My upcoming Adventures

Wohoo! I'm off to dig in the dirt! One week of archaeological work north of the Sea of Galilee and then two weeks of a course in Jerusalem, following the footsteps of Jesus. Plus a bonus week in Austria with my folks - I don't know when the last time was that I got to be there in the summer. I'll bring back lots of pictures.

(Here's a picture of me becoming an official missionary:)

It's official

On Sunday, they took all of us appointees through the rooms where our interviews would be held. I hadn't really been nervous up to that point, but they did a good job of changing that.

"Here's your waiting area. Sit and wait here until they call you into the conference room. Someone will be waiting with you to calm you down." (Calm me down?) "Then you'll come into the room. Come here to the far end of the table. Everyone will be standing. Do not sit down. They'll introducde themselves around the table, pray for you, and then when they sit, so may you." (Okay...) "There will be water and cleenexes here for you." (Did she say cleenexes?)

Needless to say, my heart was pounding on Sunday, but I guess if their goal was just to get us to pray more in preparation, it worked. I was actually fairly calm this morning (it helped it was the first night I'd slept since arriving here - thank you, Tylonol PM).

The short of it: The interview went well, and I've been accepted to be a missionary with WorldVenture!!!!!! All praise to heaven.

I guess I've been tagged...

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Wow, you want the serious flashback or just a mini one? It was between my 11th and 12th grade (out or 13 grades), and my school required some kind of internship/summer job. The nice thing was we got 4 months off for summer. The sad thing was I had to work 3 of them. But I lived with my aunt and uncle in Oregon where my aunt got me a job at the hospital she worked at and taught me how to drive a stick shift on our way back and forth. Great memories!

2. Five items on your to-do list today:
Well, since it's almost bedtime...finish this blog, chat some more with Rachel, put on pajamas, brush my teeth, read through my interview questions one more time.

3. Snacks I enjoy?
Fresh mango (a bit rare in MN), chips and hummus, milk chocolate, chocolate milk

4. What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Pay off student loans, pay off my family's student loans, go to Egypt, use the rest for missions

5. Places I would live:
Austria, Czech Republic, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Israel, Taiwan, China, Mongolia, and a few others.

There. I now end the curse by selecting nobody.

Adonai Jireh

I was going to blog yesterday, but it's a good thing I didn't since the title would have been something along the lines of "Katrina and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day." I left a book at home I promised a friend, locked my keys in the Jen's car, got a BIG stain of goose juice on my favorite white blouse, found out my insurance would not cover my car windows like they had said, received a first estimate of around $1,000 for the glass, and fell asleep crying which meant I woke up with puffy, red eyes. Not to say good things didn't happen (lunch with friends, a cheering-up session with Sarah, etc.), but I was feeling overwhelmed.

It was after midnight and I couldn't sleep, so I started talking to God. Here's a snippet of our conversation:

Me: That wasn't fair, God. I was off helping people, and you allowed my windows to get smashed when you knew my insurance wouldn't cover them.
God: So, you're saying I did it on purpose?
Me: No, but you allowed it to happen.
God: So, I have to make sure no bad things ever happen to believers?
Me: Well, I know that's not true. But come on, I was giving up my time and some money already to help out some friends. You could have helped out a little.
God: Okay, so it's when people are serving me and doing "especially good" things that I can't allow bad things to happen? I think you have plenty of examples to prove otherwise.
Me: Like who?
God: David, Jeremiah, Mary and Joseph, Paul, Abraham? Do I need to keep going.
Me: ...
God: What name did you learn about me this morning?
Me: Adonai Jireh.
God: Meaning?
Me: The Lord will Provide.
God: Do you believe that?
Me: ... Um, with half my heart.
God: Uh-huh. So you know what you need to do. Hey, here's a song for you.

And I must have fallen asleep singing "His Grace is Sufficient for me" and other Bible verses (thank you, GT). This morning I called some more places. Final bill: $410, and they were able to fix it today! Adonai Jireh.

In your head

I'd been playing "I spy" with a little kindergartner on the bus every morning, but he was having a hard time sticking to one object. Too often he'd say something like "I see something pink" and when I gave up (since there was little pink in sight), he'd look around himself to find what he could have meant. So, I was explaining that he had to choose the object first, then the say the color.

Me: First you pick the item and then you say the color.
Leonce: Huh?
Me: You find the thing, and you keep it in your head first. Then you can say "I spy something pink."
Leonce: .... My brain?

The Weekend Saga, Part II: The Bad AND the Ugly

After my enourmously smooth flight from Chicago, the lovely Sharon was waiting to pick me up and take me back to my car in St. Louis Park. She casually mentioned that there had been a big storm Saturday night, but I didn't think much of it. It hadn't made the news in Chicago, so it couldn't have been worse than the Hugo tornado last week.

That was, of course, before we saw my car. When I first walked up to it, I immediately saw the four smaller cracks on my front windshield, all on the driver's side. The rubber around the glass had really taken a hard beating and was scratched up, meaning it had probably leaked rain into my car. My head started spinning dollar signs for the replacement of an entire front windshield, but then I noticed some glass on the seat. Strange, the windshield was cracked, but I didn't see it broken in any places. I unlocked the door and threw my purse in and saw, to my dismay, even more glass pieces around. I looked up to glance out the back, and saw the car behind me clear as day - too clear. I had no back window.

It was an absolute mess. The back windshield had not just broken. It had broken into a thousand tiny pieces that littered my car and had let in buckets of rain. Sharon I stood there with our jaws dropped. I wasn't sure if I could drive it like this although my car did start, but I figured as soon as I went above 30 miles an hour, all those glass pieces would go flying out the back and hit the cars behind me. None of the friends I called had or were near their shopvacs, but my brother suggested taking it to a gas station. At the 8th one (!!!!!), they finally had one in working order, so $3 later I had at least vacuumed out all the major glass pieces.

I drove down to Victoria where my brother and his wife currently have three cars (thank you, Jesus, my parents left their car in Minnesota this time instead of Colorad0), so I put mine in their garage, and drove one of the three home to use for this week. The silver lining is that my insurance will cover the damage though I have to get an estimate from them, and with all the claims currently in the Twin Cities from two back-to-back storms, the soonest appointment I got was for Sunday. Oh well. God is providing, as Sharon so firmly knew he would.

The Weekend Saga, Part I: The Good

Saturday was wonderful. The air was crisp and clear as I got into my car at 5:30 am and drove down to St. Louis Park where I met up with Sean and Bonny and their moving crew which included long-time friend, Erin, whom I hadn't seen in a year and a half (travesty). With Caribou coffees in hand, we hit the road heading toward Chicago and made pretty good time despite one of the vehicles being a large moving truck. Erin and I had a car all to ourselves, so we gabbed it up; it really took the entire 7 hours to catch up on each other's lives. It felt so good.

The bathroom breaks, lunch, and the huge gas tank on the truck slowed us down enough that it was nearly 4:00 by the time we got to Sean and Bonny's new place, but I was impressed. We had the entire truck unloaded and returned to the rental place by 6:00. Most of us were absolutely drenched, and while the guys set up the big things (TV's, beds, piano, and furniture), Erin, Bonny, and I cleaned and scrubbed practially every surface in the bathroom and kitchen. Brigita had the most fun running from room to room, eating a piece of paper, and then throwing it up. Think she marked her place in the apartment.

By 9:30, we had showered and called it quitz, but we still managed to drag ourselves out for a nice dinner and a small exploration of the neighborhood. I crashed so hard on my comfy air mattress when we got back to the apartment and slept all the way until 9:30 am the next morning. Sunday was just as fun, too. After the leisurely wake-up, Sean and Bonny treated us to brunch before we headed into the city and visited the Field Museum. Anyone who knows me knows what a museum geek I am, so I loved every minute there. A minute too much perhaps, for we left there at 3:00, thinking we'd have plenty of time to get me to my 4:40 flight back to the Twin Cities, but it got a little tight.

Actually, it was the smoothest, best flight I've had in a long time. The airport check-in was just how I like it. We pulled up to the curb at 4:05, walked right up to the counter, got my boarding pass, practically sped through security, walked (never had to run) down the concourse (I'm ALWAYS at the last gate), immediately got in line for my already-boarding flight, sat down, shut the gates, and arrived in Minneapolis 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I think I was in both airports a total of 30 minutes. It doesn't get any better than that!