we've only just begun/there's gold that lies in us

I'm in a mood to be nice to everyone lately. I think it's the sun.

and I have this idea of what summer will be like.....I hope summer lives up to my actual idea. aside from trying to graduate from my home by running the house for a month (except we're breaking it up into chunks over several months...go figure), I'm not doing as much as I thought I was. and I realized that when I sleep till 10 and stay up till 2, I function so much better than when I have to get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 10:30. stupid teenage body clock.
all that to say, I'll have more actual functional time in the summer. and won't be so braindead. yay.

getting ready to go to India isn't going to take up as much time as I thought it would. which makes me really happy. I'll still be teaching, and taking some lessons of my own, but piano....well that's fun stuff.
and I'm not going a lot of places before August. just Camp Hope and a trip to the condo. which will hopefully be just relaxing, reading, swimming, eating, walking around, and trying to tan instead of burn.
so maybe I'll fit in that trip to Portland next month. I should probably look at the calendar for that.



what I want most, is just to hang out with people. this is one of my last summers before I leave home. I want to spend it at home, with my family and with my friends.






*sigh* pffft. I'm so ready for school to be done. I'm at the pointless stage. everything from now on in photography is just learning photoshop stuff. and I don't have photoshop so it's not like I'll be using this in the future. French is just.....well it's my crazy French teacher at 8 AM every day. and I swear we move slower than molasses in that class. I'm ready to take the final and be done. I skipped yesterday just to sleep in and I didn't miss a thing. five minutes and two pages in my book, and I was all caught up.
and the weather is just way too nice to be stuck in a classroom. I want to enjoy May before the inevitable June showers come. I realize why seniors just want to drop out come spring. I'm not learning anything these last two weeks of school, all my friends are finishing up, and I'm ready to be done.

alright, I will stop complaining.

I'm gonna do my Hindi so I can hopefully bake some muffins before our walk. hope you're all enjoying the sunshine (even you Jacob)!



you'll have your ups and downs
don't let them push you around
Cause time is all you've got now

go make the best of
everything you want to be
with ambition pushing forward
your dreams upon your shoulders

though impossible it seems
it's time to just believe
from here on out you're just getting older
pick up yourself you'll keep getting closer

let's just get it started tonight
all you've ever wanted, it's in your eyes
just let it take you where you want to go
just let it tell you what you want to know

you've got your destination
progress has now been made and you
will see the way you've wanted it to be

we've only just begun
there's gold that lies in us
your hesitation's held you long enough

though impossible it seems
it's time to just believe
from here on out you're just getting older
pick up yourself you'll keep getting closer

let's just get it started tonight
all you've ever wanted, it's in your eyes
just let it take you where you want to go
just let it tell you what you want to know

the future holds a brighter day for you
you may ask yourself tonight
is it out of reach, out of reach,
is it out of reach?
is it out of reach, out of reach, or am I?
or am I?

Let's just get it started tonight
all you've ever wanted, it's in your eyes
just let it take you where you want to go
just let it tell you what you want to know

this is me being completely non-religious

I wonder how many of you will actually read this......mwhahaha.....

calls are funny things. not phone calls, God calls. you know - THE "CALL."

I realized a few weeks ago, through reading something for Perspectives, that you don't need a call from God in order to do something for God. this couple went to China with their three little kids because they learned about the need and decided they were willing. they didn't feel some super-secret, special kind of draw to China, or to missions. nothing really changed inside their heads or hearts. they were just willing.

so now it drives me crazy when people say they don't want to do something because they don't feel "called" to do it. for Heaven's sake, decide which side of the fence you're sitting on, and stop sitting - get up a run full speed for that side's cause. jump in wherever you can. find something you're good at and do it, or find something you're passionate about and do it, or find something that needs to be done that nobody else is doing and do it. do we really expect that we need to sit around and wait for God to tell us all individually what to do? that's what He left us the Bible for.....

which kind of leads into some of those crazy things that have been floating around my brain recently. I guess you might as well know about them. it's not like I have anything else to post about anyway (school is the same, home life is the same, we haven't gone anywhere or done anything interesting recently).

but anyway.

I've been seeing churches in a completely different way recently. probably because of taking Perspectives. in fact, I've more or less stopped calling them churches. because really, they are The Church, The Body of Christ, in multiple forms and families scattered around in different places (painfully disproportionately, but that's another post). reading through Acts, you see the most beautiful picture God ever drew, in His people throughout the known world in that day helping each other. sending aid - whether financial or in different ministry support - to these other believers they may never have met before. every church was a sister church to every other church.

so I'm incredibly frustrated at how our culture has squeezed "church" into this little mold that is so individualistic, so unique to itself, so unwilling to ask other individual churches for help, or offer the resources they have to those who are struggling.

take worship, for example. my church has three extremely talented worship teams. we have a crazy fun time every week, whether we're on the stage or in the audience. we take talent and run with it, whether that means a quiet hymn on the piano with an incredible vocalist, or a two-minute long electric guitar solo while people greet each other.

the church I came from struggles a lot in the worship team area. I was on the worship team when we went there (and back then I knew about seven chords and should never have been allowed on the team, haha), and so was my mom. we had about three instrumentalists and four vocalists, same people every week. we sucked (to put it bluntly) and were all burned out. and to this day they have the same struggles, and don't really have a worship leader. just a bunch of people singing and playing.

so I'm sitting here seeing my church and their church as one body. with that viewpoint, I know in my heart that it's not right for one part of the body to be so incredibly healthy while another part is dying of leprosy. if we ever want to look like a generation of Acts believers, we have to break the mold of individualism and share the talent around. this doesn't mean transplanting one of our worship teams into their church. but what it should mean is mobilizing the talent that is there to get involved (maybe they're all still sitting in pews waiting for "the call"), and teaching what we can from experience. it might mean helping them with a boost in that area of the budget.

the same thing is being done in our area with men's ministry. some man from our church had a vision to unite with men's ministries all around the plateau - not to make them little clones of our church's men's ministry, but to help them get better, and grow their own visions. mobilizing people already there. sharing resources and talent. running. full speed.

alright, that should keep you guys busy until I return to earth after my piano recital. I can't really think straight right now. but I will be back. promise.