Making the Most of 15 Vacation Days

As this year comes to a close I've started thinking about all the trips I've taken in 2011. For a girl who works full time and only gets 15 vacation days a year, I’ve managed to pack a lot in. Not as much as I’d like, but a lot nonetheless. I watch the Southwest sales every week and I’m always on the lookout for a cheap place to book a flight to. And since this blog is as much a scrapbook of my life as it is a place for me to update people on my life, I made a list of all the places I made it to in 2011.

2011

January - Tucson for Wicked (one day on a weekend)

February - (I call this month “Summit Preparation Month”)

March - Chicago for Summit (used 2 vacation days)

April - Tucson for softball games/U of A goodness (weekend)

May - Williams, AZ for the ONE retreat (weekend)

June - Flagstaff for a wedding (weekend), Camping trip @ Woods Canyon Lake (weekend)

July - Pinetop, AZ for Golden West Camp (used 5 vacation days)

August - (I call this month “Camp Recovery Month”)

September - Seattle (weekend)

October - Lake Havasu for Soma’s H20 Fall Retreat (weekend)

November - Camping trip @ Picacho, AZ (one night), Costa Rica mission trip (used 3 vacation days)
December - Flagstaff for a snow day with Journey Sedona Hike with Journey (work forces me to take 4 vacation days around Christmas)

New Places Visited in 2011: St Charles (IL), Lost Canyon in Williams, Seattle, and Costa Rica.

As you can see by all the purple text, I like to squeeze as many things into weekends as I can.

I’ve decided to start making Google maps for each year to help me remember the trips I’ve taken. This year I’ve been all over AZ, and I've flown to three different places including somewhere out of the country. Not too shabby.

View 2011 Trips in a larger map

If my work ever offered me either a raise or more vacation days, I'd take the vacation days in a heartbeat. I have a couple of friends who get 20 PTO days a year and I'm definitely jealous of them.

In 2012 I hope to have more Tucson trips and at least two camping trips. The biggest notable absence from the past year has been a trip to California. Or any road trip, for that matter. I’ll have to fix that in 2012. I have California in my blood, and I can only go so long without a visit to the Golden State. The only other question is...where else should I go in 2012? =D

I still have my sights set on Europe (2013 maybe??), and New Zealand is still on my bucket list. As for travel within the US, I can see see Denver, Chicago, San Francisco and New Jersey working out in 2012 with all of the Southwest points that I have. Chicago would be the only trip requiring vacation days, which would leave me with enough days for camp and to start saving up days for either another mission trip or my first international vacation. Or maybe I can do the unthinkable and take unpaid time from work?


Oh so many options and decisions yet to be made. But for now, I have my flight to Chicago booked and we'll see what else works out!

Costa Rica - Manfred

OK guys, I have a few more stories from Costa Rica to share for those of you who are still keeping up with all of this.
 
It was the first day and I had just walked up this huge hill to this neighborhood where we were going to have our first cell group (bible study). As we approached I saw Kathy, one of my team members, sitting on the ground with a group of 4-5 boys surrounding her and her translator. It turns out that they had seen the boys playing soccer in the street and called them over. Kathy went through the entire eCube with them and ended up praying with them. I’m not sure if any of them did it because of peer pressure or what, but all of them said that they had prayed. Right after that everyone went inside to have the cell group, and I stayed outside to do the children’s ministry. All of those boys stayed for the children’s ministry.

As a side note to this story, I have to say that children are the same everywhere. I may have been standing in a filthy street in the middle of a poor Costa Rican neighborhood, but the children were still the same as any kid in North America. Actually, I think I’d prefer the Costa Rican kids. When I gave them a piece of candy their eyes lit up and they ALWAYS said thank you. How many kids here in America take a piece of candy for granted? 

Anywho, I did the wordless book with them (gold, black, red, white, green) and we played a game to help everyone memorize John 3:16. I think we did a craft and played an active game as well. Typical children’s ministry stuff, just in the middle of a street instead of inside a church building. That same group of boys that were there the first night came back every night that week for our children’s ministry. And I’m not going to lie, sometimes certain ones would drive me nuts. Anyone who has worked in children’s ministry will know what I’m talking about. There was this one boy, Manfred, who had an awful lot of energy and sometimes I found it hard not getting annoyed with him as he was always causing distractions. However, he was always grinning this huge grin and he seemed to be having the time of his life being there.

Manfred is on the left in purple

 
I found out a few days later from one of my other team members that his parents had said that when he came home that first night that they could tell that something was different about him, that he had changed. They could visibly see it in him. It was because of the change they saw in in him that his parents were also saved that week and volunteered to let us use their house for the children’s ministry (we ended up needing the house to host the cell group, but the street worked out just fine so it didn’t matter). Manfred’s father, Carlos Roberto, is someone who I see carrying on the cell group in that neighborhood, and I was so excited to see how that family changed in the one week that we were there.

Even though I personally wasn't there when any of their family members received Christ that week, they are one of my favorite stories of the whole week because they’re such a tangible example of how having God inside of you actually changes you. And it’s looking at a picture of Manfred that makes me remember that every cent that was spent on this trip, every lost minute of sleep, every tired moment I had, was worth it. It was totally worth it.

Quick Updates

Some quick updates on my life:

First, I ended up taking Rue (the dog) back to the humane society. She was a great dog, but I couldn't be a good enough owner to deserve a dog like her. Her listing on the website was gone on Saturday when I checked, so I assume that she's already been adopted. Hopefully she ended up at a good home. That's my sad update.

Secondly, I've been fighting off a cold for the last week or so, but life is just starting to settle back down a bit. I'm greatly looking forward to my week off next week and looking forward to sleeping in. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time with all of the friends that I've been neglecting the last couple of months, as well as catch up on my lengthy to-do list, which includes updating this blog.

Third, I posted pictures from my trip to Costa Rica on Facebook. If you don't have a Facebook account you can still view them with these links:
Costa Rica Pics - Part 1
Costa Rica Pics - Part 2

I have some more stories from Costa Rica that I might post here. I've been talking to a lot of people about the trip so it's hard for me to remember who I've told what. This blog is turning out to be a scrapbook of sorts for me, so I'd like to put some more stories up on here so that down the road I have them to look back on.

Lastly, if you've never listened to this song, you should do so now. It's my favorite Christmas song.

A Funeral

This afternoon I'm going to a funeral. It's been a long time since I've been to one and I've never been to one for someone this young. Even though Josh Morrison and I weren't incredibly close, he and I have had connections for most of our lives. We both grew up in Awana, and we grew up going to camp together. In fact, his last year at camp was also his first win as a team captain, and it was also the first year that he and I were on the same team. We always joked that once I became a Varsity counselor we'd make sure we were always on the same team.

GWC 2009 Green Team Counselors

The last two years Josh wasn't able to make it to camp, so we never got to do that. But he would pop up at Awana events like the state competition and cheer on the Palmcroft teams. Last year, after he saw me wearing a color tie at state to match my team's color, he let me borrow some of his ties to take to Summit so that I could have a color tie to match each team that we might be on.

It's one of those things where it's hard to realize that I'm never going to see him again on this side of heaven. I think I'll always be expecting him to pop up at an Awana event or some other random Palmcroft hangout. The one good thing is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'll be seeing him again someday.

Josh, myself and James Morrison

Costa Rica - Mari

I don’t know about you, but to me the idea of walking up to some stranger’s house in Costa Rica and asking them if I could talk to them for a minute was a bit of a crazy idea to me at first. And I’m not going to lie, I was a bit scared to try it. Not because I was worried about safety (safety in numbers and all that after all), but because if someone came up to my house and asked me if they could talk to me, I wouldn’t be interested. And if I weren’t a Christian, I’m not sure that I’d believe someone if they told me about Jesus dying for my sins.
The thing is though, that none of what we did would be possible without God. He prepared those situations for us, and I had to learn to trust Him for that. I also had to realize that I wasn’t in America, and that people are different in Costa Rica. The first day that I had to do evangelism on my own (without another North American) God gave me an extra boost of boldness that I hadn’t felt the day before, and it was incredible.

I want to tell you guys about the very first door that I knocked on. I was with Jerry (my team leader), a translator (Mercedes) and a national (Joanna). We didn’t have as many translators that day as we did team members so we paired up. Plus I was hesitant to go out by myself on the first day. And I have to tell you that as this lady came out of her house (and eventually invited us in), I was skeptical that anything we said to her would change anything. 
Jerry did an awesome job sharing his testimony and going through the eCube and next thing I know he’s praying with Mari to accept Christ. And being honest again, I was doubtful as we left that house. I almost wondered if maybe she just said all the right things because she was being nice. While I wanted to believe that her emotional response was real, I’m a skeptic, and I was still doubtful. Well, I should learn to trust God more and realize how simple the gospel really is, because her faith was real.
I ended up seeing Mari multiple times that week because she came to our cell meetings and we made a couple more visits to her house. She brought her grandson Byron to our very first cell meeting and he accepted Christ while he was there. We also got to go through the eCube with her other grandchildren during one of the visits to her house later in the week. You could visibly see the change in Mari. She stayed up til 2 AM that first night reading her bible. As it turns out, she was reading the same passage that Jerry had spoken on at church that morning (a service that Mari hadn’t been at).

This was taken inside of Mari's house. Mari is in the light blue in between Jerry and myself. Byron is on the far left (behind the mohawk).

She was the first door we’d knocked on, and she turned out to be a huge part of my week in Costa Rica. Her grandson Byron wasn’t at our last cell meeting, so I wasn’t able to get a picture with him, but he would greet me by name whenever he saw me. On the first day he asked one of the translators what my name was and he was the first kid to remember me by name when he saw me.
Mari’s husband didn’t want to talk to us, and Mari is praying for him. He actually left out the back door that first time that we came by. If you could lift him up in your prayers, that would be wonderful. His family is going to start changing and growing before his very eyes, and I’m hoping that he’ll see God in them.

Kids Are the Same Everywhere

Whether on Costa Rica or North America, kids are the same. And I love them. =)

Costa Rica - Some Pictures From Other Team Members

Some houses

A house in a nicer part of the neighborhood

This is what the inside of my team's church looks like

On the bus

This was our view from right outside our hotel room

I think we have every t-shirt in this picture lol

Zip lining!

 

The Ruud family gained two daughters for a week

I'll hopefully have my pictures up soon! Here are the links to some albums that people have uploaded of our trip:

Ashli's Camera

Ashli's iPod

Ruud Family

Tiffany

Ken & Yvonne

Costa Rica - A Typical Day

While in Costa Rica no two days ever looked exactly alike, but we did have a main focus that we worked towards each day that we were there. While this was an evangelistic trip (which any missions trip should be, in my opinion), our focus was also on discipleship and building relationships. We didn’t want to lead people to Christ only to leave them completely alone at the end of the week.

My team's church

There were six North Americans on my team that served one neighborhood in Aserri (a city in Costa Rica). Erika was 13, so we oftentimes sent her out with one of the adults. Each team member would get paired with one translator and at least one national. A national was usually someone from the home church that we were working with, and the translators were volunteers that had come from a city two hours away. A lot of the translators that we used on this trip were sleeping on cots in a church or inside on small bedroom in someone’s house. They gave up a week of their time and a lot of comfort in order to take part in this ministry.

Erika and some of our translators

Each day we’d head out in our little sub-teams and go door to door asking people if we could talk to them. And let me tell you, Costa Rican people are nothing like Americans. Most of them would come out and listen to you, and most of them were very open when you asked them questions. I usually started out by asking them if I could talk to them (then pausing for the translator to translate), then telling them who I was, where I was from, and why I came (with pauses for the translator). Then I usually liked to ask them if they knew where they would go if they died tonight. It usually started the ball rolling pretty well, and then I could ask if I could share more with them. We were all equipped with eCubes, which work incredibly well when you’re dealing with two different languages since visuals are wonderful. 
We would eat lunch and dinner with our whole team (North Americans, translators and nationals) in this one lady's house. She had volunteered to host us (during the day) and cook our food for us for the entire week.

The orange house is the one we got dropped off and picked up from everyday, and where we had lunch and dinner.

Earlier in the week it was usually the North American doing most of the talking, but as the week progressed we tried to get the national or the translator to share instead, and we just watched. The goal being that the nationals would be prepared to do this on their own when we left. There were quite a few nationals who told us that they’d never seen evangelism done this way, and that they’d never known that they could witness to people so easily in their neighborhood. The level of excitement that I saw in some of them was one of the most amazing parts of the whole trip for me.

Off we go

As the week moved forward we also would go back to houses that we’d already been to in order to talk to people who had been saved. If they weren’t coming to the daily cell groups (Bible studies) we were having we’d invite them again, or just try to talk with them for a bit.
As for the cell groups, we had those every night. Eventually we had two of them, one up on top of the hill (the one that I was mainly at) and one down in the neighborhood below the hill. I worked with the children’s ministry every night and I grew quite attached to those kids. I do have some stories to share about some of them, but I’m going to save those for another post.

We worked with the children in the street outside of the house where the cell group was being held

Watching people come to the cell groups and how excited they were about them was such a blessing to all of us. And watching the nationals connect with the new believers and come along side them gave our North American team a lot of comfort in knowing that things are going to carry on long after our one week there.

Me with the children from up on the hill

Costa Rica - Back to the Daily Grind

I have so many things about Costa Rica that I want to update everyone one that I don't even know where to start. I probably never will know how to fully express everything that I experienced while in Costa Rica, or the ways that God worked there. I also won't have a laptop for at least another week, so my ability to write blog posts may be a bit limited for a short while.

I want to thank everyone who prayed for me while I was gone, and who were so supportive of me going on this trip. All in all, the trip went really well with relatively few hiccups. Lives were changed, relationships were formed, team members were stretched, and spiritual battles were won in Costa Rica.

It was a wonderful week serving with the whole team and I look forward to seeing some of these people again in the future! And I look forward to staying up to date with how things are going with my Costa Rican church. I'm already getting updates from one of our nationals down there.

(most of) The North American team

More updates to come!

Costa Rica - Some Quick Pictures

I don't have the energy to write a blog post tonight, but here are some pictures from Costa Rica that my roommate Ashli has taken.

A shot of some houses in one of the neighborhoods

Me at our hotel (the view is incredible!)

A view of some roofs that Ashli took while we were driving down the mountain

This is the house where my team is eating our meals and where we get dropped off and picked up everyday. They have been wonderful hosts.

Costa Rica - Trip Update

I wasn't expecting to have internet access here in Costa Rica, but it turns out that our hotel has (limited) wifi that my room is close enough to that we can pick up a signal. My roommate Ashli brought along her laptop, so here I am with an update.

So much has happened since I got here that there's no way that I'd be able to write about all of it here. Maybe after I get back from the trip I can do some posts with more detailed stories, but for now I'll just give a quick update.

There are 22 people who are part of this trip, and we're split into 4 teams. Mine is the largest with 6 people. Jerry is our team leader, and then we have Kathy, Missy, Erica, Tiffany and myself. I'll post pictures of my team when I get home and can load my pictures from my camera. We were assigned to a church and attended it on Sunday morning. We also helped with the service, and I ran the children's ministry (there were only 7 kids that day). I've realized that all the year's I've spent in children's ministry, whether as an observer or leader, have prepared me for this trip. At first I was a little bit thrown off when the very first thing I had to do on my first day, before I even fully understood what we were doing, was to run a Sunday school. But God had prepared me for that day, and one thing I've realized is that children are the same everywhere. It doesn't matter if they're North American or Costa Rican, they all act the same way.

The second half of Sunday and all of today we spent evangelizing. How this works is each of us gets paired up with a translator (and our translators have all been amazing!) and a national. Our translators are obviously there to translate, and the national is someone from the church who wants to learn how to evangelize. Now, I have quite a few stories I can tell you about people coming to Christ, however what is really standing out right now to me is what is happening with the nationals. Since we get to each lunch and dinner with our team, including the nationals and the translators, we've gotten to talk to them quite a bit. Today one of the nationals told us that he never knew that evangelizing was so easy. He never knew you could just go up to someone and talk to them about Jesus in the way that we have been. And today us North Americans were stepping back a little and letting the nationals share their testimonies when we talked to people. It's been amazing to see how the nationals from my team's church are getting so on fire to spread the Word.

We also do cell groups in the evenings, so that we can disciple the new believers. It's the most encouraging thing ever when someone that you prayed with to receive Christ comes to the cell meeting! I've been doing children's ministry during the cell groups as well, but I should get to take part of one of the cell groups at some point this week, so I'll save talking about that for later.

For now, I'm going to go to bed because my legs are exhausted (San Francisco has nothing on the Costa Rican hills that my team gets to walk on!). I will end by saying that my team and everyone on this trip has been wonderful, and I'm really glad that God worked it out for me to be here!

Please keep praying for us!

Rewards Credit Cards & A Rant

Let's Build Some Credit History

I signed up for my first credit card when I was 18 years old because I wanted to start building up my credit history. The plan was to use a credit card instead of my debit card for purchases, and then pay off the balance in full each month. 

1% Back

My first card worked out well enough for me until I realized that there were some wonderful rewards credit cards out there. One that has been popular for a long time is the Chase Freedom card, which I signed up for at the recommendation of some co-workers. This became my main method of payment for everything that I could pay for using a credit card. In return I racked up 1% of everything I spent. Woot! Even better was the fact that you could redeem $150 in rewards dollars for a $200 statement credit, all you had to do was wait until you'd accumulated that much. I wasn’t interested in gift cards or offers for useless items I didn’t really need. I became a huge fan of rewards credit cards by using this card. Plus, I liked the security that using a credit card offered me over using my debit card.

2% Back

Can anyone see where this story is going? A couple of years ago Schwab had a wonderful offer. A 2% cash back Visa (not AMEX or MasterCard!) that linked directly to a Schwab brokerage account. Each month your rewards are automatically deposited in your account, which can in turn be transferred directly into your checking account. I was sold! I stopped using my Chase Freedom and started using this card for everything I could.

Side Note: I realize that this method would be dangerous for certain people with certain spending habits, but I've never used a credit card to spend more money than I have. I only use a credit card to make purchases that I would otherwise be making.

My Schwab credit card is one that was highly rated by most personal finance websites, and was one that was only available for a limited time. For a long time there were many, many people who lamented over the fact that they'd missed out on getting the Schwab Visa. And I sat back and smiled while gladly using my card for everything I could. Today, two years later, this all came to a screeching halt. In the last month or so I’ve gotten some notices that my credit card was being sold to B of A and to expect the transition. At first this didn't bother me, since I've always used B of A for my banking. A letter reassured me that my rewards were not going away. A 2% rewards card that would show up on my B of A account, simplifying the number of online accounts I had? Awesome!

The Rant

And then today happened. Without getting a new card in the mail, last week my online Schwab credit card account ceased to exist. I figured it might take a day or two for my new account to show up at B of A, so I patiently waited. Finally, today (four days before I leave the country) I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to pay my bill and called them up. After 30 minutes of waiting on hold and talking to a representative, I was able to pay my bill over the phone, told that my current card would not longer work (turns out they were wrong, it worked this evening), that my new card was in the mail and would arrive within a week, and that the rewards program had changed. Say what?!? I initially freaked out because I thought all of my auto-pay bills that are setup to use my old card were going to end up bouncing while I would be unable to fix issues as they came up due to being out of the country. And the lack of warning was not cool. Luckily, the card still appears to be working, so I’ve been placated just a bit.

However, I've yet to figure out if using the new B of A credit card, with it's roughly 1% rewards, will be what I keep doing or not. I'm researching other options, we'll see if I can come up with something better.

FatWallet forum about this card in case anyone is really interested

Now What?

Completely unrelated to all of the above, I did recently sign up for another credit card due to the free flights that I would get from doing so. I might blog about that another time. For now, I have the new card as a backup (it gets 1% back) and my Chase Freedom is still an open account, if I can't find anything better. But I haven't been a huge fan of rewards credits cards and free money for all these years in order to sit back and take the average. I'll be trying to find another situation where I can get at least 2% consistently (I don't like "bonus categories").

Bottom line, having to deal with a very badly handled transition like the Schwab --> B of A one was poor planning on their parts, and I'm disappointed that two of my solid accounts would cause me the hassle. Boo. But the real bottom line, and the reason I’m blogging about this, is because if you're in a place where you're using credit cards responsibly, you should be using a rewards credit card! I've made more than $1,000 so far by using them (there were sign-up bonuses as well), not including the large rewards from the Southwest card I just signed up for. And with the exception of my 30 minute phone call today, by using the cards correctly I’ve earned that money by doing nothing other than what I would normally be doing with a debit card. It’s basically extra income without any added work.

This post gives you guys a glimpse of the personal finance loving side of me. After this my blog will probably be consumed with lots of Costa Rica posts for awhile, but hopefully this post is of interest to someone.

Winter

I woke up this morning to a temp on the 40s (outside, the house was in the 60s and my tile felt like ice cubes to my poor bare feet) and a wet world outside. I feel like winter has officially arrived on Phoenix. My grip on my Starbucks cup this morning was not only because it contained my life sustaining caffeine, but also because it was a source of warmth.

It's hard to make out much in this picture, but the mountains by my work were covered in clouds as I drove to work this morning. It definitely added to the winter feel of the day.

Hello winter!

Costa Rica - My "Go Kit"

One of my teammates recently got her "Go Kit" that everyone gets once they've gotten signed up for an E3 trip. I remember excitedly waiting to get mine and how I excited I was the day I came home to the package on my porch. I never shared much about that on here because I was so busy trying to get everything together.

The kit contains eCubes (EvangeCubes) that we'll be taking down to give to the nationals we'll be partnering with in Costa Rica. One of them is for us to use on the trip as we go out witnessing, and we'll get to keep that cube at the end of the trip. The kit also has two packets of the eCards to bring down for the nationals to use, and I'm assuming to give to those who accept Christ while we're there.

There are I Am Second materials (shirt, bag, stickers, bracelets) that we get to keep and utilize for witnessing here in the States. Also included were a guidebook with all sorts of information about going on a trip, a guide for support raising, as well as a prayer journal.

I remember that getting my kit made me feel like this trip was really happening for the first time. And getting to take down the eCube and eCard resources for the nationals down there is something I'm excited to get to do. 18 more days!

Costa Rica - Fully Funded!

Over the weekend and on Monday I received a few more support donations for my trip. I finally got around to sitting down last night and doing the math to see where everything came out. I'm still waiting on one donation from someone who told me it's on the way, but even without that I'm only $20 shy of being 100% funded! I never expected to come anywhere near 100% and I was expecting to pay for part of the trip myself. I'm now going to be able to use my own money to pay some extra expenses (bringing supplies for our ministry down there, checked bag fees) and possibly buying sports equipment for our sports outreach.

The fact that God has provided pretty much the exact amount that I need for this trip is a beautiful example of how God provides for our needs. I've been extremely blessed by my church through this process, and completely humbled by how many people I have in my life who support me on so many levels.

I'm now able to shift my main focus from paperwork and support raising to my final packing list and spiritual preparation. More than anything, I'm trying to spend a lot more time in prayer for this trip. You can raise enough money to go, you can bring everything you need, but I don't think there is anything more important in situations like these than bringing them to God in prayer.

Before I leave for Costa Rica I plan on making a specific prayer list for this trip. I'll probably post it here on my blog, so you can check back if you're interested in that. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for how incredibly supportive you've been! And I want to ask for continued prayers as the rest of my team prepares to go, and especially for a couple of team members who are still support raising and waiting on passports.

Side note: If you check my support raising site it actually says I'm $25 over funded, but that's only because I put down some money initially to get my account started. I count my amount raised by adding up all of my donations, and that's how I got the full amount minus $20.

What I'm Loving - October 2011

I'm loving how the preparations for Costa Rica are coming together. God is good!

I'm loving my new phone (the Droid Bionic). There are things in life worth splurging on, and for me a smart phone is worth it.

I'm loving the decorating inspiration that I'm getting from Pinterest. It's about time for another transformation in my house and the master bath is looking like the prime target.

I'm loving that the weather is finally starting to get to the point where I can make homemade stews and soups. Time to pull out the trusty crock pot.

I'm loving The Hunger Games trilogy. It's unlike any other series I've read before and is the kind of story that stays in your head, in a good way. Hopefully the movie coming out in March will do the books justice.

Costa Rica - One Month From Today

On Sunday I had my final team meeting before my trip to Costa Rica next month. I’ve taken part of all of the meetings via Skype, since they were hosted in Pennsylvania. I have to admit that initially I was a little disappointed to find that a large majority of the team members are coming from one location, but only because it made me feel like one of the odd ones out. I initially pictured a trip with lots of individuals coming from all over the US. Being one of the few people to connect via Skype while most of the team was sitting in one room was hard for me. I was also having a hard time getting excited about the trip in general with how busy my life gets sometimes. All the things I have to get done in preparation for the trip just became points of stress rather than things that excited me as I moved forward.

I realize that a lot of this could be the result of Satan trying to discourage me as I take a huge step in serving God. I’m well aware of how good a job Satan does at stuff like that. Sunday was a bit of a turning point for that however. As I listened as my team leaders talked about details of the trip I started to get really excited about it again. I started making lists of things I needed to pack and anyone who knows me knows how much I love lists…and packing….and anything that combines the two. What really helped the most was finding out that there’s another girl who just recently signed up for the trip, and she’s coming from a different city as well. She’s my age and was on the Skype call yesterday and we got to talk a bit. We’re now Facebook friends and following each other’s blogs (Hi Ashli!), and she’s already proven to be a great source of encouragement for me. Having someone else in the same boat as me, with the same concerns about the trip, is going to be such a blessing to me as we prepare over the next month. God is really blessing me with the amazing leaders on this trip as well as the recent addition of Ashli to the team. I’m starting to get really excited about being used by Him in Costa Rica.

All this being said, I still have a lot to do to prepare, both paperwork wise and with preparing myself spiritually. I appreciate any and all prayers, especially for spiritual preparation over the next month. God has already been answering my prayers leading up to this trip, and I’m looking forward to seeing how He answers more of my prayers as things move forward. Just my going on this trip is already an answer to prayer, so I know that good things are ahead!

Funding Update: The total on my support site isn’t accurate at the moment because I can’t manually enter check donations. I think it should update once the organization processes my checks. With the help of a large gift from my home church yesterday, I’m currently 62% funded! Woot! Since I started raising funds pretty late in the game 62% is a pretty great amount to be at right now.

Francis Chan at North Phoenix Baptist

Here's the link to the video of Francis Chan's message at North Phoenix last night:

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=ggr88049

Like always, Francis Chan's message was powerful and everything he said was very well put. I particularly liked how well he does at doing Q&A, and I wish he'd been able to answer more questions.

My Pile of Books

There are probably a few more non-fiction books floating around my house, but for the most part these are the books that I have in my pile of books to read. The top two are the only ones that I've started. Also notable, there are two fiction books in this pile. Normally fiction books don't make it into my pile simply because I read them too quickly. But those two arrived today and they're the last two books in a trilogy. I stayed up really late a couple of nights this past weekend reading the first book. It's been a long time since I've read like that and I realized that I miss it. Those two fiction books will probably get devoured before any of the others.


A Love That Multiplies: An Up-Close View of How They Make it Work by Michelle & Jim Bob Duggar
I love the Duggars!

Uncompromising by Hannah Farver
I'm hoping this might end up being a good book to pass onto my high school girls.


Note To Self by Joe Thorn
This might end up being a good devotional type thing.

Erasing Hell by Francis Chan
I read everything that Francis Chan writes (and he's going to be in Phoenix this weekend! Woot!).

Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working by Mike Groeschel
I've heard good things about this book and I'm hoping I'm going to like it more than Radical.

You Lost Me by David Kinnaman 
This is a follow-up to another book that was about what "outsiders" think of the church. It looks at why so many young adults leave the church after being a part of it. Should be interesting.

Catching Fire and Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins
These are the fiction books I was talking about. Take a look at The Hunger Games for more info.


Quitter by Jon Acuff
This is the guy who writes Stuff Christians Like (the blog) and he's always enjoyable to read. Plus I like reading books on careers.

Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman
This was an impulse purchase. We'll see what comes of it.


What Is The Mission of the Church? by Kevin DeYoung
Despite some theological differences that I have with Kevin DeYoung, I usually enjoy most of what he writes so I decided to get his latest book.


Anyone read any of these? Any thoughts?

A Door Opening

By the time I post this the news will probably already be old, but for those of you who haven't heard, I'm going on a missions trip to Costa Rica the week of Thanksgiving THIS YEAR. Yes, in 2011! Earlier this year I really started to feel the desire to go on a missions trip but knew the possibility of anything working out anytime soon was pretty slim simply due to not having any extra vacation days at my disposal with Awana eating up half of my paid time off. I started praying that, Lord willing, I'd be able to save up enough PTO to go on a week long trip sometime in 2012 (yay for rolling PTO!). Between only being able to go for a week and not being able to go during the summer (because of not wanting to book a missions trip too close to when camp is), I wasn't sure how it would ever work out, but I figured I'd pray about it.

Well, as it turns out I found a missions trip that would only require me to take three vacation days. Yes, three. It's Saturday to Saturday over Thanksgiving and I have Thanksgiving day and Black Friday off as paid holidays, so I'll only have to take three PTO days. I waffled back and forth about whether I should go or not and finally contacted them about going. The only snag in the plan came when they said the entire team is flying out on Friday night. I have a Journey (high school Awana) event that night and I'd already decided that I didn't want to book a missions trip that would conflict with any of my previous commitments. Long story short, I'm taking a direct flight from Phoenix to San Jose, Costa Rica on Saturday and I'll hopefully only be missing a couple of hours of the actual planned agenda of the trip.

I've never been on a "real" missions trip before, and my only time out of the country was to go on a Caribbean cruise a couple of years back, so this will be a totally new experience for me. I'm hoping it'll stretch me spiritually and force me to get better at evangelism, because evangelism has never been my strong suite.

If you want to check on my progress with raising the funds for this trip, you can do so here:
http://www.e3partners.org/mandymalmgren

And please pray for me as I go through this support raising period. It's the one aspect of the trip that I've really been dreading despite the fact that I know God will provide (or already has provided possibly).

MLB Stadium Update

As a lot of you already know, I have the goal of visiting every Major League Baseball team's stadium. I'm currently at seven stadiums. I've also been hoping that I'll be able to add at least one new stadium to my list every year, although I realize this may become unrealistic. I'm holding out on some of the California stadiums so that I have some easy ones left for once life gets crazy. =D

I was a little worried that 2011 might leave me without a new stadium, but luckily I was able to make it to a new one this year. And a "hard" one at that, given how it's kind of off on it's own on the US map, but I was able to visit Safeco Park while I was in Seattle a couple of weekends ago.

View MLB Stadiums in a larger map

And the best part was that I got to enjoy the game with an old college friend. Thanks Elise for a great afternoon!

What I'm Loving - August 2011

• I’m loving that the D-backs are in first place for the NL West. Here’s to hoping that they can hold out.

• I’m loving that Awana has started back up and that I get to see my girls on a regular basis again!

• I’m loving that it’s almost time for Soma’s fall retreat! I’m looking forward to good fellowship and time out on the boats.

•  I’m loving this:

• I’m loving that the HOV lane is open on the eastbound 101. Eliminating the construction shaves a whole 5 minutes off my commute every morning and has completely eliminated the stop and go traffic that I used to have to sit in. It may not sound like much, but an extra 25 minutes each week does add up! Now if they can only finish the westbound 101....

• I’m loving that it looks like things might be coming together for me to go on a missions trip sooner than I had expected. More details to follow later. 

Is it God's will for your life to do XYX?

Statements like the following tend to irk me:
"If it’s God's will for me to go to Biola, he'll make it happen."
"If God wants me to marry Bryan, he'll work out the details."

Does God want you to go to Biola or NAU? Does God want you marry Bryan? Would God object to you going to Biola or marrying Bryan? I’d wager a bet that He wouldn’t. Maybe Bryan would be a great Godly guy for you to marry! Maybe you should pray for God to give you wisdom about how to proceed with your relationship and that you make wise choices throughout. Maybe you should pray that God could open a door for you to go to Biola and maybe He will. But are you going to be out of line with God's will if you go to NAU instead?

Early on in my life one thing I never could understand about the idea of God having a detailed will for us is what happens when we go the wrong way? What happens if His will is for us to go to Biola and we go to Arizona Christian instead? Is His will like a GPS unit that just automatically re-calibrates and comes up with a new route based on which turn we actually made? Does an entire lifetime of little details -- the guy you would've met at freshman orientation at Biola who would later become your husband, your five kids, your nursing career, your house on Maple St -- just disappear and suddenly a new plan is God's new will for your life? Or are you forever ruined because you made one wrong turn early on in your life? Seems a little problematic considering that we're all sinners.

I've come to realize that God's will for our lives is pretty darn simple. God's will for your life is that you become more like Christ. In his book Just Do Something Kevin DeYoung expands on this just a bit by saying that the will of God is:
That we live holy, set apart lives. (1 Thes 4:3)
That we always rejoice, pray and give thanks. (1 Thes 5:16-18)
That we are to know god's will so that we can bear fruit and know Him better. (Col 1:9)
That we be filled with the Holy Spirit. (Eph 5:17)

I think it's pretty plain and simple. That's not to say that we can't talk to God about any and every situation. God can, and does, open doors (or windows occasionally, maybe even a side gate). But I don't think that God is waiting for us to check-in with every decision we make. Go to Chipotle for dinner or Pei Wei? Hmm, what do you think God? Should I witness to that guy over there or no? Oh, you already answered that question in the Bible? Uhm...could you give me some sort of sign, just so that I can be sure? And what about dinner?

In my first few years of being a camp counselor I used to hate the God's will question. Mainly because I hadn't figured out the answer to the question myself, let alone well enough to explain it to someone else. It's somewhat sad that it took me so long to realize how simple it really is.

Side rant: My other issue with the first two statements in this post is the laziness involved in them. I hate it when people are being passive because they are "waiting on God to reveal His will". God has already revealed His will!

Questions that I think are worth asking:
Does this decision line up with what I know Biblically?
Does this decision bring me closer to God or distract me from Him?

But please, let's stop asking if it's God's will for you to go to Disneyland or not this summer.

One thing that I do take a lot of comfort in is the fact that God does grant us wisdom (see James 1:5)! One of my favorite things to pray for has always been to ask Him for wisdom for how to deal with a certain situation. Maybe if we spent more time asking for wisdom instead of praying for Him to reveal His will we'd end up a little bit closer to where we need to be.