6 months

I wake up today and I'm reminded. It's been 6 months. Can't believe it. Amazing.

6 months ago I woke up and started hearing rumors that something had happened. When I first heard what happened I just assumed it was bad English. Then more and more, together we realized, it really happened. And our lives are still changing.

John, thanks so much for everything. I've learned and changed so much through your life and death.

"I woke from a dream last night
I dreamt that you were by my side
Reminding me I still had life
In me
I remember you like yesterday, yesterday
I still can't believe you're gone
I remember you like yesterday, yesterday
And until I'm with you, I'll carry on.
Every lament is a love song
Yesterday, yesterday
I still can’t believe you’re gone
So long my friend, so long"

Well, we know you're having a totally awesome time now, John. Can't wait to see you again.

"JESUS IS COMING BACK FOR US!" -Joni

MLK Weekend 2007!

"22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

This year's Navs annual MLK weekend Gilbert at Krista's house (who now has a blog too!) was awesome! 60 people came this year! There was fear that the amount of people would take away from the fun and personal nature of the trip, but I didn't feel that... I don't think I realized how much I needed this trip and time to be around my friends until I was there... one of the greatest parts for me was to get unexpected one-on-ones and unexpected healing through them. I love how God loves imperfect people and gives us the body to learn and grow from each other in Him, that He knows exactly what you're going through and gives you exactly what you need at that time... :) He is good...

But as for the more tangible events of the weekend...

All of the Nav boys took all of the Nav girls on "dates" after our time at the park! We teamed off into groups of five or six and just did whatever we wanted to help us all get to know each other better! I went with Tim Lin, Matt, Ross, and Liz. We drove around looking for a board game Tim wanted to buy and ended up playing with all of the toys in Target for a long time! Then after getting coffee, we went to my house to play board games! It was an awesome afternoon! Thank you, guys!

We also kept up the tradition of going to Joe's Real BBQ for dinner.

Me and Erin R. I'm glad we sat next to each other :)

Steve tries on Dan's new jacket :D These guys always make me laugh!

Sarah and Liz enjoy authentic Gilbert food!

(Another) Sarah, Ariel, and Kelly enjoy playing with their food!

Sunday morning, we sang worship songs and then Krista's parents gave a really awesome, unforgettable talk about generosity, one of their passions.

Then we went to the Morrison dairy farm!

Denai, Stephanie, Katie and I in the back of the van

We got to see the thousands of dairy cows that Krista's family takes care of.

But of course the favorite part of the tour is the cotton jumping!

Sarah, Denai, and Alicia at the top of the hill!

^ I really like this picture of Katie and I!!

Here the guys are rolling down the hill!

Click here to see Ryan diving into the cotton!

I'm burrying Michelle and Kevin!

Sunday night we had a big feast of steak, potatoes, and salad, and played a lot of really fun games! It was really chill and all around a sweet time. I loved it!

Even our drive home was pretty fun! Poor John was stuck with us girls! But as it always is, it was fun talking about man/woman differences and laughing about John's plan to not have his wedding around big sporting events or us girls' girly reaction to Lifehouse's "You and Me." :D We also stopped along the way to Tucson at a rest stop/gift shop that had some very interesting displays!

Finally, what happens when you let Thart play with your camera?

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! You can see all of them at http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p50/uofachristy/MLK%20Weekend%202007/

Also, I just found a link from Jerry's Xanga to Eddie Han's website, facethefool. Eddie was midterm staff in Tokyo, Japan for 2 years. I've only met him once, but I respect him a lot...and I really like the stuff he has on his site, especially the poetry. Check it out!

Don't fear...

I really liked the speaker at Road Rally. I don't know his name...but his talk really was good.

I have continually reminded myself of his omelette illustration. The analogy was when his kids come into the kitchen to help him make omlettes, he loves it. But they suck at making omlettes. They always get eggshells in the omlettes. But he doesn't care, and he's powerful enough to remove the eggshells himself and make great omlettes, whether his kids are there are not. And even though his kids mess up, he wants them in the kitchen with him, rather than staying outside and not being with him.

Likewise God loves it when we come to work for Him, and we're going to screw up, but that's okay. He knows it, and He can fix everything we do wrong, and everything will come out right according to His plan. He's bigger than our mistakes. And He wants us to be with Him even though we make those mistakes.

I looked at my notes from this again and read this: "We are stupid to try to become more useful. Instead be delighted in Him; ask if you could be useful."

God's showing me more and more that I have absolutely no clue what I am doing, and that's scary, but I can still trust in Him, therefore I don't need to be scared. The tragic thing would be to leave the kitchen out of frustration or fear. I want to be with Him.

...also Stephen shared this thought with me after Las Vegas. We were talking about John Lee and he said something to the effect of "It's amazing how God is such a personal God. He can take any event (like John's death) and use it differently in every single person. He works in each person individually to make them who He wants them to be, masterpieces for His glory. There is no single or standard way that He works in someone's life, it's all personalized. No other god does that. Look at all other gods in history. They're never personal with people like that." And I don't know why, but I've thought a lot about that too. It's just really cool.

On a completely different note, my new picture card is working, so I can finally have some pictures. And the first few are pictures of pictures from my mom's camera, while mine wasn't working. They turned out pretty good, minus the big flash spots!

Me and my sister by our huge Christmas tree!

Me and the new members of the family! These are my new 4th cousins...twins! so cute!

The guys came over to my house while they were in Phoenix!


Me and my parents!

These were in my mouth! (the other four had to be broken apart to be removed. The small one is one of the "extras")

My cheeks got so swollen! Haha! But it really didn't hurt very much.

My final dose of fun for winter break was going to Freestone park with Jen. We took our sisters along because we love them!

And we love ridiculously huge hoods!

...And now, school has started again.

I can be excited for that.

Wait, I don't want to be...

...a geek.

I want to write something about my tatemae and my honne

But that's geeky in itself. Cuz those are Japanese words.

"I don't want to be perceived the way I am, I just want to be perceived the way I am." and now I'm I nerd for quoting Relient K.

I love who I am but don't know about how I feel I am defined, how maybe even I define myself. I am "the girl in Navigators that went to Japan." And that's true. And if you talk to me I'll probably talk about Japan. If you ask me about my future I say "I think Japan." What do I pray for everyday? Japan. What do a lot of the links on my blog have to deal with? Japan.

You know, no one even knows my blog exists yet.

Well here's me trying to show my honne (inner feelings)

And now will I be brave enough to tell people about my blog?

I read this today:

"Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, He is the one you are to fear, He is the one you are to dread..." (Isaiah 8:12-13)

No matter how much I want to worry about everything, this is true. No matter what my fears tell me, He deserves my life and owns it.

And why can't just that be all that defines me?

Christmas break...

Christmas break is the best time for getting together with family and friends...

and getting surguries done that you can't do to easily while you're off at school!

I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday! all SIX of them!! haha! Well, I'm not in very much pain. I just look quite funny :D I'll post pictures as soon as my new memory card starts working...

I've pretty much been a hermit all winter break so far. Apart from Lauren's birthday and seeing the study-abroad boys for a couple days I haven't seen anyone outside the family. Christmas time was really busy, and the day after Christmas I caught a cold. Then I had my surgery... but I hope to see more people in the upcoming week.

Happy New Years!

First Post

Well, I've waited for winter break to make this blog. Here we go!

I wanna write about a lot...the story behind the name of my blog, the other names I thought of using, how my December has been, Christmas parties with long-time-no-see-wow-a-lot-has-changed family, finals, how much God has been blessing me as I've had so much free time to be with Him, how I'm frustrated at my parent's computer for eating my digital picture card, how Oprah got me crying over North Korea, how much I enjoyed Mill Avenue, how much I enjoyed The Pursuit of Happyness, how much I didn't enjoy Love Actually... and all these other random thoughts that I've had the time to think lately. Maybe I'll get to them in the future. But it all seems like too much now.

I will say this though: that quote "the world is flawed, but these scars will heal" from Switchfoot's song We Are One has really meant a lot to me, this week, this semester, this whole year. The Lord has taught me a lot with that line of hope. And praise Him that it's true! He's coming back to heal the pain we've brought into this world. There's a lot of pain in this world, more than we can even know. I've learned about a lot this year. And Christ's the only hope.

...And what hope that is!

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us - Romans 8:18