Because Earth Day should be celebrated! (And other beginning of the quarter updates)

I just realized we are already beginning week 4 of the quarter, which is slightly unfortunate since I have been out of town so much and not doing homework like I should have been these past few weeks, but they have been such wonderful weeks I can't really say I am feeling all that guilty! (And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I AM getting caught up!) There are several random things that have happened in the last couple weeks I found amusing/post-able, so here ya go...

**Last night Chuck and I walked to Coldstone to grab some ice cream after studying for 6 hours straight. The girl behind the counter asked us where we were from, and when we said we lived here, she looked surprised saying "wow, you totally don't look like you are from here, you look so much more relaxed than people who are from LA!" Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment :)

**I've been learning about and looking into the Presbymergent movement, an emerging church movement located within the PC(USA), basically saying that we recognize there is value in the structure of denominations--in having support, accountability, a doctrine that is clarified, a rich tradition and history, and financial support from a denomination, yet this group wants to be able to do church a little differently. Focusing on authentic lived out community, spiritual formation (reconnecting with the spiritual disciplines/practices of long ago that bring great richness and depth to our spiritual lives that we do not encounter in a 'normal' sunday worship service), and justice in our world. There are some wonderful blogs out there for those interested in more of this on going conversation that I have been enjoying reading. Probably one of the most well known from a fellow PC(USA) person is Princeton Seminary student Adam Walker Cleveland's blog

**Chuck & I celebrated 6 months of dating this past week by enjoying a picnic dinner and an evening at the Griffith Park Observatory. For those of you in the LA area, I would HIGHLY recommend this FREE evening of entertainment! It was a beautiful night with a full moon and amazing views of the entire valley. The only thing we'd recommend doing differently is getting up there before sunset so you can see LA in the light and watch the sun go down from there. Here was the beautiful full moon that night:

He tells me his favorite posts on my blog are ones where I tell people how great I think he is :) So I'll just say it has been an amazing 6 months and I really do have the world's greatest boyfriend who I am pretty crazy about :)

**Becca and her roommates hosted an "Earth Day" party on Saturday night, complete with reusable cups/plates, great wine (strawberries floating in white wine--a wonderful invention!), and a party game that proved highly entertaining.

Becca and her roommate, Becky

Pocket, Tera and Dave took my camera when I was not paying attention and gave me several photos to choose from when looking for ones to post!

**I love both of my classes this quarter--Reformed Worship & Perspectives on Christ and Culture. Reformed Worship is a Presby class designed to help us look at questions such as "what is worship? Who should participate? What elements of a service should be present? Where do the sacraments fit? What does scripture say about worship? How do you write a wedding or a funeral service (both of which are services of worship). My Christ & Culture class is a philosophy class looking at the various ways throughout history people have thought Christians (Christ) should interact with popular/secular culture. It's taught by Dr. Richard Mouw, Fuller's wonderful president, and has been fascinating; I have loved looking at a theology of creation and of how as Christians we can be involved in helping Christ as He transforms culture and this world that He declared to be good. I just finished reading a wonderful book called When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah 60 and the New Jerusalem, by Dr. Mouw which is a short but very profound book I would highly recommend to anyone interested in issues of secular culture and how that intersects with the Church.

And it was back to Texas for us...

This past weekend Sophie and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel back to Houston to help staff another renewal weekend with the Presbyterian churches there. We made some amazing new friends, got to see God move in powerful ways, and were once again reminded that we are loved for who we are, not for what we do (which is always an important reminder when your whole life is spent in an academic setting with people constantly grading you...) We are both SO thankful for the community there and for the ways God has used them to love, encourage, and bring us joy. Here are some photos of our recent adventures and our new friends.

One of my responsibilities was to ensure we collected enough home baked fudge and cookies from people--so here I am our first day in Houston helping collect baked goods from folks.

We have a storage facility to store all the items needed to put on a weekend, and so on the day the staff heads to camp folks have to load the storage unit onto a uhaul trailer. Sophie and I were given the job of standing at the gate with the code to let people in. We got a little bored because no one showed up for awhile. So we played with the self timer on her camera. Welcome to Palacios, Texas! A beautiful gulf coast sunrisetwo of our staff members hard at work on various projects before the participants show upPutting together a tray of cookies at about 7 AMI was also given the job of making coffee for all the staff and participants...and after a few disasterous pots I got it figured out :) My spiritual advisor and I -- she gave me lots of moral support as I fought with the multiple coffee pots I was trying to keep going!us staff members receiving our marching orders from Courtney, our wonderful moderator!one of my very favorite pastors of all time, Anne Beall, was on staff this weekend. I had the chance to meet Anne and her husband Jim while I was a participant two years ago and since then she has held a very special spot in my heart and has set an amazing example of a woman who has an unbelievable gift of preaching and communicating.our three spiritual advisors--Hawley Wolfe, Anne, and Sophie--otherwise known as Grandma, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Big Bad Wolf!
LaNoe and I--LaNoe was the head table cha and I was her co-head...luckily she knew exactly what she was doing because I didn't have a clue! But she was wonderful and patient teacher! She and her husband, Robert, also put up with Sophie and I and housed us, fed us, and drove us to both training and to camp--they have a very special spot in our hearts!
me with little red riding hoodour musicians goofing off one evening
we got to see our friend Sam! Sophie bought me a new butterfly t-shirt as a present and gave it to me Sat. morning, and then asked me to help her serve communion Sat. morning, so we looked like twins up there...which is kind of a Cursillo tradition, we usually end up in the same butterfly t-shirt at least once during each weekend!my new friend, Tim, and I--we got to serve as table chas together all weekend
Sophie and I
my wonderful team having fun
I think they are with the band....
Sophie had no idea what Steve was doing until she ended up upside down! I think they were supposed to be helping with clean up on Sunday--they look like they are working hard... Sophie got to wear her robe for the first time! She looked so official!I was so proud of her--she's a real pastor! (Ok she'll be really official on Aug. 17th when she is actually ordained!)

Presby Retreat 2008

This past weekend thirty of us Presbyterian students headed up the mountains, out of LA, to the beautiful town of Big Bear for a relaxing time of fellowship, music, games, food, out door walks, naps, and teaching on the topic of discernment by Dave Pierson, a presbyterian pastor from San Diego. Having stayed here for spring break, I was desperate to get out of the city, so it was wonderful to be away! Here are the photos from the last couple days. Sophie & I leave tomorrow morning for Houston to serve on the staff of Houston Presbyterian Cursillo #50 this coming weekend (Thurs-Sunday) and will be back in LA Monday, so stay tuned next week for stories/photos from Cursillo :o)

Attempting to wake up Saturday morning--me, Chuck, Dave and TeraChuck and IStacey, Tammy & Jessica enjoying the beautiful day!Dave and Tera found the playground equipment by the lakeSo did Pocket!Apparently Pocket was cold, so Chuck decided to turn her into a "hot pocket"Saturday afternoon Tera, Dave, Chuck, Karl and I played Ticket to Ride because it's just an amazing game :) Dave won but I had the best game I've ever had so I was pretty excited!free time = nap time for seminary students!Stacey, Laura, Pocket and DaveMy favorite part of the retreat is always the jam session that inevitably happens on Saturday afternoon. We have SO many who are so talented with music and play for hours for anyone who wants to listen or join in! Here is Laura...and the group has grown! we have now moved into old VBS songs...here are the hand motions for "deep and wide"the beautiful big bear lakeone group went into town for a bit of free timeMegan and Jenn enjoying the huge caramel applesmmmm...Alan looks happy!We had 4 Daves on the weekend--here is Dave to the 4thTera and JennTamara needed to work but wanted to be outside, so she set up her own little camp.Jenn and ChristinaDave putting away dishes. Or at least that was what he was supposed to be doing!Chuck wanted a nap. I wanted to eat a cookie. Ryan and Alethia, our expert brownie makers baked for us both nightsSarah, Jenn and AlethiaDave Pierson, our speaker, was Ryan's and Jean's youth pastor from Alaska while they were growing up. Dave now serves a congregation in San Diego and was gracious enough to give up his weekend to come share with us. He finally got to meet Ryan's wife, Alethia also!my random attempt at an artistic/creative shotthe lunch stuff went out on Sunday and it was a feeding frenzy! Saturday night we played Trivial Pursuit pop-culture edition--our team somehow became known as "Team Dave" because Dave K was the only one who knew the answers to anything for awhile...except my random contribution (wild guess that happened to be right...) that Deepak Chopra used to specialize in endocrinology before becoming a gu-ru of natural medicine. My team was going to guess brain surgery or something and I convinced them it had to be something more related to the glands and lymph nodes if he transitioned to natural healing. So I convinced them to go with endocrinology and it happened to be right :) Gotta love having two nurses for parents! However, we lost to Team Lava in a sudden death round because their final question was "what kind of fish was Nemo?" Seriously. We get to guess endocrinology and they get to answer questions about Nemo...