Guess What???

I got the job!!! Yea! How exciting! My interview on Monday went great and the lady that I spoke with needed me to fill out two more things and I did that and tonight I got an email from her saying that I had been accepted for the job and to start on June 7th! How great is that? I have so much to do between now and then. Pack, move, get ready for the job. It's crazy. I have so much junk in my apt. I don't have a clue where it all came from, but it is going somewhere. Maybe I need to have another yard sale, or just get the goodwill people to come with a truck. Either way it is exciting.

Humbleness

My new favorite quote right now is "God is the biggest mystery we will ever understand." It is true. God is a mystery. But lucky for us he has revealed himself to us through the Bible and through it we can understand who he is. But there are times when I still don't understand all of who He is and I never will, that would make Him less of God if we could understand all of Him. Like today I was over at the Columbian families house and Paula was asking a lot of questions about what she needed to do to get her family here. Now I don't know the whole story, but I do know she left behind her mom, sister (15 years old) and daughter (5 years old) to flee the country and try to get them up here too. She said that their lives are so in danger that they cant even stay in one place for long of they will be found so they are having to move constantly. And here in the states she has been getting these phone calls at all hours of the day and night where no one says anything. She is so worried that someone is trying to hunt her down. And I assume that she has a right to think that. But today as I listened to her story I could help but think that I will never realize how she feels. How blessed I am that I have never had to face something as she has. I wonder why God chose to put me in the place that I am in. He has a plan and purpose and I guess that there has to be every type of people in the world for it to work. But I feel so unworthy to have all that I do and receive His mercy and grace so often. Coming back home in the car I was again reminded of how Satan likes to attack me. I think a lot of times I don't share the power of Jesus with people because I think that they will think of it as foolishness. Paul himself said in 1st Corinthians that the gospel is foolishness to those that are perishing, but it cant be till they hear it. So in my head today I was thinking, what if I was in Paula's place? I would trust in Jesus cause I know he has a plan and a purpose for the situation. But as I thought, I can tell her that and it be encouraging, Satan through a fiery dart at me and said, No, you cant do that, she will think it is crazy to put her trust and faith in someone she knows nothing of and trust her families life to this person. But really that is what she needs. There is where she will find true peace and hope, no matter what happens. And as for me, my job is to share that with her, after that it is up to the Holy Spirit to open her heart to the truth. I guess some may read this and think, sure it sounds good, but when that situation comes you won't act like you think you will. But let me share a story with you about a girl I know. This girl, Ashley, who goes to my church, is 16. I had the pleasure of getting to know her about a year ago on a short weekend mission trip here in Tennessee. The girl loves Jesus so much. It is evident in her actions and the desires of her heart. It is rare to see a person so young so passionate about the Lord. So this past Friday, her mom (who I should stop here and say she was adopted and he dad died when she was little so its just her and her mom) got sick and went to the doctor. They told her it was the flu and sent her home. That night/early Sat morning she was having a lot of trouble breathing so Ashley was taking her back to the ER and she passed out and died, just like that. So now this girl has lost all her immediate family. But her spirit is unlike any I've ever seen. She knows that Jesus has a plan and that her mom trusted Him and so she is with Him, so she sees no reason to mourn greatly. Of course she has shed tears over her mom, but the joy she has in her heart that comes from Jesus is what has kept her going and will keep doing so.
It was just encouraging to me to see such faith a joy in her at a time like now. I realized that this is what I hope to see in Paula's heart as see goes through this with her family. And not just Paula but everyone. Friends that I have that don't know Jesus. People that I know I will meet here and on the oversees mission field. Knowing Jesus isn't just about going to Heaven or Hell, but its about life now, here on earth. Jesus said he came so that we could have life and life abundantly. I want to share that abundance with the world.

The Waiting Game

So I sitting here at home on my couch waiting for 5 o'clock to roll around so that I can call this lady and do my phone interview. I am so excited about getting to talk with her and finding out more about this job. I hope it will all go well. I have realized that I don't know as much about American History as I thought I did. Or maybe I did and I have just forgotten it all over the years. I think I would come back to me if I started to use it more. On the application it asked me to rate my knowledge of US History and I put 7 I think (10 being the highest) so last night I thought Id brush up a little bit in case I needed to know some for today and I really realized that while I know the basis of our history, I don't know the details as well as I thought I did, or use to. When I was in 5th grade I could tell you exactly how all 13 of the original colonies were formed, right down to the last detail. But 5th grade was a long time ago and I have since forgotten, except that the Duke of York claimed New York as a royal providence and George Oglethorphe had a lot to do with Georgia. Jamestown was the 1st town to be settled by the English, the Pilgrims came over to Plymouth. St. Augustine, FL is the oldest town in America. So I guess I've still got some info stored up there. So with 40 mins left to go, I'm going to go eat some lunch/dinner real quick. Wish me luck!

I HAVE AN INTERVIEW!!

Yippie! I already have a phone interview with a company that I sent off my application to this week! The lady wants to do about a 45 min phone interview with me this week! Yea!!

Some of It's Magic, Some of It's Tragic

He went to Paris looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
He was impressive, young and aggressive
Saving the world on his own.
But the warm Summer breezes
The French wines and cheeses
Put his ambition at bay
And Summers and Winters
Scattered like splinters
And four or five years slipped away.

That was the first verse of a song by Jimmy Buffett called "He Went to Paris." I don't quite know why I like the song so much, but last night I was driving home from church and just got the hankering to hear it. So I stuck in the CD, cranked up the radio and sang at the top of my lungs all the way home, twice. Maybe you need to know the rest of the song, in the next verse he goes to England and marries a lady named Kim, they have a good life and a son. So he locks up all the questions he had and they live in the country and 20 years go by. Then the war comes and his wife and son both die. He is left with only one eye. As he is crying he remembers the questions that he had that he never got answered, so he jumps the ocean and lives in the islands now, fishing and drinking. But if you ask him, he'll smile and say:
"Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic
But I had a good life all the way."
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/jimmybufettrules/songsbyheart.html#he (if you want to read the whole thing)

Isn't that the attitude that we should have? Last night I started reading the book of Job in the Bible. If you don't know the story of Job here is a brief summary: Job is a pretty wealthy guy, one of the top guys back in his day. He had 10 kids, lots of land, animals, and servants. At the beginning of the book Satan goes before God and God tells him hey have you seen my servant Job? There is no one as righteous as him and blameless. And Satan says that the only reason Job loves God and serves him is because God has blessed Job so much, but Satan says that if God takes all that away Job will turn his back on God and curse him. So God gives Satan permission to do whatever he wants but only do nothing to Job himself. So all Job's kids die, his servants, his animals, everything is taken from him. But he still wont curse God. He thought is "Should we accept good from God and not bad?" So then Job himself gets really sick, to the point he would want to die, but still he didn't curse God. That all happens in the 1st 2 chapters, the rest of the book is about his 3 friends coming and talking to him about what happened and why and then finally at the end God himself speaks to Job and Job regains all he had plus twice more.
Ok, so now that we know the story of Job, I'm going to tie that into the song, somehow. All this stuff happened to Job and yet he never turned his back on God; in the song, that guy lost everything he had and now lives in the Islands (which wouldn't be bad) but even so he says he had a good life all the way. Shouldn't we all strive to be like this? (This is more directed at me) but some bad things happen to us. We shouldn't let them make us stop living and, if you are a believer in Jesus, let them interfere with our love for him and serving him. Notice at the end of the story in Job, he got everything back twice over. That's Gods promise for us who believe in Jesus, things may be bad here on earth sometimes, but hang on cause everything will be better one day, either here on earth, or defiantly so much better in Heaven. So if you are going though a tough time right now, remember Job and the song and that Jesus is the only place where we can find ultimate peace, not the islands.

I've got to spice up the blog some with some pictures. Maybe this weekend I can get some on there. Today I mailed off my job applications for the tour guide position. I was really happy. Now I've just got to wait and see what they think. I seem pretty qualified for the job, but I am going to be gone for almost 2 weeks in May now so I don't know if that would be a problem or not. I hope not. The other job is going good. I worked today from 830 to 3 and it was fairly busy. I was the only one there, besides Craig, the director, so I had to kinda do everything, but that was good cause it kept me busy and gave me something to do. This is going to be a short blog. I am just not in the writing mood right now and plus Im getting ready to go to a pilates class at 7. More later when things are more exciting.

Employed, Again

So I got a temp job again. Right now I am working at this exhibit that is at the convention center called Ink and Blood. It is about the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the English Bible. It is so cool. If you are reading this and you live in Knoxville or close, you got to go see it. It has so much history on how the Bible come to be what we have today. But anyways I am working there just as a ticket seller/gift shop/movie player. It is fun. My 2 friends Laura and Danielle are working there too so that makes it even better. I am applying for a job as a tour leader. This sounds like such a great job for me. It would be working with a company that takes tours in different parts of the country and the people that tour are normally international, budget traveling young adults. Basically who I am when I travel. And I would love to be able to show people around our country and get to meet so many different people. I am way excited, its some tough competition to be hired, but if that is where God wants me then He'll open the doors, and if not, He'll close them. Speaking of God I've been thinking about something lately that I am trying to figure out. Dreams. Dreams. Where do they come from? What do they mean? What is there purpose? Now I believe that since God created everything that He also created the dream process. And I also know that He speaks through dreams sometimes and uses them to tells us things. Many times in the Bible He did this and also now I hear stories about people, especially in oppressed places, having dreams about Jesus, or dreams that someone will be coming to tell them about Jesus. But how far does that go? Do God have a reason behind every dream? Do dreams tell us something? I am wondering this because I keep having the same dream over and over. Not exactly the same events happening, but the some concept, idea, and person are in it. Maybe dreams are an over flow of the heart. Maybe what your heart desires, but cant have comes out in your dreams. I wish I knew. Anyone with thoughts or knowledge on this please get back to me.
So, some not so deep stuff now. My friend Bill from college (wow that is weird to say, "from college" like I am some old person who has been out of college for so long.) is engaged! It is exciting. Bill is one of the coolest, interesting people I know. And on the same topic of weddings, my good friend Michael got married today to my friend Amanda. It was a great wedding. It is so cool to see how that they waited on God for his timing in their relationship and how He blessed them. I am blessed to have been witness to some of the most Godly relationships take the step into marriage over the past year and see how God has worked in each one of their lives and brought them together at the right time as they waited on Him. It is exciting to know that God's best is always so much more than you can ever expect. Yea! Well, I guess I have kept you reading for long enough. Keep my friend Carmel in your prayers, she is going to Kenya for 40 days next week for some training.

Unemployed, Again

I told Lindsey today that I would only be able to keep on watching the kids until the end of next week. I was surprised at how good so took it. That made me feel a lot better since I felt somewhat bad about maybe leaving her without any one. But I think it is going to be ok. So I am back to looking to a job again. But God is so faithful I tell you. I really don't have any money, but the other night I was doing my tax return and it turns out that I will be getting all of my tax back, which is a good enough amount to help me out till mid march, or till I get back from Panama City. I am going to be going to Panama City, FL with my church the 2nd week in March, so this is a really great thing. We are going to be doing beach ministry there, pretty much the same thing that I would be doing in Dayton if I got that job. So its all pretty exciting stuff.
Today I started reading this book called Wild at Heart. I've read bits and pieces of it before, but never all the way through. So far it is such a good book. If you don't know anything about it, its about how men are made in Gods image and how their heart and soul long for adventure, wilderness, danger, and your typical "guy" things. Im only on chapter 2 so far, but it is proving to be such a true book and I see the evidence of what it is saying in the lives of people around me and guys I know. I recommend it a lot, and don't be fooled, its not just a book for guys, but girls can learn a lot from it too.
Oh, here's a really cool thing, I talked to my best friend on the phone the other day. Now I know what you are thinking, so what? Why is that so cool? Well, its cause she is in Botswana. That's in Africa for those who don't know. It was so great to just get to talk to her and find out what she is doing and how things are going. It sounded like she is having a great time and really loves it. She is teaching a program about AIDS and how to prevent it. It is almost like a sex ed class/true love waits, because they promote abstinence in the program. She is actually getting ready to go to Kenya though for about 6 weeks for some sort of training. She is excited cause she will be out in the bush. Right now she is living in the city and she really wanted to be out somewhere in the tribal areas. So good for her. She is still waiting to know if she is going to get to go to Zimbabwe or not, right now there is a lot of political issues with their elections and stuff. So hopefully when she gets back from Kenya she will know more.

Am I A Mom?

This sitting job has got to go. Its only been a week but already I am dreading going back on Monday. It's not the kids, they are good kids, but its me. What was I thinking when I told this lady I would watch her kids almost 10 hours a day 5 days a week?! Was I crazy? Did I not think? I think that the answer to both of those questions is yes. I didn't think about it. When I called her I was under the impression that she only wanted some one on Tuesday and Thursday for her 4 month old, but then she told me her Mon, Wed, and Fri person backed out, and could I do it those days too. Ok here's the place that I should have thought, but instead I felt bad for her and thought since I didn't have much else to do I could. Wrong idea Stephanie. Ok, for those of you who are thinking I hate kids, I don't, I just am not ready to be a mom, and that's what I feel like, being in one place for 10 hours a day taking care of a baby and sometimes a 4 year old. This is not a job for me. And its better for the kids too that I stop cause they don't need someone like me keeping them. So on Monday Im going to tell her that I can only do this for 3 more weeks. Although this week it should be better cause the mom has a class that is only until 2 I think, so she should be home by 3, so I guess that isn't so bad. We will see. I think God is trying to be me be more patience. Thanks God. So I am still going to need a job in the mean time. So I went to the mall and put in a few application at some stores since I have a lot of retail experience and also I really liked it. So hopefully one of those will work out. I also think it would be so neat to go work somewhere out west for awhile, somewhere in Colorado or Montana. Oh and I also saw a really neat job today as a tour leader for a company that take international tourists on cross county camping trips. How great would that be? I think that would be something that I would love to do. There are so many things that I think would be great to do, so I am just doing some praying and seeking what God thinks would be the greatest thing for me to do.