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!

Describe yourself using one band and song titles from that band
Created by naw5689 and taken 32356 times on bzoink!
Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band:	Kenny Chesney
Are you male or female:	The Woman With You
Describe yourself:	She's Got It All
How do some people feel about you:	Being Drunk's Alot Like Lovin' You :-)
How do you feel about yourself:	Life Is Good
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend:	Young
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend:	Anything But Mine
Describe where you want to be:	Somewhere In The Sun
Describe what you want to be:	The Good Stuff
Describe how you live:	Be As You Are
Describe how you love:	How Forever Feels
Share a few words of wisdom	Live Those Songs
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Santa Biblia

So I've added yet another crazy purchase to my life. I bought a Bible in Spanish, and I am enjoying it so much! It was another one of those impulsive buys, and I was afraid I would regret it, but that hasn't been the case. I love turning to familiar verses and then reading them in Spanish. When it's in a foreign language, I pay more attention to things like verb tenses and the purpose of each individual word. It's also fun to tackle an unfamiliar passage with my trusty dictionary in hand, struggling to understand each new word. It's opening up a different enjoyment of the Bible for me. Because I have to struggle to read it, I pay more attention to the little things.

"So what's the point, Jillian?" You may be asking. Well, here it is: Now I really want to learn Greek. If it's so cool to read the Bible in simply a different language, how much cooler would it be to read it in the original language?

Live Like You Were Dying

It's amazing how quickly death can come. Yesterday as I was checking my Master's email account, I found out that Bethany Rerher died last weekend in an automotive accident. Any of you who remember Majesty might remember Bethany, but I remember her for more than that. During my first visit to Master's, she sang during chapel and then borrowed a vacuum cleaner from my roommates later that day. I talked to her for a little while about her and my future plans, and she promised to look me up when I came to Master's. Then she came to little old B'ham with Majesty last summer and we renewed our acquaintance. (She is briefly on the DVD, if you can't quite remember who she is.) Finally, the last time I visited, we ran into her at dinner one night and then at chapel the next morning, with her now-boyfriend, Bjorn (also from Majesty).

She had beautiful plans and dreams for her future, and her greatest desire was to glorify God. In her biography on the Majesty website, it says, "Bethany's prayer is that each experience this year would refine her to be more like Christ."

But now, suddenly, she is dead, along with her sister who was planning on coming to Master's this fall, and both her parents. In our finite view of things, it seems to make no sense. But as the pastor at a memorial service held in Spain said:

The deaths of Bethany and her family cause us to remember that we should be prepared to go into the presence of the Lord at any moment. Bethany has presented herself before the Lord having dedicated her last months of her life to glorify the name of God with the gifts God had given her, using them in His service. The Lord decided to call Bethany into His presence knowing that His daughter had plans for her future that included a life dedicated to serving Him in India, Bangladesh or wherever He would lead, renouncing many things to serve Him. If He called us could we say the same? Or would we be found living for ourselves and making our own plans? I do not doubt that one day, when we see things from God’s perspective, we will better understand his design.
In the meantime, we must know that Bethany’s death was not a fortuitous event, but it was by the will of God, according to His inscrutable ways and for His glory and the glory of His Son Jesus Christ. Bethany, Bill, Pam and Amy are now with the Lord, with joy unspeakable that we can barely imagine. They are contemplating Him who does all things for the good of those who love Him, and all this has been possible because of another death, the death of God Himself – God made flesh who came to pay with His own life our sin. He came to give salvation free and to give a sense of life and death to all those who repent of their sin and put their faith in Christ Jesus, who paid the punishment we deserved.

God has purposes in everything, and His ways are beyond finding out. Even in this tragedy, His good plans are being worked out in those still remaining. Pray for their brother and son, Matt, along with his wife Kara, and for Bjorn. I can't even comprehend losing someone so close to me, but I know that even in trials such as this, His grace IS sufficient. I pray that those who loved this family will know that every moment.

It's sobering to think how quickly that it happened. It could happen at any moment, anywhere, to anyone. If I was taken so quickly, what would the response be? Would people have the same faith that it had been a life well lived although short? What about if others were to die? Would I have assurance of their saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? It's good for me to ponder these questions, to stop and evaluate what's really important. Are you living like you're dying?

Another Adventure! (Accidentally Illegal...Oops!)

Yesterday Marcie and I went to Bellvue to see her cousin play baseball, and we managed to get lost multiple times. I drove the entire way, which we should have known from the beginning wasn't a very good idea. I can be a little blonde sometimes, as illustrated by our adventure on the Bellvue Community College campus. We were trying to find a phonebook, and BCC was one place Marcie was pretty sure she knew how to get to. I'm going to give you her description of the events:

Instead of driving AROUND Bellvue Community College, we drove THROUGH it. Yes, we drove through the campus of BCC. It was great. We were starting to drive around it. And then Jill took a right when we were almost all of the way around it (I thought she was going to turn around in the parking lot). Instead, she goes straight...and I knew she was heading onto the campus.
Our conversation kind of went like this:
Me: "Honey, where are you going?"
Jill: "I'm following the road, see?" (pointing straight ahead between two buildings)
Me: "Honey, we're on the campus."
Jill: "No we're not, this is a road. There's clearance signs on the buildings!" (pointing out said signs)
Me: "No, we're driving through the campus. Trust me, I walked through here yesterday. Right where you're driving."
Jill: "Why are there clearance signs if we can't drive here? We're fine." [Seriously, there were signs everywhere saying Clearance: 10'5", etc. What's the point of having them in place where people who are 7' at the very tallest will be walking?]
Both of us: dying from laughter!
Me: "I'm sure you're driving on the campus...see the fountain?!" (pointing to my right)
Both of us: "OH MY GOSH!" (hysterical laughter) [By this time I believed her...mainly because my car was having difficulty maneuvering between the ugly statues and sets of stairs.]
Jill: "Okay, we're on the campus...we'll just follow the road"
Me: "I don't know if this road goes anywhere"
Jill: "It should..." (coming to what looks like a dead end) "Uh-oh." (seeing that it's not a dead end and in fact leads back to the main road) "Oh, we're fine!" [However, at this point I had to go REALLY slowly because I was going between 2 buildings that were just far enough apart for my car to barely squeeze through. I was now SURE I was not on a road. :-)]
Afterwards, we pulled over in some parking spots (key word: SOME, seeing as how we took up like, four) and just started LAUGHING.

I had been laughing so hard that my stomach ached like crazy, and I got out of my illegally parked car and was leaning against it in the complete hysterics. All of a sudden, a cop rounds the corner behind us. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't talk AND I was terrified that were going to get in trouble for our little escapade. So as the cop pulled near us, we just waved and smiled. (I thought about trying the eyelash fluttering, but those of you who know me well know how poorly that usually works out.) He started just driving past, but Marcie stopped him to ask for directions, and, after calming down enough that I could actually drive, we took off to get lost once again. :-) Marcie has the full account...but you've got the highlights here. Don't ask what possessed me to go onto that walkway--I really don't know!

Today has been a productive day! It's nice to come back from vacation when you've been gone long enough to be truly refreshed. I was able to relax and come back and attack my to-do list with renewed vigor. :-)

One of the major things I did today was got my finances for Master's all organized. I sent a LARGE check to California today, and now it's official: I am a student of The Master's College. With that check safely in the mail, there's really no turning back now. I could still back out at the last minute, but I would lose a large amount of money. :-) I went back and read my journal entries from those times where the issue of tuition money seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle. Oh, was I in the depths of despair! It seemed that God was closing the door, and no windows were opening anywhere else. I was just...stuck. But God was really calling on me to trust Him more, and trust myself less. I get so caught up in an "I-can-do-it" mentality that God sometimes has to bring me to my knees in a hurry. But there's no better place for me to be than on my knees, looking to Him for the things I need. He has provided in ways that I never forsaw, and I am in amazement at His faithfulness! My bill has been paid in full, and I am well provided for all the things I will need before and during my move to California.

With those thoughts to ruminate on, I will make my first ever attempt at posting a picture. We'll see how well it goes! :-)

Cannon Beach

Hello from beautiful Cannon Beach on the Fourth of July! I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday. Mine is going great! We have the afternoons free to do whatever we want, so I'm planning on taking a blanket and book to the beach and staying there til dinner. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

Chris commented on Lydia's blog that our family goes to Cannon Beach, like, every year, and he's right. There's a Christian conference center here that our extended family has been going to every summer for years and years, and we've joined them for the past 3 years. They feed you breakfast and dinner, and everyone has morning and evening teaching sessions. The afternoons are free to explore town or go to the beach or sight see...or whatever! The center is a block from the beach, so we go there all the time. Audrey and I have watched the sunset every night, and last night we had a bonfire with some of the other teens here. Even though it's illegal, people were setting off fireworks up and down the beach last night, so I've already had my fireworks show. I get another tonight anyway, though. :-)

One of the things that's been great about this vacation is the time I get to spend with my siblings. Since Caleb, Audrey, and I are the only teenagers in our family (Lydia doesn't really count because she hangs with the younger cousins), we stick together a lot. This is really nice because we've been going so many different directions that we're not always completely up-to-date on each other's lives. Here though, we are able to talk for hours without the normal things that pull us so many directions. Since Caleb got his license (yes, he did), it's been even crazier because I don't have to drive him everywhere he wants to go. I think I'm going to miss those days.

Well, I'd better go. The beach calls me!

Good Times

This week has simply flown by! It was my one full week this summer during which I had no commitments, so I had all sorts of plans for how to use it. Sadly, only a few of those came to fruition, but it was a good week anyway, and my room is clean along with all of my clothes. That's a good feeling!

The most exciting thing I did this week was on Sunday/Monday. After the baptism service (which was awesome!), Rachel, Amy, Brittney and I went to Starbucks. I hadn't realized how much I missed Starbucks while I was away at camp...maybe I need to join some sort of 12 step program. Oh dear. :-) Then Amy left and we went to Rachel's to get clothes for Rachel and Brittney and then to my house to get clothes for me and burn a CD for Rachel. While we were there, we had a discussion with my mom on everything from witchcraft to dating relationships. I'm not sure how we got from one to the other...but it was fun anyway!

Then we went on some random errands and came back to my house for dinner. We invited Marcie over and watched a chick flick, and then went out to the trailer for a sleepover. As soon as we got out there, we decided that we were hungry, so Marcie and I went inside to see if we had anything worth calling junk food. We ended up with: various types of tea, 3/4 carton of Mint Chip icecream, a large bucket of peanuts, some packages of Corn Nuts, a few cookies, and a bag of Honey BBQ Fritos Twists. This is a fairly typical assortment of "junk food" in the Hazel house...Caleb B. once remarked that we have a weak junk food cupboard. :-) The best part was when we made Brittney eat most of the icecream, telling her it would just melt and make a mess if she didn't. About halfway through, she looks at us and says, "I just realized that this is my least favorite icecream." We just laughed at her and told her she had to eat the rest anyway. I think laughing is the thing we did the most that night...even though Rachel and I had been planning on crying. I guess we just went to the other end of the spectrum!

The next day, we had breakfast and Rachel left for school. Marcie, Brittney, Audrey and I decided we wanted to go to White Rock, so we had lunch (the deciding took a long time) and then went to get Jessica and the Jones' birth certificates. It took awhile because the certificates were in a weird place, but we were on our way to Canada by 3:30. We had trouble getting through because the Jones' don't have picture ID, but they must have decided we didn't have the mental power between the five of us to be terrorists or drug smugglers of any sort! We shopped around and got icecream, and mainly did the crazy stuff we've known to do. When the guy asked if we were bringing anything back from Canada, I gave him our previously prepared answer, "2 toe rings, 2 pairs of earrings, 2 stickers and a keychain." The look on his face was priceless! Yep, we're definitely big spenders!

Then we went to Subway in Lynden for dinner and then to the softball games. It was a good couple of days, and I had lots of fun, good talks, and, of course, good times. :-) Now we're off on vaction to Cannon Beach for 5 days, so I'll talk to ya'll later! Have some good times for me while I'm gone. :-)