UFOs

Aliens are not my thing... never really had any interest in them, or watching movies about them... E.T. was kind of cute and weird and awkward looking and creepy all at the same time. I never got spooked by midnight campout stories from girls in my cabin at camp...and flying lights in the sky, to me, were probably satellites, shooting stars or who knows, angles or demons! I haven't ever cared.

One night in Morocco Abby, Kent and I came tramping into our hotel to find our British friend chatting with the front desk clerk. She was looking for some company. So we decided to sit for a while and talk to her. She never ran out of things to say. She's very hippieish living half the year in Morocco and half in England. I love her accent, and her free advice was humorous. She about had a heart attack when we fixed bacon for dinner one night with our eggs - she made us air out the kitchens and fry it quick before the Muslims came and shot us! It wasn't that big of a deal...after all we did buy it legally at the grocery store! haha Anyway!

I was just getting to the point where I was disinterested in the topics of conversation and wanted to take a shower, call it a night and get ready for child care the next day. That was when she started sharing with  us about a UFO encounter she had at home with her son. Apparently they were outside in their back yard when all a sudden a green orb floated around them for a bit and then flew away back up into the night sky. She said it entirely eerie and promptly asked for our opinion and any personal experiences we had had with UFOs. That about did it for me. I was about to politely sneak up the stairs and call it a night when not two seconds later Kent's comment kept me still. He said he's never seen UFO's but that he had had visions of Jesus. She was intrigued. So was I. He asked if he could share with her and she vigorously nodded in assent. It was an incredible story, and for me I was encouraged and moved by the power of God, who choses to speak in various, creative ways to His children. Well, she seemed to just be soaking it all in. Surprisingly she asked Abby the same question...I had assumed she'd jump right onto another topic since she was very flighty most days. But the Holy Spirit opened the door so that Abster could share about her dream God had given her in New Zealand. Again, our friend was exposed to how God loves to share with us about ourselves and Himself in a personal manner. That God speaks in unique, gripping experiences so even the retelling of the dreams and visions moved Abby and Kent as they remembered God's goodness and intimacy. 

Low and behold she swiveled around to me next and I didn't feel very equipped with any dreams or visions to share. I had been praying for Jesus to speak to me in that way every night but He was speaking to me through our worship time a lot more. I shared with her how when I would worship every morning (to her it sounded like a party bc of our loud music and singing and sometimes dancing:)) I would often see Jesus coming to me and dancing with me. All sorts of dancing! Sometimes He'd watch me, sometimes I'd watch Him. Other times we would twirl and swirl around together, so joyfully and peacefully. That was all I could share with her. After that she talked some about her faith and spending loads of time in India becoming confused by all their gods and religions and rules. Kent and Abby were able to share the Gospel and that night we parted with a warm, heart felt hug and kiss. 

God showed me that night that even the most uninteresting, pointless topics of conversations can abruptly be redeemed to speak on God's might, power and goodness. I am so thankful God used Kent to turn that around, and I know that God is continuing to cultivate and grow the seeds we planted in her life. God bless her!

Cherokee Coooooove

I am so blessed.
I am SO blessed.

God's adventure for me is unbeatable. My expectations get shot down frequently, and my pride gets squashed, and my selfishness unveiled... but truly that's the beauty of it. The redemption of my sinful nature through Christ, combined with God's creativity and humongo imagination in the personal relationship He loves having with me...it all mushes together to make one big super duper escapade!!!

It's up and down, but I believe God's heart for moody people like me, is to create stability in their lives. I'm still on that journey of surrendering all thoughts of idolatry, of low self esteem, of unbelief, and doom (ha) over to Him. The last thing, I've realized, that I want to be is a rain cloud that gets introspective in a negative way and shuts people out, shuts the truth out, and turns everyone's day sour. Been there, done that...and Satan had a hay day. Anyway! That is a constant battle which God is strengthening me through.

So! My plan for the summer: Cherokee Cove!
Yea-ah!
I think this is now summer #5!

There are a ridiculous amount of stories that I've accumulated over the years at that place. Oh my. haha! Some highlights:

Summer #1(2008): Trauma from a giant wolf spider, getting stuffed into a freezer, and using the boys who crushed on me to clean out the dish sink where all the nasty mushy food collected after dish duty:)

Rebecca, Michael and Eliza chillin on
 the  driveway

Summer #2: Being the Uphill youth Girl Counselor - STRESS! Got my licenses and two weeks later drove to Kentucky with a car load of girls. First time ever on the interstate, second week ever of driving, 4 loud adolescents crowding around me.ahhh haha!! Also the epic Appalachian trail hike where we thought we were making our two day trek over 13 pleasant miles around Watagua Lake. Ended up being 26 miles climbing up and down the ridge-line, and 22 of those miles were completed in one day(and in chacos, bad idea)

Middle of the Hike! Still Smiling!

Summer #3: The dawn of "Pantry Meetings" with Hunter, Hayden and I escaping to the pantry to eat snacks and giggle! Also ripped my pants on the buddy swing in front of an ROTC group doing their Bible Study. haha! Also invasion of the ants in the girls cabin...we camped out in the guest cabin...while my poor pet frog Pumba was left with the ants and the ant killer fumes....R.I.P.

This is when Zak saw the rip...

This is me sprinting while they were
laughing hysterically

Summer #4: I was the office assistant! I got a GIANT spot light flash light from our friend Carlos who came with Carpenters for Christ group. And I mean giant, theres a picture on my Heavens to Betsy page. haha! Also another great moment was when Libby, Sam and I rescued a baby skunk: "mr. Flower" and the health inspector came and I hid him upstairs in my office. :)

Mr. Flower died 2 days later.

So this summer I'll keep you posted about epic stories...and this year I'm Stu's assistant in the Kitchen so! There will be PLENTY to tell, like the exploded boiled egg that literally blasted a three foot radius with its insides when I merely poked it.... ha, this will be fun!:)

The kitchen is the place to be!

Chirs and Hayden

Listening to Stu's instructions

The Buddy Swing is so fun!

and it's never dull

Trust me there are tons more! So maybe come visit Cherokee Cove yourself! And there's my sales plug for the day:)

God has blessed me SO much with providing Cherokee Cove, and the Stephens family for me during this time of transition and decision making.

And thanks to their generosity and little Libby's caring gift, I am now a proud parent of a Beta Fish named LeRoy Squishy the 3rd. Again...so blessed:)

Or(d)inary

This picture is one of my favorites, and I wrote on it "Ruined for the Orinary." Yes, I forgot the D in ordinary. Haha, kind of annoying since it is my favorite juxtaposed piece from my 2D design class freshman year at ETSU. You see, for that particular assignment we were required to create 6 juxtaposed photo pieces. Some of them I used photo shop and overlaid, recolored, resized etc. I also practiced with modge podge and magazine pictures and ended up creating 10 pictures. For some reason this one ended up being my favorite, however I never turned it into the critic. I did keep it and have had it hung in my room for a number of years. 

When I came home from New Zealand of course I crashed that first night. I snuggled all cozy in my many pillows and fuzzy blankets, then drank in the familiar smells, sights and feelings of home. I immediately noticed this picture on the wall though! Lizzy and I were talking and dozing off and I totally changed the subject and was like AH!!!!!!! I know why I kept this photo! This is slightly, strangely, a very prophetic piece! 

You see for me, Lecture phase in New Zealand was full of serious talk times with God, and I got a word from my good friend Katelyn one afternoon, that God wanted to be my fat cat! He wanted to be my comforter and  even from the time I was 13, He wanted me to come to Him. Seems like He wanted so badly for me to realize the immensity of His love, understanding and comfort towards me, His beloved daughter.

BAM! There's the cute fat cat on the bench in front of that lake. That cat's yawning, but it kind of looks like it's laughing, esp to me when it's put beside the laughing women. The laughing women represents the outreach to Morocco. I don't remember the origin of the photo, but it looks very similar to Moroccan women sharing a joyful time together. Out reach was a joyful time for me personally. I felt like God had comforted me and built me up, spoke words of life and identity to my heart, and that outreach was a time where I began to step into those truths. Through loving on Moroccans, connecting with Back packers, worshiping, praying, sharing life with my team, and experiencing many new, different, hilarious, annoying cultural things together, I'd say all of Morocco was full of laughter and closeness with the Lord. 

Since that YWAM experience I'm restless to continue the world traveling. God has confirmed desires and passions in my heart and I'm learning to be patient. I'm learning to wait on the Lord. I'm learning I need to actually wait, try to understand God's time line and be patient. It's gonna be good! One of my new favorite lines from a song is "If I could die of Happy, baby I'd be a goner!" Even though it seems like a loooooong lesson, learning patience, its still full of joy, happy encounters with God and people, and also adventures! So I'd say its safe to say, I'm ruined for the "orinary" life. ha! Peace out cub scout.

A Poem

la di da

Out reach.
My thoughts...
Just a few:
God was speaking to me about being secure in Him, being completely devoted to pursuing Him first. He kept saying He wants intimacy with me, to be okay with being away from 'home', and to be pushing in, to learn what 'closer than close' is with Jesus. He revealed bitterness that I got rid of, He also revealed more insecurities and how to dig up the last few roots and get rid of them. He confirmed my worth, my ability to be content at home with him alone no matter who I'm with or which country I'm in. I learned that being a 'missionary'  is really just communing with God every morning and letting Him infiltrate and overflow into activities and conversations throughout everyday.

The purpose for my life: TO LOVE GOD AND LOVE PEOPLE.

God's purpose for my life: To grow in maturity in loving Jesus.

Also going through the amazingly wonderful Identity Project with Sarahmae. Have you seen the margins in that thing? AMAZING - I can doodle my heart out.

ALSO...I have some thoughts from Clive... He's so wonderful and I feel like I'm conversing with him every time I read his writing. I kinda feel like we're around the fire place late at night and he's imparting wisdom to me as he props his feet on his ottoman in his slippers and robe.

So in this chapter called "Affection" in The Four Loves I identified with his thoughts, especially in relation to YWAM, out reach teams, and mission work in general. It applies to many parts of life...but for me it strikes me that God is so creative when placing His children together. Believers who have the same heart for Him, for a country, for a purpose, and yet they would never naturally coexist and be friends if not for His call, and our obedience. Ha, funny how He brings us even better friends for ourselves than we would've "naturally" chosen. Love it! Anyway here's what Lewis says:

'Dogs and cats should always be brought up together,' said someone, 'it broadens their minds so.' Affection broadens ours; of all natural loves it is the most catholic, the least finical, the broadest. The people with whom you are thrown together in the family, the college, the mess, the ship, the religious house, are from this point of view a wider circle than the friends, however numerous, whom you have made for yourself in the outer world. By having a great many friends I do not prove that I have a wider appreciation of human excellence. You might as well say I prove the width of my literary taste by being able to enjoy all the books in my own study. The answer is the same in both cases -'You chose those books. You chose those friends. Of course they suit you.' The truly wide taste in reading is that which enable a man to find something for his needs on the sixpenny tray outside any secondhand bookshop. The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who 'happen to be there.' Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.

Yup, that about sums it up for me. My life has been enriched by people, now friends, who I didn't 'choose,' yet they are "worth far more than (I) guessed." Yay! yay God!:)

Confession #17:

#17: I sometimes wish I was a food network star when I'm cooking... My show would be 'Ruby's Really Rad Recipes' (hahahahahahaha!)

Well, my Cupcake experiment today was a success!! YAY. yay cupcakes.

I got inspired to do this cool two flavors thing and make them look really neat. I ended up referring to them as my diversity cupcakes.

Yummo!

I then remembered it was St.Patrick's Day! So I used our green sprinkles and said 'Kiss me I'm Irish!" No, not really, no one but my dad and the dogs where around. And I'm not totally sure if I have Irish in me...

He's so cute when he smiles!

My Dad's response to me bringing him one was "What are you doin' eatin' sweet things?" "ha, what are you doing?:)"

Anyway they're delicious and I only got pinched once today.
Ta ta for now.

Story Time!

I feel like telling a story this afternoon...
I'm going to title it "Cookies."

      Do do do, riding along on the bus through the country side, our little outreach family were traveling from the Southern coast of Morocco to the desert, about halfway through outreach. Fun stuff - bus rides. Especially when the bus you're on stops for every tiny town just in case some little old man might want to hop on or off. I think at one point I had a panic moment to myself bc we were definitely in the middle of no where. Surrounded by desert landscape, and a handful of Moroccans in the seats in front of...if they had wanted to kidnap and take us far into the depths of the desert...no one would have known! ahh! Haha, but that was a passing thought and reality was Nate, Kent and Chris already liked practicing kung fo/wrestling/punching so we would've been fine (and Jesus would've helped for sure too.)

     Anyway! We finally stop for more than a minuet to get some food and use the bathroom. The line for the squatty potties was long so I knew my food decision would have to be snappy! A little fun fact: Moroccans LOVE yogurt. Every single tiny corner shop selling any type of food will have half a dozen choices at least. That was a no brainer, course I got some drinkable strawberry yogurt. I also wanted some crackers. Just a little package of maybe a dozen. Ok, so the cute little shop owner and I did not speak each others language. Typical. So smiling as much as I could I pointed to the crackers on the top of his shops shelves. It required him pulling over his ladder to climb to the very top for me. I thought I was clearly pointing to the SMALL packages...part of this was my fault, but secretly I think he wanted to get rid of this "Party Size" BOX of crackers. I just didnt have the heart to tell him to climb all the way back to the top shelf as, grinning nicely, he gave me, the naive white tourist girl, his biggest box of "Gourmet Biscuits." I laughed, slightly annoyed, all the way back to the bus...and felt completely ridiculous, and braced myself for the grief I was gonna get, esp from the boys, about the gigantic box of cookies! Of course for the rest of the bus ride, I think about 3 hours, I was the butt of all jokes, and we also made more friends because any Moroccan willing, I tried to give them at least 10 cookies! ahhaha. Oh yes, love language barriers. Now I kind of miss those cookies, even though they aren't really that tasty. THE END.

SO MANY COOKIES!! Ridiculous. haha