I got a job (kind of)

So I am now a writter for examiner.com! My title is Santa Ana Family Examiner.

I will be writting articles on everything that has to do with family. My first article was just published it's on tips to make a better less frustrating gingerbread house! Everyone should go read it! I get paid based on the traffic of my articles so the more people that read them and are refered to my articles the better I get paid!

Also everyone should thing about becoming an examiner! it's fun and you can write on almost anything!

Here is the link to my first article

http://www.examiner.com/family-in-santa-ana/10-tips-for-making-a-better-less-frustrating-gingerbread-house

Being a Bondservant

I have been trippin out on the idea of being a bondservant and what that means lately!

Last Wednesday night we started the book of Romans at Refuge! So far it has been such a blessing and I can't wait to see what else the Lord does through the book. The book starts out with saying "Paul, a bondservant of the the Lord." I was listening to Brit Merrick's study through the book of Romans and he took a full study just on the what a bondservant is. Tim Chaddick also has an amazing study on bondservants when he went through the book of James. I taught about a year ago to a group of teenagers on what a bondservant is and what it means. All that to say I have learned so much in the past on it and recently it has come back up in my mind alot.

Jake is now teaching Refuge on Sunday nights which is awesome. So as we prayed about what book he should start with the students we decided the Lord was leading to James. As a result of doing James we started talking about what a bondservant is and what that means for us.

A bondservant is a willing servant. One who decides after the time of serving for six years decides that his master has treated him well and in turn wants to continue to serve the master. God did this for us. He gives us everything we need and accepts us as family. All we have to do is to choose him and lay down our "freedom" to serve Him.

There are so many examples of people throughout scripture that have given up their "freedom" and decided to follow the Lord with everything they have.

How cool would it be to be known as a bondservant of the Lord!! to be known as someone that everyday wakes up and thinks it is no longer I who Live but Christ we lives in me. That's what I want and yet it's so hard for me to actually humble myself and do.

England update

As I am Number one... horrible at remembering to take pictures and Number two.... horrible at making time to update my blog

Here is a link to a bunch of pictures from our trip also if you go to my facebook you can see a bunch of pictures!! cfteam2010.blogspot.com

Sorry

The whole trip was great! The Lord really did a work in my heart and in many others!!
Thanks for the prayers!

First Few Days

Here we are in England. Our cottages are so cute(I'll put picts up later). The area we are in is so beautiful I would move here!! It's all farmland. I went for a run this morning and ended up running behind some sheep which you don't get in california!! The day (2 days) of travel were really long and exhausting! but we finally arrived.

Yesterday we went out to a few different cities and handed out fliers and talked to people about the festival and Jesus. Last night a few people went to a Pub in town and did an open mic kind of thing. I stayed back with a group and prayed for the team that was out. Everyone that went said they had an awesome time!

Today 7 girls and i went to the festival sight and did a lot of organization stuff and administrative stuff. I love getting to do that kind of thing on missions trips. I had a really good time.

Creation Fest 2010

So I leave Next monday for England! I can't wait to see what the Lord has planned!!

I am going to try and update this blog as much as possible while on the trip so that everyone can see how it is going as well as know prayer requests! so we will see how that goes. If you want to be put on our prayer list just tell me your email address and I can add it to the list.

summe with Kathleen...

So aparently I am horrible at trying to update this... I will have to do it after I get back from engalnd with all the things Kath and I have done It's been alot

Picnic

So Kathleen and I went on a picnic in a place we have never been. We went to this park by my grandparents house and ate. It was next to these stables and it was a beautiful day. Since I am lame and always forget my camera we bought a small crappy digital camera for 10 bucks at CVS. While the pictures are pretty crappy they still show that we did something.





We also went goodwill shopping but once again I forgot the camera so we are going to go again so that we can have pictures.

More coming soon...

My Summer with Kathleen!

I am spending most of the summer house sitting at my grandparents house. The Beautiful Kathleen is spending most of the time with me.

In an effort not to look back on this summer and think "what did I do this summer?" We have decided to make a list of all the things that we plan on doing. So I will be blogging our efforts along the way.

Here is our list so far....

Fly a Kite
Go to the Rodeo
Go to the Santa Ana Zoo
Walk around canyon park
Get tan
Get temporary tattoos
Read a full book
Ride a horse
Get Kathleen cowboy boots
Ride the Balloon
Sleep outside
Find a spot of our own (that Chad hasn’t been to)
Make necklaces
Make bracelets
Wash Cars
Eat at Pedros
Roller Blade
Cook a meal from a cookbook
Go to the OC fair
Swim in the Lake
Have a water fight
Slip and slide
Go to the farmers market
Go goodwill shopping
Have an old lady tea party
Watch the Sunrise
Go on a prayer walk
Have a picnic in place we’ve never been
Sleep in a tent
Swing on a tree swing
Learn to Lasso
Lasso something
Climb a tree
Run all the way around mile square park
Learn to line dance
Go to England

Is there anything that we should add to the list??

Carp for the day

Yesterday was amazing!!

I have been so stressed with school and other thing lately that all I wanted was a day off!! It's crazy being a worship leader for a small church. I don't remember the last time that I took a Sunday off and was able to just go to church to be fed. I rarely get the opportunity to go to church at all to just be at church and not lead worship. SO I got my amazing friend Lindsay to cover for worship and Jake and I decided to take the day off and go to reality. Our first thought was to go to Reality LA, but then we thought let's just go big and go to Reality Carpinteria. So we did!

We were excited to see our Al and Nina, and Sarah Yardley!! And to be able to go to Reality! Jake had never been to a reality before and I had never been to Reality Carp for a regular service! We made the drive up there for the 12 service and surprised our amazing friends! It was so exciting to see them and get to spend the day with them! Sadly I am horrible and did not bring a camera (I really need to work on that) but Sarah took a picture so I'll have to get that up!

All in all it was an amazing day! Thank the Lord for Lindsay and giving us a much needed day off!

Mud Run!

Saturday My parents, Jake, and I all went and did the OC eco mud run! we had a really good time and got all muddy!! This is my 2nd year doing it! Everyone should come do it with me next year!!! :)

Festival of Life part 2

I was so incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of this festival of life team! I love each and every high schooler that came and that i got to meet and spend time with! When Sarah first asked me to be a part of it i was unsure an then i found myself saying yes and thinking what in the world I am so not equipped for this and I don't even know most of the kids that are going!

I am totally blown away by what the Lord did. My side of the trip was very different than most of the others that went. But that's how all missions trips end up for me. I did not lead anyone to the Lord in fact I did not even end up talking to many people that were not on the ministry teams. But I did get the chance to pray A LOT.

I think sometimes we forget the importance of prayer. I realized while we were at the juvenile hall ministering to the teenagers there that while I thought I was there to talk to the kids I really was there to lead worship and to pray. The Lord has a funny way of doing things like that to me.

Pretty much everytime that I thought I would be doing one thing God ended up having me pray it was awesome and a great reminder of how important intersesory prayer really is!

I really enjoyed my popsicle and story time at night with most of the high school girls. They got to hear my entire "love" story and parts of my testimony and the things that the Lord does in my life. And some super exciting stories of what they now think is my really exciting life!

We had really long, hot, days in the sun but all in all it was such a blessing!

I was so blessed to be able to go and can't wait to do another trip like this! For stories and such from the trip check out http://www.facebook.com/festivaloflife?ref=ts

petie and rosa

After last night and someone trying to break in I was not going to sleep at my house alone. Chances are no one was going to try again but I was still a little freaked so my good friend Katt spent the night.

We had the craziest memorible night ever!!!

While outside Daytona started freaking out at this box that is in our drive way. She was going crazy like there was something inside. Of course that made me a little nervous. After all that happen the night before, what was in that box? so Katt and I decided we needed to take a peak. I got a broom and slowly wedged the box open. To our suprise peaking around a bucket was this guy (Petie- that's what we named him)



we were trying to get a better picture but we didn't want to get to close and he was kinda hiding.

We tried to call animal control but they were closed and we couldn't find a 24 hour one.

So we proped the box open with the broom and went to my parent's window to watch. We were kind of excited to see what it would do. After a while Petie jumped out. However He did not just get out and run away. As soon as he got out he turned around and we could hear that there was another opossum moving around in the box. (Oh my gosh 2 opossums) (maybe it had babies in there.)

So we watched. Petie jumped back in. So then it got us thinking we need to research opossums. We found out so much interesting stuff about them. Apparently they are marsupials which means that they carry their babies in a pouch.

Next we saw another opossum jump out. This time we noticed that it totally had babies in a pouch. No joke! it was crazy!! so we named her Rosa. Very Long story short Petie and Rosa got out of the box and ran away. We are now going to check and see if they came back?

We had a very exciting night. And now we know way more about opossums that we ever wanted to know. :)

911 call at 330am

Matthew 5:44 says to love your enemies so why is that so hard to do sometimes?

Last night (i guess this morning) at 330am I was awakened by noises outside of my window and my dog growling. At first I thought oh it's probably a rat or something whatever. Then I heard loud heavy breathing. Then I heard what sounded like someone jiggling the door handles to our cars it was really freaking me out. Since my parents are in Utah for the week and I am home alone I was getting really scared. I thought of all these things like... Should I go get a gun and load it just in case?... or should I turn on all the lights?... or should I just scream?.... I didn't know if I should just call 911 or what so finally after the noises really started to sound like a person and didn't go away I picked up my phone and called 911.

The lady was super nice she sent officers over and stayed on the phone with me until they got there and I could talk with them. of course by the time they got to the house I had turned on all of the lights and the sounds had been gone. But they checked everything out in the front yard and the back yard just to be sure. and Daytona just barked and barked at them (which really scared one of them which i thought was funny.)

After the cops left I was still freaked out because who knows where the person went and if they would come back or whatever. So I went to bed but couldn't fall asleep. My first thought was praying that the person would get bitten by one of the black widows that lives in our drive way.

Then I thought God wants us to love our enemies and to pray for them. So I found my self praying that someone would come into their lives and share the love of Jesus with them. I kind of freaked myself out by praying that because that's not a normal thing for me to do.

I realized it's easy to pray for our friends. Yet so hard to pray good things to those that do wrong to us. Let's start praying and loving our enemies more.

Festival of Life part 1

A couple of weeks I go I was asked by Sarah Yardley if I would consider being a part of the festival of life team. I had no idea what that even meant or what they were doing. The only thing I knew was that a group of high schoolers were going to the Coachella Valley to help with some outreach thing. So I told her to send me the info i would pray about it.

The next day i found myself texting her and saying God said I need to go but I have idea what I am getting myself into. I still don't really know what the whole trip involves but I do know that I am supposed to go and that God is in control. We are helping out with outreaches and things surrounding the festival of life http://www.lovmovement.com/

I am actually really excited about it! The Lord is taking me out of my comfort zone and placing me in the unknown! I leave next Wednesday and come back Saturday night! I will post another blog on it when I return with all the things that the Lord did!

Till then prayer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

God and Time

God totally expanded my time today! I was so overwhelmed this week! I had so many tests, papers, and projects due this week. I have actually been working on my projects and papers last week and all week (I usually do them last minute). Even though i had been working really hard all week last night I still did not have everything done. I was so exhausted last night that i finally just went to bed and decided I would finish it in the morning.

I prayed before going to bed that the Lord would expand my time and that i would be able to finish the projects and still have time to study for my 930am class.

I got up early and started working my projects to my surprise I was able to finish the first one pretty quickly. I even had time to make breakfast and study while I was making it and eating. After my test I had time to go back home before my 1230 class and finish my other project. I finished everything by 11 and had a full hour free. I kinda freaked out a little thinking i really don't have anything I have to do right now. So I worked out :)

It's exciting to see God providing the time to do things and helping me finish things.

God really does care and He answers prayers!

Child Abuse Project

This semester one of my classes is on child abuse and prevention. As our main project for the semester we have to find pictures and articles about child abuse and put them together in a book. I knew this project was going to be eye opening but I did not realize how much I was going to be effected by the pictures and videos I would find.

I started researching pictures for child abuse which led me to more research which then led me to research on domestic violence and more on human trafficking and other things... I posted a blog before about human trafficing go check that one out too....

I'm not going to say much on any of these subjects I'll let pictures speak for themselves

One thing I do have to say is I found a website (http://osocio.org/category/abuse/) which had all these advertisements that nonprofits have done to help make people aware of what goes on! go check it out it will make you think for sure! the thing is all of the ads that I found and videos and everything come from other countries i didn't find one from the US what's up with that?

What can we do to help stop these things?




This is an ad in a high traffic area in australia


There is a camera that senses when a person is watching the screen and when you turn away it changes... to say that when people are watching everythign looks great but what happens when no one is watching?










A clock they put in some public places in the philippines




One of the captions for this said one brand no women should wear...






You should totally check out that website too it's got so many more videos and pictures...

There are so many resources for domestice violence and child abuse and human trafficing...

Domestic Violence:
1.800.799.SAFE (7233)
http://www.ndvh.org/

Child Abuse:
1-800-4-A-CHILD
http://www.childhelp.org/2009/home

Human Trafficing:
1-888-3737-888
http://nhtrc.polarisproject.org/

Sunrise Assisted Living

For my Gerontology class I have to do 3 hours a week volunteering at a senior center. not that I have more time to spend somewhere else. I chose Sunrise Assisted Living in Huntington Beach. I chose this place for a couple of reasons. one it is in Huntington Beach which is nice that I don't have to drive to Long Beach to do my project. Also they said that I can bring my dog if I want to. So EXCITING!!!!

So I have been going the past few weeks. This week I took Daytona! I was so excited to be able to take her out of the house and brighten someones day! When we first got Daytona we decided we wanted to train her to be able to go to hospitals and other places as a therapy dog! today that actually happened!!!

She loved it! She was just excited to get out of the house and ride in the car! And of course all the people giving her attention helped her enjoy the experience even more! It was so cool to see the joy on the peoples faces that I have been getting to know over the past few weeks. It's awesome to see that just the presence of a happy dog changes a person and makes them so much happier!! I am definitely taking her back next week!

Sadly they dont want us to take pictures in there so you can't see how excited people were

Flagstaff weekend

At the Youth workers conference in January Jake and I met some awesome people from flagstaff Arizona and became friends with them. We decided we needed to go to flagstaff one day and hangout with them since technically they came to California already! Then since Jake left his bible in Cody's car we decided we would definitely have to go (you know so he could get it back).

So we planned to go. The church in flagstaff was planning to have a special Valentines dinner thing so we thought that would be the perfect excuse to go out that weekend. So we did!

So we left Thursday afternoon and drove the long drive to flagstaff Arizona. We got there at like 2am which is kind of crazy! The drive was fun (aside from the traffic) and surprisingly did not feel that long.

It was really fun to get to hangout with everyone again and this time hanging out way more! we did lots of Walmart trips (that's what they do for fun) and threw lots of snowballs.

Jake and I had the privilege of getting to lead worship on Sunday morning for Calvary flagstaff which was a total blessing! everyone at the church is super nice and welcoming!

And then the valentines dinner/event that night was tons of fun! there was even dancing which of course just made everything a little more crazy! and then we left that night at like 12am AZ time (11pm CA time) and got home at 530am CA time! we decided next time we are driving in the day time we were so tired driving home it was not cool!

Ok I am officially the worst picture taker ever! not that I am horrible at taking pictures I just don't take them! sera was always the photographer when I went places so when she is not there I just don't take them! sorry! When I get more pictures from other people that actually took them I will post another blog with them!


At outback for dinner (drew, cody, Roman, me, Brent-the waiter, and jake) (rihanna was taking the picture and tallen and ryan were somewhere)


The boys dancing




this is the view from make out point (Roman decided he needed to take all of us up there) (it was me and a car full of guys, a little strange)

A New Semester

So last week started the Spring 2010 semester for school. OH Joy!

I only got one of the classes I actually need for my major so it should be an interesting semester I am also only taking 13 units which is very strange! (I usually take at least 15 one semester i even took 23)

So this semester I will probably be struggling with the motivation to actually finish work and do the things I need to!

I have a jogging class that shouldn't be to bad all we have to do is run a mile Monday and Wednesday mornings at 7am not bad i am used to running at least 2 miles everyday so I should be fine!

Then I have a family culture class in which we are studying different cultures and how families interact with in those cultures it kind of seems like a repeat of a few classes that I have already taken. boring!

I have an American Government class that I really just don't care about. Although I think my teacher might be a Christian so that could be really interesting!

I am interested in 2 of my classes the first being my gerontology class. yes the study of aging and old people! I thought it was going to be horrible but my teacher is totally cool and loves the subject so she is making the class really interesting!

The other class that I am interested in is my Child Abuse class. I know that sounds strange to be interested in but I am! I really want to understand more about abuse, how to prevent it, what I can do, how to help people that have been in those situations everything! I am super interested! although it is a very depressing class and I feel like it's going to be very hard to deal with it will be good and good information for me to have!

carp and murrieta

These last few weeks i deff feel like i do not live at home any more! I still am not totally unpacked because I know I just have to pack again it's crazy but so enjoyable!

Let's see I went to Murrieta for the youth workers conference that was really Good! I feel like I was really able to get real with the Lord and He slapped me in the face a few times! It was really good!

Then I came home and left again the next Monday for carpinteria in the rain! Oh my gosh the rain was crazy driving up there a few times i thought to myself "what am I doing?" But I wanted to visit Al and Nina and the Girls before I started school again! It was so amazing to get to go up there. It was relaxing not to have anything that I had to do and just to sit and play with the girls and talk to Al and Nina! I miss them so much!

Of course it rained pretty much the entire time I was there every time it cleared up for a couple of minutes we went out side so Nevaeh could ride her bike crazy girl! Char is getting so big I can't believe it! I love it when she sings!! especially Hosanna and Mighty to Save it made me so excited!! And the Lord is definitely using Nina to change my heart towards so many things I am excited to see what the Lord has in store next for my life not that I can really handle much more! Nina thank you for talking with me and letting me talk! You are such a blessing and I am praying for you for sure!!


Ok so I got home from Carp on Wednesday and then Friday I went back to Murrieta to lead worship with Lindsay Gatlin at a widows retreat! I know your thinking what? a widows retreat really? Let me tell you it was the biggest blessing!!!

It was such a reminder for me of how blessed I am and How much I really take for granted! these women have lost their husbands and some there children as well and are still able to worship the Lord and see that the Lord has a plan through it all! I have so much to be thankful for and I am so unthankful!

Another thing spending time with them helped me remember is how important it is to tell people that you love them and to appreciate them! You never know how long you have with that person so tell them often!

I'm sorry I'm not better at remembering to take pictures I will try and be better at that!

Amazed everytime

I am so amazed every time the Lord does something and so amazed that He would choose to bless me and answer my prayers!

In case I have not said it enough prayer changes things! It's always so cool to see the Lord answer prayers that you don't expect Him to really answer! Maybe it's just me because I pray about everything... I guess it's more like I have conversations with God about everything. But it's so exciting when He provides and does things when we don't really ask for it. Like sometimes it's something that I am complaining about and suddenly it happens it's so encouraging!

Ok Maybe it's just me??

Ok that was all super vague but bottom line God really does care and love us! It should totally change the way we live!!!

Le'ts go ice skating

Jake and I decided we needed to do something outside of church with the youth group at Braveheart. Since we only have a few boys in the youth group it was really easy to plan something. So, yesterday we all went ice skating!

We had a great time skating and sliding and everything else! It was fun to hangout with the boys and get to fellowship outside of a church environment I think everyone had a great time!