busy, busy world

It's been a busy, busy week. In a busy, busy world. I have a feeling life will be at this pace until we return from our Mexico mission trip March 29th.

a few highlights at work:

* We started a new series at the college group. "Controversies of the Christian Faith". We choose a controversial topic, present both sides unbiasedly, and then the students get to choose which side they most resonate with. Then they get in small groups and have to answer questions to defend why they believe what they believe. At the end of the night, we come together as a big group and share. Our first topic....stem-cell research!! Nothing like starting off with the easy stuff. ha ha. I really love this series! It's not about teaching them what to think...it's about teaching them how to think.

* For fun one night, we had karaoke. Here's a 4 minute video of some of the songs. None of us are good singers...we just had fun. Which song is your favorite?

* Last week Jeff and I shared our testimonies. So hard, but so good. If we want our students to be vulnerable with us, we need to model that and choose to be vulnerable with them, too.

* Our group just sponsored a child through Compassion Intl. Otavio is 5 and lives in Brazil. The students will donate pocket change (or more) each week to pay his monthly sponsorship. We're all going to write letters to Otavio this Wed. night.

* Our final meeting before Mexico is next Sunday March 2nd. I'm supposed to have all the transportation (cars, vans, trailers, insurance, etc) worked out by then. Ask me if I have. (nope)

* Yesterday I had a Day O' Fun with our student leaders. It was rainy so we drove to a h-u-g-e nearby mall and got lost in it. For fun, we decided to dress some of the guys as the "opposite" of what they really are. For example, we took Jeremy and Brian (who are skater/alterna boyz) and dressed 'em all preppy with clothes from Express For Men. It was awesome! Then we took our intern Jeff (who actually is preppy) and visited Zumiez to dress him like a skater punk. He looked SO young! It looked like he had been stripped 10 years of his age. And then the ladies and I found a Jessica McClintock store and tried on hideous prom/bridesmaid dresses. We were making fun of them and then we realized how much they were....$500!!! What!?!? We took them off in a hurry.

* This week (Mon-Wed) is our staff retreat at a nearby conference center. I am so excited! It will be nice to hang out with people away from church. It's always very relaxing. And we get to rock out the volleyball court every night! Woot!

Off to bed. Love to you all.