Cheerlady

My car issues are on the up-and-up! I passed my smog inspection this morning! I was praying the whole time I sat in the waiting room, after failing it last week and then having to take it to a mechanic to fix some stuff and then get the oil changed. Now all I have to do to complete my vehicle registration is get to my appointment with the DMV on Thursday. The end is in sight!

I'm on my third week with the kids now, so we're starting to get more comfortable with each other... well, I am. They didn't really require must adjustment. Kids seem pretty adaptable. Mine are, anyway :) We currently have seven kids coming consistently in the after school program, but we are looking to fill three rooms with new families as soon as possible. Three families have graduated or moved out since I've been here, so there is obviously lots of transition here. (I guess that's why it's called transitional housing. Yeah.)

Today, one of my sweet, chatty little kindergarten girls began talking about sports. She made the claim that football is a "nasty sport because boys play it." I told her that girls do sometimes play football too, but then she told me, "No, girls play nice sports, like cheerlady!" You can't help but love these kids. Every day, I look forward to hearing what they're gonna say next. It's definitely a difficult transition moving out here alone, but the kids remind me why I'm here. They are my cheerleaders and don't even know it.

Stop Signs and Red Lights

My car and driving are the biggest sources of anguish for me. I just got home from work for the night, for the second time. As I pulled up to a stop on the street in front of my house tonight, I realized that my temporary parking permit had expired today and that I needed to get a new one for the next week so I won't get a parking ticket. I never even got out of my car and instead headed to the nearest machine about five minutes away. I will eventually get an annual permit, but first my car has to get registered in the state of California.... and before that I had to get a smog check which I did this morning, but it didn't pass... so before I get that I need a mechanic to fix it so it will pass inspection... and I had to get my own car insurance in California... and after all that I will hopefully get my permit. All of this because the city of Pasadena requires that I have a parking permit! I'm wondering if I should have lived in a different city...

Anyway, I got the permit and headed home. I was on a pretty dark, non-busy road, and before I knew it I had run through a stop sign, never seeing it until I was in the middle of the road already. Ugh! I thanked God that no one had seen me. Then I turned onto my street and approached the one set of lights I had to cross before my house. It turned yellow but I had plenty of time to get through. Or so I thought... I think my brain was in slow mode because I was paranoid about running through the stop sign and going slower than I should have because somehow it took me way longer than I thought it would to get under that light.... then it turned red.... then I thought I saw a flash of white light.... Oh no, not a camera!! NOOOO!!! I've been told Pasadena has traffic light cameras everywhere and that they send you tickets in the mail.... maybe since I still don't have my California tag on I'll get out of the ticket.

If I ever get through one day without some vehicle or driving issue, it will be a miracle.

Baking on a Lovely Sunday Afternoon

I am in between pans of cookies baking in the oven, the delicious aroma wafting through the house. It hasn't been such a lovely atmosphere for long, because my first pan came out smoking. Our stove/oven is an older model that runs on gas with the numbers rubbed off, so I have to guess what temperature I'm putting it on. I quickly flew open all the kitchen windows and begged God to keep the fire alarm from going off. With my luck it would alert the fire company, and I'd end up with five firetrucks in front of the house, neighbors angry because of the ruckus, and my embarrassed self turning away the firemen as I told them it was only burned cookies. Thankfully that story is only in my imagination and didn't end up happening.

I've kept the windows open because it's a perfectly lovely day, sunny in the mid-80s, but nice in the shade. I went to the church of my new co-worker and friend, Anne. I can't express how much I've missed being in church on a Sunday! I missed the last three Sundays because of travel or training. It was wonderful to be in the pre-service Bible study and dig deeply into the Word of God and then to worship along with people I didn't yet know but felt a special bond with simply because we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

DISCLAIMER: I Am Not an Airhead

For some reason I am incredibly blessed. I can't understand why there are so many people in the world who suffer terribly, but God chooses to meet my every single need, sending me help exactly when I need it. Yesterday our supervisor at Door of Hope Glendale (where I work) sent me over to Door of Hope Pasadena (our other location) when she found out that I needed some groceries. Door of Hope gets food donations from Trader Joe's (an AWESOME grocery store!) a couple times a week. When I got there, the staff welcomed me warmly. Then one of the ladies there got me all fixed up with a box of eggs, bread, frozen meats, and.... what I was perhaps most excited about... peanut butter! Peanut butter was probably the most important thing on my list since it's pretty cheap and does well for breakfast, lunch, or dinner :) Plus it's one of my favorite foods. She kept giving me more stuff, and I finally had to tell her to stop because I have limited space to store it all. Then she asked me if I had a pressure cooker, found a brand-new one among their donations, and gave it to me! I had to fight tears of thankfulness. I haven't even really used crock pots much in life myself, but my mom has and says that they make life much simpler when it comes to needing easy meals. She also gave me a beautiful bamboo cutting board. I left feeling pretty blessed and happy. I must admit that food is one of the things I love most about life, but this is the first time I've ever gotten emotional over kitchen supplies.

Staff Retreat

I returned this evening with the Door of Hope staff from a retreat on Lake Havasu in Arizona. We did some organizational strategic planning and discussion on how to better the organization, but we also got to spend lots of time getting to know each other as a staff. We spent Saturday afternoon on the lake with jet skis and our board president's speed boat. I was hoping I would get to try water skiing, but unfortunately it didn't end up happening due to time constraints. It was lots of fun to watch our executive director going crazy on the jet ski, just like a kid in a candy store.

While we had tons of fun together, we also spent some time sharing each others' stories about how God led us to Door of Hope. How amazing it was to see how each person's life experiences had so well fit him or her into the Door of Hope family. We spent time this morning in prayer for each other, focusing on how we needed to re-connect with God. I'm so very thankful to be a part of this family, and it truly feels just like a family. While it is a legitimate 501(c)3 with all that goes with it, Jesus is at the heart of the ministry. 

Unfortunately Satan sees the work that is being accomplished and the great faith behind it, and he doesn't like it. We saw him fighting against us even last week, when several staff members became sick or injured and were  prevented from attending the retreat with us. Then on Saturday it became very obvious that something we couldn't see was going on. Our Glendale site kids' program director, Kendra, passed out while on a jet ski, but thank goodness she wasn't alone on it and the group wasn't too far away to take her back to the house where we stayed. Not ten minutes later, the other kids' program director, Geoff, had some heart pain on the other jet ski and had to leave as well. My roommate, Rita, hurt her knee at one point during the afternoon, and our development director ran into something and got badly cut at a gas station on our way home today. It seemed like there was constantly something happening to get the team distracted and discouraged. 

Please keep Door of Hope in your prayers! I'm still very new to it all, but I can see already that God is strongly at work to restore families' lives and that the devil doesn't like it. Tomorrow we begin our after school program, I'm looking forward to getting to meet more of the children and learning more about their lives. I already met some super adorable little ones during child care last week! When I see the kids or the moms and then hear about the situations they come from, I can't even fathom their beautiful little faces enduring such pain. A staff member told me that one of the little kids actually stepped between his father pointing a gun at his mother and told his daddy not to shoot. I'm not kidding.

Last week was crazy busy. As I entered into the retreat, I got a text from a mentor of mine who encouraged me to let myself receive from God this weekend. I certainly had not been letting myself receive much from Him last week because of all the running around and trying to settle in. Then the retreat itself had a pretty full schedule with no alone time, but God was gracious enough to break through all the stuff in my head and meet me this morning as our group prayed together. I was reminded (as I constantly have to be reminded) that I cannot give well unless I also know how to receive. In a transitional housing program for victims of domestic violence, I desperately need to be filled by God or I'll become quickly drained. Our executive director gave us a great analogy of how service to God works... it's like I am a cup that as it is filled by God, it overflows. Out of the overflow of what He gives me, that overflow naturally will bless others. If I try to get filled, then empty myself, my supply will run out. That's why I need to sit still and just allow God to fill me up. Several passages of scripture came to me as I was thinking about this concept this morning, particularly Isaiah 30:15: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength."

That's my goal for this week... to rest and be quiet with God.

First Week in California

I'm sitting in my fluffy pink chair with my feet propped up in its matching fluffy pink footrest. I bummed them off a girl who lived across the hall from me in my dorm last semester. She wanted to get rid of it, and I didn't know whether or not I'd need furniture in the near future. I love stumbling upon free stuff like that! It's certainly coming in handy in my new room in Pasadena. I've been here almost a week already, with hardly a spare minute. But now, even though it's very late (1:00 a.m.) I can't not give another update. So much has happened in so little time!

Heather and I moved my stuff into my new home on Saturday afternoon. I live in a house in Pasadena, a city about 20 minutes out of LA. It's an adorable old house with lots of character, and several characters inside as well :) Good characters, though, I must add. The owners rent out the rooms of the house, so there are four other tenants besides my roommate and me. On Saturday night Heather and I headed over to Chino to visit my college friend, Nicole, who graduated last December. We got some In-N-Out for dinner then headed to Santa Monica so Heather could get at least a little time in LA. It was so good to see Nicole again!

Cozy in Cozad

What a whirlwind of a week. An incredible one though, to be sure. I got a good dose of city shock with driving into the city and getting lost, but I was on the up-and-up after getting some sleep. I met several other TechMission workers who will also be in LA/Orange Counties, and we had a blast together. I am so thankful that I don't have to feel alone in this - TechMission does a great job of offering us support and plenty of training, and knowing more people in the area who are doing the same thing as me will help me settle in a little more comfortably.

Our first day of training covered TechMission and AmeriCorps stuff. The following two days consisted of training with the Center for Transforming Mission, a Christian organization that trains and supports leaders at the grassroots level to work toward positive change and transformation in poor communities. It wasn't at all the kind of training I was expecting to receive from AmeriCorps... in a good way. They challenged us to be very careful about entering another context believing we have all the answers to people's problems and to examine ourselves about why we have chosen this type of work.