Death to Life

Death is something that all of us stand to face. Last week at the high school there was a student who committed suicide, I received the news of this after learning that my own mother was diagnosed with cancer. Needless to say last week had a somber tone to it, then as Saturday ended I got the news that the father-in-law of a good friend of mine had died unexpectedly. As all of these losses and illness come to me it truly is amazing the grace that God gives us to cope and encourage one another.

As I have spent time ministering to students and a few of my close friends it truly has been amazing the strength and peace God has given me. However in the midst of loss and grief I have found myself challenged and angered on how the gospel shared. My mother who is not a believer and has experienced her share of struggles and trials in this life, is now fighting cancer, and rather than my questions being "why God would you do this to her?" my question has become "how do I share hope to her when things seem hopeless?" I cannot convince my mom or students of the hope that I have. Its not fair to them to have them ride on the faith that I have, they need a faith and a hope of there own.

I have really been challenged to share the gospel in a different way. John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Eternal life according to this verse is to know God, and Jesus who was sent to die for us. Nothing is said here about having a good life, or not experiencing trials, having money or comfort. Jesus is the joy in this journey called life! Holding onto Him and knowing the Father who sent Him is the gospel that grieving, and hurting people need. In light of all the grief and trials around me I am even more passionate about what I do and making sure that others understand & see the grief and hurt that surrounds us day in and day out! I pray that we are convicted and called to action when we feel as though we may not have the answers to ease someones pain, we do however have the answers for the Life that comes after death.

House Broken...finally

OK OK so many of you who know me well know that I really am not a "homemaker" by any stretch of the imagination. I have always listed excuses such as not having anyone to take care of in that sense, or that part of enjoying singleness was to not have to do domestic things like cooking and cleaning.
The last few weeks I have been settling myself into another "home." I don't know what is different about this apartment but for some reason I have unpacked boxes that have not been opened since I moved to Florida 5 years ago! Maybe its my age, maybe its my desire to make some place really feel like home, but over the last two weeks I have cooked more than I have in the past two years. It feels a little pathetic to admitt but its pretty close to the truth.
Suppose another possibility for this sudden interest in cooking has come from my lack of funds to eat out so much, either way something has certainly changed in my head to motivate me to become more domesticated. I have really enjoyed cooking and I have enjoyed eating my cooking! I haven't heard any complaints from my current roommate either, so maybe I'm not that bad of a cook :) It feels great to finally be growing up and doing what other women my age do-(so to speak).
Soo if you have any healthy, simple recipes for me to try let me know!! I am anxious to get a few more cooking utencils and also do a little baking!

A year makes a difference

- One of the biggest things on my list of to-do's in the world of YFC ministry is our 2nd Annual Connection Dinner. The Dinner is an evening where we share the stories of our Palm Beach County YFC chapter, particularly the stories of students who have had significant life-change. During the dinner we give attenders the opportunity to take part in what God is doing in the ministry by partnering with us through volunteering or giving financially.
I really enjoyed the Dinner last year, and was blessed to have gotten some helpful contributions and partners out of the deal. However this time last year I recall being totally paniced about finding a table host and having idividuals to invite. I was absolutely terrified to ask for $300 to pay for the table and I was even nervous about inviting others to attend, afraid that I would be putting them in an awkward position and force them to give money. I remember a feeling of failure as so many of my co-workers had multiple tables and here I was struggling to even ask someone to help me with one table.
Well a year does make a lot of difference! Somewhere in the last year I stopped worrying about what others would think if I asked for money, or their help with finding people to support the ministry. Though I am far from in the black financially speaking, for the dinner I have become an asking fool. It looks like I will have at least 3 tables this year, possibly 4. And because I have asked so many people about the dinner I now have several people to follow up with because I put a "bug" in their ear about YFC. God has obviously done a great work in my heart and mind to keep me in this minstry, I am praying now that I can catch up to my financial goals and that I don't ever stop asking others to get involved.
When was the last time you asked someone to join you in your journey with God whether a mission trip or a personal spiritual journey? I know God has showed me the power that there is when we involve those around us in what He is doing in and through us!

Reunion rewind

If you read my post a few weeks back about my upcoming 10 year high school reunion you know that despite seeming awkwardness I was excited. Maybe at the time I was excited to get out of Florida though? Who knows.

The reunion was all the fun awkwardness that I could handle and more. There was little to no organization to the whole event. Although it was neat to see my former classmates with their children the "picnic at the park" event was weird. I'm sorry but since I don't have kids I maybe shouldn't have gone. It was the place were conversations centered around potty training and ages being shared in months instead of years??? Though there was plenty of cuteness walking around it just felt weird walking up to someone and not having a child to talk about. I suppose that for some parents this becomes a norm, but it certainly is not a norm for me.

The portion of the event was for a dinner at a local restaurant/bar. I greeted most people as they walked in as you can imagine this was a good fit for me- I could get a "hello, how ya doin?" out before they even saw who was asking. For the most part after entering people went straight to the bar, and after returning pretty much sat with the same people they did in high school in the cafeteria at lunch. It was strange to see how we've grown up but not really changed all that much. Maybe its because we are from a super small town where most of us have kept in touch with our high school friends over the years and those are the ones that we wanted to see anyway?? Or maybe I wanted to have an opportunity to share how past our small town I was as I've moved onto the "beaches of Florida..." I was asked to MC the evening but there was no microphone or an order of events. This is where the awkward moments begin. Everything that I had planned and wanted to do to shake the crowd up was blown up. And the longer it took to figure out what we were gonna do the more awkward it got.

I let down everyone who was counting on me to break the invisible ice. I got nervous and when the time came to take charge I cracked under pressure...Turns out I haven't come as far as I thought I had in the last 10 years? #reunionfail

'Hunger' for my time

Soo its a week out from YFCamp! And I can't wait, I'm so excited not only to be going but about the group of students that I have coming along with me! However my time this past week/weekend has had me reading the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, every spare minute I have.

I usually don't read and when I do its almost always a non-fiction, spiritual enhancing type book. I have a hard time reading fiction books mostly because if I really get into them I have a hard time fitting my normal life around getting to the end of the story. I haven't gotten to sleep before 3am in the last 3 days...but I just can't put it down. A couple of months ago I had a friend rave to me about the book, but as she described it as a little "sci-fi-ish" I was turned off though the story did sound somewhat interesting. I somehow, (probably from a celebrity news show,) figured out that they were making these books into movies. I almost never hop on a band wagon before everyone else is on it too, so I thought to myself as I perused a bookstore last weekend "why not" just see what all this is about and if its any good. I had a gift card so I wasn't going to necessarily lose money on the book if I didn't like it.

I should probably step back and share how I got to the bookstore on a Friday evening. I am moving yet again and in an effort to save a little on this last month we (my roommate and I) decided to turn off cable and internet. On Friday evening I was sitting at home finishing a book I was already reading and decided to shop and see if I could find another book to occupy my time in the absence of TV, internet, and even the dvd has been packed away. Either way its Tuesday and I'm about to finish the second book in the series, "Catching Fire." I'm hooked and I'm not only eager and persistent to finish the book series I'm also looking forward to the movies that will be coming out. Unlike the "Twilight" book series, and "Harry Potter" (which I have never even read a word,) I am ahead. I may not be ahead of a lot of people but for once I can join in before previews in the movie theaters are getting others to buy the books.

In observation I guess really the main point isn't that I have read a book before the movie comes out but really how much time I have on my hands without television and internet in my home. Not only have I read these books, I've also spent more time with the Lord and read some of those non-fiction, spiritually enlightening books. By not having TV and internet I have not only enhanced my life spiritually, and personally for my ministry, but I have also taken up a hobby which I had always considered myself too busy for.

So in closing I would challenge you to really unplug, and not just from phone, or email, unplug from the distractions you may have at home. Read a book...find a hobby?

Getting Away???

Soaking up my last few minutes in the office before leaving on a vacation of sorts!

As you all have read I am going home to Kansas to my high school reunion. Nothing really beats being able get away from the momentum that moves our lives forward. I am looking forward to having the license to not answer that phone call or respond to that email. However in the world of ministry where you are in the business of relationships its quite difficult to push relationships away for a period of time. I sat down today with a co-worker who is on a 3 week vacation and not out of town. Before he even came out of his house I had to promise to not talk about YFC stuff. Of course that didn't happen. Its tough when you are in the business of relationships to not take "work" home. Ministry is such a beautiful, scary place to be as a profession. Beautiful to see the all the things that God is doing in the lives of others, and the way he brings people around to serve His causes, Scary because as a profession its so dangerous to look at relationships as business...

How do you view your professional relationships different from your personal relationships? What would you do if they were one in the same?

10 years

I can't believe summer is in full swing and yet I totally believe it by the sweat found on my back from driving in my car. I have missed filling the blogger world in on so many things as the school year came to an end. Everything from the success of Point Break and the new friends I made to how many students we have gearing up for YFCamp this summer. Even the fact that I am once again looking for new place to live has gone unmentioned here. One current thing that is both exciting and strange is that this summer I have the pleasure/displeasure of celebrating a unique milestone...my 10 year high school reunion. At first thought as 2011 approached I was totally weirded out by this fact. But as online conversations began (and my mom sprung for my plane ticket home) I slowly got excited about this milestone. I'm not really sure what makes me so excited to go back to that awful place filled with embarrassing memories and all the people who would remember them. Most everyone around here (WPB,) that I have told about my reunion has frankly stated that they didn't/wouldn't go to theirs, which surprises me. They share how there is no one that they would want to see or catch up with, or how they were so traumatized by the whole high school experience they couldn't be paid to go back. Don't get me wrong there is plenty from my high school experience that I wish wasn't a part of my life, but I have totally bought into this reunion. Maybe its because I grew up in a small town, so even the people that I didn't hang out with I knew for the first 18 years of my life. Kindergarten through 12th grade, 5 days a week I saw the same faces and took classes with the same people. Not to mention that to this day my closest friendships are the ones that I made in high school which is rare, and we don't even live in the same state, not even the same time zone.

Though there are many many reasons to not be looking forward to this "milestone" I am embracing it. How about you? Did you go to your reunion or regret not going? Or do you think that when the time comes you will pass on the "experience" to go back? If so, why?

Point Break

So for over a year now, my boss has been working hard to get Point Break approved by the Palm Beach County School District. She finally received a green flag of sorts at the end of 2010, and with my contacts at Royal Palm Beach High we set our sights to pilot the program there. (If you don't know what I am talking about please refer to pointbreakonline.com, though some of you have maybe heard to talk about it already so I don't want to go over everything you already know.)

The date has been set and then set again, and then changed one last time. The one day workshop was supposed to originally take place sometime in February...its now May. Everything has come down to the very last second. Even as I write this I am awaiting a phone call to verify that we have use of the Royal Palm Rec. Center for that day. Needless to say I have only the confidence of God to pull me through to the next task. May 17th is the date, I feel at this point I may be the only one who is eager and expecting this to happen. I am SO hopeful of what this will do for Campus Life's relationship with not only Royal Palm High, but with the school district. I feel this is a door opener for future Campus Life ministry's in other area schools! Of course I am most excited about what it can do at Royal Palm.

So these last couple of weeks have really been crazy, trying to get everything done in my regular duties as a Campus Life Director as well as keep the school motivated and moving forward in this endeavor (Point Break.) I have been working to help the school produce and get letters out to parents, I have helped write proposals for the money to put this on. Many things that are out of my "expertise," but I am loving every minute of it. I just pray that this is everything that I hope it can be. I want so badly want for this to open up the possibility of having a Campus Life presence on campus weekly. I hope to meet lots of new students in order to invest in their lives along with my other adult leaders. I can't wait to report the success of Point Break and how all of this crazy work pays off.

3 things I have learned about leadership in the last month

Leadership is such a difficult thing to define. There are so many books, seminars, blogs, and people telling us what leadership looks like. Being in ministry the word leader gets thrown around a lot, and in Christian circles the word authentic gets added in there as a bonus. Since I was in high school I have been "taught" and "trained" on how to be a good leader. In school I was always involved in student government, I was also a peer counselor, and a few times was chosen to be an "ambassador" at conferences representing my school. In all those things and even in my adult life I have never learned so much about how to be a good leader than I have in the last month recognizing my failure at it.

-Communication: We are always told what a big effect good or bad communication can have on your ability to be a leader, and I pride myself at times on over-communicating. But I realized in the last few weeks that I communicate openly and often about the positives that are going on in the ministry yet I rarely share the struggles or the things I wish would change. The thing about change when you hold a leadership position is that YOU are the one you can affect change. I was walking around hoping that by my actions and discomfort in certain situations that my volunteers would magically get the picture, then when they would not I would be discouraged and frustrated. I was being a terrible leader by not sharing or taking the time to talk about what was on my mind. I should have found out what the other leaders were seeing and experiencing, but instead I just assumed they knew me well enough to realize what I was unhappy with.

-Confrontation: A little confrontation never hurt anyone, (so to speak.) I have a passive personality, most anyone who knows me can and will attest to this fact. I hate confrontation. But if part of the point to having a supportive team working and serving with you is to have different perspectives then most likely confrontation is gonna come up. The key in this is that as the leader you have to make sure it stays on the productive side of things and doesn't turn sinful. I recently had a very confrontational conversation with one of my leaders but it turned out to be a far more productive conversation than me communicating in positive circles. This particular volunteer took me on the emotional, confrontation roller coaster until a difficult situation was handled and navigated through before future issues arose.

-Responsibility: Any leader in any avenue of life will tell you being a leader is a great responsibility. That fact is a no-brainer...But as a Christian (desiring to be an authentic) leader my responsibility comes from a much deeper place than the office that I work out of. Realizing that my confidence in what I am called to do comes solely from God I can NO longer take that stance that tomorrow is good enough to get something handled or done. I may have been hired to do a "job" by a man, but God has put me here, and its MY responsibility to see to it that what needs to be done gets done! Even if that is having an awkward conversation asking for $10,000 or making sure you are on time to an appointment with a student. Maybe ownership is the better word but I think even that comes down to being responsible with what God has given you. I have forgotten that none of this is about me, so the excuses of "oh thats just my personality", or "nobody cares if I get to that today or tomorrow."

I am a leader of a ministry because God has put me here, and I have been gifted specifically to accomplish what He desires to be done here. For better or worse (I usually learn the most from the worst), until God removes me or calls me elsewhere I have a job to do and I must confidently walk forward unashamed of the outcomes, learning from every opportunity I can. Part of being a leader is to constantly learn, and fortunately God has taught me a lot in the last month about how I fail as a leader, but I believe He did that so I could get better and accomplish more for Him!

The tag line

The tag line here on my blog states that "my life is a mix-tape full of adventures" but I don't know anymore that my life is much of an exciting adventure. At least not from an outsiders perspective I am sure. I began this blog to chronicle my life's happenings and the many happenings in my ministry. So this is not to say that my life has no adventures anymore but maybe my life is too busy to acknowledge and share the adventures. A point of observation for me in my life is that my life has more adventures of struggle, and drama than of fun and entertainment. I have countless blog post that I began and didn't finish because I thought to myself before publishing...."no one wants to read this." Not that I have a bunch of readers anyway???

I am however doing a study on authentic leadership and maybe its time for me to share some of what is going on in my life adventurous or not. I constant struggle that I believe all people have that I am currently experiencing is the growing pains of friendship relationships. My roommate recently began dating one of my best guy friends, and I was happy and excited for the both of them! I had no idea or foresight to see how things were going to progress to the point of me no longer being apart of either one of their lives. Now this is my perspective to if you have been in the position of my roommate or friend then don't judge me, but I am over it. Maybe its because I am single, maybe its because I'm jealous that I don't have someone special in my life. Whatever it is as relationships change, regardless of why it really sucks. As a 28 yr old single female I have had my fair share of girlfriends and guy friends grow up, get married and live happily ever after. As many times as I have experienced this it never gets easy and it never is handled perfectly by anyone involved. I will end this post by stating that I am sick of being the only person in the wrong, and the only one admitting wrong. It really hurts when people forget who you are as a human being (w/ feelings and a heart) and gang up on your faults as you have become vulnerably by living life with them. This makes me want to close my heart to those around me and not let anyone else into my inner life. I realize this is not a right attitude, I'm just venting here on my blog to be honest of my current "adventure" and struggle.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew- review

The Gospel According to St. Matthew, is a movie that not only is way older than me (1964, movie- 1982, me) its also Italian made. Supposedly back in 1965 or something this film was nominated for an Oscar or two. I say supposedly because I didn't do any research myself to confirm the truthiness of the Oscar nomination. While on vacation a couple of weeks ago I was given the opportunity to watch this "classic" film. As I was reading through the subtitles (remember its in Italian) of this seemingly slow moving movie I had never realized how little I understood about other perspectives of the Gospel. I know that there are many out there but most of those that I am aware of circle around an American point of view, or at least English. Not only is there a cultural perspective that is slightly different but there is also a religious perspective that made this movie look different from other biblical movie interpretations.

Most Jesus movies do not center around one of the gospels but rather a collection of points from each gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John). This Italian interpretation was solely from the Book of Matthew, which was quite different to me. My friend @ strangecultureblog.com, did the research that I did not on the director and the back story of this film. It was truly a slow moving movie, and on my own I would not have watched it. However I may have found a new interest/talent as I watched this movie. The "mystery science theater" mock was flooding out of me in a way that I never knew was possible!

All in all I was glad to have watched it. I would maybe not recommend that run to your computer to put it on your netflix cue but as a Christian I would recommend that you stretch yourself to watch, or read something from another religions or another cultures view on the Bible. Its something that not only could help your Christian "world-view" which seems very popular to have these days, but I believe it to be something that can help you to look at the scriptures with a fresh, more open mind and see that maybe there is more in the Word than what we (American churches) have traditional interpreted.

Choice to be open

There are always choices in life to be made, some are simple like getting out of bed in the morning while others are a bit more challenging like what to wear. Then there are those kinds of choices in life that can change you as a person and change relationships. Many thoughts pop into my mind as tempting choices but pop right back out of my mind because they are just things that I would never really do....like dreading my hair. But the hardest choice of all to make in life (in my opinion), is to open up and be vulnerable with others. Now I hope that you realize that the risk in this is not exclusive to relationships with the opposite sex. You could struggle with opening up to your boss and of course we have all struggled to be honest with our parents at one point or another in our lives. Tonight I took a step to be transparent to my Campus Life leaders. At this point I do consider them all to be friends but nonetheless it is always hard to make that choice to put a piece of yourself out there for others. Others are so human and vulnerable themselves...they have the option to except whatever you throw out there or to say I don't want any part of it. I know that we all have struggles and history's that make us who we are but I personally find it hard to share history with someone who didn't live it or walk through it with me. But since being in ministry there are soo so many things and quirks including history that make me the "minister" that I am. Making the choice to let others know those specifics hard. How should I expect to have true partners without being transparent and not just for leadership sake but for life-giving, community building, Christ-honoring realness' sake. I don't know if my leaders were blessed or encouraged about my openness tonight but even if they weren't I have to believe God had some point in it- Life is a challenge to attempt on our own, but is also a challenge to share with others.

My transition

So the last post that I had was a while ago about my blackberry and my addiction to it. Very unhealthy I know, but I didn't realize how much of that was truly Blackberry trait and not my personality until I got an iphone last week. There is a lot to learn and really a lot that I didn't learn about my blackberry that could have helped me in my "obsession," but so far I am finding that my favorite part of having an iphone is the fact that it doesn't consume me quite like my blackberry did. Like I have already said some of my problem could have been solved by me educating myself a bit more on my blackberry but the fact that the way the iphone is set up I have not had to educate myself on it at all. As soon as I turned my iphone on and began to add the basic apps (facebook, twitter, angry birds) the settings for each were already set so I didn't need read to figure out how to not be bothered by my phone or rather addicted to it. I feel like in retrospect my blackberry trained me like pavlov's dogs to constantly check it. Maybe I am an easy target for things like that but I am now sold on the idea that Apple is ligit and super user friendly. I am a person who is not techie nor do I really care to read directions. When it comes to technology I learn by trial and error but usually I am too afraid so I stick with basic functions but so far with my iphone I am finding it really easy to branch out! So here is my white flag waving, I have resisted joining the "trend" of Mac products but now see why people love them. I now see and believe that it is more than a trend...they are more than user friendly and long lasting then other technology products.

In other news I am going to attempt this week to try a new way to get myself to blog, and hopefully the few of you who read this will enjoy and maybe I will catch some new readers. I am going to try and blog each day about one element of my life...could be ministry, friendships, things I am learning or maybe a funny story as my life is really full of those! This will be a challenge for me but in an effort to be more disciplined in my daily life and to allow more people to see what my life as a single, female living in south Florida working in ministry is! Hope you all enjoy!

A real need for connection

- There is this little blinking light on my blackberry, and I love it! It blinks to tell me there is a message for me, a text message or an email, even facebook and twitter make my blackberry blink. I am constantly checking my phone, I go out of my way to pull it out of my purse or walk across a room in the middle of a conversation to make sure I haven't missed anything! This is sad partly because I allow my blackberry to interrupt my day and partly because I look forward to the interruption. I drive my friends nuts, they threaten to take my phone when we hang out because I will pull my blackberry out every couple of minutes. Seriously I can turn the sound off and put it out of my sight and a few times I have still been soo "connected" that I happened to check it at the moment I was receiving a phone call. More than likely that was a coincidence but for a second I thought I was pretty connected to my blackberry!

So I had this thought today that if I was as connected to God as I am my blackberry I could see and know where He is working and what He is doing around me. Even if I reached for God as much as I reach for my phone, my life personally would have so much more power and peace. I am not about to suggest that I give up my phone entirely, but I would imagine that connecting more with Jesus would decrease my interest in whatever my blinking blackberry has waiting for me!