Will I Miss Texas?

This is a question that I have posed to myself while waiting expectantly to come home to Washington for Christmas break. There are many things that I will not miss... I will not miss the fact that sidewalks end abruptly making your planned walking route no longer feasible. I will not miss the utter lack of Thai food (I have only eaten it once since I moved here). I will not miss the predominance of country music and conservatism. I will not miss defending that I support gay marriage, that I believe in evolution, or my support of taxation for social programs. I will not miss the fact that I eat out a lot (meaning that I rarely get home cooked meals). I will not miss the physical environment, it is too flat, too dry, and too brown. I won't miss the city, it is too vast and without much beauty to compensate.

But I have found often that love is not in generalizations but in details. I don't like a lot things about Texas. But those that I do appreciate might make me miss it. It is mostly people. People are always what I get attached to. I will miss hearing Kaki's libertarian point of view because it different but well thought out. I will miss the big blaring sunlight that has maintained my tan through out the pale-ing season at home. I will miss the family of 12 that have started to play settlers with me (with the same addiction and competitiveness of people at home). I will miss Laura's sarcastic comments. My freshmen's lack of inhibition when it comes to sharing. I will miss Tim's awkward comments. Preston and Mac's music sharing. Kristin's fascination with Calvinism. Erin's love of soccer players. Emily's joy and free spiritedness. Queenie's love of her parents. Kyle's prayers. Coby's bad jokes/pranks. DeeDee's humor. Katie's conversations.

So I suppose that I will know that I miss things in a way. I already know that I absolutely miss home. This feeling always swims beneath the surface ready to pop out. I think a good metaphor for me is a water balloon which is given easy leaks with pins all the time. I usually am able to patch the holes in the mean time, but the water is just there waiting to come out. I am so glad that I will be spending Christmas at home. I miss you lots. LOVE.

How am I doing?

This is the question that I have been getting a lot and I don't know how to answer it exactly. Like in most times in life there is sadness and there is promise. In the last two days we had two going away parties, one for each large group. The Fire was first and the stories people shared about Jason were funny so I wasn't too sad. But at the Well the stories were more serious and there I lost it. At the Well the stories talked about how Jason loved them first, and how many of them would have given up on the church if it wasn't for Jason. Personally, I felt like Jason got the order right. He was so good at loving people first and it is hard for me to believe that he is going to leave. When I said goodbye to my parents before coming to San Antonio I was very upset, but God promised me that a family was waiting for me in San Antonio and that family was the Griffices. That is not something that I am dealing with losing well.

But there are bright sides as well. Recently I have started to appreciate my co-workers a lot more. I had missed them for a long time because I try to be in the office as little as possible (because the students aren't lining up at the church) but this past week there were a lot of administrative tasks to do. At the staff meeting this week we decided to start a prank war which is going to be fun, and tomorrow I might end up watching the Office with Katie. And Dee Dee and I are going to hang out soon. Things are coming together I think, it just takes time.

And my students are still wonderful. They are pretty much the one thing that makes me hesitate about leaving Texas for good in May. There was a time when I was very seriously considering sticking around for an extra year, but right now I am swinging the other direction. Law school I had tabled for a while but it has reasserted itself as an amazing future for my life and I am going to work on making it a reality (in other words I am going to start studying for the LSAT). I am also going to look into applying for one of the California internships for the coming year... but I might just look into being an administrative assistant at a law firm so that I can see what that is like and make more money before spending a 100K.

Anyhow, I still will probably come back to Seattle in May for the wedding season (I know of 4 pending weddings at least). Temp for a while see my friends at home, and then move on to the next place. I will also be back in Seattle from December 12th through January 4th so make sure that you see me because I miss ya'll (that's right I wrote ya'll... its practical).

Panic Subsiding, Sadness sets in

It still sucks but I am dealing with it. I have been getting a flood of support from everyone at home which is a huge comfort right now, especially because I am not allowed to tell anyone here.

Some of the panic has left my life, and I thought it was important for you all to know that. I wrote that post within the day that I found out the news, I am the type of person that likes to express how I am feeling in hard moments. That blog happened only after I had the chance to speak to one person about how I felt, and I was still in panic mode.

If I am honest, I think that my panic mode had also turned into anger. I was mad at Jason, mad for not being told earlier, mad that he would talk about how he loved working here so often when the whole time he was working on leaving, mad that he would leave to a nice new job and I would be left to pick up the pieces in the wake. But I realized that this was unfair of me. Jason is truly feels awful not telling everyone, he feels like crap everytime he has to tell more people, and he feels like crap about the timing and everything too. And I wasn't helping, I didn't really see him on Monday and on Tuesday I could barely look at him I was still so upset about it. That is how I get, upset and silent.

But today Jason had to tell the student interns at the Fire that he was leaving. There was a lot of tears and silently upset students. I felt awful for Jason, he has to say the hard goodbyes a month before he actually leaves. This situation is especially hard because he is moving from good to good. He isn't running from a church that treated him badly or a ministry that is failing, but he feels like he needs to go somewhere that he is needed more. And deep down I agree, that church needs him, I have been there. But deep down in my selfish heart I don't want him to go because I feel like I need him too. But as one friend reminded me, God does not give us more than we can bare.

Since that post I spoke to Camille, Allison, Kefi and others diminishing the initial panic I felt. I have recieved a ton of encouraging emails and call, and it reminds me of all the people I have at home supporting me. Even though this situation sucks, it could be worse, it could be that I was facing it alone and you all have proven to me that you are with me.

Please continue your prayers the next group of interns finds out tomorrow and next week all of the students will be told.

These Changes Suck

So today I got some mildly traumatic news. My Boss is moving to Newport, CA in the beginning of November to be the youth director at his old church St. Mary's. The other pastors at the church knew that he was applying and they have apparently been waiting to hear about it for a while, and he heard back. He got it, and he is moving home. Whereas John and I and two college ministries are going to be left behind.

I am trying to be happy for him but the timing is vastly off in my mind. Beyond the fact that the only reason I considered coming to Texas was that I had met Jason at a conference and thought that it would be fun job the first year out of college. There is a lot of time and effort and experience that goes into running a college ministry, and in less than a month a larger portion of that is going to be laid down on John and my plate.

Technically all of Jason's job will not fall to me and John. Jason's boss Tim (who started working here a month before I did) is going to be the speaker at the Well and the Fire. But Tim is also the pastor of Contemporary Worship and young adults. Which doesn't leave a lot of time to hang out and care for college students. College students need more attention than the pastor of three things at a giant church can give.

I had already had a moment with Jason where I talked about there being too many things for me to do. And I had been suggesting ways for me to delegate these tasks, to get the students to take more ownership of the ministry, and Jason was receptive and it was great. But now I understand why he was so receptive. He was excited to go along with it because he knew that it was going to leave his hands soon.

If I am honest, I have felt that Jason's head wasn't in San Antonio for a while and it has all just come together with his shocking announcement. There were apparently several times over the course of this week where I almost accidentally found out that he was leaving, but I was fairly oblivious. People were talking about how they were going to miss him, and one even mentioned him leaving to California but I thought maybe that meant at the end of the year... I wasn't looking for something huge to change.

And now I am floundering a bit, which is unlike me. It is not that I think that my job is going to radically change. I knew I was going to have a lot of responsibility because I was essentially given two rather than one ministry's worth of girls. I knew that I would speak, and was honestly looking forward to speaking at some of the worship services. But I also thought that I was signing up with a specific boss. Someone that I believed in as a leader for college students, someone that knew how to reach out people on the edges. He knew how to be bold in speaking truth without being judging in his delivery. And I know that especially for the guys, he is a lot of what kept them there... and I don't know if Tim and John are going to attract the same crowd.

Transitions in ministry are hard. I saw it at Southminister when Bob was asked to step down as choir director. I saw it at Midway the year I left for college when a pastor left. And I saw it at the Inn when Mike Gaffney left. The Inn came back from it fine, but mostly the others came back from it crippled. In each it was harmful enough to lose people forever. The Inn survived partially because it is so large, and partially because of the manner of exit. But this transition I expect to be rockier. It is mid year, it is sudden, and the Well and the Fire are smaller.

Pray for me because I have no idea what this means.

Allison is Coming!

So, since I left I have been trying to convince Allison to come over. I persisted in this because it was comforting and Allison made the mistake of saying that she was willing to fly herself out here. Because of Allison I had a small background hope that she might come and see me while I am here. But tonight Allison called me and checked if I would be able to pick her up if she took a red eye to San Antonio, which I enthusiastically affirmed. She is currently thinking of coming down on October 16th. That is less than one month from this current date! I couldn't stop from telling her how happy I am that she is going to come. She is still figuring out the details of who will take her and pick her up from the airport, but I am sure it will pan out. She is even willing to have a layover, and Allison hates layovers! Isn't she wonderful?

Now I need to start making plans. I told her that I would save the tourist traps like the Alamo for me and her to do together. And while I was talking to her on the phone I realized that one of my "things-to-do-while-I'm-in-Texas" (there is a growing list) could be done while she is here... We can go skydiving! In Seattle such a leap could cost around a thousand bucks, but in Texas skydiving costs about $100. Allison would prefer bungy jumping, but she is willing because of the super low cost to bump bungy jumping up on the list.

I cannot say how thrilled I am to be visited. I know that my last post did not portray a deep love of Texas/the move in general, but since then I have had an amazing amount of support come in from all sides... from Seattle and in Texas. Things have taken an up-swing. I got a permanent home (complete with maid and swimming pool). The fire and the well have been going awesome. I love the core group that I am leading. The parental unit is flying me home to Seattle for Christmas, and now Allison is coming to Texas and is willing to consider skydiving with me!

Perhaps this skydiving information will inspire other visitors as well :).

Cracked-Heal

So last night Kate Maxwell was visiting because she is driving to Princeton with Bianca, and I discovered that I was homesick. I also discovered that retrospectively I have been homesick before and hadn't even realized it. When I was on Deputation in Croatia I got homesick right about a month into the trip. It is sort of comforting and sort of not comforting to recognize the pattern. You see, I think that I go through stages whenever I arrive at a new place. First I am in input mode. Where I am friendly but quiet as I try to get a sense of what things are like here. Throughout all of this time I am analyzing what is happening, which really means that I am being critical and over-thinking things. Then after I have done that for about a month... throughout which I have attempted to stay incredibly positive and appreciate the good things in the new place that I am at. I realize that I have been ignoring and not fully recognizing how bothered I am by the crappy, annoying, bad things that have been sprinkled in the middle. At this point I get broken. 

I don't say broken lightly. This is the problem with not taking both things at once I suppose. I have used up all my resilience in the first month and by the end of it I feel incredibly raw. It is like a cracked heel... everything is fine until the skin breaks and then you realize it has been wearing down for a while and now it is going to take a time to heal. 

Yesterday I cracked when I started talking to Kate. I am house sitting and she came and spent the night with me while Bianca stayed at the Griffice's. She was asking me how Texas was going, and despite wanting to sing its praises that is not where I am at right now. Right now I am at the stage where I really wish that people around me would get me without anything else. I think this is a side effect of living in one place all your life and then moving to a place that could not be more opposite. I see these opposite things and they are wrong to me. But more importantly I see these opposite things and I start to feel opposite.

So at this point, all the the people here understand about me is that I am quiet and friendly. But because I put up a wall, they don't know my opinions, my sense of humor, my fears, or that I desperately need someone that I am just myself with. And I because of all my analysis, have convinced myself that if I do show people that they just won't get me. 

But from the beginning to the end this is my problem. I am the person that is doing the judging and I am the person that doesn't let them get to know me. So at this point I feel somewhat ready to change these things, but unfortunately I think it is going to express itself by me crying in front of someone who is practically a stranger. And I am not a public crier. But at this point I don't think holding it in is an option anymore.

Destination Deuteronomy

Last quarter I got burnt out with the New Testament (the NT). I blame this primarily upon the dreaded Michael Williams (professor of my class on the NT) who sucked every ounce of joy out of learning about the Bible from my life. I took the class because I wanted to get better background upon the Bible before spending a year working for a church. But it was a bad idea, studying the Bible isn't something that I can do marathon style, I need to take it slow... so doing the whole NT in a quarter ruined that section of the Bible for me for a while.

Luckily the backlash of Michael Williams did not illogically overflow into my feelings about the Old Testament (the OT). I have always felt that I needed to get better acquainted with the OT. As a young child they tell you all of the best OT stories and they are cool and exciting and you come out knowing the gist of them... but you have no idea where they are located in the Bible or in the history of the Jewish people pre-NT. The NT has the advantage of having the background first, then the letters/advice and then the prophecies... this organization is clear because the central stories are told in the gospels/acts. The OT is not so clear. Sure it starts at the beginning, but there is so much more of it that it is hard to keep in order. I like having the overview and later plugging the details as they come.

Plus, I am ashamed to say it, but I have not read every part of the Bible. It has been a goal for a long time, but in the case of the Bible I am not a cover to cover kind of girl... which is hard, because every other book I am a cover to cover kind of girl.

Luckily, God sent me a to a book that is miraculously apt for my situation. I am reading East of Eden and they have a passage where they name these twins out of the bible. The names that are chose are Caleb and Aaron. Each of them are significant in the Exodus story. I knew what Aaron was famous for (because of my brother). But I had no clue what was up with Caleb other than it had something to do with the end of the first 40 years in the desert. So I decided to start at the end of the first 40 years which just so happens to be in Deuteronomy... and this book is a gift to me in the time and place that I am at right now.

It is perfect for me because it is about a people in exile in a place that is not their home, who left dependent on the promise of God. I am not going to be dramatic and say that I am in exile, because I am not. But I am not in my home anymore and I feel that I left home because of quiet promises that God made to me. God promised me that though it would be with me. That may seem clique, but how often are you truly in a place where each day you have to ask for God's help. When I said goodbye to my parents back in July, God promised me that he would have a family waiting for me here in San Antonio. And even though I sometimes desperately miss my family and friends, I depend on that promise to sustain me while I pursue friendships here. And I think that God is also fulfilling my blind request to learn what it means to depend on him, because in the absence of so much of what I have used to prop me up in the past. I find that my voids are not unbearable because he is fulfilling them. I have also been blessed to recognize God's work more. I see how God worked through Camille to tell me exactly what I needed to hear last week. I see God in Deuteronomy and the miracle of finding one story of what God did in the world to help me wade through what God is doing to my world. I see God in the small group I elbowed my way into last week where I have finally found a group of women to share my frustrations with.

Allison knows that I am a complainer, but right now I just don't have much bad to say. Now I understand why He is called Emanuel (God with us), and I wouldn't trade this for all the comforts and joys of home.

I miss you and I love you.

Conquering my fear of children

Even now after living here for about a month my living situation is not quite settled, which is a bit frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love where I am living, but I am not yet sure that I am staying here. Right now I am living with Jason (my boss) and his wife Malia and there son Zeke. But they are living on low paying ministry salaries so they have been looking for another family to take me in. It makes me in a weird limbo space that I honestly don't enjoy. I want to be able to make my room my own, everything I own is still in boxes and suitcases, and my elaborate computer set up has not yet been reconstructed, separating me from my music.

If I am honest I would like to stay here at the Griffice's house. I am already comfortable with them as a family. They yell up the stairs, laugh, watch tv, eat, and love each other. It is has been just like home since I arrived here... but I still might be moving away, if we don't hear by next week I am going to decorate my room and hope that I just get to stay.

One of my favorite things about living in the house is Zeke. Zeke is my 3 year old housemate. He is pretty awesome. He is loud and loving and creative and if I had a son I would want him to end up exactly like Zeke. Zeke loves cars and all things that roll, and he loves sports which has been a particular joy with the Olympics being on all of the time, and he loves a new game... which is good because I don't know his old ones.

One big highlight of hanging out with Zeke is that he eats up the explanations that you give him, so we were playing a pretend game and he told me that behind the wall there was a truck and a monster. Realizing that the monster things is usually a bad thing for kids I taught him to karate chop the monster to protect himself and he didn't seem to have a problem when nap time came around.

Then today I babysat Zeke for the first time (which makes a total of 4 babysitting gigs in my lifetime). It was incredibly easy even when my original plan went out the window. You see I had planned on taking him out in the back and practicing t-ball with him (Zeke has great eye-hand coordination). But thunder and lightning rolled in and we were restricted to the house. Then I am pretty sure that the thunder started to scare Zeke so I decided to preempt the fear by talking about how thunder is cool. I am not sure that it worked completely but he seemed to be doing fine.

All in all I think that Zeke is currently conquering my fear of children with his awesomeness.

The Twilight Zone

Many of you may not know this, but I am an incredibly optimistic person. It is by nature, go God for giving me that gift. And every once in a while I will notice a psychological tricks I play on myself to help me through tough moments. The one that I have noticed this week is connecting old friends and new acquaintances in my mind. This was happening over and over again since my arrival in San Antonio.

The first one I noticed I feel a little guilty about mentioning. I feel guilty because Liz Orrestead has had so many comparisons made with her (in the past she was compared to Jessica Lazdins). But the fact of the matter is that Liz is amazing so everyone wants to see her everywhere. And in a twilight zone sort of way I have found someone like Liz in Texas. Her name is Kaki and she is a strong christian, into social justice, and to a degree has similar facial features. It has been great to meet Kaki because if I am honest I didn't expect to find a person that seems so "Seattle" born and raised in Texas. Kaki in addition to her Liz-like qualities is vegetarian and plays ultimate frisbee on a weekly basis. I am pumped to spend the next year getting to know her.

The next twilight zone moment was in regard to a guy named Preston. It was odd because as I met him he reminded me of Donny (Sara's BF). Don't ask me why, it is something about how they both talk. This is where it gets freaky. When we were all trying to swim in a river (I say trying because the river was mostly knee deep) I found out that he was diabetic (type I) just like Donny. It's crazy... I would say that his diabetic statis prejudiced me, but I swear I connected Preston to Donny prior to learning about his intolerance to sugar. Beyond his Donny like qualities he also is an indie-rock DJ for his college station (which means that somewhere at sometime there is an indie-rock on the radio in San Antonio).  I expect to be getting lots of new music from Donny's soul brother.

Other less thrilling similarities... one of our pastor's Scott reminds me of Brad Nelson. It might have something to do with the hair, more than anything else. I have never gone to a dueling piano bar with Brad Nelson, but maybe when I come home around christmas. 

Texas People

Before I left I was hanging out with Camille and complaining about all of the things that I wasn't looking forward to about Texas. At the time I was having such a great summer that I was having trouble understanding why I leaving, it seemed like a waste of so many good things. After I was done complaining about the lack of things to do and how the physical environment was going to suck (because of the lack of trees/water/mountains) Camille shared some wisdom with me. She said that because San Antonio lacked all of these other things, it would make it so that only one thing was left to focus on: Humanity. This comment has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. From the time that I arrived in Texas the very best part of it has been the people I have found. And since some of these people are probably going to be written about a lot I am going to introduce you all to them.

The first person that you will need to meet is my boss, Jason Griffice. He is the reason that I applied to this job in the first place so must carry much of the blame for my move. I met him two christmases ago when I went to Urbana (Intervarsity's national mission conference). He is a lot of fun and is also very approachable so I could tell from the outset that if I worked with him I would enjoy my job. His approachability was initially wrapped up in the fact that he seems like a big kid in a lot of ways. But more recently I have gained respect for his maturity. We are currently in Orange County CA, where he was raised and where is family still lives. Yesterday I got to meet both of his brothers (ages 36 and 17) and his parents (we slept at his family's house). And as we spent time with them, I noticed how Jason was attentive to the individual needs of each of his family members. This indicates a perceptiveness that can only be good for the people around him... it is going to be a good year.

I will introduce more later, but I am going to go get fish tacos at Wahoos!

Blessed by Generosity

So it has been a long time since I posted, and I realize that I have yet to put up pictures of any kind. Sorry about that, this won't be the first picture post... maybe in ten days when I get back from California. But I am getting ahead of myself, most of you have no idea what happened since I left Seattle.

It feels like ages ago, but I flew out on Seattle evening and arrived in Denver late at night. I had this truly ghetto suitcase that barely had wheels on the bottom and would fishtail if you tried to actually use them. Also because I had everything that I had used for the past two weeks in the suitcase it weighed 65+ pounds. It was an annoying to say the least but in my shortsightedness I thought it wasn't a big deal because I would just shove it in the back of my new car anyhow.

The next morning Sarah (my sister in law) told me that she wanted to get me a suitcase as a parting gift. If I have learned about anything in the last ten days it has been about accepting generosity. I tend to prefer to not need anyone's help. But that would be impossible with this kind of move, and thankfully everyone around me is more than willing to cover my bases for me. So that morning we went to Ross and I got a brand new suitcase which also happens to be orange zebra print (a picture is forthcoming). This suitcase is perfect on many levels, not the least of which are I will never have to check the tag for my name after I check it, it does have the lovely (standard) roller/handle thingy, and that it is orange my favorite color.

Another bit of generosity that I received before I left came from Kefi and Bryce. I don't know if it was happenstance or just that they noticed how little I had prepared for the drive down to Texas, but they handed me a GPS (Garmin) at my going away party which saved me as I drove down. Dad had gotten a bunch of maps from AAA for me but considering how new I am at driving taking my eyes off the road for that long a of a period a time seems like a bad idea. The GPS comes with a mounted stand so checking it is like checking my mirrors... it is awesome.

Beyond that, since I have arrived in Texas it has been odd to have people always providing meals and rides and everything for me. Right now I am blogging on my bosses laptop, and I haven't had to drive myself anywhere since I parked my Toyota Corolla in the driveway. My new room is nicer than any room I have ever lived in, yet I don't feel freaked out that I am going to be judged for not making my bed.

I don't even have time to say all the things that people have done for me since I left Seattle, and it is truly humbling to know that I am so cared for.

Note to Audience

My hope with this blog is to start conversations and see who bites. My initial post was a huge success at this mostly because I was emailing people who hadn't heard from me in ages. Still, as the year goes by I would invite each of you to see this as an opening, an opening to email/call/talk to me (Even if we haven't talked in ages, even if it has been six months and you think Texas has changed me, even if you think it might be awkward at first). Because as everyone reading this blog should know, I love to talk and I don't think it is ever too late for re-connections.

I also hope to put a high level of my self into this blog. So far I have done very little self-editing which may make my sentence structure a bit rough and cause dyslexia inspired typos.
I have decided that I like these imperfections. That is me, sacrificing perfection for accessibility. Furthermore, my lack of self-editing will go beyond sentence structure, the lack of editing is most important in regard to ideas. I want this place to be somewhere that will function as an outlet, not as a place where I have to put forth an image. This is why I am refusing to make this an event list. What goes along with this lack of constructed persona is that you may see sides of me that you don't yet know. I wish that I could claim that every aspect of me is equally apparent at all times, to all people, but this would be a lie. So do not be too shocked it you find out something new... in fact I hope you do find out new things about me. But in exchange for all of the me you get to see, please show me more about who you are back... relationships are two sided and even if you keep knowing me while I am in Texas, you have to participate to keep me knowing you.

LOVE.

Rest Stop of Champions

For those of you that don't know already I have settled on getting to San Antonio (henceforth S.A.) by way of Denver. It turns out that I am buying my brother's Toyota Corolla which means the parental unit are conveniently driving my stuff half way to S.A. next week and I am flying to Denver on August 5th. At this location I will hang out with Daniel, Sarah and Alex for a couple days and then drive down to my future home. Which all in all will be cheap, fast and plausible, which the other plans lacked (mostly because I didn't have a car yet). So I am thrilled to have some of the knuts and bolts figured out so that I can plan the more exciting portions of my trip.

The exciting portion that I figured out today was where I am going to sleep after my first day of driving. The trip from Denver to S.A. is about 16 hours meaning for a newbie driver like me that I need to take two days to do it. I will be going alone with the new transportation plan and I was looking at googled route to S.A. and saw no town names that I recognized which didn't feel promising for stopping over for the night. Then, just because it was a dream of mine from early in the road trip plan, I tried setting Roswell New Mexico as the interum location. And what do I discover? Roswell is 7 hours and 47 minutes away from Denver and 8 hours and 8 minutes away from S.A. I don't know if things could work out more perfectly.

After discovering my amazing reststop I also looked up the sights that I can see down in Roswell. There are apparently several tourist traps to grab my attention. The International UFO Museum And Research Center is apparently rather sub-par, but I will go anyhow so that I can say that I did. There is also another spot where I can pose with life size alien dioramas. The best one described is the alien autopsy where I can pose holding a bloody surgical tools. There is also apparently an internal city conflict between the pro-alien and anti-alien Christians. The anti-alien Christians (Alien Resistance) apparently believe that the aliens are biblical demons. A different pro-alien pastor is not so anal and owns an alien themed business in town. I just hope I can get both an Alien Resistance bumper sticker as well as some sort of pro-alien bumper sticker. More info at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11159 for those intrigued.

In other news, Scotti gave me a good idea for something to do in Denver when I visit Daniel and Sarah... Apparently Denver is where Chipotle originated, one of the few places I think I could eat for a month straight and not get tired of. So I am going to track down the original restraunt and eat there. If anyone else has travel suggestions en route send them my way.

Feeling Sent

I tend to overthink things to the extent of it being a failing. It is good to think about things, but I do it so much that I ruin it. Recently, I have been doing that with Texas. Yet, tonight I was writing an email to my old core group leader and I realized that I have the best reason possible to not be afraid or scared or apprehensive about moving to Texas. The reason is that I feel sent by God.

Me and God have been on speaking terms for as long as I can remember, but I don't think that previously in my life God has ever sent me to a place. I don't think I asked God about what college I should go to and with Deputation I feel like God prepared me to accept the location I was assigned not that he necessarily told me Croatia was the place for me. But with Texas it is as though God picked out a specific place and a specific job just for me.

In the years after college, before law school I was incredibly open to what I might be doing. I thought about not only other locations to be a ministry intern but also other jobs altogether. I thought about doing Teach for America, I thought about working for a law firm, I thought about finding my way to California so that the next step in the law school path would be clear and prepared for. But step by step God has pointed to one location and one thing for the coming year of my life.

By the end of first quarter I was sure I wanted to do a ministry internship out of state. When choosing I applied to three places in California and one in Texas. My applications reflected my feelings about where I thought I should go. I only applied to the Texas job because I had met my future boss at a missions conference last year and knew that working with him would be incredibly fun but I held it as a back up location because of my law school plans. In spite of the logic of going to California, I immediately got the feeling that God wanted to send me to Texas. Knowing myself I made a simple prayer to God saying God if you want me to go to Texas you had better close every other door.

I proceeded to watch while every other internship didn't work out. By the end of my application process it was down to Menlo Park or San Antonio. I was waiting to hear back from Menlo Park and even though in my list of choices Menlo was above San Antonio I started to have the feeling that I Texas was the place for me. In that short period where I thought I was going to get the Menlo job, I started to wonder if I would have the strength and obedience to take the Texas job if I got the job in California (because God was being clear about where he wanted me to go). In honesty, I don't think that I would have had the strength to turn Menlo down even though God was being clear. So it is an amazing blessing that God listened and closed all the other doors. I didn't get any of the California internships and have never felt so relieved about not being offered a job.

From that point forward I have felt that God has held my hand in all things related to preparing to leave. He got me a perfect summer job (temping at a law firm). He used my amazing family to help get me a car and get me there on time and within my budget. Everything that will prepare me to leave Seattle and arrive in San Antonio God has made easy. Everything that I am tempted to cling to here that will keep me from truly investing there God has pushed aside or closed.

I have never before been so sure that God intended for me to do something before I do it. That is support, that is a rich well of confidence. And even though I have no clue what I got myself into, I have never felt so sure that choosing to leave is the right choice.

Routes and Preparations

Last night I actually felt like I was leaving Seattle for the first time since I decided to take the job in Texas. This may seem like a belated response since I found out that I was moving to Texas during the end of March, but I feel like it is an early response for me. I am sometimes the type of person that happily functions in denial until I am past the point where I should have faced something, and then I get to look at the hard moment in retrospect. Retrospect is always easier to deal with than present or unknown realities. This method has worked in the past (I didn't feel like I was going to Croatia until I was on the plane) but this time around there are many things to be figured out before I can go so denial is not an option.

This realization spurned me to start google-mapping routes from Seattle to San Antonio. I started with a permissive attitude saying to myself that I can take my time getting there and that I can take desired detours to make the trip more entertaining/eventful. Several maps were plotted but I think that I have narrowed it down to two competing routes: Seattle to Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Albuquerque to Roswell to El Paso to San Antonio; and Seattle to Spokane to Denver to San Antonio. The first route's advantage is that I will get to see a slew of places that I have never seen before including the two that I specifically listed as goals (Grand Canyon and Roswell). The second route's advantage is that I will get to see Daniel, Sarah and Alex and I will have more places to naturally stop and hang out on the way there. The Denver Route is also shorter and cheaper than the Roswell/Grand Canyon route. So what is everyone's opinion? Which route should I take? Adventures/sight seeing or family visitation?

(Did I mention that I invite comments on this blog? Tell me what you think... Argue with me... Expand on ideas... Suggest things. That would be awesome)

Other things that need to pan out are: (1) finding someone to drive with (2) securing a car (3) closure about leaving everything I know behind. If you can help with any of that also feel free to comment.

Origin of "Street Knowledge"

I am going to start by informing all viewers, that this blog is not going to be a list of all the things that I do in a week. While this might be personally gratifying, it would tempt me to maintain a high level of superficiality (everything is too much to talk about). Plus, I believe that it is more entertaining to write thoughts, brilliant ideas, arguments, and particularly entertaining moments instead, I hope you agree.

Now I will go on to say how I came up with my blog title. This has been an epic process. I knew that I was going to start up a blog when I left Seattle so that I could pass on glimpses of my life to those not moving to San Antonio. But I didn't have a title for this forthcoming blog. Titles are important... why? (1) it shows how much prior thought you put into it, (2) it has the ability to set a tone, and (3) people are going to think about it EVERY time they read the blog. In my past blog I had a deadline (leaving for Croatia) and therefore put no creative thought into the name I gave it ("JessicaandRachelinCroatia"). This time I refused to make such a mistake.

Such a title is hard to find, it is a good thing that I had six months to come up with it. Prior to discovering the title "Street Knowledge" this morning, I only had one other option and it was deeply cliche ("everything and nothing"). "Everything and Nothing" was appealing because it blatantly expressed what I think I am trying to get at in my posts. A lovely mix of serious discussion and amusement. But its wording was too direct.

Contrastingly, "Street Knowledge" possesses no such problems and a million extra advantages. Advantages include (but are not limited to): (1) that I have just graduated college and therefore have been released to the streets to learn what I can, (2) that many of the factoids that I spout I attribute to the streets, (3) the title doesn't give the audience a false hope for authorial brilliance, and (4) I can start blog posts (if I so choose) with "What I learned on the street today."

So, I hope everyone enjoys reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.