i haven't blogged in a few months. it's, uh, wedding season. chaos. but i just wanted to take a few seconds and share a thought with you.
a few years ago, i was a political junkie. i was fresh out of college and thus, over-opinionated and always correct. i took every opportunity for a debate with politics at the very top of the list of topics. i read political blogs daily, i wrote political blogs, i followed it like it was my job.
how completely useless.
my political beliefs have changed in the 6+ years since i graduated college. not a 180, but, still a change. i wasn't a republican then. still not. i wasn't a democrat then. still not. i liked who i liked and hated anyone else. i would take anything remotely idiotic that a candidate said and run with it. much like a lot of you are doing now.
why do i feel like i'm the only person on the earth that thinks President Obama was right in his speech about american industry? was "you didn't build that" the best choice of words? no. but neither were THESE or THIS. the basic point of his speech was this: american industry helped you build your business. am i, a small business owner, offended by that?
no.
in fact, i am thankful for it.
i have a feeling...that if it were Mitt Romney that said it and the liberal community was appalled, the very same of you that are posting Facebook statuses and 'hilarious' memes about it {which by the way, is really world-changing}, would be at his defense. why? because very few of you actually care what President Obama said 'wrong', you're just glad he did.
it's ammunition. it's fuel.
have you taken the time to read what he said? that if you have a successful business, you're fortunate? that smart people start businesses every day, hard-working people start businesses every day? it's no secret to any of us that 50% of businesses fail in the FIRST year with 95% of businesses failing in the first 5 years. those businesses were started by smart people. they were weathered by hard-working people. and they failed. i've seen that first hand. why are you offended by him reiterating something we all already know? for ammunition's sake.
and for those of us with successful businesses - are we that unaware of how highly we do rely on american industry to sustain and increase our business's profitability? seriously? i realize, believe me i realize, that it is rachel spears that is running my company. i'm there all the time, just me, working at 3 in the morning, working all weekend, working all the time. it's me. i run this company. i am very proud of that. but i'm also very thankful for a country where i can do it freely, a financial industry that allowed me credit to start up my company {and maintain it}, yes - for technology that my specific business could not thrive without - i am thankful. and i think you are too.
but in front of that thankfulness for this country we boast about until it serves us not to, is the insatiable need for us to attack what we disagree with. the video above of the President Bush - many would say, "he just misspoke! Obama though, this is his ideology." the video above with the poor choice of words from Mitt Romney - many would say, "taken out of context, rachel!"
but THIS video??? hello sensationalism. and some of you? putty in their hands. you got excited when you read the articles about what he said. you got to your computer as fast as you could to tell everyone what you thought about him saying it. you were annoyed but you were enlivened.
THAT bothers me. that vicious cycle of one side attacking the other regardless of benefit to anyone bothers me. not only does it bother me, it makes me wonder the caliber of intelligence that i'm surrounding myself with. pause. i am NOT saying that if you don't like the President or if you don't like Mitt Romney that either opinion is stupid or wrong. i am saying that waiting for someone to say the wrong thing and manipulating it to feed your argument is.
i don't agree with the President all the time. but i agree with him here. i realize that's an unpopular opinion. i just don't care. i'm grateful for my opportunities and my successes and to continue growing that success, i don't have the time in the day for nonsense. {side note: it goes both ways. i know that. it irritates me both ways too, believe me.}
i probably irritated you. i get that. most of my blogs are inspirational, funny, uplifting - i know. i just had to say something. it's part of my charm. or it's a curse. jury's still out.
back to work.
gotta run this company that i have the amazing opportunity to run.
XO
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
stop and smell the roses {life}
we are busy.
all of us.
it's a fact of life for me. my friends and family have accepted that as long as people keep getting married, i'm going to miss out on most of what happens friday through sunday. as long as those brides and grooms are interested in using me to photograph their wedding {let's cross our fingers that that never stops} that weekday evenings are filled with meetings and engagement sessions. weekdays are filled up with shoots and meetings and consultations and when i lock myself in my office with nothing but water, pandora, and carrots and edit until i can't see straight.
yet, as busy as i am, i refuse to give up my life. because this is my job and it is my passion but it is not my life. often, my clients become my friends {yay!} and because you can't be real life friends if you're not facebook friends, it's not too long before they have access to a constant stream of statuses, photos, and check-in's from me {cause let's be honest, you guys all know where i am at any given time.}. just last night, i needed to get some info to a bride and thought i'd wait until this morning and i genuinely felt guilty checking in at the brad paisley concert. the minute i realized how ridiculous that guilt was, i knew i needed to fix something. and fix it now.
i had a disturbing conversation with a woman in the fall. it's bothered me ever since. i was overwhelmed at work and behind on...well, everything and i was venting. and she said this - "you're not married and you don't even have kids. you don't know what busy is."
that statement has fueled all of the guilt i've felt since then when i was living instead of working. in january, i was in south america with my church on a medical mission and in the evenings, i was fighting for service on my phone so i could email clients. every time i wake up in the middle of the night {which is frequent}, i check my phone and read emails from clients that have come in after i go to bed {cause i'm an old lady and go to bed at like 10}. a client had to reschedule something with me in april and i told her the only thing i had available that week was thursday morning because really, i wasn't working wednesday night but i wanted to go to the reds game with my friends. and then i saw her at the reds game and literally turned and walked the other way so she wouldn't see me. it's gotten ridiculous. really, really ridiculous.
but {yay for the but here!}, i'm putting my foot down. not to my clients - to myself. to that ridiculous assumption that because i'm single and childless, that work should come before bonfires with my friends and last minute trips to riverbend for a concert {the tickets actually came from a bride! thanks sarah!}.
when that woman said that to me, i didn't know whether to cry, hit her, or believe her. it reminded me of the episode of SATC when carrie realizes how much money she's spent on wedding gifts and baby shower gifts and kids' birthday gifts over the years as her friends married and had kids. why didn't anyone buy presents for the woman that chose not to do those things? so she registered herself for shoes at manolo blahnik. :) don't worry. i'm not asking for shoes or anything but maybe just some understanding. some understanding that while i'm single and not a mom, that my time is a precious as the time of a working mom or wife.
if i'm ever going to get married, i have to date. to date, i have to have some time. if i don't ever get married, then my most important relationships will continue to be with my family and friends. and if i can't invest in those, they'll die. so no, i'm not taking kids to soccer or throwing princess birthday parties or cleaning the kids' bathroom at midnight cause that's the only time i have to do it {not bashing that at all. you ladies are my heroes}. i'm going to reds games and dinner parties. i'm cleaning my house and going to the gym. i'm painting with my girls and watching mad men with the boys. and yes, watching the bachelorette {don't act like you don't}. i'm living. and i'm getting ready to start doing that guilt-free.
i'm not feeling sorry for myself, i promise. i have a job that i love, a business that i own and the freedom that my friends that work in cubicles dream of. i am blessed. blessed with all of that and blessed with this beautiful life. i photograph my clients living their lives and now i have to figure out a way to leave that and live my own.
so i'm figuring out a new schedule. i'm setting up some new priorities, some new rules for myself. i'm doing so without the guilt that i have to work all the time because of the lie in my head that i should because there aren't people depending on me at home. maybe if i can figure this out now, if i ever do have a husband and children, i'll already be in the right mindset with priorities. realistically, i'll have to keep relearning this over and over again. but for now, i'm going to go the reds game on thursday with my friends and turn my email notifications off.
and you should do the same.
<3 XO
all of us.
it's a fact of life for me. my friends and family have accepted that as long as people keep getting married, i'm going to miss out on most of what happens friday through sunday. as long as those brides and grooms are interested in using me to photograph their wedding {let's cross our fingers that that never stops} that weekday evenings are filled with meetings and engagement sessions. weekdays are filled up with shoots and meetings and consultations and when i lock myself in my office with nothing but water, pandora, and carrots and edit until i can't see straight.
yet, as busy as i am, i refuse to give up my life. because this is my job and it is my passion but it is not my life. often, my clients become my friends {yay!} and because you can't be real life friends if you're not facebook friends, it's not too long before they have access to a constant stream of statuses, photos, and check-in's from me {cause let's be honest, you guys all know where i am at any given time.}. just last night, i needed to get some info to a bride and thought i'd wait until this morning and i genuinely felt guilty checking in at the brad paisley concert. the minute i realized how ridiculous that guilt was, i knew i needed to fix something. and fix it now.
i had a disturbing conversation with a woman in the fall. it's bothered me ever since. i was overwhelmed at work and behind on...well, everything and i was venting. and she said this - "you're not married and you don't even have kids. you don't know what busy is."
that statement has fueled all of the guilt i've felt since then when i was living instead of working. in january, i was in south america with my church on a medical mission and in the evenings, i was fighting for service on my phone so i could email clients. every time i wake up in the middle of the night {which is frequent}, i check my phone and read emails from clients that have come in after i go to bed {cause i'm an old lady and go to bed at like 10}. a client had to reschedule something with me in april and i told her the only thing i had available that week was thursday morning because really, i wasn't working wednesday night but i wanted to go to the reds game with my friends. and then i saw her at the reds game and literally turned and walked the other way so she wouldn't see me. it's gotten ridiculous. really, really ridiculous.
but {yay for the but here!}, i'm putting my foot down. not to my clients - to myself. to that ridiculous assumption that because i'm single and childless, that work should come before bonfires with my friends and last minute trips to riverbend for a concert {the tickets actually came from a bride! thanks sarah!}.
when that woman said that to me, i didn't know whether to cry, hit her, or believe her. it reminded me of the episode of SATC when carrie realizes how much money she's spent on wedding gifts and baby shower gifts and kids' birthday gifts over the years as her friends married and had kids. why didn't anyone buy presents for the woman that chose not to do those things? so she registered herself for shoes at manolo blahnik. :) don't worry. i'm not asking for shoes or anything but maybe just some understanding. some understanding that while i'm single and not a mom, that my time is a precious as the time of a working mom or wife.
if i'm ever going to get married, i have to date. to date, i have to have some time. if i don't ever get married, then my most important relationships will continue to be with my family and friends. and if i can't invest in those, they'll die. so no, i'm not taking kids to soccer or throwing princess birthday parties or cleaning the kids' bathroom at midnight cause that's the only time i have to do it {not bashing that at all. you ladies are my heroes}. i'm going to reds games and dinner parties. i'm cleaning my house and going to the gym. i'm painting with my girls and watching mad men with the boys. and yes, watching the bachelorette {don't act like you don't}. i'm living. and i'm getting ready to start doing that guilt-free.
i'm not feeling sorry for myself, i promise. i have a job that i love, a business that i own and the freedom that my friends that work in cubicles dream of. i am blessed. blessed with all of that and blessed with this beautiful life. i photograph my clients living their lives and now i have to figure out a way to leave that and live my own.
so i'm figuring out a new schedule. i'm setting up some new priorities, some new rules for myself. i'm doing so without the guilt that i have to work all the time because of the lie in my head that i should because there aren't people depending on me at home. maybe if i can figure this out now, if i ever do have a husband and children, i'll already be in the right mindset with priorities. realistically, i'll have to keep relearning this over and over again. but for now, i'm going to go the reds game on thursday with my friends and turn my email notifications off.
and you should do the same.
<3 XO
Thursday, April 19, 2012
we need people {love}
i sat across the table from one of my best friends in the world tonight and held back tears {even though i'm pretty sure she saw them in my eyes} because if she wasn't losing it, i wasn't going to. this is happening to her. her mom is sick. her family is hurting. her world is changing. and if she could sit across from me and pour out her heart and not cry, i was going to be the strongest friend in the world for a few minutes and not cry either.
until now. now she's not here. now i'm crying. if i could take this from her, i would. my relationship with her was born out of tragedy. i knew who she was. we had met a few times. and then tragedy hit and from that, we became friends and then family. maybe it's that part of our friendship that makes this so hard for me to watch. more tragedy? and this? her mom - the closest thing to an angel on earth? doesn't seem fair. doesn't seem right.
when we talked tonight, she just kept talking about how overwhelmed she was with the love and support from the people in her life. it took me back to my own tragedy in 2004 which i remember little of except the support and love from the people around me. i have a bag full of cards that i received during my recuperation and every once in awhile, i get them out and have a good cry. and even though i was young, i remember very well when my dad had a heart attack and open heart surgery. different ladies from church brought food to our family, moms from around the neighborhood helped shuffle us around.
we need people.
we need people to enjoy sunshine with and people to walk through storms with. we need people for the moments that seem unfair. and we need people for the moments of indescribable joy.
we need people.
i remember being in a night class in college and getting that phone call. i left class and literally ran to the dorm where all of my friends were sitting in a room around one of my first friends in college who had just gotten the call that her dad died. i remember standing outside at my friend kevin's house with a hundred or so other people sharing stories and memories of him, crying and hugging. i remember being in my best friend's living room with her family and friends the night she got engaged and celebrating and taking pictures. i remember every day i spent with hope in the nicu. i remember my friend coming to my house late at night with two dozen roses and a listening ear when the end of a relationship devastated me. i remember the phone call at midnight when my best friend of twenty plus years was spending her last night at her parents before her wedding the next day and she just needed to cry because she was going to miss them. i remember having lunch with a friend who i hadn't seen in three years and crying with her about her dad's sudden passing. i remember celebrating with my friends when one passed the bar. i remember the "we're engaged!" phone calls, the "we broke up" phone calls, the "i lost my job"phone calls, the "they said it's cancer"phone calls, the "we're expecting!" phone calls, and the "we have some bad news" phone calls.
we need people.
in a way, my heart is heavy tonight and yet it's light. heavy that someone i care so deeply about is hurting yet hearing that people are encouraging her makes me smile. because life happens. accomplishments are met, jobs are lost, babies are born, parents pass on, houses foreclose, businesses start, birthdays pass by, spouses get sick, children get married, and we get old.
and life is much easier {easier to enjoy and easier to bear} with people in it.
we need people.
<3
until now. now she's not here. now i'm crying. if i could take this from her, i would. my relationship with her was born out of tragedy. i knew who she was. we had met a few times. and then tragedy hit and from that, we became friends and then family. maybe it's that part of our friendship that makes this so hard for me to watch. more tragedy? and this? her mom - the closest thing to an angel on earth? doesn't seem fair. doesn't seem right.
when we talked tonight, she just kept talking about how overwhelmed she was with the love and support from the people in her life. it took me back to my own tragedy in 2004 which i remember little of except the support and love from the people around me. i have a bag full of cards that i received during my recuperation and every once in awhile, i get them out and have a good cry. and even though i was young, i remember very well when my dad had a heart attack and open heart surgery. different ladies from church brought food to our family, moms from around the neighborhood helped shuffle us around.
we need people.
we need people to enjoy sunshine with and people to walk through storms with. we need people for the moments that seem unfair. and we need people for the moments of indescribable joy.
we need people.
i remember being in a night class in college and getting that phone call. i left class and literally ran to the dorm where all of my friends were sitting in a room around one of my first friends in college who had just gotten the call that her dad died. i remember standing outside at my friend kevin's house with a hundred or so other people sharing stories and memories of him, crying and hugging. i remember being in my best friend's living room with her family and friends the night she got engaged and celebrating and taking pictures. i remember every day i spent with hope in the nicu. i remember my friend coming to my house late at night with two dozen roses and a listening ear when the end of a relationship devastated me. i remember the phone call at midnight when my best friend of twenty plus years was spending her last night at her parents before her wedding the next day and she just needed to cry because she was going to miss them. i remember having lunch with a friend who i hadn't seen in three years and crying with her about her dad's sudden passing. i remember celebrating with my friends when one passed the bar. i remember the "we're engaged!" phone calls, the "we broke up" phone calls, the "i lost my job"phone calls, the "they said it's cancer"phone calls, the "we're expecting!" phone calls, and the "we have some bad news" phone calls.
we need people.
in a way, my heart is heavy tonight and yet it's light. heavy that someone i care so deeply about is hurting yet hearing that people are encouraging her makes me smile. because life happens. accomplishments are met, jobs are lost, babies are born, parents pass on, houses foreclose, businesses start, birthdays pass by, spouses get sick, children get married, and we get old.
and life is much easier {easier to enjoy and easier to bear} with people in it.
we need people.
<3
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
KONY 2012 {make him famous}
in april of 2006, i was living in virginia. on the evening of the 29th, i left my house and walked to downtown lynchburg, slept on the streets with many others, got up the next morning and walked home.
it was called the global night commute. and it should have changed my life.
and it did. momentarily. we walked downtown and slept that night, just as many did around the USA and the world to show support for the children of uganda, who walk from their homes {sometimes many, many miles} every single night to the center of their city to sleep in order to not be abducted by the LRA, the lord's resistance army. monsters, at best.
they abduct these ugandan children and turn the girls into sex slaves and the boys into soldiers. they rape these children, force these children to kill their parents, force them to mutilate and kill others, and kill them. for absolutely no reason. there is no cause. just power. this guerrilla group exists for the sake of power. and kill and enslave to reinforce that power.
in 2007, many friends of mine participated in displace me. i wasn't able to attend but a year after we showed support at the global night commute, they did again with this event. i urge you to google both events.
in 2008, i began donating monthly to invisible children, the organization that fights to bring awareness to this crisis and also fights to stop it. in 2008, i became one of the apathetic. writing my check, feeling good about myself, and forgetting their faces.
i "follow" invisible children on Facebook and i knew from posts that they had a short film coming out. i made a mental note to watch it. and then when it premiered the other day, i forgot. last night, i couldn't sleep. i like to think that was divine. i got on my phone to pass the time and saw the link to the video. perfect, i thought. i'll watch it now.
30 minutes? i didn't want to stay up 30 more minutes. i told myself i'd watch a few minutes and finish it this morning. 30 minutes and a fair bit of weeping later, i watched it again.
i realize you are busy. but this will be the most important 30 minutes you give today. please. watch this video. you can find it HERE. there are moments it is hard to watch. but you need to watch it. we all need to be aware.
i have talked on occasion about social media and wondered with friends whether Hitler would have terrorized as long as he did if people were more aware of what was happening. it's fact that the reports of genocide were delayed - normal citizens were limited to what the government told them about that crisis. with things like facebook and the internet, we are not.
we can tell anyone and everyone about what is happening in uganda.
what has been happening in uganda for 26 years. 26 years. and no one knew. no one talked about it. no one stopped it.
and now we can. the LRA's leader joseph kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2005. and you don't know his name.
but now you do. the more people know, the more people care, the better chance there is of finding him and putting a stop to this crisis once and for all. you'll see in the film that america has recently started aiding uganda in finding him. but if it's not important to the masses, they'll likely stop. we have to tell them it's important.
the invisible children organization says that where you live shouldn't decide whether you live. and i agree. and i believe you do too. there are thousands of causes all over the world and we are asked to donate, to help, to aid someone or some cause all the time. i get that. i don't want to say one cause is more important than another. but i would say that stopping the murder, rape, enslavement & torture of CHILDREN is something we would all say is of the utmost importance.
write a letter to washington. hang a poster. wear a bracelet, call your congressman.
make joseph kony's name famous.
i'm 26 years old. this started when i was born. learning about the holocaust in school, i remember thinking "i'm glad stuff like that doesn't happen now." i have been confident that the world i live in wouldn't let this happen. but if you don't know it's happening, how can you stop it?
now we know. and we can do something, give something, stop something, change something, heal something, vindicate something.
and we could do this very simply.
not asking for thousands of dollars. just your VOICE.
let's make kony famous.
--
visit www.invisiblechildren.com and www.facebook.com/invisiblechildren to make the pledge, watch the video, track the progress, get addresses for american politicians, get the kit, and find out about the night we can change everything - april 20, 2012. if nothing else, watch the video. it will be the best thing you do today. we can change this world. use your voice.
it was called the global night commute. and it should have changed my life.
and it did. momentarily. we walked downtown and slept that night, just as many did around the USA and the world to show support for the children of uganda, who walk from their homes {sometimes many, many miles} every single night to the center of their city to sleep in order to not be abducted by the LRA, the lord's resistance army. monsters, at best.
they abduct these ugandan children and turn the girls into sex slaves and the boys into soldiers. they rape these children, force these children to kill their parents, force them to mutilate and kill others, and kill them. for absolutely no reason. there is no cause. just power. this guerrilla group exists for the sake of power. and kill and enslave to reinforce that power.
in 2007, many friends of mine participated in displace me. i wasn't able to attend but a year after we showed support at the global night commute, they did again with this event. i urge you to google both events.
in 2008, i began donating monthly to invisible children, the organization that fights to bring awareness to this crisis and also fights to stop it. in 2008, i became one of the apathetic. writing my check, feeling good about myself, and forgetting their faces.
i "follow" invisible children on Facebook and i knew from posts that they had a short film coming out. i made a mental note to watch it. and then when it premiered the other day, i forgot. last night, i couldn't sleep. i like to think that was divine. i got on my phone to pass the time and saw the link to the video. perfect, i thought. i'll watch it now.
30 minutes? i didn't want to stay up 30 more minutes. i told myself i'd watch a few minutes and finish it this morning. 30 minutes and a fair bit of weeping later, i watched it again.
i realize you are busy. but this will be the most important 30 minutes you give today. please. watch this video. you can find it HERE. there are moments it is hard to watch. but you need to watch it. we all need to be aware.
i have talked on occasion about social media and wondered with friends whether Hitler would have terrorized as long as he did if people were more aware of what was happening. it's fact that the reports of genocide were delayed - normal citizens were limited to what the government told them about that crisis. with things like facebook and the internet, we are not.
we can tell anyone and everyone about what is happening in uganda.
what has been happening in uganda for 26 years. 26 years. and no one knew. no one talked about it. no one stopped it.
and now we can. the LRA's leader joseph kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2005. and you don't know his name.
but now you do. the more people know, the more people care, the better chance there is of finding him and putting a stop to this crisis once and for all. you'll see in the film that america has recently started aiding uganda in finding him. but if it's not important to the masses, they'll likely stop. we have to tell them it's important.
the invisible children organization says that where you live shouldn't decide whether you live. and i agree. and i believe you do too. there are thousands of causes all over the world and we are asked to donate, to help, to aid someone or some cause all the time. i get that. i don't want to say one cause is more important than another. but i would say that stopping the murder, rape, enslavement & torture of CHILDREN is something we would all say is of the utmost importance.
write a letter to washington. hang a poster. wear a bracelet, call your congressman.
make joseph kony's name famous.
i'm 26 years old. this started when i was born. learning about the holocaust in school, i remember thinking "i'm glad stuff like that doesn't happen now." i have been confident that the world i live in wouldn't let this happen. but if you don't know it's happening, how can you stop it?
now we know. and we can do something, give something, stop something, change something, heal something, vindicate something.
and we could do this very simply.
not asking for thousands of dollars. just your VOICE.
let's make kony famous.
--
visit www.invisiblechildren.com and www.facebook.com/invisiblechildren to make the pledge, watch the video, track the progress, get addresses for american politicians, get the kit, and find out about the night we can change everything - april 20, 2012. if nothing else, watch the video. it will be the best thing you do today. we can change this world. use your voice.
Monday, February 6, 2012
what are you doing? {besides driving me crazy}
facebook statuses.
sigh.
before i make my list of facebook statuses that make me want to punch someone, force someone to live in a second or {gasp!} third world country for like, a day, or delete you from my facebook {which these days is like real life so those are hefty words}, let me pause to say this: yes i realize i probably would make some of your lists. if someone whose statuses are song lyrics 90% of the time bothers you - i'm sure you can't stand me. but let's be honest, george strait and billy joel's heartfelt words are way less annoying than mine. or maybe you can't stand the person that checks in everywhere they go. hey. i live alone. i think it's responsible. if i go missing, you know i was at lifetime 6 hours ago and at cadillac ranch 24 minutes ago. you'd have a good start on your search party. maybe you hate yellow {shame on you!}. maybe the XO annoys you. i got nothing for that. i'm just girly.
so here we go.
1. #peoplethathashtagtosaytheyhatehashtags. yes, we all know this isn't twitter. we know hash tags won't work on facebook. we don't care. we're being clever. example: "ugh! i dropped my prada bag on the floor at nordstrom and my iphone fell out and broke! #firstworldproblems". i will "like" that status. this one: "this isn't twitter, morons. #youcanthashtaghere" will get an eye roll. that is not clever. it's not even original. #growup
2. i have been guilty of this one a time or two but it was before i was old enough to rent a 15 passenger van. if you're that age or older and you've been dating for less than a month, please don't make every single status about him/her. we all see that and say this to each other ; "noooooot gonna last." you're not in love. you haven't even had time to stalk each other's exes yet. now, i don't think it's altogether wrong to make a status about the person you do love. i've done it. lots of times. i've been guilty of a "i love this man." status a time or two or even a "on a date with a cute boy <3". semi-annoying, i realize this, but acceptable in a relationship. however, statuses almost every day that say something like "i have the most beautiful, caring girlfriend ever." make me want to punch you and make me think you are trying to convince yourself of that. it's endearing for a season. and if you try to start that season prematurely or make it last too long, you're acting like a 14 year old girl with her first boyfriend. and no one likes a 14 year old girl with her first boyfriend.
3. "i'm going to make this super bigoted status about that religion or political group that is SO bigoted." enough said. morons.
4. not sure if you know this or not, but the unemployment rate is at like 8.3% right now. so it's fair to assume that most of us have a job. some/most even have jobs they don't enjoy. the ones that do enjoy their job still don't want to work all the time. that being said: "i hate my job.", "i have to go to work. :( :( :(", "can't believe i have to work for 3 hours on a saturday. :(" will make me want to punch you harder than i typically want to punch people. A. you have a job. be grateful. B. you have a job. be grateful. C. no one LIKES to work. but we LIKE all the stuff we have. so shut your mouth. and D. you have a job. be grateful. especially if your job is really not that hard. oh and sidenote, i work every saturday. i just one-upped you. take that. rewind it back.
5. if you purposely spell things wrong, use ThIs KiNd oF tYpe, talk in third person or have statuses that say something like "lms {which i just learned was 'like my status' ugh} if you know what it's like to be a balllllllllllller", there really is no hope for you. like, at all.
6. election years are annoying enough without social networking. at this point, you've established that you hate republicans. everyone knows. everyone knooooooows. stop arguing with people on facebook about politics. it takes a lot for someone to change their political beliefs. you're not convincing anyone when you argue. you're just trying to make sure everyone knows how smart you are {come see how good i look!}. you want everyone to know the statistics you know, the articles you've read, the true goodness you see in candidate A. umm, politicians are evil. all of them. and wasting your time during election year ranting about liberals, conservatives, and oh yeah, election year itself, makes you punch-worthy.
7. i know this one will bother some people. but let me just break it down for you. you had kids. you probably wanted to. a lot of people have kids. a lot of people are tired because of those kids. you don't have to always tell us about it. i realize i don't have kids. but you're tired because someone had an accident in the middle of the night and i'm tired from being awesome all day long. we're all tired. let it go. may i also use this as an opportunity to tell you to stop using said kids as an excuse? i know you have 5 kids. but if you can update your status about them driving you crazy, you can return a phone call. #justsaying #howyalikethathashtag
8. i'm going to put up this passive aggressive status about people being passive aggressive. sigh.
9. cry for help facebook statuses. i don't even need to show you any examples. you know who you are. and you just got blocked.
10. and last but certainly not least - some of the worst offenders of all. "ugh. i'm going to delete my facebook. not worth the drama." and "if you can see this, you made it through round 1. deleted a bunch of people. don't need fake 'friends'." sigh. and sigh. and sigh. A. if you're going to delete your facebook, you would have. we all know what reaction you're going for. and let's be honest, if you're putting up a status like that, you probably love the drama. in fact, you probably ARE the drama. take it down a notch or two. no one cares. and B. please don't let me make it past round 2 in your deleting party. go ahead and delete me. it will save me the trouble.
i miss the days when it said "john doe is..." and then you had to fill it out. you legit had to say what you were doing. i mean, i just put song lyrics up anyway but i digress. at least the ranting was at a low. the cries for help were few and far between. and the desire to punch people was minimal.
so carry on, facebookers. keep telling me about your boyfriend {that you're going to post after-break-up taylor swift lyrics about in 2 weeks}, your 9 kids {one word: vasectomy}, your hatred of facebook {i got nothin} and hOw eXiCteD yOu ArE aBoUt JuStiN's nEw alBuM!!!
sigh.
punches.
yellow.
love.
sigh.
before i make my list of facebook statuses that make me want to punch someone, force someone to live in a second or {gasp!} third world country for like, a day, or delete you from my facebook {which these days is like real life so those are hefty words}, let me pause to say this: yes i realize i probably would make some of your lists. if someone whose statuses are song lyrics 90% of the time bothers you - i'm sure you can't stand me. but let's be honest, george strait and billy joel's heartfelt words are way less annoying than mine. or maybe you can't stand the person that checks in everywhere they go. hey. i live alone. i think it's responsible. if i go missing, you know i was at lifetime 6 hours ago and at cadillac ranch 24 minutes ago. you'd have a good start on your search party. maybe you hate yellow {shame on you!}. maybe the XO annoys you. i got nothing for that. i'm just girly.
so here we go.
1. #peoplethathashtagtosaytheyhatehashtags. yes, we all know this isn't twitter. we know hash tags won't work on facebook. we don't care. we're being clever. example: "ugh! i dropped my prada bag on the floor at nordstrom and my iphone fell out and broke! #firstworldproblems". i will "like" that status. this one: "this isn't twitter, morons. #youcanthashtaghere" will get an eye roll. that is not clever. it's not even original. #growup
2. i have been guilty of this one a time or two but it was before i was old enough to rent a 15 passenger van. if you're that age or older and you've been dating for less than a month, please don't make every single status about him/her. we all see that and say this to each other ; "noooooot gonna last." you're not in love. you haven't even had time to stalk each other's exes yet. now, i don't think it's altogether wrong to make a status about the person you do love. i've done it. lots of times. i've been guilty of a "i love this man." status a time or two or even a "on a date with a cute boy <3". semi-annoying, i realize this, but acceptable in a relationship. however, statuses almost every day that say something like "i have the most beautiful, caring girlfriend ever." make me want to punch you and make me think you are trying to convince yourself of that. it's endearing for a season. and if you try to start that season prematurely or make it last too long, you're acting like a 14 year old girl with her first boyfriend. and no one likes a 14 year old girl with her first boyfriend.
3. "i'm going to make this super bigoted status about that religion or political group that is SO bigoted." enough said. morons.
4. not sure if you know this or not, but the unemployment rate is at like 8.3% right now. so it's fair to assume that most of us have a job. some/most even have jobs they don't enjoy. the ones that do enjoy their job still don't want to work all the time. that being said: "i hate my job.", "i have to go to work. :( :( :(", "can't believe i have to work for 3 hours on a saturday. :(" will make me want to punch you harder than i typically want to punch people. A. you have a job. be grateful. B. you have a job. be grateful. C. no one LIKES to work. but we LIKE all the stuff we have. so shut your mouth. and D. you have a job. be grateful. especially if your job is really not that hard. oh and sidenote, i work every saturday. i just one-upped you. take that. rewind it back.
5. if you purposely spell things wrong, use ThIs KiNd oF tYpe, talk in third person or have statuses that say something like "lms {which i just learned was 'like my status' ugh} if you know what it's like to be a balllllllllllller", there really is no hope for you. like, at all.
6. election years are annoying enough without social networking. at this point, you've established that you hate republicans. everyone knows. everyone knooooooows. stop arguing with people on facebook about politics. it takes a lot for someone to change their political beliefs. you're not convincing anyone when you argue. you're just trying to make sure everyone knows how smart you are {come see how good i look!}. you want everyone to know the statistics you know, the articles you've read, the true goodness you see in candidate A. umm, politicians are evil. all of them. and wasting your time during election year ranting about liberals, conservatives, and oh yeah, election year itself, makes you punch-worthy.
7. i know this one will bother some people. but let me just break it down for you. you had kids. you probably wanted to. a lot of people have kids. a lot of people are tired because of those kids. you don't have to always tell us about it. i realize i don't have kids. but you're tired because someone had an accident in the middle of the night and i'm tired from being awesome all day long. we're all tired. let it go. may i also use this as an opportunity to tell you to stop using said kids as an excuse? i know you have 5 kids. but if you can update your status about them driving you crazy, you can return a phone call. #justsaying #howyalikethathashtag
8. i'm going to put up this passive aggressive status about people being passive aggressive. sigh.
9. cry for help facebook statuses. i don't even need to show you any examples. you know who you are. and you just got blocked.
10. and last but certainly not least - some of the worst offenders of all. "ugh. i'm going to delete my facebook. not worth the drama." and "if you can see this, you made it through round 1. deleted a bunch of people. don't need fake 'friends'." sigh. and sigh. and sigh. A. if you're going to delete your facebook, you would have. we all know what reaction you're going for. and let's be honest, if you're putting up a status like that, you probably love the drama. in fact, you probably ARE the drama. take it down a notch or two. no one cares. and B. please don't let me make it past round 2 in your deleting party. go ahead and delete me. it will save me the trouble.
i miss the days when it said "john doe is..." and then you had to fill it out. you legit had to say what you were doing. i mean, i just put song lyrics up anyway but i digress. at least the ranting was at a low. the cries for help were few and far between. and the desire to punch people was minimal.
so carry on, facebookers. keep telling me about your boyfriend {that you're going to post after-break-up taylor swift lyrics about in 2 weeks}, your 9 kids {one word: vasectomy}, your hatred of facebook {i got nothin} and hOw eXiCteD yOu ArE aBoUt JuStiN's nEw alBuM!!!
sigh.
punches.
yellow.
love.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
i left a little piece of my heart in peru {part TWO}
if you didn't catch my blog yesterday, go back and read part one first. do as you're told. gracias. and you can check out my photos from the trip here.
we got to peru late afternoon on monday. it felt so good to just BE in peru. what i was not prepared for was our first bus ride...or really any of our bus rides. when i say they drive like maniacs down there - i mean, take the volume of cars in new york, add the aggressiveness of new york drivers and then take out all of the laws, rules, road surveillance, patrol cars, common decency & logic. americans beep and scream obscenities for cutting them off. peruvians just beep. all the time. it never stops. it's their way of telling you their cutting you off. when you wanna switch lanes or a lane ends, it's really just a matter of who gets there first. i could reach out and touch another car at almost any moment. that first ride was terrifying. and people laughed at me for freaking out. imagine that. :)
we got to yeyas, our hostel and ate dinner and had a meeting and prepared for our work days. the guys that were already there went to our scheduled site for monday and did what they could with who and what they had. our entire children's team was in chile. we had a lot of the medical supplies. but God can do much with little. and i know they reached the people they were called to that day.
the next day we went to the freys' church. alan and diane frey are some of the best people i've ever met. they've been in peru since 1984. and they have the kind of hearts i hope to have. {annnnnd, i'm tearing up. didn't take long. never does ha!} we met the most beautiful and loving people that day. we met little stephanie who is 7 and shocked us all by being bilingual. i hired her as my interpreter for about an hour. ;) she's bilingual because of time she spent in new york last year. her dad lives in new york and works there to support her, her mother, and her baby brother in lima. heart = broken. she was funny and she was beautiful and she was wearing yellow. no coincidence there. :)
i got to meet and talk to some of our team that day too. there were people with us from mansfield, ohio and from the freys' home church {our connection is that chad, our leader from origins, grew up knowing the freys at the same church outside of chicago}. everyone that was with us was amazing. and david, a college kid from chicago, guessed my age at 21 so we quickly became best friends. obviously. :)
i met a woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, when i was doing her nails. she knew a little english and i could tell she was trying hard. she ended up coming back 2 days later to another site we were at with juice she made for me {that i felt awful not being able to drink because there's no way to know if she boiled the water but she doesn't know i didn't. whew!} and asked me write on the back of a picture of us so she could practice her english even more. i told her i hope to see her next year and that she knows more english...and that i know more spanish. :) she is a sweet, sweet woman. and i hope i get to hug her again.
that night, we were going to the mall. i didn't feel great that afternoon, but i was okay. by the time we got to the mall, i knew i wasn't feeling well at all. the final nail in the coffin was when everyone got ice cream and i didn't want any. if you know me, you know that i never pass on ice cream. it just doesn't happen. so then i knew i was sick. i just needed to get back to the hostel. well to do that, a typical peruvian bus ride was in order. and that bus ride did me in. i rode with my face covered and dalene's voice in my ear telling me we were almost there {and we never were ha!} and because i'm me, i started crying. i just didn't want to get sick on that bus. we pulled in front of yeyas and people cleared for me to run in. my room was locked so brandon and tara ran up to theirs with me and {bless their hearts} i got sick in their bathroom. thought it was over. it wasn't. i was sick all night long. and devastated. the next day was the orphanage and i was dying to go.
so i went. sick or not. and lasted half the day before i got sent back to yeyas to sleep it off. which i'm so glad i did. by the time i woke up from that nap, i was good to go. thank you Jesus! my short time at the orphanage was great. i saw some of the most beautiful children in the world. and got to love on them. doesn't get much better than that. we went to the fountains in downtown lima that night. make sure you check out the pictures of that. so beautiful.
the next day was very much like the first. the doctors saw a bunch of patients, which was awesome and we got to love on the people. peruvian people are so loving. it was hard to say goodbye to them that day.
and the goodbyes continued. we had our final meeting that night with the groups we worked with in lima. addy, a 29 year old angel with a vision to reach her people, shared that vision and her needs with us. the men from origins laid hands and prayed over our peruvian friends and partners {i cried. like a baby.} and they gave us gifts for coming to them and hugged us goodbye. a woman i hadn't even talked to all week brought me a gift, hugged me, and in english said "i love you". {weeping over here.} and i know that she meant it. and i love her too. i can't tell you how quickly my heart was won by these people. what little we did meant the world to them. and their smiles meant the world to us.
that same night, back at yeyas, a few people shared their hearts. if i thought i had cried before, i hadn't even started. a man named tim that goes to our church got up to share his heart. i'm not going to tell his story because i wouldn't do it justice. but it's the beauty of my time in peru. i was encouraged and inspired and changed by the people we met. and that night, i was encouraged and inspired and changed by his daughter lauren, a girl i already know.
that night back in our room, we talked about our week there. God had provided money for people in his last-minute way. he didn't for me. not that i didn't have an incredible help from the people in my life, i did. but i paid a lot of my trip myself. and there were expenses outside of the money we needed that were costly and difficult and came at a time when business was slow and expenses were high. i wasn't bitter about paying it, it was just hard. and that night, sitting in that room, i realized that i would pay it all again for that experience. i almost think God wanted me to pay it. because he knew i didn't have the money. but he also knew peru was where i was supposed to be. and now, in hindsight, he has repaid me in full. and i'd spend twice as much next year for half of the blessings from my week there.
the first night, scotty {my incredible pastor} challenged us to pray over the question, "why am i here?" and there are easy answers there. "to change lives", "to change me"...and while they sound cliche, they're true. but i had to get specific with my prayer. and in no time he showed me. the change that needed to happen inside of me was more than i think i had even realized.
and he changed my heart last week.
and a little bit of that heart {okay maybe a big part of it} is still there in lima. and very well might always be. i'm okay with that. :)
i came back to the states with a new appreciation for my american life, with a deeper love for my savior, a newly found love for his children in peru, an intense gratefulness for the people i'm blessed to serve with at origins, and a beautiful reminder of hope. my entire time there screamed hope. hope for the people of peru, hope for all of us - the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
it would be impossible for me to walk away from my time there and not know that life is yellow.
it is so, so yellow.
we got to peru late afternoon on monday. it felt so good to just BE in peru. what i was not prepared for was our first bus ride...or really any of our bus rides. when i say they drive like maniacs down there - i mean, take the volume of cars in new york, add the aggressiveness of new york drivers and then take out all of the laws, rules, road surveillance, patrol cars, common decency & logic. americans beep and scream obscenities for cutting them off. peruvians just beep. all the time. it never stops. it's their way of telling you their cutting you off. when you wanna switch lanes or a lane ends, it's really just a matter of who gets there first. i could reach out and touch another car at almost any moment. that first ride was terrifying. and people laughed at me for freaking out. imagine that. :)
we got to yeyas, our hostel and ate dinner and had a meeting and prepared for our work days. the guys that were already there went to our scheduled site for monday and did what they could with who and what they had. our entire children's team was in chile. we had a lot of the medical supplies. but God can do much with little. and i know they reached the people they were called to that day.
the next day we went to the freys' church. alan and diane frey are some of the best people i've ever met. they've been in peru since 1984. and they have the kind of hearts i hope to have. {annnnnd, i'm tearing up. didn't take long. never does ha!} we met the most beautiful and loving people that day. we met little stephanie who is 7 and shocked us all by being bilingual. i hired her as my interpreter for about an hour. ;) she's bilingual because of time she spent in new york last year. her dad lives in new york and works there to support her, her mother, and her baby brother in lima. heart = broken. she was funny and she was beautiful and she was wearing yellow. no coincidence there. :)
i got to meet and talk to some of our team that day too. there were people with us from mansfield, ohio and from the freys' home church {our connection is that chad, our leader from origins, grew up knowing the freys at the same church outside of chicago}. everyone that was with us was amazing. and david, a college kid from chicago, guessed my age at 21 so we quickly became best friends. obviously. :)
i met a woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, when i was doing her nails. she knew a little english and i could tell she was trying hard. she ended up coming back 2 days later to another site we were at with juice she made for me {that i felt awful not being able to drink because there's no way to know if she boiled the water but she doesn't know i didn't. whew!} and asked me write on the back of a picture of us so she could practice her english even more. i told her i hope to see her next year and that she knows more english...and that i know more spanish. :) she is a sweet, sweet woman. and i hope i get to hug her again.
that night, we were going to the mall. i didn't feel great that afternoon, but i was okay. by the time we got to the mall, i knew i wasn't feeling well at all. the final nail in the coffin was when everyone got ice cream and i didn't want any. if you know me, you know that i never pass on ice cream. it just doesn't happen. so then i knew i was sick. i just needed to get back to the hostel. well to do that, a typical peruvian bus ride was in order. and that bus ride did me in. i rode with my face covered and dalene's voice in my ear telling me we were almost there {and we never were ha!} and because i'm me, i started crying. i just didn't want to get sick on that bus. we pulled in front of yeyas and people cleared for me to run in. my room was locked so brandon and tara ran up to theirs with me and {bless their hearts} i got sick in their bathroom. thought it was over. it wasn't. i was sick all night long. and devastated. the next day was the orphanage and i was dying to go.
so i went. sick or not. and lasted half the day before i got sent back to yeyas to sleep it off. which i'm so glad i did. by the time i woke up from that nap, i was good to go. thank you Jesus! my short time at the orphanage was great. i saw some of the most beautiful children in the world. and got to love on them. doesn't get much better than that. we went to the fountains in downtown lima that night. make sure you check out the pictures of that. so beautiful.
the next day was very much like the first. the doctors saw a bunch of patients, which was awesome and we got to love on the people. peruvian people are so loving. it was hard to say goodbye to them that day.
and the goodbyes continued. we had our final meeting that night with the groups we worked with in lima. addy, a 29 year old angel with a vision to reach her people, shared that vision and her needs with us. the men from origins laid hands and prayed over our peruvian friends and partners {i cried. like a baby.} and they gave us gifts for coming to them and hugged us goodbye. a woman i hadn't even talked to all week brought me a gift, hugged me, and in english said "i love you". {weeping over here.} and i know that she meant it. and i love her too. i can't tell you how quickly my heart was won by these people. what little we did meant the world to them. and their smiles meant the world to us.
that same night, back at yeyas, a few people shared their hearts. if i thought i had cried before, i hadn't even started. a man named tim that goes to our church got up to share his heart. i'm not going to tell his story because i wouldn't do it justice. but it's the beauty of my time in peru. i was encouraged and inspired and changed by the people we met. and that night, i was encouraged and inspired and changed by his daughter lauren, a girl i already know.
that night back in our room, we talked about our week there. God had provided money for people in his last-minute way. he didn't for me. not that i didn't have an incredible help from the people in my life, i did. but i paid a lot of my trip myself. and there were expenses outside of the money we needed that were costly and difficult and came at a time when business was slow and expenses were high. i wasn't bitter about paying it, it was just hard. and that night, sitting in that room, i realized that i would pay it all again for that experience. i almost think God wanted me to pay it. because he knew i didn't have the money. but he also knew peru was where i was supposed to be. and now, in hindsight, he has repaid me in full. and i'd spend twice as much next year for half of the blessings from my week there.
the first night, scotty {my incredible pastor} challenged us to pray over the question, "why am i here?" and there are easy answers there. "to change lives", "to change me"...and while they sound cliche, they're true. but i had to get specific with my prayer. and in no time he showed me. the change that needed to happen inside of me was more than i think i had even realized.
and he changed my heart last week.
and a little bit of that heart {okay maybe a big part of it} is still there in lima. and very well might always be. i'm okay with that. :)
i came back to the states with a new appreciation for my american life, with a deeper love for my savior, a newly found love for his children in peru, an intense gratefulness for the people i'm blessed to serve with at origins, and a beautiful reminder of hope. my entire time there screamed hope. hope for the people of peru, hope for all of us - the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
it would be impossible for me to walk away from my time there and not know that life is yellow.
it is so, so yellow.
i left a little piece of my heart in peru {part TWO}
if you didn't catch my blog yesterday, go back and read part one first. do as you're told. gracias. and you can check out my photos from the trip here.
we got to peru late afternoon on monday. it felt so good to just BE in peru. what i was not prepared for was our first bus ride...or really any of our bus rides. when i say they drive like maniacs down there - i mean, take the volume of cars in new york, add the aggressiveness of new york drivers and then take out all of the laws, rules, road surveillance, patrol cars, common decency & logic. americans beep and scream obscenities for cutting them off. peruvians just beep. all the time. it never stops. it's their way of telling you their cutting you off. when you wanna switch lanes or a lane ends, it's really just a matter of who gets there first. i could reach out and touch another car at almost any moment. that first ride was terrifying. and people laughed at me for freaking out. imagine that. :)
we got to yeyas, our hostel and ate dinner and had a meeting and prepared for our work days. the guys that were already there went to our scheduled site for monday and did what they could with who and what they had. our entire children's team was in chile. we had a lot of the medical supplies. but God can do much with little. and i know they reached the people they were called to that day.
the next day we went to the freys' church. alan and diane frey are some of the best people i've ever met. they've been in peru since 1984. and they have the kind of hearts i hope to have. {annnnnd, i'm tearing up. didn't take long. never does ha!} we met the most beautiful and loving people that day. we met little stephanie who is 7 and shocked us all by being bilingual. i hired her as my interpreter for about an hour. ;) she's bilingual because of time she spent in new york last year. her dad lives in new york and works there to support her, her mother, and her baby brother in lima. heart = broken. she was funny and she was beautiful and she was wearing yellow. no coincidence there. :)
i got to meet and talk to some of our team that day too. there were people with us from mansfield, ohio and from the freys' home church {our connection is that chad, our leader from origins, grew up knowing the freys at the same church outside of chicago}. everyone that was with us was amazing. and david, a college kid from chicago, guessed my age at 21 so we quickly became best friends. obviously. :)
i met a woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, when i was doing her nails. she knew a little english and i could tell she was trying hard. she ended up coming back 2 days later to another site we were at with juice she made for me {that i felt awful not being able to drink because there's no way to know if she boiled the water but she doesn't know i didn't. whew!} and asked me write on the back of a picture of us so she could practice her english even more. i told her i hope to see her next year and that she knows more english...and that i know more spanish. :) she is a sweet, sweet woman. and i hope i get to hug her again.
that night, we were going to the mall. i didn't feel great that afternoon, but i was okay. by the time we got to the mall, i knew i wasn't feeling well at all. the final nail in the coffin was when everyone got ice cream and i didn't want any. if you know me, you know that i never pass on ice cream. it just doesn't happen. so then i knew i was sick. i just needed to get back to the hostel. well to do that, a typical peruvian bus ride was in order. and that bus ride did me in. i rode with my face covered and dalene's voice in my ear telling me we were almost there {and we never were ha!} and because i'm me, i started crying. i just didn't want to get sick on that bus. we pulled in front of yeyas and people cleared for me to run in. my room was locked so brandon and tara ran up to theirs with me and {bless their hearts} i got sick in their bathroom. thought it was over. it wasn't. i was sick all night long. and devastated. the next day was the orphanage and i was dying to go.
so i went. sick or not. and lasted half the day before i got sent back to yeyas to sleep it off. which i'm so glad i did. by the time i woke up from that nap, i was good to go. thank you Jesus! my short time at the orphanage was great. i saw some of the most beautiful children in the world. and got to love on them. doesn't get much better than that. we went to the fountains in downtown lima that night. make sure you check out the pictures of that. so beautiful.
peruvian people are so loving. it was hard to say goodbye to them that day.
and the goodbyes continued. we had our final meeting that night with the groups we worked with in lima. addy, a 29 year old angel with a vision to reach her people, shared that vision and her needs with us. the men from origins laid hands and prayed over our peruvian friends and partners {i cried. like a baby.} and they gave us gifts for coming to them and hugged us goodbye. a woman i hadn't even talked to all week brought me a gift, hugged me, and in english said "i love you". {weeping over here.} and i know that she meant it. and i love her too. i can't tell you how quickly my heart was won by these people. what little we did meant the world to them. and their smiles meant the world to us.
that same night, back at yeyas, a few people shared their hearts. if i thought i had cried before, i hadn't even started. a man named tim that goes to our church got up to share his heart. i'm not going to tell his story because i wouldn't do it justice. but it's the beauty of my time in peru. i was encouraged and inspired and changed by the people we met. and that night, i was encouraged and inspired and changed by his daughter lauren, a girl i already know.
that night back in our room, we talked about our week there. God had provided money for people in his last-minute way. he didn't for me. not that i didn't have an incredible help from the people in my life, i did. but i paid a lot of my trip myself. and there were expenses outside of the money we needed that were costly and difficult and came at a time when business was slow and expenses were high. i wasn't bitter about paying it, it was just hard. and that night, sitting in that room, i realized that i would pay it all again for that experience. i almost think God wanted me to pay it. because he knew i didn't have the money. but he also knew peru was where i was supposed to be. and now, in hindsight, he has repaid me in full. and i'd spend twice as much next year for half of the blessings from my week there.
the first night, scotty {my incredible pastor} challenged us to pray over the question, "why am i here?" and there are easy answers there. "to change lives", "to change me"...and while they sound cliche, they're true. but i had to get specific with my prayer. and in no time he showed me. the change that needed to happen inside of me was more than i think i had even realized.
and he changed my heart last week.
and a little bit of that heart {okay maybe a big part of it} is still there in lima. and very well might always be. i'm okay with that. :)
i came back to the states with a new appreciation for my american life, with a deeper love for my savior, a newly found love for his children in peru, an intense gratefulness for the people i'm blessed to serve with at origins, and a beautiful reminder of hope. my entire time there screamed hope. hope for the people of peru, hope for all of us - the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
it would be impossible for me to walk away from my time there and not know that life is yellow.
it is so, so yellow.
we got to peru late afternoon on monday. it felt so good to just BE in peru. what i was not prepared for was our first bus ride...or really any of our bus rides. when i say they drive like maniacs down there - i mean, take the volume of cars in new york, add the aggressiveness of new york drivers and then take out all of the laws, rules, road surveillance, patrol cars, common decency & logic. americans beep and scream obscenities for cutting them off. peruvians just beep. all the time. it never stops. it's their way of telling you their cutting you off. when you wanna switch lanes or a lane ends, it's really just a matter of who gets there first. i could reach out and touch another car at almost any moment. that first ride was terrifying. and people laughed at me for freaking out. imagine that. :)
we got to yeyas, our hostel and ate dinner and had a meeting and prepared for our work days. the guys that were already there went to our scheduled site for monday and did what they could with who and what they had. our entire children's team was in chile. we had a lot of the medical supplies. but God can do much with little. and i know they reached the people they were called to that day.
the next day we went to the freys' church. alan and diane frey are some of the best people i've ever met. they've been in peru since 1984. and they have the kind of hearts i hope to have. {annnnnd, i'm tearing up. didn't take long. never does ha!} we met the most beautiful and loving people that day. we met little stephanie who is 7 and shocked us all by being bilingual. i hired her as my interpreter for about an hour. ;) she's bilingual because of time she spent in new york last year. her dad lives in new york and works there to support her, her mother, and her baby brother in lima. heart = broken. she was funny and she was beautiful and she was wearing yellow. no coincidence there. :)
i got to meet and talk to some of our team that day too. there were people with us from mansfield, ohio and from the freys' home church {our connection is that chad, our leader from origins, grew up knowing the freys at the same church outside of chicago}. everyone that was with us was amazing. and david, a college kid from chicago, guessed my age at 21 so we quickly became best friends. obviously. :)
i met a woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, when i was doing her nails. she knew a little english and i could tell she was trying hard. she ended up coming back 2 days later to another site we were at with juice she made for me {that i felt awful not being able to drink because there's no way to know if she boiled the water but she doesn't know i didn't. whew!} and asked me write on the back of a picture of us so she could practice her english even more. i told her i hope to see her next year and that she knows more english...and that i know more spanish. :) she is a sweet, sweet woman. and i hope i get to hug her again.
that night, we were going to the mall. i didn't feel great that afternoon, but i was okay. by the time we got to the mall, i knew i wasn't feeling well at all. the final nail in the coffin was when everyone got ice cream and i didn't want any. if you know me, you know that i never pass on ice cream. it just doesn't happen. so then i knew i was sick. i just needed to get back to the hostel. well to do that, a typical peruvian bus ride was in order. and that bus ride did me in. i rode with my face covered and dalene's voice in my ear telling me we were almost there {and we never were ha!} and because i'm me, i started crying. i just didn't want to get sick on that bus. we pulled in front of yeyas and people cleared for me to run in. my room was locked so brandon and tara ran up to theirs with me and {bless their hearts} i got sick in their bathroom. thought it was over. it wasn't. i was sick all night long. and devastated. the next day was the orphanage and i was dying to go.
so i went. sick or not. and lasted half the day before i got sent back to yeyas to sleep it off. which i'm so glad i did. by the time i woke up from that nap, i was good to go. thank you Jesus! my short time at the orphanage was great. i saw some of the most beautiful children in the world. and got to love on them. doesn't get much better than that. we went to the fountains in downtown lima that night. make sure you check out the pictures of that. so beautiful.
peruvian people are so loving. it was hard to say goodbye to them that day.
and the goodbyes continued. we had our final meeting that night with the groups we worked with in lima. addy, a 29 year old angel with a vision to reach her people, shared that vision and her needs with us. the men from origins laid hands and prayed over our peruvian friends and partners {i cried. like a baby.} and they gave us gifts for coming to them and hugged us goodbye. a woman i hadn't even talked to all week brought me a gift, hugged me, and in english said "i love you". {weeping over here.} and i know that she meant it. and i love her too. i can't tell you how quickly my heart was won by these people. what little we did meant the world to them. and their smiles meant the world to us.
that same night, back at yeyas, a few people shared their hearts. if i thought i had cried before, i hadn't even started. a man named tim that goes to our church got up to share his heart. i'm not going to tell his story because i wouldn't do it justice. but it's the beauty of my time in peru. i was encouraged and inspired and changed by the people we met. and that night, i was encouraged and inspired and changed by his daughter lauren, a girl i already know.
that night back in our room, we talked about our week there. God had provided money for people in his last-minute way. he didn't for me. not that i didn't have an incredible help from the people in my life, i did. but i paid a lot of my trip myself. and there were expenses outside of the money we needed that were costly and difficult and came at a time when business was slow and expenses were high. i wasn't bitter about paying it, it was just hard. and that night, sitting in that room, i realized that i would pay it all again for that experience. i almost think God wanted me to pay it. because he knew i didn't have the money. but he also knew peru was where i was supposed to be. and now, in hindsight, he has repaid me in full. and i'd spend twice as much next year for half of the blessings from my week there.
the first night, scotty {my incredible pastor} challenged us to pray over the question, "why am i here?" and there are easy answers there. "to change lives", "to change me"...and while they sound cliche, they're true. but i had to get specific with my prayer. and in no time he showed me. the change that needed to happen inside of me was more than i think i had even realized.
and he changed my heart last week.
and a little bit of that heart {okay maybe a big part of it} is still there in lima. and very well might always be. i'm okay with that. :)
i came back to the states with a new appreciation for my american life, with a deeper love for my savior, a newly found love for his children in peru, an intense gratefulness for the people i'm blessed to serve with at origins, and a beautiful reminder of hope. my entire time there screamed hope. hope for the people of peru, hope for all of us - the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
it would be impossible for me to walk away from my time there and not know that life is yellow.
it is so, so yellow.
Monday, January 23, 2012
i left a little piece of my heart in peru {part ONE}
i blog about what shoes i'm wearing so we all knew i'd blog about this.
this might be long - just a warning. not only because i have a tendency to talk/write/communicate more than the average bear but because there is so much to tell you. i'm going to tell you about the first few days today. tomorrow, you get the good stuff. :)
the first few days of the trip feel like a blur. we knew that the travel portion would be difficult. long layovers, red-eye flights, bored children. we knew it would take a lot out of us. we didn't know we'd end up in a travel nightmare. {okay that was dramatic but i checked out the thesaurus and really, i couldn't come up with better than nightmare.}
we left Cincinnati at noon and got to NYC around 2. we didn't get on our plane for Lima until 10:45...and we were in the lamest terminal ever. but finally, we lined up to get on the packed out red-eye for Peru {who knew so many people would be on that flight?? i didn't.}. as i waited, i met a girl from england. her name was emma {making her all the more british} and she was simply lovely {there really isn't a more perfect british description}. i had no idea i'd spend the next 30 hours or so with emma but i'm glad i got to. she was sweet and had a beautiful accent and even looked like princess kate. she really did. when we got on the plane, lo and behold, she was sitting across the aisle from me. we talked many times over the next day and a half and when i didn't get to say bye to her 2 days later in Lima, i really did get sad. God lets us meet angels sometimes.
we were supposed to land in Lima around 7:30am saturday morning. well, we didn't. the pilot told us there was fog and he could circle for an hour and then he would have to take us to Ica, Chile which was a bus-ride away. alright, alright. i can deal with that. but an hour later when he was done circling, instead of taking us to Ica, he took us to Iquique, Chile which was even further away. of course, none of the staff could speak english and we were confused as to what was happening but i thought, "okay, we'll go to Iquique and get on another plane later today and go back to Peru." false. we got to Iquique, they wouldn't let us off the plane, they refueled, restocked, switched crews {took about an hour} and then flew us another 2 hours to Santiago, Chile which is just about as far south as I ever want to go. we were only off the plane about 10 minutes when we got the news - we'd be staying in Chile overnight.
it was only about 2pm their time when they told us. we didn't leave the airport for about 3 more hours. mind you, they had fed us breakfast at 6am and absolutely nothing since then. and for those of us who were scared of the breakfast, it had been a long time since we had eaten. we filled out customs and immigration forms since we were leaving the airport and then they told us we had to let them keep our passports at the airport.
umm, no.
first rule about your passport {rules according to rachel spears, that is}: don't let someone else keep it when you're in a foreign country. or really, ever. six countries had entry fees into Chile. US citizens were 3 times as much as anyone else's. interesting. and unless we wanted to pay them that money, we had to hand them over. this is where i started to freak out {hopefully, only internally but who knows what my face was saying}. it's one thing to get stuck at LAX. you're on American soil. it's all good. getting stuck in a country where no one speaks english and people are trying to take your passport is terrifying. maybe not to everyone in our group, but absolutely to me. taken, brokedown palace - all of these movies were popping into my head and i about lost it. i knew there were 21 of us {the rest of the group had come early, come from Cleveland, or come from Chicago} and the chances of something bad happening were slim but still - one too many lifetime movies will freak you out.
they ended up letting us keep our passports {thank you Jesus} and taking nearly 200 of us on buses through Santiago to our hotel. as we drove through Santiago, the pit in my stomach grew. i couldn't help but wonder where in the world they were taking us. through the entire city was a river. i honestly have no idea how it was even moving. it was the sludgiest {made that word up maybe?}, blackest, most garbage-infested "river" i've ever seen. along it's shores were piles and piles of garbage. in one place, i saw the river, a mountain of garbage next to and flowing into it, and a horse. just standing there. thinking about him drinking that water makes my stomach turn. i saw signs for hotels and hostels and the pit grew even more. we had kids with us, we have a lot of money's worth of supplies with us, we had...ME with us - we needed a safe place to stay. the bus ride took over 30 minutes and finally, the crazy bus driver turned us into the driveway for our destination for the evening.
the Crowne Plaza.
thank you Jesus.
it was beautiful. it was clean. and it was a mad house. they hurried us through registration and pushed us to the restaurant for dinner before it closed. i was so excited to eat! this was not American food however, but you wouldn't have noticed anyone was leery. we were too hungry to care. after dinner, i went up to my own room {which after being on a plane for a million hours was much needed} and for the first time in about 12 hours, there wasn't an ounce of frustration in me. the room was gorgeous. and when i opened the windows, i could have cried. Santiago was beautiful. it was surrounded by the Andes moutains on every side and from the my 24th {maybe it was 22nd. i was tired} floor view, i could see people still sunbathing on roofs at 8pm and the hustle and bustle and streetlights coming on far below. it was then that i realized, i probably would never go to Santiago, Chile in my life. and if did, it would probably be for something similar to what we were trying to get to Lima to do and it would most certainly not include me staying in the Crowne Plaza for free in a room with a view.
what an opportunity.
i took the best shower of my life and slept hard that night and woke up early to get ready for the airport. the Santiago airport was craziness and LAN {the airline. ugh.} had brought in a plane just for the 200-ish of us from the day before. we all spent that entire 30 some hours together. emma was there. and so were sonny and his cousin - 2 guys we met {that spoke english!} on the plane. and there was rafael. remember how i said God lets us meet angels? no exception here.
one of the guys with us, tim, was sitting next to rafael on the plane the day before. he was a Peruvian national living in America. so at the Santiago airport, at the Crowne Plaza, at the Santiago airport, all the way through when we walked out of customs in Lima and out of the airport, he translated for us, intervened for us, and saw us through. then he just said, "have a great time." and walked away. because of that language barrier, we most likely would have had an even harder time realizing what was going on, doing what we were asked, knowing what was coming, getting through customs. i believe God placed him next to tim on that plane. i hope years down the line, he remembers the 21 people traveling from Ohio to Peru to reach his people. we will surely remember him.
so we flew 4 hours to Lima and by the grace of God, and with the help of rafael, made it through customs easily. when you're carrying 42 army green duffel bags, they could make it really difficult for you or not want the headache. i'm so grateful they didn't want to deal with us that day. we were already so tired.
we walked outside into the heat of Lima. and then life got really yellow.
part two...tomorrow. :)
this might be long - just a warning. not only because i have a tendency to talk/write/communicate more than the average bear but because there is so much to tell you. i'm going to tell you about the first few days today. tomorrow, you get the good stuff. :)
the first few days of the trip feel like a blur. we knew that the travel portion would be difficult. long layovers, red-eye flights, bored children. we knew it would take a lot out of us. we didn't know we'd end up in a travel nightmare. {okay that was dramatic but i checked out the thesaurus and really, i couldn't come up with better than nightmare.}
we left Cincinnati at noon and got to NYC around 2. we didn't get on our plane for Lima until 10:45...and we were in the lamest terminal ever. but finally, we lined up to get on the packed out red-eye for Peru {who knew so many people would be on that flight?? i didn't.}. as i waited, i met a girl from england. her name was emma {making her all the more british} and she was simply lovely {there really isn't a more perfect british description}. i had no idea i'd spend the next 30 hours or so with emma but i'm glad i got to. she was sweet and had a beautiful accent and even looked like princess kate. she really did. when we got on the plane, lo and behold, she was sitting across the aisle from me. we talked many times over the next day and a half and when i didn't get to say bye to her 2 days later in Lima, i really did get sad. God lets us meet angels sometimes.
we were supposed to land in Lima around 7:30am saturday morning. well, we didn't. the pilot told us there was fog and he could circle for an hour and then he would have to take us to Ica, Chile which was a bus-ride away. alright, alright. i can deal with that. but an hour later when he was done circling, instead of taking us to Ica, he took us to Iquique, Chile which was even further away. of course, none of the staff could speak english and we were confused as to what was happening but i thought, "okay, we'll go to Iquique and get on another plane later today and go back to Peru." false. we got to Iquique, they wouldn't let us off the plane, they refueled, restocked, switched crews {took about an hour} and then flew us another 2 hours to Santiago, Chile which is just about as far south as I ever want to go. we were only off the plane about 10 minutes when we got the news - we'd be staying in Chile overnight.
it was only about 2pm their time when they told us. we didn't leave the airport for about 3 more hours. mind you, they had fed us breakfast at 6am and absolutely nothing since then. and for those of us who were scared of the breakfast, it had been a long time since we had eaten. we filled out customs and immigration forms since we were leaving the airport and then they told us we had to let them keep our passports at the airport.
umm, no.
first rule about your passport {rules according to rachel spears, that is}: don't let someone else keep it when you're in a foreign country. or really, ever. six countries had entry fees into Chile. US citizens were 3 times as much as anyone else's. interesting. and unless we wanted to pay them that money, we had to hand them over. this is where i started to freak out {hopefully, only internally but who knows what my face was saying}. it's one thing to get stuck at LAX. you're on American soil. it's all good. getting stuck in a country where no one speaks english and people are trying to take your passport is terrifying. maybe not to everyone in our group, but absolutely to me. taken, brokedown palace - all of these movies were popping into my head and i about lost it. i knew there were 21 of us {the rest of the group had come early, come from Cleveland, or come from Chicago} and the chances of something bad happening were slim but still - one too many lifetime movies will freak you out.
they ended up letting us keep our passports {thank you Jesus} and taking nearly 200 of us on buses through Santiago to our hotel. as we drove through Santiago, the pit in my stomach grew. i couldn't help but wonder where in the world they were taking us. through the entire city was a river. i honestly have no idea how it was even moving. it was the sludgiest {made that word up maybe?}, blackest, most garbage-infested "river" i've ever seen. along it's shores were piles and piles of garbage. in one place, i saw the river, a mountain of garbage next to and flowing into it, and a horse. just standing there. thinking about him drinking that water makes my stomach turn. i saw signs for hotels and hostels and the pit grew even more. we had kids with us, we have a lot of money's worth of supplies with us, we had...ME with us - we needed a safe place to stay. the bus ride took over 30 minutes and finally, the crazy bus driver turned us into the driveway for our destination for the evening.
the Crowne Plaza.
thank you Jesus.
it was beautiful. it was clean. and it was a mad house. they hurried us through registration and pushed us to the restaurant for dinner before it closed. i was so excited to eat! this was not American food however, but you wouldn't have noticed anyone was leery. we were too hungry to care. after dinner, i went up to my own room {which after being on a plane for a million hours was much needed} and for the first time in about 12 hours, there wasn't an ounce of frustration in me. the room was gorgeous. and when i opened the windows, i could have cried. Santiago was beautiful. it was surrounded by the Andes moutains on every side and from the my 24th {maybe it was 22nd. i was tired} floor view, i could see people still sunbathing on roofs at 8pm and the hustle and bustle and streetlights coming on far below. it was then that i realized, i probably would never go to Santiago, Chile in my life. and if did, it would probably be for something similar to what we were trying to get to Lima to do and it would most certainly not include me staying in the Crowne Plaza for free in a room with a view.
what an opportunity.
i took the best shower of my life and slept hard that night and woke up early to get ready for the airport. the Santiago airport was craziness and LAN {the airline. ugh.} had brought in a plane just for the 200-ish of us from the day before. we all spent that entire 30 some hours together. emma was there. and so were sonny and his cousin - 2 guys we met {that spoke english!} on the plane. and there was rafael. remember how i said God lets us meet angels? no exception here.
one of the guys with us, tim, was sitting next to rafael on the plane the day before. he was a Peruvian national living in America. so at the Santiago airport, at the Crowne Plaza, at the Santiago airport, all the way through when we walked out of customs in Lima and out of the airport, he translated for us, intervened for us, and saw us through. then he just said, "have a great time." and walked away. because of that language barrier, we most likely would have had an even harder time realizing what was going on, doing what we were asked, knowing what was coming, getting through customs. i believe God placed him next to tim on that plane. i hope years down the line, he remembers the 21 people traveling from Ohio to Peru to reach his people. we will surely remember him.
so we flew 4 hours to Lima and by the grace of God, and with the help of rafael, made it through customs easily. when you're carrying 42 army green duffel bags, they could make it really difficult for you or not want the headache. i'm so grateful they didn't want to deal with us that day. we were already so tired.
we walked outside into the heat of Lima. and then life got really yellow.
part two...tomorrow. :)
Friday, January 13, 2012
two years.
quick. go to facebook. read my last note i wrote on january 14, 2011. then come back.
awesome. now we both know what i'm about to talk about.
awesome. now we both know what i'm about to talk about.
it has been two years since i decided to change my life. hardest & best two years of my life.
the first year was mostly about change. this year has been mostly about adjustment & opportunity.
things that have happened since january 14, 2011:
i moved to landen.
i opened up the studio.
i went from a "photographer who does weddings" to a "wedding photographer". {totally different}
i went to LU for the first time since i graduated.
i visited jon in utah and alexandra in florida.
i became friends with people i've admired professionally for years and established myself among them.
i went from sometimes attending origins to plugging into a small group, being in the band every other week, and something else i'll touch on in a minute. :)
i finally got some tattoos. eek!
and obviously a lot more. those are my highlights. oh, and i'm sure you're thinking, "but how much more weight have you lost?" we'll get to that.
2011 in many ways was the best year of my life. moving to my little apartment with kennedy - no roommates - no family - has taught me so much. for instance, i really like living alone. but i really hate being alone. so obvi, the next apartment will be solo...but very close to people i love. :) i had a good deal of heartache this year. and there were times i sat in that apartment crying for hours. literally. when i couldn't rely on someone to distract me. i had to truly deal with my pain instead of locking it away like i've always done. that was terrible. and the best thing for me. i see that now. the time i've had to spend alone this year has been something i hated...and now am grateful for.
professionally, i couldn't have asked for a better year. the business grew and it grew the best way - word of mouth. i still don't pay for advertising on the websites that bring me the most business {and oh, how they call so that i will). in late 2010, i got overwhelmed and remember telling a friend, "ok fine. i'll do the weddings i've booked. but i'm not booking any more." and it was like God heard that and laughed at me because it was mere weeks after i said that when the weddings started pouring in. and they haven't stopped. i don't say that to brag. i am humbled by this opportunity to do what i love and am good at. to say both of those is rare, i know.
all of the good that has come this year, professionally and personally, i truly believe has come because of that decision i made on january 14, 2010. what does losing weight have to do with all of this?? everything.
i told you guys that i lost 114 pounds that first year. i truly think telling you that was more difficult for me than actually losing the weight! :) pride has always been a stumbling block for me. not being prideful in the cocky, holier-than-thou way but my pride has always hit in the form of a hard heart, a inclination to be funny instead of vulnerable, a decision to keep people away instead of letting them in. and when i started my journey to change physically, change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually came along for the ride whether i wanted it to or not.
year two has dealt with adjusting to those changes mostly in the demon commonly known as insecurity. this physical change brought every insecurity {that i didn't even know i had} to the surface and 2011 was a battle against those. but i won. well, correction, am winning. i'm not too sure when this battle will go away but i'll fight it to the death, believe that.
losing 114 pounds in a year just with hard work and wise choices was hard. i knew year two would produce less "astonishing" numbers and i was okay with that. i'm not in any rush. i just like getting healthier. my emotions got the best of me for a few months and i gained some weight back. that was difficult. but in year two, i lost 43 more pounds making the total 157 pounds {and again, my heart is racing telling you guys that}. still a ways to go, but i've got this. i've got this.
i know it's not january 14th. but i couldn't write this to you guys then because of that thing i mentioned earlier about origins. i leave on the 14th for Peru. we're going down there for a week to meet needs, share the gospel, and love on the Peruvian people. the fact that i am leaving to do this on the 2 year 'anniversary' of my life change is no coincidence. i can tell you with completely certainty, that i would have never done something like this before. that girl before was scared and apathetic. this one is free.
the two tattoos i got this year pretty much sum up this journey i'm on. i got tikvah - which is hebrew for 'hope' on my foot. hope is everything to me. hope is what gets me up in the morning, it's what let's me sleep well at night. romans 5:2-4 - through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. <-- that is the desire of my heart.
the second tattoo i got is on my wrist so i can see it every day. it says kitpivos. people that don't really know me look so confused when i tell them what it means. anyone that does know me just smiles when i tell them. regardless of what this life brings to me, what mistakes i make, what opportunities i have or opportunities i miss, what goals i reach or which ones i fall short on, what progress i make or the times i stand still - i will forever look at my wrist and be reminded that this life is so yellow.
i so deeply appreciate all of the love and support i've been given the last 2 years. it is a humbling process. and one that i wouldn't take back. and so here's to year 3. i won't write a blog at the end of this one detailing my progress and successes - this is life now. a constant process of change and health - physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. at 26 years old, i am starting life over again because i choose to. come along for the ride?
it's going to be a yellow, yellow life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)