Sunday

Sunday was so great that it needs its own post.

I forgot about the time change, which was okay because I had a lot to do before I went to church.

At church, the youth were in charge of the entire service. I was blown away by the maturity of the kids as they conducted the service. The dramatic pieces (some might call them dances rather than human video) were well-done and well-rehearsed and really inspiring. Two of the students gave their testimonies for the speking portion of the morning, and I was quite impressed with their ability to articulate what God is doing in their lives and their courage to get up in front of everyone and be so vulnerable. The kids who prayed and who conducted the communion service demonstrated equal maturity and openness.

I think the most striking feature of the morning was what a great example the youth set for the adults. They did everything with such a realness and vulnerability. They weren't just putting on a show, they were sharing their selves with the congregation. I was also very glad to see that the pastors truly gave over control of the morning to the youth. They were allowed to participate in all aspects of the morning from making the announcements, to staffing the prayer team. This was such an incredible picture of how the body of Christ works and a great testimony to the fact that everyone belongs and has something to offer. The (older) children are equally as capable to serve as the adults.

After church, I hosted a pumpkin carving party at my house. We had a lunch of soup and pie and then we carved pumpkins. I really had a great time even though I was dead tired. I didn't realize how tired I was at the time, but looking back, I was walking around like a zombie all afternoon. Again, I forgot to take any pictures. I think Dan might have gotten some, but I am not sure. Some day I am going to remember...

In the evening, I went to the prayer group with Abby and we went on a prayer walk. The goal of the prayer walk was to pray for every home in the Elmhurst neighborhood where the church meets. We broke off into small groups and covered the entire neighborhood. I went with Abby. It was really interesting to walk around and pray with her and it was also interseting as we were looking for something specific to pray for at each home, what you could tell about people by the outside of their houses. It was a great time and I am excited to see what comes of it.

Yesterday I spent a little time in the morning with my grandma, then I slept for the rest of the day until I went to work. It was a good thing too, because work turned out to be very hectic.

Saturday

I had a busy (but very fun) weekend.

On Saturday Rahime came up and we went wine tasting with some of my friends. We drove up to Apple Hill to visit the El Dorado county wineries, which was probably not the best planning because it seems that everyone in the state decided that Saturday was the time to go to Apple Hill. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day, and I truly enjoyed being outside up there enjoying all that beauty and the company of my friends. We also tasted some pretty interesting wine.

Saturday evening Rahime and I just made it back to town in time to go to the ballet. The main event for the evening was "Where the Wild Things Are", but I really enjoyed the other two ballets on the program more. Where the Wild Things Are was good, the fact that the dancers could move so well in ten-foot monster costumes is amazing. The other ballets were "Western Symphony" and a ballet choreographed by the artistic director of the Sacramento Ballet called "Etosha". I enjoyed Western Symphony, it was a lot of fun, particularly the second movement. Etosha was my favorite. It was a more contemporary piece that was evocative of African wildlife. The movement was all very creative and beautiful, and it was so unique, intense and interesting. I really enjoyed the movement of the dancers in this piece, it looked very animal-like.

The one sad thing is that I was so tired by the time we got to the ballet that I fell asleep for part of Where the Wild Things Are.

True to form, I had my camera all day and forgot to take any pictures. Some day I am going to get better at that.

See Rahime's comments on the day here.

Very Fortunate

I would like to announce to the public how blessed I am to be a member of my present community. I am constantly amazed by how they continually challenge and encourage me and how much fun I have with these people. I love that everyone has such a strong desire to seek God and to think hard about what He desires of us and what kind of people He wants us to become.

In other news, I am still at that restaurant, and after my quarterly time of depression that I am still waiting on tables, I am again resigned to stay there until something else comes along. One more reason I am glad to have people supporting me and encouraging me.

Two more days until the ballet...

Still around

I am still out here. I just have been in too strange a funk to have anything to say. I think I might have something to say soon.

And I am going to the ballet on Saturday!

I guess I chose well

You Belong in Sacramento

You're a little too down to earth to be considered a true Californian... But you still too weird to fit in anywhere else! With it's diversity and cultural opportunities, Sacramento is just enough California for you.

Where Does Your Inner Californian Belong?

Going to London!

I am going to London over Thanksgiving! I am really excited because I've hardly been anywhere and because I am going with someone who should be really fun to travel with. Now I just need to figure out how to get a passport in a really short period of time...

Lots of stuff going on

I am almost overwhelmed with everything that has been happening in my life lately. Especially after a year in which it seemed like nothing happened in my life. I have been blessed to see God doing so many things in my life so quickly. I can see Him working all around me and it is exciting.

He has suddenly surrounded me with a community of people who have greatly blessed me even in the few weeks I have known them. These people have been a constant blessing both by being around for me to enjoy and have a lot of fun with, and by being a constant reminder to seek the Lord in all that I am doing. I think I have done more stuff in the last two months than I have in the year since I moved back to Nor Cal.

Last weekend was a time of spiritual renewal for me. Part of the credit is due to my dear friend, but I am sure that that time was planned in order to get my attention and to heal me of some stupidity in my head and spiritual attack connected with that stupidity. It is a strange experience for me to knowingly enter into destructive thought patterns, to hear the call to stop, know I should stop but not want to, know I should ask for help to want to stop and not want to, and then suddenly have everything in my mind made right again without my doing much of anything other than confessing my situation to a friend. I am thankful that God protects me and sends friends to help me when I don't want to help myself. All of this is a good reminder that I am not an island and that I need people around me to help me.

One of the things I have been learning in the last few months is to be humble and allow people to help me with stuff. Anyone who knows me knows that I really hate allowing people to do things for me and the I hate asking for things even more. So I have been going out of my way to do simple things like letting the neighbor change my battery and letting people carry things for me, and to allow people to help me in more substantial and personal ways as well. It turns out, it is not good for me to do everything for myself and by myself, even when I am able to do so.

On another note, I took a test last week to become a State employee, passed, and it looks like unless something crazy happens, I may have a job with the State very soon. I have mixed emotions about this depending on what kind of job I actually end up with. I have applied for some interesting positions, but I am also getting invitations to apply for some very lame budget monitoring bureaucratic positions that would end up depressing me more than anything. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, enough rambling for now...

Backpacking

Katie and I went backpacking this weekend! We started our hike at Echo Summit, which is about 20 minutes outside South Lake Tahoe. Our original destination was Lake Aloha, which is about two miles long on the map, but is apparently very shallow, because it was mostly dried up when we got there. It was ugly, so we decided to backtrack and stay at Lake Lucille that night because it was the closest nice-looking lake within the zone we had a permit for.

Friday was extremely windy and cold, but we found the perfect campsite in a nice hollow out of the wind. Because it was so windy and because we had gotten chilled as a result of being so sweaty after our hike, we went to bed as soon as it got dark.

On Saturday, we spent the morning doing some exploratory hiking around lake Lucille and ended up climbing up the side of the mountain after following a poorly maintained path down to another lake. Then we packed up and moved our camp to Lake of the Woods a few miles away. This is now my new favorite place. It was so beautiful, I need to go back and get some pictures and just enjoy it more. One day was not enough. (I did bring a camera with me, but the battery died after I took my second picture of the trip.)

Saturday was beautiful and we had a nice time hiking around and sitting and enjoying the beauty of the lake as well as each other's company.

Today we got up and took our time getting breakfast and packing up our stuff. We had a rather quick hike out and a rather long drive home in post-weekend traffic. I am now at home nursing a few blisters and some sore muscles.

I am so glad we went. It was nice to get away from work for more than a day. It was also nice to get out and get some intense exercise. I love being out in the mountains, and I really enjoy going with Katie. She is a great person to go on this kind of trip with.

This is the one good picture I took before my battery ran out:

Tea Time

I am going to a women's tea tomorrow with the women from church. Anyone who has known me for a while also knows that I usually avoid such gatherings, not because I don't enjoy a good tea party, but because women's ministries events usually irritate and depress me. However, I am looking forward to the tea tomorrow so that I can meet some of the other women at church, and becuase the speaker seems really cool and isn't talking about how to be a good wife and mother.

Church women oftem make me uncomfortable because my life is different from most of theirs and I feel like they dismiss me when they find this out. I know these women have a good deal to offer the congregation and the community and I would really like to know them and see what they are doing, so I am going to try. So, tomorrow morning I am going to make a fruit plate to make my mom and grandma proud, put on a dress and go to a tea party where I only know one person. I am curious to see how it goes.

Tag

Rahime tagged me:


Three things that scare me:
1. Bugs
2. Getting married
3. Not being in control

Three people who make me laugh:
1. Helen
2. Chris
3. Julie

Three things I hate:
1. My job
2. Liars
3. Driving in traffic

Three things I don't understand:
1. Why people seem to enjoy being rude
2. Why no one will hire me
3. Why God chooses to be gracious

Three things I am doing right now:
1. Eating soup
2. Watching the vagrants in the alley outside my apartment
3. Sweating

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Work for the International Justice Mission
2. Hike the Pacific Crest Trail
3. Preach a Sunday sermon at church

Three things I can do:
1. Cook
2. Ride a horse
3. Knit

Three ways to describe my personalilty:
1. Reserved
2. Open
3. Intense

Three things I can't do:
1. A headstand
2. Surf
3. Drive a car with a manual transmission

Three things I think you should listen to:
1. The Bible
2. Good advice
3. Honest people

Three things you should never listen to:
1. Gossip
2. The TV
3. Flattery

Three things I'd like to learn:
1. To be a good dancer
2. To work on my car
3. Jiu-jitsu

Three favorite foods:
1. Chocolate
2. Shawarma
3. Cookies

Three beverages I drink regularly:
1. Coffee
2. Iced tea
3. Wine

Three shows I watched as a kid:
1. Inspector Gadget
2. Full House
3. The Wonder Years

Three people I tag:
1. Crystal
2. Happi
3.Julie

Gross

One of the advantages of having a disgusting giant hairball clogging the bathroom sink:

It catches the emerald earring that falls down without your notice and keeps it from being washed down the drain.

Time to Move On...

As I was getting ready to go to work this afternoon, I found myself fantasizing about getting fired. The last time I did this, I actually did get fired. (Through no fault of my own.) It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I think when someone sees termination as the only way to get out of a job, it is time for a new job. Please pray that I find another job soon, before I get up the nerve to quit without having another job lined up.

Church Hunting

I have been living in Sacramento for nearly three months, and I started looking for a church sometime early in June. I really want to go to church somewhere near where I live, but have so far found that the churches downtown are not going to work out. They are apparently either dead or crazy in some way or another.

What I found out very quickly, and what I find very interesting is the prevalence of the emergent movement among the more conservative churches in the area. I was vaguely aware of the emergent church when I lived in Southern California, but I never really paid it much attention and never really investigated what it is all about. Yikes! I read A Generous Orthodoxy this last winter and I am now extremely concerned about the popularity of this movement. Almost everywhere I go up here, people are jumping on the emergent bandwagon. I think I will say more about the emergent church another time.

Anyway, after several encounters with emergent and dead churches, (I should say that I was seriously considering getting involved at one church and subverting the emergent movement), I think I have found a better option.

I have attended a church called Restoration Life for about three weeks now, and I really enjoy it. It is a year-old church plant that seems to have at least quadrupled in size since it started, which is encouraging. The teaching is not at all what I am used to, but there is an emphasis on community that I like and I enjoy the people and the desire to seek God. It is a very different experience for me. I can already sense a lot more freedom than I am used to, especially in the service, it is not at all the intellectual environment I have experienced over the last seven years, it doesn't have the resources of a large church, or of an established church that I am used to, but I think all of this is probably good for me right now. I think I am going to keep going and see if this is the place I will call home for the forseeable future.

Church hunting has also made me appreciate anew what I gave up when I left Long Beach. I miss being a part of that community, I miss the teaching (though I have started listening to the sermons on the internet), and I miss being a part of what God is doing there. Grace wasn't perfect, but there is no such thing as a perfect church, and I can truly appreciate being a part of a group of people that was allowing God do move among them and change them. One of the blessings of going back to Long Beach to visit in June was that I was able to see how much had changed in the few months I had been gone, and to see how things we had been praying for for a long time had been granted. I think I was able to see that more clearly because I had been gone than I ever would have if I had been there.

That is all for now.

Sidenote: Does anyone else find the concept of a postmodern Presbyterian church strange?

I have the internet!

Yes, after two months, I am now able to communicate with the world outside again. Who knew not having the internet would be so isolating? Now I can start posting more regularly.

Mostly moved In

The apartment is looking better and better and it is beginning to feel like home. I am still getting used to the unusual floor plan, the fact that the place is so small, and all of the other oddities of the place, but I really like it, and when I finally have furniture in all of it and finish painting, I think I will love it. Right now the doors are still pink and grey and I still haven't started painting the kitchen. I am really burnt out on painting, so I don't think the kitchen will be finished for quite some time. What I really need now are curtains for all the giant windows.

I have finally spent an entire week in the place without going back to mom and dad's house to babysit the animals or going on vacation, and I am getting used to living alone again. Now I am starting to look for a church and I finally have time to look for another job again. I really hope I find another job soon. The restaurant job is wearing on me and I am really discouraged about my prospects for finding something else. I have two options right now and once I am done with those applications, I am going to start volunteering somewhere so I have something to do besides sit in my apartment all day.

Returning Soon

as soon as I get an internet connection at my new place.

I am Moving!

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have been working on my new apartment! I rented a project, but I got a great deal on it. I have a soon to be beautiful place in an old victorian in Sacramento. I am really excited to move in, but I am trying to get all the major (very necessary) painting done before I move in. Unfortunately, I am working every day and I need to be around to take care of all my parents' pets this week.
When I took posession of the apartment on Friday it was a mess. It took all day Saturday just to get the kitchen and living room in a condition to be painted and to pull up the disgusting carpet in the back bedroom. Seriously, I don't know how the previous tenant could stand living in such filth. I got a late start yesterday because it took a very long time to get paint, so I only finished the living room and got a first coat on the main bedroom. I was supposed to move my stuff in on Thursday, but I don't know how I am going to finish by then.
I have forgotten my camera, so the world will never know just how the place looked with horrible dingy grey paint in the living room and the ugliest purple walls ever in the bedroom. I am going to remember tomorrow, so they will see the dark purple moldings and the lovely hot pink doors.

I Love Wine!

I went wine tasting in Amador County today. I love Amador County. I think I want to live there someday. For those who don't know, Amador county is due east of Sacramento. It is one of the fastest growing wine producing counties in California; there are twenty five wineries in Amador County www.amadorwine.com.
The first Winery we went to was in Drytown. They had a barbeque and a blues band playing today. It turns out that it was the owner's birthday. They had the best wine we had all day. Their Zinfandel and their Syrah were both very good. If you are in the area, you should visit www.drytowncellars.com. We stopped in Amador City for a little while to look at the shops and then we went to the Montevina winery. Their place is very beautiful. Montevina specializes in Zinfandel, but the best wine I tasted there was the Barbera.
I have pictures but I can't find the cable to transfer the pictures from my camera to my computer. I am sure I will find it soon

House Hunting and Kayaking

I went apartment hunting on Saturday. I had found what seemed to be the perfect apartment. It really was perfect except that it turned out to be a studio instead of a one bedroom. I filled out an application anyway because it was rather large and it was so beautiful. it has giant windows, gorgeous wood floors, and is painted yellow Most of the apartments I have found have been dark and kind of ugly. I think it might take a long time to find a place to live, but I have decided to take the studio for now if it is offered to me.

My mom's friend Carol took me kayaking at the lake yesterday afternoon. I had a lot of fun. It was a lot of hard work because there were at least twenty ski boats tearing up the water and we spent most of our time going against the current of the lake. Yesterday was such a beautiful afternoon. We saw flowering dogwoods and other plants, grassy hills, and had a nice view of the mountains where there is still snow. The lake is so pretty right now. I will post pictures when I get around to putting them on my computer.

Reality TV

I have decided that going to work is like being on a reality tv show. Without the fun parts. I hate watching reality tv because listening to the people gossip about each other and plot against each other grates on my nerves. I hate going to work for the same reason.

Working in a restaurant is like being on a reality show because when business is bad (as it is now), making money starts to become a competition. We don't have hosts so it is usually the servers who seat the customers. Most of the time people are good about being fair, but sometimes people get worried about the money they are [not] making and become selfish. And some people are always selfish.

I am not saying I never participate in the gossip and backbiting because I do. I have been trying for months to stop and sometimes it works for a while. Then someone makes me angry and I start again. I really am trying to quit. In the meantime, I have to go back to work today and listen to everything again. Listening and not talking is just as bad because then people tell you more. People told me too many secrets about other people last week. The whole situation makes me want to curl in a ball and plug my ears.