and so it continues...

2009-12-31T21:25:00.000-08:00

this is to satisfy my grandma's desire for an update. :)
i'm back in new zealand. just rang in the new year.

here's to 2010. cheers!

2009-09-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

four months later...

i'm in switzerland. just spent 5 weeks in israel and had an incredible time graduating our students, finishing the school, hanging out with friends, hearing from the Lord, and seeing God do some incredible things.

i'm at a ywam workshop til the weekend then will be staying with a friend for about a week before heading to germany and eventually home.

looking forward to what's ahead.
so stoked i can't even believe it.

love.

2009-05-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

bali is probably one of the weirdest places i've been. we were told by an indonesian guy that it's harder to be a christian in bali (where it's hindu) than it is in jakarta (where it's muslim) because of western influence.

we had worship on the beach yesterday and this lady, julia, and her husband, paul, came and joined us. they're indonesian and he's from the high class of bali. she's been a christian for 15 years. he's been a christian for a year. a year ago he was in a coma for 5 days and he had a vision. he saw a bright light and came out of it wanting to accept Jesus. he said it took a few strokes, a heart attack, a coma, and something else for Jesus to get his attention and now he's a Christian trying to influence his family.

they said they're thankful for westerners that come in to preach the gospel.

what do we do.

my heart is heavy in this place because i see hindu statues everywhere and thousands of small sacrifices being made and literally can't do anything for these people at this moment except pray that Jesus would become as real to them as he did to our new friend Paul.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

ulu watu beach. bali, indonesia.

2009-04-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

The town I live in only has about 1500 people. There are no stop lights, no roundabouts, and no stores open past 8. Located at the foothills of the mountains under the most open, beautiful sky in the entire world, it's as if the sky really just bends here and you get a better idea of what God was saying when he said Abraham's descendants would be as numerous and immeasurable as the stars in the sky. There's this feeling like you're in gigantic dome underneath the heavens and you feel like things here are so right in creation that heaven is truly meeting earth and you can't help but stop and take it all in.

There's seriously no other place in the world I'd rather be than right here doing exactly what I'm doing with the people I'm with. My days are filled with sharing life with people who are seeking out God's love and their identity in him and it provides the opportunity to walk alongside people and encourage them as they in turn walk out this crazy thing we call life. God is still working on my heart in the midst of it too and it is truly a magnificent thing.

Everyday holds tears from laughing so hard and usually some crazy story about me tripping and slamming my face on the ground or getting fried fish rubbed all over my face or ripping my pants on a bike.

We laugh together, cry together, make pizza together, share our hearts together, and have a lot of fun in the midst of it. We learn how to live, work, and play together with people from all over the world and it is an incredibly beautiful thing because at the core of it all is this mutual love for God and this zeal for taking hope and love to the people around us.

You get this feeling like something is just right here.
Like God is definitely in this place, you know?

So anyway, here's what's been happening:

[GOD IS GOOD.] |Still.| [GOD IS LOVE.] |Still.|
The biggest lesson God keeps pounding in my head is that I am RIDICULOUSLY loved by him. It's something I struggle to grasp a lot of times but His love never fails and He keeps pursuing me so I keep laying down the things that hold me back and clinging tightly to the promises He's given me. Jesus' love never fails. Ever.

The last three months have been amazing and I have been blessed with deeper friendships with old friends and new friendships with people I've grown to love deeply. Being in YWAM makes you feel like you've known people for years when you've known them for months and it takes you to this crazy deep level of friendship like nothing else.

Man, seriously, I just love life and am in awe of how God has worked in my life. I can't tell you how many times a day I stop and think, "thank you God." Everyday the mountains take my breath away. Everyday the goodness of God makes me stop and really reflect on my life and what he's doing and what he's done and what I'm doing with my life and I'm just so grateful for it all! (Especially for the people here and the others around the world that I'm just flipping blessed to have in my life!)

In other news...
[I'M GOING TO SOUTHEAST ASIA!]
It's with great excitement that I can finally say I know my co-leader, our outreach locations, and our students!

What this means: For three months, I'll be co-leading a team of 7 students (Americans, Canadians, and New Zealanders) around Southeast Asia with a New Zealander named Kieren. We'll be travelling through Asia working with all kinds of ministries - anything from preaching in a prison to digging wells to helping in an orphanage to teaching new believers more about who God is.

Our hope is that by the end of it, there will be a passion in our students hearts to pursue long term missions - whether that be by going or by mobilizing, supporting, or helping out in various other aspects of missions.

Our Countries: Indonesia (Bali). Taiwan. Thailand. Cambodia.

Our Need:
Approximately $1800USD for myself
Approximately $5,500USD for our entire team.
Because of the extreme fluctuation in the exchange rate and the drastic drop in the value of the New Zealand dollar, our fees have increased to make up for it so while I would have been covered for my fees, I now need $2000 more than what I had originally budgeted. Between selling my car and those who've already supported me, I've been able to cover over $6000 of my expenses which is an incredible blessing but I still need to cover the rest of my outreach.

What's being covered in this is: all of my living expenses in New Zealand and abroad from September 2008 to August 2009 (transportation, food, housing, etc.), my travel costs for leading my outreach team, my vaccinations, pretty much every aspect of my life. We pay fees to the base I work with and together with the money from the rest of my team, we create a budget that will allow us to travel through Southeast Asia together for three months as well as three weeks of debrief in Israel with the rest of the school.

There's this sense of urgency within this because outreach is coming up in 5 weeks and I need to have my fees paid by the end of next week so that we can buy our plane tickets. If we don't have the money, we can't by the tickets, which means we can't go on outreach.

So... I'm asking that you would consider supporting me in this. Whether it's $25 or $1000, every bit helps and every bit takes me one step closer to making this a reality.

If you want to support me or want more information about it, please write me and let me know you're thinking about it so that I can pass that info on to my leaders.

While I know that the economy is absolutely crazy right now and there's so much uncertainty about the future, I still want to ask you guys to pray about supporting me financially. I'm praying in faith that God will provide a way for me to go on outreach so I ask you to consider joining in on what I'm doing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

SO, KIM... WHAT'S NEXT?
After going through Southeast Asia, we'll be meeting up with the other teams in Israel for a two week debrief and graduate our students on August 13th. We'll then have staff debrief for a week and the school will be over! From there, I'll be spending some time in Israel before beginning my journey back to the states as well as visiting a few friends along the way. I'm hoping to get connected with a base in Amsterdam to do some work with prostitute ministries up there. God has really been laying human trafficking on my heart hardcore so I'm hoping to get some time working with that sort of thing for a month or two before heading home.

The plan is to be heading back to the states around mid October for a few months before coming back to New Zealand to finish off the leadership course that I'm in and from there... the world is my oyster. This is all subject to change but for now, that's the plan I've laid out.

THE FINAL WORD:
I am super stoked to be leading this team with Kieren and I still can't believe what a stellar group of students we have. It is such an incredible privilege and responsibility to lead this team and I can't wait to see what God does in and through our team as we share life and journey together the next few months across the globe.

Hopefully this gives you guys a better, less scattered, more solid idea of what I'm doing.
Love you all.
-kim

If you want to support me or my team (or send nature valley bars...), you can send checks with a note for me to:
YWAM Oxford
PO Box 47
Oxford, North Canterbury
New Zealand

Or go to: http://www.ywamoxford.org/pay-online/
(all donations done online are in New Zealand Dollars.)

2009-02-21T01:50:00.000-08:00

Life updates are hard to come by when you have a lot going on. Today was our first free day in three weeks and I slept in until 11am because I was so stinking tired. It's good. It's about to get really crazy around here...

I've been back on base for about a month now, staff training for three weeks (i LOVE my staff team), and am coming into the last week of training before our students arrive on THURSDAY. (a little reminder: I'm staffing a Discipleship Training School called "Around the World in 80 Days" with Youth With a Mission Oxford [ywamoxford.org])

We're all stoked about it and anxiously awaiting the great things that will happen during this school.

Please be praying for our students as they come that God would rock their world.

As I've been praying over this school, I've been getting the same thing over and over that God is going to do something NEW. My hope and prayer is that our students will come to know God in new ways and experience life fully like they've never known before.

On a more personal note, I've been getting this idea of NEW a lot for myself from my own reading, from teachings, and from other people which is really matching up with what I'm feeling in my heart. The last year I think can be summed up as God trying to show me that a. He's real, b. He loves me, c. He wants to set me free. I really feel like this year is the start of something new and me growing more and more into the person he's created me to be by fully recognizing his love for me and living out of that. Not so much being focused on me but how best to effectively live my life for others. Really moving from this kind of dry desert to the abundant life he wants to give us.

Last week I had this epiphany that it's absolutely ridiculous for me to even hold a shred of belief in my head that I'm not good enough for God to love. We were praying for our school and the vision that we have for it and someone wrote down something like, "be loved by God. That we would know how ridiculously much we are loved by God. We are loved by God. We are loved by God." and as I sat there thinking about it, someone else began reading a passage out of ephesians 3 which says: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

So I'm sitting there and I'm faced with the thought, do I allow myself to fully accept God's love? how can I seriously go around preaching that Jesus came to bring abundant life if I don't fully accept God's love which is what allows me to know God and live out of that? I'm not sure if that makes sense at all but basically what I'm getting at is, the knowledge of the fullness of God's love for me has moved from my head to my heart. It's something I've been believing in and fighting for the last several months (the last year, even) and it clicked a few days ago. And when it did, it just stinking did, man.

It was like, "dude. God wants to love me just because. God wants to bless me just because. Not because I'm without or because I need it or whatever. It's just because that's who he is." jeremy always says, "we're blessed to be a blessing" and I think I've finally grasped what that means.

It's sweet, man. There's so much freedom in just allowing yourself to be loved by God. And in that, to be loved by others which really makes you feel comfortable to be yourself.

Every morning our staff team has worship together and I get filled with so much joy because I just stand there thanking God for my life and the people in it and all the things he's done and allowed me to do in my life and I'm constantly struck with how truly blessed I am. A lot of times I feel like a little kid because all these people pop in my head and I just crack up laughing at how ridiculous it is that I have so many stellar people in my life.

5 months ago, Jill gave me a verse out of psalm 121 and neither of us knew it at the time, but it would soon become my anthem:

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Several times I've been given a verse out of this chapter and I just feel like it really sums up my life at the moment. I'm surrounded by mountains here and last weekend we were down at the lake and I looked up at the hills and immediately thought of this verse. In the midst of my freaking out about staffing and life, I had this weird peace that I didn't have to worry because God was going to be walking with me through this whole adventure.

My favorite is definitely the last bit that says, "the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore" because it's pretty much what I do. It's like, he's with us EVERYWHERE. No matter where I am on the earth, he's with me, he's my help, the stinking MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH is my help WHEREVER I am.

How big is that.

DUDE. You guys. It's seriously my prayer that you'll fall more in love with Jesus. And if you haven't, that you would. I pray a lot for you guys back home and really, really pray that God would continue to work in your lives in BIG ways. Speak to you so clearly and overwhelm you with his love.

It's a good life, man. This whole walking with Jesus thing.
It's definitely worth living for.

identity and dads and crappy mcdonald's coffee

2009-01-20T18:05:00.001-08:00

hey guys. here's my update for january.

I got to spend nearly 5 (wonderful) weeks back in the states for Christmas holidays and now I'm headed back to New Zealand to staff the Around the World in 80 Days Discipleship Training School with YWAM Oxford. I'll explain more about that in a few weeks when things have started rolling but until then, here's a blog I wrote about what's been happening with me and what God's been speaking to me.

Identity and Dads and Crappy McDonald's Coffee

2008 was a most glorious year.

Sunday at church Brandon talked about something that has been really close to my heart for the last many, many years (see: http://outsidethewalls.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/but-i-am-a-princess/ for a better idea of what I'm talking about.) and hearing what he talked about Sunday reminded me of how incredible God has been over the last year (and continues to be everyday.)

For a good chunk of my life, I've sought acceptance/confirmation/approval from people because I never had it from my parents. I always had this feeling like nothing I did was ever good enough for them so I'd try to get approval from other people to make me feel like I mattered. For so, so long, I never had self confidence, I never knew who I was, I just put my value and my self esteem in the hands of others, fully expecting to find fulfillment and acceptance in them.

And you know what happened?

People failed to meet that expectation. And that sucked. Because it left me all the more disappointed, all the more broken, and feeling even more like I wasn't worth anything.

When you go into any friendship/relationship/whatever expecting the other person to meet whatever need you have missing, they're going to fail you. And you're going to put up walls and ruin many, many relationships because you feel like they've hurt you and you don't want them to get any closer so you push them away.

As I typed that, it sounded so ridiculous but that's seriously the way my brain used to function. As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, the ONLY thing that can fill the void is Jesus. The only thing that has allowed me to find where my worth is, is the grace of God.

Our identity lies in Christ!

When you become a Christian, the old is gone. The new has come. You are redefined. Being able to accept the love of Christ is revolutionary. For me it has changed the way I view myself, the way I view others, the way I think people view me and the way I view God. I see God as a father who loves his children, not as some big jerk in the sky out to get people.

For girls out there who are seeking after so many other things... trying to find fulfillment in boys or drugs or food or shopping or whatever else... you're running in circles. Those things DON'T fulfill.

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

The sorrows for the appointed feasts
I will remove from you;
they are a burden and a reproach to you.

At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you;
I will rescue the lame
and gather those who have been scattered.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they were put to shame.

At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,
says the LORD.

It is seriously my heart for you guys to know how much you're loved.
And no one will ever fill the deep longing we have to be wanted/loved except Jesus.

God takes great delight in you. He loves you. He wants what's best for you.
Really.

And I know that's a hard thing to believe when you've dealt with crap. It's hard to see past the lies spoken into your life. It's hard not to blame God for how your life has gone. But keep seeking him.

Christians, not Christians - people are going to fail us - especially when we hold them to idealistic standards that they were never meant to be held to. But when we live with our identity in the one who came to save us and live out his love in our lives, we're walking in the power and authority that only comes from him and have confidence in who we are. We'll get tripped up. We'll get knocked down. But we have to keep running with our eyes focused so intently on Jesus because if we don't, we're bound to fail time and again.

He HAS to be the center. He has to be the goal we strive for. Knowing him and walking in his way results in living our lives a little closer to the way he intended and that allows us to use our story to walk with others through life. Encouraging each other. Sharing the message of hope and salvation with those who don't know it. Loving the hell out of people.

And I know that sounds super churchy and super unattainable if you're not already in that sort of place. Or if you're bitter with God. Or whatever else. But coming from someone that doesn't b-s, I promise you it's truth.

Search it out. Ask God to show you his love. Fight for it. God will meet you where you're at. He'll never fail. Never ever ever.

No matter how many times your dad might fail you or your boyfriend or husband or whoever else, God never will.

There's so much freedom in letting go and trusting that God is who he says he is. It's baby steps for some people and a big giant freakin' leap for others. But either way, I urge you to seek after God and his heart. And remember it's not just about you. But about what you can do for others.

I'll be the first to admit that I still struggle with trying to get approval from people. A lot. But I find myself less and less worried about it because I'm finally becoming confident in who God has made me to be.

When I think back to 2008, I think what I'll remember more than all the crazy/ridiculous/fun stuff is that God showed up in my life in ways bigger than I ever imagined.

I saw a lot of things, I laughed SO much, and I folded more enchiladas in one day than I ever want to fold for the rest of my life combined. I've rapped in a Mongolian high school and have had to produce more identification - in addition to my passport - more times when going through immigration than probably anyone else in the history of passports. I've met some freaking incredible people, almost been hit with bags of trash falling from the sky, ate duck tongue and throat, and sipped coffee with some of the greatest people to ever exist. I developed a love for sleeping in airports... and really just sleeping anywhere, did the home alone run in Los Angeles trying to catch a flight, saw the biggest anonymous turd to ever appear in a toilet, and got some sweet converse all stars for free.

I kicked off 2009 with a week long road trip out west visiting several friends from my DTS. We hit up a hockey game, went snow shoeing, laughed so freaking much, got lost in Seattle, built several snowmen, laughed some more, ate moose, got stuck in Seattle because of flooding, rode a pony (not really.), got a canadian stamp in our passports, and got the WORST coffee of my life at McDonald's' new McCafe. I had chipotle, chili, coffee, birthday cake, and popcorn (all at different times of course) with some of my favorite people on earth when I got back to Indiana and now I'm sitting in LAX on hour 7 of my 9 hour layover in Los Angeles waiting to fly to New Zealand.

Over the last year, I've encountered God in a whole new way, forgiven people I never thought possible, found inexplicable joy, and moreover, been humbled time and time again by God and his work in my life and in those around me (and around the world). I'm so, so thankful for what I've been able to do, am anticipating what's to come, and am freaking excited about what this year will hold.

I've got a lot of ideas about what I'd like it to be and with any luck, it'll include a Coldplay concert somewhere along the line...

check this link out for pics from my west coast road trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008854&l=a802b&id=142700459

2008-12-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

i'm trying to sell my car so i can go back to nz and not have to wig out about money.

if you want to buy a 2004 honda element with 96000-97000 miles on it for $6000, let me know. there's some damage up on the front right and the windshield is cracked (which is a manufacturers defect... jerks.) but that's factored in and i'm basically giving my car away.

if you don't want to buy a car but want to support me as i go back to nz, you can mail me a check (made out to YWAM Oxford) at:
kim golden
po box 47
oxford, north canterbury
7443
new zealand

or http://www.ywamoxford.org/pay-online/donation.php
all the money is done in new zealand dollars so if you're looking for a conversion go to www.xe.com and it'll convert US dollars to New Zealand dollars.

When I get back to New Zealand, I'll have a week to bum around before starting staff training for the upcoming Around the World in 80 Days Discipleship Training School. (It's the school I did in early 2008 and now I'm staffing it.) For three months we'll be in New Zealand doing lectures and then I'll be leading an outreach team somewhere in the world.

To cover my staff fees and outreach fees, it's going to be approximately $5000 (Lord willing the exchange rate continues to stay in my favour.) so if you're interested in contributing to that at all, it would be so, so appreciated.

If you guys have any questions about what I'm doing, feel free to contact me at kimgolden@gmail.com, call me at +13173135757 (US phone) or +64273091190 (NZ phone) and I'd love to tell you what's going on.

Hope you've all had a good Christmas.

2008 has been one of the most incredible years of my life and will definitely go down as being one of the best. Thanks for helping make that happen. much love.

2008-12-09T02:49:00.001-08:00

Every time I think I have things figured out, God kicks my butt. Every time I think I've started to get a grasp of what being a good leader is about, I'm challenged with a new situation/person. Every time I think, wow I'm really experiencing God, I'm challenged with some situation that makes me seek out a different aspect of who he is.

I feel like I've been learning a lot the last few weeks. Learning how to deal with difficult situations. Learning how to be a better support to friends. Learning what it means to live by faith. Learning more about the character of God. Learning how to make tough decisions. Learning what it's like to have to completely rely on God.

I've prayed more in the last three weeks than probably ever. Like they always say, there's nothing like a tragedy/tough situation to get you on your knees, right? I don't think I've ever cried out to God in such a way where I actually felt like he was hearing the words I was saying like I have recently. Over the last few weeks I've truly realized that the faith I thought I had is definitely without a doubt REAL. It's not some fleeting thing that I experienced a while ago, it's real. (One of my fears after my DTS was that I'd hit some tough stuff and everything would dissipate.)

I wrote to someone the other day that I've never experienced such a peace in my life as I have over the last few weeks. And in the midst of some pretty crazy situations (that have honestly left me feeling pretty drained) I can without a doubt sit here and write to you to say that God is in control and that I have never trusted in God more in my life.

Walking through the hard stuff challenges you to grow. You basically have two options, I think. You can let things get you down and destroy you or you can get on your face and trust that God is going to walk you through it and go out in the power that can only come from him.

I say all this with the complete understanding that some people are thinking, "whoa superchristian kim!" and that's alright because I've reached this point where I'm not going to apologize because I know that I know that I know that this is real. It's what I've experienced. It's what I believe. And I know it's true. My God, our God, ... he is mighty to save and he walks through the valleys of the shadow of death with us and has it all under control and he has conquered the grave and he is so, so faithful. He'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. And when the crap hits the fan and we wonder how we're going to deal, he's still there walking with us.

We can hang on to stuff and worry and think about all the what if's but like I was reminded of last night, we CANNOT be hanging on to those things. We HAVE to lay them down at the cross and keep walking in the strength God gives us or else it'll freaking destroy us. Challenges come and tragedies come and life can get hard but we ALWAYS have to keep our eyes focused on Jesus in the easy stuff and in the hard stuff cause he's the only one big enough to walk through those situations.

One of my favorite stories in the bible is in Exodus when God leads the people out of Egypt. They're all freaking out and complaining and are worried that the Egyptians are going to kill them and God basically says, Shut up. I'm in control. I'm fighting for you. And then he rocks their world by leading them across Red Sea on dry ground and smashing up all the Egyptians.

God is in control.
He's fighting for us.

There's also the story of how God was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night when they were walking in the desert. (If you've never worked in a middle eastern desert for several weeks, cloud cover is like getting a pony for Christmas. And warmth at night is like hot cocoa after sledding.) He gave them exactly what they needed. When they were hungry, he gave them manna from heaven. When they were in exile, he brought them out. Again. When they needed redemption, he sent his son. He's always providing. Always has. Always will. Cause he's constant.

People and jobs and money will fail but God never will. In the good and the bad he's always there. When you have doubts, he's there. When you're spent, he's there. When you're on top of the world, he's there.

Keep trusting. He'll never leave you. Never forsake you. And will always love you.

much love.
-kim

2008-11-08T23:56:00.000-08:00

Time goes by so incredibly fast.
So, so fast.

This weekend I went camping with the students from the school that is currently here out in a valley that took fording a few river-like-water-pool-things and driving down crazy terrain to get to. (Driving on that road seriously made my entire year. I forded a couple rivers in a van!) We spent the weekend trekking, building a dam, having stick races down the creek, playing cards, getting eaten alive by sandflies, and sitting around a campfire roasting sausages, mashmallows, and bread, and enjoying life together.

Which takes me back to time going by incredibly fast.

Five years ago I never would have imagined I'd be where I am today.
Three years ago... never would have imagined.
A year ago... never would have imagined.

Five years ago, three years ago, a year ago... I felt trapped. Like I was just running aimlessly with no direction, no future, no hope. And it seems like so long ago but at the same time it feels like it was a few weeks ago and something radical has since happened in my life.

And this weekend as I was hiking up this mountain through the bush - crawling under thorn bushes and over fallen trees with roots taller than me, I was reminded (again) of how much God has shaken up my world over the last ten months. And how ridiculous it is that I'm living on the other side of the world running a kitchen with more contentment than I've ever had in my life.

The last time I wrote I think I might have mentioned it but I'll say it again. Being here, doing this kitchen thing, living an ordinary life - it's really taught me how to be content. How to have peace. How to be a leader. How to make chicken enchiladas. (Yeah Dianna - I've become a cooking machine.)

I remember spending so long telling myself how I would never be anything and I'd never accomplish anything and that I was never good enough and all of that is such crap! Through Christ, we've all been given new identity to walk like him, talk like him, live like him. The old is GONE. We've been given new life so that we can help others find that new life. We're Christ's ambassadors! What higher calling is there?

I was sitting by a creek getting eaten alive by sandflies reading a book that has managed to articulate part of my heart and why I want to do the things I want to do in life. It's kind of churned up a slight passion in me so in the midst of my update I (again) want to share with you guys my heart and the vision I have that has been getting more and more formed since I came back.

About five weeks ago I started asking God to give me direction and vision about what my life should look like and where I should be headed. And I think I'm near the point in my life where I can say to God, "Here I am Lord. Send me." which is a scary thing to pray but the more I hear stories about injustice in the world, the more I want to GO.

This book I was reading said the following:
"It's as if God is saying, 'The thing that has happened to you - go make it happen for others. The freedom from oppression that you are now experiencing - help others experience that same freedom. The grace that has been extended to you when you were at your lowest - extend it to others. In the same way that I heard your cry, go and hear the cry of others and act on their behalf.'"

Which is truly, honestly, where my heart is at.
I know what it's like to be at the lowest and people helped me out of it.
I know what it's like to feel trapped and be set free from it.
I know what it's like to cry out and have someone hear it - and not just hear it but ACT on my behalf.

I've been shown so much love. So much grace.
And it's changed who I am.

And I want to pass it on to others.

We've been brought out of exile. God has given us his favor and has brought us into a relationship with him. So will we forget where we've come from and become complacent? Or will we remember what it's like to be in the gutters and have people walk by who don't care and finally find someone (or someones) who has compassion on us and surrounds us with the love of Christ and walks beside us out of our wilderness into new life?

I know this sounds completely crazy. Like I'm some "idealistic young person with no idea what the real world is like" but I've walked in places where people have nothing - no money, no food, no hope. And I can't stay the same. I can't leave it alone.

And for a while when I was home, I wasn't sure if that was really where my heart was. If it was real and possible or if it was just some crazy idea that I've had. But since I've been back, it's been confirmed time and again that I'm called to go. To extend the grace to others that has been extended to me.

People came in my life and loved the hell out of me. It changed me. Big. (all through Christ obviously.) And now I can't imagine doing anything else with my life but doing that same thing for others.

Not in a pity sort of way, like oh poor soul, let me love you because I have so much and you don't.

But in a, "I've been there and remember what it's like. Let me walk beside you." kind of way.

Some of you guys, I think, know my dream is to start an orphanage. Which sounds crazy. And sounds like a big out of reach kind of dream like being a doctor or lawyer or an astronaut.

But I remember what it was like to finally know that someone believe in me - that I could be someone - that God could use me. It shook me up. It made me really start thinking, maybe I am good enough for God to love. And I haven't been the same since.

Someone(s) giving me a chance at making it has changed me. And I want to give a chance at making it to others. To give love and hope and stability and safety and an education.

I think I'm trying to make this sound too fluffy, so at its rawest: I want to just take Jesus to people... to kids. To give them a shot at making it. To come along beside them and try to spare them years of junk and bring them up knowing that they're loved and valued and worth so, so much. The love of Christ revolutionizes lives. And think I'm nearing the point that I'm willing to go wherever I'm called.

On a more present note, staffing a DTS and whatnot is really where I think I'm supposed to be at the moment, so I don't mean to sound like, "I wish I was doing other things." I really just want you guys to see my heart and see my passion and know where I'm at right now cause I think it's important. I feel like what I'm doing now is preparing me for what I really want to be doing in the future so I'm content to be here and learn and grow and experience God in the weirdest ways.

On a more present note, life here is quite good. It's been a sweet month getting to know the students that are here right now and laughing a ridiculous amount. Being a leader is ... interesting. I'm learning how to say no and enforce rules and confront people. It's hard, man. It's really hard. But it's good. I've never been stretched this much in my life.

This week we're having a big meal called the Love Feast and since I'm going to be gone over Thanksgiving, it's going to be an American Thanksgiving meal. I've never made a turkey before so it could be quite the adventure but I'm looking forward the challenge this week of making turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy, rolls, and pumpkin pie. (GBA.) It's going to be a whole lot of obnoxious American culture stuffed into one meal. Super stoked.

here's a link to some pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007824&l=e1286&id=142700459
and here's some pictures of the traveling bunny which show a little more about what i've been doing and not just my stupidity:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007903&l=8f615&id=142700459 (latest album)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007698&l=cbded&id=142700459 (older album but with updated pictures since i last sent the link)

also... please check this out. it displays how extremely classy i can be: http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v373/222/121/23502342/n23502342_31917866_6789.jpg
hahah

Write me about your lives sometime? It's hard to keep up with everyone but I do want to know what's up in everyones lives.
Much love to you all.
-kim

if you want to support me:
This is the website if you want to send money via the web (it goes in as New Zealand dollars, not American): http://www.ywamoxford.org/pay-online/
Or you can mail it to the address below made out to YWAM Oxford.
Or you can drop money in my account at 5/3 bank.

email me: kimgolden@gmail.com
skype me: kimberlygolden
write me: po box 47, oxford, north canterbury, 7443, NZ
call me: +64 027 309 1190

2008-10-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding like an old woman, I'm going to attempt to share with you guys where I'm at right now and just a little bit of my heart.

This week I turned the big 21, which isn't old, I know. But I've spent a lot of time thinking about life lately and what I want to do with my life and the person I want to be so it is kind of this bizarre milestone of sorts for me.

This week, the unfortunately-now-cliche Switchfoot song was on and as Jon Foreman was belting out "This is your life, are you who you wanna be?" I really had to stop and think, am I? At this moment in time, I'm not doing what I dream of doing. But I'm starting to find joy in where I'm at. It's stressful running the kitchen - being responsible for feeding 40+ people. But it's seriously been so much fun. And I think what I'm learning from being in there is that I can't always decide where I'm at in life or the things that I'm doing in life and that things can change in an instant but I can always glorify God in my actions and make the best of the situations that I'm in.

I'm trying to learn how to live abundantly in such a bizarre/random life situation where I'm doing nothing spectacular but living a very simple, not glorious life. And it's such a crazy journey. I see the influence my attitude and my behavior have on others and it is pushing me to live to a higher standard. To live like Christ. To put on the mind of Christ. To not be one person around my friends and another around the students but to live consistently.

This is the first year I've really started to understand what it means to live.
To have purpose.
To have meaning in my life.
To have passion and joy and really have LIFE inside of me.

So many people are so flipping broken and have no one and nothing to turn to. And I don't want that. I've been there and experienced that and I want so much more out of life than that.

I don't want to just exist.
I want to live.
I want to shine the light of Christ inside me. To really, truly be the light on the hill. And to take the hope of Christ to people around me. To say to people, life is more than just living. More than just getting by. You have something to live for.

Seriously. It sounds so cheese ball. But I've wasted 20 years of life - precious freaking life - and now I've tasted what it's like to be on the other side and I never want to go back. And I don't want to stay where I'm at.

I want to run so freaking hard away from all this dead crap and come into a life of fullness - of living in tune with God. Of showing people who Jesus is and what it really means to be a Christian and not to just get by day to day but to really truly live. And I'm not sure what that looks like in the big picture but I think I'm starting to get a small glimpse of what it is like.

Seriously though, you have to ask yourself what you're living for. Do you have a purpose? What's the point of living if we've nothing to live for? We've all got different journeys in this life. We're not all meant to take the same path and live the same life and all that. One of the most glorious things about the way God created us is that we're so unique. And so my path looks different than yours. And I don't mean that in a new age kind of we can all believe different things and still end up in heaven. I mean it like, my path right now is to be in New Zealand doing this whole DTS thing, while others are to be in India or Cambodia or China, while others are to be back in the states working in their jobs with their familes. Cause everywhere we are, we can be glorifying Christ through the way we live. It's like, the thing that unites us is the Cross and the difference that it has made in our lives. But even then, it's not just "doing life" but living. Making every day count.

Yeah, I learned a lot in lectures on my DTS. And I learned a bit sitting in church on Sundays. But what has seriously changed me is my relationships with other people. There are a few people in my life that I look up to and they have changed the way I look at God and life and the world. They LIVE. They live in such a way that they don't take things for granted. They love passionately, stand up for justice, and put on the mind of Christ. That's the kind of person I want to be.

To not just scrape by. But to truly live.

---------------------------

On a less serious note, on Wednesday, one of the students asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said that I wanted a pony. So he and two of the other guys took bikes around the countryside asking farmers if they could borrow a pony for me for my birthday. haha... how awesome is that?

2008-09-27T13:56:00.001-07:00

Apparently there was a time change in New Zealand today and no one told me because I got up at 8 to go to church at 9 and when I was ready to leave, I was told it was almost 10.

WINNER.

2008-09-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

i made it to new zealand.
once my life gets more exciting i'll let you know.

gettin' there.

2008-09-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

9:16am Indianapolis time.
8:16am Chicago time.
My flight leaves Chicago at 2:50 or something.
Barf.

It's okay though, because soon after I write this, I'm going to go sleep somewhere in this place.

Anyway. Since I need to "update" my "freakin' blog" here's my life. This morning I left Indy to finish up my Around the World ticket. I'm headed to Dallas around 3 today to stay with my friend Heather and then on Thursday am flying up to Portland to see a couple friends from YWAM. I was supposed to fly out Saturday morning but because of ridiculous weather, I spent Saturday and Sunday night back in Columbus.

Seriously the craziest chain of events. For. Real. I wish I wasn't lazy because I'd explain it and you'd all be going, "what the heck?"

Anyway. I'm headed out of the states. From Portland, I'll be flying to Auckland and will be getting to New Zealand on September 24th and plan on being there for a while.

Write me. Skype me.
Send me letters.

lovelove.

2008-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'

Man, good thing she said the war was from God. I was beginning to think it was a bad idea...

... yikes, man. that's a big statement.

2008-09-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

i'm in chicago right now which is a gift from God - seriously. hanging out with some ywam friends, catching up, drinking coffee, jumping off stuff, and just having a good time.
the typical oh man let's take our own photo picture

posing with the statue. but you can't really see it. boo.

coffee.dessert.friends

and this is only day one of our week long adventure.

2008-08-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

a taste of my summer.
n-joy.

i went to visit jess a couple times.
please note my awesome water bottle, thank you camelbak!

jess and i were in dublin, ohio when we spotted dale earnhardt senior!!!!! long live the intimidator!!!!!

and then we went to the whistle factory in columbus, ohio.

AND BROKE ALL THE RULES. please note jess' foot and my foot crossing THE YELLOW AND BLACK TAPE LINE DUN DUN DUN.

so another time before jess was about to leave for new zealand, we had a little excursion and took a mini roadtrip down to see our dear friend ashley.

and found this creeper along the way!!! he was driving up and smiling really big at us and then slowing down.

but then we finally found ash so it was okay!!!

i also got to hang out with some favorites downtown indy.

and play on photobooth when a cool kid called chase.

and then laughlaughlaugh taking pictures with gavin on photobooth.

and again. always funny.

seriously. such a good summer.
as in, i probably wouldn't trade it.
time here is coming to a close. two more weeks and i'm outtie.
kind of sad. ... definitely definitely definitely looking forward to what's next though.

2008-08-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

for real.
where has the time gone?

in one week, it'll be SEPTEMBER!!! it really feels like i left last week and now i've already been gone out of the states 6 months, and have spent two months back. it's just crazy how fast time goes now. three weeks from today (saturday) i'm leaving indiana headed for texas to spend a few days with my dear friend heather. from there i'm off to oregon to hang out with carter, a guy from my outreach team, and then finally on the 22nd, i'll be leaving oregon to fly to new zealand to stay for some months.

this whole journey, the last eight months, it's been such a ride. being able to look back and say that i've honestly lived is a really cool feeling. and knowing that i've found out so much about who God is in the midst of the everyday things is incredible.

i was hanging out with this friend the other day and as per usual with all the people in my life (generally, not ALL all), i was being harassed for being kind of the heathen immature one and i started talking about where i was at and how i'd changed and what God had done in my life and was continuing to do. just saying how i have purpose now. and meaning to life. things i didn't really have before. i didn't have drive or anything that pushed me to be better than what i was. i mean, i had people around me who did that, but it was never a personal thing. it was always to satisfy others expectations of me but my heart wasn't in it. as i was talking and later when i was thinking about it, i definitely had this feeling like, man this is truth! it's not me giving lip service to say the right answers and whatever but it was from the heart (like hallmark without the gold embossing.) and that was so freaking cool. i was finally able to articulate kind of who i've become.

while i was on outreach, i was hit with this conviction of living to a higher standard. like i think i've said on here before, not just hitting the "good enough" mark but constantly striving for more. and since i've gotten home and have been working at the big subway sammy shop, i've realized how much more i want out of life. i don't want to stay the person i am right now but i want to live more and more like Christ. which sounds cheesy but whatever.

i've met so many people lately who have no purpose. they live and that's it. and i don't want that!!! i want to change the world. which is a big dream but why not dream big and strive for so much more? lately i've been challenged with living everyday to a higher standard. not just in the moral kind of things of making the right choice and stuff but seriously everyday striving to live the best i can. and not just living "right" but living a life of reckless abandon the way we as Christians are called to live.

i was talking to my friend jim the other day who lives in the big C about how much easier it was to trust God on outreach. but now that i'm home, it's so so much harder. and as i'm about to step out here in a few weeks, it's messing with my mind about whether or not God really will provide but that i'm not going to experience God's power until I put myself in a place where I need his provision in my life. anyway. Jim said: that's true,we begin to see his power,his unfailing faithfulness only when we choose to step out of the boat. we can choose to be like peter who believed on the voice of him who calls him and change the history or choose to stay like the rest thinking that old peter is crazy to jump out of the boat

why don't more people have faith like that???? that's the kind of faith i desire. to honestly be able to say, i surrender, and have 100% faith that God is going to work things out.

eeeeeeeee.
tuesday is my last day at subway.
thursday is a colts game that i'm going to.
sunday mel is coming!!!!!!!!
tuesday is chicago with some besties!!!!!!!!!
wednesday to saturday... still chicago!
friday is art night.
then saturday i leave!!

2008-08-17T21:22:00.001-07:00

reading stuff like this makes me wonder if it's really worth fighting. i waiver between saying, wow good job completely breaking the law and man, good job trying to take the word into places like that.

cause on one hand, people in china need jesus. but on the other, to refuse to leave until you get your suitcase full of bibles back is a little ridic.

is it fighting for the gospel or fighting for books?

... also. please note that where this happened was on the complete opposite side of the country from beijing.

2008-08-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

This entry is going to take a more serious tone but first...

13 year old girls who are writing about love and how they've lost it and some boy they're in love with and who is in love with them is ending up with other girls at the end of the week even though he said he loved her on Monday is ridiculous.
Thanks.

Anyway.

Last night (Wednesday night) I closed by myself at work. And while I've generally been getting off at 10:30pm when I'm working with someone else, last night I got off at 12:09am. Which is sweet money (almost an 8.5hr shift.) but I was so, so tired. Then today (Thursday) I got the honor of closing again, only this time having the determination to get out of there before 12:09am. But I had such a freaking bad attitude. Not like, hey giddyup, let's get this done, but just that jerk attitude of like, this is freaking stupid. I'm going to just scrape by and do it good enough. Like, bad enough attitude that the girl I was working with thought I was mad at her. (seriously, I'm a jerk sometimes. and now I need to apologize when I see her.) Which isn't generally how I roll at work. I've always had a good attitude about it. (Really.) Anyway. I work at the Walmart Subway so we take our trash to the back of the Walmart store and throw it in the trash chute thing that Walmart uses. The thing stays locked so I have to call a manager to open it. So. I did and I was sitting back there waiting and this guy I see from time to time says to me, finally had enough, huh? And I said, what? and he goes, you look like you're sick of it. Tired of Subway already? So I just said I was tired and carried on waiting for Mr. Manager. So I go back into the store and the greeter guy goes, you look happy. why don't you just do it half-assed and go home. And I said I didn't want to lose my job and wanted a good reference when I leave. Then he laughed at me and said to just make up references.

So I was in the back doing dishes cussing in my head at each pan when I was punched in the face with, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!?!?! I seriously have absolutely no reason to be bitter or mad or upset or whatever. Granted, I didn't want to be there, but that's only because it's a job and that's not as fun as hanging out with friends or watching paint dry or something.

I was really convicted tonight about my attitude towards things and how it's not about doing it good enough to get by or good enough to make my manager happy enough. If I'm really trying to "live out the kingdom" I think it does come down to a heart thing where even in the smallest activities, I'm living joyfully, working for God. And not to say that it's always going to be happy or whatever but just living with the right attitude, or even trying to, is a step closer to bringing the kingdom to earth. So now it's moved from living my life as far as like morals and stuff go to a high standard to every aspect of life, living to a higher standard and it's kicking my butt.

All night I had this verse resonating in my head:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. -Colossians 3:22-24

And not that Subway is slavery or anything (free sammys. jiggggaaaa) but you get the point. Everything we do all the time should be as if we're serving the Lord.

It's easy, I think, to live at the status quo of just going to work and being ho hum about it but to live joyfully and radically and make it not as, this is for the paycheck but the life I'm living doesn't belong to me and I should be using my time here to serve God, serve people, and in all the things I do, reflect Christ to the people around me. (Not that you have to be Ned Flanders Christian. Cause I'd probably punch you in the throat. But you get what I'm thinking? Anyway. Just my conviction.) Which I think I'm learning to do better as time goes on. And it's still a struggle, but the more I'm working and the less I'm in this Christian bubble, the more I see the need for people to reflect Christ and not make it a faith that is for Sundays and when other Christians are around.

kickingmybutt.

oh. ... yeah. ... I got a warning tonight from a friendly ol' county office. LIKE 1/4 MILE FROM HOME. ... all because I didn't use my turn signal coming off State St. LAME SANDWICH.

lovelove.
-kim
(ps: betty, don't show barb the part about my warning. she'll kill me.)

2008-08-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.-Colossians 3:12-14

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:35-39

giddyup.

2008-08-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

1. I'm not dead.
2. ART NIGHT was awesome. We're having another one on September 12th at 7pm at The Living Room in Columbus.
3. My friend Ryan attempted to teach me to drive stick shift today. Let's just say I laughed harder during that 40 minutes than I have in a ridiculously long time and I drooled all over myself from laughing so hard. It was seriously priceless.
4. Today was BEAUTIFUL. Lots of sunshine, hardly any humidity, nice breeze. It probably couldn't have been nicer. Good weather, good friends, good times.
5. I'm going to a Colts game on August 28th! Giddyup. It's only a preseason game BUT it's in the new stadium and that's balla.

Here's a list of things I want to do before I head out into the world:
1. Learn to drive stick shift
2. Learn to french braid
3. Dumb and Dumber Party
4. have an All TLR Kickball Game
5. Colts game
6. Go to Cincy one more time
7. Hit up Chicago
8. Love.

2008-08-07T20:12:00.001-07:00

while this makes me laugh, it's also sad. but it mostly makes me laugh.
joel osteen's wife is in couuurt. for her ridic behaviour on an airplane.

2008-08-07T16:31:00.001-07:00

buy a shirt.
it'll support a village in tanzania.

info about who it's helping: http://www.wvt.or.tz/KanadiADP.htm
where to buy it: http://www.the-living-room.org/kingdom

http://the-living-room.org/tshirtorder.html
(direct link to the tshirt order form.)

do it. fer real.
i'm buying one.

2008-08-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to GASH OPEN MY FINGER WITH A KNIFE AT WORK.
I was going to paste the story from the skypechat I had with Esther but after reading, ... haha, it probably shouldn't be read by anyone that might ever eat at my place of employment.

Let's just say, I was cutting bread to make a footlong meatball sammy and sliced my thumb open pretty deep and my glove filled with blood and it was SICK and me and this other kid were the only two there and we didn't know what to do so I put paper towel on it and bandaids and kept working, all the while it was bleeding for like an hour and a half.
SICK.

To top off that night, I was trying to clock out and stuck my hand in my pocket to get a pen AND STABBED MYSELF WITH A PEN. And took a CHUNK of skin out of my ring finger.

2008-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

so. why is this okay?

a 14 year old girl is selling herself for $3/hour in kenya.

"For Janet, returning to Kiambaa Primary School was not an option -- it burned to the ground in the violence.

She had been living in Eldoret's vast displacement camp for a month when she noticed that her friend, Nyambura, always had food and neat clothes, even though she was living in the camp, too. Nyambura confided that she had been selling herself -- and invited Janet along to the pub the next night.

"I was reluctant but Nyambura convinced me that the men would pay us," Janet said. "I had never even had alcohol before, but I was desperate for money so I followed my friend."

She was paid 1,000 Kenya shillings -- about $18 -- and used the money to buy food for her parents and six siblings back at the camp. Now, she tells her family she has a job in town, but they don't ask her specifics.

"My parents were poor even before the violence, they could not afford everything we needed," she said. "Now that I'm on the streets, on good days, I get up to 2,000 Kenya shilling (nearly $40) after sleeping with five or six men."

She has no hope of returning to school. Her parents remain out of work, and Janet's contributions are vital to her family's survival.

"At first, this job was torture to me," Kimani said. "Sleeping with these men is terrible, and sometimes they are rough and hurt me. But with time, I have gotten used to it."

Prostitution has long been a problem in Kenya, particularly on the tourist-friendly coast."

and ps: this is just one story of THOUSANDS.
get informed?

2008-07-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

yeah. war is definitely a good idea.

here's my favorite part of this article.

"The VA estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives. The mental health director for the VA, Ira Katz, said in an e-mail last December that of the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, four to five of them are under VA care, and 12,000 veterans under VA care are attempting suicide each year."

18 veterans a DAY commit suicide.
read the article. the stats are insane.

2008-07-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

Life lesson #34: Things that happen don't change the goodness of God or the reality of things that he's done in your life.
Just sayin.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. -2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing. - Zephaniah 3:17

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. -Psalm 27:13-14

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. -Ephesians 3:14-21

2008-07-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's definitely been awhile since I've written anything but random nonsense. Today won't be different.

On an unrelated note, I just want to say that news anchors have ridiculous hair.

Anyway. I'm now a Subway employee. I start on Monday at 10am. Yeah, go on, make your jokes. JEALOUS MUCH? Just kidding. Seriously though, I finally have a job which is a big answer to prayer because I've needed something to do and I've needed to be making money and it's just all around giggly. (Jared jokes = THROAT PUNCH.)

Did I mention that I have an awesome water bottle? High five, Camelbak. You've done it again.

Seriously though, a life update. Things have been slow since I came back. I've been home for three weeks (almost) and it hasn't been the giddyup I thought it would be. Indiana just sucks once you've found a blue star fish in the ocean. Actually, I knew it wouldn't be too enthralling being home. I just like to overdramatize things sometimes. While I've been bored some days, it hasn't been an overall theme in my life thank God. It's only the days that people yell GIT-R-DUN that I wonder what brought me back to America.

A new life theme is me trying to can my sarcasm. Not all of it, cause let's face it, sarcasm is freaking hilarious. But the unnecessary hurtful stuff. The comments that are funny but totally cross the line. I'd try to can my cynicism but that's something I enjoy a little too much. Another is trying not to be so negative all the time. And another is trying to react positively instead of say, swearing as a reaction. (Jared comments will not cause me to react positively. )

I think one of the biggest life lessons I learned while I was out is that God doesn't call us to be just good enough. Yeah, there's this level we can live on where we make the cut and are good enough to be Christians and whatever. But why not strive for more? Here's a warning for a cheesy analogy. Watch out. Being a follower of Jesus isn't this like, bow and arrow kind of thing where you shoot and wherever you land is where you are. It's a journey, man. A freakin process.

Can you feel it? Can you feeeeeeeeel it? (This is only going to make sense to you if this makes sense: GBA.)

I'm so so so so so (have I made my point?) grateful for who I've got in my life. It has seriously been hard coming back and trying to pick up friendships where they left off and a lot of times I've struggled to know what to do but things are working out and it's just been a trip. There's some relationships where lines have to be redrawn because they just can't function in the same way and that is tough. Trying to balance morality (and not just morality, but treating people how Jesus would treat them) and that revengeful part in me. Figuring out what to even talk about now. On an on. It's tough. But it's made me value my close friendships a lot more (and has made me miss my aw80 friends more.)

There's this situation in my life right now and I can't figure out what the crap God is going to do with it. I've prayed about it and sincerely given it to him and now I'm sitting back thinking, yeah, sort that one out. Good luck. The fleshly side of me wants to step in and be like, "here's whats up." and go all street (... i've lost my jiveness. crap.) on them but i KNOW that's not the proper response so I'm holding back hoping things don't turn sour. Right now, when I'm trusting God to work it out and I don't really have control, it's scary because I don't want to get hurt. ... whatever. We'll see.

Facebook might be an idol in my life. Or dang near close.

Uhhhh, also:
come to ART NIGHT.
everyone's doing it.
August 2nd. 7pm.
live music.
me.
art.
fer reals. could it be cooler?

(seriously though, it'll be sweet.)

2008-07-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

Having just spent four days in Ohio, I am no longer the emopants that I was last week.
Sunday I saw one of the girls from my ywam school, Tiff, in Dayton and we hung out and got ice cream. Then I headed for Cincinnati to hang out with my old ccu buds. We hit up Dewey's pizza which is always a grease filled extravaganza, totally worth the 3 tons of grease and billionite calories involved in such a venture. Monday I hit up Kings Island with my old pal Matt and a bunch of his family. Who happen to be one of my favorite families on the planet. Monday night I drove up north to a magical land called Marysville and hung with one of the girls from my outreach team, Jessica. Freaking hilarious. I spent Monday night with Jess and Tuesday we bummed around, went to a mall, half priced books, and probably somewhere else. And I bought a new water bottle which has caused me to seriously drink like 15 bottles of water so far. Which also makes me pee incessantly but it's good. Tuesday night we made s'mores over the stove. Made her dog ridiculously hyper. And watched The Office. Oh. And Tuesday afternoon we saw Dale Earnhardt. He's not dead. He lives in Columbus, OH. He was on a motorcycle next to us. We have pictures and a video to prove it. I crashed at Jess's again Tuesday night and today (Wednesday) we went to the whistle factory in columbus, ohio. Yes. The Whistle Factory. We even wrote a song about it. All in all, making for a good four days. If you've managed to read this far, buy yourself a cookie. It's hard to follow.

Then I drove back to Indiana.
And came home to find the coolest gift ever. A little box filled with only orange skittles. Which are the only ones I like.

I've got good people in my life.
good good good.

mike, if you're reading this, i still want a pretzel and some lemonade.

2008-07-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

the world.
here's a video from the earthquake zone in china that a friend of mine took.
iran is testing missiles that can reach up to 2000km away.
there was an attack on the US consulate in turkey.
sudan peacekeepers were killed.
five people were killed in an iraq suicide bombing.
Mao is finally dropped from Chinese money.
protests erupt over the communist party allegedly winning the mongolian election.

readreadreadreadread.

life is good. i'm on the hunt for a job. i'm sorting out life plans. etc etc etc.

let me just say one thing, trusting God is probably the hardest thing to do. ever. but once you do, it seriously is the coolest thing. ever.

2008-07-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

philippines.

2008-06-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

How's this for drastic.
I'm in Indiana as I write this. Funny how God works. I'm stoked about the next few months and what is to come.
Israel was cool. haha... I finally graduated from something.

Umm. Yeah.

Call me if you want to chill.
lovelove.

2008-06-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

Today I swam in the Sea of Galilee.
The other day we were in the Dead Sea.

Dead Sea - salt water - you can't not float.
Sea of Galilee - fresh water - you can't float.

haha I tried to to float without thinking and almost choked on the water. i'm a winner for sure.

i'm seriously in love with... life. and culture. and people. and jesus. and at the moment, as cheesy as this sounds, i'm praying about what my next step is (i have to decide by next fridayish). i've got a couple options that would both be good choices so now i've just got to decide what to do and sort out the logistics of the whole thing. (any prayers would be appreciated. woop.)

quick outreach story.
i got bit in the face by an ant. like four times. on my upper lip.
and it swelled really, really big.
the morning we were going to plant trees in the city of surigao with the mayor.
it was nuts.

here's a recap of my life since january 10th:
january - march: australia/new zealand
march - april: taiwan
april: hong kong
april/may: the big C (including beijing)
may: mongolia
may: south korea
may/june: the philippines
june: thailand
june: israel
june 26th: graduation from DTS
july: ?????

my goal for the next week (since we're finally doing debrief stuff) is to make a nice long entry about my trip.
we'll see how well that actually works out though.

2008-06-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

We made it to Israel!

We're in Jerusalem and we graduate next week. We got here yesterday morning after some long travel days, about every mode of transportation possible, and a high speed taxi ride at 130km/hr. We're here with all our friends so it's been awesome. I'm staying with some favorites and it's ... yeah. Awesome.

Sorry my life lacks motivation to give a good update.
One day...

2008-06-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

So here's a life update.

I'm in Surigao City, Philippines.
Since Tuesday we've been on an island called Cawilan, island hopping doing outreach open air evangelism stuff. (no running water, but 5 steps from the ocean. holla.)
We're back in the city as of today.

Tomorrow is our last day of ministry which is seriously unbelievable. We left March 30th for this whole adventure and it feels like I left last week. Taiwan feels like a couple days ago but it's been months.

Life is good.
Much looking forward to Israel/friends/graduation/shwerma/etc.

We have debrief on some island tuesday-thursday and leave Surigao Friday for Manila. Saturday we fly to Thailand and Sunday we fly to Israel. We're meeting up with one of the teams in Thailand and flying together which we're all excited about.

Sometime this week I'll write about everything that's been going on.
God is good.

2008-05-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Philippines.
Beautiful. Hot. Awesome. Friendly people. Funny kids.

I'm Auntie Kim.

We got to Surigao on Tuesday.
Yesterday we were welcomed by the mayor at his office and got a sweet tshirt and bag.
Today is our first ministry day and we're doing a parent's seminar.
Same tomorrow.

Sunday... dinner with the mayor.
Monday... planting a tree as guest of the city.

Later in the week... four day island outreach.

Israel so, so soon.

2008-05-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

mongolia pictures.
there's more on the travel journal.
umm... and facebook.
love youuuu.

2008-05-23T06:19:00.000-07:00

So here's been my life for the last 2 and a half weeks here in Mongolia.

1. I've been sick since we were in China. $40 in drugs and some weird Mongolian medicine stuff later, I'm beginning to feel better.
2. We've been teaching english, cell groups, visited a handicapped school, played with some kids, taught our neighborhood kids to say "aussie aussie aussie, oy oy oy" and "GBA" (that was mine and Carter's doing), and just mucking about town.
3. Tomorrow we leave Erdenet on an overnight train for Ulan Bator, fly out at 11am on Sunday to Beijing, stay there for an hour, fly to Seoul, South Korea, arrive at 6pm, stay for 24 hours for Charlene's birthday, fly out at 7:30pm on Monday to Manila, Philippines, then stay in the airport until 5:50 am when we fly to Butuan City, then take a 2 hour bus ride to Surigao City. Oh snap.

That's my life.
Maybe one day you'll get a good update.
Maybe.

2008-05-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

So... I had no idea there was even an earthquake in China until I got on the internerd today and saw a billionite messages from you lovelies about it.

We're in northwest Mongolia far, far from China and anything else so we didn't feel anything. I checked the web about the quake and it was in the province beside where we were in western China. Several of the students we hung out with were from there so keep them in your prayers. Many of the students we hung out with had a hard time accepting a God who lets bad things happen so this could very well be another hindrance for them. The students are at university now but their families are back there so any prayers you say are appreciated.

I went to a Mongolian carpet factory today.
Random, I know.

2008-05-11T00:05:00.001-07:00

It's time for a proper update.

Chiner update. It was probably two of the most challenging weeks I've experienced. Because we were in the Big C, we couldn't openly just evangelism or do dramas or anything of that nature so we spent pretty much all of our time just hanging out getting to know random people. I've become obnoxiously outgoing so that really wasn't an issue for me but just not being able to share the hope I have with these people was so difficult. It was like, you see desperation, you see hopelessness, you know you have the answer, but 1. you can't speak their language 2. they don't know enough of yours to understand the concepts 3. it's illegal to openly evangelism people. It was hard to spend a lot of time drinking bottles of juice with people and sharing meals together and going around the city together but not being able to explain who Jesus is. And most of the issue isn't that we were afraid to or whatever but language was such an issue that it was so difficult to share much. A couple of us had opportunities to share with people who spoke english quite well and it was really neat to just encourage them in seeking after God. One of the guys we met has been going to a fellowship for a few months and knows who Jesus is and what not but just can't logically wrap his mind around the whole idea. So Carter and I had the chance to share our experience with that and say what God had done in our lives and all that goes along with that.

Sometimes it gets discouraging because we really, passionately want to see people come to know the Lord, but it's all in his time. And I'm resting in the fact that all the things we're doing are for the kingdom. Which is really what it's about.

Our time there was also spent seeing the city, doing english clubs, going to an orphanage, and going to a physical rehabilitation center. The latter broke many of our hearts and humbled the crap out of us. Seeing a 15 year old boy who is paralyzed from the waist down after a tractor accident 5 weeks prior who still believes Jesus loves him is pretty incredible. Or a 23 year old woman who has had her legs amputated from the knees down and can't get prosthetics because her wounds won't heal even after several months but can still smile and laugh is pretty incredible. Or a 30-something year old woman who has known the Lord for three years who is only about a foot tall, can't use her legs, sleeps under a stairwell, spends most of the night in prayer, walked an hour to the rehab center because she knew she was supposed to, and gives all the glory to God is both incredible and humbling.

Nearly everyday I'm humbled by the grace of God. Every morning I wake up and think, "holy crap. i'm in _______. who am i."

The week before we left New Zealand for outreach, I prayed something like, "God, keep what you've done in my life on my heart. Help me remember what you've done, who you are, the things that I've learned." I wanted to continually be humbled by his grace to keep me from continuing to try to do my life on my own. And everywhere I go, he's answered my prayer. And I never really realized that until I was sitting on the Great Wall of China a few days ago on this old unrestored part kind of just chilling in the mountains and I thought, holy crap. i'm in china on the great wall. who am i. and i sat there and prayed and thanked God for all he'd done in my life and I was thinking about the last 6 weeks and all the things I'd done and seen and just how I'd been able to see God in all those things. I've seen his hand of provision, his grace, his love, his father heart. Everywhere we go it's like God is saying to me, hey kid, I love you. Look where I've brought you. You said you didn't want to forget. Just look around. You'll find me wherever you go.

The biggest thing I've been learning is just to wait on God. Psalm 27 says "I am confident of this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait for the Lord. Be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord." Being out here can be stressful because of team dynamics or long travel days or long ministry days, or being sick or whatever. And it's easy to just complain and say man God, are you going to do something? When will things get better? When will I stop coughing up chunks of green nastyness? When will someone stop being annoying? When will we get a break? When will we see something incredible happen? And I keep getting impatient and trying to control everything and keep wanting God to hurry up and speak and show me something awesome. But it's like... in the silence. When I'm still and just saying alright God, here I am. I'm laying this crap down. That's when I find something new. When I see something in the word I've never seen before. There's been other times too, like when I'm freaking out about some life issue and I call Matt to freak out to him and then as soon as I hang up the phone, I read the Psalms and exactly what I read is exactly what was an issue to me.

I've been trying to maintain a lifestyle of finding God in everything. In everyone. To find joy in everything. In the small things. To be thankful in everything. I've been challenged with living life to the fullest. If I'm living a life of complaining, of finding something wrong in every situation, is that really the life God has for me? There's so much joy that needs to be brought into the world and if we don't, who will?

Anyway.

After we left western Chiner, we flew to Hong Kong, spent the night in the airport, and then flew to Beijing for a four day holiday. That was pretty sweet as. Except for the whole, I seriously thought my life was going to end when we were on the plane there thing. 4 hours sitting on the tarmac because of bad weather. Three hour flight of death where the plane freaking tipped. I wasn't over-freaking out for once. It seriously was scary. Not just "kim hates flying" scary but like, we flew through turbulence the entire time scary.

In Beijing we went to the pearl market, Tianamen Square, The Forbidden City, the silk market, and the Great Wall. We also drove by the Olympic Stadium and ate Papa Johns pizza, Subway, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Poptarts. Who knew Beijing was so cool.

Wednesday the 7th we flew to Ulaan Bator, Mongolia and took a 12 hour train ride overnight to Erdenet, Mongolia. We're here for two and a half weeks and will be working with churches, schools, cafes, and eating horse.

After this we go to the Philippines for two and a half weeks, Israel for two weeks, and then we're finished.
Tear.

This has been an incredible journey. God has taught me so much over the last four months and I'm freaking stoked to see how the next month goes. God is good, dear friends. So, so good.

I love you all.
Can't wait to see you.

2008-05-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

i'm in mongolia.
it's cold.
i'm sick. (coughing up all kinds of awesome green slime.)
but it's freaking awesome. (mongolia... not being sick.)

we flew into ulaan batar on wednesday and took a 12 hour train ride overnight to Erdenet. so now we're here. for two and a half weeks. we've got a sweet flat, a kitchen, and warm showers. what more could we ask for? we're seriously so blessed.

oh... yeah... tonight i ate horse spaghetti.
yum.

2008-05-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

not dead.
just busy.
china was awesome. i'm in hong kong at the moment. tomorrow we fly to beijing for holiday.
mongolia on wednesday.
check back next week or something.

2008-04-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

i should have written an update but i didn't. life has been crazy busy. i'm in hong kong right now about to move on.

look for an update in mid-may.
lovelove.

2008-04-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here's the update I just wrote for my team.
Cheers!

It's been nearly a week since we arrived in Taiwan to kick off the first leg of our travels and so far it has been great. There are so many people and scooters everywhere! So far only a couple of us have been knicked by them and Jess managed to half get hit by a car. (No worries though, we're all fine.)

We got here Sunday night and were picked by Mayi, our translator and new friend, and taken to our flat in a city called Danshui just outside Taipei. We're staying in a three bedroom flat on the 6th floor of an apartment building so needless to say, some of us were regretting packing so much.

Since Sunday we've been doing a variety of things. Monday we had our orientation and then went to Chungli (about a 2 hour drive) to visit a Christian Fellowship at a bible college here. We had our first go at dramas, songs, and just hanging out with people and it went really well.

Tuesday we spent the morning at the largest church in Taipei and joined in on their children's program. Twice a week they have a children's program that brings in several hundred kids from area schools. They sing songs, dance, and put on dramas. We did a couple of our dramas and then tried to dance along with them which was quite an experience. (Think like, a Christian version of the Mickey Mouse Club, but on steroids.)

Several nights this week we've been working with a coffee bar called The Rock which offers bible studies, english classes, and of course, free drinks. Our task is essentially to just hang out with people and practice english with them so it's a pretty laid back environment.

Wednesday we went to a street peoples center in Taipei and put on several dramas, shared what God had done in some of our lives, then had a time where people could come forward if they wanted prayer. Several people came forward for healing so we prayed over them and then a lady came forward with a 20 day old baby named Grace which broken all of our hearts. This baby is an orphan whose mother was an addict who did drugs between 11pm and 4am which has messed up Grace's body so she doesn't sleep at night. We prayed for the woman and the baby and spent some more time holding her and praying over her.

The team is doing well: Eric and Jess are leading like champs, Ashley still says y'all, Carter is still into his music, Char is still dancing and trying teaching us (she currently has a very puffy left eyelid from getting in a fight with a mosquito), Sarah is taking lots of awesome photos for us (especially when we forget our cameras and have to be needy), Kim is still rad as always, and we all still love each other. We've had some majors tests like feet stank that could kill a bed of roses but we've overcome and are growing together. We're attempting to learn Chinese and so far have done pretty well with it. There is an abundance of fresh fruit (and greasy food) which we've taken advantage of and have thouroughly enjoyed and are all feeling quite blessed to be here.

Right now we're in Chungli again for the weekend working with another coffee bar and doing dramas. (We even have matching shirts!) Thursday we had two hours at a University here to do some dramas, share a bit about Jesus, and break up in small groups to practice english with the students. We'll be going back to Danshui on Sunday and will be there for another week and couple days before heading off to Hong Kong.

Check back for an update next week and if you're lucky you might just get to see some pictures of our beautiful faces.

Much love.
Eric, Jess, Carter, Charlene, Sarah, Ashley, and Kim.
(GBA-FEA)

2008-04-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

we're in taiwan.
i'm paying 30 cents for internet.

god is good.

that is all.

2008-03-29T00:29:00.000-07:00

i leave for taiwan in 9 and a half hours.
we fly via auckland, hong kong, then finally make it to taiwan tomorrow with our longest flight being 11 hours and 40 minutes. yikes. good thing i love flying... not.

three of the teams left today so there's only five people (out of 13) left in my room. it's a weird feeling knowing i'm about to travel the world all in the name of jesus and my best friends are doing it to. by the time we meet up in israel, we will have covered the globe (23 countries total!). how freaking amazing is that. the gospel is being taken literally all of the world. and God has allowed me to be a part of it.

new zealand is the farthest place from israel in the world. so instead of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth (cause we're already here), we're going from the ends of the earth to the world.
radical.

the last three months have been amazing. and i wouldn't trade this experience for anything. everyday i wake up and thank God for what he's done in my life, the people he's put in my life, and just for life itself.

we don't know how much internerd access we'll have so i'm going to bank on hardly having any. check out our team travel journal or my facebook to see all the pictures from the last three months. they're pretty fab. i'm the update writer for my team so i'll be posting our team update whenever it's possible as well as random life updates whenever i get the chance.

here's some pictures from the last few weeks. nothing productive but nonetheless awesome.

this is 3/7ths of my team. look out asia. here we come. (me, carter, sarah)
ashley, renae, matt, and myself at a hillbilly hoedown eating some ice cream. definitely a favorite memory.
um. carter and i get bored. and are easily entertained. so. this is what happens.
janie, kate, me. at ashley gorge. on a most glorious day.
carter and i again. this is my favorite picture ever.

2008-03-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

Something I've discovered about myself here is that I spend too much time asking God to do stuff for me instead of praising him for what he's done. But coming here, I've learned to appreciate things that seem dumb (and even the big things) a whole lot more.

It's easy to let life get us down, to be come cynical, to only get happy when there are big things to be happy about and that's a crappy way to live life.

Everyday I wake up and thank God for what he's done in my life.
I encourage you guys to do the same.

Make a list or something. Start appreciating the little things more.
Like friendships. And tea. And stars.

It's all from him. How long until we acknowledge it?

2008-03-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

i know it probably seems like a never ending theme in these blog posts that i'm asking for money but i'm still in need and so is my school.

just to get an idea, my school as a whole (37 people) still owes $90,000 and we're fasting corporately pretty much until it comes in.

basically what i'm getting at is, if you can spare $10, $100, whatever, it would be appreciated. i know money is a touchy subject for a lot of people and no one likes to give up money. and for as much as people don't like giving it up, i don't like asking for it.

but i'm at the point of desperation and it's out of my hands. there's nothing i can do except pray that it works out and contact my friends back home for support. i know i've sent out emails and stuff before but a lot money that was promised never came in so i'm left to this.

we've got an online donation site through the school's website if you're interested. just put my name in the "purpose" line.
www.ywamoxford.org/onlinepayment

... that hasn't been working for some people and it takes forever so the school has a temporary paypal account which can be found here: http://ywamoxford.org/pay.html

it looks shady but i promise it's not.

lovelove.
kim

2008-03-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

When I came here I had a passion for social justice but didn't have interest in the God aspect of things. But over the last eight weeks, I've had that "encounter" where you know because you know that God is real and God is love and that God's grace is big enough for me to.

So here I am with this passion for serving others and it's coupled now with this joy and excitement in my heart for sharing this life with others about to go on a three month trip to five countries sharing the love of Christ and I am in awe of God.

In awe of how he can take ordinary people and transform their lives.
In awe of how things I thought I could never move on from are now nothing.
In awe of how community life is one of the biggest blessings I could ever have.
In awe of how big the world is and God's heart for the nations.

Just... man. Just utterly in awe of of God.

On a lighter note, we had a hillbilly hoedown last night.
Here's what happened to me...

And last weekend we went paintballing:

As an aside: We really are in class all week and have stuff going on all the time. We have lectures, worship, intercession, work duties, small groups, outreach prep, outreach team meetings, one on ones, world awareness in missions night, friday night outreach, church on sundays, bible study, etc etc etc. I just don't take pictures of that stuff. The giggles go on film on the weekend.

2008-02-28T00:56:00.000-08:00

alright so i'm a tard.
HERE'S THE REAL LINK TO VOTE FOR THE TLR TREE (see the post below). apparently having a random space in a url is not healthy for a proper connection. oops.

the verbage i want to use right now is unfortunately not blog appropriate. basically, DTS (discipleship training school) is kicking my behind. this week has been an especially hard topic for me to swallow and has mostly left me being more mad than what i started off being. but at the same time it's been a weird time of revelation and me like, finally just opening up to God and saying man, do something. this week i've been sitting in lectures so just, mad at God, really, which i thought was something that i'd worked through. and then i realized i've got all this junk that has control over who i am and i've never stopped to like, deal with it.

while i'm generally not one for the cheesy christian things, reading the book of 1 John addressed the things i was dealing with. which was basically like, knowing god's love as not just a one time glimpse but as a reality.

dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. this is how God showed his love among us. he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. this is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. no one has ever seen God but if we love on another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us because he has give us of his Spirit. and we have seen ad testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. and so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like him. there is no fear in love. but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. the one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. for anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. and he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

my good friend matt from back home (god bless him, he deals with me freaking out) said something quite insightful yesterday which kind of tied it all together (just like that rug does) for me.

basically, if it ain't sin, it's spiritual. and as christians, we show people glimpses of who God is by the way we live. all truth is god's truth. and so man, when people speak words of encouragement to you, that is from god. you can know the love of god because of other people.

all week i've been crying out to god, man, where are you? i want to know your love as my father. why is that not a reality in my life?

and i had this little revelation or something today that God is in the people around me. my lovely new dts buddies. being here has helped me to see my value. these people have no ulterior motive to hang out with me, to be my friend, whatever, they just are. like, they love me for me. which is cheesy, I KNOW. but it's true. and there's been this shift in me. because when i look at my friends from home, i've always thought, they're my friend because they feel like they have to or because it's their service to god or because of whatever other reason than just because i'm me. but now i see that the person i thought i was - dumb, worthless, unworthy of anyones attention or conversation - isn't who i am.

i said it a few weeks ago but i reaffirm that my identity is in christ.

There's been so much anger and bitterness in my heart towards certain people in my life. And no part of me has had any sort of interest in forgiving them. at all. like, i wanted nothing but the worst for them. but being here has made me look at them with new eyes. hurt people hurt people. they aren't exempt from the love of God as much as i'd like for them to be. god loves them. and having unforgiveness in my heart towards them hurts me more than them.

all this time i've not been able to accept that i'm generally an alright person. and i've been unable to fully believe that god loves me as a father. and i think part of me didn't want that. i was pissed at god and always said, god why don't you do something? and now, why didn't you do something?

but i think the thing is, the past is the past, you know? and nothing can change it. and yeah, healing and forgiveness have to take place, but i think getting beyond what happened and dealing more with the results of those things - the emotional garbage is what's kind of important. you can't change what's happened, but you can change who you are.

if i don't believe god loves me, how can i ever expect to show love to other people? that absolutely positively has to be a reality in my life. and i think that reality is something that is lived out through community. that's what's so dang important man. i've come to realize that all the things i do and say affect others. and so if i'm in community and i'm not loving people, how am i sharing the love of god?

sharing god's love isn't just what we "do to non-christians." we're supposed to be imitators of christ. just like it says in 1 john, "No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

!!!!!

what does that mean for us? it seems pretty cyclical to me. we should be living so intentionally. we pour out our lives for other people and fill them up. and they pour their lives out for us. and so we keep each other going.

it's not like we go to church on sunday and a fellowship meal once a month and that's community. it's living life together. not necessarily in the same house, but bearing one anothers burdens.

this is the dang craziest place. because when a brother is weak, the whole community is there to pick him up. and i guess i feel that's what church should be. granted, this place is like church camp on steroids, but you don't establish the community at church camp that you do here.

we live together. eat together. worship serve laugh cry together. and while not everyone can live like this all the time, things can be pulled from all those elements in a day to day "normal person" kind of life.

i think it's a matter of how vulnerable we're willing to be. no one here could have the relationships they have without opening their heart up. and that took a bit of time. but the fact is, trust was gained and people have shared stuff that they've never been able to share before and have been set free from it. which is something everyone needs!

there are tons of broken people all around us and maybe some of us are broken too. what's it going to take to see that we need to support each other instead of trying to hide our junk and let it take control of us?

there's freedom in confession and there's freedom in speaking out things that have hurt you. with community, people are there to support you and pray over you and freaking love you!!

this probably doesn't make sense.
but that's okay. it does to me.

2008-02-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

hey so, here's a little plug for a project my lovely church, the living room, in columbus is involved in.

"our church entered a contest to decorate the trees of downtown Columbus with "tree cozies". we created one that allows needy individuals to take a hand-made knitted hat for free. (whitney knitted hats and hung them on the tree so that people that are in need of a hat can take one and people that want to donate a hat can hang it on the tree.)

the winner of this contest will win $1000 for the charity of our choice.

OUR TREE IS #31 (titled "need a hat, take a hat, have a hat, give a hat")

sweet as, eh?
so click here to vote!

it seriously takes like 2 SECONDS. so do it.
you know you want to.

2008-02-24T00:36:00.000-08:00

It's quite possible that I just returned from the best week ever.

This past week we had Church Serving Week so all of us went out in our outreach team to various places on the south island and worked with churches in that area. Far East Asia (aka Team America aka Team Awesome aka The All Americans) hit up the West Coast of New Zealand in the lovely town of Greymouth to do some work with a few churches there.

Um. Holla. It was fantastical. Absolovely.

A few things to point out and a recap of the week.
1. God has definitely blessed me with a killer team. Having spent a week with them, I can't imagine it being any other way. Sure there are people that I'd like to be on a team with, but the group dynamic we have now is pretty great. I love it.
2. God blessed our church serving week with the most amazing host families and church people we could probably ever have asked for. The family I stayed with was wonderful and leaving today was sad. All of us pretty much got to know the other families our fellow teammates were staying with and they all blessed our lives in different ways. Walking away from it, I feel like they were more of a blessing to me than I was to them. There was a barbeque today after church and just the atmosphere made me not want to leave. It's like a little family. I felt like I'd known these people for years when it's only been a week. Oh, the beauty of the church.

Recap:
Sunday. We left to go to the West Coast. After getting to Greymouth, we went to a church barbeque on a lake. Rode around in a boat. Hiked through the bush and fought off frenchmen and jaguars (only one of those is true). Hung out with people from the church. Made some awesome new friends. Then from there we went to our billets (apparently that's what they call the host families).
Monday. We worked at the youth centre kind of thing called The Shed. We cleaned it pretty thoroughly which was actually quite fun. In a housewifey sort of way. If you're into that. Bonding time though, man. Anyway. That night we went back to our billets, had dinner with them, and just chilled out.
Tuesday. We did concreting, gardening on a grand scale, and some people pulled shelving down. Pretty easy day with lots of sunshine time. (My tan is improving quite well.)
Wednesday. This was our free day. And it was the bomb. For sure. It'd be difficult to explain what we did in the morning so once I get pictures up, you'll get an idea. We got a free ride in this new offroad attraction things over in Greymouth. Then we went to this sweet park called Nelson's Creek and had a barbeque, swam, walked through the bush, walked through some caves, and !!! jumped off a cliff. Sweet as! (Yes. As.) Then we went back to The Shed and a few of us went down to the beach and I tried boogey boarding for the first time. That was awesome. The beach is probably one of my favorite things and I stood out there having this, oh dang moment because it hit me again that God is big and I am not.
Thursday. We cleaned out a shed for an older lady in the church we were working with, cleaned a bit back around the shed, and did some weeding in the garden. Then I tried boogey boarding again and finally got the hang of it. That is the most amazing thing I've done in a long time. I can honestly say I've never had a rush like that before. Once you catch a wave it just keeps taking you and all you can do is hold on tight. Then the girls had a cookout with a couple host families. We walked on the beach. And Ali (from the base) stopped by to visit.
Friday. We painted, power washed, cleaned, and concreted. Then hung out for Youth Group at The Shed and had a massive water fight. Stellar.
Saturday. We slept in. Went to Punakaiki, saw the pancake rocks, ate some chinese, and I went out to dinner with my host family.
Sunday. Two church services. A BBQ. Some sad goodbyes. And a trip back to the base.
That's probably too much information.
Having been back for a day now and with everyone else again, it's weird to not be with my team. They're quite lovely.

Eventually I'll get around to putting up some pictures from this week that aren't just us goofing off. But until then, hello team america:
bruce lee!!!

2008-02-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

We leave Sunday for our first week of outreach (but it's not THE outreach) over on the West Coast.
Sweet as.

Here's some pictures from the other day. Underwater cameras are hip.

2008-02-11T01:30:00.001-08:00

hey guys.

i know my outreach location. and now i need to get the rest of my funds in. to be honest, i feel like a jerk writing this post but i know it needs to be done. so.

for those of you who committed to sending money, this is my plea for you to send it. i've got 75% of my fees but still need to get the rest (around $2500) in before the 20th of february. we all know my way with words so i don't mean for that to sound as tacky as it does but i'm asking with all of my heart.

for anyone out there who is looking to give, it will be much appreciated.

as an aside, not only am i in need of support but my team is as well. there are a few people on my team who are still six to seven thousand dollars short and their lack of funds affects us all because the base doesn't give us money. our team is basically self supported.

fyi: i'm heading for far east asia which includes mongolia, the philippines, and a couple other places around the 30th of march and will be travelling about there until the end of june where my team will be meeting up with the rest of our school to have graduation in israel.

http://www.ywamoxford.org/onlinepayment/ is the link to send money. or you can mail it. which is kind of slow but it's cool too.

kim golden
c/o ywam oxford
po box 47
oxford, north canterbury 7443
new zealand

i really can't express how much all the support that has been sent in thus far has meant to me. i've had several "holy crap." moments and i'm in awe of the generosity that has been poured out on me.

this whole DTS thing really has been a life changing experience and i can't wait to share it with everyone.
lovelove.

(ps: i found frosted flakes here. God bless New Zealand.)

2008-02-10T01:52:00.000-08:00

i've made it four weeks now.
ohhhh yes.

i miss home a lot. so you should send me mail.
the weekends are the worst part about being here because there's so much idle time to think, man I could be doing __________ with __________ right now. and it's not like i'm even thinking, man I hate ywam and want to go home. because that's not it at all. i just miss everyone.

new zealand is sweet though. and i'm learning a lot. and growing. and making some really rad friends. which i say every time i write on here.

this week for lectures we had an awesome guy called Hank speaking on the nature and character of God. his way with words is just really freaking amazing because he articulated big ideas in such a comprehendible manner. he took all this churchy language and made it make sense. and it really opened my eyes to all of these concepts that i knew of but never really understood. it's all about actually giving definitions to words we use all the time but don't really understand.

man god is good guys. i wish i could explain all the things happening in my head because i'm so excited about what's going on in my life and just how much god is changing my heart and making it just... free.

for the school we have to write a journal and here's part of mine for this week: "i like ywam more everyday. and the people i live with. and just... everyone. the forgiveness thing thursday opened a door with someone i never thought i'd really ever speak to here. and we had a really good conversation. and yeah. it's just such a safe environment. and encouraging. and forgiving. and loving. and it's like nothing i've ever seen before. just the conversations that happen here and the support from people and the opportunity to support and listen to others is just incredible. it's like, once you take that step and make yourself vulnerable, 1000 doors open up and those relationships deepen. and a strong community forms. and man it's frickin cool. that, friends, is the body of christ. i've been able to spend some quality time with some people from my outreach team and it's been really good just talking about whatever. i feel like a weirdo saying this but i'm learning to trust again and it's quite cool."

granted, this place is like church camp on steroids without the crappy games like the human knot and trust falls but with more Jesus and communal life than you could ever possibly imagine in three years of church. at the same time though, it's also a ridiculously well-led community that fosters a ridiculous amount of support and room for growing and screwing up and being completely free to be yourself.

i love it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i miss it:

2008-02-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Between writing all of the things below and now, I've found out what outreach team I'm going on!!!!!! I leave March 29th (tentatively) with a group of 6 others. Far East Asia, baby!!! I'll send some more details later through email so if you want the scoop, let me know.

(As a side note, if any of you are interested in financially supporting this endeavor, that would be much appreciated. The link is here and on the side bar as well.)

Life update?

Actually. Before I get to that... the super bowl is on right now and I'm really missing being home. Boo.

I have no idea how long I've been here. I just asked... today is the start of week four apparently. Sweet? This past week, we studied the Holy Spirt, the week before it was the life and teachings of Jesus, and the week before, it was a mix of stuff. My first weekend here I went to the beach. Last weekend I went to this place called Hanmer Springs and climbed a mini-mountain. And this weekend I went to the West Coast (5 hours away) with half our school. It was so nice to be away from the base and just like, be normal? Not that life here isn't "normal" but ... well ... it's not. We've got a schedule and structure and lots of lectures and worship and prep and work duties and just... yeah... whatever... so it was cool to just chill out for a night. We stayed in a hostel in a town called Punakaiki that looked out over the ocean and pretty much just hung out and did nothing.

On the way there we stopped at this place called the Pancake Rocks which ... are rocks that are naturally stacked like pancakes. It was pouring down rain hardcore (like it is here in Oxford right now - boo) so we were absolutely soaked when we went back to the vans but it was awesome! It was probably my favorite part of the weekend. From there we went to our hostel, ate dinner, then went in this little cave that has glow worms in it. Thennnn... we just walked along the beach, kind of. Sand flies are the work of Satan so that put a damper on my taking part in beach walking activities. But I was on the rocks which were just as cool. The thing about sand flies is that they just look nasty. You're in the sand on the beach and look down to see flies swarming all around out and they bite hardcore and it itches like a mofo.

Me and another girl, Kate, sat out on the rocks looking over the ocean at probably 11 Saturday night and it was so cool. Just like, sitting there in pretty much the pitch black realizing how big God is and how small you are and how vast the world is and man. I don't know. I was just sitting there thinking about how bizarre (and cool) it is that God is a part of peoples lives when individual people are such a small fraction of the world.

Sunday we went to a seal colony with an awesome view. The whole seal colony thing was cool but I was just in awe of the view.
Seriously man.
New Zealand is about the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Stars and the ocean are two things that have always made think, "there has got to be a God" and now I'm here and am in awe of how just... creative God is. What's the freaking point in having stars? Yeah okay, let's have a star that will keep the earth warm but seriously like, it's just to be like, ooh pretty. (There is probably some nerdy scientific reason but I really don't care about it.)

This place leaves me in constant wonder and always leaves me saying, "damn." because it's always something new and beautiful and as you drive from one side of the island to the other you see pretty much every landscape possible from jungle to fields to dry to flat to mountain with crazy weird trees and rock formations and all kinds of flowers and shrubbery and stuff. It's incredible.

And while I really, really miss being at home and I miss everyone so, so much, I've become rather fond of the people here. Haha... which is good because I've been really wanting to come home solely on the principle of missing everyone. This weekend only like 18 of us (out of 38) went to the coast and it was really nice to just like, hang out with people and get to know people. It's past that awkward like, "Hi I'm Kim and I'm from Indiana. No, I'm not baptist. My church is called The Living Room. Um no. We don't meet in a living room, that's the name of it." It's nice to have like, real conversation you know? About life and families and the bible and question things together and work stuff out together, especially with lecture material and what not. Cause it's one thing to call home and be like, "okay, they said this and this, what do you think?" but it's hard to get the whole picture and get everything into context without spending an hour on the phone. So it's nice to be able to have that opportunity to be working through this stuff with everyone else at the same time.

Here's some pictures.
sarah me and christa
me and esther.
group at the pancake rocks
chilling out in greymouth... with the singing loo. (yes. the toilet there sings.)
me and janie
pancake rocks
pancake rocks
mountains!!
pancake rocks
this is what we woke up to...

2008-01-24T16:37:00.001-08:00

Alright so let's lay this out.
I am the soul-less, emotionless robot. The one who doesn't cry. Stone Cold freakin Steve Austin. Or at least I like to think so because it's this sweet way of hiding behind things. If I don't cry, if I don't show too much emotion, then man, I've got it all together. And not having it together and showing my hurt and stuff... that makes me vulnerable. And there's something about being vulnerable that is just not too terribly appealing to me.

This week though man... I don't know. Dare I say it's a God thing? We had a speaker this week talking about the life and teachings of Jesus and she said a few things that kind of struck me hard. I suck at articulating, well, anything in an understandable manner so just bear with.

We have to be vulnerable. We have to lay our hearts out there. How will we grow? How will we get to know other people? How can we really honestly share our lives with others and share what God has done in our lives if we aren't willing to open up? Pain and sorrow and hurt and all that crap can totally be used to the glory of God. It needs to be worked through and acknowledged and totally given to Christ, y'know? In that, we find freedom. In that we find hope that things won't always be dark. In that, we're able to totally devote ourselves to other people and helping them work through their crap.

And man. Ahhh. It's not something that like, suddenly all this hurt and whatever goes away. I can't explain it.

Thursday our speaker asked us to think of what holds us back from totally living our lives for Christ, to make a cross out of whatever, and bring it in today so we could all kind of lay it down. (That sounds cheesy but whatever.) Once I started thinking about it, I cried. A lot. Because I knew exactly what my biggest obstacle was. It's something that literally controls me. Every aspect of my life. Nearly every thought. Definitely every conversation and relationship. Just like this stupid death grip on my soul or something. Haha... I'm sorry. I laughed writing that. It sounds so cheesy but there's so much truth in it.

So Friday I started praying. Begging, really. Praying for courage to give it up. To make a phone call and say what needed to be said. To find closure. And a new life.

See here's the thing. My identity is totally in my past. All the stuff that has happened and all the hurt and all the stupid crap I've done and all that. I use it to kind of hide behind. It's comfortable. (It's not, but you know what I mean.) It's the way of life that I've known. And before I got here, I could run away from all of it. I could choose not to think about things and distract myself with other stuff. But now I'm here and am like, aw crap. I've got nothing but time. What else am I going to do. But it all comes back to being vulnerable. Because I don't really know people here. And the people I love and feel comfortable freaking out in front of are thousands of miles away and a lot of time zones away. So I've been caught in this quandary of trying to work through things without really letting people see who I am.

Since friday though man, (haha I feel so lame saying this because it's totally cliche) but yeah, I felt like things were going to be alright. That other people would stop establishing my identity and that I can find it through a life with Christ.

It's all such fundamental bullcrap and it sounds so simple and stuff but I'm really here like, relearning everything. And it's been so freaking cool.

So anyway. I did what I really think I needed to do. And as I was thinking about it, and through all these things people have said to me, I've realized that all my self-conscious stuff is a bunch of bull. I've been letting what certain people think of me completely dictate the way I see myself and the way I think others see me. And so I freak out and apologize and think that everything I do and say and just my mere existence is a bother to others. (and maybe it is sometimes when I call crying four days in a row... haha) But the point is like, I'm slowly... very slowly... starting to see myself as having value. In Christ. In the world.

It scares me to be taking this kind of step. In really, really scares me. Because since Friday, I've found myself being more vulnerable and not being such a hardass. And I've never really been on this side of things before. I could always just hide behind my identity to keep from being hurt. But now it's like, I've pretty much been emptied and the only for me to do is say God, fill me up.

And as I write this I realize how cheesy it sounds. But it's where I'm at, you know? All that basic Christian stuff. I clung on to the idea of Jesus because I liked the way he lived but wasn't such a fan of God. And so I never really got into the personal relationship crap. But as I've started to really believe maybe a little that God is listening, I've found myself praying a lot more. And wanting to pray. And praying aloud. And wanting to read my bible. I read the whole book of John which is a feat because I don't think I've ever stuck with bible reading long enough to finish a book more than a few chapters long. There's such a sense of like, encouragement here. It's such a safe environment for growing and breaking down and everything. This week I'm finally okay with being here. I feel like maybe this really is where I should be. YWAM Oxford is my home for now. And I love it. It's stressful living with 13 other girls and having a creaky bed that wakes your bunk mate up and having to get up super early and do journals and all this stuff. But it's also establishing discipline and community and bringing patience and grace into my life.

Miss you guys.
lovelove.

mountain climbing.
woo mountain.
they're pretty swell.

2008-01-24T02:01:00.001-08:00

i spread ghetto wherever i go...
haha... my small group made a rap video. be jealous.
check out that grill...

For those of you who've sent me money and are wondering just what exactly it's going towards... haha... we made a video for our guest speaker this week thanking her for coming and sharing with us and stuff. It's part rap video, part dance video, part giggliciousness, part kind words.

All my favorite things wrapped into one. Oh snap.

2008-01-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

So pretty much here's what I did today:

Slept in.
Went to the beach.
Laid on the beach for a couple hours.
Ate some nachos in a cafe on the beach.
Came back to the base.
And now here I sit. With a lot of sun. I'm abnormally red because while I usually don't burn, today I did. Haha, what's awesome is that I didn't turn over as often as I should've so I've got some awesome tan lines forming on my legs... and my neck.

Anyway. Here's some pictures from today.

And here's some from yesterday:
the pier was gloomy.
but we had worship there anyway. which was really cool.
this is a picture of where i'm staying. the left side is the classroom and the right side is what we call the ghetto. (it's a flashback from my days at the golden ghetto... ah, such great memories.)

The weather here is absolutely nuts, man. Yesterday it was cold and sucky and thermal/fleece weather and today I got sooo much sun.

Tomorrow is church. The Monday is back to classes again. They're pretty awesome, to be honest. I'm definitely not one for being a school/classroom type but this stuff is so... interesting. So good. It's been challenging at times and draining and making me seriously stop and think about stuff but I love it.

This week we talked about this thing called inductive bible study which... I'm not sure I've ever heard of it. Or if I had, I didn't know what it was. Anyway. It's this really like, sweet way to study the bible. (My vocabulary is getting worse and worse...) I'm generally not one for being too good at reading my bible but this "method" or whatever is quite inviting. We read through Philemon and I actually read it. And absorbed it. And I could tell you even now what the book was about. And its themes. This week we also looked at worship, hearing God, intercession, and evangelism which kind of blew my mind a little bit.

Anyway. I miss you all lots.
Lovelove.

2008-01-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

new zealand by air.

sheepses. (it's the cool new plural term for sheep.)

the road to the lookout.

the road. still.

here, apparently that's not a mountain. merely a hill. (it's a freaking mountain. really.)

it's so green here. love it.

it was 90 degrees yesterday.

2008-01-12T22:31:00.001-08:00

oh my gosh!!

new zealand is absolutely gorgeous. the weather is wonderful. i made it here about 2pm this afternoon. it's now about 10:15pm (4:15am at home) and i'm tired and stuff.

i left home thursday around 11am and have spent the last two days travelling. my flight to sydney was about the most god awful thing, which was probably my fault because i took a watch so every five minutes i was checking the time. ... and i also spilled apple juice on this nice australian guy beside me so i felt quite awful about that. umm. and the plane was small and rickety and i was in like 5th class. united kind of blows. i totally recommend Jetstar and Frontier though.

i spent last evening in Sydney, Australia and it's truly by the grace of God that I didn't die. haha, oh man. i stayed in the most ghetto place. it was insane. i mean, seriously, you know you're staying in a craphole when your driver says, "the place you're staying is in a pretty dodgy area. you might not want to go out after nightfall."

haha. it was awesome. i got to see the opera house so that was pretty surreal. (just from the outside, but still.) then i left this morning to fly here. the view from the airplane was surreal, just truly breathtaking and soon enough i'll have pictures posted. tomorrow life will grow hectic as our structured lives begin (getting up at 6am... gross.) but i'm pretty excited about it.

god is good, man.

maybe pray that i can juggle this and all my school work. i'm enrolled for six hours at ccu and there's not a whole lot of free time.

i miss you all
lovelove.

2008-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

i made it to LA (and leave in 2 hours for Sydney).
haha, i only cried 1/4th of the time that it took to get here (seriously). not too bad, eh?

2008-01-10T04:18:00.000-08:00

Umm yeah.
I'm leaving today. It's 7:20am and I'm still not packed. At all.
Haha, how incredibly responsible.

2008-01-06T20:08:00.001-08:00

It's 11pm but it feels like 2am. Tomorrow I start school again for the first time in... 8 months. That'll suck.
Ah well, only three days of class and then I'm jetting off to freaking New Zealand.

Man it's so real. Haha, I've only cried like 12 times in the last four days.

Sometimes my mind wanders or I have some idle time to bum around and think about various things. Lately most of that time has been spent thinking about a plane crash. But also has been spent thinking about church. The other night I had dinner with a friend of mine and it got me thinking a lot about church and the church I'm a part of and my experiences in church and how it's shaped me and stuff. Time to get sappy!

Man, pretty much here's the thing. This week, I've had so many reminders of how blessed I am. How lucky I am to be living the life I am. How lucky I am to have so many freaking incredible people around me. And I've realized that what ties us all together is Christ. (Brad, Matt, both of you shut up. I know it's cheesy.) But seriously, the thing that has brought me and these people together is Christ. And the person I should be thanking is Jesus. Man. A few months ago I wrote out a list of all the things I'm thankful for and that list has grown... a lot... over the last couple months.

Despite our differences these days, some really, really great friendships came out of the church I used to go to and those people have become some of the most important and influential people in my life. Ones who offer to write me a check so I can go up to Minute Clinic. Ones who pick me up at the bus stop at 2am up in Indy. Ones who let me freak out about life. Ones who let me call them with life dilemmas and make it all sound alright. ... haha, ones who tell me they're not my friend but are making me butterscotch candy for my trip. Ones who let me sleep at their house for days on end. Ones who let me celebrate Christmas with their families. Ones who invite me over for ribs and a "hot fire." Ones who have children who prefer to eye rake me than hug me. Ones whose kids have shown me Jesus. Ones who leave me in awe because I look at them and find the love of God in them and through the way they've treated me.

One of the greatest things I've been able to do recently has been actually going to church on Sundays at The Living Room. This group of people made me feel like I wasn't such a weirdo. Like I didn't have to have it all together or know all the right answers or fit into this stupid little mold of what a "good" christian should be. And that's honestly the first time a Church has done that (with the exception of Echo. They're a pretty fine group of people over in Cincinnati.). I know it's not all about me going to a church that makes me feel good about myself. ... cause I don't mean it like that. What I'm trying to say is that, me and my "weird hippie idealism" isn't so weird or foreign there and I love it. My heart for service and my passion for social justice aren't written off as hippie idealism but rather they practice it everyday. One of my favorite things about this group is that, and I think this can be said as a blanket statement, once you walk in the door, you're a part of the church. Or at least that's how it's made me feel? There wasn't any of that stupid "you have to work your way up the ladder" hierarchy bs. Just welcoming. And generous. Man, they freakin get it. They get what being a Christian is. Time and time again, I look at different people there and think, that's the kind of Christian I want to be. People have shared life with me and it's been incredible. The fact that I've even become a part of this community is bizarre and at the risk of sounding cheesy, I kind of feel like it's been somewhat of a God thing. That or I'm just a loser who found a church from the internet. But seriously, they've shown me so much in such a short amount of time.

I'm going to miss freakin' Cincinnati too. Mel and Kenz and Heather and AF and my BFF and other people as well. Ice skating and renting four movies but not watching any of them and hearing people scream cuss words and being so loud that people ask you to close doors because they're trying to have meetings and bread and sno cones and park trips and getting called "effing bitch" by some crazy lady on the road and getting lost and going out and enjoying life together.

As an aside:
Here's a shout out to Debbi Owen. Just cause I told her I'd do it.
And a special shout out to my fake grandma. Who to me, is my grandma. Both of them, even. Barb and Betty. Because they're wonderful and have pretty much looked out for me forever.

There's so much to be thankful for.
I love it.
It's so easy, at least for me, to just be upset about whatever not going right in my life instead of enjoying the great things that I've got.

On a more serious note, In my struggle to understand God and who he is, my biggest roadblock has been the typical "how can god let this happen" thing. Being selfish is awesome (not) but when you're struggling it's kind of just what happens. (Until you realize what a tool you've been. But I digress.) I get mad at God because my dad isn't around. And for anyone who didn't have their dad around, it's something that really does screw with your head. Feelings of inadequacy and this whole idea that you're a burden on others takes over and basically turns you into an overly self-conscious freak who apologizes all the time and freaks out any time someone helps you. (are you sure? sorry. sorry. sorry. are you sure? is that okay? sorry. sorry. sorry. hahah, i should have been punched in the face.) Anyway. This has really screwed with my view of God. And time and time again I've heard it said in sermons and just from other people, "don't project your image of a father that you got from your dad on to God because it's totally jacked up" and I'd think, well if God wasn't such a tool then it wouldn't be an issue. If God was _______ (really all loving/really all powerful/not such a tool/fill in the blank), if he really did want the best for creation, things wouldn't be as jacked up as they are. Not just in my life but in the world too.

But the thing is, the thing that I'm coming to understand, is that we're still living in this whole old age thing. And yeah Christ came, but he hasn't abolished the old age. So the new age is existing simultaneously with the old age and it's our job to bring glimpses of the new age to this old, hurting world. I love it. Gosh. What's so stupid is that I've always known these things all a long, but between reading Kingdom Come this week and To Own a Dragon, it's all been put into a new light and I kind of feel like I've discovered Jesus all over again. It's weird because in a way, I feel like I'm finding all of this stuff out for the first time. Which is dumb because I knew it all, but the "connection between my head and my heart" hadn't been made before. My struggle to understand (and frankly to even believe in God) is diminishing. And again, I love it.

I know things won't always be this hunky dory apple pie but I can say this is becoming a first for me to be at peace with God and the things in my life. I think what's helped me in this is that I've started to really understand and accept that I can see God's love through people other than my parents. And I have. I freaking have. And it brings up feelings that I can't articulate because it's the weirdest feeling in the world.

I'm completely in awe of God and what he's done in my life. I know I wouldn't be where I'm at right now if it weren't for who has been put in my life and for that, I'm entirely grateful.

Man the thing I'm such an advocate for really ties into everything I've said and that is community.
community community community.
it makes sense to live life together. to share struggles and talk things out and just enjoy life together. it's changed my life in a billion ways and while i'm sad to be departing for such a long time from such fine accountability, love, and friendships, i'm excited about meeting others to share life with. it's gonna be sweeeeeet.
community is where i found god, where i'm learning to accept help, where i've learned to love and let others love me. it's something everyone should be a part of.

what's the point in trying to do life on our own? it's easier together.

(I completely recommend Kingdom Come (props to Brandon for his initial recommendation) and think you should probably go buy it and read it now. It's helped put into new light trials here on earth and the holy spirit and salvation and restoration and just... the coming of the kingdom.)

2008-01-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in Martinsville and saw Elijah (my BFF who happens to be almost 5) for a few minutes.
Here's part of our conversation.

Elijah: "Hey Kim. Do you know how many days it is until my birthday?"
Me: "How many?"
Elijah: "25. Are you coming to my birthday party? You're invited."
Me: "Uhhhhhhhhh." (He didn't know I was leaving and I wasn't sure how to explain that one.)
Beth (his mom): "Elijah, Kim is going to New Zealand, she won't be here for your birthday."
Elijah: "But I want Kim to come to my birthday party." Then he folded his arms and put on his sad face.

And then I started crying. And proceeded to cry like 6 more times that day.
Haha... I guess I'm not a soulless robot after all.

I know what I'm about to do is going to be awesome and all that, but it still makes me sad to be leaving for so long. Boooooo.
(six days!)

2007-12-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

war is awesome, huh.

"The second half of 2007 saw violence drop dramatically in Iraq, but the progress came at a high price: The year was the deadliest for the U.S. military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed."

"Iraqi civilian deaths also peaked in May with 2,155 killed. That fell to 718 in November and 710 in December. For the year, 18,610 Iraqis were killed. In 2006, the only other full year an AP count has been tallied, 13,813 civilians were killed."
(click here for the story)

899 US troops killed.
18,610 civillians killed.
That's a total of 19,509 people killed. (Not including insurgents.)
19,509 is a staggering number. A ridiculous outrageous number.

Stuff like this breaks my heart and pisses me off at the same time. We all know I'm a skeptical war hating hippie so of course I'm going to think this is crazy but this goes beyond just wanting peace in the world. I know it's cool to be a Christian and love Georgey Bush and support everything he supports but you can't ignore stats like this.

Then again, I think a lot of people have already stripped the Iraqis of their humanity by writing them off as "those people" and forgetting to acknowledge that they are in fact human (and, eee! some of them are even christians) so stats like this mean nothing. Or maybe because it's such a huge freaking number that ones mind cannot be wrapped around it. Or maybe ... I don't know.

I understand war is a part of our fallen world but when a war is fought on shady grounds, it needs to be called in to question.

2007-12-28T21:39:00.000-08:00

eleven days.
today i realized how long i'm going to be gone.
and it scares the crap out of me.

2007-12-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

haha new zealand, here i come.

Drunken Santas Rampage Through New Zealand City (Update1)
By Emma O'Brien

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- More than 30 drunks dressed in Santa Claus costumes rampaged through the New Zealand city of Christchurch at the weekend, ripping down posters and scaring patrons in a movie theater.

The Santas ran screaming and cursing into the Hoyts Cinemas Group building in central Christchurch on Dec. 22, many carrying beer bottles, Derek Rive, the Moorhouse Avenue cinema's manager, said by telephone.

``They ran right past and into one of the theaters that had a movie in session and then started knocking down movie posters and then our Christmas tree,'' Rive said from the South Island city. ``Then they set off the fire alarm, which just stopped everything. They're a bunch of hooligans.''

The group comprised both men and women. None were identified because of their red hats and white curly beards, Rive said. Hoyts probably won't pursue police action because the damage wasn't substantial, he added.

Police said the drunken crowd may have been local students, the Press newspaper reported.

The incident may have been inspired by the so-called Santarchy movement based in North America in which Santas rampage through cities such as Los Angeles and Montreal during November and December. Santarchy has been running for 14 years, according to its Web site, and previous incidents featuring rampaging, intoxicated Santas have occurred in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city.

``It was more just a pain for us in that people were here for a good time and they had that wrecked by this bunch of fools,'' Rive said.

The disruption at the movie theater upset several young children who were there with their parents, he said. Hoyts gave out ``hundreds'' of free passes to patrons who had their movie experience disrupted, he added.

2007-12-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

Just because I know she reads this... happy birthday barb!!!!!!!
love you.

2007-12-20T21:05:00.000-08:00

Basically I'm an idiot.

I busted my face on my computer the other day and cut my lip open. And now it hurts. A lot.

And I had to get shots for my trip. And those hurt a lot. Both my arms and my wallet. Mostly just because I had to drive up to Dayton to get them because idiot here thought the appointment in Cincinnati was at 12:30 when it was really 10:30. And Dayton was the only place who could do it right away.

I think the lady thought something was mentally wrong with me because she was like, "here, we'll get you fun bandaids. Do you like Snoopy? Ohh, and how about a Care Bears bandaid? You can take a sticker on your way out. You did really good!"

Although I did almost cry so...

Yeah.

19 days and counting.

2007-12-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

This is part of an email I got today:
"I am reminded of what Nic said to me when we were in Jordan. He said something like this... Jesus is like superman, he will fly you to places you could only dream of, faster than you thought you could go. All you have to do is be like Lois Lane, and hang on tight.
It is amazing what opportunities are there for someone like you who is willing to hang on. I wish I knew that a life like that was possible when I was younger. It would have made me think twice about spending my time in the corporate world. The pay was good but most of my time was spent acting like I was achieving meaningless goals, ahead of arbitrary deadlines.
If anyone EVER asks you why you don't get a "real" job, just smile and nod and realize that they just HATE to see someone enjoying the free and abundant life that only faith can bring."

Since I found out about YWAM, every once in a while doubt has been creeping into my mind as to whether or not this is what I should be doing. I mean, I personally want to do it. And I don't think it's a matter of, "is this God's will for me" because even though I don't understand it, several people have said that it sure looks like it and I'm going to trust that it is.

But I feel totally inept as a Christian to be taking part in this kind of thing. I struggle to go to church, to read the bible, to pray, all that. So it worries me that I'm going to be around a lot of people my age who've got things figured out a lot better than I do and who are better Christians than I am. Like maybe I don't make the cut? (Even though I know that's not true. So save it.) I guess that's what's sweet about this journey is that there's going to be so much hardcore discipleship training and stuff that it will really help me become a stronger Christian? Or something.

Anyway, I've been kind of discouraged the last couple days about it because of things people have said to me about the trip. Shouldn't you be going to school? Shouldn't you grow up? Shouldn't you not be leaving the country for half a year? Settle down. Get your life together. Get a stable job. Set a routine. Go back to school, graduate, and then do something like this.

I know I've talked about success before. But the man was really getting me down this week. And today I got that email from a dear friend who unknowingly reinforced to me that what I'm doing is okay. It may not be the normal thing for a person to do. God forbid I don't try to achieve "the american dream." But I'm honestly seeking after God and wanting to find him and my place in his kingdom in this particular way. What's funny is that I didn't say anything to my friend about jobs or life plans or anything. He brought it up. And I think what he's saying says a lot coming from someone who didn't find Jesus until much later in life.

Anyway. My whole point is definitely not to dog on people who have regular jobs. But I just don't think it's for me at this point. Maybe ever? I don't have a problem with people who work like a normal person. Because our economy needs it. And people need that stability to survive. But I'm not into it. I'm okay with not making fat cash. (I feel like this has to be said, just because people are jerks. I'm not saying I'll never have a job. Because I like working. And I want to have a job. I just don't want it to be the end all and take over my life. So don't start running your mouth and printing this off and saying I'm a bum.)

I know I suck at religion. But for me, community and serving is where I meet God. The times I've felt his presence (cheesy, I know.) have been when I'm with other people. I experienced the love of God through other people.

A guy told me one time, "whatever you do in life, make sure you make lots of money." That was his life philosophy. That's not the mentality that I have. I don't want to make a lot of money. Money is cool. And it buys nice things. But I dream of living as simply as possible. Using whatever resources I have to help others. Sharing life together in community. Pooling resources to save money which in turn would allow us to help more people. And the thing is, that life isn't for everyone. And that's cool. And maybe it'll turn out that it's not even my thing. But right now it is.

Jobs are sweet. I like them. But I don't want my job to hold me back from living life to its fullest. I want my career to be living life with people and helping them out and showing them this incredible life of redemption and salvation and forgiveness that Jesus has offered us. Which can be done here. And I see it being done with the church I go to. But there's this passion in my heart to go out and work with other people. And I think that's okay.

Right now, I'm an open book. I have nothing to tie me down anywhere.

Basically I'm looking at God and saying, alright, do something. And honestly, I think that's okay.

I'm a crazy dreamer, I know.
And the next few months are going to be so crazy.
But I really can't wait.

2007-12-08T10:25:00.000-08:00

Life happenings:
My airline tickets are booked. I leave January 10th from Indianapolis.My school stuff is taken care of. I'm taking six hours - three sociology credits, three urban/intercultural field study credits. I bought my books last night. Now I only have like 8 papers to write. (Oh goody.) Only... thirty-two days until I leave. Uhhhh. My computer is now running Leopard. Apple hates me. Sleeping bags are expensive. Gap pants are not.Australian Visas are expensive. Australian hostels are not. I'll be spending one day in Sydney before I go to Christchurch. Then I'll be spending three months in New Zealand. I hate asking for money. Check out www.kiva.org. It's a sweet micro-financing site. I want another tattoo. Flying still scares the crap out of me. We'll see how I do. Did I mention that the three days up until I leave and the day I leave, I will be in class all day? Awesome, huh. But I'll be in Cincinnati so that will make life cheery. I found my ipod finally. The battery is so dead. And if I hook it to my macattack, it will eat all of my music. Boo. I still need to buy some shoes. And a water bottle. And a travel converter. And a sleeping bag. And a sleeping mat.

I need to go be productive.

2007-12-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

Okay so here's a sweet life update.

I leave in 38 days for my trip!! I'll be going to New Zealand for three months and then a few other places during another three month period.

Last night at dinner, someone picked up our bill.

A friend of mine gave me a backpack to use for my trip.

I've gotten to hang out with my favorites a whole lot lately.

Did I mention I leave in 5 and a half weeks?

I'm getting three hours of credit for my trip.

Yesterday I laughed so hard that I cried.

I'm christmas job hunting in Columbus, Indiana right now.

Umm... yeah. My life is pretty simple. :)

(the site for my trip: www.ywamaw80.org)

2007-11-28T16:19:00.001-08:00

you should probably watch this.
compliments of melinda.
elf yourself.

2007-11-25T20:09:00.001-08:00

holy. crap.
i applied to youth with a mission.
i got in.
i leave in january.
i'll be gone for six months.

sweet!!!!!

(ps: i have to raise money for it so if you have any work you need done, i'll gladly sell myself. i've got lots of skills so let me know. i do things like baby sitting, present wrapping, post hole digging, painting, cleaning, gardening, chauffeuring, typing, organizing, etc. sooo yeah. please let me know.)

2007-10-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

obviously i haven't posted much lately.
this is what i've been doing with my time:

2007-10-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

i decided to be a good person and leave my computer at matt's cause his died.
unfortunately that means my internerding can't happen, which has caused me to come to the library. boo.

anyway.
i just bought some incense.
and i'm going to see rob bell next month.

2007-10-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

to be honest, i'm being kind of emo right now. so to make myself remember why my life doesn't suck i've decided to compile a list of things that make my life not suck/things i'm grateful for, in no particular order other than the order in which they come to mind.

my friends, my jordan buddies, my house church, eye liner, my sister, tito m. shalom, lamps, flip flops, qtips, aussie shampoo, travelling, memories, pictures, roadtrips, tattoos, piercings, emails, letters, text messages, The Office, Psych, Scrubs, digestive wheatmeal biscuits from jordan, the country of jordan, scorpion stories, being twenty, mattbethelijah, graffiti, frosted flakes, the smell of coffee, Chipotle, stars, the moon, fire, fall weather, s'mores, my favorite professor, my bff, passport stamps, markers, sweatshirts, long sleeve hooded tshirts, wearing shorts in cold weather, wearing flip flops in the snow, snowballs fights, building forts, kenzmelwhitsabsjulesandrewheather, late night runs to steak n shake, doing homework at 3am at camp washington chili, people who let me sleep on their couch, cds, music, tape players, saying arabic words that sound like cuss words but really aren't, michaelemilybtjhannah, random gifts of money showing up from people, the lobster costume i bought for monster the dog, driving around greenwood because i suck at making decisions, craft days with dianna, beastie, my 4 year old bff elijah and his ever cheerfulness to see me, art, football, this awesome guy at my church named dan, granola bars, pop tarts, watermelon from jordan, greeting cards with giggly messages inside, "you 20. still not old enough to do anything fun though.", my cell phone, youth group kids who make awesome puppets, peace, bumper stickets, a night with an awesome friend, cheeseburgers, hot tea, late night talks, shwerma - then reading that some places were closed down, meat canoes, pizza hut, "are you my friend?", rooftops, cooking smores on the grill, carving pumpkins, cruising with jason blasting rap music, trickery!, books, rugs, colors, my car, grass, trees, birds, laughter, sharpies, getting mail... and there's probably more.
jesus and god too. but they've provided me with all these things so i figure it's just a given.

i turned twenty on monday. hoorah.
here's the thing. birthdays are always kind of sucky for me because my dad is kind of a tool and it pretty much breaks my heart that he's not around. tuesday i had a meltdown and have been emo since. i was kind of mad at god that you know, my dad chooses not to be around and whatever. but like, i guess i'm beginning to remember again that he's allowed other people to come into my life and be... well... just awesome. and it doesn't fill that void but it sure makes it easier. i guess that's the beauty of the body of christ.

i'm pretty grateful.

2007-10-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

In the end, life is about business and human connections. And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake. And to me, the choice is easy.

2007-10-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

i am now 20.
yeehaw.

(except, blogger won't acknowledge that it's now the 8th. but it is. thus making me 20.)

2007-09-30T21:03:00.001-07:00

Season Three of the Office was brilliant.
The season premiere was pretty good too. The first couple minutes were stellar. I think I was really excited about it and my expectations were higher than they should've been. Or something.

There's nothing to write about.
My life at the moment looks like this:

In one week I will no longer have to classify myself as a teenager. I'll finally be a "twenty-something." Um... cool? Maybe. 20 doesn't really mean anything. It'll be sweet action to not have to say "I'm 19." and then get the, "you're just a teenager" stuff. At least now it'll be "you're just a twenty-something" and that I can handle.

Tonight I watched part of High School Musical. Some might classify this is a new low for me. But I kind of liked it.

Saturday I spent TWELVE (12) hours making a freaking santa pillow.
Twelve.
I could've purchased one in like 10 seconds.
But alas, I've got something to show for all my hard work.

As a side note, here's a cute little nugget of wisdom:
There are some general rules of life that people should follow. Like, don't borrow something from someone and never give it back. Then ignore them when they try to contact you about getting it back.
Think about it.
Just saying.

2007-09-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

How awesome is this.

Saturday, my cellular device decided it no longer wanted to operate in a proper manner so I was left phoneless and Sunday went to go purchase another one at the AT&T store. Me, being one who doesn't really enjoy spending money (well, I do, I just don't like that I no longer have that money.) walked in and said, can I get the cheapest phone you have?

While "need" may be too strong a word, I wanted a flip phone so that I wouldn't be accidentally calling people... or accidentally answering phone calls I didn't want. So I picked out the cheapest flip phone which was $40. I went to pay for it and the girl was like, oh, well, your phone is free. You must have had a credit from some time ago.

So sweet action mcgee. I didn't have to pay for my phone. Which was awesome 'cause I was strapped for cash at the time.

Right on. Then today I was buying some clothes for this little girl who... needs them... and I get up to the cash register to find that all the stuff was actually even more marked down than what the tag said. So basically I was able to buy $20 jeans for $3. Aww yeah. I love love love the clearance rack.

Then to make it even better, tonight I found like $30 I forgot I had. And by "forgot I had" I might mean lost.

Saturday night I finished The Office.
Hi-larious. I was sad when it ended.

Just like I'm sure you are now because this post is over.

2007-09-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing.
I dropped some cash on season three of The Office on Wednesday and after I bought it I was saying to myself, this is ridiculous, why did I spend that much money on this?

And then I started watching. And remembered why it was okay.
(Although... it's really probably not and I feel kind of guilty. But I'm all about self justification so here you go.)

To help me make this purchase okay in my head, if anyone wants to borrow it, you're welcome to it.
... I'm almost done watching it.

2007-09-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is the idea of success. And how I probably don't fit the standard idea of that word. There's this whole thing about living the American Dream - about going to college and getting that degree and going to grad school and getting that degree and then going out and getting a well paying job and buying a big house and a nice car and starting a family and living in your little cookie cutter house making lots of money and saving it all so that when you turn 55, you can retire and move to Florida and live off that pension of yours. Which sounds nice and all. But I don't want anything to do with that.

Maybe it's because I'm too much of a wanderer. Or something. And maybe one day I'll settle down but as for now, I don't need to. Despite what a lot of people are telling me, just because I'm not in school doesn't mean I'm not successful.

And actually. Who gives a rip if I'm not? There's a lot more to life than making money.

Maybe I'm trying to redefine what success is in my head to make myself feel better. Or maybe having that 9-5 job isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm sort of the opinion that right now, I'm young, and so I should be doing ... what I want. Which sounds a lot more rebellious than it is intended. But seriously, school is not really my favorite thing. And my current disinterest in most careers lessens my interest in school.

There's nothing in the real job world that I'm particularly passionate about. I have no aspirations to be a doctor or a lawyer or a big CEO. What I want to do is serve. And... for the record, I'm not saying you can't do those things and serve, but I personally have no interest in them.

Maybe one day I'll go back to school. But maybe not. I'm at the point where I fail to see the point in paying (entirely too much) for a degree that I'm not interested in. Ministry degrees teach you a lot of knowledge but your experience comes from being out in the real world. And you don't need that degree to work with people. And maybe once I have this whole real life experience thing out of the way, I'll go back to school. I'll decide, man, I really want to _________. and I'll go to school for it. But until that point, I'm feeling like it's better to not be in school and waste the money.

There's this passion in my heart to serve others. I want to see what needs there are. And maybe once I figure out how my life can be best used, then I'll go back to school for that. Until then though, get off my back.

I'm not ruining my life by taking time off school. Maybe I'm destroying all the hopes and dreams people had for me about becoming successful, but I'm pretty sure God can/will use me. And that my success is/will not be dependent upon the amount of my pay check.

2007-09-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

i MIGHT have gotten another piercing tonight.
maybe.
nothing too ridiculous.

2007-08-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

forget disney world. chicago is the most magical place on earth.

2007-08-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

dear bradley,

i've been in chicago since friday.
sorry i haven't updated my blog. the internet should definitely start being more important than my life. i'll rethink my priorities.

sincerely,
kim

2007-08-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

this morning i discovered something that i previously had suspicions about.
i'm a much better writer than i am speaker.

me and moses. we're a lot alike. 'cept i think i suck more at public speaking than him.

lord help me.

2007-08-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

today is a day for nothinging.
which means i'm doing nothing.
which means i'm going to play along with bradley (http://kethuvim.blogspot.com/) and matthew's (http://thekingdomproject.blogspot.com/) stupid little tag game. don't worry though, fellas. I'll get you back.

so. i guess i'm supposed to write 10 useless facts about myself.

1. what i was going to write here turned into a post. so read it instead.

2. The work on the house is coming slow. Mostly because... well... I get sick of doing it. Actually. I just don't have the patience for it. I lovelovelove painting but trimming eats me alive. I have no patience for it. I finally broke down the other night and paid $2.77 for a trimmer so I could finish up my living room. It sat undone for like 2 weeks. I got most of it done though (before I ran out of paint) and it went super quick. My kitchen is done as far as painting goes. It needs decorating, I just don't know what to do with it. My living room is nearly finished painting, I just need to buy some more and get it done. Got pictures and stuff hung up so it's looking real fancy. Haha I feel like a redneck saying that.

Anyway. I still hate trimming. Almost as much as I hate Matt and Brad.

3. Kickball is my new favorite thing. I love it almost as much as I hate Matt and Brad.

4. For the last month, the only CD I've had in my car is by Joseph Arthur. Everytime I get ready to leave I think, I need to take more CD's out there, but I never do, and I ended up listening to him everytime I'm in the car. Until I get up north where 92.3 comes in. But all we have down here are craptastic top 10 stations out of Louisville and country music. Both of which suck. Almost as much as Matt and Brad.

5. As usual, I'm ridiculous. And do things on a whim for no reason. And am leaving next... week, I guess, to go spend a few days up with the fine people at JPUSA. (http://www.jpusa.org/) Basically just to check it out. See about taking the kiddos up. Y'know. Basically just go serve the lord. I'm taking the Megabus up which will be giggly. (Kudos to our academic dean for that one.) And I'm super stoked. Kind of nervous about it cause I'll be getting in town around 9:30 in the pm and will be taking the El or L or whatever it's called up to their place so that's kinda creepy. But they assure me it's fine. So. Hopefully it is. I trust 'em. And hopefully I don't have to break out the kung fu or something on anyone. Like I plan to on Matt and Brad the next time I see them.

6. Matt Polley used to be my hero. My mentor. My friend. Now I hate his face. More than I hate the dark and peanut butter. (You don't own me, ho.) And I hate his brother too. Not as much though. Since he's funnier.

7. For some reason, I had an urge this week to have a s'more. But since it's so dry out, I can't just start a fire for one smore. So I thought, I'll make one over a candle. But then I couldn't find a lighter or a match. So I thought, I'll make one over the stove. And I did. And it was awesome. I mean, they're definitely better when it's over a bonfire, but that's just because bonfires make everything better. This doesn't relate to Matt and Brad at all. I still hate them though.

8. Jr. High youth group is starting up next... Wednesday. 6 in the pm. At my house. That shall be an adventure. I'm not really sure what we're doing. Or what I'm doing. But it'll work out. This also doesn't tie in to Matt and Brad. But I still hate them.

9. Nothing irritates me more than "it was God's will." or. "Maybe you need to pray about it harder. Wait for God to speak." HOW DO YOU PRAY HARDER? Yell? I mean, I understand the premise behind saying such phrases but they're really just do gooder christian phrases to make people feel better. Why do I need to "pray harder" for God to hear me or hurry the crap up? He knows what I'm thinkin'. Thankfully no one has said either of these to me lately. I've just been hearing them be said in situations that they shouldn't be said in. Next person who does say it to me though is getting a punch to the face. Just like Matt and Brad the next time I'm home.

10. Speaking of praying. I've picked it up again. Hahah, that sounds really bad. But yeah. I took part in this 24 hour prayer thing last week and it was really tight to just like, sit there and pray and read the bible and that's it. Just, time with God, alone, without any other ulterior motive. Just something I wanted to do. When I was done, I was done. Twas all. I'm doing it again this weekend and I'm really excited about it. For some reason, I feel like the only time I pray is when I need something but this last weekend was cool cause I was just praying to talk to God. And prayer has always been kind of a rough thing for me - a purposeless thing sometimes - so it was good for me, I think to do it. It felt real, I guess. And maybe because of everything that I experienced in Jordan - and my new view of God - that all helped. Also picked up the bible in a non-forced, non-guilty manner. I just... wanted to. It wasn't that whole, I feel like I need to do my daily devos but just, I want to read the bible. So I did. Radical. Again. No tie to Matt and Brad. I just hate them. And want the world to know.

Soooo. I guess that's 10 things.
And I'm tagging:
1. dave soper - because i know you're a creep and a stalker and you're reading this right now
2. miguel - because you're a jerk and missing friday
3. matt - i'm not accepting your tag. just your brothers.
4. jesus - if he's real, he'll answer.
5. pat robertson - i just wanted a reason to say something about him and call him a douchebag.

(ps: because confusion has come up in the past when i say i "hate" someone or my life, i don't really mean it. so get the stick out of your butt. and any reference i might have made to jesus doing anything is a joke. so get that stick out too.)

umm yeah, or maybe you could just grow up and take responsibility...

2007-07-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not really one for passing on a lot of links to news articles but this one is... special. Apparently it's the internet's fault that this couple's children were severely neglected.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_re_us/neglect_internet_addiction;_ylt=AtJVK5dFdVPtk2EMQ3GXWkrMWM0F

Sweet, sweet America. Land of passing the blame instead of taking responsibility.

2007-07-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

Well. I made it back. Finally. After now 26 hours of traveling. Or something like that.

Our plane ride was so. so. so. so. so. so. so long.

We left Amman at like 11:30am (Amman time; 4:30am Indiana time; 3:30am Chicago time) and we were scheduled to land in Chicago at 5pm Chicago time (6pm Indiana time; 1am Amman time).

That's like a 13 hour flight. Long, but not a big deal, y'know? Except that I got a killer headache like 4 hours into it and it didn't go away until we got to Chicago. Which didn't happen until around 8:15pm Chicago time (9:15pm Indiana time; 4:15am Amman time).

So here's the thing. We were thirty minutes from Chicago. THIRTY. 30. And I'm thanking Jesus that we've gotten this far okay and praying that we make it the rest of the way and I'm watching the little screens that are telling us things like our altitude and the temperature outside and our speed and how long we have until we arrive at our destination and a little plane tracker that shows our flight pattern.

And everything is good and I'm like, saaaaaweeeeet, sweet sweet land is so close. I've survived. When I feel the plane start turning. And I'm watching the tracking screen and the plane starts turning and starts going north and then back east and at this point I'm freaking out thinking something bad is about to happen. So I asked someone behind me and he said that it was probably just backed up air traffic and it wasn't a big deal. Which made me feel better.

Then it made another like half circle and the pilot came on over the loudspeaker and rambled something off in Arabic and then in crappy English so I was still out of the loop. Thankfully a guy behind me spoke Arabic and English and translated it to us saying that we were going to be diverted to Detroit because Chicago O'Hare had been totally shut down. No flights in, no flights out. But they didn't say why. Which made me kind of freak out even more.

Eventually we found out there was just super crappy weather in Chicago and so they were diverting all arrivals to other airports because obviously it wouldn't be safe to let a plane land in a severe thunderstorm. So we landed in Detroit and they said, it's going to be 2.5 hours before we can leave. Stay on the plane.

So we were stuck there for two and a half hours and then they came on and said, yeah we just talked to air traffic control - it's going to be another four hours before we're cleared to leave for O'Hare.

Keep in mind that 1. I have a killer headache 2. I haven't slept much 3. We all had a bus to catch. Obviously I was a little... upset to say the least. And was freaking out like, what the crap am I going to dooooo?

Truly by the grace of God though, not 10 minutes after they made that announcement, they said, get back to your seats, we're leaving in 15 minutes. So within 15 minutes we left Detroit, made it to Chicago in under an hour, and were off the plane and through customs (at least I was) in like 40 minutes. Then we caught a bus and I made it to Indy by 2:15 and made it back to the ville by 3:30. And now I am here. Writing this. Because I cannot sleep.

Jordan was pretty much amazing. Time really has flown. It's crazy that it is almost the middle of July. I feel like I really haven't been gone more than a week or so.

Ah well.
I'm home safe. Thanks for reading and such.

2007-07-08T04:42:00.000-07:00

I don't want to end my blog about Jordan on a depressing note so here's some pictures from last night documenting what a giggly good time* (*phrase is copyrighted to michael.) we had.

The dig took us out to dinner at this nice restaurant buffet thing.

And it was great.

On the bus.

The Tornado.

Roomies.

This is my "I hate dressing up" face. (note the awesome tan line on my neck.)

Anyway. Jordan has been great.

I come home tomorrow.
See you guys sooooooooon.

(PS: I'm coming to Cincinnati on Friday. Calleth me if you want to be friends.)

2007-07-05T03:38:00.000-07:00

So. Jerusalem.

I'm pretty sure I've gone everywhere in Jerusalem. Sort of. Let's start from scratch. The beginning. I forgot my deodorant in Amman so I was easy skanking it up from the start. And no pharmacies were open that early and it was Sabbath for the Jews so I knew it'd be a while before I could get some.

Anyway. We walked out of East Jerusalem down the hill to the church of all nations which is below the Mt. of Olives and is regarded as the place of the Garden of Gethsemane. The church was quite dark. It's intentionally built that way to kind of give you this dark eery feeling like Jesus might have been dealing with. The olive trees outside it are supposed to be 1000 years old. Whatever. We stopped and read some scripture which has been cool. All of these sites are "traditional places" of "X" but it's all in the same general area so the idea is there.

Just ... southish from where we were is Bethany which is where Jesus hung out before the Triumphal Entry. They say he could have come down the road we were standing on. Accurate or not, it's still neat to think about. Whatever. From the garden we walked up to the Lion's Gate (which was a walk from Hades.). Although I'm pretty sure I say that for every hill we climb because they all suck. Anyway. The Lion's Gate took us into the Old City and our first stop was the Pool of Bethesda. There is this old Crusader church there and we stopped and sang a little song and then went around looking at all the old ruins. The Pool of Bethesda is where Jesus healed the lame man on Sabbath and the Jews had a fit about it. Funny how they totally overlooked the good that was being done to get caught up in the "breaking" of Sabbath. Even though it was just fencing the Torah.) As far as the ruins go, there wasn't much to see. I mean, there was, but it's all just a jumbled mess really. The pool is kind of shady and looks kind of like a sewage ... thing. The historical context of the site made it better though.

I definitely feel like my standards have dropped since I've been here and I'd do things I normally wouldn't have done at home. Like go down in creepy, dirty, stinky cisterns from the Roman period that smell like butt and death. Or go an entire summer without washing my work pants. Or go down in creepy dark caves without a light. Y'know. The good stuff.

After this, we ventured off for the church of the Holy Sepulcher. That friends, was ... well ... I felt like I was in my grandmother's jewelry box. I guess it's because I'm more into spending money on helping people and social justice causes than I am into spending money on cheesy jewels and ornate junk for a church building, but I was just annoyed with being there. Lots of icons there. Lots of cheesy decorations there. They say here at the church they have the place where Jesus was crucified, prepared for burial, and then buried. Whatever. You can touch the limestone he was crucified in or something. I wasn't really paying attention to be honest.

It's funny. Apparently a bunch of churches/denominations share this place and they all fight over it so a Muslim has the key to the place because he's the only one that is really neutral on the matter. There's a ladder up on the second story going to a window. The ladder is Armenian and the Greek Orthodox "control" the part of the building where the ladder is. Like 100 years ago, some Armenians tried to get food to their monks using the ladder but the Greek Orthodox guys caught them and called the cops. So now the ladder stays up there because the Armenians can't get to the ladder without crossing into the Greek Orthodox turf and the Greek Orthodox can't ditch the ladder because it belongs to the Armenians.

It's funny how much fighting goes on here over the "holy sites". It's also funny how much we miss the point.

Anyway. After that we went to this tower that overlooks the whol city. It was a long haul up this circular staircase that made you feel claustrophobic but it was super neat once we made it up. There was pretty much a 360 degree view of the city. Pretty tight.

We then hit up the Western Wall again. Whatever.
I think my apathy towards this was due to my excitement about Hezekiah's tunnel.
We walked down to the City of David with our intentions being to walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel. ((Hezekiah's Tunnel was a water channel dug by King Hezekiah [think Old Testament] out of fear that if the Assyrians attacked, the city wouldn't be able to get water. So basically it's this dark tunnel only like a meter wide that is a water channel that used to run under the old city of David. Following?) Our plans were unfortunately skewed though when we discovered it was ... closed. Because of Sabbath. (Apparently Saturday is a bad day to explore Jerusalem.) The guy still let us into the park and Mark was like, let's keep walking, maybe it's open. So we walked down to the entrance but it was closed. So we went another place but it was closed to. So finally he goes, I've got one other idea. Let's go see if it's open. And then he hopped a fence. To which we all followed suit. The other place - the other entrance to the site - was closed which left me entirely bummed out as I had been looking forward to it.

We gave up and Mark said he has one other place to show us. We walked down the street until we came to this fenced off area that Mark said was the pool of Siloam. Apparently it was randomly/accidentally discovered a few years back when they were building a sewage system on that side of town. Whatever. Anyway, they said this pool dates back to the time of Jesus. (They had another place several meters away that they said was the pool but I guess this would have been the one that Jesus would have had the guy wash in to heal his blindness.) So that was neat. We decided to head back up to the Old City, leaving me disappointed about not being able to go into a dark tunnel with knee deep water.

We start hiking up this hill and I saw this excavation being done so we stopped to look at it. (They found a road going up from the pool that dates way back in the day...) I saw some stairs and went down them not really expecting much other than excavations, which nerdily enough, I am interested in now. And this guy goes, hello. Welcome. Want to go to Hezekiahs tunnel? To which we said, shoot yeah.

So long story short, he let us into the old exit of the tunnel. We walked for like 20 minutes in and then turned around and came back out but it was awesome. I highly recommend it.

After that we went to the Garden tomb which was beautiful. It's this park started by a british dude because he was so overly disgusted with the Church of the Holy Spectacle. They have a bunch of shade and benches and beautiful landscape. Very cool.

So yeah.

That was my Saturday in Jerusalem.

Sunday we went to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock. They dome is closed off to visitors but we got lucky and got a peek in. They're doing construction and had the door open so we scored pretty sweet on that one.

Overall, Jerusalem was alright.
I suppose my visit was overshadowed by the fact that Israel is destroying the lives of many, many people and America is supporting and so I spent most of my time there trying to grasp the situation.

2007-07-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

So this is pretty much everywhere I went this weekend.

Friday – Qumran (where they found part of the Dead Sea Scrolls)
–Palestine
-Modern Day Jericho
-The site of biblical Jericho (think Old Testament – Joshua and the Israelites wipe out the city. That whole blowing of the trumpets, the walls come tumbling down thing.)
-The tree that Zacheus supposedly climbed (New Testament this time... Zacheus was a wee little tax collector… climbed up in a tree to see Jesus… Jesus saw him, told him to come down, and then went to his house.)
-Elisha’s Spring (Old Testament again. Elisha turns the bitter water into sweet water
-Bethlehem
-Herodiym (Masada and Machaerus’ cousin. Another of Herod the Baby Killer’s great fortresses/palaces kind of thing. This one is where it’s suspected that he issued the decree to kill all the babies born when he heard word of a new king of the Jews being born. What’s giggly is that Bethlehem is riiiiiiight near there. So Jesus was born pretty much right under his nose.)
-Shepherd’s Field (The traditional site where they say the angel came to the shepherds to announce the birth of the Christ)
-Church of the Nativity (Traditional site of the birthplace of Christ)
-Jerusalem
-Mt. of Olives
-Wailing Wall/Western Wall

Saturday
-Jerusalem
-Garden of Gethsemane (once again, the “traditional site”)
-The Church of All Nations (church built on the supposed site of the Garden)
-Lions Gate
-Pools of Bethesda (where Jesus healed the man that had been paralyzed for years – Jn. 5ish maybe?)
-Via Dolorosa
-Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Traditional site of the Jesus’ death/burial)
-The Lutheran Tower (best view in the city pretty much. Nearly a 360 degree view of all of Jerusalem. 200 stairs up a spiral staircase.)
-Western Wall
-Old City of David
-Pool of Siloam
-Hezekiah’s Tunnel
-Garden Tomb

Sunday
-Jerusalem
-Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount/Mosque of Omar

So. Anyway. Friday. We started out by leaving Amman around 7am Friday morning and heading toward the border. We got through without a hitch (without even being searched…) and our group (the Cincinnati crowd) ditched the rest of the group (the Andrews people) and headed out for new adventures. We left the border crossing place and took off for Qumran. For those who don’t know, Qumran is where they found significant portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls (much of Isaiah and other texts). We jumped off the bus (all seven of us… in a like 40 passenger bus) in a not-supposed-to-be-touristy spot and just kind of looked over at the caves from a distance. Cave Four is I guess where they found them, but having looked at my pictures, I have no idea which one was actually cave four. It’s one of them in the pictures though.

From Qumran, we went into Palestinian controlled West Bank to the modern day city of Jericho. I’ll dish out my thoughts on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict later, but for now I’ll just say this: I was rather worried going into “Israel” because of all the news crap that I hear about Palestinians blowing people up and all that crap. It scared me to even think of crossing into the “West Bank” but it really wasn’t a big deal. I felt like I was in Amman still. All these Arab people speaking Arabic and the only words I can understand are shukran, afuan, hallas, guffah, and fas. No part of me felt in danger. And granted I wasn’t in the Gaza Strip, but this will eventually have a point.

Anyway. We went into Jericho. We got stopped (like all people do) at the Israeli controlled entrance into the area, but once the driver said we were Americans, they waved us through. Preferential treatment. Welcome to the Middle East tourist spots. Once again I digress. We got through the checkpoint and headed over the tree that is traditionally regarded as the tree Zacheus climbed to see Jesus pass by. For being such a wee little man, he sure would have needed a boost to get his wee little but into that huge tree, but that’s beside the point. From there we went to the Tell where biblical Jericho is.

This definitely put a lot of things into perspective for me. While we were up there, we were discussing the biblical text associated with the site and reading it, and visualizing it, and thinking, huh, this really could have happened, it’s not as extraordinary as it sounds helped me to really grasp what is was that happened when Joshua and his men took the city. First off, when I think of Jericho, I think huge city with gigantic walls and that extend for miles in both directions. This site was incredibly itty bity. And I guess having been a faux archaeologist this summer myself, it’s easier to come to grasps with the fact that cities this small could actually exist and be powerhouses. We saw mud brick frags and tumble that they say dates to back in the day. The person who kind of led us around and gave us an awesome amount of historical background into all this was Mark Ziese (CCU prof). His knowledge is pretty much … incredible. And. To make it better, not only is he an old testament prof, but he’s got a PhD in archaeology so when we went to this site, he obviously knew what he was talking about. And to make it triply cool, he surveyed the site back when they were doing all the surveying of the findings. So. He’s giving us all this info and is like, okay, let’s go look at this huge trench back here. There’s this lady named Kathleen Kenyan who dug there in the 50’s and used this method where they dig out a huge trench. Whatever. That’s beside the point. The point is, there is this huge hold in the ground that holds the tower to the city that she found. It would take a few ladders to get to the bottom if you’re starting to get the picture on how deep this hole is. I’ve got pictures of it, so just check flickr. So we’re standing up top and Mark is giving us all this background info about the trench she dug and what she found and all that when this guy that works there walks up to us and goes, hey, you want to go down there? (Keep in mind that there are ropes up and fences and stuff. These aren’t the places tourists are allowed to go.) So of course we said, um yes please. He’s like, okay only 5 minutes. So we got to go down there, climb on the tower, take some pictures, whatever. It was really neat. And again, that’s the nerdy faux archaeologist in me coming out but it was cool so whatever. From there he’s like, have you seen Elisha’s Spring? To which we said no. (Mark had pointed it out, but they built a building around it so you can’t see it anymore.) Then the guy goes, wanna see it? To which we said, um yes please. So we walked down to the bottom of the tell, across the road, and into where the door to the building covering the spring is. The guy opened the lock, let us in, and we go to see the natural spring that still exists from the time of Elisha. Pretty neat.

From there we left Jericho and headed up towards Jerusalem, but our actual destination was Bethlehem. Coming up through the tunnel and catching that first glimpse of Jerusalem was pretty cool. Seeing the Dome of the Rock and thinking, “hah, I’ve only seen that in pictures. I’m actually here.” was one of those surreal experiences.

Right. So. Bethlehem. (West Bank area)
It broke my heart.

My Palestinian soapbox is about to happen. But I’ll save it a little longer.

We drive up and all I can see is this huge concrete wall. Mark was like, there’s the checkpoint into the area, keep your cameras down. So I’m just looking around trying to really grasp what is going on and I’m seeing this like 9m wall with signs on it saying, “Peace in Jerusalem.” in three different languages wondering how this kind of crap can go on in the world today. (Come to find out, the wall is new. Like within the last 10 years.) So we get through into Bethlehem (West Bank), this walled “state” under the Palestinian Authority, but really controlled by Israel, and there is spray paint all over the walls that say things like, “Mr. President, tear down this wall.” and “To exist is to resist.”

As I was writing this, I got into a discussion about this so I’ve kind of lost my train of thought. I’m just going to type out what I wrote in my journal.

“Peace needs to happen. The injustice being done here to these Palestinians is atrocious. And I’m trying so hard to understand the Israeli side but I’m finding that to be a very difficult task after seeing the wall that has been put about around Bethlehem, and the barbed wire around Jericho, and the millions of refugees that have been displaced because of this whole mess, and talking with Palestinian, university educated people who are driving taxis and working in hotels in Jordan because they’ve lost everything. Their families lost everything. This whole Palestinian conflict is ridiculous. Let the poor people be free.”

I think my problem initially lies with the fact that my heart tends to break for people who live in bad situations. It makes me sick to see other people hurting. And from the moment I saw the wall, I was sick. I had heard stories from cab drivers and friends I’ve made with staff here at the hotel about being displaced and being treated like a second and even third class citizen, but it was a whole new experience to actually visible see what was going on.

I’ll write about this more later. Maybe.

Anyway. After we went to Bethlehem, we drove to our hotel in East Jerusalem (the Arab side of town), and hung out for awhile until dinner, then ate there and headed off for the Mount of Olives. We climbed that (ridiculous) hill and watched the sun set over Jerusalem. We then went back down the hill and back up to the Old City to observe what was taking place at the Western Wall (a.k.a. The Wailing Wall). Friday night is the big… night for the Jews to head over to the wall and pray and dance and sing and all of that. It was pretty neat to watch all these people. The men’s side of the wall definitely looked more fun than the women’s. The guys were jumping around and singing and the women were crying. Either way though, it was a neat experience.

After that, we wandered back to our hotel and slept in until 6. (It’s sad that I actually mean I “slept in”) Then headed out for another long, long day in the city.

But I have to go to bed now. So I’ll post about that later when I have time.

(PS: I’m on my last day of digging tomorrow. Which means I only have to wash pottery one more time. Which means I’m coming home in less than a week. Woo woo.)

(Also. Flickr is pretty much sucking and won’t let me upload pics from Jerusalem. So. I’ll try later.)

2007-06-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

My inner nerd definitely came out today.

Before I go into explaining why this was, let me explain the context of the situation in which I am currently in.

Obviously, I'm in Jordan on an archaeological dig. I spend 7 hours a day in the blazing hot sun digging through dirt with deadly scorpions looking for (in this case) a city wall. Ridiculous, I know. Anyway. This process involves picking a row of dirt, hoe-ing it out with goofahs (tires turned into baskets. sort of.), carrying it down to a sifter, sifting out all the dirt, and then picking through what is left to find pieces of pottery and bones. From there, at the end of the day at the tell, we load up all our buckets of pottery onto the bus and take them back to the garden at the hotel so that we can wash them later.

Following so far?

Okay. So. We get back here around 1pm, bum around until 4pm, and then go to pottery washing.

Pottery. Washing.

Those buckets that we bring back? Yeah, we sit and wash them. Scrub scrub scrub with a little toothbrush usually. A billionite pieces of (usually itty bity) pottery everyday that gets washed. After a few days, you become bitter. Because most of it -- maybe 99.999% of it is thrown out. So basically it's like, wow, I'm washing this for absolutely no reason. Awesome.

So, obviously, I personally have become a tad bit ... bitter. And been like, well all this crap looks the same. Huzzah for it not meaning anything.

And then we found an Ammonite figuring in pottery washing. And a bunch of pieces with paint on them. Which made me think, maybe this doesn't suck that bad.

And then today we found a possible mendable while digging out the square. Which basically means, we might have enough pieces to get a thing put back together.

And then we saw this handle hanging out of the wall of our square and I was told to pull it out. So I tried and it didn't move. And I kept digging and digging and digging and eventually pulled out this huuuuge piece of pottery which looks like it might match all the other huge pieces that we had been finding.

So. Now I'm like, this rocks. I'm finding all this cool pottery and today I found myself getting ... excited. Nerd alert for sure.

Washing pottery still sucks but now we're finally starting to find things, as opposed to just digging through stratigraphically insignificant dirt that has been disturbed due to modern burials. Before it didn't really matter because everything we were digging through was just surface dirt (even 1m down), but now that we're under it, we're making progress.

We're finally under it.
We've finally found a wall (or two.).

And tomorrow I go to Jerusalem. Dun dun dun.

2007-06-26T10:32:00.001-07:00

By statue, I might have meant to say figurine. But didn't know that was what I should have said.

Apparently "statue" means something big.
And my figurine was small.

BUT IT WAS BIG IN MY HEART.
And let's be honest. That's all that matters, right?

2007-06-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

Petra. Petra Petra Petra.

First. The internet hates me or something and won't load anything right now. But I posted pictures from Petra on Flickr so if you're interested, they're there.

Anyway. We went to Petra this weekend. (Think Indiana Jones.)
I saw the Treasury. Yip yip.

I was more entertained by all the rocks and all the not-supposed-to-be-climbable areas that I made climbable than I really was by most of the architecture. Not to say it wasn't cool, but when "No Climbing" signs are only guidelines and guardrails don't exist... you do what you want.

The weather was beastly hot. Word on the street is that we're in the middle of a heatwave here. Supposedly it's the hottest its been in 65 years.

Hot, friends. Hot.

Anyway. Friday morning we left for Petra at 8am. What was supposedly a 3-3.5 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive. We stopped at a Bedouin tent to see what that was like which was kind of cool but the whole going 3 hours out of our way to get there... not so much.

I did get to pet a goat. And that made my life happy. (ps: it's not the same as going to a petting zoo. don't judge me.)

Right. So. Friday. We got kicked out of a store because we weren't dressed properly. They basically said, your women are wearing shorts and their heads aren't covered. You are not welcome here. From there we went to the Bedouin tent. And then eventually made it to Petra. Grabbed some dinner. Got some ice cream. Then went 'splorin. We weren't planning on really going around to look at anything but we wanted to peek in a little bit so we walked down to the park entrance. We made it maybe 50 feet inside the front gate to Petra and got distracted by the horses.

Long story short, we got shafted on the horse ride as far as money goes. Like. We got totally screwed. But it was still a really cool experience. They took us up into the mountains and we watched the sun set over the mountains. Always nice.

Saturday I slept in until 6am. (For real. No joke.) And then hit up Petra nice and early. I started off with a group of 5 and ended up with Sarah because we got distracted by the landscape. Taking pictures and climbing and such. For anyone who has been there... it took us an hour and a half just to get down the sikh and to the Treasury.

We walked around for a while, looked in caves, whatever. Then we saw these donkeys walking up this mountain and we were like, why don't we follow them. So we started walking. And kept walking. And climbing. And more climbing. And more stairs. And more stairs. Until we got about half way up this mountain and were like, um where the crap does this go? Thankfully some lady walking behind us knew and said it went to the high point. Which is apparently the sacrifice mountain. We were already half way up so we figured, what the heck, might as well.

Definitely a good choice.

The view from the top was incredible. I wasn't so much interested with the sacrifice altar and all that because the mountains around it are ... well ... stunning. And the wind was crazy so that was fun. We mucked about up there, took lots of pictures, whatever and decided to head back for lunch/sleep.

I ended up sleeping all day. Good choice. Now I'm caught up on my sleep and good to go for working this week.

Today we went back to digging. Lots of bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. I was just filling out a weekly summary of our square and all I really had to say was "Lots of pottery. Lots of bodies. Lots of dirt. Lots of rocks."

Basically it's been really depressing because well... finding nothing sucks.

BUT.

Today.

Dun dun dun.

We found an Ammonite statue.

So that lifted my spirits.

And I finally did my laundry so it's pretty much just been great.
Whatever.

I should go to bed.

Two weeks until I'm home.

Also. I'm going to Jerusalem on Friday for the weekend so if you're into praying, that'd be great.
Friday we're going to work from 4am to 8:30am, go back to the hotel, shower, and try to make it to the border by noon (when it closes). We'll see how that works out. Anyway. We're going to Jericho, Qumran, and Bethlehem Friday before we head up to Jerusalem. I'm quite weary about this whole, hanging out in Palestinian areas with all the stuff that is going on there, but whatever. Then we're spending Saturday in Jerusalem and heading back to Amman on Sunday.
I'm definitely way nervous.

See you guys soon!

2007-06-21T10:44:00.001-07:00

Alright. So here's the thing.
Let's be honest. The only reason I'm writing on this right now is because I'm putting off doing laundry. We leave for Petra in the morning and none of my clothes are clean. And Sarah is acting as mom and telling me I need to do laundry because I told her to make me but I just really don't want to.

So. I'm writing on here. And uploading pictures.

Like I said, tomorrow morning, we leave for Petra. A nice long bus ride. Then we get to rock it out at some hotel down there and muck around for a couple days doing whatever we want. Maybe even get a warm shower while we're there.

I've been getting some inquiries about the body from people so here's a little info. We just have an old grave site. Up on top on the Tall, there is a graveyard. Where we are, they think it's just like, slaves and stuff, not people who they deemed important enough to bury with the rest of the bodies. Before we came I was like, man I want to dig up a body, that'd be tight. Then I did and it was like.... oh. It's really eerie. You don't feel right about it. During pottery/bone reading today they mentioned child bones which weirds me out even more. They think our square has several graves in it (as we've already found about three bodies...) which is just lovely. They rebury the bones though, which is pretty cool in the sense of, hey, let's have some respect for this person. A couple of us and one of the arab boys working for us went up to rebury some of the bones and he did it so respectfully. Faced the head toward Mecca, laid all the bones in neatly, covered it up and said a prayer. It was one of those like, humbling things where you think, I've just spent the last 7 hours beasting through this dirt, tearing up someones body (we just pick the dirt and then find bones. Except for the first body. That was mostly intact. Head and spine and stuff.), having absolutley no respect for it, having people come over and be like, oooo skull. And here is this boy showing so much care for it. I felt like a jerk.

Last weekend we spent all day Saturday traveling around the north of Jordan. We went to Jerash and a couple other places whose names I didn't write down. It was pretty neat. I haven't been really taking a lot of pictures, mostly just soaking it all in, but there are a few up on the ol' flickr.

Sunday, me, Dan the man, David, and Tammy went on a little excursion around the Desert looking for castles and the Oasis. That was pretty tight. We ended up offroading in the Jordanian desert and found a ram skull. Tiiiiight. There are some pictures from that up on flickr too. I managed to climb pretty much every castle. And by climb I mean, stand on top of all of them, climbing on all the places that weren't meant to be climbed. That was awesome. We went to this castle that Lawerence of Arabia hung out at. Met some descendents of his buddies that fought with him. The little girl of the dad that runs the castle taught me some Arabic and how to write my name in Arabic. Also cool.

When we were offroading, Dan the Man saw some dust devils and decided to go chasing them. I took video of it and it is hilarious. We're all screaming like a bunch of rednecks.

My life sounds so boring but everday is really an adventure.

They found another DEATHSTALKER scorpion today. (The yellow one that I found a couple weeks ago.) Thankfully they found it after I had gone to find a pick so I didn't have to freak out.

I had pizza hut tonight. God. Send. I'm pretty sure I'm about to see it again as I feel like I'm going to vomit, but it's still worth it. Weeks of hotel food just... it's just not right. They do have the most delicious watermelon ever though.

I need to go do laundry.
I haven't washed my work pants for three weeks now.
I still don't plan on washing them, but I have other stuff to wash. Like all the rest of my clothes.

About a billionite more people came this week so our internerd is going super slow. I was going to add pictures onto here but I can't.

They're uploaded to Flickr. Check 'em out.

2007-06-19T10:30:00.001-07:00

I dug up a body today.

2007-06-13T04:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we found 4 scorpions in our square out on the dig.
I'll be really honest... I freaked out like a little girl.

The first one was blueish and was just walking around like it was his job to patrol our square. Not too dangerous, just like being stung by a wasp.
The second one was buried in the dirt that I was scooping out by hand. And happened to be yellow. Which apparently is one of the most dangerous kinds of scorpions.

We caught those two. Then found two others - one of which was chopped in half and the other which was flung across the tall.

So now we've decided to keep a count of how many we find this season. I'm hoping for no more. The other guy in my square is hoping to be stung by one. I guess we'll see.