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).