Little Miracles

I can't even understand how amazing our God is sometimes!

For the past week, my campus ministry has gathered in the student center every night for prayer. We have an hour where anywhere from four or five to over a dozen of us gather together to bow before an awesome God. The consistant time with my brothers, sisters, and Father have been so encouraging to me. But besides being completely in awe of my Jesus during our worship time together, I've begun to look at so much more of life with a dropped jaw in the last week.

Many of you know that my sister, Fallon, has been having some medical problems. The doctors are in the process of figuring out what, exactly, is going on. Current theory is that her gallbladder is ... not functioning correctly. I'm not even sure what they think is wrong, but something. This is after she spent a week in the hospital last summer with blood clots in her lungs. She only came off her blood thinners last month. Now this. Yesterday morning, Fallon had an upper endoscopy. Basically, they stuck a tube with a tiny camera on the end down her throat to look at her stomach.
Last night during our prayer group, I shared Fallon's story with my brothers and sisters in Christ. We gathered together before our Almighty Father and begged for healing for my sister. Most of my school friends have meet my sister once, maybe. They don't know her. Don't know her situation. Don't know much at all about her life.
But they begged for her healing. Immediately after my request, half a dozen of my friends lifted up my sister to our Father. Just hearing the pleadings of those around me encouraged me. Challanged me. Awed me.
Today, I talked to Momma to get an update on Fallon. Fallon kept down all her food both yesterday and today. Momma said that Fallon woke up with a new excitement for life. She felt better than she has in a while. She was ready to go conquer life. Fallon went to school and even stayed afterwards to do makeup work. Granted, she came home and collapsed in exhaustion.
Isn't our God amazing? The skeptic could say that it was coincidence, just a good day for Fallon, her gallbladder didn't spazz... whatever they want. But in my heart, I believe that God heard our prayers and gave us a little miracle.

Last night, I also asked God for small daily miracles in our lives to remind us what an awesome God He really is. I asked Him for those little things in life that we like to take for granted. That we like to overlook. I asked that He would show us a miracle.
I got a miracle.
In my Materials class today, the girl next to me leans over as we're waiting for class to start and asks if I went to Passion. She recognized the bracelet I'm still wearing in support of Passion Fort Worth in April. I said yes and we spoke for a minute before class started.
After class, we spoke some more. It started out with comparing lab experiences. But we came back around to our faith. She's a part of Campus Outreach on Tuesdays at Tech. She spent last summer in Florida (with a friend of mine from my home church, small world?) with Campus Outreach doing ministry. She's going back this summer.
The crazy part? She got something on facebook that invited her to our prayer time in the student center!
My little miracle for today.

We serve a God who is not some apathetic, stick-in-the-mud clockmaker who made the world only to watch it turn. Our God is Alive, and He's passionate about His Glory and our part in His story. I've known this for a long time. But today, He gave a miracle.
And I'm so thankful.

A First Time for Everything

So, this past week has been an eventful week of firsts for me.

On Tuesday, I attended my first West Coast Swing dance. Very fun! The west coast style is much more linear than the east coast style. But know some east coast definitely helped me learn west coast! The president of ASEDA (ATL's swing dance club) was there and spent probably 20 minutes teaching me stuff. Very exciting!

On Thursday, I changed my first tire. Or I helped. Kelsey's roommate, Sahithya, called her with a flat tire. We were at Felini's with Crossroads at the time. So Kelsey, David, and I come riding to her rescue. David knew how to change tires. Yay for auto-saavy guys. Well, we arrive. It's freezing. No one has a flashlight. The ground is wet. Thank you Jesus, it wasn't raining anymore.
David gets the jack out and starts jacking. The tire (its the front-passenger one) gets just off the ground and the car starts rolling forward. Oh, lovely. So we ask Sahithya if she put her parking break on. She says yes. So we can't figure out why in the world the car is rolling. The jack pops and we must start over.
At this point, an awesome guy named Kyle randomly stops to see if we need help. David says yes, we have no idea why the car is rolling and how to fix that. So after some collaboration (while I'm holding the flashlight app on my iPhone so they can see under the car), they decide to put the jack in a different spot. We jack.
The car rolls. Oh, lovely. Are we sure the parking break is on? Yes, she says. Let's check.
No parking break.
We pull that, but the jack is at a 45 degree angle. Not good for jacking. Or really even for unjacking. We're stuck. So we pull the jack out of my car and double jack the system. My jack, being newer, is much easier to use we all agree.
So we get the car up far enough to pull out the other jack. Then we get it far enough up to change the tire. Lug nuts across and all that jazz. The tire isn't nearly as heavy as I thought it would be. But she has small tires for her tiny car. We put the new tire back on.
Unjack. Yay! it works! Clean up. Thank our new friend Kyle quite profusely.
So, the whole process took us almost an hour and a half. Meanwhile, our friends are waiting for us at Felinis and are stuck because I drove several of them and there aren't enough seats to bring them home. So we rush back to Felini's to bring everyone home. Our pizza to go... It was midnight...

Another fun first this week is an official lab report. Mine is already like 20 pages, and its not finished. I've done lab reports, but I've never done the real kind. They're much harder, longer, and fancier. More work still to go on that. It's due next Friday.

On Saturday, I streak my hair red for the first time. I had it highlighted once for my 15th birthday or something. The guys laughed at me cuz my hair glowed under the black lights while lazer tagging at my party that year.
But now, Momma and I found some red, or rather Light Auburn, dye at the store. We highlighted my hair in the bathroom. I now have red streaks through it. It's not RED. It's a natural color and not too many so that it looks fake.  But its definitely there. I love it.

Now, I'm about to go to the first prayer meeting of the new week at 10 this evening. Very excited that my Crossroads group is so much about prayer and praying corporally. It's so very important, and so many groups forget to bathe everything in prayer. Not this group!

More later,
Loren

A Little Catching Up

Well, I'm very bad about being regular about this. Good intentions aside, I never can manage to keep it up.
So what's been happening lately? That could take a while to explain.

First, because its what's most on my mind right now. I'm studying abroad this summer! Six weeks in Mexico City, Mexico, then a week at home, then four weeks in Madrid, Spain. When I'm done, I'll have 15 Spanish credits (and a minor) and be fluent. Or so I hope :).
I'm still working to get some kind of scholarship, because I don't want to pay for all this! I have one to apply for this weekend, but so far most of them have been a bust. I also want to look again at plane tickets this weekend and probably go a head and order them. Plus the first round of fees is due tomorrow. So a lot of money flowing outwards.
I've already started to compile a mental packing list, isn't that sad? I'm like "Well, sometime when I'm at Wal*Mart, it wouldn't hurt me to pick up the smaller version of my favorite shampoo to take with me." I can make a box in my room: My Study Abroad Stuff. Yes, Type A personality at work.
But for real now, you have to think ahead on so many of these things. Because two weeks from now, I'll think: "Oh, I can't forget bug spray." But then I'll forget later. I'm notorious for forgettting. So if I write it down (or better yet, stick a bottle in my box) then I won't forget. I hope.
I am starting to compile some of the fun stuff. Like, I got my ISIC card this weeks. Basically, its an international student ID card. Lots of discounts! Yay! And I filled out my family-matching survey. I still have to write a letter to them, in Spanish. Which could be interesting. And fun, I hope :).
I'm going to have to take a good "passport picture" so I can send it in. Maybe Momma will be my photographer over the weekend. Sounds like a fun activity. We sit at the table and do work for a lot of the weekend anyway. Or I do.

Homework: the second biggest thing on my brain. It seems I'm never done. And the harder I work, the more behind I get. That's not true, I know. But sometimes, it feels like it. For example, I think I've spent the last week reading either in Ethics or Materials. And I still have more of both, plus Structures, to read. We're reading "Brave New World' in Ethics. Bad book, I don't recommend. It's frustrating and you just want to punch all the characters. I don't agree with the author, either, which doesn't help. Mindless slaves indeed! Not me, no thank you.
I have my first Statistics test on Tuesday, but it's open book so I don't think it will be too bad. The stuff has been fairly straightforward so far. I even got to explain some of it to the guy that sits next to me. When you can explain it to someone else, you know you've really got it down. I like that feeling.
I also have a huge lab report, which is my Weekend Project. It's like a 6-7 page paper (not including the appendicies!). I've never written an official lab report before, so this could be interesting. I've got all the details for how it should be done, but I want to get it finished this weekend. It's due a week from tomorrow. But next week, I want to take it in to the TA and see if I can get any feedback. All in the name of good grades and learning...

What else has been on my mind recently? Oh, I made cookie cake. Yes, you heard that correctly. Cookie cake. But it was more cake-ish than cookie-ish, even though it was a chocolate chip cookie recipe. I think I needed more flour, but I had almost exactly the right amount. So I couldn't go back at the end and add a little extra to make it the right consistance. Then it rose forever...
Tasted good though :). White chocolate, milk chocolate, and walnuts included. Very yummy. Now I have to do some exercises to work off the calories!

Speaking of exercising! I learned to West Coast Swing this week! Well, I learned the basics. A++ from me! ASEDA, which is Atlanta's swing dance club, helped host an event at our school on Tuesday. The president of the club is very nice (and an amazing dancer!) and a good teacher. He explained everything very well and demonstrated. I felt positively extrodinary when I danced with him, and I didn't even know what I was doing. Major brownie points for him.
Plus, I'm learning more East Coast at school on Sundays. Very fun. I love dancing. My mom told me I'm addicted, which is very true. On Sundays, we're learning some more advanced moves which look really cool when you can pull them off. My feet get tired, but I love it.

Wow, this little catchup post just took me 30 minutes to write. Hope you learned something useful :). I gotta go get on that reading homework now before its time to leave for Crossroads.

Love to all!
Loren

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Publishing

Wow. Sometimes I wonder how things can change so fast. And yet, sometimes they seem to drag forever.

Today, I got a call from a publisher. It's a self-publishing place, not a "real" publisher. But still, they want to do my book. No, they haven't actually read it so they don't know if its any good. I think it is :). Plus, they're running a special.
Now, I just have to decide if I'm ready to committ to publishing. If I have that kind of money. If this is a good place. I'm going to keep looking, but I only have until the end of January to work with this special price.
The book I want to publish is "Havoc's Cry." That's the first Tori novel. If you haven't read it, I'd love some feedback. I've gotten some glowing reviews, but more critique is always welcome. Plus, if I get enough readers, I won't have to spend money on a copyeditor. O:)

In other news, school was cancelled today and tomorrow. I have no idea how that's going to affect my schedule and if they'll revoke our break days later. But for now, I'm kind of excited to be home. We've done some house cleaning today. We took down all the Christmas decorations. I was kind of sad to see them go. But very excited becasue for the first time, I had some of my own to put away. My grandmother gave me a handmade nativity scene and I got to store it in my hope chest. Very exciting.

Now, my sister is trying to put Netflicks on the Wii. As if we don't have enough conected electronics around here! Sometimes, I'm astonded by how much dependance we have on technology these days. A little scary, but thrilling all at the same time.

I think I'm going to go do some writing and editing now. This publishing call has me pumped and I'm roaring to go! I also have a good book I'm in the middle of when I get tired.

Vacation?

So, we're on Christmas "Vacation" or Winter Break...
and yet, I wonder why we call it a vacation. I don' know about you guys, but I don't stop working. I mean, I get some time "off," but not three weeks or whatever the break would have you believe. Nope, my job description just changes for three weeks. It involves wrapping presents, getting the house in order, cleaning my room, and otherwise taking care of everything that got neglected over the semester.

Of course, we are about to go to Houston, TX to visit grandparents. It will be an interesting trip full of cards, eating, presents, and family. I'm thinking fun will be had.

We've been preparing to go all day. We took the extra fruit to Mrs. Elise and the Beamer to the shop. We took the dog to the kennel and had a long conversation with the owner. After our missing-dog-fiasco over the summer, we know the guy pretty well. I was encouraged by the subject, though. We talked about the blessings in our life, and how even the bad things just don't seem so bad in comparison.

Mom and I had a long talk on the way home about life and the way things are. Sometimes, growing up really sucks. I'm getting better at it, I hope. But I'm not always liking it. Well, I hear that's normal. I was glad to have the talk, though, because I really feel that I understand better now. I have a clear goal for the next few weeks and a better understanding to handle the situations better.

Apart from that, things are going very normally. It's PTS week, and I'm exhausted. (PTS week, post tramatic stress week: the week after finals when all college students aren't worth much because all the chronic stress in their system is leaving in a rush). I slept in and it's only 6:30, yet I'm exhausted. Of course, we've gotten quite a bit done today and I did stay up late last night. Good thing I can sleep in the car tomorrow.

Well, I have to go show Momma how to put my book on her iPad so she can read it on the trip. :) Later all.