Look what I made!

The mittens, most of you have seen (some form of them at least), but the hat is brand new. I made it up myself. Well, not totally I took two patterns and put them together sort of. For all of my knitting girls if you want the pattern email me and I'll send it to you. It was a fun project and took up some of my time sitting in front of the tv. I don't know what to work on next, but I need to think of something fast. Watching the news all day gets to me sometimes. There's really nothing much else to do. I live about 15 minutes out of town and don't know anyone enough to hang out. Plus everyone my age is either married or engaged and no one wants to hang out with the new single girl. I do have lots of little kid buddies though. This one little girl runs up to me and jumps on me, climbing up me everytime I see her. She's cute so I don't mind.
Oh, and I'm pastor for the day today and tomorrow. All the leaders have gone an a retreat so I am holding the fort down. It's just the secretary and me here so the pastor asked if there are any "issues" if I would deal with them. So far so good. Though I was in charge of the Followers group tonight. That's the ministry for 3rd-5th graders. They meet every other Monday and go on a trip once a month. We're going tubing on Sunday. I am officially in charge of children's worship. How I got that job I have no idea. Apparently Jeremy has never heard me sing. But it's fun. I love action songs!

Our God is so Holy

To be in the presence of a Holy God, we are so underserving and yet He desires to be so close with us. I can understand Moses feeling inadequate when God spoke to him through the burning bush. Here is the Lord of lords asking him to go lead His people. What a challenge that would be. I struggle with feeling incapable of doing what other people ask me to do because I fear disappointing them I can't imagine God asking such a huge task of me. Still even in my doubt and my inabilities He's asking me to allow myself to be used by Him. To my fear He says, "I will be with you" and "I AM WHO I AM so go!"

Busy, busy, busy

This is my desk space. Boring, I know. I'm trying to think of what to do to "spice it up." Have any ideas? Yesterday was a crazy day for me. Every Sunday they have someone read the scripture that is going to be preached about and I was asked to this week. I read Exodus 3:1-15. It's quite long especially when standing in front of about 200 people when you only know about 3 of them. I had to do this for two of the three services they have. I also had to lead the Sunday school lesson today. That went pretty well, I know more of the children than I do the adults in the church. I shared about Jesus washing his disciples feet so I had some of the kids come up and I washed their feet as I talked. It was a lot of fun actually and I must say I'm pretty proud of myself. From 8:00 am to about 12:30 I was running around like a mad woman getting things ready. The rest of the day I sat around the house with my host home and we watched old Westerns. John Wayne is my new hero.

Ummmm....I'll consider it.

Saints And Sailors..

This is where I say I've had enough
and no one should ever feel the way that I feel now.
A walking open wound,
a trophy display of bruises
and I don't believe that I'm getting any better.

Waiting here with hopes the phone will ring
and I'm thinking awful things
and I'm pretty sure that few would notice.
And this apartment
is starving for an argument.
Anything at all to break the silence.

Wandering the house
like I've never wanted out
and this is about as social as I get now.
And I'm throwing away the letters that I am writing you
'cause they would never do,
I would never do.

So don't be a liar,
don't say that "everything's working"
when everything's broken.
And you smile like a saint
but you curse like a sailor
and your eyes say the joke's on me.


No, I still hate dashboard, though I am more inclined to listen to it, I won't!

I've left my mark in Wisconsin

This is my ride. She doesn't like the snow or the ice, but she gets me from here to there...usually. Yesturday morning we had quite the battle getting out of the driveway. If there was any ice as all under the tires she wouldn't budge. I turned and manuvered her every way I possibly could. I had it in drive and it was going backward, so I put it in park and still she went backward. I spent about 20 minutes going a little bit forward and a bit more back before we finially made it out of the driveway.

Last night on the drive home I got into my first accident ever. I hit black ice going about 50 mph. I slid to the left lane, spun around backward and landed in the ditch rear first, on the wrong side of the road facing the opposite direction. It was quit the adventure. It took the tow truck a while to get it out, but all is well. The van is fine and I am fine. They are now looking into getting me a jeep to drive instead. That was my big adventure for the day. Maybe I'll bond with the jeep more than I have with the van.

Things so far...

Things have been pretty busy with my internship thus far. Wednesday night was youth group. That was a lot of fun and I'm going to start leading a small group from now on. Thursday I had lunch at the public primary school, grades k-2 (These are the kids I'm going to be creating a ministry for) They are so cute. I went to a board meeting Thursday night, and I actually had a really good time. Friday and Saturday I had off, so I just sat around the house, unpacked, and relaxed. Sunday was church. I was here at 8am had Sunday school at 9:40 and attended the service at 11am. After church we went rollar skating with "Followers" (grades 3-6.) It was a blast, but my legs were very soar, especially my left leg and my ancle is swollen. But it was well worth it. Today was my first actual day in the office. I had 2 staff meetings and we had "Followers" tonight. So, things are going really good I'm really enjoying being here and can't wait to get more involved!

Here I am!

What a trip I had. I got to bed around 2am and woke up at 4am. I arrived at the airport an hour before my flight, waited in line to check in only to find out I was in the wrong line. I had to be on the other side of the airport. I ran there, convinced him to squeeze me in and had to pay $50 because my luggage was 4 lbs too heavy. By now I was running late. I ran up the stairs and the security line was about half a mile long. I asked a security guard if I could go ahead because at this point my flight was leaving in 15 minutes. She glared at me, shook her head and pointed to the end of the line. About ten minutes later as I neared the front several people who were also running late just ran to the front of the line and went through. I was not happy. It was about this point that I realized I did not have my wallet on me....awesome. I got through security, ran to my gate, surprise, I missed my flight by 5 minutes. Grrrr...

I called my mom and she did not have my wallet, the number for my internship was in it so I did not know how to let them know I would be on a later flight. I re-traced my steps and asked a bunch of workers if they had seen my wallet, no one had and there was no lost and found. Finallly someone suggested I check at the police station. I walked in and he knew what I wanted, handed me my wallet and I was off. My connecting flight in Chicago was delayed 2 hours, so I sat around for 3 hours. It was a long, long trip.

I made it safely and I'm loving it here. The people I'm working with are great and the couple I'm living with are so sweet. Even though I haven't been here long, I love it. I miss you all so much, take care.

This is a new concept

Well, this whole blogging thing is a totally new idea for me, so bare with me as I learn what on earth I'm doing. I'm getting ready to go on my 6 month internship in Wisconsin and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to keep in contact with everyone. I thought that this would be the best way to let everyone know what's going on while I'm there. I will do my best to keep up with it as much as possible.

For those of you who don't know, here's the game plan: I drive to Syracuse on tuesday, visit my bestfriend hwo has a 5 week old baby (Baby's ARE cute!) and fly out of Syracuse wednesday morning at 6 am. I arrive in Mineappolis and have a three hour drive to Wisconsin. I will be interning at a church of about 600 people I believe and helping with the senior, junior, and pre-junior high youth groups. I will also be creating a ministry for k-2nd graders, sort of like a children's youth group I think.

I'm very, very excited and can't wait for everything that the future has to bring. It's going to be really hard to be away from everyone for six months, especially my family and my boyfriend, but I know that this is where God wants me to be.