All The Wild Things

I have written and deleted this post so many times, now it's time to just hit publish. There are few things these days that get people more riled up than Education. Just take a look at your own Facebook feed and I'm sure you know what I mean. People get downright passionate and sometimes pretty rude about it (in a passive-aggressive "just sayin" sort of way) Here are my two cents, because I know you realllllly care right? Education is important. We here in the First world take it for granted. We have multiple choices in how we educate our children, where as in the rest of the world kids are lucky to even learn how to read. Education matters. Education is crucial and it's a gift. I don't think there is a right way to do it. There are some incredibly awful public schools, with awful teachers and mean kids. There are some amazing public schools with amazing teachers, and some awful ones and some nice kids and some mean kids. There are also some

In my last post I shared about how I started living more intentionally and stopped just consuming. So how did I go about doing that? This isn't a formula or the "right way" but these are things I (we) did and have led us to where we are now. After reading, and meeting with a few close friends, being challenged by God... I tell you it was like I was seeing for the first time in my life. Things hadn't changed with WHAT I believed, it was about HOW that looked. How all the stuff I knew needed to look a whole lot different than it had. Church needed to look different, our lives needed to look different.... 1) Read.  Pick up some or all of these books and start reading. Some you may love, some you may struggle with and that's okay. It's okay to wrestle with things and disagree and also find out you've been wrong. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp Love Does by Bob Goff Radical by David Platt Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker 7 The Experimental Mutiny

I mentioned in my last blog post that I stopped going to Bible Studies. Not that I stopped studying the Bible, just that I hadn't attended a Bible Study in quite some time. There is nothing wrong with Bible Studies, in fact I believe they can be very essential to new Christians, those who are newly growing in faith and need to know what this whole "life in Christ" thing is all about. There can be great conversation that stirs in a Bible Study and deep friendships borne as well. There is however, a large amount of people who have grown up in the church that as Jen Hatmaker says are " still starving for nourishment after our sixth Bible study in a row..."  These people can't seem to fill that "hole" or "void" and soon after a Bible Study ends, they start to feel empty, distant or dry again, and so they go to another Bible study- feeling that is what is needed.  I would argue that instead of attending more studies, more programs, more &

I spent the better part of my young-adulthood just wading through things. I've done things I've always wanted to try (like phlebotomy) and I've done things that have landed in my lap (Medical Assisting, Trades of Hope and Photography). At church I've answered phones, greeted people, answered questions for new-comers, worked with babies, toddlers, preschoolers, Jr. Highers and High Schooler's. I've served dinner for our mid-week service, I've done sign language, drama and scripture readings. I've organized and stapled papers, put books on shelves and filed odds and ends. I've attended retreats, women's events, Bible studies, Sunday School classes, church services, camps, missions trips, concerts and speakers. Why? Because that's what growing up in the church looked like. You go, you do these things and you plug in. Most people do that their entire lives. They go, plug in and stay there. Or they go, plug in, get bored, change it up and

I've been home from Mexico for one week and am still processing and adjusting. I always have a hard time coming home from a trip and going right back to routine. There is no buffer for Mama, just back up and at em with the boys and life. Mexico was awesome. From the moment our van left the church parking lot I was all in. I found myself in a van of 13 guys and 0 girls. I felt right at home with all those boys, and honestly it was so great. They were quiet and nice and contrary to what some may think it only smelled at one point along the way. The van ride alone was a vacation for myself. This group of teens was nothing like the group of teens in my youth group, so basically they were awesome. I loved watching them work hard, work together and dive in. The days were long and physically exhausting and the evenings were for bonfires and worship. Our group built a house and a community center in 4 days. Working pretty much from 8:00am-5:00pm with one break for lunch for 4 days st