i wrote this 4 years ago and it's still true

i had every intention of making this a well thought out post with meaningful thoughts and ideas. it was going to be real and honest and bring you to tears (in a good way) and make you realize that the world can be a cruel place but there is hope and healing through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit and your friends and well spent time. i was going to take this paragraph and integrate the weekend's events into what i have realized about community and love and acceptance and dependence; about prayer and healing and support; about taking time to "be still and know that I am God", and "have mercy on me a sinner", and how all the stupid little plans that you think you've made are going to fall apart because you don't know what's best for yourself because you can't do things out of reactions to people hurting you. the sentences were going to all be run-ons but you wouldn't care anyway because you wanted to know so badly what came next that it seemed perfectly logical to not stop and pause for a breath.

i wish i could write this story for you. i really do. maybe one day i will write it; it's just that today i haven't figured it all out yet.

I'm going to India!

Dear Friends and Family,

Many changes have taken place in my life in the last couple years. In 2009, I uprooted my life in southern California to do mission work in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I spent 8 months working at the Shelter City Youth Hostel in the Red Light District, serving travelers from all over the world and doing a bit of traveling myself. In September of 2010, I started a 2 year master’s program at UC Irvine in Urban Planning and worked part-time at a 3D printing company to help pay my bills in the meantime. This week I am starting my second and final year of my master’s program, and this month I started a new job as the Office Manager of a software development company called Innovative Idea Group. I am excited for what the Lord holds for me this year as the last two years have held many adventures around the world and interesting people along the way.

This brings me to my next adventure: India. I have accepted a position on the 2011 Rock Harbor Church India team. We leave LAX on December 26, 2011 and return January 8, 2012. While over there, we will be partnering with Harvest India, a Christian humanitarian organization whose purpose is to share Christ’s compassion for the poor throughout Andhra Pradesh by sharing basic resources such as food and medication, planting churches, and raising up leaders. To read more about the specific work Harvest India is doing, please visit http://www.harvestindia.org/. Our part in this is to organize and execute a Vacation Bible school for hundreds of Indian orphans, distribute food and clothing to lepers, and share the Gospel message with the poor throughout the villages in southern India. I am both excited and nervous, as most of my travels have been within the Western world and this will be my first experience in Asia in such extreme living conditions.

I’d love for you to participate with me in this ministry! Most importantly I ask that you participate through prayer. Prayer for safety in travel, health, compassion, physical and emotional strength, team unity, and protection from spiritual attack. Ideally I’d like to have one person commit to praying for me each day that I am in India, so I’ve created a Google calendar outlining the team’s itinerary and the first name of the person who has signed up to pray for me that day (please feel free to sign up for more than one day or more than one person a day!). If you'd like to sign up, please contact me directly or leave your name / date in the comments. You can view my calendar here. 

Secondly, I ask that you consider supporting me financially. I have committed to raising $3,000. If you would like to make a donation to my trip, make donations payable to ROCKHARBOR Church. Please do not write my name or the country anywhere on the check. Please mail to ROCKHARBOR Church, attn: my country / my name, 3080 Airway Ave. Suite 100, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Please note that donations are tax deductible and are non refundable. All donations will go towards the overall cost of the trip, and any excess funds will first help cover the team’s costs and secondly will be gifted to the ministry we are going to serve.

           If you have any questions, concerns, or encouraging words, please feel free to contact me! Thank you for walking this journey with me.

where did that come from...?

in case you were wondering...

Where did the name Death Cab For Cutie come from?
Ben: The name was a song by a band in the Sixties called The Bonzo Dog Band. It was in The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" movie and we just decided to use it as a band name.

roommates

i have a roommate moving out aug 1 and in preparation for her leaving my other roommate and i advertised on a few common non-sketchy roommate seeker websites. we hesitated to post on craigslist for awhile, but desperate times... we've gotten two responses so far:

1) "hi, my name is moonshine moon, i am a 31 year old male." sorry moonshine moon, but you've been vetoed.
2) "hi, i'm not actually looking for roommates, but i am looking for friends!" hmm. okay. do you want to pay ~$700/mo for me to be your friend?

"want: 1 non-crazy" is probably what we should have put in our ad.

sarah's birthday party

this week a friend of mine turned 30, and to celebrate she had a party at her parents' house in fountain valley. i've never met her parents, and while we've been friends for awhile, we only have a handful of mutual friends.

as i pulled up to the address my GPS indicated, i glanced around on the street and saw some balloons tied to the trees out front. this must be it, i thought, and started walking toward the house. i double checked for an address but saw none. the door was open and they were setting up inside, so i went ahead and walked in. i greeted the older lady at the door and saw a handful of people i didn't recognize, but as i indicated...i didn't know a ton of people at this party anyway, so it was all totally normal. i continued in through the house and toward the backyard. however, when more and more people started looking at me confused, i decided to ask.

"this is sarah's party, right?" i asked the woman at the door. "no...it's not. birthday party is two doors down."

oops.

Status of my rebate?

About 6 months ago I filled out some rebate paperwork for my job because we were trying to cash in on a free bulb replacement for a projector that we bought. Instead of getting our free bulb in the mail, 6 months later all we have to show are two post cards telling us our bulb is on the way. When I tried to follow up by calling the number on the card, I was greeted by a guy asking if I'd like to sign up for some training classes at some knockoff university, not the InFocus Rebate Center. I tried calling a few times just to make sure I had the right number, but to no avail.


I went online and searched for a new phone number, but all I could find was this faulty number on the official rebate website. I found a link that said "check the status of my rebate," but when I clicked on it, it was just a static page that said something about giving it 10-14 business days. Finally, I sent them an email that went like this:

Hello,

We purchased one of the projectors that had the free lamp replacement promo going on. We sent in the form and were notified via postcard that there was a shortage of lamps and that we would be receiving it by the end of May 2011. We still have not received it, but when I tried to call the phone number listed on the postcard and the website (here: https://www.infocusrebates.com/index.php?u_id=faq#faq_197) a man told me I had the wrong phone number. I tried calling the number (800) 417-1834 a handful of times and the same thing happened. On the website when I try to track the status of my rebate, I am directed to a page (here: https://www.infocusrebates.com/index.php?s_id=&u_id=home#claimStatus) that says, “Please allow 10-14 business days from the mailing date of your rebate for it to be received and processed.”

What’s a girl gotta do to get a free lamp replacement?

Here is the response I got a few minutes later:

Good Afternoon,

As I am sure you are aware, this rebate program has been an extremely successful one.  We are being told that the backorders are to be caught up, and shipped out to us by the end of June.  We are, in turn, shipping them out right away hopefully to the end users by mid-July.

Your claim for the free lamp has been received and approved.  We hope that you have been enjoying your projector and your Free Lamp will be to you by the end of July.  Thank you for your patience.

No inquiry about personal information to check the status. Terrible capitalization and awkward grammar.


About 3 days later we got another postcard in the mail that said the exact same thing as the first one, just with later dates. I am not impressed, InFocus Rebate Center. Not at all.

things i love about coming to my parents' house.

1) cooking/baking. i have lived in small, cheap apartments with poorly stocked kitchens for the last 7 or 8 years of my life. my parents, on the other hand, have remodeled their kitchen to be fit for a professional cooking show and don't have 20 year old thrift store utensils, so it is a pleasure to make culinary art here.

before (circa 2006):

after (i took this 5 minutes ago):

sorry i don't have a real before. my 'before' is more of a 'during'.

2) sleeping. i've slept in a twin size bed my entire life. after all the kids moved out, my parents decided it was time to upgrade. now when i come here i sleep in a queen size bed. sometimes i sleep horizontally, just because i can.

3) eating. especially in the last year, but mostly just the last however many years of my life, it is rare to have a real meal that i didn't have to pay money for or prepare myself. all of the above happens when i come here, and i love it.

4) driving. it's like going back in time. it takes me all of 3 minutes to get to the other side of town. no one is speeding past me and jumping in front of me at stoplights. no one is backed up on the freeway. no one drives a prius, so i feel super edgy and cool. miracle.

5) laundry. my parents have these super high-tech laundry machines. they play music when they're finished. they are clean. they are free for me to use. i love them.