Kite Flying

On Sunday, I went to the park just down the street from my house in Fort Collins to try out my new kite. The blue sky contrasted the golden-crunchy grass, and I knelt down to open up my kite case to start putting its seven-foot, rainbow-colored awesomeness together. Several attempts to catch the wind by letting the kite float lightly and take off running failed.

I heard someone about thirty yards away chuckle to a companion, "Failure to launch." I just ignored the comment and kept trying.

Another man walked by a few minutes later and said, "Any luck? Doesn't seem windy enough today."

The wind never did start to gust enough. I stuffed the kite back in its case and rewound the kite string. On Thursday of last week, I felt like a crashed kite missing the wind that usually pushes it higher. I returned home from almost two weeks of spending holidays with people that felt more like home to me than my new home in Fort Collins. A friend called this "re-entry shock" to normal, post-holiday life. Fort Collins does not quite feel like home yet. I know the wind will pick up again, but there will be days, even beautiful days spent in parks, when the wind just will not blow. So it goes.

As far as work goes, my boss's assistant was "let-go" last Friday. This is a difficult blow because she performs so many vital tasks. Many of her duties will fall to me in the coming weeks. We need to hire two on-site Advancement workers but they may not be hired for several months. Please pray that ELIC's Advancement department can continue to successfully bring in the necessary funds in light of economic and organizational deficits.

After the last update e-mail update, several of you asked how Chris and I are doing. He and I spent Christmas with his family in Kansas. I had a delightful time getting to know not only his parents but his extended family too. I must have met about forty people, including some of Chris's dearest high school/college buddies. It was wonderful to meet the people and see the places that shaped who Chris is today. We continue to see each other several times a month, both of us travelling back and forth over weekends.

Regarding my health, I broke the no sugar/no grains diet during the holiday season, but interestingly, did not feel awful. I think I am starting to see some healing and am once again returning to a more strict diet. I believe I will see permanent healing from God's hand and from faithfully following the diet.

For those of you that do pray for me, please continue to lift my health and my relationship up - great things are happening in both these areas of my life! At work, some days are harder than others. The leanness of my department at work provides a multitude of opportunities to learn problem solving skills and teamwork. Please pray for peace, cooperation, endurance, favor, and wisdom to flow through me.

As always, I love to hear how each of you are doing, even if I do not have the chance to respond immediately to your e-mails. I pray the Lord is showing you His design for the New Year!

Date Bars

There are many jokes to be made out of the phrase "date bars."

Ex1:
"I'm going home to make date bars tonight."
"You're going to what?
and
Ex2:
"I'm going home to make date bars tonight."
"You've been doing that a lot lately. It must be working out well for you."
and
Ex3:
"I'm going home to make date bars tonight."
"What? You're going to bars to find dates and make out?"

Those are just a few examples. I am sure you can only imagine the other possibilities. However, "I'm going home to make date bars" has fallen from my lips several times this last week, and today I succeeded. I love Larabars - an energy-type delicious bar wrapped in clever packaging - and every Larabar usually only has 2-5 ingredients. I decided I wanted to try my hand at making them when it became impossible for me to eat less than one a day.

So off I went to Wal-Mart to find dates, almonds, and coconut. Mmmm, coconut. Then, the experiments began. My friend Bethany suggested I boil the dates so as to make them a stickier binding agent. Then I chopped up the almonds and coconut in a food processor. I combined the boiled dates with the dry ingredients (including a dash of cinnamon) and food-processed it more.

I then tried several different baking methods at varying temperatures and times. I finally settled on the following method:

Grease cookie tray
Roll mixture into little balls
Place on try
Press flat with bottom of cup (to 1/2 inch thick or so)
Bake at 315 for 30 minutes
Eat

I am so excited that I unlocked the secret to my own Larabar version. In fact, I believe the Larabar company must dehydrate or otherwise slowly cook the bars because they do not have the baked texture, making my little cakes totally original.

I shall call them:

Noellabars

Ingredients: Dates, Almonds, Coconut, Cinammon, Elbow Grease, Ingenuity, Love

200 Calories of
non-gluten, anti-processed sugar, dairy-free, potato-free, corn/corn-syrup/other-corn-derivatives-free, legume-free
BLISS

Post Christmas Party Joy

I just had my first Christmas office party. It's so great to be part of an organization that celebrates the heart of Christmas. Further, I led us in singing two Christmas carols. How does it get any better than that? Five or six years ago, I wouldn't have imagined being able to play Christmas tunes on a piano let alone sing and play. It gives me such great joy each time I have the privilege to provide this service for people. It is one thing that makes my heart sing.

This week has been a bustle of activity for me since I realized the need to buy all my Christmas presents before I go home to GJ for the weekend. The coming weekend at home will be the last time I see certain friends and family until after Christmas and New Years. I hope to make this weekend as special as can be.

Now I should actually start working again. I just needed to express the joy of a day well-spent so far.

PS: Here is a picture I really like -

I keep imagining elements of the Christmas story in different ways this year. Like, what if the angels came to some Mongolian goatherders. The shepherds that first visited Jesus must have been really dirty and smelly from being out in the fields. Even baby Jesus - I often picture him with open eyes, looking angelic, and smiling up at the shepherds. Well, if they visited him right after his birth, he probably couldn't open his eyes yet. He couldn't hear the noises going on around him well. All Jesus could do a few weeks after his birth was sleep, eat, cry, and gurgle. Baby Jesus was totally helpless - born into a grimy barn to road-wearied parents. I love thinking about this.

Believe in Someone Today - You May Change a Life

I just checked my work e-mail. Lame. You know you are new in town when you don't have anything to do on a Wednesday night except watch "Pushing Daisies" on abc.com and take a few moments to edit a letter for a co-worker. Yep.

So to the news. I have a new job. I am the Advancement Writer for ELIC, a non-profit that sends English teachers to Asia. If you want more information than that, then you'll have to ask me in person. My job is kind of top secret...or on the dl...or must submit to the CG (correspondence guidelines) set forth by ELIC. Yep. We're not newsmakers, and we'd like to keep it that way.

The excitement I have for this job is truly true, however. If I could have written, directed, and cast my own first real job in the real big adult world, I would have been hard pressed to develop something as well-suited to my skills and interests as being the Advancement Writer for ELIC. It combines my people, writing, editing, and managing skills in one role. Plus, I get to be extremely nerdy about words and research.

Further, I have learned that most people are good at heart.

I pondered often when I was waiting to hear about this job, two months of pondering and waiting to hear, if I was qualified enough. I pondered how I performed at the initial interview. I also pondered if sending my new boss two personality profiles (I'm an S-I-C on the DISC test, btw), four more writing samples, calling, and several e-mails would be too much. After all, he did ask me to send him anything and call with thoughtful discussion questions regarding the job.

So I did. I pondered and I was over-actively persistent. My now-boss terms my obsessive persistence "showing initiative." After three and one-half days on the job, he asked me what I really thought. He wanted to know the "true dirt" I had told my good friends and mom up to that point - first impressions about the job and such. So I ever so delicately ventured,

"I feel like I have been lifted out of nothing and given something," heavily emphasizing the something in a positive manner.

And here is what he said,

"Sometimes we just need someone who will believe in us and give us a chance no one else will."

Then he back-peddled,

"I have full-confidence you can do this job well based upon your leadership skills, writing skills, people skills, and self-starting attitude, but not everyone would have given you this job."

Truth be told, the other person they considered strongly for the job of Advancement Writer had a journalism degree, one-year of teaching experience in Asia, grant-writing experience, and had actually published some writing. Me, with my English degree, no grant-writing experience, two months of teaching experience in Asia, and no published pieces, should have been an obvious "no."

But then there is grace. My boss's wife told me at the new office building dedication ceremony ELIC held last Thursday evening that there really was not any competition. Her husband preferred me from the start. Plus, she told him my writing was better.

I am not writing that to sound cheeky, but here are my take-aways (a business-y term I picked up this week, meaning most important ideas to put in your tool bag and utilize when most efficient):

1. First impressions count.

2. Persistence pays out.

3. Be hungry.

4. Show initiative.

5. Never give up in the face of giants.

6. Believe you are the best you that you can be.

7. Say yes when opportunity knocks.

8. Be ruthlessly honest.

9. Be yourself.

10. Don't be afraid to show some emotion during an interview.

11. Venturing out into the real world is fun.

12. Always be inspired by your close friends.

13. Know that love is a constant.

14. Fear not.

15. Embrace the new.

I dedicate this blog-entry to Carrington Schaeffer for always encouraging me to write. Thanks pal.

PS I have a boyfriend. More on that later, but for now, know that waiting two months to hear about this job just may have been perfect timing in more ways than one.

A Little Slow on the Uptake

Well, I am no longer between California and Colorado, just Colorado for now.  I decided not to return to school in order to take care of some health issues I have been having - possible Celiac or some acute allergies to wheat and other mystery foods.  

I am not avid blogger.  I am sure if you check this blog ever, you will notice the inconsistency of my entries.  Whelp, I simply journal a lot on paper.  

Beyond the prior prattle, I am beginning to settle in to home again...although "home" in and of itself is an ambiguous term for me right now.  I am not living at home with the parental, nor am I really living anywhere for certain, just kind of floating from one twin bed to the next.  I hope to hear back from a Denver friend with the ok to move into her parental's basement for the next few months.  

Job interviews are great.  I love to talk to people, a quality, which incidentally may not work out so well at a law office that's interested in hiring me.  They are all down to business there.  All two of them.  It should be interesting and fun, but slightly more quiet than what I am accustomed to.  

In the meantime, I am taking time to re-establish old connections, make new ones, and start my own house-cleaning business.  I hope to visit a professor, an old travel buddy, and a best friend before the week in over.  I will also go geo-caching with a few new friends I met last week at a college Bible study group.  Then, it's re-connect time with the bff.  All in all, settling in isn't so bad.  

Ticket Genius

Let's face it, gas prices are only going up and up, which also means plane tickets are going up and up. Tonight I looked for a one-way ticket from GJ to Ontario, CA (20 minutes from my school) and found tickets no less than 300 buckeroos and up to 550 buckeroos. I was not having this, so I tried to get creative. If you live in GJ, you may know that there are Las Vegas flights on Thursdays and Sundays. So, I checked them out. $141. How does that get me closer to Ontario?
Enter Southwest Airlines. This airline has a "Wanna Get Away" ticket category. And get this - I found a ticket from Las Vegas to Ontario for $69. Yes! What great success. It gets even better...the lay-over time is only an hour and ten minutes between flights. I have just enough time to sip a Naked Juice and a read a chapter in a book. Sweet genius. I lose a day at home, but I save almost $300. I can live with that.

Change or Rest Until You Get Up

Well, the whole going to Honduras for the summer just became really different. I am still going down to Honduras, but instead of staying there until the end of June, I am staying until the end of May, which is quite the change from my original plans I wrote about in my newsletter. The dust is still settling, and to be honest, I do not know how best to express what has happened to me this week as far as my plans changing! :) (it's all good, by the way).
On Monday, one of my professors said something very frank to me. She said that she would not take me out on the field right now if she were my team leader because of how tired I am. Wow. That hit me like a load of bricks - a pleasant load of bricks in the shape of hearts. She noticed acutely that I am on my way to being a "ministry casualty." The Lord has been telling me all year to rest. I must humbly admit that I do not know how to rest. I have tried to rest, but resting is so foreign to me that I have pretty much failed at it. But God is gracious. He is giving me the opportunity to respond to Him and use wisdom. Learning to rest is perhaps one of the greatest challenges culturally for Americans and especially for those within service-oriented occupations such as pastoring. If I do not learn how to rest and care for myself now, I will probably never have such a gracious window of time as the coming summer.
I am now flying home May 29th, in time for my cousin Andrew's wedding. I have not seen all of my cousins all-together for almost eleven years, which is almost criminal! Then I plan to seek the Lord in deep rest for the remainder of my summer. I know I am not supposed to work, and God has even told me not to stress out looking and applying for scholarships for school next year. His mandate is simply difficult: rest!!!
I will still be leaving for Honduras on May 18th, so even though my stay in Honduras is much shortened, I need to raise $1000. Air travel is expensive in contrast to the relatively low cost of staying in Honduras for a week and a half. I am growing accustomed to the idea of not being in Honduras, and I know there will always be opportunities to return there. However, I am learning that if I do not take much needed opportunities for rest, I may not have future ministry opportunities.
There is still a need for prayer and financial support, but both are being modified to fit this new situation. Even though I will be at home for most of the summer, I still need prayer covering for that time...that it would indeed be a time of rest, healing (I really need my tonsils to heal because they are swollen, and I do not want to have tonsil surgery), and spiritual-strengthening. I believe my swollen tonsils are connected more to being exhausted and to the spiritual bondage I am trying to walk out of - it is truly a fight for me to rest. Please pray also that my time would be protected from anything and anyone that would take away from my rest for the next three months. It might sound strange for an almost 23 year-old to be burnt out, but that indicates just how busy and stressful my life has been for a number years.
Let me know if you have any insight for me in the area of resting. I hope this answers any questions you may have due to all the changes in my plans. I would love to hear from you!