February RA fun night

Once a month my staff has a fun social event that we do. I believe it builds deeper connections between us and adds some great memories to the RA experience. Yesterday was when we did our February fun event. We had a working/playing evening at my place.

We started by gathering together at my apartment and then headed out into the Connector to organize furniture. There are 11 different lounges in the Connector and each one is supposed to have a specific set of furniture in it. Students have moved furniture from lounge to lounge and floor to floor to accommodate their personal furniture needs, so it was our job to move everything back to where it belongs. It took us about an hour to complete the move...just working up a good appetite we decided! :)

Bryce strikes a pose during the furniture rearranging.

Then we went back to my apartment and made personal pizzas. We had lots of different toppings - sausage, chicken, ham, pepperoni, peppers, onions, pineapple, pesto, etc... We visited while creating some culinary masterpieces. As the pizzas baked we quickly ran through our weekly meeting agenda. Then we feasted on our pizzas, sun chips and veggie tray.

The gang ready to make their pizzas!

After dinner we played a game that I learned from my friend, Kristine over Christmas break. It was fun and caused quite a bit of uproarious laughter! At the end of the evening we were sorry to leave, but knew that studies and other duties were calling our names.

My circle of awesome RAs!

Pottery Bayou

Friday night I went out for the evening with my friend Rebecca. Her birthday was last month, but we've both been so busy that we haven't had a chance to see one another since then. We found that we were both free on Friday, so we took the opportunity to go do something special to celebrate. She wanted to go eat at the Boathouse restaurant down in Winona Lake. I, of course, didn't have her present yet, so I decided to try and find something fun to do in addition to dinner out that evening as her gift. I used my friend (Google) and found a place called "Pottery Bayou" that was a block over from the restaurant. It is a pottery painting shop. You go in, choose your piece to paint, and paint it. Then you leave it there and they put a glaze on it and fire it for you. I have to go down next week to pick it up. It was a lot of fun! We got to sit and talk while we exercised our creative side. We both ended up painting mugs and were pleased with how they turned out. I am excited to see the finished product! :)

Here are some photos of us painting...

Showing off our mugs!

Rebecca painting the sea around the bottom of her mug.

Me working on some little detail of a flower.

After dinner we went over to the Boathouse and had a delicious dinner! We shared a grilled chicken salad and a chicken/bacon wrap. Tasty! We also had a chance to have some deeper conversation about the things God is doing in our lives. It was a wonderful evening!

LEAD Retreat

This is a looooong post. Sit back and read a bit of the good work God is doing in this stubborn woman's life....

This weekend was good. Really good. Not a superficial fun playing around good, but a significant life "tuning up" good! Our church has a leadership group called the "LEAD community" which consists of all the ministry leaders from church. I am a part of this group due to my roles with college students, the Living Room, and our Home Group Support team. This weekend was a retreat led by our church overseer, Keith from Wylie, Texas. I have been looking forward to this because Keith is always an inspirational speaker and I needed a break from work!

I drove up by myself on Friday evening and proceeded to get a little lost...very frustrating for me - someone who prides herself in being able to travel all over the country without getting lost. So, I arrived in a bit of a sour mood. Satan took the opportunity to stir that sour mood and fed me all sorts of lies about not being worthy of being there and picking at the tender wound of being the only single person there (at least of a "certain" age). I busied myself with making coffee and didn't really enter into worship or the things that Keith was teaching on - I was too busy stirring my pot of self pity and discontent. After the session was done we all hung out in the lounge area snacking and visiting. I finally started to loosen up around the time that we all went to bed, but was still in a bit of a funk. I knew I needed to do some business with God, but instead put in my ipod earphones and headed off to sleep.

I planned on waking up early and talking to God before the morning session. I ended up sleeping in longer than planned and then the morning session with Keith got moved up 15 minutes early and I had to bust a move just to be presentable. Again I busied myself with the task of making coffee and didn't engage much in worship. Then Keith stated talking. He was speaking words that seemed directed straight at my heart! I sat there at full attention taking in everything he was saying.

He was speaking about change. Here are a few of my favorite quotes and how each resonated with my own life these days...

"Relationally we either getting bitter or better." -I have been avoiding some of the relational challenges in my life and instead of life getting any better, I can sense the bitterness that is creeping in and showing up in ugly little snippy comments from time to time.

"Jesus is on the move on the Earth - if we are standing still we end up getting further from God." -I haven't been actively pursuing God in daily quiet times. Rather than being at a stand still with God, He feels further and further away.

"Community is the enemy of depression. Isolation is its ally." -When I start feeling overwhelmed I hole up in my apartment and instead of feeling more "rested and focused" as I think I am going to, I end up feeling lonely and sad and hopeless.

At the end of his talk I was thrilled that he said we were going to have a time of prayer for each other in the afternoon session. If I'm real honest, there was a little fear mixed in with the excitement...what if the word someone had for me was a bit too "insightful" and laid my heart out in the open for others to judge. What rubbish! Satan is so good at deceiving us - whispering little lies in our ears to hopefully make us shrink back and run when God wants to pour good into us.

The final session came around - the one where we were going to pray for each other. I sat near the back and started singing along with the worship music that was playing. Then the tears started to flow. I felt God revealing some hard spots in my heart and it was like he was rubbing ointment on those spots. Kind of like when you have a knot in your neck and it hurts, yet feels SO good at the same time when someone works it out. I sat there for a while with God ministering to my heart until a friend (Brenda B) came over and prayed for me. We talked and prayed for about 10 minutes. I don't remember exactly what she prayed over me, but I know it was good! I came away with a vision/plan for some steps I can take to really grab hold of God in a fresh way so that it doesn't feel like he's so far away. She also spoke some important words of encouragement that I know came straight from God's heart to mine. When she left I sat still crying, but more tears of joy than ones of being overwhelmed and lost. Then two more dear friends (Tracy & Chrissy) came over to pray for me. They hadn't seen Brenda pray for me, but the things they prayed echoed what Brenda and I had talked/prayed about. That was a real confirmation to me of my prayers with Brenda.

I left the retreat with a much lighter heart than I've had in quite some time! I feel life in my bones like I haven't in a long long time! I am excited to see what new things God is going to reveal to me and to serve him with my all!

Until later....