Almost there.....

Okay, it has been a while but things have been crazy! I graduated! Yeah! And, now I am putting the final touches on my trip to India!

All has been calm and quiet in Calcutta although persectution continues in Orissa. A group of Hindu radicals are planning on shutting the entire city of Orissa down on Christmas so that the Christians cannot partake in Christmas Worship Services. This is not expected to reach Calcutta...but the Christians there are in desperate need of prayer. The YWAM base there has had a lot of difficulties lately and has been attacked several times.

I just found out that I will not have internet access while away so you will have to wait until I get back to get a run down on my adventures!

Thank you so much for your support and prayers...I raised enough money to cover my own trip as well as help with another team member so thank you!

I just ask that you would continue to pray for me as I prepare to leave and while I am gone. I have been on enough trips to know that this is the time in the process when Satan seems to attack me the hardest; putting doubts and worries in my mind.

Thank you again and I look forward to getting to share my stories with you...stories of how God used our partnership for His Kingdom.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Love to you!

Line Etiquette

While we were at Disneyland we waited in hours of lines, now in the US waiting in lines is a common occurrence, we have grown up with it and we are use to them-I recognize, acknowledge and have experienced the fact that things are different in a lot of other countries. Lines are not a universal norm however, at Disneyland they are and if you are from the US then you have no excuse and after experiencing a full day of this I felt the need to set a few things straight regarding lines:

1. We are all anxiously waiting in line to get into the Haunted Mansion, get onto Space Mountain, Indiana Jones....(you fill in the blank)...we all wish the line would move faster.
2. Standing less than an inch behind me literally (definition: actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy) breathing on the back of my neck is not going to make the line move any faster...I promise, it really isn't.
3. Letting the people directly in front of me take two steps without immediately taking two steps of my own is not going to affect your wait time. In fact, yelling at me and telling me to "move" will make me less willing to immediately take my two steps but still...no affect on your actual wait time. In fact, I prefer to get a few feet in between myself and the group in front of me so that when I do move up the whole line behind us moves up a lot and feels like they are making a lot of progress...mind games...I like!

Here are a few suggestions for waiting in long lines:
1. Bring a game: sudoku, word search, crossword puzzles, a hand held game...but don't get too distracted and not move up...you may get yelled at...
2. Buy something to eat before getting into a long line...Disneyland has great churros, frozen bananas, Carmel apples, popcorn...and lots of other tasty goodies....if the line is long enough you will have plenty of time to eat and digest before getting on the ride so you won't get sick
3. Pray...pray for the line to go fast, pray for the ride not to break down after you wait 45 minutes, pray for the people who keep yelling at you because you waited 5 seconds before taking two steps to move the line along...
4. Play the 20 things you won't see in El Dorado Hills game...its simple, you pick out things that you don't normally see in El Dorado Hills. Matt and I play this when we go to Palmdale, only we play up to 50 because there are so many and they are so easy to spot...

Of course we could do away with lines...and this happens:


Do you have a line etiquette story or suggestion to pass the time?

Advent Conspiracy

A follow up to a post a couple weeks ago regarding money spent on Christmas and the lack of clean water world wide:

and this happens....Check out this video on the advent conspiracy



Let me know what you think....

Happiest Place on Earth

This past weekend we took our youth group (Jr. high and high school) to Disneyland.



Youth group Disneyland trip....and this happens....

• 85 of us Load up on two charter buses around 4:00 Friday afternoon


• First bus (not the bus I was on) right out of the church parking lot...goes the wrong way (first affirmation that this was a bad idea)...proceeds to do a u-turn in front of the church (not a wide street, especially for a bus to attempt a u-turn)


• Our bus begins shifting funny and it seems as though we might break down...but our bus driver rocked and just kept going...


• Driver number one takes the most random routes...costing us about an hour


• Stop for dinner...Stu gets dinner at Quiznos and McDonald's...Gray tells us he wants to run for president and wants to have a female vice-president... we try to talk him out of it when Amelia says "I'll be your running mate....then I'll plot to kill you and take over..." point proven....


• Matt found a mega-nuggie at McDonald's....


• Continue with the drive...driver number one pulls over as soon as we get on the freeway because his door was not closed all the way (affirmation #2)


• I take Benedryl to force myself to sleep for a while...


• Stop at the bottom of the Grape Vine and when we get back on the bus we do a head count and come up one short...count again...same thing...I get off the bus with Pappa John check the bathrooms...no stragglers...get back on the bus...still one short...have a group huddle, realize the driver did the first count and assume she was wrong so we just decide to leave...(no one ever called so the count must have been wrong...or Matt is going to get a call from one angry parent today!)


• Finally get to our hotel at 1:00am....yes, it took us 9 hours and it should not have...


• Check into our rooms and get to sleep around 2.

Saturday Morning:

• Meet in the lobby at 7:30....


• Nick was mad after having found "love stains" on his sheets at the Super 8


• Students arrange themselves in groups and off we go....


• Arrive at Disneyland around 8:30


• Get to ride on Indiana Jones and Pirates right away before lines start to form....


• Matt gets a call from the charter bus company and needs to go back to the hotel to buy extra time for the drivers...and the (not so) Super 8 doesn't authorize credit cards over the phone...


• Dave, Jenna and I eat a nutritious breakfast of churros and coffee...Disneyland has the best churros!


• We meet back up with Matt and go on some more rides...one of those being Splash Mountain...mind you, I hate Splash Mountain...the ride itself is great but I hate wet socks and shoes and I also hate wet jeans which both are likely to occur on this ride but Dave and Matt convince Jenna and I that it won't be that bad and we foolishly listen. It was that bad...actually worse. Matt looked like he peed his pants and my butt was wet for a few hours.


• We took a break for lunch and it was then that I realized I was ready to go home yet still had 7 hours left....


• Went on more rides until Aaron called us to let us know that one of the girls in his group was sick so we met up with them, bought the girl an apple, gave her some Advil and told her to suck it up...well, a little nicer but those were the thoughts in our head....


• Had another churro


• The lines got longer and longer and let me tell you...people are pushy in lines even when they aren't moving....I'll post more on that later....


• We had some dinner, took care of more sick kids and walked around trying to pass the time...


• I did get a caramel apple which was delicious by the way and we waited for another hour until we got to meet up with the group...


• John Stamos did a reading of the Christmas Story which was really cool...what a captive audience there was...he even read from Scripture and it was beautiful.


• Kids started to meet up to head back to the buses....


• Gray showed up...15 minutes late...and not with a leader but with his family members that met him there....not sure who's idea that was... but he showed up soaking wet and it was then that we found out that Splash Mountain had some technical problems while he was on it and they could not stop the ride...so he ended up going on the ride 12 times in a row and he was in the front seat. He was drenched...and that is another reason I don't like Splash Mountain.


• We finally loaded up on the buses after rounding everyone up and by this time I am extremely frustrated and more than tired...one of our leaders went back to the buses without telling everyone else so we wasted 15 minutes waiting around when they were sitting on the bus already...not cool...so we head out....
  
• The driver of the first bus gets on the wrong freeway...actually the right freeway just going the wrong way...yeah, towards San Diego, oh and then he doesn't turn around for over 20 minutes. So we got to Irvine and he finally decided to turn around and start heading North...(affirmation #3)
• I realize that I really can't handle many more affirmations and take a benedryl to help me sleep...especially since one of our students got sick and was having stomach problems just thirty minutes into our nine hour drive
• Suddenly, as I try to sleep curled up in an uncomfortable bus seat I hear the driver yell "I need coffee" now, I am half asleep and in an antihistamine daze and I'm not quite sure why our driver is yelling this but soon realize she is letting the other driver know that she needs to stop because...as you guessed it, she needed coffee.
• It turns out the other driver needed coffee too as we found out later that he was pouring cold water on his head while driving to try and stay awake. (affirmation #4) Two of our very dedicated leaders were taking turns talking to him, asking him questions and trying to stimulate his brain.

Sunday Morning:

• We rolled into the church parking lot around 7:30 am...just in time for Matt to rush home, take a shower and return back to church in time to give the announcements and communion thought.
• I went to church and then spent the day attempting to write a paper and not being very successful after having only about 9 hours of sleep for the whole weekend. (affirmation #5)

I've had a lot of really great times at Disneyland so I know it can be the happiest place on earth...tell me one of your favorite memories from Disneyland

Christian Cussing

The other night a bunch of us were enjoying an after youth group dinner at our favorite after youth group restaurant...Chili's aka Salties because of the mound of salt they pour on chips, french fries...salads, hamburgers, desserts...you name it and it has salt on it...I always leave there dehydrated and sick to my stomach yet we continue to go...we need to reevaluate our decision making abilities...anyways back to my original point....
We began discussing how to get to my school which is 45 minutes away from where we live...not because it is far away or there is a lot of traffic but because there is no easy way to get there...which led us to talking about Folsom Dam and the road that goes over it being closed (since 9/11-no we aren't egocentric). Now at a table of 10 Christians this is always a fun conversation to start and this happens:
"I hate that dam road."
"oh, that dam road."
"I use to love driving over that dam road."
"...dam road, dam road, dam road..."
"I wish they would just open the dam road."

No matter how the conversation starts or where the conversation was intended to go this is always where it will lead when trying to discuss the Folsom Dam Road. Hmmm, as my good friends over at http://krazydelicious.blogspot.com/ thinks...maybe this is a way of Satan (Stan) getting to us, just like that Santa Claus ploy...could be something to look into. If you have no clue what I'm talking about check out Ryan's blog. It is sure to entertain you as his life is far more exciting than mine....

Have a great weekend...and just try talking about the Dam Road.....