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.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
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.
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.
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