Category: anecdotes

Mission Trip PICTURES!

Here are pictures from the mission trip I took with students March 7-12. We collaborated with a school from Plano, Texas to reach out to children in the rural areas outside the city. These pictures cannot possibly communicate the way God worked that week, but it will give you a little dose of the JOY we got to experience just being close to God’s heart.This was a carnival we put on for children at a rural public school. These kids seem to be listening to some directions and enjoying some of the tasty CANDY that all the gringos brought!
Daniel Aleman (on the right) is greeting Youn Hee Choi, one of the students from Texas … who is actually only lived in the states for 2 years and before in Korea. We all ADORED her smile and personality… and culture!
We did outreach/evangelism/prayer for people in the streets of nearby towns of Valle de Angeles and Santa Lucia. This was very “mission-trip-like” and typical for the students from PCA, but for my students it was kind of crazy. These are our neighbors.
Pablo. What a joy to know and love this student! He takes every opportunity to use his skills to bring delight to God and others! This is at the orphanage one afternoon.
This is another picture from the carnival at the public schools. This was a racing game and the kids LOVED IT!
O HAPPY DAY! This captures the joy the kids at the orphanage felt at our visits!
Here is a big group of students/kids from the orphanage just hanging out. We did a lot of that … just unplanned hang-out time. I think that was most valuable for the kids at the orphanage – to see that we were just making ourselves available to love them.
We PAINTED! Were we the most effective or experienced painters Honduras could find? Nope 🙂 But we sure had fun and learned a few good lessons! 🙂
This may have been my favorite part of the trip – the Lifehouse drama, but in Spanish. These are my students and they did a MAGNIFICENT job. This performance was in the public school.

I have more pictures, hopefully I can find out how to post them to picasa and give you the link! Please post any questions you have about the trip. I would LOVE to answer them!
go ahead, be a little silly on this Thursday and
let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
Posted on by Caroline 0

honest about my wishes

Sometimes I have these romantic phases in my mind (okay, often) … and in those times I desperately wish everything would make sense together. Today, as I am going about the most random list of things “to do” I am taking mental lists of some of those wishes. Indulge!

  1. I wish, when I read a good book, I could be COMPLETELY in the book and not preoccupied with the desire to finish it, to know its contents, or to have a conversation about it later.
  2. I wish Simon and Garfunkel more regularly appeared on my “recently played” list.
  3. I wish my ambitions to be a neat and tidy person were more natural and less guilt-driven.
  4. I wish my distracted approach to projects yielded masterpieces like Picasso that everyone strangely admires, rather than disaster like the “derelict” fashion line in Zoolander that everyone pities.
  5. I wish my passion for people and causes could have a least common denominator… something I could refer to at the beginning of every day and then have an obvious, mathematical approach to deciphering the day’s greatest needs.
  6. I wish I could be in several places at once (typical super-human power, right?)… and actually FULLY be there in mind and heart.
  7. I wish steady, standard routine was not something I only wished and planned for… but something that HAPPENED consistently in my life.
  8. I wish I was less likely to order Diet Coke and more likely to order water.
  9. I wish I knew how NOT to be wasteful, but creatively thrifty to the max!
  10. I wish I wasn’t so good at making resolutions (though I always deny making them) and better at DOING.
  11. I wish I wasn’t so overwhelmed by all the good things going on the world, thinking I have to in some way be a part of all of them… and just be GLAD good things are happening (especially in the name of Jesus!)
  12. I wish overflowing love out my mouth was effortless.
Well, there are some wishes of mine, folks. Will some life-wish fairy grant me these? Nope. But, sometimes you just need to call a spade a spade in your life and face up to the wishes you are secretly wishing.
I hope you are all doing well, my friends, this fine Wednesday.
don’t forget to
let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
today!
Posted on by Caroline 4

spring cleaning and bullet points

I’ve decided to succumb to the temptation to title a post like millions of others will this spring. Partly because the idea is very fitting for all the clutter I’ve gathered in my life and partly because I am very literally spring cleaning. The laundry is going out back, the trash is beckoning from all corners of my seemingly small abode, and my room is desperate for some attention.

Tonight, I have moved my computer combo (what I now lovingly call my laptop/computer monitor combination) to the dining room table and now I have the grandest ambitions to do some spring cleaning (or planting, maybe?) in the area of writing.
My operation looks something like this, if you put them both together on the kitchen table:
This week is Semana Santa (Holy Week) and most all of my friends and students are off to a coast or a country or a lake to enjoy the week off from school. Meanwhile, I am reading feverishly and awkwardly adjusting to this strange, SLOW pace of life. Yesterday, as I sat outside reading and sunning, I told my mom, “This week is going to be fantastic and so needed. I really just need the rest.”
This morning I woke up and felt the usual antsy-ness creeping into my system. “A whole WEEK of this!?!” I asked to all the stuffed up, hot air in my house.
I know I have A LOT of catching up to do here on the blog, and my default method when I have lots to say is to use bullets, so I hope this will give you a picture of what has been happening.
Bullet points are kind of my way of spring cleaning my mind. I have a tendency to make all my physical spaces reflect the mayhem and madness in my mind…
translation: my desk, room, craft space, work space, car space, all space looks distracted and dysfunctional.
solution: bullet points. it may not make the mess go away, but at least I can look at it with some kind of order.
MISSION TRIP
First of all, I don’t know where to start with this one… I’ll give you the best I got (in slimmed down, bullet-version of course) of the mission trip where I took 9 students to team up with 29 coming from Texas for a week working at an orphanage, planning carnivals for rural schools, and doing various work projects.
  • I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the ministries being “served” on short-term mission trips. Whew! It’s definitely NOT about the work that the high school kids can accomplish in one week (it can be done faster, cheaper, and better by locals). It IS about the heart. period.
  • The opposite happened than my mission trip norm (personal devotions become a last priority) I practically LIVED for that hour in the morning to keep my head on straight.
  • I love watching students learn and love and feel the love of God come out their fingertips. It makes my heart downright giddy.
  • I have a hard time fitting in to the “adult” table and “adult” meetings and “adult” discipline of a mission trip… will have to work on that in the future
  • I am a WORLD CLASS WORRIER! If I had a quarter for every time my students said, “Miss, chill. Seriously, just chill.” I would have been able to pay for all the mission trip expenses! I admit, I got a little out of control with the worries. There is no excuse, but I think having a co-leader could be a good idea. It was just too much for me to think/plan/coordinate… and frankly (no matter how many times they say, “chill”) someone has to worry about the details or guess what? nothing happens. I’ve tried “chilling” to the max and basically it is un-productive.
  • Every day since the mission trip ended, I have felt a huge burden to continue encouraging the students.
  • pursuing any cause, mission, goal, or idea as an end in itself (or for my own accomplishment as an end) is to pursue death
PASSION for TRUTH/PERSONAL GROWTH
  • I want more Bible. I want more Jesus. I want more God. That’s the best way I can explain my deepening desire to KNOW my Lord more. Whenever God calls me from Honduras, I know I will be going to pursue more Bible instruction. I am considering this option, a ministry of Mars Hill Church in Seattle: Re:Train I want to learn under the best teachers and be forced to question every assumption based on the WORD as Authority. I want to be fully equipped for mission with a great dexterity in wielding the sword of the Spirit.
  • physical “things” are so fluid… well, they are mostly flowing out of me right now. I think I am a financial planner’s worst nightmare. No, that can’t be right….. a financial planner wouldn’t know the first thing to think about me (probably that someday I’ll end up living in my parents’ basement). Funny, cause this ‘money flowing out’ thing can only work as long as it’s flowing in… and I still want a blackberry and a new Mac laptop. Guess I can’t shake all the materialism off, can I? 🙂
  • Loving the inspiration coming from musicians like this: Robbie Seay Band, The Civil Wars, JJ Heller, Rhema Soul, The Arrows, Luke Brindley, Trevor Davis
  • Loving the preaching/teaching of these good folks: Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, Chris Tomlinson, Vessels of Mercy, Jared Wilson, The Gospel Coalition, WORLD magazine
STUDENTS/DISCIPLESHIP
  • relationships, relationships, relationships. I thought this year would be simply a building year, after spending last year reaching out and in the ambiguous and easily excusable stage of ‘getting to know’ students. My assumption that I could reap so quickly has led to many humbling experiences. Regardless of response or excitement or fruit, I am called to do the same thing for the students here: LOVE fiercely and SHARE the Truth of the gospel unashamedly.
  • God, in His grace, has given me beautiful glimmers of the blessing of His refining process and His timing. I have been able to REJOICE with students who are seeing Him clearly for the first time. Actually, I think they are seeing just the edge of His garment and are surprised at the joy they find. WHAT a BLESSING to watch them discover!!
  • I am trying and testing my heart to know how I can best love these students in discipleship relationship. I want them to HUNGER and THIRST for the Lord. … and then I remember being in high school and how strange that sounded. But, regardless, I feel an URGENCY to insist they pursue the BEST and not just okay.
CURRENTLY READING/JUST FINISHED READING
  • Angel of Mercy by Baker
    This book blew me away – crazy what the passion of one person can do. She blazed the trail for the indigent insane to receive care in the United States and some countries in Europe.
  • The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
    For doubters, skeptics, and YOU. That’s right. I think EVERYONE should read this book because it will sharpen your skills to understand and examine WHY you believe in God.
  • Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
    Read a bit about her in college, but returning to read about the amazing work Jane Addams did in Chicago with the poor and needy. She’s said by some to be the mother of modern day social work.
  • Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church by DA Carson
    I’m revisiting this knucklepunch. It’s pretty heavy (over my head, if you will), but I want to learn.
  • Lord, Is it Warfare? Teach me to Stand by Kay Arthur
    Oh, boy. I picked this up off my shelf because I feel like I desperately need it.
  • Basic Christianity by John Stott
    I bought this awhile back and need to dive in.
  • The World is Flat by Friedman
    I’m feeling an urgency to know how small our world is getting, because I think it has crazy implications for the Gospel!
Okay, friends. I could go on and on and on, but I know you would never make it to the end of the post and then I would be too tired to continue to write this week. So, I will leave it here. To come: mission trip pics, funny driving stories (YES THE CAR IS UP AND RUNNING!), 17 again anecdotes (I have way too many!), and aspirations to make an herb garden, sew some t-shirts, and accomplish 3 loads of ironing. 🙂
and please, please, please…
let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
Posted on by Caroline 3

I’m not writing tonight.

I thought I would accomplish so very much today. Instead of my “accomplished” agenda, I waited. I went to church, read my BRP, listened to more sermons, read articles, talked to my parents, and waited. I had set up a time to hang out with a student… for lunch.

Well, after an afternoon of wondering when “lunch” starts, she arrived at 4:45 pm (good thing I decided to have lunch anyway!). In HER words, not mine, “typical Honduran.” 🙂 She just left and now I want to choose to read instead of write tonight. This has been a truly restful Sabbath (which was what the message was about this morning in church!)… but strangely enough, if I had followed any of my own plans it wouldn’t have turned out the same.
I am reading “Reasons for God” by Timothy Keller. I have always really respected this man and I am excited to read this book as a skeptic might. He wrote it for all those people who have valid questions that need answers. But, and I think this is interesting, he proposes that those who do not believe in God essentially have alternate beliefs about spiritual reality. He goes on to say that in order for these skeptics to have integrity, they must test their beliefs in the same way.
(See this video as an introduction).
Anyway, so I said I wasn’t going to write tonight. I’m off to some reading!
.let love fly like crazy.
Posted on by Caroline 0

where once guilt crept

Today has been strange. Last night I had a mission trip meeting that started after school and ended… this morning when the last student left at 6:00 am. What? Yes, that’s right. Just how it goes, I guess. Today, I thought I would get a ride home after school and I ended up in the back of a pick-up truck riding around the city with students making up raps on the fly, taking funny pictures, eating pizza at their house, and having an ice cube sucking contest. Just how it goes, I guess. 🙂
Today was the second day of Lent and I’m still processing everything. There is so much welling up in me to write and at the same time tomorrow looms so large.
I wanted to at least share a few things with you tonight, as I reflect on this Lenten journey (or at least try my best effort at reflection). I have been emotional lately. We are such a failed people. The waterworks are threatening now even as I try to punch this out before I crawl into bed and read more BRP before bed. I’ve been listening quite a bit to Brooks Ritter and he has a song called, “Samaritan’s Love” that rips my heart open a little more every time. This is currently my favorite line,
cause the debt that was mine
yeah you paid every dime
where once guilt crept
now peace in me dwells
where once guilt crept
now peace in me dwells
These words keep running circles around whatever pressing matter vies for my brain’s attention. The thought that the peace of Christ could actually replace guilt… it’s heavy.
I started a Lenten devotional through www.Christianbook.com (you can find it here) and I read about how we usually try to ‘give up something’ for Lent to regain focus or purpose or whatever it is that we are lacking. We usually exchange what we’ve given up for an only somewhat lesser distraction (sugar for splenda, coke for tea, TV for books).
The devotional challenged me to think about what I am adding during these 40 days. Jesus went into the wilderness to be completely emptied. There was nothing earthly that was keeping Him alive after those 40 days. When He was completely emptied, we see something beautiful unfold. Satan came at His emptiest point to tempt Him – to offer the deception that earthly things would satisfy. Jesus responded that he was eating the bread of life, that He was depending on it for His very life. He intentionally walked out into the wilderness to be emptied of everything human so that He could be filled with everything holy.
Am I ready to be that willing, that intentional, and that … empty?
If I want to be holy, my answer must be yes.
.let love fly like crazy.
Posted on by Caroline 0

olympi – what?

I’m sitting here in my room looking at my newly contrived laptop/monitor set-up (my laptop screen decided to stop lighting up), eating delicious watermelon and grapes with seeds (and trying to figure out how to type/eat/spit seeds).
It’s a good night. I’ve got cookies just out of the oven for the Hands and Feet meeting on Wednesday. The kitchen floor is drying from a hands and feet scrubbing. Clothes are in the washer… (oops, hold on) ahem.. I mean dryer. And, yes, the room is still a mess.
Current battles:
  • how to exterminate little, bitty ants that are taking over our house
  • how to prepare food for a 6 o’clock meeting I planned for parents this Wednesday (refreshments or dinner? less work preferably)
  • how to market the student retreat (signup deadline on Wednesday) without looking desperate
  • how to love on my neighbors without being suspicious of ulterior motives (I’m talking about one very old man neighbor in particular who has said/done a few questionables) **more on this in a later post titled “my dad would be proud”
  • how to be as thoughtful as I wish I was
  • how to prioritize the randomness that is my day in a very logical non-random way
If you happened to have written how-to articles on any of these topics, please share! I am frazzled, but I suppose I am contentedly so. I know these next weeks will be absolutely insane, but I’m kind of okay with it. Bring it on, I say.
And that brings me to this so very strange question I asked myself recently, “Olympi-what?”
I had honestly no idea all the hype that is OLYMPICS 2010 was going on all over the television until I read this article about the “dirty little secret” that follows the Olympics and other international sporting events around the globe: sex-trafficking. It was more than alarming. I got a little sick to my stomach actually, when I thought of all the lights and the reporters and the athletes and then all THIS happening behind and under the fanfare.
Hmm.

Posted on by Caroline 0

an email from mom

First, let me say that my mom wrote a pretty awesome blog post about throwing a Valentine’s party for Victor and Dennis, her African sons. Their reaction, needless to say, is hilarious and as I wandered around today handing out heart-shaped cakes and cookies I wondered if people were thinking similar strange thoughts about this gringa.

Second, today my mom sent me an email and it’s inspired me to write this Sunday night by the numbers.
1. love the Bible Reading Plan (need to stay on the plan)
2. pretty excited that my car has an appointment on Wednesday
3. thinking these weeks are going to be absolutely LOCO (spiritual emphasis week, HS retreat, mission trip, family fun day…)
4. so confused why I can’t get around to finishing cleaning my room
5. love the Micah boys… seriously feel like I’m hanging out with Honduran versions of my brothers
6. wouldn’t mind seeing the winter wonderland of the Midwest
7. remembering the many years of hand-written poems and love-filled dinners for Valentine’s Day growing up
8. discovering new music by the psalters, a group out of philly (where my friend, Nicole, just moved and so now I’m obsessed with finding cool things/music for her there:)
9. a bit tired, but already looking forward to tomorrow’s coffee
10. with love, caroline
Thanks mom, for the bit of inspiration it took to come up with 10 things worth updating about. Love – keep letting it fly.
Posted on by Caroline 0

festivals of love and interruptions.

After a brilliant morning started with a 7:30 gentle arrival into this Saturday, I made a date with my Bible, journal, a plate of fruit and some cappuccino. I was really diggin’ the Word and gettin’ my study on. I love when I can connect the dots and know that the Word is not returning void.

Then I came back home and prepared for feeding center and festival of love number 2. The first, last night proved to be the exact ridiculous amount of fun and laughter I needed. We cooked up some hearty, healthy, heart-shaped pancakes (regular, banana, choc. chip) with tons of toppings to choose from: peanut butter, granola, syrup, yogurt, honey. YUM! Add a little orange juice/sprite mix to drink and some turkey bacon and you’ve got a festival of love: breakfast at dinner style. We played games (create your “dream man” out of objects that represent his characteristics) and gave prizes (journals, stuffed animals, and frogs that turn into princes) and told long, dramatic, fairytale stories. We laughed. a lot.
So, anyway, most of the day I could still fly on that high while I was baking vanilla cherry chip cake in the heart-shaped pans for festival of love number 2. I managed to pick up and clean a bit (common areas, my room is a disaster area right now) before heading off to the feeding center, where I was overjoyed to see Kenya sporting MY SWOOPS! (For those of you who don’t know, I refer to the bangs that hang emo-like to the side of my face and have to be swept back with a jerk of the head as my swoops). She looked up at me real sweetly with her hair swooped over and jerked her head like I’m sure I do. I just wrapped her in a hug (and tried not to think how strange I look jerking my head like that). Then, another precious little one brought her mom back to the feeding center after we were all done and her mom proceeded to explain to me how I was her daughter’s godmother! I was like, I do not deserve this praise… all I do is give her a hug every week and chat for a bit. I’m nothing like a godmother, but it made me smile all the same.
So, I made it back home and we had a wonderful dinner with good friends: baked potato bar, salad, fresh fruit, and dessert (which we were too full to consume). We told stories and laughed and got tired at the old-person hour of 9:30 pm.
So, there were two things that interrupted this otherwise perfect day.
1. I think I am lactose intolerant and need to stop denying (my stomach is hating me!)
2. Google decided this is not my blog and will no longer let me sign in
Interruption number 1, well, it’s almost too painful to talk about. I love milk. I grew up on a dairy farm and it’s more than a part of a balanced diet. It’s my history! And ice cream… I can’t even think of it!
Interruption number 2 really had me fuming for a few hours earlier today, but I set up another “author” so I can still write, but I’m still a little angry. On Friday, I was singing google’s praises with Chrome and Buzz and iGoogle and everything. Today I feel like they stole my journal. Boo.
Well, anyway. Tomorrow I will celebrate love again, with plans to make cookies to pass out and maybe bring a girly, pink cake to Micah Project to celebrate the friendships there.
let love FLY, friends
Posted on by Caroline 0

don’t skimp on love.

Sometimes I can’t believe that time is not dependent on anything. It goes and goes and goes and then a year later happens, whether I think it is slow or fast or just right. It goes.

Well, last year at this time, I was planning a sweet dinner for the 10th grade girls at my school with my roomie and co-conspirator Heather. It was maybe my all-time favorite memory of last year for a couple reasons, I was: 1. hanging out with a bunch of lovely ladies all in one place 2. laughing until my sides hurt and 3. being a small part of spreading some major love.
This year, I frankly wasn’t “feelin’ it.” Whatever “it” is, the routine craziness and life’s grand excuses had stolen the desire to make any big deal out of this love-soaked time of year. I said to myself, “Self. There are so many other battles to be fought and won: pep squad team, behavior contract plan, mission trip, etc… Come on, now. Narrow it down a bit.”
Well, self, I have something to tell you:
When Jesus narrowed things down, He didn’t skimp on love and I don’t intend to either. 
This week, I can’t seem to get over this: There is so much hurt. There is so much pain. There is so much. The ‘so much’ is making me nauseous this week. I hate seeing people hurt and I hate hearing about the people that hurt them. I hate it. I hate the “so much” that is choking out everything beautiful. And even as I see this “so much” getting bigger and growing stronger, I know and believe that right here in the present there is joy to be found.

Even still, I have been so encouraged in the past couple days (completely outside of my own doing). Every single day, I have to believe there is a beautiful treasure to be found, but it is hidden. And every day I can set out to uncover the mystery of joy that is waiting to show me that it can overwhelm the “so much” with something more pure and lovely.
I don’t know, maybe this strange search is what led me to splurge and walk to two grocery stores, decidedly tie my apron firmly around my waist, allow decorations (sent with love from mom) to spill over onto a corner of our house, plan for a dinner of heart-shaped pancakes, and resign myself to a somewhat unkept house.
You may think it’s funny that I have conversations with myself, or that I call myself “Self,” or that I am bold enough to transcribe said conversation here for you to read. That’s okay. I think it’s funny too. Personally, these conversations have a great purpose.
I just want to leave you with a little something I learned way back in the day from my parents, who gave each other the same cheesy, red, GIANT, heart-shaped sucker every year: 
don’t skimp on love this weekend.

You can skimp on a lot of things: decorations, chalky sweetheart candies, dinners out, roses, decoupage crafts… 
but whatever you do, let love fly like crazy and see how many people can be touched and to what great extent you can overwhelm the “so much” with your efforts!
Good night, friends.
Posted on by Caroline 3

hibernation

I can’t say much for the two days without posting…

only that my discouragement sent me into my little cave of questions. You know, if you set out to do anything, absolutely anything, and you have your own agenda about how it needs doing… you may (likely) be disappointed in the process. And this is me, disappointed.

So, what did my time in the cave teach me? Trust more that the Lord will complete the work, tarry on with God as means and end, serve and obey out of love for God and not for man, expect to see nothing/get nothing/show nothing for the work.

And what is waiting as I step into these lessons? Joy. Again, joy. The presence of the Lord awaits and (Ps. 16:11) there I will find fullness of joy. God promised his people through Jeremiah that “if you seek me, you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart” (29:12).

That right there is Truth I can hold onto… Truth I can cling to when I need to curl up into my cave in a mess of disappointments. I can hibernate on that and come out refreshed and revived. If I’m not shy about my heart for the Lord, He will not hold back in showing me His presence.

Now, for the doing…

Posted on by Caroline 0