JUST an E-mail

Normally, I don't double blog. But, I HAD to share this. My mom sent me a random e-mail today that she still had in her inbox (for some reason????). I wrote this to her four years ago, right after I moved to Winfield to go to college. It features a special character! Let's just say it's really funny to see how things work out. Here it is. Just to put things in context -- I am e-mailing my mom back about some questions and about coming home for fall break.

Hello!

The test was iffy. But I studied for it, and the things that I didn't know weren't even in my study guide, so I don't feel so bad. Anyway, all together, I think I at least did adequate. Not perfect, but definately not horrible, I don't think, at least. and YES it's been raining around here since yesterday, and it's really cold. I don't mind the rain so much, I just don't like walking in it when it's freezing cold outside. It like never stops here though. Just rains. It's quite interesting, compared to Western Kansas.

and YES again, I am ready to come home and visit everyone. And relax. I am tired of all this studying and what not. It's lots of work. And, I was talking to my friend, Kyle Just. He lives in Leoti and we talked about riding home together for fall break, I figured I would ask you to save some money in gas and to have a friend to ride home with!! Except, I don't want him to go way out of his way, but he goes through Scott City, so I was going to see if Mallory would be in Scott on Friday and if I could be picked up there. Just thought I would see what's going on there. Let me know, so I can let Kyle know!

I have to have 20 hours of observation. I have like 5 and a half right now, I think. OHHH thanks for reminding me I need to e-mail Mrs. Steinmetz. DEFINATELY e-mail Erin and see if I can come visit Paige and Cole!! I want to see them before they move :(

The Cookies are good,

Molly

That's the Kyle I married!! HA! And, look at me being a whiny baby about all the work I had to do in undergrad. 

Funnies!

Our Counseling Guru

Naturally, since we are getting married in June, Kyle and I have been attending pre-marital counseling at our church in Winfield. We really enjoy our therapist and I normally walk away week to week intrigued by the knowledge that she passes on to us. One of the things that Kyle and I have talked about with her during the last few sessions has been enmeshment vs. disengagement -- two states that are better avoided in a marriage. Enmeshment is the idea that couples have to be together all of the time. Often times, couples who are suffering from enmeshment will claim that their significant other "completes" them and they cannot see where they end and the other person begins. The opposite of that, then, is disengagement. Couples who are disengaged from one another tend to be closed off and far from their significant other. As you can imagine, both states are damaging. Kyle and I are pretty good at spending time together and time apart and that has always been pretty important to us. Even though I am marrying Kyle, I don't want him to complete me! And I certainly do not want to live with a stranger. I want him to complement me. I want to be a better person because he is around...

Maybe a Vase with Bamboo

So, tonight, Kyle and I celebrated Valentine's. He planned it all out. One of the things he planned was for us to go out to Olive Garden to eat. We went to the newest one in Derby, which is right next to Target. It's getting close to time for us to register for our wedding, so I thought it would be a good idea to go scope out some potential registry items after supper and Kyle agreed. We have an idea of how we want things in our house (or should I say, I have an idea). Kyle kind of lets me go with the decorating flow. However, I have learned some things about him when I ask for his opinion and I am trying to make this "decorating: marriage style" thing work. Tonight, when we were looking around, Kyle was saying some of the most HILARIOUS stuff. So, I started nonchalantly taking notes on my phone so I could blog, verbatim, what he said. Here are a few Kyle moments:

• We have decided on a comforter already that we want for our bed. The comforter is slate gray, so we were looking at sheets to accent it. I thought a blue or darker yellow would go great as an accent color with the bedspread. Kyle, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of either color. So, we talked about sheets for quite a bit. Then, we were moving on and he said to me..."That was long." I responded with, "What was long?" and he said "We just had a detailed discussion...about sheets."
• Moving on, we were looking at other comforters, just to see if there was anything else that we liked better than the slate gray one. I found a purple one with a modern floral design and asked him if he liked it (every time I ask him what color he wants our living room/kitchen/bathroom/bedroom to be, he says "purple"). He looked at me and said, "I don't really like it. I just don't want to sleep under flowers."
• Ok -- moving forward. We moved on to housing decor. I found a huge black floor vase. I said to Kyle, "Hey, this vase is fun." He responded and said "Ya! I like that thing." I thought to myself..."Phew...winning." And I then said, "I think it would look fun with some bamboo in it or something." He looked at me blankly and said, "You mean, that's not for our umbrellas and canes?"
• We then proceeded to have a strange quabble about clocks. Kyle got really excited when we reached the clock area. He said "I really like to have clocks in all of the rooms, so I know what time it is, but I don't like fancy clocks, I just like simple clocks." Hmmm...I don't know how I feel about lots of clocks. So, he found a weather radar/clock combination and insisted we register for it instead.

That's just a little bit of registry fun. I seem to learn something new everyday, even about my future spouse. I think it can be summed up like this: purple, clocks, no.flowers.at.all, white/gray sheets (although, he liked the idea of Zebra accent pillows...say what?), maybe a vase with bamboo.

The Hunger Games

Today my lovely fiance decided to fart on me....again...probably for the millionth time ever. Then, I remembered a blog that I was going to write about him, but never did. So, here it goes.

Back in November, prior to Thanksgiving, we were in Tampa the night before we boarded our Carnival cruise (My grandparents took us on a cruise for their 50th wedding anniversary). While we were in Tampa, my whole family (cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents included) went walking downtown to find a restaurant. We found a fancy, organic pizza restaurant and all went in to order. Everyone seemed to either order something personally or we were paired up with "pizza buddies," as I like to refer to them. For some reason, I volunteered to be paired up with Kyle and my brother, Brent. Together, we would share some organic, thin-crusted pepperoni pizza. When the pizza arrived, I was talking with my parents about something and I was also waiting on a plate. The rest of this story happened in slow motion. There I am talking, and I look over to see a ton of this pizza demolished -- gone, nihil. My jaw dropped and my Maslow's Hierarchy of needs crashed. Food!!! They were totally taking it from me. Not just some of it -- all of it. So, I started yelling, "Hey! Hey! Let me have some pizza!!" So, they gave me one, small, square piece. Oh no, I wasn't having this. I demanded another piece, and then, the pizza was gone.

There I was, failing at this hunger game. So, in short, Kyle farts on me and deprives me of food. No, just kidding. I just like to give him crap. I actually really love him and am excited to marry him :). Speaking of Kyle, he just woke up from one of his notorious naps. Guess what he dreamed about? Pizza. Not kidding.

Norah the Explorer

This past weekend was our Fall Break at Southwestern (it couldn't have come at a better time, btw). So, for break, Kyle and I and some of our friends went to visit Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. The trip was great -- Asbury is a wonderful community and place to be. Kyle and I are looking forward to going there (most likely) after summer. Anyways, one of my least favorite parts about road trips is driving. When I left for college, my parents invested in a GPS for me. I l-o-v-e my GPS. I call her Norah -- Norah the Explorer. Norah and I have been many places together. From Chicago to Dallas to Kentucky, Norah is my girl. Over time, I have gotten to know her and I have learned her tricks. I hope these are helpful to you.

1. Norah is a genius, she remembers all of our trips and can ultimately take me back to that Forever 21 in Dallas if I just look in my "Recently found" category.

2. Norah tells me the actual speed I am going and seems to one-up by odometer often.

3. Norah does not respond well to road construction and detours --in this case, you MUST follow the actual detour, not her. I know, she's so sneaky.

4. When Norah tells you to "keep left" what she actually means is "don't go right." You don't have to go over to the farthest left lane, she just doesn't want you to go right. This is one of the best tips I could give when GPS-ing.

5. Norah is a good sport, she doesn't care how many times you yell "Shut up!" at her -- she never gets mad or raises her voice.

6. With that said, she also will not shut up. So if you want her to be quiet while you are disobeying her, you must turn her off.

7. Turn her off to keep your own sanity. No worries, she will come back on.

8. Norah's greatest companion is Google maps.

9. Norah can sometimes be stuck her ways. If you don't update her, don't expect her to have the latest map knowledge.

10. Norah can avoid toll roads if you want her to, but a forewarning, you probably don't want her to.

11. Norah will predict every step of your whole trip before you even begin. Look through her itinerary before you leave or she might pull a fast one on you.

12. Sometimes it's best to only reveal parts of your trip to her at a time. Break your trips into 1/3's. "Hey, Norah, we are going to Kansas City first, not Joplin." It keeps her on her toes.

13. Just because Norah says that you are going to get there at 11:18 doesn't mean that you will actually get there at that time. There is no need in submitting your schedule to hers. Show her who is boss.

Now that you've gotten to know Norah a little better, I hope your GPS life becomes a little bit easier. 3 Cheers for Norah.

Merry Christmas Eve

I was recently at my Aunt Nancy's house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family and she informed me that I had not blogged in awhile. And, alas, it's true, I have not! So, I will catch you all up. The fall semester, for me, started getting extremely busy in November. From the end of November until mid-December I worked on four major projects for the end of the year. By the end I finished a 16 page Exegetical Paper for Greek class -- don't be fooled, this paper was a great deal of work! I translated Matthew 28:1-20 all on my own; altogether I spent around 8 hours translating/parsing/all that grammatical stuff. I spent around another 15 hours researching/writing the actual paper. It was a crazy time. But, in the end, it was a paper I was extremely proud of! I also wrote another paper for my "Holy Spirit, the Church and the End" class. I wrote about Free Liturgy in the Pentecostal/Charismatic realm and Traditional Liturgy and what the two have to learn from one another. That was probably my favorite paper to write! It was very moving to write and it also was one of those things that really helped me shape my beliefs further, ya know? If you've never read Simon Chan (Liturgical Theology, Spiritual Theology, etc.) you must! He hails from the Assembly of God denomination and has some wonderful things to say about traditional liturgy. I wrote another paper for Philosophy on St. Augustine's view of evil as the privation (lack) of goodness. It was a great paper to write, too. My philosophy professor asked if I'd consider submitting it in a local Philosophical writing competition. Still deciding on that. Last of all, for my Worship Planning class, I had to design my own worship service down to a tee. That was a wonderful project! I really enjoyed it. I decided to design a Southwestern College Chapel service -- I centered it around one theme, "Light up the World" (I will attach the graphic I designed for class). That project really allowed me to be imaginative -- something I am really good at :). We presented our planned worship services for our final in class. It was a blessing to be in a group of so many wonderful worship planners. That pretty much summed up the semester for me.

On to Christmas happenings -- not much has happened yet. As I stated earlier, I went to my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Pat's house for a few days to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Kyle went along, of course, and my family was very adamant about him being there. They like him, I think ;). My Aunt Nancy loves to sew -- she quilts and does many other talented things. In the past, she made everyone in my family a stocking complete with our names embroidered on them. This year, she made one for Kyle! It was very thoughtful of her.

For the next few days I am staying at Kyle's family's house and will celebrate Christmas with them on the 27th. After that, I will be headed back to Holcomb and will hopefully be there to stay for awhile.

Next semester I am very excited for everything going on at school. I am taking 15 hours -- a full load, and part of that load includes a 5 hour practicum in Campus Ministry. I am very excited for that. I will also be transitioning in to be the college's chapel student admin. That should bring wonderful opportunities to dream as well. Anyways, Merry Christmas!! I will try to blog a bit more often.

"The END," as I know it, and I'm glad for it

Well it's almost the end of my sophomore year--I can hardly believe it, actually. It went by incredibly fast! Yesterday Jessica and I started packing up our room, it was a sad day. This has kind of been our first "home" away from home. Having an apartment type thing is just different than a dorm room--so it's bittersweet to leave! But the best thing is....knowing next year I will have a flippin' kitchen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry SC, but I am ready to never step foot in the caf again. Ok, so I will probably set foot in it at one point, but....KITCHEN!! That little blurb just made me feel like Kyle. Anyway, back to where I was, yes we are packing up and realizing how icky this room was before we came in and gave it some love. We took all of our art down and took most of our furniture away, Jessica and I are freakin out without our bookshelves. What nerds we are, I had to buy a 99 Liter tub to put all mine in. Finals are finally finishing up, my last one is today. I am SO ready for summer.

Before we go back, we will go forward. SO, speaking of summer, I am going down to Project Transformation this year. Yes, yes, Kyle did it last year and I guess I just couldn't stand to be away from him. How cheesy. No, but I really am excited to go to PT, I love working with kids and it's an internship that I thought of doing last year! I will spend my summer down in Dallas living and loving God and kids. I decided to tell my friend, Trista, about it in January-ish, so she applied and is coming, too. Now, just for a funny. At PT, they divide about 100 people up into groups of 10 and assign you to a church site to work at all summer. Kyle told me at the beginning that they try to not put you with people who will also be there from your school (AKA I wouldn't ever be assigned to a group with anyone else from SC). So then I kept thinking, "Man, they don't know that Trista and I are BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, they are totally gonna put us together." See, this type of thing just happens to Trista and me. So, yesterday, I got my church and team assignment...and guess who is on it? YUP, Trista Mybestfriend Fenton. Way to cheat the system, eh? I knew she went to K-State for at least one good reason.

Now to flash back--last week I went to Nashville, TN with my campus minister, Ashlee Alley. She is a deacon in the Methodist Church and has teamed up with another campus minister to do a thing called the "40 Days of Prayer." Basically it is just a calling to all UM pastors, churches, campus ministers, students, parents and anyone else that likes to pray, to pray for college students during the first 40 days of the college semester (Aug. 23 - Oct. 1). We went to Nashville in a partnership with the Upper Room Ministry and UM Communications. We had a prayer meeting with about 20 different people from all over the United States, and had 5 on a "prayer faculty." The meeting was intermingled with speakers, worship, prayer and fasting all day on April 30. We heard a lot from God, gained great ideas for the 40 days of prayer from those present, and had an awesome time!

The "Prayer Faculty" included:

- Margaret Therkelson (Amazing, amazing UM woman from Lexington, Kentucky)

- Vance Ross, GBOD (for all of you non-UM people like me, that would the General Board of Discipleship)

-Tom Albin, Upper Room

-Dana Hernandez and David Blackwell, Campus America in Kansas City, 24-7 Prayer International

These speakers were recorded by UM Comm and will be released during the 40 Days of Prayer for campus ministers, pastors, etc. to use to teach people about prayer. I am so excited about what the UMC is doing for their church family and their campus ministries. Prayer is rising among students and adults--it's so exciting. I am so glad I've been able to be apart of so many different prayer efforts this year.

Catch-Up, but no mustard

HoLA!

I know, I know, it's been awhile since I have blogged. Sorry for boring some of you with my inactive blog life at college. In reality, I have a very active life at college, it just sadly, does not involve consistent blogging, does it? Things have been going well lately. I can't believe it's M-A-R-C-H. What!? Spring break is just around the corner and I cannot wait! I have been busy with much this semester so I will do my best to hit the high/low points to keep you all updated.

February was a fun month, there was not much going on except Valentines day. Kyle surprised me with many different things. We made dinner together and had dessert and exchanged gifts. He put a lot of thought into our Valentines day dinner, so I was tickled by that. It was a lot of fun. For V-day, I made him a basket with our old e-mails from the summer printed out. They were a lot of fun to read back over. It was fun to re-read them and print them out to keep. They were full of summer ministry happenings from Andover and Dallas. Then, the next weekend, my wonderful friend, Lauren invited Jessica and me to a KU game (her parents have season tickets). I had never been to a KU game before, and it was really fun to be a part of their traditions and also to attend a game! Hellllllo #1 KU. Also, this last weekend, Kyle and I went up to Manhattan to surprise my wonderful friend, Trista, with a birthday party. It was a "murder mystery" party--I was a fairy godmother and Kyle was Sherlock Holmes. We were rather stylish if I do say so myself. This weekend we are heading back to Manhattan to watch a K-State game with Trista and her boyfriend, Jeremy. It should be fun, I love those two!

Other than that, things are moving along quite nicely. I have started attending a women's bible study on Wednesday nights at the First Assembly of God. It's been great to re-connect there (I went to church there last year). I LOVE those women! I am the youngest one in the group, but it's so much fun. They love me, and I love them :). I love praying with them, talking, and fellowshipping (sp?) with them! Also, last thursday (Feb. 25) was the Collegiate Day of Prayer. We had a wonderful turn-out here at SC. There were over 500 colleges/organizations that participated nation-wide, too. We had four different prayer meetings on Thursday night. We had a main one in the library, then, 3 resident halls/apartments held their own prayer meetings from 10-11 PM. Over all, we had about 30 in attendance. It was awesome. The freshman girls in Cole Hall collected prayers throughout the week and had prayer and worship, the Reid sophomore/jr hall had worship, prayer and then made "We are praying for you signs" for each of the residence halls, and Warren Apartments and the library both had prayer and communal worship.

God update: Well he, of course, has been doing wonderful things! The Collegiate Day of Prayer was one of them, also I have been asking him to show me people who are hurting/lonely lately, and he has put two particular people in my life. I won't name them, for privacy's sake, but I have been pumped by the way I "run in" to these two students. I've had to opportunity to just be-friend them and encourage them when I see them. I am hoping it's blessed them. It sure has me!

That's it for now, I should be heading back to study for yet another mid-term. Ah, the joys of being an undergraduate :)! I'd covet your prayers for sure...

A Glorious Awakening!

It's been awhile since I have posted. I just wanted to jot this down while it was still fresh in my mind. Things have been going amazingly well with the prayer room effort. God has continuously been providing in ways that are unfathomable! This past Sunday we started decorating the prayer room with the supplies we have had donated. Jessica's home church and her Grandma's church have been amazing supports! We are also gearing up for 46 Hours of unbroken prayer this weekend. Unfortunately, because of library policy, we couldn't do our 46 hours of prayer in the library where our new prayer room is going to be, so we decided to rent out another hall on campus called "Wroten." It's a much bigger room with a whiteboard and will still require some decorating, but that's the wonderful and fun part! We are so excited about what God's going to do through this prayer weekend. After the prayer weekend, the prayer room in the library will be open for good during library hours and will be available to all students and staff. Tonight, Jessica and I led prayer group and we decided that we would ask everyone in prayer group to come down and help us "consecrate" the room for about 45 minutes or so. Usually our group runs anywhere from 5 to 7 people. Tonight there were 11 there, including one person who we've been praying specifically for! He's a guy we know on our campus who is on the brink of really committing to Jesus. Jessica started out prayer group with the purple journal I've referred to in earlier posts about the prayer room, and she read some of the prayers from years past. We told them our story and how we felt called by the Lord to do this prayer room thing, then we went down and asked everyone to help us consecrate the room. Currently we have three walls -- the "Welcome Wall" which tells people what the prayer room is about and includes some prayers from the purple prayer journal, the "Word Wall," which is for bible verses and other things the Lord's been speaking to people, and last of all we have the "Wailing Wall," which is a wall dedicated to prayer requests. While we were all off praying, writing, painting and drawing everyone was so dedicated. People were crying and praying over one another and hugging. Students were hanging their prayers and art all over the new walls. Then, at the very end, we all huddled in a circle and put our arms around one another and three students -- Jessica, Derreck, and Mariam led us in corporate prayer. IT WAS AMAZING. The spirit was so alive in the room, people were still crying silent tears and voicing loud "Yes's" in agreement to prayer. Afterwards, we had students stay around to talk to one another while a couple of other students spent time writing and drawing. The whole thing, which started at 9:15 p.m. was officially over at 11:30p.m. God is already doing an amazing work and I cannot wait to see what He does as this weekend approaches, and as this year continues. Thank you for all of your prayers! They mean the world. Jesus is changing students around here, He's giving beauty for ashes and bringing fresh restoration to those who are broken and lost in this mediocre world. It's truly a blessing.

Please keep praying! We'd love for you to pray specifically for our campus, our students, and also a couple of specific guys on campus who are really searching and finding Jesus. Pray for a breakthrough this weekend. A glorious awakening is taking place, of this I AM confident. God's moving. It's not about us, but about Him alone.

Blessings!

An Epic Disaster Area + A Week in Pictures

WOW! We've been up to our ears in the to-do's lately. Last week Trista and I spent the majority of our week organizing everything for the children's ministry into tubs and loading the trailer. Talk about A LOT of work. We were running around all over the place. Kent and Jenni's basement looked like a disaster area. It was indeed an "Epic" disaster. Tuesday we continued on doing our summer fun days at the Andover Library and then we also participated in "National Night Out" Tuesday night. It was a fun night hosted by the Andover Police Department for the community. Thursday we had our first training meeting for all of our volunteers, which went REALLY well. WE had around 22 people there. It was a great time. Trista and I printed up around 700 peices of paper and made them into packets, etc. for training and other necessities for our children's ministry. Kent attended a conference on Thursday and Friday and then I went to see my good man, Kyle, in Mulvane on Friday/Saturday. Kyle finally got back from Project Transformation, an urban ministry in the Dallas, TX area that he had been working with all summer. It was soo good to catch up with one another and talk about how God moved during the summer! Kyle showed me probably 9834759876039 pictures from his time in Dallas. We went through each picture and he named every child in each picture. Talk about a guy with a good memory :), and talk about a guy who truly, truly loved his kids and God this summer. Kyle Just...I enjoyed seeing your heart come alive this summer, and I know those kids will miss having "Mr. Kyle" around. Cheers to PT.

On another note, we had our first "Trial Run" for our church plant on Sunday. There were a few hitches here and there, but altogether things went amazingly well. Honestly, we couldn't have asked for better volunteers. Everyone worked together SO well. I can't explain what it feels like to see what you've been working on become real...

Molly's Travels + Desperation Photos

These are some pictures from the Desperation Conference that we went to last weekend. Most of these are just pictures of our group! Seven girls and one boy--Russell Harp, you're a brave one, sir! Kudos to Emily Hubbard--the amazing photographer, and all around amazing girl! Anyways, most pictures are pretty self-explanatory. There are some of worship towards the bottom and also there is one of our candle lighting ceremony. That was the last night of the conference and we had a candle-lighting ceremony to symbolize the conference's theme "Light Up The World." It was pretty powerful--that all happened after our group took up a $16,000 love offering to build an orphanage in Uganda. God really showed his grace through his people that night. Pretty awesome stuff!
This past weekend was a fun time. I went to Dallas with my friend, Lauren to visit another of ours, Kyle, who is doing Project Transformation--an urban ministry in the Dallas area. We all had great fun spending time with one another again, summer is long when you're in college! You don't realize how close you've become with the people there until you have to leave them for 3 months! We went to a waterpark, a Ranger's game, and celebrated the 4th in the Dallas heat. And, of course, I didn't walk away as pale, I have a lovely sunburn from the Texas sun even after applying and re-applying sunscreen. But, then again, I guess it wouldn't have been an authentic experience without it...Kyle IS always complaining about that sun.
This week I'm headed to Joplin, MO to take on the camp missionary position at a children's camp. Should be a great time. Prayers for strength and safe travel would be much appreciated. I'll keep you posted.....with that all said....enjoy these Desperation photos!