Freedom for Captives

As I reflect on what God did as a result of our V-Week outreach, I am reminded again and again of these sweet verses from Isaiah 61:1-3

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

This was the message that we were hoping to convey through our evening program, and let me just say that our speaker did an incredible, God-honoring job of doing just that. She communicated her own story of pain and healing in a very real and accessible way to a group of 30 women. There was something in her story and the way that she communicated it that made it very accessible to everyone in the room.

We knew that one thing we did not want to do with the evening was have anyone feel like we pulled a "bait and switch" move on them by inviting them to an event where they would feel trapped by someone sharing the Gospel with them. So, we took a break partway through our speaker's story, letting everyone know that the second part of the evening would be primarily about how Jesus entered into her healing process. We let the women know that if they weren't comfortable listening to that part of the story, they were free to leave at the break, judgment-free. We simply wanted to honor to women wherever they happened to be in their spiritual journeys.

I was shocked to look around the room after the break and see that NO ONE left. And after the program was done, the majority of the women lingered in groups talking quietly with one another. An hour after the program was done, I looked across the room to see my teammate, Amie, sitting next to a young student named Amanda and holding open a familiar booklet and sharing about how she could know God personally. Amie came up to me later and told me what the freshman had said to her, "That part about God knocking at the door of my heart: well, He's doing that. I just don't know how to open the door. Can you tell me how to open the door?"

Wow. That's a "pinch-me" sort of moment in campus ministry. This particular student comes from an LDS background and said that she really needed to think through and process what Amie shared with her about Jesus. Please pray for Amanda. Pray that she would come to know the Truth and that the Truth would, indeed, set her free.

Beauty for Ashes

This week is V-Week at Westminster: a campus-wide event to raise awareness about sexual violence against women. Today we joined in and spent the lunch rush at the student union handing out these roses to women. I thoroughly enjoyed spectating as Amie and Danielle offered a flower to every woman that passed. I don't know how they did it, but I think they engaged with every single woman walking by. And while not everyone took them up on the offer, it certainly wasn't because they weren't given the opportunity!

My favorite part was watching their faces light up as they realized that the rose was free and came with nothing more than an invitation attached. One woman even left skipping. But I'd say that student might be particularly prone to skipping.

Amie and Danielle sought out the more "invisible" women: those hiding behind earphones and hats pulled low, food service, and custodial staff. It was this group of invisible women that appeared to be the most startled and blessed by the offered rose. Those were the sweetest smiles to see.

The darndest things...

One of the really fun parts of my job is all of the one on one coffee dates that I get to have with women who are a part of our ministry. Recently I had a conversation that left me in stitches. When I asked one student what God was teaching her, she said, "Lately I've been reading the Bible and it applies perfectly to my life."

"Oh really?! Tell me more..."

"Well, I just read in Leviticus about menstruating women. That pretty much describes where I'm at."

"It is my first time play bowling."

Once a month we combine the men's and women's small groups at Westminster and do some sort of social activity. Last night we went bowling.

One of the newest additions to our small group this semester is a young woman that just moved to Westminster as an international student from China. She is a Christian, and since I'm not sure if there are any security issues for her, I won't post her picture or use her real name. I'll just call her Kelly. Kelly doesn't speak too much English yet, but she's so outgoing that it doesn't seem to make a difference. She was excited to go bowling and doubly excited to have remembered her camera.

As we were walking in from the parking lot we noticed Kelly had fallen behind. Why? She was standing in the middle of the parking lot taking a picture of the front of the bowling alley. Pictures, pictures, everywhere.

Kelly, it turns out, had some beginner's luck. After her first spare she was jumping and screaming and announced to our group, "See, I told you Chinese people is smart." After her second spare she was running so excitedly to high-five me that she almost ran over another student who stepped in to congratulate her. Her enthusiasm was contagious.

As we were leaving and complimenting her on her bowling accomplishments she just said over and over, "Thank you. You so friendly."

I can't wait until she gets some more English under her belt and is able to communicate with us more clearly. Something tells me she's got a lot of great stories to share.

This one's for Little Heidi

So maybe I just wanted to be able to use the phrase, "After a one year hiatus, Emily has returned to the blogging scene." Or maybe I figure the common man needs some quality humor now that Conan is off the air and we're left with Jimmy Fallon? Or maybe, just maybe, I'm coming out of a communication funk....

Heidi, as the one person I know who actually checks this page, this brief announcement is for you: I'm back!!

That's it. Don't really have too much time or blogworthy news to rocket out into cyberspace. But surely I'll come up with something in the next few days.

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.

Parading Around

This year we did the 4th of July parade the way the locals do: from the back of the pickup (which we strategically parked last night for a primo view). We're Texans now, I guess.

My brother tells me (and rightly so) that I have the reflexes of a dead cat. So you can imagine all of our surprise when I caught the piece of candy thrown at me by a passing parader.

This is for real: there was a roller derby float. And here I was thinking that was just an invention of cable television.

And then the local weather guy went walking by and I got all excited. Seriously, Doppler Dave is the man.

And I just can't leave out the cute little old lady sitting in front of us. Kind of a sassy thing, don't you think?

The kids.

It's been an eventful first week of life for these little pups. The runt of the litter just wasn't strong enough to survive no matter how much we tried to help her. So now the numbers are down to 7. These little guys are growing like crazy and even showing bits and pieces of their personalities. They've picked up names along the way. I'll admit that I got some help from my new 9-year old friend, Micah, to come up with names for all of them. I just wish Micah had been around to help me take these photos. Do you have any idea how tricky it is to get 3 puppies to pose for a photo at once? I'm afraid these are the best shots you'll get with a photographer of my low caliber.


Three of the females are white so far, but getting freckles on their noses and ears. That means pretty soon they won't need to be marked with nail polish in order to distinguish between them. From left to right: Hope, Pinkie, and Olivia.






There are 3 lookalikes with eye patches: Curly, Larry, and Moe.




Last but not least: Batman. He's the explorer of the group.

The Big Day

Waiting became a group activity. Belle helped keep Tazz company all day long and even helped break in the whelping box. She left me to handle the phone calls from folks wanting play-by-plays. What a pal. Thanks, Belle.




Finally, Tazz's water broke just after midnight (how come nobody told me it would be green?!? kind of a gross surprise, if you ask me). And we all spent a sleepless night waiting for something to happen. At 7am the first puppy showed up and within an hour the total was up to 5. The last 3 must have been busy doing their make-up and didn't sneak into the mix until a couple hours later. The late ones were all girls...wouldn't you know it.
The final breakdown: 5 girls and 3 boys. (Mary T, you're the big winner with your guess of 8).

Once the puppies grow a little bit, get names and stop looking like gerbils, I will post some more photos.

Still waiting...

No puppies yet, folks. I don't know if I've ever waited this hard in my life! Seriously, even the UPS guy asked this afternoon if Tazz had her puppies yet. sigh
Thanks for all of the guesses. Judging by the way Tazz's belly keeps stretching every day, Andrea you might just win. Win what? I don't know.

Waiting

No one loves 100 degree weather more than a pregnant woman. Between the heat and the puppies that are due any minute now. all our poor little buddyTazz can do is wait.

This week I'm taking care of our friends' house and dogs and maybe, just maybe, I'll be helping Tazz deliver some puppies. It's my rookie year as a midwife, so I'm banking on nature to cover my back on this one.

The photo doesn't do Tazz's swelling justice, but trust me, she's enormous. When she lays on the floor her whole belly is alive with who knows how many puppies jostling around like a pack of WWF wrestlers. Either that or I am about to witness the next sequel in the Alien series before it hits theaters. I'd prefer the former.

Remember those games where you have to guess how many jellybeans are in the jar? Let's play our own version. Go ahead and leave your guess in the comment box.

Here are our family guesses:

Deb: 12

Emily: 11 puppies and 1 kitten

Thrillseekers and Babysitters.

Sometimes the only place to hide from the relentless wind and 105 degree heat is on our back porch. Few know this better than our newest tenants. This pair of barn swallows (I like to think of them as Maxwell and 99) spends the afternoon on our ceiling fan, which turns softly with the what little wind reaches the porch.
They've grown quite comfortable with people, dogs and even the cat moving through the area. Perhaps a little bit too comfortable...so every once in a while I like to give them a little thrill by turning on the fan. They go nuts squawking and flying about. But as soon as the fan turns off, they're right back for more. Action junkies.

Tell you what, Maxwell and 99, you can hang out on our fan just as long as you keep on babysitting Hannah. Deal? Deal.

Flirting with disaster

I just changed up the music on my ipod. I have it on shuffle mode to keep me cruising along on the treadmill. I think I should probably take the stuff with a Latin beat out of the mix. I really love it, but that's the problem. Whenever it comes on I feel this craving to bust out a little salsa move. I have a track record with disaster (I guess I even have a track record with falling off of gym equipment) so trying to dance on a moving surface is like, well, sticking a match inside a gas-filled oven. Trust me, that doesn't turn out well either.

I asked for it, I got it.

I've never really been afraid of spiders. Never really gave them a second thought until today. If you have issues with spiders, just skip this post.
It's laundry day today. I was taking my clothes hamper out of my closet and noticed something odd. So odd, in fact that I ended up throwing everything out of my closet to see just what was going on. The floor of my closet was covered in dead spiders. A hundred dead spiders. Last week there were none. Today, there were one hundred. Sick. My question is if it's still called arachnophobia if don't scare me so much as make me want to vomit?
So, in response to my last post, I think I've found a new gross. Well, whoopee-ding.