Home Depot is like Narnia (of the beloved C.S. Lewis series).  I’ve set foot in perhaps 5 Home Depots in my lifetime and have ogled the rows of strange, hard-core, man stuff (this is not meant to be a sexist comment… that’s just what my untrained eyes/mind thinks of it all as) as if I’m looking at speaking animals.  Thus, it’s not surprising when every Home Depot employee at the store asks me if I’m lost or need help finding something.  (I’ve learned my face–which in many ways is my nemesis–will never help any poker games and will always give away my wonder and confusion.)  And in my pride, I will always say, “No!  Why!?  Are you racist?!”  (JK, I don’t ever say that.)

I voluntarily went on three Home Depot adventures within the last month.  Rope lights were easy enough to find.  But then where else could I buy chalkboard paint, cable ties, and a sponge roller in one convenient location where I could have all the items in my clutches immediately?  The internet?!  No, thank you!  Five orange-vested workers helped me find my way!

After Home Depot, my next adventure was locking myself in my frigid apartment (we don’t turn on the heater… c’mon, why pay money for heat when I could just wear my snowboarding jacket indoors?!) for eight hours with boba milk tea to assemble a word out of white rope lights.

Photo by Raymond Gao

“Awaken” in cursive lettering shines above a cardboard cut-out of the San Francisco skyline. And because of the blue backdrop behind the rope light sign, the Epic Conference worship team has a bit of a blue tint to them.  That blue glow is the only light in the ballroom.  The lead singer with arms raised and eyes closed cries into the microphone: “I give myself away… I give myself away so You can use me…”

Main-speaker, Pastor Brandon Ahu, comes up and asks the crowd, “Who wants God more than your insecurities?  Who doesn’t want this world to have a hold on them anymore?  Who wants God more today than you did yesterday?”

“Awaken” shines upon a hundred hands raising.  Not every hand looks confident or strong.  “Awaken” shines upon a student, who I know from CSU Long Beach, her head buried in her hands.  She brings her head up out of her hands.  “Awaken” illuminates her tear-soaked face–and mine–as she slowly raises her fingers, her hand, her arm…both arms! and shouts to the Lord, “I give myself away…”

Going to Chinatown in San Francisco to share our faith

I couldn’t condense this year’s Epic Conference into one prayer letter… unless you all want a 45 page letter.  (Yes, I know you all would read it anyway!)  So, I’ll give you a quick preview here and you can read the rest soon in your mailboxes (both virtual and out in front of your houses)!

Today is all about condensing, so let’s just say that God did an ENORMOUS work this weekend at Epic Conference.  Yes!  Oh, we can go shorter:

But God,…

-(Eph. 2:4)

People trusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior for the first time!  People shared of their life-changing experiences with Jesus for the first time!  People shared encountered God for the first, second, fifty-fourth, eight-hundredth time!!  College students–who have every opportunity to choose the world and not God–raised their hands to say that they want God MORE than approval from the world, their friends, their families… they choose God!

Wait–there’s more.  It gets more personal, it gets more intimate and specific and uniquely, devastatingly beautiful.  Please wait for more to come!  Please stay tuned as I show you what God’s calling me to share with you of how crazy He is and His plan is!

2011 was such a significant year in many ways and it ZOOMED by!  It’s a brand new year!  I love fresh starts–mostly because I SO often mess up.  Many a relationship, project, checkbook balance, resolution (not necessarily just new year’s resolutions) has fallen to pieces under my care.  And while I continue to grieve the messes I made in 2011, I’d like to think I’m turning the corner into gratitude and hope for those very things in 2012.

I’d love to pat myself on the back on how much I’ve worked, tried, loved, cried, expended emotionally, spiritually and physically for college students, family, friends, etc…. but as I reflect on 2011, I know I couldn’t say I was like the man in Matthew 13:44 who sold ALL he had to buy the field for the treasure he found.  And the point isn’t for me to send this to you just to confess and deprecate.  There will come a day when the Lord will collect my life and all that was in it, so I can experience the treasure I’ve found in Him.  And until that day comes, I can rejoice that God’s still working on me and refining me and wanting me in my brokenness and messiness.

Surely, not everything within my life is in ruin!  (I don’t mean to be so dramatic!)  One glaring thing is you, ministry partners!  Your faithful giving and prayer to the Lord gives me MUCH hope and enthusiasm for what He has in store!  Thank you for walking with me in ’11!  Here’s to our journey in ’12!!

I’ve already started listening to Christmas music… (that’s where the “Too bad!” comes from).  And for those who don’t listen to Christmas music ever or only after Thanksgiving, I’m warning you that the video below IS a Christmas tune!  It’s on David Crowder Band’s new Christmas album called “Oh For Joy”… and it’s an audience singing my personal favorite Christmas carol: “Silent Night.”  Crowder plays and sings after the audience singing: “It started so quiet… oh what a night.”  Why do I share this with you?

1. It’s a Christmas carol… and it’s super beautiful!
2. I want to…
3. Crowder found it more powerful to record others singing about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ than just him singing it, so I do too.  I hypothesize that it’s because of that sharing nature of music (bummer Napster/music industry!  music is such a communal force and will continue to be shared) AND the sharing nature of God.  For some reason I find it so beautiful to see others experience the Lord.  Not to say I don’t value my own relationship with the Lord, but it’s SUCH a gorgeous thing to see Jesus love on another and see them respond to it.

Yeah, that’s all.  Here it is!  Enjoy!  And have a terrific Thanksgiving Weekend!!!

Silent Night – David Crowder Band “Oh For Joy”

I’m so thankful for…

1. The “thorny times”–read this, I cried… but the good kind of tears
2. Physical needs being met
3. Callouses on my hands from rock climbing
4. Souplantation (YUM–uh, their blueberry muffins??  the most delicious I’ve ever eaten) and giggly talks had there with sisters
5. Hearing of what God’s doing in some students’ lives
6. My support coach who’s like the coach, cheerleader, game commentator, and parent-in-the-stands for me playing the game of MPD
7. Disneyland!
8. Skype dates with Haley and Mojo!  Oh, how my soul is filled!
9. “Girl-ing out” with my mom, cousin, aunties, and grandma over my cousin’s wedding ensemble!!
10. Getting to share with my entire church congregation why I do what I do and its affect upon myself and others

me in Estes Park, CO wishing it to be December already...

It’s November!  And, I’m just going to warn you now, as soon as Thanksgiving Day ends, I will turn into a cheesy, Christmas-music listening, huggy, red-and-green-wearing human form of Westernized Christmas cheer.  Currently, however, I’m much too apt to grumble and complain.  But I find that when I remember what I’m thankful for, thankfulness begets thanksgiving to the Lord (and less grumbling).  So, to un-Scrooge myself, I’m starting small and here are ten of the MANYMANY things I’m thankful for (in no particular order):

1. You!  There, done!  There’s at LEAST ten of you ministry partners… jk jk I’ll keep going…
2. Jesus!  (He’s kinda always on the list…)
3. Hans the Honda–my trusty 2003 Honda Civic
4. Music!!  Oh, and Pandora/Spotify…
5. Clara–roommate
6. Multi-colored pens
7. Rock climbing
8. That we can eat fish and it’s so tasty!
9. My mom’s funny texts at 1 a.m.
10. Practically useless drive-thru machines–the miscommunication makes me laugh

Truth is, more than 90% of the students we work with in Epic will go on to non-vocational-ministry jobs… but that doesn’t mean they won’t still be working for the Lord!  Melissa’s an amazing example of how to be who God’s called her to be well and how to, as she puts it, merge a heart for the Lord and for people.  I know that many of you want to do the same in your workplace, and I hope you gain some inspiration from Melissa’s story!!

My roommate can’t stand being in libraries.  It’s too quiet for her taste.  But one of the things I love about libraries is how the quiet actually amplifies sounds you’d never pay attention to.

It’s quiet enough for me to delve deep into my own thoughts/work without getting yanked into reality by babies screaming, weird music or the coffee smell on my clothes.

I can to hear an elderly lady hobbling past me and the soft rolling of her walker.  I can hear someone zipping open their backpack from across the room.  I can hear a student flipping through pages in their notebook.  I can hear a man shift in his chair as he gets into a book.  I can hear a woman in sandals pace between Spanish-English dictionaries.

It’s all insight into lives that I would never notice.  But because it’s so quiet, I can.  I forget how much I can hear, when I and my surroundings are quiet.  What am I missing when I don’t quiet myself before listening to someone?  What am I missing when I don’t “get quiet” before God?