The Call, Nashville

Last weekend I attended The Call, Nashville.

On our way down, we visited my girl Daniela and her sweet baby Naomi. We stayed at her place over the 4th of July and watched fire works from her house. The next day we went to The Creation Museum in Kentucky, just outside of Cincinatti.

We arrived in Nashville on Thursday July 5, and had dinner with my bro Joey and his woman Nicole. Friday we went to Nashville's LP Titan Football stadium to help with set up for The Call. Since Eva works for The Cause USA, she was very involved in this production and we got a lot of inside scoups and passes to their offices in the press box. It was fun to have somewhat of a VIP status.

We volunteered to help with protecting the turf on the field. They were planning for 100 thousand+ people.

Here's me in the Press Box the day before the big event. It was so good to be in air conditioning. It was scourching hot outside.

07-07-07

It's a Fast. Not a Festival.

Oath/ covenant in Hebrew= to "7" oneself.

Worshiping Jesus. Praying for our nation.

Praying for our president.

Praying against abortion.

Praying against wrong attitudes about leaders and about immigrants.

Praying against the influences of the Baal Spirit (sexual perversion, death, covenant breaking).

Jesus, i plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and sendd revival to America.

LIFE

I was so happy that Dani was able to join us at the Call. I pray she was blessed. The high light of the day was near the end. A man blew the shofar 6 times. One the 7th time 300 shofars joined in and the stadium went up in a shout. It was so electric. It was so intense. I was just waiting for a beam of light to come shooting up out of that place into heaven. It was the ultimate worship experience. It was ultimate freedom and joy to love on Jesus in such a powerful way with the body of Christ. I have no doubt that the Spirit was there, the Father was blessed and the Son glorified in the highest.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and All that is within me bless His HOLY HOLY HOLY name.

who am i

I almost thought my identity was stolen the other day. What a weird feeling to think that someone could be using your name and putting you in a pickle. It was a very violating feeling. Luckily it wasn't that, but what it was wasn't fun either. You know how at stores they ask "so you want to save 10% by opening an charge account today and putting your purchase on that?"... so about a year ago I did that, and the $25 charge got misplace and forgotten so that a year later I had to pay almost $200 in interest and late fees. Wow. So annoying. SO because of that my credit, which would have been good, is now not so good, and who knows if they'll approve the car loan. At least the car is finally in my name for Pete's sake. Crazy never ending drama beginning with this car I tell ya.


The coolest part of recent life is I invited my client Hope at cell group. She was really blessed and the Lord did some stuff in her heart. It was awesome. I'm sure it was a tad strange for this 40 year old mother of 6 from Tanzania hang out with group of silly 20+year old white girls. Afterwards when I took her home, she invited me and another girl into her home. We met her entire family and chatted with them. It was really fun. Meanwhile on their TV was african worship music videos... very interesting! I hope she continues to come. She's such a blessing.

Latest Greatest

I am so enjoying life right now. Praise the Lord for this season!
(So if you're feeling sorry for yourself these days, don't you dare read this as you might start to hate me, and I would hate it if you hated me).

I love the fact that I have such diverse coworkers. I love that I get to hang out with people from all over the world every day and see their individual uniqueness. I love that my coworkers love to eat at crazy ethnic restaurants all the time. Today we ate at Holy Land deli, which was this all you can eat buffet of middle eastern foods. Holy batman, was it delicious. And just yesterday as I was getting a smoothy, I noticed next door an Afgani restaraunt. That is so our next food exploration destination.
My clients bring me such joy. They are so beautiful and unique in their own ways. I am learning so much from them, and I hope they from me. It was probably vover 90 degrees yesterday and I said to Marian, "Can I ask you a question? Don't you get incredibly hot wearing the hijab in this heat???" [hijab=head covering]. She said of course she gets unbearably hot. But when she's at home she takes it off, leaving just a scarf covering her hair. I went on to ask why she needs to wear it in the first place, even though I know. It's part of building raport with them, and gaining access into their lives so that I can share Christ.
I must admit to you that I am no evangelist. It is the harest thing for me to share Jesus with especially my Muslim clients. But I purposly want to shove myself into situations where I have oportunities to do so. So far I haven't used the oportunities to their fullest, but I am still not letting myself off the hook. Jesus give me boldness and words and give them firtile hearts and open ears.
I love my clients.
I really want to take some photos with them so i can remember them. I don't know if that is acceptable though. I spose I'll never know til I ask.

My latest great challenge is the lack of air conditioning in this apartment of mine. It is almost unbearable. But I suffered similarly in China, so it's not like I don't think I'll survive.

My latest great accomplishment is that I learned today that out of every job counselor in our agency (including other departments)... I have the highest placement count! That means that out of maybe 30 job counselors I've placed more people at jobs then the rest in the past quarter. That shocks and amazes me. Don't ask me how, I just love my clients and try to do my best for their sake, and also they stinkin rock. So I'm blessed.

My latest great buy is my car! Well, I bought it a while ago, but as of yesterday it is officially mine. After 6 months of waiting for the title crap to happen, it's all good. And the loan is going so smoothly and I'm just as happy as a bunny in a carrot feild.

My latest great hopeful adventure is when Eva my, totally awesome sister, told me she might be going to school in Italy. So I am SO going to visit her. Wow, God is SO cool how He's working all that out for her. It blows me away and I'm pumped.

Better finish cooking up my peppercorn marinated steaks. Yum.

Business Trip

The last couple days I got to go on my first ever business trip. The best part was hanging out with my coworkers. We have the best department ever. Not all could attend but here are pics of most of us. After conference hours we went bowling, out to eat, and hung out in the hot tub.
The conference itself was interesting. Some of the speakers were relevant to my job, but a few were strange. They actually brought in "famous" motivational speakers who had written how to books with titles like Coping with Change and Finding the Power Inside You. They were very enthusiastic godless "preachers", preaching a gospel for those who need a lift. They sounded just like preachers, I kid you not.. but instead of glorifying God it was all about glorifying yourself. It was very interesting to note the comparisons with preaching and gospel... and how many real preachers that I've heard recently sound just like a motivational speaker with a little dash of God talk... all trying to get a reaction out of the crowd... all using feel-good methods. There is very little difference in the delivery. Very interesting. Oh how people crave the truth and they are seeking... why else would these motivational speakers be so successful. People want to hear a gospel. I thought I'd come away from the conference with more ideas of how to do my job better... I may have gotten a little bit of that. But mostly I came away more aware of the world's need for Truth, Gospel, Motivation, and a Positive Uplifting, all of which can only truly come from knowing Jesus.

The CAREER Staff

Back Row: Diane(Sandstonian), Dagim(Oromo-Ethiopian), Norberto(Peurtorican), Amy(Karen-Burmese). Front Row: Sia(Hmong), Erin(Canadian-American), and some pale creature with a freakishly long neck. Missing: Awil(Somali) and Shuaib(Somali)

Norberto and Dagim. Happy Fellas.

The coolest supervisor!

Sia's showing off her prize (free pop) for scoring a "turkey"... three strikes in a row (can you see the score board?)

Searchings

Searching for Truth isn't easy. There are so many things going on that are so widely accepted. I attended a very pentacostally/charasmatic meeting the other night and there were some really weird things that happened that i did not recieve very well. I was hurt and a little confused by the whole thing. It was such a contrast to just the night before that when I was fellowshipping with some totally awesome Jesus Lovers. There were no bells and whistles, no emotion-building gimics... just us a the Lord and it was soooo amazing. Thank you Holy Spirit. The next night was this traveling evangelist trying to spread around this annointing, and dude, it was just so out there for me. So it was so nice tonight because I really wanted to share with my friends who were also there what I thought of the whole thing. It was so so awesome how loving and understanding they were. They didn't think less of me for taking offense at the goingons. They totally understoon where I was coming from and gave me great counsel. They said they too get offended by things, but we have a choice to build a wall and judge and let that thing that rubs us the wrong way keep us away. or we can pray for the person or situation that's making us uncomfortable. our attitude should always be that of prayer. So i do pray.

God is so cool. I absolutely am in awe at how he is answering prayers i've prayed for years... to really know him. it's taken so long. so long to come to this point. and i know so well that i have so far yet to go. it's a weird place where im' at. I feel as though i've started at the beginning of this walk. I want to learn how to do the most basic things like pray and read the Bible... cuz somewhere in the religion I never REALLY learned to do that. I want to do it for real. I want to do it out of pure love for Jesus. I am at the beginning. Everything I ever learned about God or whatever, I want to relearn but in a more real way... not just a theological subject full of doctrine and man made terminology etc... i want to know him for real. for real.... what that looks like, im not sure. it might get weird... but if its Him and if its for real, then bring it on.

My Two Lives

I had a great time fishing over Memorial Day weekend. The fish were small, but they were biting. It was the most fish I've caught in my life. What fun. I was proud of myself for being out there on my own, stabbing the poor worms with the hooks, reeling in the fish with the Mickey Mouse fishing pole I had, taking the hooks out of the fishes mouths, fillet-ing fish, and of course cooking them up for dinner. Dad did most of the fillet-ing but I did my best!
Sometimes I feel like I have two very different lives that I live. When I'm up North at my folks, I am more of a tomboy, fishing, destruction, construction, painting, gardening, digging up worms, wearing tool belts, etc. And I'm totally loving being outside or using my hands and doing some real labor. I don't worry about what i wear so much and jeans and grubbies are so comfortable.
Then when I'm in the cities I'm sitting at a computer, I worry about how i look, I talk a little differently (less red neck ha ha), I shop, I am more lazy, I am more of a sissy. I miss my grubbies. But I do love my job.


Today I went to the dentist to have a cavity filled. Since it was right around lunch time I was so hungry afterwards. I know you're supposed to wait before you eat, but man I was hungry and there was free pizza at our staff meeting. So I ate some pizza. Unfortunately, I was chewing on my lip as well... the Novocaine was still at work. I didn't notice I had chewed up my lip til I tasted blood. It was gross. So now I have a fat lip. I went home early cuz not only was I embarrassed, but my lip is really ugly, and the Novocaine is wearing off so I can feel my tooth and it's sore and its giving me a headache. ugh. bad day. at least the allergies are not killing me like the were earlier. and now... since I'm on a role with feeling sorry for myself... now i have the hiccups. I'm gonna go home to mommy now.
See I told you I was a sissy when I'm down here.

Blast from the...

Check out this link. It's the page to the school I taught at in China. If you go to the bottom to the Teachers "Window"... yeah that's me. And next to me is Nigel.

http://www.gdzjez.com/index2.asp

Movie worthy

I heard the most beautiful story today, and I wanted to record it so it wasn't forgotten.

There's the cutest Vietnamese woman that works at the same agency as I do. She works at a different location, but I see her occasionally when I do business in Minneapolis or if she does business in St. Paul. Her name is Solange. It's French. She told me her mother is half french. Every time I see her she is always so happy to see me, and always tells me how beautiful she thinks I am. She's so cute. Today is the first day that I've actually gotten to have a real conversation with her. We were eating cake at one of the higher-uppers retirement party. She told me the story of how her and her husband met. It goes something like this...

Vietnam was divided between North and South. The North was occupied by the communists and the South was free. We lived in the South. The South then was taken over by the communists, and they put any man who had worked for the US government in prison. Before I knew him, my husband was one of these men. My uncle was also imprisoned. My uncle was in prison for 5 years, my husband for 7. My husband was married to another at that time, but while he was in prison his wife got married to a communist.
All those years in prison could drive a man crazy. My mother suggested that I write my Uncle letters to encourage him while he was in prison. We were only allowed to visit after the first 2 years, and then only twice a year. I wrote letters to my uncle regularly. I did not know that my uncle would share the letters with this other man.
After their release my Uncle introduced me to the man and the man told me that the letters kept him alive. He asked me to marry him, by I told him I could not marry a man I do no know or love. He said that he knows me from the letters and that he loves me. But I still refused. Later I was in the hospital and this man and my mother took care of me. When I became well, I went to coffee with him and got to know him. My uncle spoke very highly of him, telling me that this was a good man and that I should marry him. I fell in love with him and we were married. We've been married for many years now, we have 4 children and 3 grandchildren.

It's not exactly like she told it, but all the information is there. I wish you could hear her tell her story with her cute accent and ways of saying things and see the way she smiles like a shy school girl when she remembers and hear in more detail the aweful conditions of the prisons and how her letters meant so much to the man she did not yet know. She told me that they made a decision before they married to never argue, and IF they argue to never do so in front of children or others. She said they've only argued TWICE. She explained how pointless it is to get worked up and angry, and the key is to listen and talk things through. She said he is very sweet and takes good care of her.

I don't need the movie-worthy story, I only wish that I might find a sweet man who will take good care of me.

Comfort eh

Update

Hope had a dream. She said that she saw Jesus, and he comforted her. He pointed at me [Leah] and said to her, "you see that girl?"
Then she woke up. She woke up feeling at peace about the situation with her children.
When she told me this dream it was such a confirmation that i am in her life for a reason. Wow! What an amazing dream from the Lord!

I have been checking out how to Sponsor someone from overseas. It's difficult, but God's working.

This Week

So far this week has proved to be a stretcher.
Monday I went out with my small group gals and we passed out flyers for a revival meeting in one of the roughest neighborhoods in St. Paul. We got kicked out of Rainbow Foods!! Haha. Yeah, we should've known they wouldn't like people passing out flyers in their store. But it was fun, and I have't been that out of my comfort zone in a long time. What a trip. Oh, and today I gave one of the flyers to one of my Muslim client.
Tuesday ... tonight... speaking of out of my comfort zone, I auditioned for another show. I thought I did ok considering most of the others were highschool and middle school kids who couldn't keep a tune. It was such a different experience than the other audition where I sang to just the director a song that I picked out and practiced for days. Here they ran through 4 different songs with a large group, told us to come on up one at a time in front of everybody and sing one of the songs that they just "taught" us... but really we only got to hear them a couple times... wild! I ended up singing a song called "Shy".. ha ha. Well, I'm just going for a chorus part. Who knows. But Breinn said if I don't make it I can help out with the set for the other play. Kinda wishing I took that plate part now... oh well.

More Hope

What an interesting last few weeks I've had. I am now part of a really awesome cell group. The other night they shared their vision for this cell group "model." The "Old paradigm" is that cell groups are a program of the church. The "New paradigm" is that cell groups are the church. So far its awesome and Ive been blessed a ton.

The Lord has given me a ton of oportunities to pass the blessings on to others. He's presented me with some intense situations of which He's allowed me to be a part of. The two biggest I will share.

One of my clients from Liberia is facing homelessness, she has a three year old and a disability. I've been working hard to help her. It's not even really my job to do all the things i've helped her with. But no one else is helping her. God given me lots of oportunities to minister to her.

Just today my heart broke at the story my client from Tanzania told me. I've mentioned Hope before. She's a precious lady. What I tell you is real and true. And it's hard to share, cuz who could understand? Never before have I been so close and personal to the hearts and souls of those who truely suffer.

Hope cried as she told me about her niece (13) and nephew (10). Hope's sister and her sister's husband both died of HIV. The kids were living with their grandpa, but grandpa recently died. The kids are not living on their own. They have no one to take care of them, no where to go. The girl said she wanted to take poison to kill herself and give poison to her brother so they can both die. Hope wants so badly to go to Africa to take care of her children. She calls them her own now. Her husband will not permit her to go, so she wants to sponsor them to come to the US, but her husband thinks it's too hard and impossible. I immediately asked Hope if I could pray for her, and we prayed together. I prayed that God would give these kids hope. God, give these kids Hope. It's so prophetic that Hope is named such. I todl her I would do as much as I can to help her in this situation. Please pray for Hope. Please pray for these kids. I'm sure there are millions of kids in a similar situation, but this one is so close to home. I know Hope. I love Hope. I've seen the pain she feels and the desperateness.

I beleive God has put me in these situations to be used by Him. Please pray if nothing else. And if you have any idea how we might be able to unite Hope with her children, please let me know!! Right now I'm just going to look into how sponsorship works and what it might take for the kids to get here. And I'm gonna try to contact the Bakers who have the orphan ministry in Mozambiqe... i know its probably far, but maybe they may know of a way to help.

Thanks for praying.

LIAONING PROVINCE – On March 14, local police arrested 54-year-old house-church leader, Gu Changrong, in Fushun City, Liaoning Province, after she shared her faith with the secretary of the Communist Party in her village. According to China Aid Association (CAA), Yu Mingfu called the police and accused Gu of "poisoning Communist Party members with the Christian message." According to Gu's relatives, she has been sentenced to one-year of re-education through labor for "using evil cult organizations to obstruct the exercising of state laws." The family has not received a formal notice of her sentence since her arrest, according to CAA. Gu is serving her sentence at Ma San Jian Labor Camp, which is known for its harsh treatment and torture against thousands of imprisoned Falun Gong members.
Pray God comforts the families and congregations of the arrested house-church leaders and ask God to encourage the pastors. 2 Corinthians 1:5 -7

Voice of the Martyrs

Prayers for April 10, 2007

Human Rights

"On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This Declaration guarantees the rights of all people and encompasses a broad spectrum of ecomomic, social, cultural, poitical, and civil rights."

Right to Equality

Freedom from Discrimination

Right to Life, Liberty, and Personal Security

Freedom from Slavery

Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment

Rigth to Recognition as a Person before the Law

Right to Equality before the Law

Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal

Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile

Right to Fair Public Hearing

Right to be Considered innocent until proven guilty

Freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence

Right to free movement in and out of the country

Right to Asylum in other countries from persecution

Right to a nationality and the freedom to change nationality

Right to marriage and fmaily

Right to own property

Freedom of belief and religion

Freedom of opinion and information

Right of peaceful assembly and association

Right to participate in government and in free elections

Right to socail security

Right to desireable work and to join trade unions

Right to rest and leisure

Right to adequate living standard

Right to education

Right to participate in the cultural life of community

Right to a social order that articulates this document

Community duties essential to free and full development

Freedom from state or personal interference in the above rights

I think it this Declaration is very interesting considering that the UN is made up of nearly all countries in the world, yet how many of them abide by this... including ours. I think of China and Ethiopia... What's the point of accepting a declaration that you don't intend on following?

I would venture to say that at least 80% of the world has no clue that this Declaration even exists. And even if they did, would it matter? Would it affect the way they are treated? The solution to human rights cannot be a man made declaration. As long as we are human we will never cease to degrade eachother. Oh how we need a savior!

Ethiopia

I learned a lot the other night at the film and panel discussion on Ethiopia. The panel was made up of an attorney from Center for Human Rights, Obang Metho, (an Anuak from Ethiopia who serves as the Director of International Advocacy for the Anuak Justice Council, he is the executive producer of the film we watched) and two other prominent Ethiopian men.

These are some rough notes I took from:

"Betrayal of Democracy--Ethiopia"

Summary of film, Panel
discussion, and Q&A

Film: Documentary on the lack of Human
Rights in Ethiopia. Under the leadership of the Prime minister Zinawe there is
oppression, lack of justice, etc.

One example of an
atrocity that somehow missed national news:

December 13, 2003
The Anuak people massacred by uniformed Ethiopian military. All educated
Anuak men and boys tortured and killed. They believe its because they live
on oil wells. The atrocity was never investigated. At the time Prime minister
Zinawe claimed that the military was trying to intervene in a civil war. Now he
claims that this even is fiction. The Anuak people are becoming extinct. Many
refugees fled into Sudan. Minnesota has the largest number of Anuak in
the world outside Ethiopia.

2005
Ethiopia held open election.
96% of voting population came to vote. The corrupt regime of Zinawe claimed to
have won and maintained his dictatorship. He then declared all demonstrations,
gatherings, any kind of assembly illegal. Still there were many riots and many
people were killed and imprisoned.

All leaders in opposition to
the government imprisoned. All educated Oromo, journalists, leaders concerned
about the situation all imprisoned. According to one of the panelist the number
of those killed in Ethiopia could fill the metronome 8 times (not sure what time
span this covers or if he meant in all of Africa??)

Many doctors
flee the country due to oppression. When Zinawe was asked about it he said, "we
don't need doctors." This is absurd since thousands are dying of aides, and
other diseases.

Current government is destroying Ethiopia's
economy, creating a state of terror, dividing people groups, creating confusion,
all under the name of democracy. Oromos, Somalis, and other groups discriminated
against. The Ethiopian government has a democratic constitution, but it is not
followed in practice. Zinawe has managed to charm the US and British governments
with his constitution and empty words.

The situation of the Anuak
and Oromos is very similar. Academic freedom denied, civil rights oppressed, no
prisoners receive a trial.

Ethiopian government supports US "War on
Terror" as it distracts the world from the terrors going on in Ethiopia every
day.

Africa is in these kinds of situations due to Mismanagement
and Corrupt leadership. (The panel said they could count the number of GOOD
African leaders on one hand)

The ruling ethnic group is actually a
minority, making up only 7% of Ethiopian population. Oromos make up the largest
ethnic group in Ethiopia (about 40%), still they are treated like a minority and
denied political representation. The government maintains rule by keeping the
population uneducated, denying them of independent press, people are denied
fertilizers, land is suppressed, lots of surveillance, people are kept from
assembling.

We must continue to educate and share the truth. The
truth will set you free. The ethnic groups must unite.

1. Standing
for human rights is a basic human duty. There is nothing unpatriotic about
raising your voice for another country or people group. It is a universal
situation.
2. Don't judge the degree of human violation by the amount of
people killed. Every life matters.
3. We can't eliminate violations of human
rights by standing for only one ethnic group. All must unite and fight together
equally.

Question was asked: Isn't Zinawe a puppet of the US?
The US supports Zinawe. The US can't call the December 13, 2003 even
"genocide" because then they'll have a responsibility to do something about it.
Even a 60 some page report was written on the event and the US did not release
it saying "It's not in US interest to release this document"....they will not
release the report for 25 years.

About the possibility of the US
wanting a share in the oil found on Anuak land "Finding oil on your land is like
finding a tumor in your brain"

Many other questions were asked
about US involvement and support (financially and politically). But the Anuak
man on the panel said, "the US does support the Ethiopian government but we
cannot blame America for our problems; we have do some rethinking..." raise up
GOOD African leaders " If we don't have leaders with a fear of God we will go no
where"

The last comment was made by an Anuak woman in the audience.
People make such a fuss when animals near extinction. But nobody cares that the
Anuak people are becoming extinct. We need to educate people about what's
going on. Raise awareness. We need to value human life and human rights. We
need to take action and communicate with our government representatives.


Come to the seminar/ panel discussion on raising a "new
breed of African leaders" on April 6.

I love to learn about the countries of the people that I'm working with. I've learned so much already. This is just a snippit. I will be going April 6 to the other panel discussion. I'm excited to learn more. It's so much easier to listen and take notes now then in college. I guess I was overwhelmed with classes there, and now I can go to things I want to hear and I'm not required to be there and I'm not paying thousands of dollars for it. Takes the pressure off.

Last week I also attended a seminar on West Africa and learned so much there also. It was quite a busy week. Not only were we going to seminars, but it was also the end of our quarter and we had to reach our goals, AND we were being audited. It was so crazy busy. But the energy and adrenalin of being busy and in a rush made the time go by fast. This week has already been really slow and I'm having a hard time finding things to do! I'd almost rather be crazy busy.

Go Jesus! Go Twins!

Last night I had the privilege of joining Hope Community Church in going to the Twins Home Opener at the Metrodome! It was actually really fun. As you can see the dome was packed out. I've only been to one other Twins game in my life.


I'm can't help but notice things that others may not... these observations, may go unnoticed by most people because they are things we see every day. Going to an even of this magnitude, it's hard for me to not think of it in light of eternity. There's no secret that Sports is a god in this country. Things have not changed much since Bible Times. The gods just look diferent. People gather together to worship their idols. I kid you not, that when the MVPs went up to bat people were literally bowing down and worshiping, giving their praises. I kid you not. If we would only gather together with this amount of energy and excitement and bow down and give our praises to Jesus... how amazingly different this world would be! I imagine in heaven there could be a thousand stadiums like this filled with people cheering in unison at God's awesomeness, even doing a worship wave. Ha ha ha.
I'm homesick for heaven.

Meet...

Meet the new member of my family! I don't have a name for him yet, but maybe you could give me some ideas. He's a pretty one, eh!? He's quite photogenic, in my opinion. I bought some freeze dried blood worms for him today... that's the icky floaties you see in the pics.

It's Him in Me.

Certain events this past week caused me to think about things I've never had to think about before. A friend of mine told me she would have an abortion if she found out she was pregnant. My reaction to this was fierce. I told her in so many words how she can't murder her baby. Almost instinctively, I knew that I would do anything to keep her from doing that. It turned out that she was not pregnant. But that situation made me think a lot. I said to my sibling in an email:

If I could save the baby by adopting it, then that's what I'd do. And I thought
about how having a baby would completely change my life. But I also thought how
in the future i would love to adopt....

i never really thought through those things before. I never faced this kind of situation before, but I am glad that the Lord has put it in me to despise abortion. I was kind of
surprised at my fierce reaction when she mentioned it. I don't normally get
worked up easily. And I wouldn't consider myself a very passionate person. But I
found myself to be passionate about not letting that baby be killed.

Always learning stuff about myself. I wish I had the same kind of
passion about sharing Jesus with others so they can also be saved from their
souls being killed.

There are so many things I do wrong. I just praise God that he put any good in me at all. And I praise God that this Good is Jesus in me.


Work has been crazy the past couple weeks for two reasons. I'll try to explain best I can. First of all the end of our quarter is coming up at the end of the month and we need to meet our placement goals in order to keep our funding. We're working so hard to meet those goals, but people just aren't hiring our clients it seems. It's so hard! So every placement is a great achievement and a cause to celebrate. It's a great feeling when you learn that your client has been hired. Another reaon things are so crazy is cuz next Tuesday we're being audited, so we have to prep all our files, and make sure everything is in order so that we get a good report. It's nuts trying to manage time when you've got hours of file management to do and at the same time try to meet with clients and find a job for them. Yikes. What a ride! So after the end of March hopefully things will calm down a bit.

Hope you are all taking time to close your eyes and think how awesome our God is and Praise him for ... air. yeah. Praise the lord for air and orchids today. Ha!

Orchids

There's nothing like an orchid. All of these are so different, yet they come from the same family. Each is beautiful in it's own way.

Orchids

Orchids

Today I went with my sister-in-law Sally to the Minnesota Arboretum where they had an orchid showing. I love orchids. I love orchids. I love orchids. I want to grow them. Any one have any tips for me?