"one of these things is not like the other" or "me and the jewish deli"

The owner of the company I work for flew in from Panama yesterday to meet everybody and see the office. I was in charge of the catered lunch, which was ordered specially from Kosher Bite Deli in Laguna Hills. (Because the boss is Jewish and keeps kosher. When the guy who is paying your salary asks for no cheese, you do not get cheese, everyone!)

So I walk into the deli that I called a few days beforehand (the woman on the phone kept calling me baby and honey), and no one is behind the counter. I take a quick glance at the room and I am met with 10-15 pairs of staring eyes. Everyone is sitting at a table as if they know exactly what is going on, and I have disrupted the feng shui (or whatever the Jewish equivalent is). I am the youngest person in the room by a solid 45 years, and absolutely everyone is Jewish.

I see an "order here" sign so I go and stand at the abandoned counter waiting for someone to come out. I wait for a minute or two, when this woman walks up and wedges herself between me and the counter, literally an inch in front of me, also waiting for someone to take her order. A group of 5 women walk in immediately after this happens, and all join the woman who has just usurped my first place in line. Then two more people who were sitting in chairs get in line behind them. This whole scene happened across a 60 second time span, and I am standing completely blocked out by 9 Jewish senior citizens.

I'm standing there debating if I should say something, or wondering if maybe there was an unspoken rule that since the woman had been sitting inside the deli longer than me, she got first dibs on placing her order. I made it very clear through staring her down that I had every intention of going next and not letting her cohort all go in front of me. After she ordered, the next woman started to open her mouth, but I interject. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you waiting to order? I didn't even see you there!" (not possible. she nearly stepped on me.)

I unintentionally took my revenge by reclaiming my place in line and picking up my order for 16 people while the army of seniors all had to wait to order their matzo ball soup.

Guess what? I'm still going to India.

And you can help me get there! It's so much easier now too. All you have to do is.... CLICK THIS LINK!!!!!!!!!

so easy!

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.