Just Shine Already..

I want to be someone different. We here that line a lot don't we..what does it take to make someone different enough? The number of piercings on their body? The kind of music they listen to? How many times they can hop on one foot without needing to go to the bathroom? Everyone wants to be recognized and fill that void inside them that strives for the need of attention for other people. Everyone is different, but the road to complancency is actually well traveled.

I don't want to grow old one day and have to say to myself, "..wow. I really wasted my life milling around with my friends, feeding my hamster and watching the final episodes of Gilmore Girls." I want to do something. But that's the thing. Everyone wants to do something "extravegant." The little things count too; I have to remind myself of that sometimes. God does care about the small stuff. I am realizing that I don't just want to live my life my own way, but God's. I want to live my life for Him and see what He has to offer me..cause I don't want to miss out! I want everything He has for me..even if I might be scared right now to go chase after it. I want to be someone different, and thanks to Jesus Christ, I can say I am someone different. I am made a new creation in Him, and no one is able to take that away from me. :-d

Thank you Brenda.

So the other day i was looking at my list of goals I want to accomplish in my life. Among them is my goal to be pretty fluent in spanish by the time I graduate from college. As it is so easily to put some goals aside, i learned yesterday that I want this goal so much more.

Shopping with my mom at Ross, I walked up and down the aisle to see if I wanted to try anything else on. As I turned towards the way to the check out, I saw a little girl about to cry, yelling "mami mami!." As i turned towards her, I heard her cry out with tears, " donde?" I froze. Oh no, she speaks spanish, I thought. I bent down and held out my hand. She took it and I immediately led her down to where the fitting rooms were to get some assistance.

Apparently Ross has no "missing child code blue" or whatever in place, so they stared at me blankly when I told them that this little girl was looking for her mom. "What is your name?" she asked the girl. She stared at the older woman blankly as I told her that she spoke spanish. As the employee and my mom were figuring out how to talk to her, I frantically searched my brain for answers. You have to at least know how to ask her name in Spanish! Four years of Spanish and 11 days working with a Spanish church and you can't remember how to ask for a name? Shame on you! Nombre? Ella? something with "la" at the end, right? The employee beat me to it. Her name was Brenda she replied. As words slowly came back to me, I began talking a little with the girl, pointing and smiling at toys she liked and using adjetives such as " favoritie, pink, pretty." Although I was frustrated with myself, I was happy to have gained confidence and have her look at me as I was trying to speak another language.

As one of the employee's announced Brenda's mom's name on the loudspeaker which I got out of her, I continued to watch and talk with her in the toy aisle. Thankfully, a spanish speaking women came over to me as the fuss was going around about a child missing a mom. She asked Brenda again what her mom's name was and gotten the same response we all had, "Dina". Finally, Brenda's dad came along 2 seconds later, saying in spanish to the women how he had let his daughter go play with the toys while they shopped. Some parents are so stupid.

I learned a lot in that hour. Number one: I want to be fluent in spanish..I was obviously jealous of that lady (well, she was of Mexican decent I think) who was able to speak to her in Spanish. I want to be able to help people out..even little kids. I want to not freeze up when a situation like that happens. I have had whole conversations in spanish..and I could not remember how to say "what is your name?" in spanish. That embarasses me. Number two: I want to stick to my goal. I honestly want to keep on reviewing my notes, doing spanish activities online, and even watching movies in spanish with subtitles (Finding Nemo is going to be my first one!). Number three: I will never leave my kid unattended in any store. She was scared out of her mind.

As I walked down to the check out, I passed Brenda who caught my eye and said something in Spanish like, "Look, I found her!" I gave a smile and replied, "Bien!" Even though I am not fluent in Spanish yet, I'm so happy that I was able to offer my hand to her and do what I could to help her out. SEeing Brenda for the last time with her looking out her black SUV window smiling at me made me want to accomplish my goal now more than ever. I want to go back to Nicaragua and go talk with all of my friends in Nicaragua in their native language and be able to help people that do not speak English that well. Mark my words babble blog, I'm going to complete it.

Bright Lights in the City World

It snowed for the first time today! Knowing that I had to study for finals this week, I headed to the library to get some work down. As the snow accumulated onto the ground, I watched from the library window thinking how gorgeous it looked. Everyone gets so excited when the first snowfall hits..but..as I learned later that night, some people probably dread the snow.

In the afternoon my friend asked me if I wanted to go to Philly tonight. Last week we handed out coats to homeless people since her church did a coat drive..and it was awesome (even though we almost got arrested for giving out coats considering it's illegal to give anything out in Philly..but that's besides the poingt). Reluncantly, I said yes and went downstairs to sort out all of the coats. It was a long, slushy drive into the city and there were a couple points where I wondered if I actually should have gone. As we parked the car, I noticed the blue lights on the Christmas tree in Love Park. Even in the dark of the evening and the rain, that tree shined so brightly and seemed to give the night a glimpse of hope.

My three friends and I decided to head downstairs by the subway since we figured a lot of people would be down there for the night considering the weather conditions at the moment. And we were right, as soon as we opened the doors, we saw people eyeing up the trash bags. "What you got in there?" they asked. "Coats, you need one? Come on, come get one. We even have hats, scarves, gloves." Enough said. Men and women came and were grateful for the donations that we were offering to them. Caught up with telling a woman that she honestly did look nice in this one black coat, I noticed a friend that was preoccupied with another woman. All of the sudden Amber shouted at me to use my phone and as I turned I saw blood on the ladies hands. I walked towards them and she had a big gash on the side of her head, blood covering the side of her face. Quickly, I gave Amber my phone as she called 911 and I handed the lady a sweatshirt to stop the blood. A police man came after a few minutes and told everyone that a medic was coming and we should all just go away..I think he really just wanted one of the homeless guys to stop talking about how he was going to beat the person up who beat this woman up.

All of us grabbed the bags and scurried out of the room, hoping the policeman wouldn't ask about the contents of the black trashbags. We all laughed nervously and agreed that there always seemed to be an incident when we came here. As I pondered that thought, I realized that they may not be a bad thing though. Sure, last week we had 2 cop incidences, but we were able to give out a lot of coats to people and didn't get arrested or anything. This week, we just happened to be in a place at the right time..with a working cell phone on hand..to call 911 for this homeless lady who had just been beat up by a group of men. I am so grateful now that God placed us there at that moment. Who knows what would have happened to her. I feel like everytime I go and I talk to the homeless or interact with them, it just makes me so much more grateful for everything in life..I just hope God can help me shine as bright as that Christmas tree; bright lights gleaming into the dark, shouting out against the world that surrounds it.

There's a lot worse than dew and fighting birds..

This week at Eastern is HAHA week. The acronym stands for hunger and homelessness awareness week. I've been wanting to go out with the YACHT club who go into Philly twice a week, but I've had service learning on Thursday nights and usually don't feel like going on Saturday mornings considering it's one of my only days to sleep in. Thankfully, I finished my service learning and am able to go now and this week I was able to meet some people from the club.

Last night, the YACHT (youth against complacency and homelessness today) welcomed people to sleep outside of Walton's patio. You don't really have to be a "member" of YACHT, it's nice cause you can just go because they just want people to come out. So I got a couple friends together and we all brought our sleeping bags and little pillows and were ready for a "camp out." I couldn't have been more prepared..underarmor leggings, underarmour shirt, sweatshirt, scarf..(even chapstick), all the necessitys to stay warm, or so I thought. It's funny how God can reveal things to you through the most simple experiences sometimes..

We laid down our cardboard boxes, joking around about how it wasn't too bad outside considering our many layers. As the night wore on, the caffiene that was in my veins did not seem to die down at all. Needless to say, me and two others were up until 2:30. When we finally decided to get some zzz's, I noticed how cold it was getting. Through the night I would wake up, go back to sleep, wake up, and repeat the same pattern. Waking up one time around 4, it had started to drizzle outside and dew was accumulating on our sleeping bags. I remember praying and thanking God that I wasn't homeless. Because we were right next to Walton, it was so easy to get out of my sleeping bag and go to the indoor bathroom. If I were homeless, I would have to go outside..sure, once, twice, maybe five times it wouldn't be so bad..but how about for a week in a row? Having to go to the bathroom (in all sorts of ways) outside in the leaves or behind a tree? Obviously people may use public facilities, but I'm sure many homeless people do use mother nature as a normal bathroom spot.

As the night grew on, I realized how my sleeping bag wasn't keep in the warmth as much as I thought it would. I woke up here and there, tossing and turning..seeing more people leave as the morning drew near. I finally awoke to the sound of birds..who for some reason decided to attack each other around 6:40 in the morning. They seemed to scream at each other, fighting for a seat on the branch or the last nibble of breakfast. I couldn't fall back to sleep and the gray sky started to reveal the dull light of the new day. Wow, I thought, I'm going to be feeling the hardness of the ground in my back for the next couple of days. Then I reminded myself about how some homeless people don't have clothes to even stay warm with, some get harrassed during the night, and others have a hard time finding food to keep them alive.

It was a good experience sleeping outside, but I sort of felt like a camper who has friends next to him sleeping in a RV. Even though the camper is getting the experience of sleeping outside, it still can go into the RV whenever he wants, whether it is to pop a bag of popcorn or to get away from the mosquitoes. I probably won't ever gain the full experience of being homeless, and thanks to God I was born into a family who is able to provide for me. Even though I might never be able to fully relate to the homeless people is not an excuse to ignore it though. I realize that I do have a passion for missions and I am loving the city each time I go into it. Who knows where that will lead, but I know that I want to build relationships with people that have it a lot harder than I do and hopefully be able to lift their spirits in some way.

I'm so thankful for a warm bed at night, not just a warm bed but a bed with sheets, a comforter and even a memory foam pad! I feel so spoiled even just saying that but God isn't condemning us for being able to live well. He simply wants us to be able to reach out to the poor in His name and be able to spread the Gospel. Hopefully through this week, people are starting to realize like I am how blessed we really are.

Take Time to Smell the Coffee...

At breakfast this morning with my powderpuff team, the topic of Thanksgiving came up and I told them of my tradition every year of helping to prepare the turkey with my grandmother. Nothing is wrong with this conversation, right? Right..the reason is because it is November and the proper month to only talk about thanksgiving and no other holidays such as Christmas. Why do stores, radio stations and plazas always try to force the next holdiay right away? Why does my work feel the need to send out christmas party invitations at the beginning of November? I wonder when the the holidays started to feel like a blurr to everyone. It just seems that no one actually takes the time to enjoy each holiday anymore..instead..it's "oh..send me a list of what you want" or.."geez i have to put that old christmas tree up again!" I wish people could enjoy it, and perhaps they do enjoy the rush of it all, but take time in savoring every moment as if it were the last bit of icecream on a spoon. Haha..maybe that was a weak analogy. Perhaps this rant of holidays came on me beacuse my mom just sent a text that read "putting up tree with jon..should we just do lights and then wait for you next week?" I immediately called her and begged her to wait until December 1 to even think about Rudolph and christmas carols. "But this is my last weekend off from work!" she replied. She was not about to give in. Dissapointed, I hung up just as she laughed and said "well, we can sip hot cocoa andn look at our harvest flags in the living room then." This poor world. In a couple decades, people will probably start to prepare for st. patricks day right after july 4th or something.

It's time to spend time with Him

Have you ever just had a "blah" kind of day? True, you might be down from what the weather might be like outside or you might be upset that you attempted to dodge a puddle but instead landed right in the middle of it. That's what I feel like right now..blah. I was alright this morning..but maybe I took too long of a morning nap because I woke up on the "wrong side" of the bed you might say. Yupp, that was me. But I hate that..because friends can always tell when somethings "wrong" even if it's just something like a bad attitude that needs to pass. I have no excuse to be snappy at someone or frown at everybody that passes. No, I don't have an excuse.

As I was walking down the path I decided that I needed to spend time with God. I needed to change my attitude and sometimes prayer and reading the Bible can help. Not just to "get inspiration" but actually take time out of your day to spend time with your SAvior. I have a problem with doing that sometimes because I feel as if I can do it by myself, I can change my attitude..when really, I just need to surrender. I need to give everything to Him and say..here God, I give it all to you. I need to work on that in my life. As I'm typing this, my attitude is still not where I want it to be but with God's help and my willingness to surrender, my heart will be turned more to Him.

A Nice Change

Today was a nice day, plain and simple. I am home for fall free days, and as I woke up this morning I realized how nice it is to have a change in pace. I've only come home for one quick night before, so this weekend is more relaxing compared to last month. I got more than 12 hours of sleep last night, had a nice three meals, plus spent time with my family; going shopping and watching the Phillies. I have no major complaints about college so far, it is just nice to take a break and rest at home. It is nice to sleep in my double-bed and be able to stretch out without hitting a wall next to you :) It's also great to be able to drift back to sleep without hearing your roomate drop something on the floor, haha. It's like a vacation in a sense.. only you get to mooch off family members by eating food, using the gas in their cars, and take up the washer all in one. This picture of the beach reminds me of just a relaxing day..so that's why I'm putting it up!