Sabbath. Day of rest and revelations!

Hi. :)

WOAH! OMG. I'm quite excited. What a refreshing Sabbath!!

So, last night, when I blogged about Isaiah 58 and all that, I was blogging and didn't feel like much flowed, in fact I was wondering what I was typing and why. I still was very grateful for the reminder I got about "it's not about me, it's about others and definitely God" but other than that, I felt like it all kind of came out of nowhere."

Well, after reading/blogging last night, I was on the phone with my amazing friend Megan and she told me to read Hebrews 11. So, I promised her that I would and I did that this morning before going to "The Bridge," the same church I'd been a month ago when I recently blogged about "CRAZY LOVE."

PS: we are in the same town as we were a month ago, which is so refreshing and relaxing!

So anywho, this morning, I wake up, get my coffee, go downstairs for breakfast and start talking with the desk lady. We'd talked quite a bit last time I was here in Nixa, so we just started back off where we'd last left off.
She told me her father was an incredible man who decided to hitchhike one day and move to Nicaragua to become a missionary. He packed a tall military bag and just left. He lived in tents and eventually got married and has kids there now.
His hope now is to move to Peru and use his agriculture degree to teach the Peruvians how to use agriculture to hopefully make means, which I think is phenomenal.
It got me thinking about what I someday want to do, and how much I respect it when  people have a passion and use that passion wholeheartedly for God, and those who need to benefit from that skill or knowledge. I think it's great when people become missionaries simply to preach the Word and save lives spiritually, but I think it's all the more amazing when people use physical needs as well as a means to reach out to the needy. So, that was a cool story I got to hear.

Then, I decided to read Hebrews 11, which is a reccord of all the great men and women in the Bible who have become famous through their faithfulness. Faith. So important. So crucial in our lives. The fact that these great names were able to get to that point in their lives is that they were focused on an eternal prize. A lot of them ended up not receiving the promise they were reaching for in the end, but that didn't matter to them because they were focused on God and spending eternity with Him someday. That was their reward. They had that vision. That out of the world faith that "gives us assurance  about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation." (Heb 11: 1-2)
I asked the desk lady to read verses 8 through 10: "It was by faith that ABraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going And even when he reached the land God proised him he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigher, living in tens. Ans so did Isaac and Jaccob who inherited the same promise. Abraham was fonidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed by God."
She smiled and told me she got goosebumps after reading because the reason I had her read it is because when I read it, it reminded me of her father and what he'd done.
The other day, I checked my "what does God want you to know today" facebook application and it said:
"God wants you to know that infinite possibilities are born of faith. Do you think that's air you breathe; that's earth you walk on. All matter is God's creation. And the source is faith. When you have so much faith that you become one of faith, infinite possibilities open up to you."
What that reminded me that day was what I had blogged about when I talked about faith being a gift from God and when we accept it, our eyes open up to SO much more. We find ways to love the unlovable, see the unseen, believe in the impossible.
I'm going somewhere with all of this :)

This morning, we went to the Bridge and the pastor talks about how they've been reading out of the book Crazy Love and how chapter 7 was all about giving to the needy and having a certain vision and faith like the faith of the people that are named in Hebrews 11. So at this point, I'm like "wooah, I just read about this this morning! Crazy!"
I guess the title of chapter 7 is "the best life is later."
So then, the pastor goes on talking about how the gospel that we believe in is one focused on HIm and what He's done for us. What he wants from us, not what we want. How this Christian life is difficult because we are constantly torn between what we want (the flesh) and what He wants (the Spirit). It's not about us nor should it ever be, and as Christians we are called to be givers and not consumers.
He talks about this same vision I had read about that morning and goes on saying that the names in Hebrews 11 had a vision for the after life.The nomades and the travelers were focused on the eternal perspective that enabled them to endure anyting that this life brough their way. They focus was on something higher, the prize.
Then he went on talking about love again, and that crazy love that we receive from God. The only way we can love the way God loves us (all of us) is if we have that same vision and heart that these people had as well. God loves us all, every single one of us, but he also has a heart for the poor, the needy, the hungry, the widows, the orphans. We see that numerous times in the Bible.
He read out of Proverbs 31
8-9 "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless and see that they get justice."
This is God's heart. This should also be our heart.
So at this point of the sermon, I'm thinking "um....that's exactly what I blogged about yesterday. this is getting beyond crazy ridiculous and cool!"

This vision that is provided by faith leads to conviction. It's easy to overlook those in need. A lot of times we do things out of selfishly generous thought. And by that I mean that we do generous things to be seen, receive approval, and be praised. So in the end not only do we get expectations from these things, but we are doing them for ourselves more than for the person we are being generous towards. I'll be the first one to admit that I do that. When we don't get praises, we get frustrated, like "what the heck, why is no one grateful for this," or "what was the point of me even doing that?" you know?
Another point the pastor touched on was how important it is to balance the scale out for others.
This was really cool, I was able to relate with this point really well because I hear about it at least 4 times a week since one of the videos we show to kids is called "Balance of Power." It's all about fairness and equality and how most times life isn't fair, but the way we respond to the things coming our way determines the outcomes for ourselves and the people around us. How instead of being discouraged by unfairness, we should use it as a way to balance the scales out and make right decisions since they affect everyone around us, and become better people through them.
So the pastor talking about balancing scales hit home base for me. He meant that a lot of times, we overlook the needs of others and feed into our wants more than in the needs of others. It's easy to shut our eyes off to what people need simply so we can fulfill our wants BUT if we have that vision from God, our eyes open up to those in need and our heart transform to break for the things that break God's heart.

ok this gets crazy. THEN the pastor busts out Isaiah 58, which I'm like OMG God is amazing. The very thing I was blogging about last night without fully understanding where it was coming from was all to prepare me for this morning's message :D

Isaiah 58. The Israelites were doing everything they thought they should be doing. Everything that was written down in the law, but didn't get anything in return and were annoyed.
Isaiah 58:2 talks about the Israelites' actions. "Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about me. They act like arighteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. They ask me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near me.
They say: "We have fasted before you! Why aren't you impressed?"

This verse reminded me of two things. First it lead me to Romans 2 where it talks about the Jews who rely on God's law and are terrible examples to the Gentiles mainly because they "follow" the law but lack the faith and heart that is needed there. They preach but don't act according to their word. They act as if they are righteous but instead lead people astray. (I blogged about this in September).

The second thing that was revealed to me when we read the first couple of verses from Isaiah 58 was something that Max Lucado wrote about in "A gentle thunder."
Max talks about the Holy Spirit and it's so easy for a lot of people to read the Word, go to "Church" (we are the Church, but you know what I mean) and do things that are told to be done, but in the end leave the Holy Spirit out of it and end up falling flat on their faces. I loved the illustration Max uses when he describes this type of living as dancing without any music.
These people view the Bible as an instruction book to teach how to live (or dance) and they are so focused on the things to do that they forgot all about what matters. God. And His heart. They end up learning all the moves, the footsteps, writing it all down. Following it rule by rule, instruction by instruction. But in the end, they forget to turn the music on. Max says this "We Christians are prone to follow the book while ignoring the music. We master the doctrine, outline the chapters, memorize the dispensations, debate the rules, and stiffly step down the dance floor of life with no music in our hearts. We measure each step, calibrate each turn, and flop into bed each night exhausted from another day of dancing by the book."

How true is that? How sad is that to.

So anyways, back to the sermon.

The Israelites are doing what they think is right. What they thought they were supposed to do and didn't receive anything from God in return... Remember how at the beginning of this entry I talked about how easy it is for us to do things expecting something in return because we give for selfish reasons. Well that's exactly what the Israelites were doing. They were dancing with no music on.

Isaiah 58:6-7 talks about God's view of what should be done and why it should be done. "Free those who are wrongly imprisoned, lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and gie shleter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help."
THat's God's heart right there. Justice and equality. Freedom.

When we get this vision and become one of faith, our heart breaks for these same things.
Before, we either gave out of pity or selfish motives, but now that we are a new creation and are after God's heart, we give out of LOVE. Just like God gave us out of love. God didn't pity us. He didn't want anything from us when he sacrificed his Son. He did it all because he loved us. Now we are to give because we are filled with that same love and the vision has led us to conviction.

Along with this, the pastor (and the chapter of Isaiah 58)is focusing on giving physical things such as money, clothes, food, etc... But I believe this also goes into giving away time, love, care or whatever we have to offer anyone in need. God's love for us is so crazy that He gave us patience, love, His life, His Holy Spirit, faith, eternity, and so much more. So if we are made in God's image, and we love Him so passionately, why can't we give patience, love, our lives, our faith and beliefs, our listening ear, and whatever else to others?

It sounds so much easir than it actually is. But isn't that what life is all about. Challenging ourselves to continuously become better people. I have a really good friend who amazes me. He is constantly trying to find ways of bettering himself. He refuses to settle. He refuses to be ok at something. The beauty of it isn't that he wants to be praised for it. He genuinely wants to give God the best of the best and His all. Talking to him fascinates me. For example tonight, I talked with him a bit about all of this, and he shared how there is someone in his life that has constantly hurt him and he found it hard to forgive them, but in the end he would always forgive because he felt like it was the right thing to do. Now he is able to forgive them because "it's become second nature to me, like it's normal to forgive him because I love him, and as a Christian I can't let his words affect me nor define me." This friend of mine challenges me to be better person and do better. I hope this blog can encourage and challenge you as well.
I'm not there yet, but I hope I can get there some day.

Isaiah 58: 8-9
Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind Then when you call, the Lord will answer: Yes I am here, he will quickly reply."

Wow, what a great promise. How phenomenal is our Father!??? There is to much joy in forgetting about ourselves and doing God's work. So much!
When we are able to have that heart, we no longer have those expectations anymore. We do because we are called to, just like Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Joseph, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Moses, Sarah, and all these other people in the Bible were called for a specific task.

Let's not forget that the prize is Heaven. Nothing on this earth should satisfy us. Unfortunately a lot does. But, if we have that heart,vision, and faith the possibilites are endless.

Hebrews 11:39-40

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us."

Hebrews 12: 1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of fait, let us stip off every weight that slows us down, espeicaily the sin that so easily trips us up, And let us run with endurnce teh reace God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes focused on Jesus, the champion who initiantes and perfects our faith. Because of joy awaiting him, he endured the corss, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne."

BLESSINGS. I love you. Thanks for the prayers. :D

His servant,
Dorina Julia Oliveira

Fall

Oct 30th

Happy Halloween....for what it's worth....

Wow, I've only blogged like 7 times this month? hmm...slacker.
 sorry...

Well, I am sitting at a starbucks sipping on a pumpkin spice latte listening to the Joshua Radin pandora music station and just soaking life in.

We've had a pretty intense week. Actually, not really. But in comparison to our previous weeks, it was.

We had more shows, and on friday we had a double school show, which requires us to set up and tear down twice in a day. At the end of our last show on friday, I proceeded to load the entire van by myself while Tiffany was repairing one of our fabrics. So I loaded the whole van, minus the box of frames she was working on.
Let me tell you that that was a workout!! I was so exhausted and sore afterwards! Gosh. But it was my fault. I could've just been patient and waited for her to finish repairing the fabric so she could help me, but I didn't.

Needless to say, I am still exhausted. Not much sleep this past week, and a lot of driving/setting up/tearing down. Tiffany even called me out on not being enthusiastic enough yesterday while I was doing one of my conclusions. I needed that.
Thankfully, we ended our show with an elementary school, which are my favorites. The only downfall is that they gave us 5th graders to help us set up, which was more tirering than helpful. They still made me laugh quite a bit though, minus the time a kid ran into one of our projector tables after I'd spent some time lining that projector up with our center projector.

Anyways, I am blabbering. I'm kind of just typing without even thinking about the words flowing through my fingers. I apologize for that, and will attempt to focus now.

So, lately I've been tired, distant, and just thinking a lot about nothing. My mind's been quite blank and I don't know why. I'm not sure whether it's the fatigue, or the fact that this job is draining, or the fact that I haven't spent time in the Word in a couple days. WHo knows.

Well my blogging just got interrupted by a three way skype with my sister and a really good friend. Filled with joy and laughter. I had to share :)

ANyways, as I told you, I've been kind of blank/numb/almost no ability to show any emotion. Joy, anger, sadness, enthusiasm, and that's very unlike me. So one of my favorite things to do when I feel this way is to go back to my journals for this specific reason:

(from my journal of 3 years ago, I was feeling much like I am "feeling" right now and decided to go to a coffee shop with my books, Bible, and journal much like I am doing now and here is what I wrote)

"When I am feeling like this, of course out of all of these books the one to go to is the Bible if I am seeking answers. Well, I forgot to mention a fourth book, it is usually the closest thing to you that you soon find to ignore.The book I have written myself. It's a book of 200 pages or more, the book of lessons, experiences, joy, sadness, and hardship. A book that God's used for me to pour out my heart but also to revive my spirits. A book of life, my life. It's my book. it has my name on it and it is filled with wisdom that the Holy Spirit Himself poured out on my heart nd allowed me to write. As I read past stories of the journal I am currently writing in, I received answers beyond answers. I am not saying that my journal is more important than the Bible or any ohter scholarly written book, but I've just realized that this journal is not only filled with scripture from the most important book written in the world, but also personal insight from my own thoughts and life experiences and even better; It contains the Holy Spirit's direct words to ME. It's a story of my friendship and relationship with Christ and so much H'es tuaght me and allowed me to jot down so that during difficult times like now, I can go back to these and be reminded that for 1. I've fone through this before and made it and 2. I can read the same words of encouraement I was given in the past to help me through it. This journal is so precious to me. At the end end of it, all I have is God. All of the people in this journal will someday pass, but God is constant and everlasting, neverending and neverchanging and in the end end He's always there through the good th ebad, the tough and the sad. HE IS.
So all of these questions I have, they are right here and so are the answers. I don't need to go searching any farther than that. I find joy in what I've written because it's woken me up, and I feel enlightened."

So alll of this to say, on top of praying and reading the word, one of my favorite things to do when I'm feeling down or confused, is reading through past journals because they really encourage me.
And also all of this to say that I read this before typing things out and it reminded me of something crucial. (2 year old journal):

"Isaiah 58: 7-9

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, when you see the naked, to clothe him ad not to turn away from your flesh and blood.
Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of God will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer. You will cry for help, and He will say: Here I am."
I get it now, it's not about me. Lately I've been living a life of my own desires but He is reinding me that His ways are higher and this right here is what my selfish ways lead me towards and if I follow His ways, He has something much better planned for me. I must remember that it's not about me but it's about Him and others. It's about treating my family right, realizing that many have way more issues than I do and I sould be thankful before complaining or whining about anything because I have so many things to be grateful for. "

So there. A good reminder for me. and hopefully a good one for you as well. We all go through crap, but it's important to step outside of our box and think about what others might be going through before making a big deal about our issues.
Like I said, I have nothing to complain about, so I don't know why I'm feeling this way. Only God knows.
I know this wasn't anything new or that you've never heard before, but hopefully it was a good and necessary reminder. It was one for myself, that's for sure.

That's all I got for ya. Keep me in your prayers and please facebook me of comment on my blog and give me some prayer requests of your own.

Love,

D

PS: that's a pic I just took of myself . just felt like it randomly...I look tired. :)

Long/Busy week

Well Hello!!

I hope you are doing wonderfully :) If not. I pray that God may uplift your spirits.

Well...this entry will be filled with random thoughts. Who knows maybe I will find a way to connect everything. But don't hold your breath on that. hehe.

So this week has been going by waayyy slower than last week. I guess last week we had 2 days of driving and the 3 days after were filled with things to look forward to (my bday, getting paid, and getting a package.)
This week...not so much. Our weeks are getting busier to. You'd think that it'd allow the week to go by faster, but for some reason I feel like this week is neverending. I am not quite sure why. :/

Well yesterday was a good day. We had an afternoon show and the school was very nice. The contact people helped us and a couple kids helped as well. The contact people were very open with us. Telling us all about themselves and the drama they go through and cussing in front of us haha. It feels good to have people feel that comfortable around you. The kids that stood out to me were the two "geeks" as they called themselves.
They weren't really geeks in my opinion. Actually if they are geeks, than I am to. They were just extremely passionate about media and kept asking us detailed questions about how we ran everything, which cables we used, which ones went where and how it all worked out. It was funny.

Another kid that stood out to me was this socially off kid with his buttcrack hanging out the whole time and an intense lisp to go along with it. He was such a sweetheart though.
At the end of everything, while Tiffany and I were talking to the contact people that had helped us, I noticed this kid walking home from all the way accross the lawn. So I asked our contact people his name, and when they gave it to me, I yelled "THANKS FOR HELPING US TODAY ARNOLD!!!!!" and a huge grin appeared on his face as he waved and say "no problem!"
Our contact lady told us that him helping us had made his entire year. He was so excited to help out and it just made me smile inside!!

We headed to another town about 3 hours away from this school after that, and we drove through a town we'd stayed at a couple weeks ago. This town had the best coffee shop, so we stopped and i knew exactly which drink I was going to get. I was SO excited!! It was delicious.
Since I didn't want to sleep in the car like I usually do, I decided to bust out my junior year from college journal. Wow. What an emotional trip that was to read it.

I guess I went through quite some tough times that year. I teared up reading what I had gone through. Many many hardships, but it was AMAZING to see how I clung on to the Lord and be reminded of the thigns he'd revealed to me in the midst of all that hardship.

Some day when I feel like writing on here but have no idea what to write, I'll bust out an entry from this journal to encourage you guys. The Holy Spirit gave me some good stuff that year.
IN fact here's a little something that I want to share. I was praying one morning and I was telling God how much I despised myself and he asked me to write down the words that came to mind whenever I thought of myself. So I wrote down really negative things. Then, in His gentle soft voice, He whispered the way he viewed me. They were all beautiful things.

4 months later, I worked at a Christian camp, and our staff director had us to a mini exercise where we should write down the way we used to view ourselves, and to write down the way we now viewed ourselves, and then to have each of us write down an attribute we admired from the other. So here are the things I wrote down:
Old self:
worthless, loud, obnixious, talkative (empty words), proud, sinful and dirty, disorganized and confused, judgemental, gossip, rebellious, not worthy of being loved, agnry and bitter, annoying.
God's view of me:
beauty, strength, heart of genuine kindness, passion inside waiting to burst out, love, perseverance.
New me:
encourager, open-minded, people lover, strong soul, gift, joy, inside beauty, listening ear, wisdom, confidence, comforter, bright light,
what others wrote about me:
lots of heart, humble attitude, friend, difference maker, always looking for something to serve Him with, Joy, beautiful warrior, on fire, foundation, awesome open heart.

WOW.

How amazing is that difference. between the first paragraph and the second.

Col 3:10 "Put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him."

Now, don't get me wrong. I still have MANY ways to go. many many. we all do. But my point here is to focus on the positive. Focus on the good. Let's stop dwelling on the past and what we once were. Or even focus on the faults that we have or the mistakes we make. or the mistakes others make. yes we are human, and yes we wil stumble and fall, but isn't God amazing and isn't he a God of grace? If he is able to have mercy upon, shouldn't we give ourselves a bit of mercy.

I was talking with a friend of mine and we talked about this the other day. How satan wants us to live in the past, or stress about the futur. he wants us to think we are still those old selves we were. or he wants to think we are absolutely worthless for the Kingdom of God. He allows our fear of failure to keep us from doing anything.  When I make a mistake (which happens very often), I immediately want to give up and say "i'm never gonna be like Christ, what's the point?" The point is the fact that God will not forsake us no matter what. He sees our heart and that's all that matters to HIm. The mere fact that we are trying to attain this goal that seems unattainable, is enough. His mercy is enough. His grace is enough. Praise Him for that.
Don't fall into satan's trap. Don't live in the past. You have become a new creation through the blood of Christ and nothing can change that no matter how much you stumble and fall!

Romans 6:6 "We know that our old selves were crucified with Christ so thtsin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. "
Amen to that!

I didn't realize I was going to write this much about this, but oh well there ya have it :)

This morning, I prayed to God that I would be a bright light to whomever I interacted with. That I would be a breath of fresh air for His kingdom and His glory. This prayer reminded me of a prayer from my journal that I had read yesterday:

Thank you for this day.
Fill it in every way.
Let my words be kind and few.
So I may have your wisdom in view.
Let my heart be filled with love and humility so that I may fill your kingdom with glory and
Let my thought be pure and true
and may all the glory be returned to you.

After praying this, I checked my email and had a really encouraging email from a close friend. He shared a link with me and Megan and asked us to read us. He then wrote each of us very encouraging words. He told me to be a bright light today and dance at some point today, even if it's just in my head. :)

I followed his advice. I don't know if I was a bright light or breath of fresh air to anyone, but I sure do hope I was.
Today, after our show, a girl walked up to me and after stumbling on her words finally let it out. She expressed how much she loved the video because she is different from anyone else. She said that due to happenings in her past, she has brain damage, and is now very different from everyone and treated that way.
I told her I hoped with all of my heart that people would see beauty in that difference. She smiled and said "I don't know, but my outlet is art. I'm really good at it."
I told her to hold on to that and said "I encourage you to give it your all and not to let anyone define you but yourself."
I should've told her I'd pray for her, but my mind was distracted between what to tell her, and a group of kids wanting to talk to me right next to her.
I'm proud of myself for giving her full attention though, because usually it's very easy for me to get distracted, especially since we were in the middle of tearing down. I hope I was able to encourage her. I know for sure the video encouraged her and I am so glad about that.
Once again, if our video can make a change in ONE child's life. It's all worth it!!

So that was our day.

We are now in Salina, KS. 40 minutes away from tomorrow morning's school. Tomorrow will be semi long. Our show is at 9. Meaning we'll need to be there around 7. Meaning the latest we can leave is 6:30. Meaning we have to wake up around 5:45. eeeek.
After that, we have about 8 hours to drive to head to Arkensas, which is where we'll be for the weekend.

Joy.

On my way to this Mcdonald's to type all of this out (because I can't blog unless I go somewhere...weird.), I ran into a mall. BAD NEWS. I just got back from a mini shopping spree. Oh boy.

I'm really blessed with deals. always. in fact my friends get very jealous of me because of that. I got 4 pairs of shoes tonight and the total was under $34. Also got a new jacket/coat for $14. And I bought a new polo shirt, cus the ones we were for work are getting real old real fast.
So yup. I'm happy with that :)

Still no news on the thanksgiving trip but I will keep you all posted for sure.
Oh and my ipod is still DEAD. sad day.

Thanks again for reading (Mom, Anne, and Debra) :D and everyone else!!!!

much love,

DJO

Dear reader,

I've decided to write more often. I'm not making any promises but it makes sense to write more short entries, even if I don't have much to say, rather than bombard you with a super long entry trying to update you with days or weeks worth of stuff. So here I go...

I had a good weekend. We went to a church that was right next to our motel and though small, it was full of love. Every one welcomed us. THere were probably just about 100 people in the congregation and more than half of the congregation shook our hands asking us our names and introducing themselves to us. So very nice.

The sermon was good as well. I was off in my own little world though for most of it :/
But I was reminded one important thing through it all. That as a body of Christ, we, as Christians can pretty much do anything, accomplish anything for the Kingdom as long as we stick to each other. As long as we don't let the ennemy disunite us with distractions or quarrels.
The sermon was about the 6 disciplines that each disciple should have (discipline of self-control, steadfastness, the body, being an example, being transparent, and having a heart for people). So though the sermon didn't have much to do with what I got out of it. I was very glad I was able to be reminded of this important truth.

I read in Romans 14 and it was a perfect chapter to get me started on my thinking about the Church as a body and how it shouldn't matter that we don't all agree on the same thing, because in the end we should just accept each other's differences and let God take care of who's right and who's wrong or what's right and what's wrong.
How dare we think we are wise enough to make that judgement and discernment?
The pastor invited the congregation to pray for their specific church and the leaders in it.
But my prayer was for our Church. The body of Christ. This BODY, which Christ rules by being each of us' Lord.
I prayed that as a body we would cling tight to what we know and to each other as well. That as long as we are present within each other we may feel confident and comfort each other, encourage each other, push each other, and that all the members of this body may join hand in hand  to be better prepared to fight satan who wants nothing more than to destroy us, by disuniting us through discouragement, and lack of focus.

The pastor started the whole sermon by talking about Martial arts. Frankly I don't know where he was going with this because that's when I went off in my own little world.
But, that same morning, as I was drinking my coffee, and praying, and reading the Word, a man came up to me and asked me what I was reading. I responded I was reading Jeremiah 14 and I explained a bit about what I was getting out of it. He proceeded to tell me he was a martial arts instructor who bases a lot of what he teaches to his kids on the scripture.
I think the pastor was using martial arts as a description of how intense it is and how as christians we should view our disciplines like martial arts.
I don't know if there is a correlation to me meeting a martial arts instructor right before going to church and hearing about martial arts within the sermon, but I still thought it was quite interesting.

All of this to say, in the end, I got a vision of the Christian body (all of us) and we were all in the shape of a cross and we did martial arts. haha. it sounds ridiculous when i type it out. But this vision was really powerful because we were all so close to each other, that nothing could break us. We fought a good fight and when one of us fell, the other picked us up. When one of us was getting attacked, the other one busted out some martial arts holy bible move.

Maybe I've been watching to much tv. (Chuck...a great show). But anyways, that was my sunday.

Saturday was extremely relaxing. I think I may have already talked a bit about it on yesterday's entry.

Today, I woke up to a dead Ipod. :( Very very sad day for me.

I'm allowed to drive again, so after literally throwing most of my belongings out the window because I am to lazy to go downstairs carrying it all. We got in the van and I took the first driving shift. It felt long because I didn't have my music. But it wasn't bad.

We stopped at a radio shack (well at a couple) to buy a new microphone. We ate taco bell. Oh AND I bought this very sweet deal at Wal-mart that has a coffee machine, a pluggable fryer, and an iron for $8!!!! woah!!! what a deal. Fried eggs and pancakes, here i come!!! I've been on a roll with deals. On saturday, I bought the cutest jeans for $10!!!!!!

Ok so that was my excitement for the day. The set I bought is pink to :)

Um. Yea. So this week we have shows all week aside from today since we had a longer drive. I should be getting a package from a good friend, Jessie on friday.
Next friday, I'll be getting a package from bff Megan in the mail!!!!!!!

In 2 weeks, we'll be in Texas so I'm looking forward to the warm weather :)

And after that hopefully things will be set for me to be able to spend thanksgiving in Indiana/Illinois with Megan!!!! OMG!!! SO EXCITED.

Please please pray that this works out. Not only do I need this time very much, but most importantly, my parents will be coming to Wisconsin that same week for conferences. It so happens not only is this the same week that I will actually have some time off, but they will be flying in and out of Chicago. If it all works out, I could POSSIBLY see my parents, even just for an hour.
I haven't seen them in about a year and miss them terribly as you can imagine. My heart breaks just thinking about it.
So pleaaase pray that it works out.

The problem is that we have a tentative schedule for the week before and after thanksgiving, but until we know it's a solid/for sure/non changeable schedule, me can't really make any plans according to it.
But if it all works out. It sounds like our last show the week prior to thanksgiving would be on a tuesday, meaning we could fly out either tuesday night or wednesday morning. We'd have to fly back in on monday. Which I was hoping I could fly out of Chicago and see my parents before heading back on tour monday night because we'd have a show that following tuesday.
HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE.

THe only issue with not knowing whether this'll work out was us needing to make sure we could find a safe place to leave our van at. It sounds like we'll be in Texas, not to far from Dallas, in which I have a couple of friends who wouldn't mind "watching" our van for a couple days. Crazy!

I really hope it works out, in case you couldn't tell. So please keep me in your prayers in those regards.

Ok. So there ya have it. I have quite a couple of things to look forward to for the next couple of weeks, so praise God for that. It's what keeps me going on this long and lonely journey. haha

Blessings to you dear reader.

Love,

Do

God's crazy love for us!

October 23rd

Ok, I've been meaning to type this up for about 3 weeks if not more. It was a day when I was reminded of God's amazing and crazy love for us and I've been wanting to share it for a while, but got so distracted with things happening that I put it on the back burner.
Sorry for depriving you of this wonderful reminder. haha. Here I go....

So, one thing that I've learned on this journey is that finding some consistencies through this crazy inconsistent job (journey) keeps us, traveling media technicians somewhat sane.
For example, always picking the bed on the right side of the room, or picking the right side of a bed when we share one, or always grabbing my laptop, pillow, perse and keys once we get to a motel and grabbing our keys after paying and going straight to the room, and then going back down empty handed in order to grab my duffle bag, some food, and my toiletries. Or as soon as I get to a new motel, I scope the surroundings to find a private spot outside in which I can sit, read, listen to music or talk on the phone. Or lighting incense in rooms so I can have a familiar smell to make myself feel more "at home." Or always sleeping in the car while Tiff is driving (hehe). Or find consistent hobbies on the road such as photography, phone conversations, specific shows that I follow, facebook, or certain books (a lot of Max Lucado) to keep me going. (you must be laughing, cus these aren't really hobbies).
Well, you get my point. I've never been the type of person to have routines in my life, or do things a certain way, but in this case, I feel the need to create such consistencies in order to feel somewhat sane through this inconsistent journey.

Well, I was thinking about this, and realized that one thing that is and will always be consistent is God's Crazy Love for us!!! Some of you might have read the book "Crazy Love" which I once owned but never read, and now regret not doing so.
But the church we went to when we were in Nixa, MO on October 3rd called "the Bridge" was doing a series on teaching based on this book.
This message just reminded me of the relationship we are in. One in which our Creator and Father is just flat out CRAZY about us. It's phenomenal, fantastic, beyond our comprehension and so overwhelmingly good!
We read out of Eph 2. It reminds us of where we came from and where we are today only by HIS grace and HIS crazy awesome love for us.

To get an accurate view of who God is, we can simply start by lookin at who WE are first. Since we were created in His very image. (verse 3).
Let's look at where we came from and how far we've come since then. We used to be objects of wrath. It's actually hard to see myself this way because as long as I can remember, I've known Christ. I've never seen myself before Christ, since I accepted Him at a very young age. But I have seen myself as a Christian Atheist (a Christian who procclaims to know the word but fails to follow it fully. One who has received Christ as their Savior but not as their LORD. There is a big difference.) plenty of times. In fact I still struggle with being that person a  lot of times.

Sometimes I feel like it's easier when you are a newborn Christian at a late age, because it helps light that fire and passion. Because if you've lived most of your life without Christ and don't know anything about His amazing love, and suddenly discover it after living a good amount of your life without Him, it's like the lightbulb effect pops in your mind and you suddenly deny your old self to fully commit your life to Him and truly view Him not just as your Savior, the one who died on the cross for you and forgave you for all of your sins, but you also see Him and accept Him as your Lord. One who will take complete control over every aspect of your life and to whom you fully surrender your everything/being to.
When you accept Christ at a young age, a lot of times you are sheltered from a lot and curious about "the world" and take the amazing gift of grace and salvation for granted out of curiosity and comfort in knowing you are saved.
That's just how I see it.

So anyways, back on track, even though I don't remember my life without Christ, it doesn't matter because we are reminded that by nature, we deserve death and the wrath of God ever since the fall.
The climax of story here is the part where we find GRACE (verse 4). Thanks to his crazy love for us!
In verses 8 and 9, it says that it is by grace that we have been saved and not by works, so that no one can boast about it.
I've been reading the book "The Christian Atheist," by Craig Goeshel who gives his testimony about how his parents taught him to go to church but he never understood Christianity because he never got anything out of the few sermons he'd ever heard. It wasn't until he went to college and did the whole partying and playing around and got in trouble for it, that he decided to dig in the Bible to find out more about and the verse that changed his life, was this one. Ephesians 2:8, because he realized that he wasn't a failure in God's eyes just because he did the things he did, in fact he realized God loved him and the things he did didn't matter, it was his heart that God was after. not his actions! This verse turned everything around for him.
Our faith is a gift from God. That really struck me. I never thought about faight as a gift. Maybe I'm just slow. Or maybe once again, it's something I took for granted since I've had it for as long as I can remember. But God GAVE us the ability to have faith. No wonder so many people don't understand our crazy belief about there being a God who gave His son to die for us. It sounds ludacris. But we've all been given this gift of faith, to believe in the unseen, but a lot of us don't accept it, and therefore don't believe, and therefore lack faith and hope and are miserable. God is the author of my faith. He gave me the priviledge and beauty of Faith, hope, and belief which allows me to see His beauty in everything, to believe it  and love it. Love it and learn from it.
God doesn't need, yet he wants us. How special is that. Why would God want to use someone like me to do His work? kinda crazy to think about.

As humans, we forget that love is completely unconditional. He doesn't need us. Who dares believe that God needs them. He wants and chooses us. He finds us and accepts us as we are.
A lot of times love comes with conditions or conveniences for us. I'll love you if you do this for me. Or because you are so amazing, I love you. or I'm dating this guy because he has or does this or that. Well is that why you love people, or do these attributes help you love them?
This kind of love has nothing to do with the crazy love God has for us. NOthing!
In one of my recent posts, I talked about love and how hard it is for me to love every body equally. It's a sin when I love one person more than I love another.
Mark 12:30-31

And you must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength. The second (command) is equally important: "Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these."
That's the way God loves each of us. The least we can do is love Him that way back, and love each other as well.
I keep being reminded of how important love is. I am a people lover, that's for sure, yet so often I find myself judging, criticizing, and lacking the ability to show love for some.
God has a crazy love for each of us, can we attempt to love Him back equally?
In that attempt, we can learn to love others equally as well. It's not for nothing that we find these two great commandments in various different books of the Bible. And it's not for nothing that these commandmants are called the greatest. From these two commandments, we can accomplish any other. I believe that.

SOOO there it is. I had to share it with ya.

I was actually talking about how much I love being able to go different churches each sunday. The beauty of it is getting spiritual wealth from completely different buffet tables. Yes it's nice to go to the same Church week after week, following a certain book of the Bible, or book period, but this way I get variety out of it I'm never bored. Always trying to focus  and understand what's going on.
It's like being in a cafeteria and having different buffet tables with all sorts of variety foods and I get to pick and choose. Do I want chinese? Pasta? rice? pizza? haha I love it!!

Today is October 24th and the Church we went to was literally right next to our motel. We walked in and everybody was SO very nice.
Uh Oh. I'm sitting at a Mcdonald's that's a 20 min walk away from my motel and I see lightning outside. I wouldn't want the rain to catch me. So I will upload this post and continue all of this later on.

PEACE. pray I don't get soaked (I just got my hair done. haha)

DJO

My Birthday!

October 21rsrt

Day of Birth.

I am 23.

Sooo I meant to blog on my birthday to share its amazingness....but I didn't.

SO on my birthday, we had a really early show, but it was just one presentation so we were back "home" by 10:40 :) I love it when that happens.

I lost my keys at the school, which was no bueno. And some kids told us they only watch the video because it gets them out of class but they never really are that into the videos each year. So that was super encouraging. not.

But. the night before my birthday I prayed that no matter how the day went, God would help me remember that I am truly blessed to be alive and to just be thankful for all He had taught me from the previous year and how far I've come since October 21rst 2009.

So, I was just grateful to be alive when all of these things happened.

After the show, my coworker Tiffany busted out a small cake and 23 candles that she'd done a lovely job at hiding and we ate together. HOW SWEET!!!

ALso, the night before, I'd gotten to skype with my brother (whom I hadn't spoken to in mooonths. He is in Argentina) and I got to see my lovely nephew and niece and beautiful sister in law. Also got to skype with a really good friend of mine in France who was the first to officially wish me happy birthday since my birthday started 8 hours earlier over there.
Special!!!

One of my all time best friends sent me money and told me to go to diner on her. And I got a ton of sweet messages on my wall. A TON! which I'm sure most of you reading right now were a part of the amazing people that wrote on my wall.
And I got a couple phone calls.
I went to diner by myself and the waiter and I talked for a while. I think he felt bad for me at first.

AND my coworker proceeded to take me out to my all time favorite restaurant in Illinois. We drove a good 45 min for it. It was so  worth it. I love SMOKY BONES' fire sticks, and wings. We did this after  an amazing day in St. Louis, checking out the Arch.

SO very excited about my Smokey Bones!

AND the weather was perfect.

GOD is soooo amazing.

I must admit, I felt quite special even though alllll of my friends and family were far away from me.
I must also admit I got very sad towards the end of the day. I was hoping it wouldn't get to me, that I had to spend my birthday away from so many loved ones, but it did....what can I say I am only human.

But once again. God was amazing and I got to talk to pretty much all the people that  really matter in my life whether through the phone or facebook and it was a blessed day.

SO VOILA. My birthday. thanks to each and everyone of you. was excellent. so thank YOU. yes YOU.

MUAH

DORINA

New motel friends in Alamose, CO

Tiff and I had a show in Alamosa Colorado on Monday. It was an afternoon show so we got to get some solid rest between Sunday night and Monday.
As usual, I Wake up for breakfast at motels and either decide to go back to sleep once getting food or read a bit while drinking my coffee and lounging before getting ready for the day.

Monday morning, I woke up and got breakfast (bagels and coffee) and called my mother since I had about an 1h 30 till I had to get ready for our afternoon show (for which we had to leave at 11).

While getting my coffee, I notice a blonde lady in her upper 30s and an older lady sitting down. I noticed the older lady cus it seemed like she knew everyone in there. She was all cute and matching outfit and just hugging people left and right. She then commented on my outfit and said I looked adorable. Haha. I laughed because the previous day, Lauren told me Id looked like I was a homeless person wearing that. (I went straight to bed in my clothes the night before since we arrived late at the motel and I was to tired to change.)

Tiffany then comes out and they start talking to her. Since I was on the phone with my mom, I didn't really pay to much attention but I could tell that at some points they were talking about me,(about how cute I looked, and asking why I was speaking in French, etc)
Once mom and I's conversation was over, I went straight to the room to get ready for our présentation, which was less than a mile away. Finally having the time to take a shower, doing my haïr, putting some normal clothes on, and not looking so homeless anymore.
On our way to the van, the ladies, still in the lobby, wish us luck, and the older one gives us hugs and tells me I look like a whole new person. Haha.
After the show, I ran into the blonde later and after talking with her for about 40 minutes about life, I find out her name is Melissa, and she has just moved to Alamosa in order to be with her boyfriend who worked at the motel, and in which she lived until she could get her own place.
I then proceed to run into the older lady, who has a huge smile on her face and asks me how the show went, and hugs me, and tells me she loves me. She was so sweet, I then found out her name was Darlene.

The following morning, Darlene, and Melissa are sitting at the breakfast table with another lady (Rhonda). As soon as they saw me they go "There she iiiissss" and pull out a chair as they invite me to eat breakfast with them. We talked for two hours ! It was gréât. They complimented one of my many necklaces (the Africa one) and I told them I designed it. I explained a little bit about Senegal and showed where it was on my necklace/the continent of Africa, and then I told them the cross on my necklace represented my love for Christ. They all go  "awwwe, she's a sister in Christ !" and we laughed. One by one the ladies left until it was just Darlene and I. We got to know each other, and after a while I was able to see some of Darlene's pictures as she took the time to look at my pictures from home, and from my trip so far. After this happened she turns over to Melissa (who had come back) and says  "It is not everyday that we are blessed with friends who are willing to show us pictures . "
Awe ! So cute !!
While Darlene, Melissa, and I were sitting down, I hear them say " Oh here comes Smiley." They were both talking about a worker at the motel who is usally always smiling.
However as he walked in that morning, his smile wasn't the usual "light up a room" smile, it was more of a forced, fatigued smile. So Melissa (who knows him well) said "uh oh....Smiley, what's wrong??"
He tells us that he just got back from the doctor's after puking blood again that morning. We all gasped and asked him for more details. So he sat down and explained that they kept sending him to different specialists because no one knew what was wrong after time and time tests were returned showing he was healthy.
Suddenly, Darlene grabs everyone's hands and we join in hands and she says, we need to pray. So we said a quick prayer for Tiger (his real nickname) and I asked for his real name and told him I'd keep praying for him as well. That God may lead him to the right doctor who will have the wisdom to figure out the problem and be able to help the healing process to begin.

The rest of the day consisted of me lounging, watching movies and shows, talking on the phone, running into the ladies and having quick chats with them, and skyping.
This morning, as soon as I woke up, I headed straight to the lobby to get some coffee and spend some Jesus time outside in private. As soon as I entered, my lady friends were all seated at the same ol' table and greeted me cheerfully. Rhonda stood up and hugged me while saying, "How you doing Mamasita? Bless your heart!" What a blessing to receive love first thing in the morning!!
So I greeted them back, hugged them, and after they asked me where I was headed to since I was carrying my purse, I responded "Ladies, I love you all, but I love my Lord way more and need to spend some time with him for a bit, and then I'll come back and eat breakfast with yall." Darlene and Rhonda responded "You go giiiirl!"

So, the Lord led me to read James (probably still inspired by sunday's sermon.) I read the first two chapters and was really touched by the reminder of God's desire for us to love each other equally. I realized that that is something I have a problem with. In fact, James asks us how can claim to have faith if we favor some people over others (James 2:1) and he follows on by telling us that if we do that we are sinning. (James 2:9). This really hit me hard. It's kind of hard thing to think about. I mean think about how much you love your husband/wife/brother/parent/best friend. Now compare that love to your neighbor/servant/co-worker/the post man/ the rude lady at the bank...well you get where I am going with this. It's not really the same kind of love is it? And if it is, then more power to you! Good job! I am willing to admit it isn't in my case. So I stopped reading and asked God to help me to love like He does. Simple as that. I know I can't do it on my own, so I asked God to help me love specific people in my life that I knew I had a hard time loving as much as I love others, and after that I ready in "A Gentle Thunder" by Max Lucado (go figure) and the chapter I read was quite fitting. :) the Title of it was "For Longer Than Forever, the God Who Loves Boldly." I read two full pages of solid encouragement and description of God's love for us.
Oh hey God, thanks for so kindly answering my prayer by firstly allowing me to see how you love.
The chapter talked about God's unconditional and unshakable love for us. Max talked about how we don't deserve it by describing every day thoughts or emotions we go through as humans. For example, "God fills the world with food, yet we blame him for hunger. He gives us blue skies, and we demand rain. He gives us rain, and we demand sun. We are a gnat on the tail of one elephant in a galaxy of Africa, yet we demand that He finds us the parking place that we ask."
Then he goes on comparing God's love towards us with the love that a mother has for her child. How the child causes her back to ache for months, causes her to snack and deform her body, to then throw up, to then be filled with scorching pain and then forces the mother to wake up every night for the following 6 weeks of her life. But does the mother love her child any less because of all it has put her through? Not it doesn't. WHy is that? Not just because the child is hers, but because the child is HER. "Her blood. her flesh. her sinew and spine. her hope. her legacy."
Max reminds us through this description that God loves us because we are a part of HIM. He created us according to His image, and in this sense we are all equal and not only will he love us all no matter what, he also expects and hopes that we can love each other equally as well.
What a great God I serve!
After reading all of this, I couldn't wait to go back to the lobby and share this with my new friends. I ran in excitedly, and said "I have to share this!" They said "alright, go for it!" and cleared the table so I could set my coffee, Bible, and book down.
I shared it all and they were extremely attentive. I read the whole two pages of the book after explaining my prayer and what I had read in James. It was amazing to be able to read this illustration to 3 ladies who had been mothers, and knew exactly what Max Lucado was talking about. I hope it encouged them!
It was real funny because there were some hispanic men sitting behind us, and though they didn't understand or speak much english, Darlene noticed that as I was pourring my heart out to the ladies, one of the hispanic men began to speak to one of his friends, who grabbed his hand, pointed towards our table, and used his finger to shush him. Though he didn't understand what I was saying, he figured it was of great importance from the look on each of the ladie's faces.
Darlene was leaving an hour after this, so the next hour was spent with the ladies talking about Christian authors, and verses, and different experiences from God.
Darlene wrote me a song called "Will we be together in Heaven?" She didn't write it herself, but she did write it down for me.

I took pictures with these precious ladies, and after we all exchanged emails, numbers, and facebook information. Darlene hugged us goodbye, I said farewell, and we each went out ways!

Darlene before she left

Isn't she lovely?

Whew. Just when I thought my week was going to be boring and sad because I would be missing all of my friends from the previous weekend, God busts out with some phenomenal people who blessed me just by talking with them and getting to know them.
What a mighty God I serve. This reminds me about the day I blogged about how God cares about the small details. While people are hurting financially, or losing families, or going through famine, my compassionate Father in Heaven (who definitely cares about those people for sure) also cares about my tiny tiny little fear of loneliness that I thought would overwhelm me after such a great weekend in Denver.
I'm on fire right now. Just can't believe His faithfulness, and want to share more more more. He keeps doing so much in my life!
Also, I forget to share in my last entry that at Ted Haggard's Church of Saint James, each visitor was given a copy of Ted's wife's book called "Why I stayed." The book is a testimony of how they met, how they came into the mission field, how the New Life Church grew, how all the rumors went down, and how instead of succumbing to the situation, she clung to the Lord with the little strength she had and rose above it.

I began reading it last night and today on our way to Nebraska in the car. What a crazy awesome testimony. It's also crazy that I was in the presence of these people a couple of days ago. Now I am reading almost every detail of their life. What an encouragement. I highly recommend this book to women who are struggling with life, marriage, and everything that accompanies it. It really makes you think of the power you have to make decisions as a woman and how it can affect your entire life, your children, your husband, your friends, your Church family, and even strangers.

Welp. I could keep typing for hours, but time to hit the sack. Show tomorrow. Pray that Tiffany can handle all the driving. We have a afternoon show, We probably won't get out till 4pm, and we head straight back to Colorado, which'll take a good 7 hours. Our show on friday will be pretty early in the morning. So the next two days will be quite intense.
This weekend however, Tiff gets to rest, and I get to be with friends. AGAIN. JOY.
The following week will be my birthday. Perfect way to start out my birthday week, with friends and loved ones.
BLESSINGS. Have a great morning/night/day/afternoon/evening.
DJO

Good news/Bad news kinda day

Today was a good news/bad news kinda day :)

We spent the night in Gering, Nebraska last night so we could be close to our school, which ended up being only 2 miles away. So I guess the first good news of the day were that we could sleep in since we had an afternoon show. The bad news is I still ended up waking up early due to a back ache.
We were in a pretty shady motel, and my back's gone through a lot of different beds but this one just didn't do it. I slept horribly. So I woke up early, and decided to walk around town looking for a place to buy coffee. After 40 min of walking (in a very small town), I found a Mcdonalds and got a $1 cup of coffee and by the time I got back to my motel, it was time to get ready for our show.

Bad news...our gps refused to work. Good news, the town was so small that we found the school on our own. We get to the school and meet lovely Julie, our contact person, who announces that we will only be having one presentation instead of two that day. That was great news for two reasons. Tiffany and I had just been talking about how hungry we were and wondering how we were going to make it 5 hours without eating much. The second reason we were ecstatic to hear this (though we kept the joy on the inside) was because Tiffany had a lot of driving to do right after the show in order for us to make it back to Colorado.
Ok. the bad news with this was the setup we were going to have. I'll be posting pictures soon, because I won't be able to really describe it. But it was by far the hardest set up we've had so far. Julie opens the door to where we will be setting up, and as she turns the lights on, we are faced with a mini ampitheatre type of room with a tiny stage, and tons and tons of steps. In fact, the seats were the steps and we pretty much knew we'd have to carry all of our equipent down these seats/stairs.
So as soon as we are alone I say "well good news bad news! Time to get our muscles out!!" and Tiffany responds "I'm glad we are laughing about this."

Thankfully, as soon as we brought all of our equipment in, we had great middle schoolers help us. We had Rachel, the tiny little blonde who had alll the will in the world to help but sometimes couldn't due to her petiteness. She was very creative though! We had Dakota, the bigger stronger girl who had a very dry sense of humor but was always willing to helps as well. They were a good team. We had James and Alex. Two typical middle school boys will do enough explaining. haha.
So with their help and a LOT of creativity and stuggling, we were able to manage. Oh and I forgot to mention that the stage orignially had a piano, a chair, a stool, flags, sound boxes and speakers on them. So we had to move all of that out of the way in order to even begin. The place (between that stuff, and all of our equipment scattered due to lack of space) was quite a mess. I wasn't able to take pictures of the mess, but I did take pictures of our creativitiy. Also, instead of giving us a 6ft ladder, which is usually easier to carry around, they gave us a ladder the size of our screens. It was huuuuge. haha. Moving it around was SUCH a challenge!

Kids getting settled

But guess what!? We got done with 40 min to spare despite all of this.
At two different points, while we were waiting for students to come in, two cops came in asking if we had seen a certain boy with scissors and there were kids running around the hallways. It was definitely interesting!

So, the show went well. The kids that helped us set up also helped us tear down and they seemed to really love us and enjoyed working with us.
The two girls kept being amazed at the fact that we did this job, between us not having a home base, and us having to live/work with one same person. Dakota kept telling me "You girls must be the bestest of friends for being able to do this all the time." and Rachel would say "I can't imagine doing your job with someone you absolutely can't stand." And I responded "well it gets challenging at times, but it's a really good learning experince. You learn how communicate better with others, and it also teaches you how to compromise a lot, but thankfull both Tiffany and I are pretty laid back people so we've gotten along just fine so far!"

Proud of Tiff and myself for making it!

So that was our morning. I guess I don't have much to say about the rest of the day since it was pretty much spent in the car. I forced myself not to fall asleep in the car knowing that it would result in a late night, which would be bad news for me tomorrow morning since we have to wake up around 5:30! I succeeded but boy oh boy was it a challenge!! I spent pretty much the whole time reading my journal from sophomore year in college. I found myself laughing, and tearing up at different times. I would laugh at the stupid things my friends and I would do.  I teared reading about some of the heartaches I went throguh (people  just being flat out rude).I thought hard about what a challenging year it was. I'm amazed at how I was able to find time to journal since it was my busiest year of college. Multiple jobs, jam packed class schedule, and soccer practice everyday. But I really grew spiritually. I wish I could share with you some of the amazing things God had revealed to me that year!

So after going through quite some emotions while traveling in the past, we arrived in Castle Rock, which is 15 minutes away from our show tomorrow. Arriving here was bittersweet. It was sweet becaue we were welcomed by glorious scenery while the sun was bidding farewell to the world behind the mountains. But it was bitter because we drove through towns and streets, and places that I knew from living there just 2 months ago. It's also hard to know that I am only 15 minutes away from my best friend and a ton of other friends.
It's all good though because I will be seeing them again this weekend :D

That's another thing. I am super excited to be with my friends again, but for some of you who know me well, this doesn't come as a surpise when I say that I hate decision making!!! I get overwlemened when I have to many options, then I freak out and then I just give up. haha In fact, when I was still living in Senegal and my family and I would go out to diner, I always had my dad order my meal. I trusted him with that and it avoided me to go through all the decision making process. :)

SO all of this to say that I have no idea where to stay or who to be with or who to see when this weekend. Both Lauren and Lysiane have a pretty similar schedule and they each live an hour away from each other.I can't decide where to go first and where to end. haha. So if you read this tonight, please pray for my decision making. Not that it's a big deal since I'll have fun either way, but I just stress myself out and want other people to make decisions for me. :/

Well, anyway, my plan of not sleeping in the car worked. I'm pooooped! Had the workout of my life today, and was in the car for longer than I needed. I just finished a bowl of cereal and am pleased to say that I will now pass out! (It's barely 9....so sad!) But I need some rest before the weekend owns me!

Love you dearly,

DJO

Refreshing weekend spent with friends

October 10th


My heart is so full  full of joy. I dont know where to begin, and what words to use to express this Heavenly joy, but I will attempt to do so.

First off, my weekend was absolutely phénoménal, as some of you may have read it on facebook. There aren't to many détails to go into other than the fact that I was ooverflowing with joy, laughter and happiness at the realization that I was finally, for the first time in months, with people who cared for me, knew me, accepted me, understood me, and loved me. I was myself. The Dorina most of you know, for the first time in so long. Oh what a feeling ! I even told Tiffany, my coworker  "wow you have never seen this side of me huh !? "

So Friday afternoon we arrived at Lysiane (my all time bff)'s place in Denver and after she attacked me with screams and excitement and I jumped on her, we decided to head straight to the mall. My good collège friend Lauren who lives in Colorado Springs met up with us at Park Meadows Mall (a mall which I used to go to a ton due to the fact that there was a train near my old house that led straight to it. This mall is one of the many reasons, I call myself broke till this day.) I didnt shop much however. I just got a sweater, which I needed lol.

After doing a lot of window shopping, Lauren, Lylie, and myself sat at the food court area eating and talking and at one point I wasnt even listening to either of them, I just had this huge grin on my face, and interrupted the conversation saying " Can I just tell you girls how happy I am right now ?? " They both laughed and Lylie replied " You didn't have to tell me, I saw that huge smile on your face and knew exactly what you were thinking ! "
So after a relaxing evening, the girls and I got ready to have a girls night out :) It was a lot of fun especially since I was able to see some of Lysiane's boyfriend's friends,towards the end of the night who'd become quite dear to my heart when I lived there!
This whole time, Tiffany had been relaxing at Lylie's apt due to fatigue from all the driving she'd done. (I'm still not allowed to drive until I am told I can by my bosses).

Saturday was a busy day. I wanted to see a ton of people, but we also had to head to Coloroado Springs sometime during the evening in order to meet up with Lauren who had gone back there in order to work.
God is so good and Tiffany was very patient with me that day. She was able to join the girls and I to see Lylies stepmom and fathers,  which was quite the blessing. I've considered this family mine for quite some time now. During collège, since I could never really go home for Christmas, I would always go to Denver and spend Christmas with the Ayites. Plus I've known Papa Alex (Lylies dad) since I was 11, and him and my father are so similar that I cannot help but see him as a father figure in my life. Patricia (Lylies stepmom) has been such a huge blessing, helping me surprise Lysiane as a Christmas gift one year, and always always welcoming me into her home with shelter and food year after year, also being an encouragement through my transitioning from Indiana to Colorado and my job as a nanny for two girls whom she taught at her preschool.
All of this to say, spending about 3 hours of our day there felt like home. We talked, had snacks, coffee and tea, I played twister with Lauren and Iyanla (lysianes little sister) while Tiff and Cinzia talked (Lysianes older sister).

Fun times at the Ayites

Brie and Josh :)

I was then able to meet up with a good friend of mine and her boyfriend for some coffee.(I had a lot of coffee that day!) I'd met Brie and Josh about a month before my leaving Colorodo through their brother, and they were just what I needed at the time because I was going through some rough times with the transition of leaving Colorado and also thirsting for some fellowship time and finding a Church family. Though it was only for a month, it was exactly what I needed at the time to get on the route I'm on with my spiritual growth.




So after spending a solid hour catching up with them both, I met one of my buddies for diner. We had a gréât time, laughed a lot and ate Pad Thai.

Will and I eating Pad Thai

Finally after being able to see the people I wanted to see in Denver, Tiffany and I met up and headed to the Springs for another night of funness with Lysiane and Lauren !

Waking up Sunday morning was rough. I hadnt been so active in so long. My body said no, but my mind said  "let's go !" haha. So we got ready and went to Laurens Church called St James.
Lauren had warned us about this Church. She said "You guys are more than welcome to come to Church with me, but I just need to warn you, its quite different, it's Ted Haggards' new Church !"
Ok...confession...I didn't even know who Ted Haggard was. I feel stupid about that now, but I guess that's what happens when you barely ever Watch tv or listen to the radio :/
So, after telling me a little bit about what had happened. And in case you are like me and have never heard of Ted Haggard, heres a quick recap. He was an extremely famous pastor in Colorado and all over the world for that matter, who started a Church in Colorado of 14,000 followers. His Church (now called New Life Church) started out in him and his wife Gayles bassement, and ended up being huge and famous known for its genuineness and desire to grow as a body of Christ and love God and others. Well one day, Ted got accused of having an affair with and buying drugs from a male escort. He got fired from his position and ended up having to go through a whole entire procès and wait a couple of years before being able to get back in front of a pulprit to preach the gospel.
Needless to say, his name today probably brings up a lot of contradiction. Since I didnt know any of this, I had no problem going. Even after being filled in on who he was, I still had no problem going, in fact I was kind of excited. It sounded like the service was quite different and there was no way to really explain it, so I was excited to experiment this « différence » for myself !
My oh My ! It sure was different ! Well for starters, it doenst have a set place, so we were in a middle school cafèteria(which reminded me of when my Church in Huntington Indiana had no place and we would bounce from building to building till we got our amazing 509 place !). Secondly, for a pastor who had started a Church  with 14, 000 followers, this new one was quite small. It was of about 150 people. Ted was not much different than the way Id imagined him to be. Very energetic, full of life, throwing jokes out left and right, and extremely engaging.
In order to tithe, everyone got up and during the meet and greet part of most Sunday « rituals, »  in this case, we are encouraged to give someone we feel led to some money. It could be $2, or $100. No one is forced to, but its definitely an option. It was interesting to Watch because normal, when we meet and greet, every body stays in their seats and turns around or looks at the person to the left right or in front to say a quick hello. At Saint James however, most everybody got up and walked around to the other side to really meet and greet. We were welcomed quite warmly.
Then, the offering part of the service consisted of whoever felt led to putting money in a bucket can put money in the bucket.as usual. What happens with this money however took me by surprise. Apparently, every Sunday a name gets drawn out of a basket filled with everybody in the congregations names. Whoevers name gets drawn, gets to take 50 % of the money (the other 50% is kept by the Church) and think/pray about who they want to give the money to.
For example, this past Sunday, at the very end of service, a 15 year old stoop up in front of the congrégation because her name had been drawn and she had to announce who she knew that could use this money more than anybody. She decided to give it to her grandfather, who had problems with his knees. Since this was a lot of money that wed gathered that Sunday, Ted suggested that he knew of two other people sitting with us that morning that could really use part of the money as well. The girl agreed to split it, and Ted called up one of thèse people whom he was talking about earlier. A lady in her 40s came up. I dont know how long shed been crying, but her tears affected everyone in the building (they affected me at least thats for sure).  She barely could tell us her story while sobbing. Many hearts went out to her as she explained how she hasnt been able to be with her husband in 5 years due to his job being so far away and them needing the money because both of their kids have serious health problems. Her son deals with dépression and has attempted to commit suicide, on top of physical health issues. Her daughter had  crohns disease and because the parents couldnt afford taking care of all of the health issues their kids have, the mother shared her pain with us as she handed her children over to another family who would be able to afford helping them out better.
What a story~ This family received $2000 that morning. Another man had been called by Ted earlier to share his story. An old Asian man shared how one day he lost everything he had (job, family, house, hope,) and out of desperation went to Teds Church. Apparently at the end of the sermon, this man stayed seated and sobbed all of his pain and sorrow out. Ted didnt even know him, but helf him. Though he had no money to offer him, Ted was able to offer him something more important, hope, and a desire to live again. This man is now a regular at St. James. He is still living out of his car, but finds hope in life again.

There were other touching testimonies and stories shared. The service was very interactive. As Ted would preach,  people would raise their hands and ask questions, or Ted would ask the congregation questions, and people would answer. Even Ted's wife got up at a one point to tell a story that Ted had attempted to tell but butchered instead.

So yes, Lauren telling me that the service would be different was quite an understatement ! We laughed, we cried, we shared, we asked, we learned, we gave, we took, we prayed, we sang, we did it all. It was so real, so génuine. The sermon was pretty good to. We read out of James, which is book i LOVE. I need to spend more time in it. Its so short but so rich and full !
After Church, I was able to meet with a father and daughter (Sam and Emily Voorhies) that I'd met through another family that is extremely close to mine (the Shanis). The Voorhies used to missionaries in many countries and thats how they met the Shanis. I had only met the Voorhies once and we instantly bonded. Actually Uncle Sam and I got along real well because he found utter joy and pleasure in teasing me, and well for me, it just made me stronger and tougher so we have a mutual bond through that haha. I met their daughter Jessica later on when her parents decided we would get along gréât and that we should meet. They were right, we immediately clicked on our coffee (well it ended up being subway for me) date. We talked for hours and exchanged numbers.

So this was my second time seeing them, and we had a gréât time. Lauren and Tiffany had joined and the 5 of us just had a good ol time chit chatting as if wed known each other for years.

To end my Sunday, Lauren took me to 2 goodwills, which we OWNED. Yup. We got so much stuff for NOTHING. Well barely anything at least. I got pretty well prepared for the winter thanks to goodwill. Lauren also went a lil crazy out there.
After some fellowship with Lauren and her parents, Tiff and I hit the road. Off to Alamosa, CO. A 3 hour trip on which I was knocked out for the most part. It felt grand.

YUP. FANTABULOUS WEEKEND!!!

(I'm in the process of blogging about the last 3 days here, so bare with me :))

His, DJO

Curtis the Redneck and other Blessings

October 8th

Ok, So I have officially become terrible at blogging. I apologize to any of you who have come on my blog only to find out, nothing was new on it.

So much has happened and so much more is about to happen, but I will take it easy on you dont worry.
In fact, I think Im going to work backwards on this one. Ill describe a couple of the évents that this past week had in store for us, and then Ill share my Sunday devotional some other day, which I hope can encourage you.

So for starters, I am in our van, banned from driving, so Tiffany is driving and we are  in the norhtern part of Kansas headed to DENVER, COLORADO !!! This is my weekend, and it kind of came out of nowhere. As Ive said before, being able to see Tiffany's friend all of thèse times has been good for both of us in different ways. She was able to spend quality time with people she knew and loves, while I was just going along with the flow and meeting her friends, who were all gréât.The rôles however this weekend are changing. Hopefully she'll have a good time getting to know a lot of my friends. As far Im concerned, I am beyond ecstatic. I had no idea I would seeing anyone until 2 nights ago when Tiffany brought to my attention that we  were going to drive through Colorado Springs in order to get to our school in Alamosa, CO on Monday.

So yes, needless to say, I am super pumped. I will be staying with my all time best friend Lysiane tonight. We've been friends for about 14 years and we've gone through so much together and I just cannot wait to see her. Tomorrow, we will head to Colorado Springs in order to be one step closer to our school, and we will stay with my really good friend Lauren. We met in collège and clicked right away. We've been extremely close since my junior year in collège. On top of that, I will be able to see a lot of other friends between Denver and Colorado Springs. :) Its going to feel so good to finally be with friends and pretty much family that know me, my heart, who I am, where I'm from, what I've been doing and to just fully be myself for the first time in a long time ! I've been myself, but it does get hard to fully let loose when you are constantly meeting new faces and trying to get to know each other. So this is probably going to be the best weekend yet !!

So I want to share a little bit of my week with you. To be honest, I don't remember Monday. I know we had a show, and I know we drove that day to get closer to Grandview, KS in which we had a show on Wednesday. We drove to Overland Park, KS since it was only about 15 minutes away from Grandview. We stayed in a Super 8 motel from  Monday evening to Thursday afternoon.

Little did we know how many stories would come out of us staying in a motel for just 3 nights~

Well, first of all, I got along real well with Sue, the desk lady, which came in handy on tuesday when on my way to buy a new clamp for our Wednesday show since our Monday show resulted in a broken clamp, (we usually use about 4 to hold up our 3 screens together) I had just woken up from a nap, and my brain usually takes quite a while to function « normally » (as normal as it can function hehe), so still being out of it, I  (my all time best friend number 2 whom I havent spoken to in months due to her now living in Kenya, JUST called me and I cried because I was so happy to hear from her ! thank you GOD !) was backing out of my parking spot, and hit a truck. Yup. It happened. I felt so terribly bad when I checked it out and saw the huge dent that our van had left on the poor red truck. After contemplating driving away and not telling a soul out of fear and distress (it was my first time ever going through anything like that), I turned back around and went into the hôtel room to talk to Sue, the desk lady, and tell her what had happened. She was very sweet and reassuring. She kindly helped me find the owner of the truck, and once she finally got a hold of him, she told me I had nothing to be afraid of because he was a very nice/laid back man. My initial thought was, « well it doesnt matter how nice a person is, anyone who has to deal with someone messing with their vehicle, can quickly change from nicey nice to angry and scary. » She could tell I had a hard time believing that everything would be ok, but shed did her possible to keep reassuring and encouraging me. So the old cowboy lookin man comes wandering out of his room, and says « Alright, lets go see it . » Just like that. No frowing, no angry snares, no yelling, no veins sticking out, just an old man.
Right then, I started praising God, because right after it all happened, I had asked Him to just be with me and help me, and have Him just take care of the whole situation.

After calling the insurance, talking to my boss, trying to call Curtis (truck owner) insurance and more, we decided we would go to a repair shop the following day and get the estimate of the damage. This whole entire time, Curtis was being so incredibly nice, and on top of that hilarious. Not only did he keep repeating to me « Its not the end of the world, this happens all the time, dont beat yourself up about it, etc. » but he also made me laugh so hard that it also made me forget what we were dealing with. He called me dummy, and would introduce me to people as « crash » and since I deserved all that teasing and poking, I gladly took it and laughed at all of his jokes.

As a result of this little whoopsies, I have been banned from driving for a couple of weeks. I was telling Tiffany the other day « Wow, I just dont know how to handle this right now. I havent been punished in years !!! I dont even remember what punishment feels like, Im not so sure I like it at all. Haha » My bosses were a bit upset  at first but they were both very understand and kind afterwards. One of them even told me he was proud of my integrity and honesty. So even though my lack of attention is costing them quite a bit, they dont hate me, arent going to fire me, and encourage me through it all. Thank God.
We ended up taking care of the estimate of the damage two days later. In the meantime, I ran into Curtis at the motel a couple of times, and we always stopped and talked for a bit before heading our different ways. He easily could've resented me for the accident I committed, but not only did he not ressent me, he took the time to get to know me, and care for me by comparing me to his « dummies » of kids that are my age and are just as dumb as me haha, and how he's used to that happening. This story has a gréât ending. It ends with Curtis taking Tiffany and I to Starbucks and buying each of us a drink and telling us crazy stories about himself. How he told the racist black guy from his job that God doesnt look at color, but at people's hearts, and finally shut him up once and for all. How he was able to get 3 autographed baseballs from a really famous baseball player once simply because he had been bold enough to walk right through the gate of the field during a game, and ask the player to sign them. How he made it in the group picture of the crew/producers of a famous horse and his horse rider who had just won a really hard race to win, simply because he was walking there at the right time, and the horse rider thought he was part of his crew and called him in the picture. Just so many crazy, hilarious, and even inspiring/motivational stories.
I cant be grateful enough towards God for the blessing that Curtis was in my life. I even told Curtis, that out of all of the cars in the parking lot, I was glad I had ran into his.

Oh and at one point, I said a dumb joke, and he looked at me straight faced and responds  "You can't tell right now, but Im roaring of laughter on the Inside" hahahaha. How mean but hilarious is that !?
Check below to see pictures of the dent, and Curtis if interested.

Another good thing that came out of this « accident » was that throughout the happenings of the afternoon when I hit Curtis truck, I was able to meet a group of movers who had been staying at the motel while on their way to move another house. I'd told all three of them what had happened, and then we proceeded to talk and got to know each other. They were nice and I decided to hang out with them.
Though I wasn't able to minister to them on a conversational level, I hope I was still able to show the love of Christ because I did  talk about my faith and my belief when the conversation came up. Yet at the same time, I didnt judge them nor condemn them for the way they acted or lived. I just appreciated their company while all the while having a blast with them, by just watching tv with them or hearing them complain about their job, or talk about each other's sleeping habits, and things like that.



At one point, they came to my room to meet Tiffany, and the next hour was spent with laughter and joy. Tiffany and I had one of the best laughs since we've been on the road. They were just funny ! I laughed so hard that at one point I cried, and at another point I  fell off my bed. Tim, John, and Joey were just singing Taylor Swift, Justin Moore, and Kerry Underwood (very cheesy country music) to the top of their lungs. Once Tiff and I joined with the singing, there were 5 different keys, which Tiffanys was the only one that was Dead on. The rest of us were compeltely off key. It was so fun to just let loose and not care
Anywho, those were the amazing people we were able to meet in Overland Park in Kansas. What a blessing !!
Another incredible encounter we had that was completely from God was on Wednesday morning. We had an early show, and this was the day following my running into Curtis red truck. I was completely out of it, exhausted and to be completely honest dreading doing a show that morning. I had so much on my mind, that I wasnt focused.

Well this all changed when I realized what an amazing school we were at. Between the teachers, (Phil, the Young choir teacher who took time to help us set up while wearing his nice clothes and made coffee for me), the principal (a strong willed African American woman who was just full of energy and so gréât with the kids, and also very funny. She could NOT remember my name, and kept stressing about before introducing us to the kids.) and last but not least, the custodian, whom I will save a spécial paragraph for, because well, he was just very spécial !

At first, Mike was just another custodian, there to help us, which we are always extremely grateful for, until after the show, when he took the time to talk to us and get to know us. He no longer was just another custodian, we found out he was a Brother in Christ.

Mike asked me while I was tearing the frames down where I was from. I believe Ive shared this with you all before, how I usually dont respond « Senegal » to this  question due to lack of desire to respond to all the questions that follow after. Or sometimes I just dont feel like people genuinly care where Im from, so I just give them a quick and simple answer, which they are usually quite satisfied with.
Well with Mike, it was diffferent, I responded with the whole entire truth, for God knows what reason (literally). Mike got really excited and asked me where Sierra Leone was in comparison to Senegal. So i responded that it was a couple countries down from Senegal. This is when I found out that he was a Brother in Christ. He shared that he was supposed to go to Sierra Leone for a missions trip. (and him sharing this was just amazing since he had no idea we were Christians, but he had the boldness to procclaim his love and desire to work whole heartedly for God, which I really admired.) He told me that he unfortunately didnt think the trip was going to work out and it made him really sad because next year he will have a good chunk of months off and was hoping to really spend some time in a country in need of servants, to invest time and whatever savings he had and just do ministry there for a while.

I jokingly suggested he should go to Senegal, and after noticing that he loved the idea and was serious about, I decided we should exchange contact information so that he could possibly talk to my parents about going to Senegal and helping with ministry wherever there is a need for several months. How amazing is that ? Who knows, if this Works out, maybe just maybe, God had pre planned the failure of his trip in Sierra Leone, and pre planned our being  at that school in Grandview, KS and had pre planned my telling him I was from Senegal, just so that God could use him in Senegal to serve as a short-term missionary ! If it doesnt work out, either way I believe he was a gréât blessing to us, and us to him. Mikes testimony and stories about the power and présence of God in his life was incredible. He later on told me that it was a gréât blessing for him to have met both Tiffany and I and hed been very encouraged by it. He said it completely made his day. :) Another gréât ending to a gréât story, was how after Mike helped us load our van and after sharing a couple of last words, he reached in his Pocket and said. « You know what, you girls have worked really hard today, and it was so good meeting you, that I want to buy you diner ! So heres $20 and you girls go get yourself something to eat tonight on me ! »

WOW. Ok. Clearly at first, Tiff and I had a hard time receiving it. It just felt wrong to take money from a highschool custodian, but God did use him to bless us in many ways and when God blesses us we cant refuse his blessings. His grâce is outrageously phénoménal and I cant express my gratefulness towards what He provided us with this past week !!!
I haaaaaad to share it with you. I know i twas a lot, and I need to work on updating you guys more often so you dont have as much to read all at once, but Im trying.

This past week's blessings go along gréât with the sermon we heard this past Sunday, one I will be sharing with you soon. (probably not this weekend, since I will be taking advantage of every possible minute to be with loved ones.) but soon enough. I promise.

I want to thank you deeply for your prayers. God is watching over me and blessing me beyond belief on top of that. Just when I start getting down and lonely, He provides me with people to meet or even better, friends to spend time with. I'm so so happy ! So thank you again for your prayers. You guys are a gréât support !

May thèse BLESSINGS return to you as well.
Much much love,
DJO