Ok, So past week I affectionately named "DEATH WEEK." basically it went like this: 2 midterms, 2 jobs (more on that later), spanish homework 3 days last week, quiz, chemistry homework, lab, lab prelab, lab post lab. gross. anyway, I hardly had time for anything except sleeping and eating. But now it is done, and I can spend the weekend doing nothing...except catching up on all the things i wasnt able to do during the week.

So about that second job. I got a new job! as soon as my background check clears ( i know, with my miles long criminal offenses it should take a while...)I will start working at Queen Anne Manor. I am so excited about it. It is an assisted living facility and I will be working as a CNA there. They said they will also train me to be a Med-aid. Awesome. Old people + hanging out = best job ever. What i really like about it is that it is for mostly low income adults. So they don't frequently get out much and have fewer visitors. In my job I am strongly encouraged to take the extra time to get know the residents and give them someone to talk to, or as my employer put it, "you are their entertainment." Wonderful, that is what i love to do.

Additionally, I am still attending Bethany Presbyterian church. I still love the feel of it, and am still interested to see why God choose that church for me. This week the pastor spoke from James about holding our tongues. A fairly simple message, but something that he mentioned is, we not only need to learn to hold our tongues but also about training them to be stronger. Practicing building each other up. He likened it to a diet. we not only need to cut out bad food, we need to fill our bodies with good and pure things also.

Finally, one of the "theme songs" of the church would have to be "Jesus, I am Resting, Resting. It has been the last song we sing, just before we head back out to continue our week. I have really grown to love it,just because of what it is also representing in my own life. recently, this stage in my life has been a time of rest and rebuilding. here are the words:

Jesus I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art.
I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee, and Thy beaut fills my sou
For by Thy transforming power, Thou hast made me whole.

Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art.
I am find out the greatness of Thy loving heart.

Oh, how great Thy loving-kindness, vaster, broader than the sea.
Oh, how marvelous Thy goodness lavished all on me.
Yes, I rest in Thee, Beloved, know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise and have made it mine.
chorus

Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, I behold Thee as Thou art.
And Thy love so pure, so changeless satisfies my heart,
Satisfies its deepest longings, meets, supplies its every need,
compasseth me 'round with blessings, Thine is love indeed.
chorus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0PwcAQ7kjE

anyway, have a good week. i hope you are rested in every aspect of the word.

Just so you know:
More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

Bethany Presbyterian Church

One of the things I have been praying about since I moved to Seattle was to find a church and church family. However, it would be hard to top the church I had back in Nicaragua, I loved attending the church service at El Puente, and Torre Fuerte with the rest of the community. I attended a few church the first semester but just didn’t find what I was looking for. I wanted something new and fun and energetic and modern. So when I came back from Christmas break, finding a church was top priority.

I searched on the internet for nearby churches and found All Saints Nondenominational church up in Queen Anne (the neighborhood by my school). So last Sunday I took the bus and was really excited, I thought I had found the church I was looking for. However, when I got to the right bus stop and started looking around the neighborhood…I couldn’t find it! I walked around for 30 minutes mentally kicking myself for not writing ANYTHING down about where I was supposed to go. I did see a nice view of the mountains and the Sound though. So after a while I came upon Bethany Presbyterian Church. I really just wanted to go to church, and I was only 20 minutes late so I figured I could just quickly sneak in and sit in the back.

I am not as smooth as I wish I was, instead of just quietly sitting in the back, I managed to slam a door, drop all my stuff, and have to squish by 5 people to get to my seat. But once I was sitting, I was so rewarded! The service was exactly what I needed to hear, and the church was everything that I needed, though not exactly what I thought I wanted. The sermon really touched me. It was out of the book of James, one of my favorites, and the songs that were played were some of my favorites also.

I love how the Lord provides our needs, not necessarily what we want. I would describe this church as nice and a church my parents would go to. But what I love about it is that it feels familiar. When I leave, instead of coming out all hopped up on “Jesus Juice,” I leave feeling comforted by the Love of my Father. I am rejuvenated by His grace and am restored for the week to come. I love how this church really focuses on prayer and serving the community and world.

I guess I am excited to see where this church goes. I am going to continue to pray to see if there is where God wants me. I am eager for the things going on in my life. I feel like things are moving and I am thrilled to see where it goes.

Here is link to my church: http://www.bethanypc.org/

So, keeping a blog was not as successful as I hoped it would be. My last blog was in July, it is currently January. Sorry about that. However, recently I felt compelled to start blogging again. So I suppose I will just catch you up from where I last left off.

Since July 17, 2009. During my last month and half in Nicaragua I continued to help teams that came in. We had another week long high school trip and two world race teams came through in August. I loved having the world race teams at the base. It was so refreshing to watch them minister to others. They were in their last month so they were pros, I enjoyed watching and being able to participate in their ministry, compared to the others where I would show them how things were done. I also went to Panama with my dear friend Heather for a week.

Ok, this is the part that I think I was led to blog about, finishing out my time in Nicaragua and coming home. Leaving Nicaragua was really hard for me. Situations had come up that I was just not ready to handle, and came home really broken. However, if I was ready and prepared for everything that God had to throw at me, how good would His teaching really be? I think God was sifting though me and bringing up areas I still had fault and areas I need to work and grow in. Needless to say, coming home was RRrrough. I was home for 3 weeks before I left again to go to college in Seattle. The first semester at school was also rough. I felt very alone, isolated and confused. The feeling that I dealt the most with was an overwhelming loss of purpose. What was I doing? I was JUST going to school, how does that help anyone but myself? Where do I go from here?

The good news is, through prayer, conversations, realizations and work, I have started to come out of that funk and am excited to continue on to where God is leading me. Nicaragua was a HUGE growing experience. I can literally say the first year of my faith was spending focusing solely on God and discovering what it truly meant to be a "Christian" and living that forward every day. That whole experience made an impact on my life and I feel blessed that I could experience that. Thanks everyone for helping me get to that point and pushing me to grow.

So where does that put me now?

Currently, I am attending Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. I am a nursing major and Spanish minor. Back in October, I started my first paying job since May of 2008. I work at a day care. Its fun, I play with kids all day.

As I go back and think about Nicaragua I still can hardly believe that that year actually happened. My 21^st birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I think back to my last birthday. My 20^th birthday which was spent at an all day pastoral conference, entirely in Spanish. The party was held in a transformed barn, on a dirt floor, with ice cream, surrounded by people that I love and cherish. I was on the losing part of an eating contest and got threatened with eggs the entire day. The year before that, my 19^th birthday, was spent sick, in a dorm room, not really knowing what true community was. Oh, how the years have flown by.

I do not know where God is calling me from here, and am unsure of what my next step will be. I would ask that you would pray for a few things in my life:

1. 1. Friends and community- here at SPU, since my first semester was spent sulking, I missed out on the opportunity to start developing a new community. I ask that you pray for a community for me. Both a church community and a community here at school. I still feel very lonely at times, but I am hopeful as a few new wonderful people have recently entered my life.

2. 2. A renewed since of purpose

3. 3. An outreach. I feel that I have returned to a place where I can start reaching out to people again. It took a while, but rest and rejuvenation has taken place. Additionally, I am searching for purpose for this summer. I feel that God is calling me to do something. One of the factors that contributed to this was my realization of my upcoming lack of home. This summer, I cannot afford to stay where I am here on campus. However, I cannot return home, not because my parents wouldn't love to have be back, but because there is no jobs there for me. I sense that God is calling me to a new place, a new chapter, so your prayers to find that place would be awesome.

So where does that leave us?

I am continuing to read the word and search for truth, I have a new sense of vigor and hurriedness. I eat more rice, beans and tortillas than any normal college student should, and I am finally learning that no matter where I am, God is there with me, He is the beauty in every thing that surrounds me.

I will try to continue to blog more frequently, and post any developments or interesting stories.

Thanks for your prayers. Let us all pray for the rejuvenation of God in this world.

Upwards and onwards (my Step-dad always ends emails like that)

Annie

electronic cigarettes

F.D.A Can't Regulate Electronic Cigarettes

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 14, 2010

A federal judge says the Food and Drug Administration overstepped its authority in efforts to regulate electronic cigarettes. Regulators began halting shipments of electronic cigarettes last year. The F.D.A. said it found cancer-causing ingredients in the products, despite manufacturers’ claims that they are safer than tobacco cigarettes. The agency argued that electronic cigarettes, which use a battery-operated vaporizer to produce a nicotine mist, are a combination drug-device, and therefore subject to stricter safety standards than cigarettes. But Judge Richard Leon of Federal District Court agreed with manufacturers that electronic cigarettes are “the functional equivalent of traditional cigarettes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/us/15brfs-FDACANTREGUL_BRF.html

cinnamon toast.

So my home page is igoogle, and everyday it comes up with recipes that i can try. This one came up today.

My mom would always make cinnamon toast for me before I went to speech meets, and when I had to get up early.

I thought it was a really cute article: Cinnamon Toast

"Whatever the Lord calls his people to face as a result of fearing him is, in fact, better than simply remaining alive."