Latte Art

I have a new goal--to learn how to do latte art. While Brandon and I were in Wyoming, we went to a great health food store/coffee shop that served amazing lattes. I had a heart in mine, Brandon had a smiley-face. Another cafe we visited provided even cooler lattes--this time with the intricate leaf patterns. I am so jealous! I want to learn how to do this!

I will have to practice at work....and try not to waste too much milk and espresso in the process. It is just so cool!

(pic taken from flickr.com)

Time waits for no man...

This week has been crazy, coming back to work after being gone for a few days. It's always crazy, but this time, it was different. Tuesday morning, I came in and got the message that one of my team members was unable to work that day because his dad had been taken to the emergency room via ambulance that morning. A few hours later, he called in to tell me that his dad didn't make it. 20 lbs. of rocks in my stomach instantly. Tonight was the funeral. One of his friends came in to Caribou today and told me that the whole family is in shock.

Can you imagine? What would you do if someone you loved didn't wake up? I can only try to imagine the depth of loss I would feel. It would be horrifying to replay the last conversation I might have had with that person. And, at that point, you can do nothing to change it.

Death can be so jarring. Time really does not wait for us to have the perfect last words or the ability to say things that we have wanted to say for a long time and haven't. Maybe death's jarring is to remind the living of their mortality, of the fact that time will not wait for them.

Another Recommendation

So, it's been forever since my last post, and I am realizing that this post is going to be very similar to the last...but, it is what it is.
I just finished reading Anne Lamott's book 'Traveling Mercies'. I started it last night and finished page 272 this morning. Really, it was that good. Sometimes, reading someone else's thoughts makes you feel more alive, more normal, more able to face the world and all of its music. This is definitely one of those books. Her honesty and ability to create word pictures had me laughing and crying and smiling and thinking. I loved this book, and will probably try to read it again months from now, to remind me of the simple truths about life and God that are contained within the pages. Anne's thoughts on grief and grace are especially profound.

Read it. It's that good.

Back to the Books

So, I've decided to get back into the world of reading. After detoxing from all of the crazy reading required to obtain a Bachelor's degree, it was time to head back to a hobby I love.
This book is kicking my butt...in a good way. I am only about halfway through, but already I have been convicted and challenged in ways that are uncomfortable but awesome.
So, read this book. Thanks to Tory Dolan for recommending this to me. It is rocking my world.

Just Across the Border

To Love is To Serve

Brandon and I just got back from Mexico last night. What an amazing trip! I am still processing all that I saw and did and learned last week. There is so much, and my heart is at a very healthy state of unrest as I seek what God wants me to do with all of this.

'To Love is To Serve' is the mantra for Mission Discovery, the organization who sent us out. They have a great camp in Texas, right across the border from Mexico. Each day (Tuesday-Friday), we were all bussed into Reynosa, Mexico, and area of great poverty. Shantytowns are everywhere. It is crazy that less than 30 miles away are all of the usual American amentities....Home Depot, Olive Garden, Target, etc.

The images of the children and adults of the community we served in are burned in my mind. Each of our 4 teams of middle schoolers and adult leaders built a house....a house that is 12 ft. by 16 ft. To us, it looked like a shed, to the families receiving it, it looked like a luxury home. Most houses in the colonia community were made of scrap metal or wood with tin roofs. We experienced a variety of bathroom facilities, most being crude outhouses.

My group's family was an older couple--Patricia and Alfonso. They are beautiful, gracious people. Alfonso would leave each day, just after we arrived, to go into town to try and sell natural fruit juice snow cones. He had a bike with a cart attached, displaying large jars of homemade juices. Patricia was amazing. Most days, she would sit and watch us build her new home.
It was an amazing, humbling blessing when we arrived at our work site on Thursday morning and the aroma of authentic Mexican food came wafting down the gravel road. She cooked tortillas with beans and meat for us that day. The next day she cooked for us again. We're not talking Taco Bell here, folks....this was the real thing, and man, was it good. This family who has next to nothing was so generous and gracious to us.

God's beauty was so evident to me in that place. In a place that looked so dirty and sad and empty, I found so much joy, love, grace, and beauty that became increasingly clear each day we were there. There is something so beautiful about those who are poor. They display such genuine joy and emotion, and their priorities are not based on what they have (or don't have). I am learning so much from them. We were filthy and sweaty after spending days in 100+ degrees, stained with dirt, paint, and tar. But, we were loved and experiencing the joy of loving and serving....and I felt better than I do most days that I get out of the shower in the suburbs.

The children were wonderful. We each got to spend one day at the VBS at the colonia church. I jump roped and hula hooped, I made crowns and listened to Bible stories in Spanish with these children. They were so precious.

And, today, I went back to work in the world of retail. It is a struggle to re-enter, and I am still dealing with the contradiction that I feel in being in an environment where wealth and over-spending abound. What does this all mean? How do I live responsibly and wisely in light of what I have seen and learned?

Pics and more thoughts to come....

Waking Up

I love middle school students. Yesterday, I got the chance to go and visit Brandon and the Elmbrook Middle School group who were at Wheaton College for a conference. I got to make a collage with them, be taught with them, serve at a rehab warehouse with them, and just spend time with them. As I walked around yesterday, I really felt alive and awake in a way that I haven't for a long while. Part of it was the nostalgia and comfort that comes in being at Wheaton, and in seeing people I love. But, a very large part was these middle schoolers.

They have an innocent way at approaching life and sprituality. They'll do crazy skits to act out parables in the Bible, even if they look really silly doing it. They'll try new methods of worship....because they can. They'll play soccer walking around like crabs. Their hearts are still moved by the stories of people they don't know. They are awake and alive in incredible ways as they walk the fine line between childhood and adulthood.

I'm excited for the Mexico trip that is coming up in just a few weeks...excited to continue waking up with these kids.

Visiting Elmo

This is Elmo....aka Christian Becker. Brandon and I have had fun getting to take random trips to visit friends and family over the last month or so. We visited Christian (who is cute even without his Elmo costume), his new little sister Anna, and his parents Dave and Staci in Iowa. It was a great time to relax and reconnect with them. We love having friends that we can pick up where we left off, even if it's been awhile.
We also got to surprise Brandon's mom for Mother's Day. It was a great surprise, and really fun to be able to see Cory, Vicky, and Ainzley, too.
Yay for fun random trips!

Season Finales

True confession: I have cried on the couch in our basement for several nights in a row....about the ending of a few of my favorite shows. Seriously, Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, and even Desperate Housewives. It's amazing what a lack of papers to write or classes to go to can do to someone. I seriously get so emotional about this stuff. I am officially crazy.

Interruptions

Something happened at work tonight that is really making me think. A fellow member of our team had a family emergency spring up while they were on their shift. They had to leave to take care of this emergency, as they should have, and as I would have, had I been in that situation. However, company policy does not allow for such a quick exit, such an interruption to the shift. One must find a replacement, blah, blah, blah.

Now, I understand and respect the reasons behind this policy (believe me, I do). But, it made me think about the fact that this is just one example of our society's tendency to not plan to be interrupted. Am I interruptible? Do I plan to have unplanned events occur in my life? They always do and always will. And, what is more, isn't it in these interruptions that the real 'stuff' of life is found? Rarely is true, vibrant life found in the routine, the mundane. It is, instead, in these unplanned 'inconveniences' that I find myself surprised by the depths of emotion or growth or other important life lessons.

Lord, make me interruptible.