Thanksgiving 2010

I have really fallen off the blogging bandwagon! But it's ok, I've got pics uploaded and ready to go once the words are added... minor detail.  Thanksgiving was a bit of panic mode for me, the first major holiday away from the family where mostly the only course is to sit at another family's table and pine away for the ones back home.  I decided that wasn't for me and ended up in movement all day...other than a couple of quick calls home I didn't have much time to dwell on where I wanted to be.

Darci and I started the day with the Salvation Army, delivering several meals to a family with a sparsely furnished apartment (i.e. one couch, no kitchen table), and to a lonely older lady in a sweet ride of a scooter chair. She invited us right in and enveloped us both in big hugs at the same time!  Volunteering also meant getting to eat some turkey and stuffing which was yummy!

Our afternoon was spent at Yobel Market, an awesome fair trade store in Old Colorado City. Julie was decorating for Christmas, and so we pitched in, hanging lights, commandeering branches from out back, and otherwise participating in holiday fun!

We got back to black forest just in time to shower and make mashed potatoes before heading to a rather large community thanksgiving dinner held at Casa Boncha (so called because Joe Boncha owns it). It's a house of five, six guys? that hold a weekly pancake breakfast on Sunday mornings, and a few who partake in tuesday night dinners that I go to. There were probably thirty some young adults there, lots of food and revelry!

We did have some amazing cooks... including our turkeys cooked by a Garden of the Gods gourmet chef! I heart amy pontius!

And we didn't leave much behind....

Such a good day with good folks and adventures.  Gives me hope that if I eventually don't end up back home, holidays are survivable...BUT I am excited to go home for Christmas!!!!! At least this year I don't have to give that up too...:o)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I have so much to be thankful this year.... a brilliant opportunity to learn and explore, amazing friends, a great host home, a supportive family... the list could go on.

But it's also my first major holiday away from home...one more slight tear in the heart being separated from those I love most.  And while invitations to dinners have been a plenty (seriously I have been invited by friends and strangers alike....and then some!), I wanted this year to look completely different.  So Darci and I are spending the day volunteering with the  Salvation Army at one of their many community holiday dinners and the evening with friends who throw a big thanksgiving feast for those away from home.  I am excited for all the people I will meet! Oh yeah, and some pumpkin pie and turkey!!!

I hosted small group last night, tacos! And for dessert I had everyone make a candy turkey... just like we do every year at home... I bet Nate is old enough to give it a shot this  year!  Anyways, this is Cale's creation...not sure what it is supposed to be...

Less Than a Month!

wrong time of year, but right place!!!

Whew! Time is flying out here....in just a few weeks I'll be flying home for Christmas for two weeks to catch up with family, grab some days working, and enjoying the DC area festivities.  I am trying to contain excitement since there is still so much to happen between now and then....

We are finishing up exams today, It's a huge relief to know that an eight day break begins at 12:30 today.... and an eight day staycation begins!  I haven't even planned it yet, I just know that adventuring WILL be happening, and awesome photo ops will follow...:o)

Everything is going really well here, I am continually meeting great folks, I love my host family, and there is something new to do everyday. After Thanksgiving we begin Intensives... a three week period of time where the school throws all the odds and ends activities that don't fit in a normal module....sound board training, garageband recording...etc.  A few of us are throwing a 48 hour flight in to Salt Lake City in there, so I'm kind of really excited! :o)

To Virginia: Dec 16 through 30th.... be ready!!!!

Black Forest Coffee Shop!

There is the cutest and coziest coffeeshop down the road from my house in black forest.  I went in there and met the related family members that all work in there.  Ryan the expresso/drink maker, Kara the baker, and David the cook.... and there are various other members around at times as well.  They have so many options even in the mocha department that I never know what to get, but I am always pleasantly surprised by the "coffee art" on the top of my coffee.... you don't get that uniqueness from starbucks!

I've tried going in once a week, to support them and get some good coffee.  There's even a possibility that I'll play there one Saturday morning...I should probably check with them on that...:o)

New Life Worship Recording

A few weeks ago, New Life Worship had a night of live recording.  Eleven new and original songs. Being part of the choir, we were involved in the evening and I'm pretty sure I spent the whole first half of the time like an excited toddler, taking in all the lights, and sounds, and enthusiastic people.  God's presence was heavy and thick and it brought power and joy to the evening.

The night had its glitches, mainly some sort of small electrical fire before its start, which got everyone kicked out of the building and into the cold...where Jamie and I took the above photo.  But we only had to start 10 minutes late, and nothing went wrong the rest of the night!

For the next three nights, the choir is overdubbing our parts for the record.  How that actually works, well, I'll be finding out soon enough, but it is exciting to be a part of this project and at the very least see small bits of it form from the inside.  Last week, we recorded some video of the choir singing songs from a purely choir record recorded last spring through Integrity.  The record is released next week with all the written sheet music for a choir to sing.  Integrity wanted a dvd of an actual choir singing as a reference.... or however they decided, we ended up doing a music video of sorts....but a lot of us... crammed on risers...good times.

St. Louis- Gateway to the West

Finally! The last post from the westward road trip!  PJ and I made a stop in St. Louis to see the arch: The Gateway to the West. We didn't go up to the top 1) because I don't understand how the thing stands and 2) there is no way you would get me into one of those tiny cars to ride all the way up.  BUT I was quite excited to discover underneath the arch the Museum of Westward Expansion!!!!

First off, combining my love of museums, history, and the west is perfect!

My preferred mode of transportation...turns out no one uses these anymore so they are only in museums now.

PJ as Thomas Jefferson.

If housing hadn't worked out so well, I may have found myself building a sod house.

Did you know that they've actually built a bridge to go over the Mississippi now? And you no longer have to ride one of those wooden ferries pulled by a rope across the water? :o)

We ate lunch on the Mississippi, at a little stand.  It was greasy and yummy and good!

I remember standing in St. Louis and thinking to myself, "West...here I come."

St. Louis is one place I would really like to go back to and visit.  We only really hit this one place and I'm sure there are a multitude of cool things to do there...one day!  Well, this sums up the road trip.  A few of us found cheap flights on southwest so in December we are flying to Salt Lake City for 48 hours of whatever mischief we can get into.  Thanksgiving has been turned into a staycation with road trips too daunting to take on right now.... but who knows come spring time!!!

Community

I have hardly picked up my guitar and played over the past couple of weeks.  I could easily chalk it up to a crazy schedule, too much reading and paper writing, but I realized today that God is showing me that as I embark on this whole worship leading thing, people come before the music.  Relationships come before the songs.  The biggest lesson of this fall, beyond the books and classes and adventures, has been in...community.

I have never lived in a place where it is so easy to make friends.  To find myself within a network of people who all know each other and if they don't, well, they certainly have many mutual friends in common.  I have been invited in to the Tuesday night dinners, the Sunday morning brunches (which currently I can't go to because of choir), the random birthdays and game nights.  I have learned to play Nertz, a collective, high paced game of solitaire and maybe one day I'll win at it.

I'm in the midst of writing a paper on my philosophy of pastoral ministry.  It's hard because all of the words I want to use to break it down, like local, personal, and relational, are so wrapped up in each other that I can't separate them easily and concisely.  But whatever God calls me to do, I want to live as this community of young adults in Colorado Springs does.  Interlocking and interweaving, open and welcoming, intentional and transparent.  Authentic people don't have to wonder about how to live authentically, they just do.  Intentional communities don't have to think about what programs to create, they just start getting together and a weekly dinner becomes a tradition going on three years, a brunch carries on through its fifth year.  It is the gathering of the old and the new.... around food, around reasons to celebrate, around common denominators....

When I first got here, Julie, the one who initially introduced me to this group of amazing people, said to me, "Most everyone in Colorado is from somewhere else, so they all remember what it's like to be the new kid."  I want to live the rest of my life remembering what it's like to be the new kid and letting that affect how I approach people, how I open up ways to get to know people... it feels revolutionary coming from Northern VA where it is easy to get caught up in people's guardedness and busyness. It has been worth coming here just for these simple truths of community to take root inside my heart.

Coffin Races in Manitou Springs!

It doesn't take much to get me excited....take for instance the fact that I was able to get a library card good for a year without being a resident of Colorado!!! I've told just about everyone about it! :o) So to find out about Coffin Races in Manitou, well, it was way too good of an opportunity to pass up!

In the late 1800's/early 1900's, a young woman with a severe case of tuberculosis, by the name of Emma Crawford, came with her family to Manitou to hopefully recover with exposure to the water, the sunlight, the thin air.  She died, and per her request was buried on Red Mountain.  Eventually, a railroad was planned to run across that mountain so Emma's grave was moved.  But the railroad was never built and due to erosion, Emma's deteriorating coffin and bones slid down the mountain. Years later, the town formed a festival centered around the event and every year they hold coffin races!!!

Darci and I got to Manitou a couple of hours before the races started, so we spent some time wandering the shops before realizing we needed to find a place to stand as the crowd grew.  The sidewalks were so crowded there was hardly any room to move by anybody else.  The festivities started with a parade of hearses, followed by a parade of all forty some teams set to compete in the coffin races.  The rules as best I could figure it out, is that 1) your entire team had to be in costume 2) there had to be an "Emma" in the coffin 3) there were four people to push the coffin up the hill

Apparently the hillbillies have won for the past 7 years, but they were upset by the smurfs this time around!!! We stood with a couple of guys right behind us, both named Ryan from up in Denver, who entertained us with some brilliant commentary.

After the races, we headed down to the Heart of Jerusalem Cafe to have some veggie middle eastern amazingness!  My ability to talk to strangers even scored us from baklava from some guy in the army who knew we needed to try it!  We loitered a bit there and met up with Julie and Olivia who were also in town for a bit...... then it was off to get ready for halloween parties!

I definitely want to explore Manitou Springs more. It was such a haven for those drawn by the mineral water, and I want to see Emma's grave now, and the library there looks really sweet.... it was so crowded the day we went it didn't leave much room to do more than just watch the festivities and hope to not get hurt by a runaway coffin (which apparently had happened in the past).  This weekend will be my first time to Denver, but the Art Museum is free all day and at night a bunch of different ones are opening up for a "Night at the Museums!!! Cannot contain my excitement!

Halloween 2010

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!! or happy november 1st at this point!  I am exhausted from a weekend that was busy and fun filled, as I've landed into an awesome community out of my "small group" that meets for dinner on Tuesday nights, between them, friends from fall retreat and my few loves from the school of worship, things are trucking!

 Saturday Night: Dance Party.  So I ended up going with some friends Saturday night to a bit of a dance party held at some guy named Matt's house.  They had cleared out the living room floor, set up a loud sound system and had strobe lights going.  It was fun to dance, but a bit awkward to meet people... in costume and unable to understand the name they were yelling in my ear...:o)  I didn't know I was going until only a few hours before we were set to meet up, so after some crazed shopping trying to figure out how to look cute, but be fully clothed (have you seen the selection of women costumes this year?!?!?!?), I bought a gangsta and cat accessory pack and put together a little tuxedo cat costume... loved it!

 Bradley and I took this pic out on the deck, which was just as crowded as inside the house... I kept having visions from an old ER episode where a two story deck collapses filled with partygoers.... but luckily it held...

Sunday Night! After Sunday evening service a few of us headed over to Chipotle: This year's deal? Dress up like a processed food and get a $2 burrito.  We went as a double stuffed oreo!

What better thing to do after eating an entire burrito than to go roller skating in costume with other school of worship kids!  I probably did less than 10 spins around the floor, all I wanted to do was dance! Which is pretty hard in skates!!!!

After lots of prodding and yelling on my part, Darci dressed up for the first time this year!!!!

All I wanted to do was push Ryan over and watch him try to get up again.  :o) He came as  brownie points....such a clever boy.

photo courtesy of Brianne Swee

Ever the dramatic one I liked making a big deal of going from the carpet to the slippery rink floor....kinda like forcing a cat into water!

Photo Courtesy of Brianne Swee

Today...we all were pretty tired!!!! But I did go to Fargo's pizza for dinner tonite, a completely western themed pizza place....it was awesome!