Thursday

Today's highs and lows are pretty easy to do since I did them tonight with Michelle, Katelin, Rachel and 3 of the focus missionaries at Good Sons.

Lows:

• My grandpa being sick
• Being tired from all of the traveling

Highs:

• Getting skype and seeing my great-grandpa as well as other family members on it. Also talking to Isaac after the conversation and figuring some things out with skype as I've never had it before.
• DG Bible Study was really good tonight. We had a lot of good conversations about the portion of the book Capitvating that we read. I think people enjoyed it.
• After Thursday Vigil praise Michelle, Katelin, Rachel and some focus missionaries when to the bar Good Sons and each had a drink and just chatted. The tables at good sons are chalkboards so that was fun to draw random things. We even had a couple of contests about our interpretation of an abstract idea. We did 'Never say Never'.  I'm not good at things like this so mine didn't win [even though I think it should have as it was the  most literal]. I wrote the word never and then crossed if off with like a no-smoking sign. The others weren't very impressed though :)

Wednesday

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I had a crazy day and I'm just going to mention a little bit about that and not do highs and lows, but don't fear after my day is done I'll post Thursdays.

After work I got a call from my mom saying that my great-grandpa wasn't doing well and had been readmitted to the hospital. She said that if I wanted to see him before he dies we should go see him soon. Anyway it was decided that it worked best for me, my brother, mom, and sister to go Friday morning. I said I'd email my teachers to see if that's ok because I have 2 classes on Fridays that I'm supposed to be at. She said that sounded good and she didn't want to pressure me to go, but it seemed like his time was coming soon.

A little background my great-grandpa is 90 years old and went into the nursing home this summer. He has Parkinson's and therefore wasn't very stable any longer and fell a few times so now lives there. Since Christmas he has be in and out of the hospital as his kidneys are failing, he's being going into a-fib, and therefore having troubles breathing. I'm sure there's more, but those are the main things.

Back to the story we were then planning on going Friday morning. I went to my discussion group meeting to prepare for class on Friday when my mom called me. I didn't think much of it and just ignored the call. Then my sister sent me a text that my uncle had just called and grandpa wasn't doing well and probably wouldn't make it through the night. At this point I believe his pulse was down at points to about 10 and they would have to occasionally remind him to breathe. So they were going to go to Sioux City to see him and asked if I wanted to come. I met them in Ames around 9:30 [after hanging out at my brothers frat for a bit waiting for them] and we drove there. On the way my aunt called and said that grandpa was doing better and breathing. We got to the hospital around 1 am and he was sleeping. Then he woke up when the nurse came in to do vitals and we talked to him for a bit.  At points you can understand what he's saying, but at other times it's very difficult to understand his speech. He went back to sleep and seemed to be breathing much better. We left the hospital around 3 and went to my great-grandma's house to sleep for a bit. I left around 7:30 am to get back to Drake.

My grandpa does seem to be doing somewhat better. I believe they're putting him on hospice now. Right now as many of his organs are failing they just want to make sure that he is comfortable. I'm planning on skyping with him and some other family members soon. Your prayers for his comfort as well as the rest of my families would be much appreciated.

Tuesday

Today was a fairly busy day for me. I'm pretty much in class from 10-4:15 on Tuesdays with a few short breaks in there. It reminds me a lot of schooling before college. Then I had a couple of meetings one at 5:45 and one at 9 and went to a speaker in between. So now I'm finally getting some time to relax which is nice. Now for my highs and lows.

Lows:

• I was really tired today for some reason [I think I got like 9 hours of sleep so I'm not sure why]
• Didn't get as much homework as I would have liked done, but I really didn't have too much time to do it

Highs:

• I went to an event called D-Prep, which is for current Des Moines High School students, mostly interested in pharmacy or other health care professions, and they're paired up with current Drake pharmacy students. I missed the event in the fall, but was able to make it today. Anyway the girl I'm paired up with was so interested in the presentation about addiction and was even taking notes. This was just amazing to me to see this high school sophomore wanting to really learn this information so much that she's taking notes on something that shes not going to be tested on and no ones really making her listen and comprehend. It was just really neat for me to see.
• I'm on my chapters management team and we seemed to have a productive meeting today so that was really good.
• I started the book Captivating last night, which is a book my small group is now going to be looking at. I only read the first 2 chapters, but it seems like it'll be really good. I'm interested to see how this study will go and how God will use this book in our group!
• The final high that I just found out about at 11:30 pm is that I'm going to be a recruitment counselor in the fall! I cannot even describe how excited that makes me! I'm excited to meet all of the other recruitment counselors and then just help out and be there for all of the new women going through recruitment.

I've also realized that it's been a long time since I've put pictures on my blog [I'm so bad at taking pictures even though I have a really nice new camera from Christmas] so I thought I'd put a couple from recent events since I haven't yet.

This is a picture from Spring Break. It's at the Basilica (for some reason I only took out my camera here) anyway it's an anchor so of course I had to take a picture. This was on the ceiling.

From DG Founders Day! My DG Family

With Michelle and Sarah

Monday

I had a pretty good day so far and really struggled thinking of lows....

Lows:

• Not having much to do at work today so the last hour I pretty much sat there and read random things online. I forgot to bring homework with me so I couldn't do that.
• My little in the Big Brothers Big Sister's program went home from school sick so I was able to meet with her and I had a fun activity planned.

Highs:

• Meeting with one of my professors today. I haven't been doing very well in his class (or a few others for that matter), but he gave me some suggestions on how to improve and also said there is time to improve so to not get down on myself. It was probably one of the best/most helpful meetings I've had with a professor since I've been at Drake.
• I also went to the West Des Moines library after work today to get a book that I have reserved and then to study. I actually got a lot accomplished in the 3 hours I was there so that was good.
• I was able to read some more in my "fun" book this evening so that was really good.

Sunday

Since I don't regularly blog I'm going to try something new this week where everyday I say my highs and lows of the day and maybe a little bit more about my day. Hopefully I can stick with it this whole week. I'm going to start with my low first so that Michelle will approve since she always says lows need to go first (as does Courtney).

For Sunday:

Low: running late for church and then driving around the lot to find a parking spot for like 10 minutes before finally going across the street and parking. Luckily Yvette and Sarah saved me a seat because the sanctuary was full and they were having people watch the service in another area.

Highs: Church ended up being really good even though I missed the beginning and the sermon was really good about the woman at the well.
Also this evening I had a great time with friends, Sarah Michelle, and Carley, laughing and just being plain dumb.  We blew up everyone's newsfeeds with our silliness, but it was still really good. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. [Michelle was being bullied in love]


Even though I didn't get as much done with my homework as I wanted to this weekend I still had a great time being with people. I caught up with Michelle on Friday night at Star Bar [we tried to be real people by going to a bar now that she's 21]. We talked about how our spring breaks went and it was just a really good time of chatting. Then Saturday I had DG Founders Day and had an awesome table and chatted with them. Then I went to Courtney's and we watched the movie The Switch, did a little bit of homework, and made 4 dozen cookies. Then tonight was my enjoyment catching up with people. I hope that you all have a great night and great week! Hope you read tomorrow night :)

Living out the Gospel

It's been awhile since I've last blogged. Sorry about that for the probably 4 of you who read my blog. My life got crazy trying to study for midterms and then I went on a spring break trip. The final half of this semester I'll try and be more consistent and blog at least a couple times a week. Now I'll get to my actual post.

During Spring Break I went with students from the Drake InterVarsity chapter to City Lights in St. Louis. This was a week that was very eye-opening. I won't go into all the details of the trip in this post, but may in later posts. My eyes were opened so much to what is going on in our country and the poverty that is there. Many times we find ourselves ignoring those around us in need and this week I wasn't able to do that. 

The week started out with a tour of the city and finding out that it's a hollow city. Most of the people that used to live in these neighborhoods have left and moved out to the suburbs. There were so many empty lots and abandoned buildings.  I had been to St. Louis before and had just gone to the touristy spots like the arch, zoo, Grant's farm, etc. The times that I was there before I didn't notice this poverty and it's mainly because I wasn't looking for it. I was essentially ignoring what is right in front of me. This is very similar to my life in Des Moines. I live in the city and yet I routinely ignore the poor around me. I live in my little Drake bubble and try to avoid going into the 'hood' of Des Moines. I rarely venture East of campus unless I'm visiting my little at her school for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. This week really challenged me to be there for my neighbor and to listen to them and hear their stories. I'm still working on what this will look like in my life, but I really do want to stop ignoring the poor that are right in front of me.

This week also gave me the opportunity to get to know an amazing Christian community in the St. Louis area. There were 2 churches that I saw that truly care for the poor and are really living out the gospel. The two churches are called New City Fellowship and Jubilee Community Church. Both of these churches encourage their members to move into the 'hood', where most people have left and live among the poor. This allows them to be in community with those that society has deemed less than them. I thought it was amazing to see people actually living this out. They were living among these people and developing relationships with them. It was very inspiring for me to see these people and also inspired me to do something similar after college or maybe after next year when I'm done living in the DG house. One thing that was repeated over and over by people that were living in these communities was the phrase that the safest place for them to be is where God wants them. Many of their families and friends didn't understand why they would intentionally move their family into dangerous areas, but if God is there with you then no where else would be safer.

We also learned a lot about the education system in the United States. I would really encourage you to watch the documentary 'Waiting for Superman'. I think this is the first documentary that I've ever watched and it was amazing. It is very heartbreaking, but also very eye-opening about the state of public education. We also learned that the St. Louis public schools have lost their accreditation so colleges and universities don't have to look at people's applications that apply to their schools since they could say their high school diploma doesn't count.

The main thing that I will take away from this past week is to be more aware of the poor around me. One idea for how I'm going to do this is called a blesssing bag. I'm planning on making some of these within the next couple of weeks and carrying them along with me in my car. Right now I've occasionally seen people with signs asking for money/work/etc, and normally ignore them and drive by. I think after I start carrying these with me and actually looking out for homelessness I'll see so much more. Des Moines has huge issues with homelessness and so I just need to open to looking for these people. I look forward to taking the experiences and information that I've learned this past week and applying them to Des Moines.