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.