The Master Cup

We did it! Waldock girls took back the Master's Cup! The Master Cup is a fun-filled event of various tests of strength, nerve, and willingness to make yourself look like a fool. :-) We first dressed up in dorm colors and decided who would run which legs of the relay. Waldock colors are PINK! Yes, Kimi, Waldock is pretty much the perfect place for you to live...named after your grandpa, and full of girls who love and wear pink.

There were 10 events in total, the most important of which was the $3.43 dive. In this event, a team of four people from your dorm take turns diving into the bottom of the pool to come up with change. When they have exactly $3.43, they take it to the official counters. My oh-so-important role in this contest was shirt-changer. I would pull the purple shirt that served as a baton off one diver and onto the other, almost falling in repeatedly. :-) Even though we were the last team into the pool, we were the first ones out of it. And, we were also the only ones who didn't have our change thrown back into the pool because of counting inaccuracies. From that point on, Waldock was unstoppable! We beat the second place girls team by about 5 minutes, and the first place guys team by 10 minutes. Last place was claimed by the guys dorm where all the jocks supposedly live...I'm not too certain about the futures of our sports teams if they are so athletically challenged as to lose like that. :-)

The guys team that took first place was our brother dorm, Oak Manor, so to celebrate we jumped in the pool and then went over to Oak Manor for root beer floats. Oak Manor is an off-campus apartment building that serves as guys dorms now, and it's really cool because they all have kitchens. Some of the guys were really funny...they asked us to come back every Saturday, using the kitchens as bait! :-) I'll admit, it is tempting. I'm going to miss cooking!

This, however, isn't the first contest my team has won. Another team that I was on won the Sandcastle building contest on the beach on Wed. And my team won the SBCC Olympics...I think my fortunes are changing! I can't remember the last time my team won anything.

The craziness of WOW (Week of Welcome) is finally over, and I'm terribly excited for classes to begin on Monday. It's gonna be awesome!

Better go clean my room! Love and hugs from the girl who misses you all!

P.S. The picture is of all the girls on my wing with the Cup.

Jesus I My Cross Have Taken

Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee,
Destitute, despised, forsaken; Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition, All I've sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own.

A Weird Face

Brittney and Jessica said they would miss this face I apparently make often, so I'm posting it so they will have to miss it no more. Hey, are you guys online yet? I have no-one's address, so I can't write even though I want to. Send me your address, OK? My parents have mine. I promise that anyone who gets their address to me will receive at least one letter. There! You have my word for it. :-)

Living in the Ghetto

(My room)

Wow, it's been a whirlwind week! Somehow in the past few days I've managed to move from the safety and comfort of Boyer Road in Bellingham to the unknown ghettos of the Waldock dorm at the Master's College. That's right folks, I am now living in a ghetto. Graffiti, bricks, the occasional flower in a used pop can, the whole bit.

Well, it's not exactly a ghetto, but it is decorated like one! The emphasis of my wing, and the focus of our decor, is missions, especially Africa and/or inner city. Each wing has different decor in the hallways (in Aaron's it's random sports such as Lawn Darts and Badminton), and our resident advisor (RA from henceforth and forevermore) is passionate about missions. I think she and I shall get along well! :-) We're both English majors, and love books, so that was an immediate point of agreement. On Sunday night, she, my roommate and I, another girl from our wing, and a guy who we passed on our way out, went out to coffee. That's right, we just picked up some random guy.

OK, so I guess I'm really going for shock effect in this entry or something. :-) He wasn't a random guy, but a friend of our RA, and we brought him along because it was his birthday. He doesn't even like coffee though, so I'm not sure what was up with that.

I'm loving it so far! We haven't had time to get homesick yet (I think that's the goal of all this activity), and the weather is, of course, gorgeous. My "WOW Group" and I went to the home of some TMC alumni with a pool Sunday afternoon, and it was such a perfect day for it. I think I got a little burnt though. Oh well...Audrey's expecting me to come home with a tan, so a little sun won't hurt anything.

Oh! In addition to my ghetto home and picking up random guys, I am now the proud owner of a teal Vanagon!

Well, not really, but as we were coming home from church in it, I told the guy (who's from WA, by the way) about my dad's intense dislike for Volkswagen vans. I think my dad's actual words were "I will disown you if you get one of those." I promise I won't buy it Dad, even though it IS pretty awesome. Today (Monday) we decorated it and then drove around Santa Clarita on a photo scavenger hunt. It was tons of fun! I'm beginning to feel less lost and confused and more confident. This morning, only through God's grace, I got up the courage to eat breakfast with two total strangers! You begin to realize that everyone is wishing someone would come up and talk to them, and sometimes I just have to be the one to initiate conversation. if you know me, you know how difficult that is.

I love and miss you all! I pray that God will keep you safe, and keep me resting in the truth of His eternal presence. I close with a photo of my beautiful dorm room...any guys reading this ought to feel privileged, because the sight of a member of the opposite sex's room is indeed a rare privilege! (Oh dear, I still can't figure out how to post it at the end. Oh well, you'll forgive me, right?)

P.S. Caleb B, you made me cry. Don't do that, OK? :-)

The Last Week Begins!

Wow, I can't believe that it's already my last week of teaching! It's been such a great summer, and I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have as great of a job as I do! :-)

Our first club this week is a VBS at Laurel Baptist. This is a big enough VBS that the kids rotate around and so I have to teach whatever I'm teaching about 3 times. I've done the missionary story both times, and it's a lot of fun to do it this way. I get to adapt it..make it scarier for the older ones, tone it down for the littler ones...and get better at it each time. :-)

Our next two clubs are no-hostess ones in housing developments, which I went into with a little skepticism and a lot of prayer because of my past experience with the club in Sumas that was similar. (We had no kids.) We got to our first club, and I found out that a friend from Revive, the Christian Club I was involved with at Whatcom, lives there. My team and I walked all around the development and passed out more invitations. There wasn't much positive response, so we went back to the playground. One boy showed up a couple of minutes later, invitation in hand. We began club with just him, and had a total of eight children over the hour and fifteen minutes of club. Two girls left because one said it was boring and the other had to go with her, but the others all enjoyed it. Today when we arrived, they were waiting expectantly and excitedly to meet us. One girl said she had been watching all day for us! There are some issues at the club though. A little Russian girl came after we had started, and the other kids didn't want to include her because "she was mean." We never saw any signs of it! She was as meek as you could imagine, but the other kids were somewhat mean to her! I think there's some animosity between her family and another family there, because some of the kids said that everyone in her family was mean. Pray that we can bring healing to this neighborhood and that their relationships will improve. Becky gave a miniature "sermon" on 1 Corinthians 13 during the Bible lesson, but I'm not sure how much the kids retained.

Our second club is on Texas Street...probably one of the neediest neighborhoods in Bellingham! Truthfully, I was a little scared when I heard the location, but God has protected us, and all we've gotten so far is some strange looks...no verbal or physical attacks. :-) We handed out invitations again, and one boy responded well. He came to where we had set up club, but left when he found out that his older brother was unwilling to stay with him. No more kids came, so we set our departure time for 3:45, because we all needed to use the restroom (me worst of all). At 3:42, three kids showed up! We were kind of dying by this time [:-)], but we gave them a short club anyway. The little boy cam back with a friend and his little sister. The sister didn't stay, but both boys did. Today only the first boy came back, then when Becky began the Bible lesson, he ran away to "talk to his mom." We sat there for a couple of minutes, until he came back. A little bit later, three friends joined him! Praise God for growing both our clubs today...and for growing our faith through these various trials!