A Night of Unity

Yesterday was A Night of Unity on Drake's campus. You can go over to my friend Michelle's blog to read all about the idea, planning, etc. that went into the night. I just thought I would write a bit on it and so some of it may overlap.

I thought this was just a great time for all of the Christian's on campus to get together. Through my 3 years now involved in Intervarsity on campus I've heard a variety of students stay something about how they wish that there would be more unity on campus with the Christian organizations on campus. When Michelle came to me with this idea after spring break. I thought it was a great idea, but I wasn't sure if it would ever happen since I've heard about these ideas before. I agreed to help get it going though. Michelle made the facebook group, we set a meeting date, and I really think God took it from there. Everything seemed to go together very well and we really didn't do all that much. We discussed during the planning that things seemed to be coming together a little too well. We then decided for sure that God was helping us every step of the way. I was amazed at the number of people that came when we just started planning at the beginning of April and the facebook event was made last week sometime.  I was also amazed because schools getting busy now and its relays week, but people still wanted to come together to worship God.

From watching the groups do the human knot and then have some discussion it seems like people were really enjoying meeting everyone and talking about being a Christian on campus. I loved having the outside perspective of watching each group interact with each other.

I think my favorite part of the night was the speakers and then the worship at the end of the night. I loved how people from each of the 3 large Christian organizations on campus came together to just worship God and lead the worship as well.

I also loved planning the event with people from each organization and getting to know these people better. Overall God is great and we were all challenged to be lights on campus! I hope that nights like this can continue into next year and can become a common occurrence on our campus. 
Afterall, "How Good and Pleasant It Is When God's People Live Together In Unity."

2nd Annual Night Easter Egg Hunt

*Just a warning that there is picture overload on this blog*

This weekend I went home for Easter and it was really good. I enjoyed being with my family. Semi-bonding with my brother on the drive home even though he mostly watched a tv show. I also practiced vitals on all of my family members today which they all really enjoyed. On Saturday we went to Holstein and visited my great-grandpa. He's doing ok. He sleeps most of the time, but we were able to talk with him for a bit so that was good.

When I got back on Saturday I got ready for the 2nd Annual Night Easter Egg Hunt. Last year I had the idea to have an Easter Egg Hunt with my friends. They all showed up later than expected so it was dark by the time we hid the eggs so it turned into a night hunt. It was quite difficult last year with the dark and our cell phone lights to help us find the eggs. This year I planned it to be at night so I had everyone bring flashlights. It was much easier to find the eggs with flashlights. I think there were only about 3 eggs that weren't found. [1 was discovered this morning, the other 2 are still missing in the yard]. Anyway each person gets a bag filled with 18 eggs that are all the same color they hide those eggs. Then we draw a color and have to find that color. Here are the pictures of the evening:

Jamie, Deb, and Aaron getting ready for the hunt

Excited for the hunt..

Angela and Tara also ready

Deb and Tara searching

Found an egg

Tara and Angela searching

Jamie found an egg

Deb and Tara again

Looking for my last egg [Jamie hid it well]

There it is!

Opening the eggs

Angela's excited about all the wonderful candy and her gold coin

Showing off the treats

Jamie's new hair accessory

It was nice to hang out with some of my friends from home last night. I love keeping in touch with them all and hearing about their lives. We didn't have quite enough time to really get into what we're all up to, but it was still good. It was fun to reminiscence about the high school and middle school days and all the random things that we did. I always wish I kept in better touch with these girls, but its always great to see them when we're all home from breaks. Even though the candy was a little sketch I still think that everyone had fun! I'm sure they're all excited for next years night hunt, maybe we'll even be able to find them all :)

Catch Up

Well I haven't blogged for a while [as my friend Traci pointed out today] so I decided I'd update you all on my life. It hasn't been too interesting, but I'll give you some highlights in bullet form of the past month:

• Planned the Relays Parade for last Saturday (16th), which ended up being canceled because of the weather.
• Canceled parade allowed me to go watch my friend Traci throw the shot and hammer in the cold/windy weather
• Next on Saturday was DG formal. It was at the top floor of the Holiday Inn in Des Moines, and was a lot of fun!

Part of the DG Bible Study

•  Streetpainting was on Sunday. That was fun. I don't have any pictures from it. I didn't really get painted. I just wore clothes from last year so it looked like I was painted and just painted the Intervarsity square so no one really painted me, which I was a fan of.
• I've also started reading the book Love Wins by Rob Bell. So far I've really enjoyed it. I knew about all the controversy surrounding the book before I started it. I think so far that he's just written things to make you really think about your faith, and I've enjoyed that. I'll let you all know more about it (if I remember) when I'm done.
• I've had 2 tests so far this week and 1 more tomorrow. One of the tests was in the class that I meet with my professor each week and I got more score back today and I did really well so I'm excited about that. Also the other test, I doubt when super well cuz I didn't study that much. Hopefully the one tomorrow is ok.
• I've been helping plan a unity night for the Christian's on Drake's campus. The planning seems to be going well. If you're a Drake student reading this you should probably check out the event.  It's on Tuesday from 9-10:30 pm and should be really cool.
• I just went with some girls from DG Bible Study to the Maundy Thursday service at Hope tonight. It was a really good service and I really enjoy going to church with other people it makes me happy. Also it was some people's first communion so it was really cute to see all the kids in their dress up clothes. Some of these kids also did the Bible reading so that was adorable.
• Relays is next week so things around here I'm sure will be crazy. I'm excited to go watch the relays, the pancake breakfast, and probably Court Ave. Relays is such an interesting time on Drake's campus and I'm sure being 21 and living in the house will make that experience all the more interesting. We also found out that we don't have any classes on Relays Friday, which is so strange for pharmacy kids.
•  Easter is this weekend so I'm going home. I'm also planning The 2nd Annual Night Easter Egg Hunt with my friends at home so if I remember I'll take some awesome pics of the event.
• Well I hope that you all love the bullet update of my life. I'm sure I forgot some very important things that happened in my life, but that's fine.

The Blessing Bag

I just finished the idea that I got while at City Lights over Spring break as I mentioned in a previous post. It's called the Blessing Bag, which if you click you can read about the idea. Anyway it was one of the girl's ideas when she was 6. A way to bless those around you and I thought it was really cool and wanted to do it here in Des Moines. So today after work I went to Target and Walmart and shopped around for the best deals on foods and such to put in my bag.

I got some water and apple juice

 Some granola bars

Some fruit snacks

Tuna and crackers

Fruit cup

Soup

and of course a couple spoons

All in a resusable bag

Here are the 4 bags that I made....

Also I didn't mean for these to all be Walmart brand and a walmart promotion, but that was the cheapest products for my money so that's what I went with. I will probably add some sort of note to them as well. The idea from the blog is "We Hope This Bag is  Blessing From Our Family to You" I might do something similar such as I hope this is a blessing or something similar. I'm not quite sure that's the last thing I'll figure out. I'm planning on praying over them tomorrow for the people that will receive these 4 bags-hopefully they will truly bless them. I will also pray that I will have the opportunity to give these bags to people that really need the contents. 

*In other random news in my life since I haven't blogged in about a week. I just participated in the largest pie fight. We had that on campus as a part of our Drake Dogtown After Hours celebration. I really didn't want to participate, but then did and it was a lot of fun. A little gross, but overall good. I still think I enjoy streetpainting and having paint all over my body rather than pie. [even though the pie is much easier to get out] Now I'm headed to bed and tomorrow is Sand Volleyball, which I might be helping ref so we'll see how that goes.

Saturday

Lows:

• Having someone block my car in at Pike so I couldn't really get out this morning. Then possibly waking up a Pike to see if he could find whose car it was so they could move it. He then didn't know whose it was so I had to call Jessica and have her move her car so I could jump the curb. I don't think it did anything bad to my mom's car or at least I hope it didn't.
• Not spending as much time with my family when I was home. Everyone's so busy so it kind of stinks, but I did do some of my homework during the day so that was good.
• Not getting as much done as I wanted to in order to prepare for the week.

Highs:

• Going home for prom walk and seeing my sister as well as everyone else all dressed up
• Hanging out with Jamie, Tara, Paige, Kodi and old teachers/my parents friends for Kris's birthday party. I really don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. It may have even been harder than on Sunday night with the facebook stuff.  It was just really good to be home and see everyone!
• Getting a new phone! I'm now like all the cool kids [tara, jamie, and isaac] and have a nice new phone. It's a touch screen and I just feel like I'm actually in the 21st century as it's not my old flip phone that really can't do anything.

Friday

Lows:

• I'm still really tired
• Currently people are very loud outside every once in a while-not cool ;)

Highs:

• It's FRIDAY!!
• Women's Ministry Night with Intervarsity was so good. I may blog about it later, but it was so great to hear others stories, pray with Amy, worship, etc. It was a powerful night for a lot of the people there and I loved it.
• Hanging out with DGs as well as IV friends at Courtney's house watching Tangled, even though I feel asleep I still liked it.
• Seeing Hanaa (DG's old cleaning woman) at Walmart with her husband. I know that we all miss seeing her around  so it was great to randomly see her and chat for a bit. She seemed really excited about seeing us.