How Big Is The God You Serve?

Last night at youth group, Ryan had this guy named Richard come and give his testimony to our High School students. It was a super intimate night with only 8 students (usually we will have a good 30-40 kids on a Thursday night but they all have a 4 day weekend because of Memorial Day on Monday...). It actually worked out really well because out of the few kids that came, at least half of them really needed to hear Richard's story and they were totally moved to chat with him about it afterwards. Richard's testimony was absolutely spectacular! It's incredible what God has done in this man's life. I wish I could share some of it but for reals, no one would ever believe me... After he shared, Ryan asked us all, "How big is the God you Serve?" For Richard, God is bigger than drug addiction, abuse, violence, prison... How big is your God? That's something I have been dwelling on since last night... We serve a Huge God who is bigger than all of the crap of this world... And what is incredible to me is He chose us... He chose me... He loves me... and he says that NOTHING (neither death nor life, nor angels nor semons, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing: Romans 8:38-39 ) shall be able to separate us from the LOVE of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Hello! I will be your Host for this Week!

Last week, Wednesday - Friday, I got to work at Forest Home Ojai Valley. Basically what happens is there are groups that will come in and run their own programs. While they run their own programs, there has to be a "Host" who provides whatever the group needs in order to run their program (The Host is basically the contact person for the group... They carry the Host cell phone around all day and night). So, that's pretty much what I did last week for those of you who were confused. I stocked bathrooms, set up Audio/Visual equipment, helped with Recreation (Zip-line dismount... so much fun!), Did announcements... and broke up a midnight water raid...

Ok, so here's the story with the water raid. Apparently their host last year (I won't mention his name but some of you might be able to guess who...) helped some of the male counselors raid a girl's cabin in the middle of the night. So, having heard all of the stories from last year, the kids, led by the leaders, decided to have a full on water battle in the middle of the night. I had finished all of my "Host" duties, hooked up my cart (highlight of hosting was probably driving the electric cart around all day!!!), and headed over to Holly's house (where I was staying while hosting). I took a shower and got ready for bed then sat and chatted with Holly as she was cutting out stars (long story). Then around 12:30am I heard some girls screaming... It only lasted a couple seconds so I figured they maybe saw a bug or an animal or something and just freaked out... Then I got a phone call from the ground's keeper asking if I heard all of the noise. I then figured that it wasn't just one scream and I had to go check it out... I walk out to find bathroom doors covered in silly string, water balloons being hurled at people and boys and girls throwing buckets (actually trash cans... they used their trash cans) full of water at each other. It had woken up a couple people so I had to make everyone go back to their tents and go to sleep. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny and if I were in middle school (or a leader in the group), I would have been so pumped on this battle... but, because I was working and a couple of people (the ground's keeper in particular) got pretty pissed, I had to shut it down. The kids and leaders were great the next day and made sure that they picked up every last water balloon shell and dried up piece of silly string... All in all, Hosting was fun. The group was great and fun to be around and to chat with (especially this one EMO kid who kept asking me about my gauges... He called me "Plugs" the whole time... pretty funny... I got a few pretty fun nicknames from the kids... "Plugs," "Mae-Mae," "Chae"...) I think I am hosting again this next week, Monday - Wednesday (so I will be at youth group next week Ryan... sorry for missing it last week!)

As far as work goes, we took the kids to the beach this weekend. It was so nice to get out of the heat for the afternoon. One more weekend and I am free for the summer! I am super excited. These last few weekends have been super special for me. I have been connecting to a few kids on a little bit of a deeper level and just enjoying every bit of them. I am excited to have my weekends back for the summer though!

One of Those "Born-Agains"?

This weekend at work one of my coworkers (all of the teachers are put on weekend duty's to help supervise the kids) said something that really made me check my heart and evaluate myself (does that ever happen to you? Someone - maybe even someone who isn't a Christ follower - says something that makes you check yourself?). She is sort of a Chatty-Kathy ("sort of" might be being too nice... she talks A LOT and it's usually pretty negative... not super fun to work with). Anyway, she was talking about one of her friends and referred to them as "One of those Born-Agains." I said "Born-Agains?" and she sort of just went on with her story (I honestly don't even remember what she said because I started to really think about what she said... I think it was something about how she had cancer or something... that sounds bad that I was zoning out, and it probably was...). Don't get me wrong, I was super excited that she called her friends this. It sounds like they are doing a pretty good job of furthering God's Kingdom. It did however make me look at myself. Do people call me "Another Born-Again"? Is God's love pouring out of me to make people see Jesus in me? Are the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) apparent and driving factors in my life today? What am I doing to further God's Kingdom? I just finished reading Jesus for President (I will be posting on that later) and it talked a lot about living like Jesus lived/s and loving like Jesus loves. It talked a lot about being a part of a different Kingdom; not the Roman Empire, or the American Empire, or the European Empire, but being a member for Kingdom of God and what that means for how our lives should look. They should not look like those with devotion to the Empires of this world (focusing on money, power, military might...) but those with a devotion to loving God and loving others! I pray that people will see Jesus' love shinning through me! I pray that one day, someone will see Christ in me and that they might even refer to me as "One of those 'Born-Agains.'"

Introducing...

MIKA!!!

That's right, we got another dog yesterday. Not just a dog, but a puppy. She is a 10 week old Australian Shepherd-Boarder Collie Mix. We adopted her from the Humane Society and she is absolutely adorable. She will be a pseudo-family dog, but Janae will be caring for her. She definitely is a puppy and we are definitely dealing with lots of "puppy" things (potty training sucks!!! when we got Toby, he was already paper trained...). Speaking of Toby, I am not sure how he is reacting to this new addition. He did mark his territory in the house which made me really upset (he has NEVER done that before!). He is pretty cute with her though; herding her around the house and stuff. She's still pretty scared, but is starting to get comfortable in the house and with all of us.

Go Dodgers!

This weekend we took the kids to a Dodger's Game. I don't think I have been to a Dodger game in maybe over 10 years. I am not a huge baseball fan, but going to events are fun and games are pretty entertaining because you can either watch the game or people. Let's just say I watched a lot of people! Dodger's scored in the bottom of the first inning (do you like that baseball lingo? I used to play softball...) making the scored 2-0. The next 6 innings were uneventful. The pitcher threw a no-hitter of the first 7 innings of the game before starting to lose it, so they switched up pitchers. We left right as they were switching pitchers (we had to make it home for dinner on time...) and from what I was told, the game went downhill after that. For those of you who aren't at all familiar with baseball, there are 9 innings (usually, as long as there isn't a tie). Apparently the final score was 8-5 Houston. So sometime in the 2 and a half innings from when we left, Dodger's scored 3 more runs and Houston scored 8! It sucked that we had to leave early, but we made it back right on time as it was (to the minute!!!).

Anyway, It was a really fun day and a really fun weekend. I had some good bonding time with a couple of the kids (it's about time I get some bonding time... only two weekends left before summer!) which was really special to me. Another praise for all of you is that I finally got offered a contract for next year! They weren't sure if they were going to have enough in the budget to hire me back (they do all of the hiring around February/March time) but yesterday they offered me a contract. So I believe I am on for another year of crazy 30 hour weekends hanging out with some great kids!

Where Did The Sun Go?

Sorry for totally lagging on blog updates. Not a whole lot has been happening, but I've been really busy... Does that make sense? Kinda an Oxymoron maybe...

Anyway, if you read my last post you will know how tired I was last week. The after Prom party really did me in and I pretty much haven't stopped since. Last week Wednesday I had another all nighter (I drove my friend Holly to LAX Thursday morning at around 3am and we might have gone to bed around midnight or so giving me another night of only two hours of sleep... NO GOOD!!! but totally fun!). Last weekend at work was pretty mellow. All of the kids had just gotten back from their backpacking trips so most of the weekend was spent unpacking, doing laundry, and just relaxing.

This week was a pretty exciting one. Monday was Cinco De Mayo so we celebrated by having Mexican Food at Home-Group (and who better to be on the main dish than me?). I spent most of the morning cooking and cleaning (like a true Mexican I suppose... I had the apron on and everything... I totally reminded myself of my abuela...). That afternoon I drove down to pickup Holly from the Airport which was fun. We had some good bonding time on the PCH. Dinner that night was AMAZING! We had so much food and all of it was great! Tuesday I got some stuff done around the house and around town before driving up to Santa Barbara to pick up Mackenna. Later that night I got to watch Mason and Caden again. They have both grown so much! Mason has made some incredible progress (he's walking, dancing, signing, and interacting with you... still not talking, but totally communicating through signs and nods!). I am actually going to be watching them the last weekend of this month while Mom and Dad go away on a much needed vacation.

Which brings me to my next big news; I only have three more weekends left before summer!!! Yes that's right! Counting this weekend (which starts in about an hour), I only have three more weekends left for this school year. I still don't know if I will have a job next year (they aren't sure if they have it in the budget to hire an Assistant on the weekends, but the Headmaster is "Cautiously Hopeful"... whatever that means...), but it's totally in God's hands! In other news, Holly has finally recruited me to work at Forest Home. I am going to be hosting a group this next week (Wednesday-Friday) which I am actually sort of excited about. It should be fun! Life is beautiful right now and even though the sun disappeared today, I thought I would share one of my favorite photos right now... Enjoy the weekend!

Fried, Toasted, Spent...

I'm not so sure that this weekend was as good as I thought it was going to be. I mean, I didn't think it was going to be spectacular or anything. I knew it was going to be pretty rough, but I didn't anticipate how rough it actually was. Overall, work this weekend was really stressful. The kids were really high strung and not behaving really well. I actually had to discipline a few students this weekend which I never do because I hate it! So work was crazy. I did get to go home Friday night (I was supposed to be on sleepover duty). One of the dorm parents came in around 11pm as I was curling up on the couch and asked if I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed... "Heck Yes!!!"

Saturday was similar to Friday as far as discipline and all that. We did open the pool for the kids (it was way too stinkin' hot for the end of April). I got to clean out a dead rat from the pool which was fun (or not!)! The pool was incredible and I totally jumped in a couple of times to cool off! Saturday night after getting off work, I headed over to the After Prom Party at Jesters/Ojai Playhouse. I got to pretend to be paparazzi for the first part of the night which was super rad! The rest of the night, I helped watch kids (Tried to keep them from making babies) in the movie theater (Goonies... "HEY YOU GUYS!!!"). I think I ended up getting home around 4am and fell asleep at 4:30am. I slept for about 2 and a half hours before getting up to head over to work. I took a cat nap on the bus on the way down to Santa Monica, but the whole day was pretty miserable from being so exhausted!

After work, I went straight down to Ventura for Nicki's birthday dinner. It was sort of a girl's night thing which was super fun. I felt like I was drunk (not that I know what that feels like) from having no sleep and walking around all day long. After dinner we did a little bowling. I was way loopy by this time so I don't remember everything (I took pictures though to try and remember some of it... I am totally exaggerating by the way, I remember everything). I am slowly trying to play catch up as far as sleep and stuff, but I am still super tired... Was it worth it??? ABSOLUTELY! It was a great weekend even if I am totally fried!

PS: I did manage to take a lot of pictures from this weekend despite being super tired!

Pictures of The Prom After Party

Pictures of Santa Monica/Work

Pictures of Nicki's B-Day Party

Pictures of my new gauges... That's right, I went up to 0G's this weekend... they don't hurt at all which is super awesome! I probably won't go any bigger despite the constant nagging and temptation that some of my High Schoolers dish out... I can almost put my finger through the whole which tell me they are big enough!

SOOOO Good!

I have to say that I am super excited about this weekend! It's crazy and chaotic and I can't wait! I am on sleepover duty tonight at work (which is always a joy... you know sleeping on the couch... I don't mind it as much as I complain, but it's the job I guess). So I go into work today at 2:30pm and stay overnight, work all day tomorrow. I get off at 10pm when I get to shoot straight over to Jesters/Ojai Playhouse for the Safe and Sober After Prom Party! The Party goes from 10pm - 4 am after which I will go home and try to sleep for a couple hours before needed to be back at work by 8:30am... (are you tired yet?) I get to work from 8:30am - 5:30pm (we are taking the kids to the Santa Monica Pier which I am really excited for because I have never been there before). After work, we are having a girl's dinner for Nicki's B-Day which should be super fun! Who knows what will happen after that with all of those crazy ladies! As crazy as this weekend sounds (and trust me, the more I think about it, the more I freak myself out about it), I am super excited (mainly for the After Prom Party because I am didn't go to Prom because I am sort of Anti-Prom - it's cool for other people, but not my thing - The After Prom Party is going to be awesome!)! Please pray for strength and patience and rest (when possible) and energy for me to get through this crazy exciting weekend. Also pray for a Safe Prom night for all Nordhoff students! Pray that good decisions will be made throughout the night!

PS: this picture is dedicated to Miss Cory Coffey, my friend and partner in crime when it comes to all things that are SOOOOO GOOD!!!!

The Arches

Last night Carl and I drove up to meet Kate and some of her friends for dinner at Something's Fishey. Dinner was delicious and it was fun hanging out with Kate (Hey Kate H! Glad to hear that you read my blog!). After one of Kate's friends suggested hiking up to "The Arches" by Westmont. I didn't realize how out of shape I was until we started climbing up the mountain behind Westmont. It wasn't really "climbing" but most of the hike had a pretty good incline to it. It actually goes through some private property so it was a little sketchy some of the time. There was super cool quasi-Roman architecture which was super neat to see! The view was incredible and I really like how the lights blended on my camera! It was a fun night for sure!

Spring is in Bloom

The weekend after last, my parents, Chris and myself took a bike ride down to Ventura. The weather was perfect (a little warm... it was that 90F degree weekend) and the ride was great! I saw this little guy on the trail as we were riding down and we stopped to help him across the trail (and a quick photo opp...). For more pictures of this killer ride, check out this link.

I have also been having some fun with Henna and you should check out those pictures too!