanks tripod

since i had no furniture whatsoever we spent the first night at the lovely chiappetti's house. it is great to have family when you are so far away from your real family. they have proven to be a great help out here. since recently moving they had tons of extra furniture and let me go shopping in their garage...for FREE! i ended up with a bed, dresser, bookshelf, and lamp that went perfectly in my room. don and reed helped me move in and get settled. god bless the chiappetti's- for real. yesterday after some strenuous moving we met my roommates at a resort on the side of a mountain and laid out at the pool a bit. we needed it. last night i had my first area leadership meeting for young life. there are about four times the number of leaders here than in howard county. and four times the love. i was overwhelmed by the welcoming spirit of these people. i am going to love it here. i know it. i also have a lot of learning to do. i have absolutely no idea how to lead that many people. i have no idea what i am doing. i am in the best place you can possibly be to see the Lord work. because heaven knows i cannot do it on my own.


so now i live deep in a valley. literally. i am here for two years and i am in an unfamiliar area doing a job i don't totally know how to do. i am in a position where, if the Lord doesn't come through and work through me, i will surely fail. without a doubt. but one thing i do know is that He is good. He comes through. He does what i can't. those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.


i will seek Him with all my heart and everything will work out. i trust. and, for now, i am home.