At least 1o people were shot in Alabama yesterday.  16 people were shot today in Germany, about 70 miles from where I live. 

I think it’s true of most everything in life that once you have a personal attachment/encounter with something, you’re much more aware every time it happens.  This is now true of shootings.  In fall on 2007 my former high school experienced a school shooting where luckily no one was injured or killed.  All the same… during the shooting I remember talking on the phone to my best friend destiny while she was in the portable next door to the building where the shooter was.  I remember the panic in the air when i found out a shooting was going on: were all my friends safe?  who was the shooter?  did I know them?  why was this happening?  how was it affecting everyone?

Now, whenever I hear of school shootings they affect me on a much more personal level.  I can’t help but feeling physical pain in my chest as I hear the news.  My heart literally hurts.  It’s not just the fact that people are dying… thats obviously a large part of it…. but it’s the notion of WHY is this happening.  Each occurence like this is just a heart-breaking reminder to me that we are all broken broken people who need a remedy, who need truth.  I know a common reaction is to be mad at the shooter, or perhaps even hateful toward the shooter.  this must be a natural response.  but although i feel this hatred, i even further just feel pain.  How is it that the devil can lie and twist the truth so much in someone’s life that they get to a point where they snap like that?  How can man, which once was good, have fallen so far to perform acts of hatred and pain like this?  I don’t know… but it makes me hurt inside.  This world is such a broken messy place full of people who need the healing truth of Christ so badly.  It hurts me to see and hear of “incidents” like this… because it shows that people have arrived at a place of epitomising their brokenness, and that hurts the most because i know and feel the hope that is available. 

I heard about these episodes of broken people in this broken world this morning, and I’ve hard the lyrics from David Crowder’s song, Remedy, flashing through my mind all day since then:

Here we are
Here we are
The broken and used
Mistreated, abused
Here we are

Here You are
Here You are
The beautiful one
Who came like a Son
Here You are

So we lift up our voices
We open our hands
To cling to the love
That we can’t comprehend

Oh, lift up your voices
And lift up your heads
To sing of the love
That has freed us from sin

He is the one
Who has saved us
He is the one
Who embraced us
He is the one who has come
And is coming again
He’s the remedy

Here we are
Here we are
Bandaged and bruised
Awaiting a cure
Here we are

Here You are
Here You are
Our beautiful King
Bringing relief
Here You are with us

So we lift up our voices
And open our hands
Let go of the things
That have kept us from Him

He is the one
Who has saved us
He is the one
Who forgave us
He is the one who has come
And is coming again
He’s the remedy

Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy
He’s the remedy

So sing, sing

You are the one
Who has saved us
You are the one
Who forgave us
You are the one who has come
And is coming again
To make it alright
Oh, to make it alright
You’re the remedy
Oh, in us
You’re the remedy

Let us be the remedy
Let us bring the remedy

So.  Here we are. a broken people.  but I and others have met a hope in Christ which serves as a remedy.  Let us embody the remedy.  But in being the remedy, we must be a compassionate people as we suffer with them in their brokennes.  As their hurts become our hurts, we will begin to grow together in this broken world and we can begin to live with love and hope. 

Yesterday was March 7, 2009.  this day has been a hard day to face for the past five years.  Yesterday marked five years since i became the youngest of 2 children, instead of the youngest of three. Five years since the first time I cried until i had no more tears.  Five years since I felt like I lost direction in life.  Five years since the day that I knew there was a God and i was horribly mad at him for existing and for letting us exist. Five years since my life got turned upside down and i was forced to go with the curve in the road.

Five years ago, my big sister died.  I won’t try to use euphamisms like “passed away” to make it sound more elegant and less blunt.  Because in all horrible honestly… it was a blunt blow to my family which left a gaping hole.  There was not much that was elegant about it.  But it happened… and we’ve been left to grieve. 

Grieving has changed over the years since that day in 2004.  The first day was full of tears, hugs, silence, singing church songs, family coming into town.  The following weeks were a mess and a blur.  Once the funeral was over… we were given grace by those around us, but for the most part, the rest of the world moved on… they had closure.  So, when we couldn’t find closure, and when it hurt too bad to grieve in healthy open ways, we all found different ways to shove our emotions and memories onto a shelf in a dark closet and lock them in there.  Everyone in the family dealt with this stuff in different ways, but for me, the messy few weeks after her death turned into a messy year.  living a two-faced life, i did many things I shouldn’t have been involved in.  it was a time of pain, denial, expectations, anger, depression, rebellion, confusion.

Even though i ditched school a lot in those days, when it came around to March 7 in 2005, the first year mark after Julie’s death, I asked my parents if I had to go to school that day.  They said no.  If they had said I had to, I probably still would’ve ditched… but luckily I was able to do this with their blessing.  My dear friend Dena also asked her parents, and they said it was fine.  This is how an important tradition began… a tradition that has been of comfort and healing, a tradition that has helped my grieving process as a whole.  Starting that first year, and continuing since then, Dena and I have take the day off on March 7th, and spent the day going around, doing whatever.  We’ve found adventures, and we’ve also had times where we just sit and cry and remember my sister the way she really was.  There’s also just good times of silence.  Destiny has also become a significant part of this tradition.

Each year, the day looks a little bit different as each year the absence hurts a little bit less, and the memories warm my heart a little bit more.  This year, I am in Europe, and obviously Dena, nor Destiny, nor any of my close friends from home are here.  I had already thought this through earlier this week, and was concerned… not knowing how I would spend the day… not knowing how to handle being in a place where no one knew her name, knew the story, or knew how to help me on that hard day.  But everything turned out to be alright.

In the morning I got up and played piano for a while.  This helped.  Then I was aching for some sort of a release… I needed to go do something… i needed that traditional theraputic day.  I ended up convincing my friend Signe to go on a bike ride with me and we ended up riding all the way to the Rheinfalls.  It was beauitful.  absolutely beautiful.  On the way back we stopped and got ice cream at this cool cafe and hung out there for a while, and then rode back home.  It was a simple day, and although I didn’t talk about memories of her… or explain the story… somehow it was enough.  Riding my bike out in the fresh air in the sun was so great, and it made me recall simple sunny afternoon bike rides with her and my brother.  It was a simple day to remember when times were simpler.  Not perfect.  just simpler.  and it was just what i needed. 

After julie died, I remember being enthralled with the Peter Pan quote, “to die would be an awfully big adventure.”  Now, I see though, it’s only an adventure if the life you’ve lived up until then has been a part of the adventure.  I’m glad that i’m healed enough now in my grief that I’m able to embrace an adventurous life, even if that life one day leads me to my death.  For now, I love life, in all of its ways… in the pain and the joy, in the crap and the clean, in the good and the bad.  Because life is real… and I love real things, because they are a glimpse at God in all his reality. 

Again this place seems to be a place where brokenness meets healing, and where pain and joy are able to happen together.  Even with everyone home for spring break right now… I am not wishing I were anywhere else but here right now.  This is where I’m supposed to be right now.  And that is an incredible feeling.

Thank you to Dena for helping me start such a tradition, and to destiny for picking up where Dena had to leave off (stupid college).  and thank you to my family who has been so good about being understanding that we all grieve in different ways.  I love you guys.  we’re still all in this life-thing together.

In my ministry Integration class they handed us a copy of this poem earlier this week, and it’s been on my mind the past few days.  I think it exemplifies what I value and see as being “real” in life.  I just wanted to share this with you guys.  what do you think of it?

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

This past weekend I experienced my first real culture shock.  This whole time I’ve been submersed in a place that is still the same as the US in many ways especially because it’s all western culture, and where there are some differences, for the most part, they all seem like differences that you would find SOME place in the US. 

Sunday was different.  Sunday was my village’s celebration of Fasnacht.  Fasnacht is a thing which German’s celebrate starting in November, and it moves from village to village throughout the country.  So each village/town/city celebrates at a different time.  It’s always a time of festivities and such,  including, usually a good amount of alcohol, and a parade of sorts and maybe some parties… but it’s usually on a more moderate scale.  Also, each village/town/city has a Fasnacht troop which dresses up in matching costumes for that one village.  These troops usually travel to different neighboring towns and villages for their fasnacht celebrations also, so each city has a few troops there to celebrate.  Also, many people in the town dress up in the few days before fasnacht (this part of the festivities is similar to our Halloween.  People dress up as anything and go to costume parties and stuff).  Then, on the day of the parade (on sundays) everyone from the town comes out to watch.

Now, my village (Busingen), is one of the last places to celebrate Fasnacht (or maybe it’s the very last place, i’m not sure) so people and troops come from ALL over Germany to our little village to celebrate, so the festivities here are unique, huge, and out of control, which is different from the normal Fasnacht celebrations I guess.  Normally a village of about 200 people (so i was told) was filled with over 30,000 people this weekend (again… secondhand rough est.).  but still… crazy.  So there’s all these crazy drunk people here, many of them who have been drinking for days straight, and then there’s all these different troops here to be in the parade and they’re all in their village’s costumes.  (There were 103 troops). 

Besides the madness that this would include… all of the costumes are really evil looking and demonic for the most part.  The majority of the costumes were those of creepy witches and demons.  literally.  it was really disturbing.  Not only were the costumes disturbing (and the sheer number of these demonic costumes…), but the drunk people beneath the costumes were acting crazy and evil and they were operating without any inhibitions.  So… this is where things went drastically different than in the US.  All these people were in a parade which lasted almost 4 hours, and the rules here are different.

Coming from the USA… there’s certain rules that we just take for granted that everyone will operate by: one of them concerns how we will or will not be touched by strangers.  For example, if an American is ever going through a haunted house… you may be bombarded with scary images and people dressed up in frightening costumes and doing things to scare you, but you go through KNOWING that no one is allowed to touch you.  I personally would operate not only under that assumption, but under the assumption that if someone were to touch me, I’d have ever right to sock them in the face or something to defend myself.

Here… it’s quite different. Nothing will serve as an accurate description for you to know exactly how it was, but I’ll try to help you envision this:

  At this parade, the costumed figures would come toward people in the crowd and do various things… they would come up to young girls and rub their hair… or they would come and rub tons of confetti in their hair and/or shove it down their shirts and pants.  They might come and zip-tie someone’s legs together and then pick them up, sling them over their shoulders, and carry them down the street.  they might come grab a girl, and then have one of the costumed men on the ground, throw the girl on top of him, and then another costumed one would jump on top… and then in this costume demon sandwich they would move suggetsively all over.  One time we even saw them do this to a young girl who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old.  Some girls were targeted multiple times for such things because they looked like easy targets.  We saw one girl have things done to her more than 8 times… and her boyfriend stood by everytime and laughed.  This is just what happens, and eveyrone knows.. and most even enjoy it.

someone getting taken (they also took his shoe)

a girl they took

Like I said…. CULTURE SHOCK.  Also… if the demons or witches came toward you (this happened to me when I was on the street, trying to move down the street to my friend’s house where we were going to watch the parade safely from her balcony), and you looked scared, then they would chase you.  So… here I am on the street, having been watching the parade for only like 5 minutes when we see these really creepy/evil/scary looking demons coming down the street getting closer to us.  We started to feel uncomfortable.  Then they saw us in the crowd…. somehow the fact that they saw us made it more intimidating, so we slowly turned away, and started walking semi-briskly down the street on the other side of the crowd, separated from the street…. and immediately they took off running after us!  I tried to get farther down the street and then jumped into the middle of the crowd so they didnt see me.  After that we decided to watch from the second story of our building.

they chased her behind the crowd

Everyone from this culture seems to love this event… especially the people from this village because it’s definitely the biggest thing that ever happens here.  Yet, the whole thing was so different, and so disturbing to me.  Later on in the parade I did finally make it to Beth’s house to watch from her balcony, and on that area of the street there were more families so the costumed people were much more civil… and that was more enjoyable to watch.  But still the whole thing was disturbing and very oppresive.  It stressed me out a lot even to just watch what they did to a lot of the people on the street that by the time it was over i was absolutely exhausted. 

after the parade they

I didn’t take a lot of pictures because i simply didn’t want to remember a ton of it or to save a lot of it because it felt so evil at times.  But i did take some to try and show you guys the essence of the day.  The whole point of Fasnacht I was told is that it’s to scare away the evil spirits of the winter and to welcome spring here.  The whole thing is like a big combination of carnival/mardi gras, halloween, and april fool’s day.  Still…. it’s not exactly my cup of tea.  It was however, a very good reminder that I am definitely not in the united states anymore.

mocking the anti-tobacco ads

creepy clowns on parade

SO yesterday was the day of finals for the first term here at EuNC.  The week was kind of crazy with all the thigns we had due and all the things we had to get done.  By thursday night I was going a bit stir crazy and needed some sort of extreme or random activity to help quench my thirst for adventure and give me a break from studying… but there was nothing to be found.  Except… I decided I could swim in the rhein.  However, it was far too cold and too late at that time of night, and i have a policy about not going into good-sized bodies of water that I’m not familiar with at night…

So, I decided on thursday night, as a compromise, that i would plan to go swimming in the Rhein on friday afternoon after finals were all done!  I let a lot of people know… tried (and failed) to convince others to join me… and then made the plan of when to go do the deed.  There ended up being some snow falling just before the time that i had set to go swimming… but I decided it was still worth it.  I psyched myself up for it, and was anticipating the coldest body of water I’d ever been in.

By the time we actually got down to the river, it was about to be dusk, and it had luckily stopped snowing.  i had a goog group of people that came to witness my craziness and root me on. 

When I actually went in… it really didn’t feel too cold.  After I’d talked myself into how cold it was going to be… in contrast it really wasn’t all the bad.  It definitely woke me up though and gave me some bursts of adrenaline.  All in all, I’m super glad I did it, I’ve become a little legend for the week, and it was definitely a good way to end finals.  =)

Jenna watching with a blanket

 If you’d like to watch videos of pre, during, and post event, check these out: 

Part 1: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sid=f780ad655b98067e9b7d5094adb4a21c&id=588404133&hiq=frank#/video/video.php?v=1094126667252

Part 2: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sid=f780ad655b98067e9b7d5094adb4a21c&id=588404133&hiq=frank#/video/video.php?v=1094130547349

Part 3: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sid=f780ad655b98067e9b7d5094adb4a21c&id=588404133&hiq=frank#/video/video.php?v=1094144547699

Part 4: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?sid=f780ad655b98067e9b7d5094adb4a21c&id=588404133&hiq=frank#/video/video.php?v=1094226789755

Hope you enjoy these! =)

Today I went with Jennie and Montague (the newly engageds!) to Zurich.  We went around the city, but the main thing we did was explore Zwingli’s Church (leader of the Swiss protestant reformation… he’s like the Martin Luther of Switzerland).  It was very cool to see, and then we paid 2 franks so that we could climb up into one of the church’s towers.  The staircase was VERY narrow with small steps, and it was very tight curves spiraling up for the first half of the way… BUT once we got to the top the view was completely worth the money and the steps!

Montague and I also took the chance to throw snowballs from such a high place!  So we definitely turned some heads from the streets below… but don’t worry… no one was assalted by our balls of snow.  It was a fun time though. =)

  

   

 

Frank making a sweet shot in his shorty shorts

 So today Brady and I went to go watch Frank’s basketball tournament in Schaffhausen.  Frank’s dad, Antonie (the Academic Dean at EuNC) ended up calling and offering to drive Brady and I to the gym. 

So, we got to the gym, watched Frank play (on two separate teams!) and played some cards in between his games.  (By the way, Frank is actually really good at basketball… probably due to a mixture of his height, his time that he spends watching basketball and “studying the techniques” of NBA allstars on youtube, and the time he spends actually playing! =) )  Swiss basketball is a bit different though, including their uniforms, haha!  (See picture below.  I didn’t know if I was in switzerland or 1970’s in the US with the prevelance of short shorts!)  They also don’t hard dribble, but instead they pass pretty constantly. They have a rule that if you dribble, and then hold the ball in two hands, you can dribble again, but you can’t hold the ball in two hands again until it’s been passed to someone else.  So, as a result, they move over the court by pretty much just passing non-stop.  It makes the game seem busier, yet there’s not a lot of quick break-aways down the court or anything.  It was cool to watch, though.

  Antonie was planning on coming for the end of the tournament and offered to drive us back then, or said that he could come get us earlier and drive us back.  But, we felt bad about having him go out of his way to drive us (again!), and we couldn’t really wait until the end of the tournament… so we decided to head off on foot and walk back.  I was pretty sure i knew the general direction, but apprently, we took a wrong turn somewhere, so I ended up stopping at one point and looking across a valley of houses, and I noticed a tower that’s part of the old city wall, and realized THATS where we were supposed to be heading.  So… we found our way to the Rhein and walked back along the river.  We did run into some fasnacht celebrators along the way who had thrown a parade.  It was…. interesting… =)  (Fasnacht is like a carnival celebration that people here celebrate for a few weeks before the Lent season begins.  People dress up in costumes and party a lot… it’s like a form of mardi gras.)

walking back along the rhein

All in all it was a fun, relaxing adventure for the daylight hours.

After we got back, some of us students got to be involved in Montague’s marriage proposal to Jennie that night!  We acted out scenes from different point in their relationship up until that point and then he proposed.  She was surprised and they’re both so happy!  It was so cool to be able to be a part of their special story!

Then, after watching a movie with a friend, I got attacked by some girls from my hall with flour (apparently the flour war had started in the kitchen and they brought it down 3 flights of stairs especially to me.  =) ).  While still covered in flour, the girls from my floor and I finished out the night by going to McCafe (mcdonald’s version of coffee) for coffee and hang-time.

Overall, I’m pretty sure this goes down in the hall of fame as best overall day for valentine’s day, ever.

This past weekend I went to Munich with a group of friends.  (Awesome discovery: In Germany you can buy weekend train tickets for a group.  You get one ticket per 5 people, and the ticket only costs 35 Euro, so like 7 Euro each, and you can go anywhere in Germany on that ticket for as long as you want between Saturday morning and Sunday night.  How cool is that!?)  The train ride was about 5 hours each direction, but it actually went by pretty fast, and on the way back I slept most of that time. 

One thing I really wanted to do while in Munich was to go to the concentration camp that’s about 40 minutes out of the city.  However, on the way there we realized it wasn’t a good time to experience it.  We had limited time in Munich as it was, and it would take much more time to go out there, spend the time necessary to really take in the situation at the camp, and come back.  So, perhaps another time I’ll get to do this.  Yet, even besides that… I had an incrible experience.  And something happened that I’d never been able to fully anticipate how it would feel:

           This weekend, I had my first encounter with a king.  Actually… two kings.  And they were dead.  Ludwig I and Ludwig II are kept in urns in the ballroom of their palace in Munich.  They are Bavarian kings whose ancestors made the palace in Munich their summer home, yet it was later turned into the main palace for these royal men.

            I had never visited a dwelling place for royalty before.  I’ve thought about it before how, as an American, I don’t have a good sense of what it means when I think about God being my King.  I don’t have a good sense of kings at all.  Not of their role, their majesty, or what it means to belong to their kingdom. 

            It was a phenomenal palace.  I was stunned.  Honest-to-goodness breathtaking.  The first room we entered was their grand ballroom and it was absolutely awe-inspiring.  I could not believe my eyes and believe that not only was I actually in a real place that looked like that, but the fact that a place that truly looks like that exists and was used by real people in their daily lives!  The idea of having someone I would refer to as “Your Majesty” is beyond me.  Yet, I gained some perspective as I saw the intricate details of the palace.  You can tell a lot about someone based on their home.  This was no different.  Everything was ornate.  No ceiling was left unpainted.  At a certain point not too long after entering the ballroom, I found myself laying down on the floor in the middle of the room just gazing at the ceiling because it was so huge and so intricately painted.  The painting alone was an impressive work, not even considering the massive, gold-laden room it topped, or the many crystal chandeliers which hung from it.  I couldn’t stop saying “Oh my gosh! oh my gosh!  I can’t believe this is real!”  (The guards were all laughing at me and they told me I made their day because my reactions were so incredible!)

            Then, as I was walking through the palace looking at the different chambers, admiring the utmost beauty and wealth of the place, a thought struck me:  “If I were living in the day and age that this palace was in use, and I was who I am, I would never have been allowed in here.”  It was such a weird thought.  Coming from a land where equality is preached far more than it’s even practiced, I have never felt seriously inferior because of my social status, my parent’s occupation, my place of residency, or my type of schooling.  Yet all of a sudden, I got a glimpse at how lowly I would’ve been seen as being by their society.  And I realized that in comparison of my social standing to that of the king, the gap would’ve been far too great to fill, and I wouldn’t have been allowed in the palace for anything, let alone to be the king’s treasured company.

I was in this beautiful place that left me speechless, and I knew it was a place where I didn’t belong.  I was inferior.  This place was not made for me.  It was made for a king…

 All of a sudden, John’s statement about Jesus being a man “whose sandals I am not fit to carry” carried great significance.  I’ve imagined God as my king before… but that’s just it… it was all in my imagination, just as any king would have to be.  But suddenly, standing where previous kings stood, touching the floors where their parties danced, being surrounded by grandeur, the lives of king became more real to me.  And God became more real to me in all His splendor.  I was humbled, and filled with awe at just how great His grace and love are that they surpass even greater social gaps then me and an earthly king.  I knew I had encountered someone great: not dead Ludwig I, or dead Ludwig II – they are only ashes.  I got a small glimpse of my King.

Now I not only have a picture of God as a jewish carpenter who was homeless and then strung up on a cross… I also have a picture of Him in His palace, seated on His throne.  and suddenly I saw once again that I have not the slightest idea how Great his love is…

the palace from the front

Ceiling of the ballroom

taking a stroll in the palace grounds

the back of the main part of the palace

me in the ballroom!

the old roman parliament building in Munich

we also went to sat. night mass at the Pope's Church

Florentina and I on the train ride home

In class the other day we watched a film on the life of St. Francis of Assisi.  The film itself was not great, and it was done pretty cheesily… but the story of Francis’ life was actually pretty resounding. 

Now, I don’t want to get all preachy or mushy, but this is me just being honest.

I knew a good deal about Francis’ life before we watched the movie.  I knew that he worked with the Lepers and that he started a great following, and then ended going off on his own again after that.  I knew he lived a somewhat segregated life from “normal society”.  I also knew about Mother Teresa’s life, and so this idea of modern day saints spending time with the Lepers was not new.  It didn’t seem quite as revolutionary as when Jesus did it 2,000 years ago.  However, I did not realize that Francis contracted the disease.  When it said that in the film, it was like a slap in the face.  Again, single tears just rolled from my eyes without my permission.  Suddenly I was lost in my own mind, having a DTR (“defining the relationship” for those not in college or from the states) with God.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal that I wrote right after class which shows mine and God’s chat about this:

                I think too often, when I think of trusting you… I think of tales of time when your servants trusted you and you “came through for them”, so to speak.  Stories like that of Daniel in the lion’s den, of the three who were thrown into the furnace but were kept alive, of David fighting Goliath.  I never realized that this is how I thought of trusting you successfully until today when we watched the film.  Francis trusted you, followed your calling, loved the untouchables… yet you did not ‘protect’ him as I think of “protection”.  He contracted leprosy when he touched them.  This slapped me in the face.  Not only are we supposed to trust you, knowing you are able to protect us if you choose to, but we are supposed to trust you knowing that you may choose not to protect us.  I suppose I’d rather think of Daniel being delivered from the lions when I think of a story of trust rather than Christ trusting you, and being flogged nearly to death, and then being hung brutally on splinter-clad logs.  It’s much easier to trust you when I think it means protection.  But you don’t promise that. 

                Father, again, I catch a sense of destiny.  I’d like to have a family, to have a house, to grow old with my husband.  But I realize strongly that that may not be the plans you have for me.  I don’t know what your future holds for me, but that’s just it… it’s your future for me… not my future for you.  I am yours.  Abba Father, I belong to you.  Everything I am is from you, and everything I do is through you.  Above all else, I just want you. 

I know…  mushy/preachy, right?  but true.  I have come to terms with the fact that I have no idea what God’s going to do with me in the future… and even though it’s exciting to me that God’s in charge of my life, and that he can use me in really cool ways… it still gives me little pangs of reality in my heart, knowing that really… he may take me anywhere… and with that path he doesn’t promise that I’ll even live through it.  But i suppose maybe that’s the point… none of us make it out of this journey alive.  I figure I might as well allow God to make the path worthwhile then, and get to hang out with Him along the way. 

Anyway… this is just some stuff I’ve been thinking about…

So today at lunch the meal they served was sausage… big fatty german sausages.  I was totally just going to pass up the opportunity to try this “cultural gem”… but then my buddy Victor gave me a hard enough time about “Why put off till tomorrow what you could do today?” and a whole schpeal about how I should try it sometime.  and to be honest… of all the sausages I’ve seen, this one looked, not appetizing… but not completely revolting.  You must understand, though… I just don’t eat sausage. Period.  (lil’ smokies served on saturday mornings at home once in a blue moon and Calbasa with scrambled eggs on Christmas morning are the only exceptions.)

BUT… I figured if I bit the bullet now, I won’t have to do it again later.  I also was pretty hungry at lunch so i was hoping I’d actually like it.  To be honest the taste wasn’t bad.  I wouldn’t consider it good, but I was pleasantly surprised.  After one bite, I decided I could do a bit more, and decided to try it like a hot dog sandwich with bread and smothered in ketchup.  THAT actually did taste good… but unfortunately after 2 bites I started to get a sharp pain in my stomach.  With the next bite the pain got even worse.  So i decided it was a sign from God.  Anyway, I expanded my horizons by a centimeter with this little lunch experience today.  =)  Special shout out to Jas and Shawn because I thought of you guys when I ate it… I’m sure you would’ve thought it was delicious.

I’m about to start my second week of classes.  please pray for me.  these classes are pretty intense with how much work they expect in a short amount of time.  I love you all.

sausage sandwich. tasty. but my tummy didnt think so.