Engstrom Bowling Night

On Monday night, we had an all-Engstrom bowling event!  The theme was "Neon" so we all dressed in bright colors.  I rocked my crazy tights, my Engstrom shades and my "Choose Joy" foam finger.
That's right.

It was a fun night of laughter, healthy competition and hanging with some rad people.

p.s. post to come soon about my best night so far as an RA.  To sum it up in one sentence, my residents are incredible and my God is sovereign.

A Saturday in pictures

 It was 90 degrees today.

Love this shot :) 

 Right after their second goal of the game!

#14 is my resident!!!  Go Ally!!! 

There she is again! 

This evening will consist of laundry and a movie  :)  Oh, the life of a college student on a Saturday night. 

I walked into my room and this little treat was waiting for me from Natalie, one of the RAs on my staff. 

Abbs is playing the guitar, a lovely sound. 

Abbie and I put up Christmas lights last night  :)  I love Christmas. 

GYRAD

Saturday night was our first big hall event of the year.  The girls have been asking for a guy-girl event since the beginning of the year, so I finally agreed to it  :)

I decided to do GYRAD (Get Your Roommate A Date).  It's exactly what it sounds like.  haha.  Each of the girls goes out "hunting" for a date for her roomie.  It's pretty fantastic to overhear the conversations the week prior to this event.

For our GYRAD, we all went to the caf for dinner.  This eliminated the awkward "who pays?" situation that often arises on first dates.  After a [not so] delicious dinner, we all headed off to Huntington beach for a bonfire and hang time.  Once we got there, people kinda made up their own fun.  A bunch of people headed to the water and dipped their toes/bodies in (crazies), others grabbed the volleyball or frisbee and still others just hung out around the fire and had good conversations and s'mores.  It was great because for those who wanted to be "couple-y," the opportunity was there, but for those who were just going as friends, there were plenty of "non-couple-y" activities available [good planning on our part].

Here are a few pictures from our night:

Eryn (the other Top Flight RA) brought a Nacho Libre mask...so we thought,

 "Let's have everyone take pictures with it on!"  Why not, right?!

Nothing like toes on a cold beach and hands over a blazing fire.

My duty for the night??  Rationing the chocolate.

Eryn and her date  :) 

I LOVE the look on this guy's face.  The fire literally looks like it's attacking him!

So. Much. Fun.

Seriously, such a great event.  I just love seeing my girlies have fun and enjoy themselves.  Being an RA is the biggest blessing in my life.  I adore these girls.  Their joy inspires me.  Their vulnerability is humbling.  Their love for life is contagious.  Their laughter warms my heart.  Their faith in me and my Jesus is incredible.  

Often times I think, "I don't deserve ANY of this..." and the truth is...I don't.  But that's the beauty of it.  I don't deserve any of this and still my God continues to bless me through it.

The Bible says every good and perfect gift is from above.
And right now, I feel like I'm living in the clouds.

overflow.

So, I'm sitting here in my messy room with homework that needs to be done, a floor that is begging to be vacuumed and a bed that is beckoning me to come and sleep.  I have a schedule that demands every bit of my time be put to use.  I have people in my life that are desperate to be poured into--dead people walking all around that need the living water of Jesus Christ.  It can be slightly burdensome.

This morning I woke up with a deep-rooted hunger for the Word.  As I opened up my Bible, I turned to Matthew: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  

~Matthew 11:28-30

As I think about my life and the day-to-day stresses, I am so convicted of my lack of trust in my Sovereign God.  His Word says that His commands are not burdensome--His yoke is light.  The flip side of that coin is that anything that is burdensome is not of the Lord.  Stress?  Not of the Lord.  Inadequacy?  Not of the Lord?  Overwhelming busyness?  Not of the Lord.  Though those things may come my way, I do not need to be burdened by them because I serve a God who carries them for me.  My Jesus carries me.

It's nearing midnight and I am listening to the laughter of my residents echo down the hallway.  I'm listening to my wonderful roommate learn a few new worship songs on guitar.  I'm rejoicing that I get to start a Bible study with the girls on my hall on Sunday night.  I'm glancing around my room and seeing pictures of my family and friends who love me and care for me.  Mostly, I'm thanking God for gifting me the role of RA.  I'm more tired than I've been in a while and yet my life is more full than it has ever been.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that God is good.

Blessings.

This week has been one of the most insane weeks of my entire life.  The Lord has really forced me to lean on Him for strength, and I'm praising Him for that.  I'd love to share with you some of the many blessings in my life this week:

1. I have been able to meet all of my residents even in the craziness of this first week of school.

2. I have had some incredible conversations with residents who have confided in me.  

3. I have been able to pray with so many residents in the last few days.  Small things.  Big things.  Everything.

4. In the moments when I have felt the weakest, God has sent me encouragement through His Word, notes of encouragement from friends, blogs, the most unlikely of places.

5. Wednesday night the girls who lived on Top Flight (my floor) last year came and "initiated" our residents this year.  They shared great stories, laughed a lot and prayed over mine and Eryn's (the other 4th floor RA) girls.  It was wonderful.

6. Last night we had our first family dinner and I had about 30 girls show up to go to dinner in the caf together!!!  I was so excited  :)  

7. During hall dinner, I was able to get the ENTIRE dining hall to sing "Happy Birthday" to one of my girls whose birthday was yesterday  :)

8. Last night while I was on duty, I got to talk with a couple residents and we all shared life stories (my fav).  It blew me away how we serve one God who is so intimately involved in each of our lives simultaneously.

9. This morning I got to go for a walk with Eryn and we shared life stories and talked.  I'm so excited to serve alongside her this year.  

10. Today I got to have lunch with one of my D-group girls from last year and hear about how her school year is going.

11. I'm getting better from being sick all week!  My energy is slowly coming back and I'm returning to a pretty normal schedule (I haven't needed to nap for 2 days now!!!).

12. My residents are absolutely the best.  These girls blow me away each and every day.  They are so encouraging, open, and wanting to seek the Lord together this year.  

What more could I ask for?

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." 

~James 1:17

Good Times.

Well...this is my 100th blog post!!!  Pretty darn cool if you ask me  :)

This last week has just been one huge blessing altogether.  I've spent some quality time with my staff, and that has been amazing.  They are all wonderful and full of energy and such servants at heart.  We work well together, which is something that I have been praying for since I found out I was going to be an RA.  God is so faithful to answer prayers.  

This week has also been insanely busy!  We were preparing for move-in weekend and that involved lots of planning, decorating and sacrificing sleep.  Needless to say, it was all worth it and I would do it 100 times over.  Our residents started to arrive on Friday!  It was so much fun to finally put faces to names that I have been praying over for weeks now.  Friday and Saturday were both longggggg days.  We rotated between being in the lobby selling t-shirts, birthday cakes and sunglasses and being on our halls meeting residents and parents.  Saturday was our first football game and that was a blast!  We lost, but it was a good game and it was fun to be with 6,000+ people cheering on our guys.

Yesterday was much more of a "chill" day and last night was Good Times, an event put on by the Alpha Leaders on campus.  It's out on Adams field and it's just a bunch of hilarious skits back to back.  It's a great way to start off the year and a needed distraction for many freshmen as they said goodbye to their families yesterday.  After Good Times, I had a bunch of girls over to my room for a girlie movie: "A Cinderella Story."  I was blessed with lots of sweet girls in my room.  I cannot wait to get to know each and every one of them better.  

On Friday, our mascot, Freddy Cougar was walking the halls...so Abbs and I took a picture with him  :)

A glorious sunset before Good Times.  This was followed by a midwest style thunder and lightning storm.

Some of my residents! 

...more residents!

Eryn and me--Eryn is the other 4th floor RA.

One of my residents, Caitlin.  She's such a sweetheart.

Courtney and Katie (roomies on our hall).

Hangin out before Good Times!

This picture is blurry, but I really love it!

SOOOO many people came out for Good Times this year!

More lovely ladies  :)

Abbs and me.  I adore her.

You can see the sheets of rain if you look closely!  It was amazing.

After Good Times a handful of girls crashed my place for a movie--my favorite moment of being an RA so far  :)

Needless to say, I LOVE my residents.  They are simply the best.  I'm sure there will be lots more pictures to come.  

This week I would love it if you could be praying for a few things:

1. Lots of opportunities to connect with my residents.

2. My health.  I'm pretty under the weather right now.

3. Our all hall meeting tonight--that we would communicate effectively.

4. The hearts of my residents--that they would be full of joy and open to what God might be teaching them.

5. Rest for me.  In the midst of all this craziness, I really need to find time for me and usually that's the first thing to get tossed out the window  ;)

6.  For God to be glorified in me.  Really, at the end of the day, that's all I want.

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!  I will sing and make melody!  Awake, my glory!  Awake, O harp and lyre!  I will awake the dawn!  I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.  For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!  

Let your glory be over all the earth!"

~Psalm 57:7-11

Final Walkabout post :)

I realize that by now you are probably all sick of hearing about Walkabout, so I'll wrap it up and move on to other things.  I've kinda given you the run-down on the major things that happened on Walkabout and the rest of our trip was spent hiking out of the wilderness so the pictures are similar to the first half.

I figured it would be good to post some pictures of random fun experiences while we were out.  I had a crazy fun team and we always came up with something adventurous to do.  It was just grand.

The first day we got to camp, we all took a swim in the alpine lake water and it was...FREEZING.  As in, two weeks before this picture was taken, the lake was an ice-skating rink.

But...I survived!!!

And so did everyone else  :)

Sun bathing in the middle of the mountains!

Kelly fished a lot!  And he caught a few.  

They ate them while we were on solo.  Lame.

No big deal...just freezing some Snickers bars.

The boys did a wonderful job keeping our fire nice and warm.

Lots of cat naps on our stops  :)

The first night in camp, Shayna and I made a no-bake Cheesecake.  

Apparently it was delicious!

Roasting marshmallows was a fav.

So, I went to pick up my shirt one morning and this ant had bit my shirt and then somehow died in that position.  If you look closely, you can see it actually has my shirt in its mouth.  It was clamped down so hard that we had to cut the ant off.  What the heck?!

Hahaha.

We LIVED in mosquito nets.  The bugs were AWFUL this year.  At one point on solo I counted 23 mosquitos ON my mosquito net.  That doesn't even inlcude the other ones looking for a place to land.   Shayna described it best: "I felt like the last donut in a room full of hungry football players."

Back massages were a frequent happening in camp.

We went cliff jumping!!

And by "we," I mean "they."

The last night in the wilderness, the boys set up Chris's hammock over a river.  

SOOO cool!

This?  This is me exfoliating my face with sand from the river.  I was trying to help my sunburnt nose peel.  Haha.  

Gotta love it!

Grating cheese in the middle of the forest...no big deal.

Planking [of course].

This was our car on the ride home.  Self explanatory.

We all went out to Mongolian barbeque our first night back and then had 21 Choices frozen yogurt.

LOVE these people.

Walkabout taught me so many things.  These people taught me so many things.  God taught me so many things.  Walkabout grew me.  Walkabout changed me.  Walkabout was everything I needed.  

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken."  

~Psalm 62:1-2