Beautiful

if i could open my mouth

and let notes of glory

tumble and fly

you would think

me beautiful.

if had toned thighs,

playboy polished

boobs and rear

that never jiggled,

if my hips

didn't sway

of their own accord

you would think

me beautiful.

if my teeth

were whiter

my feet smaller

if i didn't always

have a zit on my chin.

you would think

me beautiful.

perhaps if i didn't laugh

louder than a monkey,

maybe if kept my thoughts

to myself,

if i read less

and was shallow more

you would think

me beautiful.

if i were more

of a girl

who had yet to feel

the world behind her

and less of the woman

with bags under

her tearful eyes

you would find

me beautiful.

but i am none

of those things,

am i then

not beautiful?

no.

in eyes that

watch stars burn

i am beautiful

beyond all

your thoughts

and your opinions.

Thoughts on Vision in Visionland this Summer....

This weekend was all about vision. And white water rafting. To say that I didn't have fun would be a lie. I had so much fun, considering I have never been white water rafting before. However, rather than write a blog dedicated to the fun that I had, I find myself thinking over vision more.

What vision is God giving me? I know that my passion lies with women and teaching them that their worth lies in God alone. But what is the next step? I love to write, I love to read, and I love to feel that the words God gives to me, speaks to the hearts of the people that I am talking to. But how do I take that, and live it out? Am I sure that is God's vision for me? What am I doing here on this earth if I am not carrying out God's vision for me? What am I doing right now if I'm not seeking out what that vision is? I'm wasting time. And since I am a slave to Christ, it's not my time to waste. When I surrendered, I took on the will of the Master, and His will involves vision. To not be seeking the will that He has for me, is to disobey the will of the Master.

una noche del rio (a night by the river)

basking in Your glory

i close my eyes to the

wonders of Your

creation.

roaring rivers

of rapturous rapids

race past my window

tracing the toes of

marvelous mountains

that touch the sky.

the Heavens abound

in starlight

perfect ambiance

to the sleepy, silhouetted

earth made of Your hands.

i am in awe of

the God who

whispers breezes

who created green

and blue

the world explodes

in song

of Your magnitude

they speak of the

God

whose essence

pours on this earth

like a waterfall

whose beauty sways

like a coursing river

whose might stands taller

than the mountains

Your beauty and imagination

echos,

resounds...

i breathe it in

feeling my chest expand

with Your creation

i close my eyes

and let Your breeze

kiss my face

within my rapt

silence.

No Fuego Aqui

Last night was my dinner challenge for the internship. And considering that the stove did not catch on fire or blow up, I considered the challenge throughly accomplished. However, God has a higher standard of attainment and for that, I concede that our evening was quite perfect, if I am allowed to make the assumption that near perfection is obtainable.

As for problems, the biggest ones we had were the cake stuck to the bottom of the pan (to which the solution was to spoon it out onto the plate and cover it with a nice swirl of whipped cream) and we were ignorant in how to make coffee, which may have cost us some since coffee is equivalent to manna in this country. But since God was in control, our dinner was fantastic. Our first quest, Carolina and her mother showed up only 45 minutes late, on the standard of Dominican time, I thought they were quite early. On a side-note, one of the biggest difficulties that I have with the Dominican culture is the time difference. And it comes from their attitude versus our attitude. I for one, love their laid-back attitude, but it does play havoc with my internal United Statian way of upbringing. I simply need to be more flexible. But nonetheless, we ate our dinner of spaghetti and salad minus two guests. But it was fun. Carolina and her mother were so sweet and it made for a nice dinner. When we had finished, we went to take a piece of cake to our gate keeper, and when we reached the bottom of the steps that lead to the street, who should be coming up our walk, but one of our missing guests plus two friends.

So back up we went, taking Carlos, his sister Jacyln, and their cousin Moises. Our food was cold, our salad... a little wilted, but we sat the three of them on the couch and filled their hands with a plate of cake and a fork. About this time, the rest of our group decided to come back to the apartment. But it worked to our advantage because entertaining became a group thing. Our group had icebreaker questions which we posed to our Dominican brethren, and they in turn had a few questions for us. Conversations about what superhero powers we wanted, our greatest fears, embarrassments, weird things we had seen floated back and forth across the room in excited and loud spanish and english. It became an evening of bonding and breaking barriers as spanglish became our official language.

We praise God for a good dinner challenge. We praise God that we still have a stove. We praise God for good fellowship. And we praise God for San Pedro.

Dios te bendiga

San Pedro Update

I don't really have anything to write at this moment. We're in the planning stages of all our ministries such as English camp and our outreaches.

For outreach, my group has the college campus, the beautifully landscaped USE. I am really excited to have the opporutunity to be able to minister to the college students, since its what I do back in the states. We have been asked to plan a Bible study on the campus, which makes me even more happy. I keep thinking that our girl's study back at Lewis has now been going for a year. Its grown and dwindled, but as a group we've grown closer to God and to each other. We've become each other's support and accountability which is something one needs during their college years. And thinking about the girl's Bible study back home makes me even more excited about the one we're going to start on the USE campus. We meant to visit it the other day, but it was closed. I am hoping that within the next day or two we can go and visit and do a Prayer walk through it.

Tonight is the dinner challenge for my group and my biggest prayer is for the stove not to blow up. I know I have left the door wide open for an entire array of other problems to arise, but I think that I could handle those. A stove catching fire/blowing up will send me over the end. Period. So in a few famous last words: tonight should be interesting.

"In Him we live and move and have our being..."

Paul Addresses the Areopagus

²²So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription To the unknown god. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. ²⁶And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,²⁷ that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, ²⁸for

"'In him we live and move and have our being';

as even some of your own poets have said,

"'For we are indeed his offspring.'

²⁹Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. ³⁰The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said,"We will hear you again about this."

San Pedro Sweats

Last night, I truly wanted to die. Part of this is a little over dramatic, part of it is not. Yesterday in some horrible twist, I got a fever. And even as I sit here and type, I can feel myself in a bit of a feverish sweat. I guess fevers are spread by viruses, but there is no other way I could have gotten sick. And it just infrutriates me because I came down here to serve, and instead I'm constrained to a bed where from the top of my hips to the tops of my knees are nothing but pounding masses of aches. My hips still hurt this morning. I had to miss youth night last night, and I'll have to miss church this morning. There is no way I can walk or ride to church in this condition. Or sit through an entire service. I hate being sick, and to be sick down here just breaks my heart.

However, yesterday, I did have the opportunity to walk around the college campus in san pedro. It's going to be fun getting to know the students here and ministering to them. They seem very friendly and open. I pray that God allows us to do great things with and for these students. However, right now I wish God would take away this sickness.