And school starts...

Hey everyone! This is just to briefly inform you that I am still alive and have not (again) fallen off the face of the earth. The last couple of weeks have been amazingly relaxing as I just sat around and waited for school to start...ok, just kidding. I actually spent the last couple of weeks with a non-profit organization working on putting together a prayer initiative DVD for the Ethne missions movement. I mainly handled some of the translation issues. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring.

And then this week, school started! It's been good so far, although I'm still trying to unwind from the last couple of weeks, so I'm still pretty tired. But my classes look like they'll be pretty interesting (even if they involve a LOT of work!). I'm taking a lighter load (12 hours) and I'm taking the following classes:
Psychological Counseling
Psychological Research Techniques/Data Analysis
American Literary Realism
Thought and Fiction of C.S. Lewis

Yay for classes! On another note, it's been absolutely wonderful to have my younger sister around on campus. (How did my baby sister become a college girl?) She comes by my room to visit sometimes, and I see her around on campus, both of which have been awesome! She's a super great girl and a wonderful sister, and I love her totally; if you haven't met her, you should!

And now...(drum roll please)...
I am going to do homework.
Have a blessed day.

Coffe Lovers. And TCKs

Here's a random post for you:

While I was visiting some favorite people of mine at "The Farm," we got into a very long discussion about/search for the word for "coffee lover." For example, there is the word enophile for someone who "appreciates and enjoys wine." A bibliophile loves books; a hippophile loves horses. There are words for people who love movies (cinephile), languages (glossophile), the latest styles and trends (neophile), and even random (and disturbing) things like snakes (ophiophile) and corpses (necrophile). With such words running around, one would think there was a word for a person who loves coffee. And yet there isn't. Or at least not that we've found. In fact, in light of such a grevious oversight, we've considered creating our own word. Like caffeophile, coffeephile, or even javaphile. Who knows? Maybe one of these words will catch on, or maybe someone will come up with a better one. Or maybe there is a word already out there but is refusing to be found. Again, who knows?

Finally, on an equally random note, I wanted to post a few fun facts about TCKs (Third Culture Kid). The textbook definition of a TCK is as follows: "A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents' culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background." I posted something similar to this back in February of '05, but I felt it was time for an update. So, for your reading pleasure, here are a few fun statments.

You know you're a TCK (or MK) when:
Where are you from?" has more than one reasonable answer.
You flew before you could walk.
Your life story uses the phrase "Then we moved to..." three (or four, or five...) times.
You don't know whether to write the date as day/month/year, month/day/year, or some variation thereof (I get confused on this all the time!).
You had a passport before your driver's license.
You wince when people mispronounce foreign words.
You get confused because US money isn't color-coded.
You think VISA is a document that's stamped in your passport, not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
You consider a city 500 miles away "very close."
You watch the world news and recognize your old neighborhood.
You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price (done that).
You miss reading the subtitles when you see the latest movie.
You've gotten out of school because of monsoons, bomb threats, and/or popular demonstrations.
You speak with authority on the subject of airline travel.
You can think of the word you want in another language, but the English word escapes you.
You know how to pack. Boy, do you know how to pack (and repack, and pack again...)
The thought of sending your (hypothetical) kids to public school scares you, while the thought of letting them fly alone doesn't at all.
You think that high school reunions are all but impossible.
You sort your friends by continent.

There are a zillion more, I'm sure, but I will go ahead and end my post here. Have a lovely day!

Prayer requests...and a praise

Just wanted to drop in briefly to ask for prayer for two special people who have been on my mind and heart. First, I wanted to ask for prayer for Lance; many of you know him or have heard of him, and so many of you know he had a kidney transplant almost two years ago. After having lived with kidney problems since he was a baby and having been on dialysis for several years, receiving the new kidney was such a blessing for him. Unfortunately, Lance has been in the hospital for a week now, and several days ago a kidney biopsy confirmed that his body has begun rejecting his transplanted kidney. Anti-rejection medicine has begun, but they're not sure if this is enough to reverse the rejection process. If it doesn't work, Lance will go back onto dialysis and the transplant waiting list. Please pray that if it's God's will, He would save Lance's kidney. This is a very difficult time for him and his family, and I know they would appreciate your prayers.

Also, the pastor of our church in Malaysia was just diagnosed with acute leukemia. This has been a very hard blow on our church and has been hard on all of us who know and love our pastor. He has started intense chemotherapy, but no one can be sure what the results will be. Please pray for God's hand of healing on our pastor's life, and that over all God's purposes for our pastor would be fulfilled. Please also pray for peace and comfort over our whole church and specifically for our pastor's wife and two daughters.

As a thank you to God, and as an example that God does do miracles in response to our prayers, I am overjoyed to report that my mom's dad, my 82-year-old grandfather, has just accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. You would have to know my grandfather to know what a huge miracle this is. My mom has prayed for him her whole life, and we've prayed for him for as long as I can remember. Though my granddad ("Papa," we call him) has been close to salvation for a long time, none of us were sure whether he would take that step of faith before it was too late. After my grandmother's stroke last fall, however, we think God really used that to work in Papa's life, and he has finally become a Believer. I can't express what this means to our family, and particularly for my mom who has prayed and cried over her father for decades. This is just proof to me that God never stops working on behalf of His children as we pray, that He never stops drawing people to himself, and that He does do miracles to bring about what we never thought was possible.

May God bless you by proving He is the God who does the impossible. In the joys and heartaches, He is constantly working to bring about His perfect plans. My prayer for you today is that in a constantly changing world, you would trust and be blessed by our unchanging God. May He touch your hearts today in a special way and give you His peace.