Three reasons why I love what I do

I'd like you to meet (from left to right) Jackie, Amie, and Josh.  They're cozied up with "Aunt Em," a Westminster College landmark on Halloween afternoon (which explains the fairy wings).  These three students have been a great highlight to my time in Utah so far.  

Even though they all attend the same small school, they didn't really get to know each other until our fall retreat.  And I'd say about a week after that they became something akin to the Musketeers.  

Each Wednesday morning they make the ultimate sacrifice that college students can make: they wake up early and meet us in their dining hall at 8am.  This is the only time that they can all get together with us and their commitment to showing up each week is so sweet.  

Westminster is a small, private liberal arts college.  The students that attend are intimidatingly intelligent.  More than once I've found myself telling Jackie, "Well, it's not like you snuck in here on the Stupid Scholarship."  Their intelligence and their passion have combined, at the moment, to create an environment that seems very hostile to the Gospel.  

This is the environment where Josh, Jackie and Amie live.  And these are the students that they are committed to reaching.  Jackie told me one day, "I think God brought me from Oregon to Utah just to reach this campus."  She and Josh are both freshmen, but already desiring to take leadership in their movement on campus.  Honestly, I can't wait to see what God does with this group in the next 3 years.  

Take a moment, would you, and pray with me that God will continue to give us vision for reaching Westminster College with the Gospel.  Pray that He would use these students to introduce others to life-changing relationships with Jesus.

We used to have a roof over the deck...

What kills me about this is that the roof collapsed because the wood gave way under the weight of the snow (not that much snow, either).  Flimsy plastic?  That held up like nobody's business.

Say what?!

Overheard in this morning's sermon: "Jesus was with his inner circle.  Peter Jennings and John..."

That's what I heard.  It's not what the pastor said.  Guess it's a good thing that I don't work as the girl that types closed captions, eh?  

Pick-up line of the century

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but thankfully it's the kind of story that is, shall we say, timeless.

My roommates and I were sitting in a local pizza joint after a movie when a random guy came in and walked up to me saying, "I just got some gummy pizza candy out of the vending machine outside.  Would you like a slice?"

"Oh, no thanks," I say, "I'm trying to quit all varieties of gummy candy."

"Well that's too bad, 'cause I was going to ask you out, but I just couldn't bring myself to date anyone that doesn't eat gummy candy."  He walked a few steps away to the soda fountain.  Me, I'm sitting with my roommates still in shock over the strangeness of what just happened.  

That's when gummy pizza boy pipes up again, "What I mean to say is you're out of my league."  

And a moment later he continues,"Did I say that right?  What I mean to say is that you are Charmin Ultra and I am generic brand."  

Seriously, how is a girl supposed to respond to this sort of comment? 

My special friend returned to the table one more time to clarify, "You're Angel Soft and I am the kind that hurts."

Wow.  

Thanks, Gummy Pizza Boy, for making me laugh until I cried.   And while he didn't exactly sweep me off my feet, maybe, just maybe, he wiped me off of them.

The Utah Life

So it's been a while since I've posted.  I can hardly believe that I've been in Utah for almost 2 months!  There is so much to say, but I'll keep it short and tell you that I absolutely love my job, love my team, love the students we work with, and love the scenery!  Here are a few photos of the first 2 months in Utah.  There's me with my teammate/roommate Julie, teammate Alex, Ultimate Dodge ball at our fall retreat and tailgating with our University of Utah students before a Utes game.  

(This is Hannah drunk on belly scratches.  Such a clown!)

New Beginnings

It seemed, at times, that this moment would never arrive.  But here it is:  moving day.  All of my financial support came in on Thursday night.  (Interestingly enough I had been praying that I would be done raising support by August 15th and with a fluke phone call on the night of the 14th God brought in every last dollar.  Praise the Lord!)

By Friday I had the official green light to go ahead and move, so here it is Sunday morning and I am getting ready to pull out of the driveway in just a couple of hours.  

Trusty Jeff Gordon (the car) is all packed with plenty of room for Hannah to copilot.  We'll spend the day driving across southern Colorado on our way to visit some of our bestest friends Heidi and Brandon in Fort Collins.  Then it's off to meet the new team and new roommates in Salt Lake.  Standing on the brink of great adventure and the next big chapter in life it all feels a bit surreal.  

Add to that the fact that it's been exactly one year since I arrived at my parents' home in Texas.  I'm not one to remember dates and put great significance in them.  But it just so happens that today is my birthday, and I'm laughing to remember that last year I spent my birthday driving with my mom from Fort Collins to Texas.  Ha!

Reason #27 why I am not a cat person

I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a cat person. I'm not anti-cat, but let's just say that I didn't spend my last year in Venezuela daydreaming about coming home and getting my own cat.

It just so happens that my mom got a new barn cat while the rest of us were out of town a couple weeks ago. I will concede that she is pretty cute...despite being a real yowler. And so far she's been feisty enough to evade Hannah's attempts to turn her into the newest squeaky toy, so I've got to give the little girl credit. Her name is Clementine. I've since taken liberties with her name and started calling her Myddie since my first significant interaction with her was helping take care of her eye that was infected with chlamydia. (Apparently that's normal, but I can't get past how gross it sounds). Myddie works just fine for me.

Last night we had a whopper of a rain storm. Unfortunately we are discovering that the roof of our new barn leaks like crazy, so li'l Myddie ran outside seeking shelter under our friend Holly's truck and thus begins the saga....

Holly needed to cut her visit short and as she was getting ready to leave we realized that Myddie was no longer just under the truck but had climbed up into the undercarriage to avoid the standing water accumulating in the driveway.

Plan A was to startle her and hope she'd take off running from the truck. But after several minutes of banging on the sides of the truck and setting off the panic alarm, still no Myddie.

That's when we moved to Plan B: Emily crawling under the truck (note previous comment about standing water) for operation Kitty Extraction. I have no idea where she was hiding but she was doing it well. We could hear her cry every once in a while, but couldn't see her. And you better believe I crawled all around under the truck on my back looking.

Holly helped out by hitting the panic button a few times while I was under the truck. It was nowhere near as loud as I expected it would be. That's a plus, I guess.

I crawled from the exhaust system to the engine and back again before I finally found Myddie on top of Holly's spare tire. And even though she was yowling like mad, there was now way that she was going to come down. I was just trying to help and all she would do was hiss at me. Yeah, like I'm excited to be under the truck in a puddle, Myddie. Just give me a break already and come out, would ya?

After a couple rounds of her "kitty doesn't want to take a bath" routine of bracing her legs against any available surface I managed to pry her loose and hand her to my mom. At which point Myddie stopped hissing and started purring like a boat motor. Figures.

I was soaked from head to toe but by that point had stopped caring so I took a moment to admire a bright double rainbow with Holly. While pondering the significance of the rainbow I quipped, "Isn't that God's sign to say 'I promise I'll never do that to you again'?"
I sure hope so. **Please note that the stinkin' cat is bone dry in both photos. I'm wet, the cat's snuggled into a raincoat. Myddie's only a few months old and she's already figured out how to work the system.