The Quest for the Best Coffee

I'm on a quest for the best coffee in town. 

This week I tried a place in our little downtown.

The trip involved parking in a parking garage and my co-pilot decided we should park at the top. 

Facing my fear of heights 

Our city is actually kind of cool from the right angle.

The girl that made me drive to the top of the parking garage...and ride the elevator! 

On to the coffee.

A delightful caramel latte...yum! 

One of my favorite people to get coffee with

Off into the sunset...

Instead of a Show

I heard a song a while back and I wanted the whole world to hear it.
The song is called Instead of a Show by Jon Foreman.
The lyrics are based on Isaiah 1:11-17 and Amos 5:21-24. {Posted with the song at the bottom}

  I was ready to write a post about how the church needs to get it together and get to work. It was then that I realized I had a problem. My friend the Holy Spirit showed me that I was putting on a show too. I wanted everyone to know they  were doing it all wrong because, here is the funny part, I thought I was doing everything right!!

  I was convicted of my self-righteousness and quickly shown that while my heart burns with compassion for those lost in the deepest of darkness, it's filled too often with anything but love for the brothers and sisters I'm surrounded by everyday.

  So I didn't write that post about how everyone else needs to change. I'm just sharing the song and my humbling lesson. I still don't have it figured out. There are still a couple "someones" in my life I'm struggling to love like Jesus does.

  We probably all struggle with pride. We all get stuck in our little worlds, thinking we have it figured out and we are doing it right. In reality, we all need to just get off our soapbox and get our hands dirty.

I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stomp on my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show

Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show

Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show

Friday Thoughts...just one

  It's Friday again and I've been thinking...again. In my last Friday Thoughts post, I shared about my ache to do MORE about the needs in the world around me. Today I'm still thinking along those lines. I've been fighting off the feeling of being overwhelmed this week as I see the amount of need. There are literally millions of people living in poverty. Millions more boys, girls and women are trapped as sex slaves.

  Today I read an article about the millions (200 million estimated) of baby girls dying in places like India and China, solely due to the fact that they are girls. I cried out to Jesus and asked why. I hear these things and I want to buy a plane ticket or call an adoption agency - something rash and crazy but something none the less! But I don't have the finances to buy a plane ticket right now. I am by no stretch of the imagination in any place to adopt. Even if I could do those things, there is no physical way I could help all of the millions. The need is way bigger than me or my solutions.

  So what is a girl to do?

  First, pray. Sometimes I think we minimize the value and power of prayer. But our prayers, no matter how feeble reach the One who is the very opposite of feeble. When we pray, we partner with the creator of Heaven and Earth, the One who can help all of the millions.

  Second, I can stop for the one. The ministry I spent my summer with in Mozambique, carries this as one of their core messages. In Luke 10 Jesus calls us all to love our neighbor. Our neighbors are the ones closest to us, the ones in front of us. The good Samaritan stopped for the one he encountered on the road. Jesus ended that story with a command to go and do the same. Every single person on the planet has unparalleled value to the Creator. Since I'm called to carry His heart, I am called to stop for the one He puts in front of me. This is what I can do. My heart still breaks for the masses of precious ones but I won't minimize the value of what I can do for the ones God puts in front of me. This isn't a solution for the millions but it's a start.

  Who is the one He is asking you to stop for today?

autumn leaves and lessons

I'm enjoying the lovely colors of autumn with my camera right now. I always forget how lovely this season is and through September I'm usually depressed that it's no longer summer. Then October comes and I'm delighted with the colors on the trees, the hot cider, cozy evenings and I'm reconciled to autumn.

brilliant leaves & orange nail polish

fall photo shoot with two real photographers

favorite shoes.

and again

delightful pomegranates

God has also been teaching me some new lessons in this season. One of them is faith and standing firm when things don't feel like they are going right or the way I think they should. These pictures kind of sum up the lesson for me.

All in all - I am enjoying this beautiful season of life.

Faces from Mozambique...ch.5

Here is my final post of pictures from my summer in Mozambique. These are a few more pics of the kidos I hung out with every Wednesday while their Mamas sewed.

  This is my friend Maria. She was the bossiest little lady in our group; she was constantly telling the other kids, and me, what to do. It was especially funny because I never understood a thing she was saying.

Maria loves to swing. She would sit on the swing and scream "ACUNIA!" {white person} until I came to push her. 

Here are a few more of my sweet friends.

::LOVE::

Taking pictures was our favorite!

Friday Thoughts...

Have you ever felt like you wanted to do more about the problems in our world? 

  I have been feeling like that for the past couple weeks. I think I have my summer in Africa to thank for this feeling. When you see the extent of poverty some people live with and when you live simply without a lot of "stuff", coming back to the cozy homeland is a wee bit overwhelming.  You find yourself enjoying things like Starbucks, soft beds, clean feet and dependable transportation and yet you know that some of your friends on the other side of the world are wondering where their next meal is coming from. That is a really hard thought for me and I want to do something about the hard things. I try to arrange my life in a way that  shares some of my abundance with those that have less.

  But what more can I do?

I bought the shoes...

I did the walk...

I made the trip...

 

I'm NOT trying to toot my own horn here or say that I'm doing everything perfectly or that I have this figured out. These are just the thoughts that have gone through my head as I've been re-adjusting to life in my homeland where God has planted me for this season.

This morning Jesus gave me the answer to my questions. 

  I have been studying Song of Songs in the Bible lately. {seriously good stuff} This morning I decided to listen to a teaching about it. The teacher, Mike Bickle of IHOP, was sharing that one way to look at this book is as a picture of Jesus and His Bride, the church {Us, You and ME!}. He talked about growing in our relationship with Jesus and loving Him, but our part as the Bride doesn't stop there. Out of a relationship with Jesus, we work in partnership with Him to bring His Kingdom to earth! 

So when I feel like I need to do more, when my heart aches to do more about the problems I see, I need more of Jesus because He has all the solutions! Sometimes I forget that He sees all the horrors of our world more than I do and His heart aches more than mine does. Jesus has cried more tears over injustice, hunger, pain, fear and suffering than I ever will. Yet, He also has the solutions and the strategies for change, hope, joy, peace and LOVE. 

Like I said before, don't feel condemned or judged by all this. I'm just sharing what God is doing in me. If you feel like you need to do more, ask Jesus what is breaking His heart today and what you can do about it. I promise He has answers for you.

Thanks for reading my thoughts this Friday afternoon!

Faces from Mozambique...Ch.4

  During my summer in Mozambique I had a million opportunities to spend time with kids. Every Wednesday, I went to the sewing school where women learn to make skirts and bags to sell. Many of these women had little ones that needed something to do while their mamma's worked, so a couple girls and I played with them for the afternoon.

We loved the tetter-totter!

Flowers in our hair!

These are some of my favorite flowers! I fell in love with them when I lived in Thailand and was so delighted to find them in Mozambique.

They also make good climbing trees!

Loving on babies doesn't always feel like a glamorous, world changing ministry but Jesus spent time loving little ones; they are so precious to Him. This ended up being a huge blessing for me too. I found I needed a season of just loving on kids after being so busy with other ministries at home. It was a really refreshing time for me. God knew just what we all needed when He put us there.

Faces from Mozambique...ch.3

Here is one face from Mozambique I won't forget for a while.

Every Tuesday and Friday night my dinner had a face and came with a boiled potato on the usual rice. These little guys were a welcome, salty, fried reprieve from the daily beans (&rice of course). We were also blessed with chicken once a week, cabbage, and the extra special spaghetti on Saturday nights! The popular least favorite meal was matapa...a local green plant cooked into mush and served over rice. While it's a local favorite, many of us found it quite bitter and it usually came with a healthy helping of sand and a small pebble or two as well. For some reason I failed to take a picture of my own so I found one online. Note: ours didn't look quite this nice :)

train whistles

  I'm in another season of transition.
  I am sojourning in my hometown again, staying with my parents and seeking God about what is next.

  Tonight I heard the familiar sound of the train whistle. I was reminded of other times I've heard that sound late at night. In a previous season of life, it reminded me of traveling and all I wanted was to be going somewhere on a train, or a plane. Anything!
  But tonight I hear it and I don't want to go anywhere. I just got back from a crazy travel experience and the train whistle is another comforting piece of this place.
  I sound like a crazy person, sometimes I cry about staying, then I cry about going. But I guess this is what growing up looks like. You desperately want to be independent and be out there on your own, having adventures and changing the world. Then you get a taste of the hard parts of being grown up and all you want is to be 7 again, where your biggest care of the night is finding your teddy bear before you have to go to bed.
  Thankfully, I have a perfect heavenly Father that goes with me through every season, every transition and every bit of growing up. Not only is He going with me, He is leading me and preparing the way for me. When I feel alone, lost or weary of being grown up, He is there to remind me that I'm always His little girl and He is always taking care of me.

Faces from Mozambique...ch.2

Here are more faces from my summer! These photos are of the lovely "acunia" (white people) I was blessed to share the adventure with.

 

My sweet house momma, Shannon! This lady shared wisdom and laughs with us all summer while helping us figure out how to survive in Mozambique. On a side note...don't we both have lovely blue eyes? :)

Some of house # 15's residents...there were 13 of us all together in one 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house that could fit inside my parent's living room! We were so blessed though because we all got along so well. These girls so blessed my summer!
Here are a couple more pics of our dear little house.

Some of us around the kitchen table with our constant companions, the water bottles. Besides the porch, this was our favorite hang-out! 

A rare moment when the kitchen was empty.

This is how you open a can when the can opener breaks in Africa...big knife and a coconut! 

My roomie on the back porch with the African day bed she rebuilt! She actually took all of the broken grass weave out, bought new ones and rewove it together! 

One thing I've learned in my travels is that no matter where you are in the world, no matter how clean or dirty, hot or cold, poor or rich, easy or hard the thing that matters the most is the people you are with. My time in Mozambique was extra special because I was with encouraging and loving people.

Faces from Mozambique...Ch.1

Faces are some of the most memorable parts of my summer in Mozambique. Here are a few I met on my weekend in the bush.

 We were followed by a crowd of these precious ones everywhere we went that weekend.

They were quite amused by our efforts to speak their local language. At one point during our morning of visiting homes, we were one large crowd of laughing children and adults.

 It was delightful to be ambassadors of joy with them!

We also had the pleasure of blessing a crowd of them with a meal and treats!

Beach Blessings

My family blessed me in my first week home with a vacation at the beach! I love living so close to beautiful beaches. I only wish our summer was longer so we could go more often.

                                     I had to put some of them into collages to fit them all in here.

My little beach buddy:

Sisters!

We enjoyed camping...even roasting hot dogs in the rain!

Together again...all under one umbrella! This picture is a little blurry but I LOVE the looks on their faces!