Yes, I AM supergirl....

Wow. I don't know if I even have words to describe the last week. Well, that's not entirely true. Those of you who know me, know that I always have words =). It's Wednesday night, and in the last 6 days I have taken 4 ordination exams (which constituted 9 hours of 'in class' essay writing, and 2 full days of researching and writing on a take home exam--totaling about 40 typed pages), caught and gotten over a nasty cold, got engaged, went to a surprise engagement party, had a surprise over-night guest, made a ton of phone calls, and received more emails and facebook comments than I can count! Whew! No wonder I am currently laying on my couch with a glass of wine....that's about all I have the energy for! It was an amazing, somewhat overwhelming, and a bit of an exhausting week, which stretched me in so many different ways, and all I can say is praise God I have an amazing therapist who I got to see yesterday!

I have to admit, taking ordination exams may not have been the most fun thing I have ever done, they were insanely difficult and absolutely mentally exhausting, but such a good experience for me. I won't know until October if I've passed or not, and while I may have to retake one or two of them, I am glad to have had the experience of trying to pull together all the different aspects of Reformed theology into coherent thoughts. I read the questions I had to answer aloud to Chuck and he just stared at me, asking me to define theological terms and then finally exclaiming "this test could be open book, open notes, and open friend and I wouldn't have a clue how to answer these questions!" They were tough questions, but I think I felt pretty prepared and hopefully passed a couple of them.

And then of course there was this little thing that happened on Saturday night....=) I am constantly thrown when someone asks me how my 'fiance' is, or...well every time I see my finger! I love being engaged, even though it's been kind of a stressful week, and I am so excited to start thinking, planning, and dreaming about our future together. I told my therapist that it feels a little bit like I am a little girl playing dress up everytime I look at my finger, but then I have to remind myself that I'm actually not dreaming!

I have one more paper to write for a summer class, which I will hopefully be able to finish up in the next several days, and then Chuck's parents come on Monday for a few days. The rest of September is off from school but I realized tonight I have a huge list of things that I need to get done before school starts again on the 28th, including paperwork for my Presbytery and starting to plan a wedding! Although like Chuck pointed out, I've been planning my wedding since I was about 12, so I have an idea of what I'm going for =) Friends have been giving me wedding magazines to flip through, and our friend Steve (who is getting married in a week) gave Chuck a book on how to be the groom. My favorite section which I pointed out was "stay quiet, be encouraging, and say 'yes honey, that looks awesome' a lot!" We have been so blessed by so many wonderful comments, thoughts, and well-wishes from so many friends and family, and we are so thankful for all of you!

He asked....I said "YES!"

It's official! Saturday night Chuck managed to totally surprise me with a wonderful proposal, and of course, I said YES! Sorry to all of you who checked for photos here on Sunday, I got them up as soon as I could in between making what felt like a billion phone calls! (I have a wonderful, but large extended family!) I am SO excited to marry this man I am crazy about, I have not been able to stop smiling for...well quite awhile now! I have a gorgeous ring on my hand, and every time I look at it I am reminded of how much I love him, and how grateful I am to God for bringing such a gift into my life. We have some very fun pictures from the whole evening, (thanks to some very sneaky friends!) so here's our story....in words and photos...enjoy, and thanks for sharing this journey with us!

So some of you know I have been experiencing the joy this past week of taking my ordination exams for the Presbyterian Church. Well....joy might be the wrong word. The tests are a little overwhelming. Or a lot overwhelming. Several weeks ago, Chuck told me to block out Saturday night after ords, he wanted to take me out to a nice dinner to celebrate being almost done with these exams (I still have one more this coming week). He showed up and told me we were going to walk to Old Town Pasadena for dinner and that we had reservations somewhere, and that our good friends Dave and Tera were going to walk down with us because they had plans of their own in Old Town. That didn't make me suspicious at all, it was great spending time with the two of them, and the whole way to Old Town they told me quite an elaborate story of what they were shopping for that evening. We reached a street corner and while waiting to cross the street, Chuck says to me, "look where we are!" I said "um it's a street corner....and the light turned green....time to go!" He didn't move and Tera and Dave were now standing off to the side and had pulled cameras out of their pockets. So apparently we were not going to continue crossing the street. It was then that I realized where we were...the same street corner Chuck and I met on back in October. (Yes we really did meet on a street corner...I was with a friend of his, he was walking by himself on his way home from somewhere, our mutual friend Dave introduced us, and well....he'd asked me out by the end of the night!)

So he takes my hands and starts telling me this story about "this one time, when I was on this same street corner, something pretty cool happened....I met this beautiful girl..."

He kept going with the story, telling me all about how he got to know this girl, and realized he had so much fun with her that he didn't ever like leaving her. So they started dating more seriously. And how after a few months, he realized he had fallen in love with this girl, and he never wanted to be without her...So...
looks like it's a YES!
And thanks to Dave & Tera being there we got great pictures during and after the proposal...we also have the whole thing on video, which is very adorable :)

on our street corner, Raymond Ave & Colorado Blvdthe ring is BEAUTIFUL! The diamonds are his grandmother's, and he had it reset in white gold for me, which i LOVE!
After all the pictures, Dave & Tera left, and he took me to the Melting Pot for a wonderful dinner (it's a fabulous fondue restaurant for those who have not yet experienced this place)
After dinner I thought I was done with surprises....but no. I knew a few people were hanging out at Jenn's house celebrating being done with ordination exams, what I did NOT expect was to find the lights out when I walked in and about 30 people in the living room--who ALL knew what was going on and had kept it quiet somehow!
Another HUGE surprise was that when I walked in, one of my very best friends from high school was sitting on the couch--Jenn Kendall had flown down from Portland just for overnight to surprise me--Chuck knew I'd want to see her right away, and there she was!
We spent the rest of the night hanging out with great friends from different circles of our lives. Jenn was our wonderful hostess who had worked so hard to make the party special, she did an amazing job!
Dave & Tera had gone and blown up a photo of the proposal while we were at dinner and already had it up as decorations....plus they made a slide show set to my favorite love song of all the rest of the pictures which was playing when we got there--our friends went way above and beyond to celebrate us! Everyone signed a card when they came in on this table...

Jenn filling me in on how they managed to pull this off without my knowingmy other jenn! i have several in my life, this one has been around the longest! It was SO fun to have her here even if it was just for one night!Chuck and Jenn....she went with him ring shopping and helped him decide on a gorgeous settingus at the very end of the night after everyone left...we were so tired but very happy!

No huge plans have been made yet other than that our wedding will be in March in Minneapolis (where my parents live). For now, we are just enjoying this new season of life, and well...i'm still writing ordination exams...but I have a very pretty distraction on my hand to stare at when writer's block shows up!

Reverend Sophie Draffin's ordination

This past weekend Sophie was ordained as a minister of the word and sacrament at her home church in Durham, NC. She's being installed this next Sunday in her new congregation in Arlington, TX as the associate pastor of youth and missions, a church and role that seems to be a perfect fit! Becca, Jenn and I flew cross country on a red eye flight Friday night, landing at 10:30 Sat. morning. We had a beautiful dinner at the country club that night and then spent Sunday at church and celebrating the actual ordination service. We flew out early Mon. morning so it was a VERY fast trip cross-country and back, but it was wonderful for the 4 of us to be together again! It was so fun to see her again and get to meet so many people from her church that I had been hearing about for years now! Below are a TON of pictures...

Friday night in the LAX airport, Jenn and I both bought neck pillows for our red eye, and they both deflated before we were half way across the country!Saturday afternoon we went and wandered around the Duke campus and saw the beautiful chapel (really a cathedral) and gardens.our group decided to 'frolick' through the fieldSam Gowdy came from Houston to do music for the ordination, it was SO fun to see him again!Jenn got chick fil a, so she looks pretty happy!Jenn, Sam, Emrys (Sophie's good friend from Fuller who is now a pastor in NY), and BeccaSophie with Emrys & his wife Saranap time! it was so fun for the 4 of us to be together again!Satuday night her parents threw a dinner at the country club...Sam and I

then after dinner we went to meet Sophie's friend Rebecca and her HUGE dog Ronan--he's like 160 pounds--literally!breakfast Sunday morning before churchafter church Sam serenaded us with his country songs he has writtenSophie and Emrysshe did it!we joked that the weekend felt like her wedding, so here we are posing as bridesmaids....with bibles....except really they are hymnalswe got a big thunder storm after the ordination, Jenn played in itand becca, our token LA girl looked very wary of the raindinner Sun. night at a restaurantJenn and I both found a beer we enjoyed, which is impressive for us both!

Let the Church Rise

Ahhh the Presbyterian Church. I feel like I have had a bit of a love/semi-frustrated relationship with it this summer. As many of you know the classes I've taken this summer have been all about the Presbyterian Church, helping prepare us (well theoretically...time will tell if that was accomplished...) for our ordination exams which are this weekend. Many of you have probably also seen the PC(USA) in the news earlier this summer as our General Assembly met for their bi-annual meeting, voting on controversial issues such as changing the ordination standards to allow individuals who are practicing homosexuals be ordained to the office of pastor. (And just so you know the reporting that was done was not fabulous journalism, or completely accurate--no, the Presbyterian Church constitution has NOT been changed yet to allow this, it's a much longer and more complicated process than the one vote that was taken in June...). I've spent the summer in difficult conversations with classmates and colleagues in the PC(USA), as we question where is our denomination headed, will there even be a denomination for us to be ordained into, and is it right to be ordained into a denomination where you disagree with some of the policies? There are no easy answers to these questions, and I found myself frustrated and SO tired of these topics of conversation by mid-July. My Presby Creeds class in July was another frustrating experience, as our professor made the entire class a platform for her to spout her own particular beliefs surrounding the homosexual ordination question. Every single document in the Book of Confessions was somehow connected to this issue in her mind, and she told us regularly, and in no uncertain terms that she was distraught over the direction the denomination was headed. That's fine, but I didn't pay $1400 to sit there and listen to someone spout their own personal ideologies on ONE issue for two weeks! Several classmates and I gave up listening and taught ourselves the Book of Confessions on our own time, listening to lectures was less than helpful. Then it came time to take Presbyterian Polity--an entire class devoted to the rules, regulations, structures, and government of the Presbyterian Church. Sounds thrilling right? The Book of Order is not actually that bad to read--there is a lot of wonderful stuff in there, but it was so easy to get bogged down in the rules and legal jargon in certain sections that it made me want to say 'forget it!' I'm glad we have structures in place to deal with situations as they arise, but it was a bit painful sitting there for 40 hours listening to it be explained!

This past week though, I have had a couple of experiences that have greatly encouraged me, reminding me of the good that IS present in the Church. One actually has been studying for my ordination exams. While tedious at times, my time spent with my flashcards and the Book of Order has helped me realize that I am a person who understands God in light of the Reformed tradition, I believe with all my heart the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church, and so memorizing theological statements on the mission of the church, the sacraments, the end times, and the nature of God has almost been a devotional practice for me--giving me language to express that which I so deeply believe already.

Another encouraging moment was this past weekend, when a few of us traveled cross country to see Sophie be ordained as a pastor in the PC(USA). Her service was held at her home church in Durham, and while we were only there for less than 48 hours, the time spent celebrating her and God's faithfulness to her was such a beautiful reminder that while this ordination process seems long sometimes, it is worth it. During the service, the elder who had walked through the ordination process with her as her 'mentor' essentially got a chance to speak. Becca, Jenn and I had met Gerry that morning at church, chatting with him for quite awhile. When he was speaking during Sophie's ordination, he said to everyone that people spend a lot of time talking and speculating about the future of the PC(USA), but that he had had the chance to meet some of the future of the Presbyterian Church that morning and he was fully confident the church was going to be in good hands in the next generation. My first thought was, "wow, what a great compliment!" and my next immediate thought was "oh my word! He's talking about US! We're not qualified to lead the church into the future--who is he kidding?!" My friends, classmates and I are young, fairly inexperienced, and will probably fail a lot, but the more I've been thinking about it, the more I realize how committed we are, how much we believe in the future of the church, and how passionate we are to see the church return to a focus of preaching Christ to the broken world around us. The overwhelming responsibility of being handed a piece of the future of the church is daunting, but the knowledge that Christ is the head of the church and is the one who sustains the church is SO encouraging to me.

The final experience I had this past week to give me hope for the future of the church was actually on the last day of my polity class. Our professor showed us a DVD that a group had made last year in her class for their final presentation, a very professionally done DVD. The video was a photo montage of images of the Church in action--serving, worshiping, participating in the sacraments, reaching across barriers of gender, race, and social status, interspersed with quotations from the Book of Order stating what the Church is called to be and to do in this world. That was a reminder that I desperately needed. The church is called to action, to go forth into this world and transform it, with the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is something I am passionate about. Maybe polity isn't my favorite subject, maybe I don't care a ton about the disciplinary procedures of the church, but I DO care about seeing the Church be filled with renewal, and move beyond complacency and maintaining the status quo.

The group set the video to a song I had never heard but fell in love with, called Let the Church Rise. I thought I'd close these thoughts with the words from that song, words which have been my prayer daily this past week, asking God to bring His Church from the ashes of brokenness to our knees.

We are alive, filled with Your glorious Life

Out of the dark, into Your marvelous Light

We are waiting with expectations

Spirit, raise us up with You

Let the Church rise from the ashes

Let the Church fall to her knees

Let us be light in the darkness

Let the Church rise

Let the Church rise

Moving with power, bringing Your Name to the earth

Singing Your praises, lifting up glorious songs

We are moving with His compassion

Spirit, fill our hearts with You

Let the Church rise from the ashes

Let the Church fall to her knees

Let us be light in the darkness

Let the Church rise

Let the Church rise.

more summer fun

This past weekend, as you can read about in my previous post, four of us went to see Les Miserables in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl, a venue I had never been to but one I loved! It was SO beautiful, and there is something about enjoying the theater outside, like it used to be performed that is just very cool to me. Here are a few photos from that night:

The Hollywood Bowl is set in this huge cavern between hills and is a massive ampitheater

That's the Griffith Observatory way off on the hill there, a beautiful view from the BowlOnce the sun went downJenn and Becca on the bus on the way to the Bowlyou can bring picnics into the bowl and alcohol, so jenn had put wine in her nalgene...which some of us thought was a little gross, but oh well.....Chuck and I
On Sunday night we had a birthday BBQ for Dave whose birthday is tomorrow. For graduation he had given Jenn a copy of his family's cookbook--all their favorite recipes. Jenn had to laugh because the main ingredients in the recipes are mayonaise, cream cheese, and sour cream (he's from the south...so is Jenn, they have bonded over food favorites!). So for Dave's birthday Jenn gave him his 3 favorite ingredients: so here's Dave and Jenn with his gift of mayonaise, sour cream and cream cheese...the two of them have strange food tastes!Tera made homemade BBQ sauce
I think Tera, Megan and Jenn are loving their corn on the cobb
Tera is loving her ribs
so is Jenn!
It was a beautiful night, spent with wonderful friends getting to celebrate Dave :)