June 30th

Last day in June!  Yesterday I finished my twentieth book for the year!  I think I'm making pretty good progress, even if half of the books were children's books.

Amos and I have a day at church, the Fourth of July, a day of hanging with my friend Sarah, one more weekend of stuffing church bulletins, a movie night with an old professor, an annual church picnic, a department meeting, several days of work for Amos, several hours of typing and planning for me, and one one year anniversary separating us from the distant-yet-rapidly-approaching shore of India!!!  We're almost there!

Our car, on our honeymoon

Summers ago...

2003
Attended my last Awana and CEF camps.  They were the highlight of my year and provided some of my favorite memories.
Attended Awana MIT boot camp in preparation for a mission trip in 2004

2004
Went on a mission trip to Zambia and have never been the same since.  I know everyone talks about poverty in Africa, but how many of them let that experience influence their spending habits?

2005
Worked at Togo's...worst work experience of my life

2006
Returned from IBEX!  Best semester of my life. :)
Started this blog...whoa...

2007
Worked at Wolf Mountain
Saw IBEX friends Ryan and Lexi get married

2008
Graduated from college!
Saw roommate Katharyn and friend Paul get married
Saw Austin and Heather get married

2009
Completed my credential!
Saw Luke, Alexis, and Gio get adopted into our family
Saw Luke and Danielle get married

2010
Went on a mission trip to India with my church

2011
Got married to my best friend and sweetheart, Amos

2012
Going to India again!

I've run out of blog post titles...

Welp, a lot's been going on around here and a lot more is to come this summer...

-Amos and I spent five-ish days in NorCal, hangin' out and seeing family; unfortunately we weren't able to go on a ride-along with Ross (Amos got some weird, intense sideache), but I DID get to drive my brother Scott's silver Porsche Carrera
-I've been working on my class for India; got to get those lesson plans, handouts, and answer keys done!
-Amos and I went to a friend's wedding in Fresno, after staying overnight in Visalia
-I skipped church today because of a cold I caught from Amos...not a fan..
-Kat and her Kiwi husband Danny are coming down on Wednesday to hang out with their L.A. friends before flying back to New Zealand
-Our India team and another India team are being commissioned in church on Sunday
-I made my friend Megan an awesome present; she'll get it at her bridal shower in a few weeks
-Our church picnic is the day before our anniversary which is the day before we leave for India!

I suppose I should start a list of all the things we need to do before we leave...

Amos and I a few years ago...still so happy!  And he's still so cute! :)

Submission, leadership, glory, and caulking

Our poor old bathtub looks rather gnarly; or, it did look rather gnarly, till I pulled the old, mildewed, black-brown-and-orange stained caulking from its seams.  While removing the old caulking in preparation for the new, I decided to listen to this sermon on marriage. I found the original article tagged on challies.com.  I know that everyone hears sermons about marriage, but I really liked this one.  Take a listen.

Back to the bathtub.

Who knew?

One of our friends at church has had a pretty rough last seven months.  Amos and I were on the outskirts of the issue, being friends but not best friends with this guy, but we knew what was going on and prayed faithfully for him and his wife.  Sometimes we didn't know what to pray for his wife.  Sometimes we didn't know what to pray for either of them.  Sometimes we just prayed the same thing night after night, that our friend would be healed, that his wife would be changed, that they would both become more like Christ, that she would realize and experience God's love for her, etc.
And God has worked.
Now we are praying for their reconciliation process as well as healing and strength for the journey.
As I talked with Amos about how great and how hard this reconciliation would be, I realized something else.
If Amos and I weren't married, we wouldn't have prayed for our friend nearly as much.  We read our Bibles as single and engaged people, but it was harder to actually pray every night.  Our whole church has been praying fervently for him, so I know that it wasn't just our prayers that brought about God's work in their lives, but it helped.
It not only helped our friends, it helped us as well.
As Amos and I prayed, it kept our friend at the forefront of our minds and made us more sympathetic to how he and his wife might be feeling and what they might be going through.  It made us think about how this could be us, if we weren't careful to guard ourselves and our relationship and if we weren't careful to rely on God to keep us aware of what we are doing and believing.

So really, this blog post is about being thankful. Thankful that God has brought about the start of a reconciliation between our friends and thankful that God has allowed us to be married and to pray together for others and ourselves.