Some snapshots of my life:

This has been a big theme in my life the last few weeks: lots of medicine and tea and ibuprofen. I have had cold symptoms for about a month now which is kind of lousy....

This is my office! I have never had my own office before and I LOVE it! I get to bring kids there to talk to and I get to lock my door when I want to get work done. So far, it's kind of empty, but my roommate Ainsley bought me a picture for my birthday that is now hanging behind my desk!

This is the view from me sitting at my desk :) I use post-its ALOT to remind myself of kids to see :) And I occasionally get distracted by the cute picture of Ty on my desk:

This is Hank. We were making dinner and I took this picture because his girlfriend is from Michigan and I didn't think she would appreciate this shirt.

This is a picture of my friend Heidi (the black hair and glasses), and the Bonham family, Ben (the dad), Lana (his wife) and their kids Preston and Violet. I took this picture at Columbus Marathon when Lana, Heidi and I took the kids to cheer on Ben as he ran the half-marathon. Heidi and the Bonhams are a part of my house church and I love spending time with them :)

My Birthday!

October 25th is my favorite day of the year...because it's my birthday!

I was working at CTC that day and nobody there knew it was my birthday until some beautiful flowers showed up for me:

My dad sent me flowers because he's wonderful! They looked great in my room with my purple walls. When I got home there were 2 packages waiting for me...but I wasn't allowed to open them yet!

My mom said I had to wait until I was on skype with the family to open them. When I finally got to open them, there were a lot of little treats for me including: a scarf, a book, candles, candy, a journal for me and mom's book project, a jar to make bread in, spices to cook with, and some wonderful cards from my family!

After opening presents I had a great dinner with my friends. Heidi and Johanna came over and made dinner and dessert for me and Claire. Heidi made some great cupcakes, one of which I just ate!

I was also blessed by some great cards in the mail, lots of facebook and phone messages, some cookies and a delicious brownie from my roommate Ainsley!

All in all, I felt very loved on my birthday and even though it would have been better at home, it was still a great day!

Russia Reunion

4 1/2 years ago, I got the opportunity to go to Russia for several weeks with the Global Aid Network. While I was there my team visited orphanages, children's facilities and families to deliver aid and share the gospel.

My friend Megan and I in front of the city gate:

At an orphanage:

I loooved this trip and besides the spiritual and educational benefits, I made some wonderful relationships with my team members. Even though I didn't know any of them before I went, I got really close with all the members of my team. It was a great mix of young and old and from all different states.

My team and a couple of our Russian interpreters:

Even though I got close with my team, it has been hard to stay close with them, especially after all these years. BUT, just yesterday I was blessed to have lunch with two of my Russia team members; Linda and Jaye! Linda (in the blue shirt with the hand brace) also lives in Ohio and Jaye (in the blue shirt with the green and yellow skirt) lives in Iowa but was driving through Ohio on a road trip. So, they both came to Springfield and we spent over 3 hours at Bob Evans eating and talking and catching up.

It was so good to see them again and hear about what God has done in their lives in the past 4 years. It was such a reminder that being believers makes us sisters in Christ and that is a bond that surpasses time and distance and everything else. I almost never think about heaven (I get too caught up in the here and now...) but yesterday I was feeling sad about not getting to see the rest of our team, and I realized that we will have eternity to spend together :) It made me so happy because I feel that God has put a lot of short-term relationships in my life. I have many friends from Russia, from Uganda, or from camps or college who I have been close to but don't get to see very often. It is encouraging that even though I am bad at staying in touch now I will have more than enough time to be with them in heaven. God is so good :)

Me and Linda:

Back in action...

Alright, I feel pretty guilty about not blogging in....weeks. So I'm back at it. But, at the same time, I am feeling guilty because at this moment I am blogging in class (yikes!). I should be paying attention BUT....if I wasn't doing this I would probably be almost asleep. (Even after two large coffees!) Also, the prof. is lecturing on a topic that I read thoroughly the other day so I'm not really missing much :)

The class I am currently in is called Social Work practice with Individuals. It's all about individual counseling, which is something I am doing a lot at my internship. The lecturing in this class can be kind of boring, but sometimes he shows us good videos of counseling sessions. The real, good counseling is nothing like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE

I have two other classes that I am currently taking. At 8am on Fridays I have Mental Health Policy, which is very interesting. I think that it will be better than my undergrad policy class where he frequently made us act like we were politicians. My third class (which is from 3:30-6 on Fridays) is called Social work practice with groups. It is about group therapy which is one of my favorite things :) It is my favorite class this quarter because I love the topic and the prof. is really interesting and has a lot of experience. He also has the unfortunate tendency of using the word sh** about 25 times each class. We're not in Cedarville anymore! :)

Even though I am learning a lot in classes, I feel like I learn ten times more each day at my internship (I'll write more about it another day) and I am anxious to be done with classes. I have about 8 months left until graduation which equals about 26 more weeks of class...which will be approximately 208 more hours of class. But, Sarah reminded me the other day that I am already over 4/5 of the way done my college education. Good thing I have such an optimistic friend!

Back in Ohio

So....I haven't written in two weeks because I was gone for two weeks and not IN the Buckeye State. I was in the Keystone State which besides their so-so state nickname has some amazing things that Ohio doesn't have such as:

-My family....obviously my favorite people in the whole world. The best things about being home are playing games (I kicked butt at bananagrams), eating dinner together, and even getting Tyler up for the bus in the morning.

-Sarah Rose-the bff. I was sooo happy to be able to spend time with her and Greyson and Jordan. They are my next favorite family. Sarah, Grey and I ate about two entire apple pies....not our greatest accomplishment :) I also got to surprise Sarah with a "Welcome to Motherhood" shower.

-The Phillies. Pete and I watched a lot of Phillies games while I was home. Since my house in Ohio doesn't have TV I now have to follow them online.

I am really excited to start a new quarter of classes, a new internship, a new season (fall is my favorite!) and a new year of Young Life! So, I guess I am happy being back in Ohio for now :)

Young Life

On this blog I have already mentioned Young Life several times. This is because it is one of the most important pieces of my life here in Ohio. In fact, last year when I was trying to figure out what to do and where to go after college the first thing that I felt God telling me was that I needed to stay in the Springfield area so that I could still be involved in Young Life.

Young Life is a high school outreach ministry. Leaders are assigned to high schools and the teams of leaders at each high school reach out to kids in three big ways; club, campaigners and contact work.

I was assigned to Southeastern High School in South Charleston, OH. I serve there with three co-leaders: Nicole, Dave and Kyle (in the photo L-R).

Nicole and Dave are a married couple and Kyle is a Cedarville student. I am really lucky to have them as my "COs" because we get along really well as a team and they are so fun to be around.

To explain the basics of YL:

CLUB-is an hour-long time of singing, playing games, doing stupid skits, and basically having fun and making kids laugh. At the end one of the leaders shares part of the gospel for about 10 minutes. We progress from explaining who Christ is to what He did to why He died. Club is for kids who don't know who Jesus is and are probably not going to church to learn about Him. At Southeastern we are unique because we

have club on Thursday mornings before the kids go to school. We have three old men who cook breakfast for them, we have club and then send them to school right down the street. It is the best way to start the day!

Campaingers- is a bible study we have every Thursday night. It is a great time to talk to kids in depth and for most of them it's the only time all week that they read or talk about the Bible.

Contact Work- is basically just hanging out with kids and getting to them. It starts out with

having fun but it usually grows into sharing my heart with them and listening to them talk about their lives. I go to a lot of high school sporting events, plays, coffee dates and the county fair to hang out with my kids. (That's me and my girls at camp ->)

Being involved in Southeastern Young Life has been the best part of living in Ohio. I grew up hearing about my mom's adventures as a Young Life leader (yes, I am second-generation!) and I knew that her YL relationships were still a huge part of her life. So, even before I knew all the details of YL and before I made these relationships I knew that God was going to use Young Life in my life and it was going to be a great thing.

Because of being a leader I get to stand in front of 40+ kids and talk about Jesus AND I get to

listen to the details of girls' lives and talk about Jesus. I have been challenged in huge ways and have done things I never thought I would do (Exhibit A: I ran a half-marathon with 14 other leaders to raise money for our kids ->)

I am sure I will write about Young Life and my time at Southeastern more on this blog so I am glad that you can know understand a little bit more about it :)

Roommates

So, one of the best parts of this summer has been living in a real house with roommates. I feel that living with other people is such a good learning and growing experience and I am blessed to get to do it with two awesome girls.

We live in a house called "the dup", short for The Duplex. It's owned by our Young Life area director. He rents out one side to three girls and the other side to two guys. We are all Young Life leaders so our house is also a hang-out for high school kids. Because the house has typically been rented by college or just-out-of-college people there have been many residents in the last few years. We still get mail for most of them. In fact, since I've lived here we have received mail for about 20 different people.

My two roommates are Claire and Ainsley.

Claire (middle) is a middle school teacher at Northwestern Middle School. Claire and I get to hang out a lot and I most enjoy her sense of humor and her listening skills. Claire is referred to by our friends as "the mom" and she did a really good job taking care of me when I was sick.

Ainsley (left) is a high school teacher at Northwestern High School. Ains is often gone, because she is a tennis coach and she hangs out with her family in Columbus but I enjoy when she is around because we have similar personalities and she sings (off-key and loudly) all the time.

Our next-door neighbors, who share a porch, basement and laundry room with us, are Ryan and Hank:

Ryan (we call him by his last name: Fulk) (left) is a bank teller. I appreciate Fulk because he owns more movies than any other individual I know and I often borrow them.

Hank (right) is a student at Wright State. Hank is the other person I spent a lot of time with this summer. Hank has a bad habit of walking into our house yelling for me while I am napping on the couch. Hank's most common phrase to me is "bring it on into Hug Harbor". Hank has filled the role of little brother in my every day life....since I can't be with my four actual younger brothers.

These four guys (Ryan, Chris, Dave and Kyle) have also spent a lot of time at our house this summer, from living her for a few weeks to spending nights in a fort on the boys side.

I have loved living in community with these people.

I have sewed the shorts of two of the guys. (I tried to tell them that sewing the crotch of khaki shorts was a bad idea but they weren't convinced) They have fixed my car and driven me places when I was sick.

I watched the guys attempt to perform surgery on each other (to remove a bump....I actually recorded this on video) and have listened to many farting noises (That's what happens when you get high school boys and their YL leaders together). We make dinner together, do each other's laundry, and wash each other's dishes. We have played a lot of Banangrams (I usually win) and Phase10 and watched movies together (we watched The Sandlot twice this summer). We have bonfires and pie-eating contests. We bike and go for walks.

We recommend books, memorize Scripture and talk about what God is teaching us. We pray together and for each other. It has been a blessing to share my life with them and see God working in theirs. I am treasuring this time to be young and independent but also interdependent on other young believers. They have become my Ohio family :)