Life outside my 4 walls...

Today was day 5 of my nasty illness...it was a horrible little virus that was floating around here and I just so happened to catch it...lucky me. I have been in my bed since the middle of last week. I felt, sounded and looked terrible and finally today I felt ok enough to walk out of my house. It was a big step but a necessary one.

Not only was I feeling a tad stir crazy, but our interns arrived today so I needed to greet them and show them where to go. I could not have gotten sick at a worse time because we were trying to finish preparations for the internship to start, but I had to leave it in the hands of the people I work with because, well, I couldn't get out of bed. And so now they are all here and I think things are going to go well.

I will write more tomorrow and tell you a little about them. But for now, I have overexerted myself as it is and I need sleep. Adios for now...

Ode to Ebony

As you can probably guess from the pictures above, Ebony was the name of the car...my friend Karisse's car. And I just so happened to be riding shotgun when the car went from looking normal to the damaged state it is in now. I was coming back from the store with Karisse's sister, Kristel, when she looked away to check the next lane to try and change lanes and looked back because she heard me screaming. Thankfully we were all ok...a little shaken up and a little sore the next day. But all in all, we are fine. A moment of silence for the car though...

Ok, well, Karisse was so kind to be a pseudo chauffer for me for a year before I got my car out here...now I get to return the favor.

This has certainly not be the best week because not only was there the accident, but I got really sick the next day, leaving me to lay in bed for the last 3 days! I have to admit that I am not a very good sick person because I feel very overwhelmed by the littlest of things and I just get impatient and want to start doing things when really I need to be relaxing and getting better. And I have way too much work to do to be laying in bed, but alas, none of that matters when you can't actually sit up for longer than 10 minutes at a time and have temperature over 100. That is when you have trust the people you work with to get stuff done because you aren't much help to them then. I am praying to be better by Monday because that is when our internship starts. Everything is coming so quickly!

What is going on here?

I never claimed to be the best at remembering to update my blog on a regular basis...but this was something that just had to be shared! There is snow on the mountains right behind the base and some of my friends saw what appeared to be snow on the ground and on cars in the little town 5 miles away from us. It has been so cold and rainy that we have had small pieces of ice/hail dropping all over the place and today it snowed. I know there are a few of you skeptics out there that figure it doesn't snow in southern California...well, today it apparently did. I will see if I can't get a picture of it tomorrow. And I would like to add that this Florida girl does not exactly cope well in the cold weather and is admitedly the biggest wuss when it comes to the cold. I am just not prepared or built for it! :-)

I will manage though and I am looking foward to the warm weather of South Africa. T minus 3 weeks (and counting) from today. Can you tell I am excited?

Team Avery

This is a picture of the South Africa outreach team that I have traveling with. Avery, an 18 month old boy, is the "mascot," thus the team being named after him.

Full weekend...

I write this as I sit and admire my new living room. I know it may sound funny, but something as simple as redecorating my living room seems to have brought me great joy. And how we did it is a great story...I will give you the short version.

On Saturday morning, two of my roommates, Jodi and Alicia, got up to go garage sale hunting for some new things for our living room....keep in mind that you have to get up early to go to garage sales and early is something that I don't exactly like to do. But our house desperately needed some attention. We were driving around all different areas of the northern part of the valley for three hours...and very unsuccessful. Almost at our wits end and giving up on scavenging though other people's belongings, we headed to IKEA. For those of you who are not familiar with IKEA, it is a marvelous store that sells everything for the home and the prices are not outrageous, some of it very cheap.

We went down to the "as-is" section with floor display items and returned items and that is where we got the items to furnish our living room. We started talking to this guy that worked there and asked him a couple questions about some of the stuff out there. Turns out he is familiar with YWAM and worked at our Christmas tree lot a couple years ago. So he was more than willing to continue to reduce the price on items for us. And we didn't even ask. So we got a couch, bookshelf/entertainment unit (that we tailored and put a saw to it to get exactly what we wanted) and a rug for so little money. The three of us just kept throwing glances at each other in complete disbelief! That night, we got the urge to paint...and so we did. We finished around 1 am.

On Sunday morning, after we eagerly put everything together, the three of us (Jodi, Alicia and I) sat down on the couch to take it all it and see just how much we had been blessed in the day before. We are all proud of what we did, but more so than that, we are in awe of how things came together and it was just a little extra "I love you guys" from God!

I don't have a picture right this second but I will take one and post it on here in the next day or so.

I love...

I love the winter olympics! I watched the opening ceremony with a couple of friends and I am one of those self-proclaimed cheesy people that love to watch as much as I can possbly fit into my schedule. I like to live vicariously through all of those people who thoroughly enjoy the cold weather and being outside for long periods of time in the snow. I myself am a warm weather type of girl and even though they are having fun, give me 75 degrees in southern California and I am happy.

Urban Plunge...

Today was the day for the urban plunge. What's that? It is our version of a scavenger hunt...with a twist. The outreach teams start out blindfolded on the bus and dropped of in various locations so they really have no frame of reference as to where they are at. None of them know the LA area so it makes it that much more challenging. They are given clues of things that they have to find, only it's not that easy. Along with each clue there is a challenge that they have to do in the meantime of trying to find the location on the clue. For example, the first challenge for the team I was with was that the leader had to walk backwards the entire time. The second was that all but the leader had to be blindfolded as the walked to the next location. This is a particularly difficult when there are 10 people on the team and only one of them can see. Takes A LOT of trust crossing downtown Los Angeles streets when you can't see. Other challenges were to tie their shoe laces together...the leader can't touch the ground at any time forcing team members to carry them for blocks on end, up hill at times...blindfolding the leader and everyone else has to be silent, making a blindfolded, and very nervous leader I might add, walk up to strangers and try to talk to them and understand the directions they are given enough to convey them to their silent team...that is just a name a few. it is definitely a team buliding and character revealing adventure. I must say, though, that it was nice to be on the giving end of this scavenger hunt this time rather than the one struggling to walk many blocks in the wrong direction while tied to 9 other people...

A Couple Big Things...

So a few things have changed since the last time I wrote. For starters, the film school that we were going to run has gone from being a classroom intensive program to an apprenticeship where the students can learn by doing. This fits our style so much more and allows us a little more freedom to teach them how we make films. We will have 4 or 5 students rather than the school of 20, which obviously will allow more time for them to actually get their hands on the equipment and allow them a little more creative freedom as well. We have officially accepted one student and 2 others unofficially. We are all really excited about this new venture and know that this is the right direction for our department.

As the organizer in the department, I am working on scheduling the speakers for seminars once a week as well as making a basic plan on deadlines for the individual films that they will be producing. In addition to that, I am waiting on final scripts from 2 people in my department so that I can prep for filming. We are hoping to have one done completely before the apprenticeship starts on March 20 and the second one almost ready so that the students can work with us. Each year, our films take on a new level of complexity, which shows that we are growing. And it also means that I am being stretched a great deal because I have to figure out how to make these grandiose ideas that they come up with. I am always learning something new, which I appreciate.

The apprenticeship will run from March 20 to May 13. I, however, will only be here in LA for the first 2 weeks of it. On April 1 (or somewhere right around there), I will be traveling to South Africa for two months. I am going as a co-leader/nanny with the Discipleship Training School Outreach team. The main leaders, Wayne and Karyn, were actually the ones that I went to South Africa with the first time 3 years ago. We will be traveling to some of the same locations to see the progress that has come from soem of the things that we started or worked on back then. I am really very excited about this trip! I realize this is a big piece of news and very little detail, but more is to come.

Back on the West Coast

I made it back to LA safe and sound a couple days ago and hit the ground running. We are doing the prep work for the film school we are starting in March and it is no easy feat. Logistics are my thing, but this is definitely a challenge And seeing as how none of us have ever pioneered a school like this before, we have to rely on God a lot more in order to get it done...and to do it with excellence. I definitely covet your prayers!

Other than that, things here are going good. I always realize how much I do enjoy being here in LA and working on the base when I am away for a little while. My break at home in Florida was great, but there is something for being here and doing what God asked me to do that brings life to me. A busy life, but life nonetheless.

Shout out to the BYH!

One of the highlights of my trip to Florida was getting to see a lot of old friends. And one night, I went to a community dinner and got to hang out with some of my good friends from college and the BYH (Big Yellow House). The summer after I graduated, I lived in a house with 8 other girls. We didn't have any extra space, but we did have a lot of fun! I count that summer as one of my favorites. So I got a picture with the 4 of us that were at this dinner. We missed you Karisse, Sara, Julie, Linda, and TJ!



L to R: Kristen, Kelly, Me, and Erin