Coming to a Close...

We had to say goodbye to one of our friends from ECU today. She is one of the bubbliest, and most beautiful people that I have ever met. I absolutely love that I will see her again some day though, either at a Project Reunion or in Heaven. She is leaving early for a wedding, and then RA Orientation. Two more people from ECU will be leaving soon for the same reason.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We should start with Sunday.
Sunday was the usual: church, Prayer and Impact Team meetings, and Project Fun. But this Project Fun was structured a little differently. We split off into guys and girls and we had men's and women's time. The guys played touch football in the park (I only know this because it was on Facebook), and us ladies did something ultra special.

 It began by being told to bring a mug, and to dress comfy. When we got downstairs, we were told to pick out a bookmark, and then find our names at one of the blankets. Believe it or not, I just so happened to pick out the bookmark design that matched my place card. And they were cut from right next to each other too! We got cupcakes, and just chilled together for a while. We finished this section of the night by writing encouraging notes on the back of each other's place cards.

So cute right? After this, we made an encouragement web! I don't have any pictures of this, but it was basically like a spiderweb with multicolored yarn. We passed the ball to someone we wanted to encourage and then sat down. We did not have nearly enough yarn, but somehow Jesus made enough. It was a 5 loaves and 2 fish incident!
Our theme for the night was "Our Beauty in Christ", and it was just so great to be with other women who desperately want to follow the Lord.

Monday was a nice relaxing day. I spent the morning crafting, and then we had pizza as a Project and our Monday meeting. Our theme this week has been "I AM: love", and it has been really cool to look into how God is love more deeply without glazing over it as I sometimes do.

Tuesday was another campus day. Katelyn and I shared, and since it is exam week, we did not find many people who were willing to talk with us. It was still a successful week though because we initiated conversations. Our Action Group was a little different that night as well.

 We had a picnic! As you can see, our view of campus was super pretty, and I got to spend the evening with some super awesome women of God. I have come to love these girls insanely and will miss them like crazy. And look...

Roommate pictures! Katelyn and I are on the left, Jaz and Hannah are on the right.

 Wednesday was a little interesting. We did an outreach with Cru's Soularium on campus. We put pictures on a board and when people where interested in what we were doing we went through the survey with them. More people were on campus on Wednesday than Tuesday (as is usually the case, it was just amplified by finals week) and the outreach was very successful. We had a lot of interesting conversations. Our last Encouragement Meeting was at nine that night, but the Prayer Meeting was a little different. Due to several last minute complications, we could not have it on Tuesday or Wednesday night. Instead, we had it during our weekly Night with the Lord. We told people that they were free to come, stay, go, or just have their Quiet Time in the meeting room, and if they wanted prayer for something specific we would be available to pray with them. It worked out so well; we wish we'd been running it this way the whole time!
Wednesday night we planned an apartment "Block Party". People in our apartment complex don't care for us that much, so we threw them a party! Free pizza (I was in the group that went to get the pizza and everyone on the trains wanted to be our friends by the way), free snacks, free pop, and hang out. It was really well and a ton of people were there! Too bad we're leaving next week though.

Thursday was my last campus day. It's sad to think that my time sharing at the University of Illinois at Chicago is over, but God has lights there to continue His work. And who knows, maybe I'll come back some day! My only conversation the whole day was with Mayra (the girl with whom Katelyn and I had been continuously following up). We had a surprise when we saw her.

She made us chocolate roses! They are so cute; I can't even handle it. Katelyn didn't get to spend the whole time with her, but I did. We went through the Satisfied booklet (a tool Cru has that explains more clearly how to live a Spirit filled life) and then had a teary goodbye. I'm going to miss that girl.
Our dinner Thursday night was Polish food, and it was delicious. I had sweet cheese for the first time ever. It was interesting, but that is definitely not how sweet normal cheese is (you would think that I would have known that by the name "sweet cheese", but it still surprised me; it was that sweet). Our meeting was fun, and it's so hard to believe that it may be the last one that we have!

And that brings us to today.
We said goodbye to our dear friend Lindsay this morning, and then I had a knitting/crocheting party in my room. Only a few people came, but we had a blast either way! Tonight I am going out to dinner with some people from Project, and then will be crocheting with a girl who missed the party because she had to work. It was her idea and silly me scheduled it at the wrong time! Oh well; I'll see her tonight.

So that's all Project wise. Craft wise I finished this:

This penguin was created for my friend Courtney. I made her the Amigurumi Snowy Owl, but she cannot find it. Our theory is that one of the staff kids took it before they left (which is totally okay with both of us), so I asked her what she wanted and she asked if I could make her a penguin. He took me roughly three hours (I was timing it exactly, but them my computer decided that it needed to update, successfully restarting my stopwatch), and he turned out super cute! If you would like to see more pictures, you can check out my Ravelry page for him.

I also made this unicorn. There are many things I would change about this if I were to do it again, and quite frankly I do not enjoy that the neck is its own piece, but overall this pattern worked up nicely. How to attach the mane and tail is not clear, and how I attached them is most certainly not child proof, but I believe that to be okay since it was made for my friend Tommy on Project. Anyway. If you would like to see more pictures, or read my notes, you can check out my Ravelry page.

That's all for week nine! Until next time!
Jenn

A Wonderous Night of Whimsy

For those of you who remember, my Action Group and I was asked on a Creative Date two Sundays ago (If you want to look up read how we were asked, check out this post). And remember how I said that I would make a post about the night? Well it's time to unveil to you our wonderous night of whimsy!

First, I should explain a little more about what a Creative Date is. It is basically a date where the main focus is not in getting to know someone or pursing a relationship with them. Instead, the main focus is showing someone (or a group) that you want to serve them as a brother or sister in Christ. So, with that in mind, here is how me and four other ladies ended up on a date with seven gentlemen.

It started in our apartment complex. We were told to meet in the lobby at 5:15, dressed in clothes that we wouldn't mind possibly getting a little dirty. We thought that was intriguing, but we all dressed comfy-cute anyway. We were met there by Niko (my roommate, Katelyn's boyfriend) and Z, and they escorted us to a park where the other five gentlemen were waiting.

There was an entire picnic set up for us with cards saying where we should sit. I ended up between Z and Zane. We later discovered that the cards had writing on the inside. On the top flap of mine was Proverbs 31:30, and on the bottom flap was an individualized encouragment note from the guys about our character and how we inspire them as sisters in Christ.

 In the top left is Courtney and Boss. The top right is Z. If you can't tell by the random assortment of food at the bottom, they made us tacos. We didn't have shells though, we had some sort of biscuit bowls to put our toppings in. We also had some sort of taco flavored dip, pasta salad, and Garrett's popcorn. It was all super good!

We had a main theme for the night, which was remembering our childhood. So believe it or not, 12 college students sat down and started finger painted.

It was super cute, and super fun. What I created is on the bottom.

The Movie in the Park for Saturday night just so happened to be in the park we had our date in (total coincidence right?), so we watched Kung Fu Panda 2 together. Then we moved on to the next part of our date.

 We sent up floating lanterns! It was so cool! I'm in the picture on the top right, and as you can see, they turned out beautiful. It was hilarious as well because we amused all the other people in the park. Small children were yelling about how we were making stars, sending messages to the aliens, and one just had no idea what we were doing. He kept running up to where we were standing and yelling "What are you guys doing!?" and then running away. It was hilarious.

The guys finished the night by buying us Forever Yogurt, and then taking us home. We stayed together in Niko's room and watched the Olympics for awhile, but that was not technically part of the date.

It was really encouraging though to be with Christian brothers who long so much to serve us and to love on us as Christ does. I can honestly say that we had a great night together.

Jenn

A Week a Little Different from the Rest

I can't believe it's Friday already. So much has happened this week that it's insane. So what better place to start than Sunday!

Sunday was the usual: church, Prayer Team meeting, Impact Team meeting, and then Project Fun. We made our Impact Team meeting super short, and then we went to Dairy Queen as a group for ice cream. It was great community building (except when Brent accused my school of not being a school, but I'm devising a way to get him back. Plus it was all in good fun). And speaking of fun, Project Fun this week was A-MAZING. We were split up into teams of six (three boys, and three girls), and we had an Amazing Race around the city. My team's color (thanks to me) was green, and we named ourselves Gang Green. Gang Green was my vote because it is also the name of Ohio University's Hockey Student Section. It was a nice reminder of Athens! One of the girls on our team had run a half marathon that morning, so understandably she did not participate in the race. I decided to keep my camera and purse in my apartment because I wasn't sure how this race would go and wanted to have my hands free. We took some pictures on my friend's phone, but unfortunately I don't have any of them otherwise I would share. One of the guys on my team, Ryne, carried my wallet in his backpack, what a sweet guy, right? We finished the race at the Buckingham Fountain, and my team came in third! Yay us!
As we were about to head back to our apartments, my Action Group was asked on a Creative Date by another Action Group.

Many of you may be asking what a Creative Date is, well in answer to your question, in my understanding it is more of a night of service than an actual date. As you can see from my invitation (and a Beanie Baby! It's a cougar and it's name is Canyon. We also received a Dove caramel chocolate square from them, but that did not even make it back to the apartments let alone into the photo), the date is happening tomorrow, so when we have actually had our "wondrous night of whimsy", I am making a blog post about it, so I'll let you know when I know more!

This brings us to Monday. I got to have a nice relaxing day, full of crafting and organizing. Now I did not clean my room, but we did clean our apartment before going to go have pizza as a Project. At our Monday night meeting, my roommate Erica spoke. Our theme this week has been "I AM: Father", and she spoke from the heart with very impacting results. I'm really thankful that the Lord has blessed me with such a great roommate (and roommates) to look up too. They are all great!

Tuesday was campus. I don't really remember who I shared with or how many conversations I had (because three days of campus kind of blurs together), but I do know that we had a great Action Group that night! We began by just talking about our lives and where we've been these last couple of weeks emotionally. It was super great to open up with these girls and to just love on them in new and unique ways. Also, Jaz is a great cook and made us another delicious dinner and delicious dessert. Our dessert was a peanut butter bar (I guess that it the best way to describe it). It was an Oreo crust on the bottom, peanut butter in the middle, and chocolate on top,  frozen for our delight. After Action Group, we had the Prayer Meeting on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday.

Wednesday we did a Popsicle outreach on campus. We gave away free Popsicles, and if the students had time they could help us by filling out a survey. Of course that was not a requirement to receive a one on such a hot day. We also did English Club per usual, and unfortunately I was still unable to stay for it. Instead, I went to Target with my friend Brent to help him pick out things with which to make homemade mochas. I found a recipe online, and to introduce him to the wondrous world of coffee (because who doesn't like coffee?) I made him one. The recipe can be found here. I was using hot chocolate packets though, and discovered that one packet of hot chocolate is perfect for two cups (16 fl oz) of coffee. Then I just put in my milk and sugar preferences.
Wednesday night however, was a little different than usual.

 Instead of our usual Night with the Lord, we traveled to the beach as a Project to play in Lake Michigan. We were there until 9:30 or so. I swam the whole time, but many people chose to lay on the beach or just talk. It was a blast! And on the way back, Elly's Pancake House happened.

 This is Beachy. Remember the post about the hat I made? This is the kid who commissioned it.

 Jaz and Alex. Characters as usual.

 This was my food. Chocolate chip pancakes and Jaz's eggs. Talk about delicious!

 Jaz got a side of pancakes and hashbrowns, besides the eggs she gave me.

Alex got the Monte Carlo (a super epic sandwich that had turkey and ham and Swiss cheese on French Toast. I almost got this), Beachy got the Old Fashioned pancakes, and Niko and Katelyn (out of the picture on the right) ordered Blueberry pancakes. Everyone had good reviews for the place; it was so good!

This brings us to Thursday. Katelyn and I followed up with our friend Mayra again. We went through Soularium with her (the link explains more about what Soularium is), and she opened up with us so much. It was great to talk with her like that. After that I headed over to see what Niko and Zane were doing.

This is Slacklining (for the record, I have no idea if I spelled that right). They strung up a strap between two trees, and, from what I understand, the goal is to walk across it, balancing from one side to the other. Occasionally, people are good enough to jump or do tricks as they balance. It was only two or three feet off of the ground, so you didn't get hurt if you fell, but it was a lot harder than you would imagine.

These are the ladies who went with me to check it out. As you can see, the guys even helped us try it out!

The human body is top-heavy, so it was much easier to balance sitting down. We had a blast!

That brings us to today.
I have had a super relaxing day. I woke up, had Quiet Time, and started writing this post. Yes, I am aware that it is longer than usual, and yes, I do apologize for that, but so much has happened this week! And I haven't even gotten to my finished objects!

Remember the CAL I was doing with my roommate, Katelyn? Well, they're both done! I don't have pictures of her's, but this is mine. If you can't tell, it's wrapped around my neck twice, and that is the way I intend to wear it. It turned out super cute, right? If you want to see more pictures of this cowl, you can check out my Ravelry page.

Now this is not an object that I finished, but it is one that Katelyn made for me. It's a headband, made using this pattern. I love it! And it only took her a few hours to finish! I love how skilled my pupil is becoming.

Well, that is all for this week! I'm super glad to be linking up with FO Fridays again.

Jenn

Batman Week

Wow. This has been an eventful week. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. So, let's start with Sunday.

Sunday had the usual meetings and church, but we also had community time. Remember the water balloon, Capture the Flag tournament? This week's fun community time was a 90s themed dance party. I know, perfect. We had Ring Pops, those single Kool-Aid drinks, Boy Meets World, and not to mention great music to dance too. We had a blast. It was also great to see a lot of 90s dance moves as well as 90s clothes/hair. Unfortunately I did not have my camera at this event, but we still had a blast.

Monday my roommate Katelyn and I went to Michael's for yarn to begin our CAL. We're making this Easy Twisted Cowl. Mine is almost done (I am down to my last 10-20 yards of yarn [my plan was to use all of both skeins from my stash] and only stopped working on it because I was reminded by my sister that I needed to make this post), but my roommate's is only about half done. This is partially experience, but mostly the fact that I am working in the round while she is working flat, and she is changing colors while I am not. I will get you pictures of the finished object as soon as I can. Then Monday night we had our pizza and meeting as a Project.

Tuesday I went sharing with Katelyn, and we met this girl named Mayra. She is really cool, and although she was only on campus because she works there, Katelyn and I got to follow up with her on Thursday for lunch. Then we had Action Group together. Jaz made tacos. They were delicous.

Wednesday was basically the same on campus, although I did go sharing with my friend Alex. We met and shared with a guy, but other than that campus was pretty much dead (it's midterm week). Then I had Night with the Lord, where I watched a sermon with my roommates and journalled, had the weekly Encouragement meeting, and then stayed for the Optional Prayer meeting afterward.

Thursday was not any more eventful. I shared with Katelyn, and after following up with Mayra, we may have had one conversation, but I can't remember whether we actually had the opportunity too. It was a long day with few people on campus. For dinner as a Project that night we had tacos (I know, I know, tacos again. But it's okay because I love tacos), then we had our weekly meeting, and then I went to see the midnight showing of the Dark Knight Rises with some people from Project. It was longer than expected, and got over at about 3am, but overall it was really good. I would totally pay to see it again. And again. And again. It is truly a great movie.

And then today? Well, today I just relaxed. Spent the day inside, with some yarn and White Collar Season 3. Exactly what I needed after five hours of sleep and a headache all day.

Sorry this post is so choppy and lacks pictures. As I said, I have a headache. I promise I'll do better next Friday.

Jenn

Names

So in my Quiet Time, I'm doing a study of the Gospel of John. I only started a few days ago, and I'm doing one section (as in the title and what's underneath it) a day. Today I read John 1:35-42 and man, did I get a lot out of it. Especially in the words that Jesus spoke. Most of my notes come from the three statements he makes in this passage. And maybe I'll share with you all of my notes another time, because today I want to focus on his last statement, what Jesus says to Peter:

[Andrew] brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter). - John 1:42

 

I've never read the Gospel of John before; I've read Luke, but that was a while ago and I don't remember much of it. And that is exactly why I wanted to do this study for myself; I want to obtain a greater understanding of Jesus' life and character, as well as how to apply that to my life.

Now to understand this next comment, I need to tell you a bit about my organizational system. I love for everything to have a place (even if that means the floor) and for like things to be together. For example, while I was still at college I had a system for my clothing: clean clothes went in the drawer, dirty clothes went in the laundry basket, and clothes that I have worn at least once (which makes them too dirty for the closet) but are clean enough to wear again belong on my desk. Don't ask me why, it's just the way my brain works. So now you'll maybe understand why I have a separate notebook for my John study, and a separate notebook for prayers. This is only the beginning of my complex notebook organizations, but either way, you get it.

So this is what I wrote about verse 42 in my study notebook:

As far as Peter was concerned, he had just met Jesus, and Jesus had already given him a new name. Peter probably thought of it as a nickname, not what he is at his core nor what he would become for the church. But why would Peter be the only one to get a new name from the Lord? (some of my opinions come from Sifted: God's Scandalous Response to Satan's Outrageous Demand by Rick Lawrence) Has the Lord told you your new name? Better question, have you let Him? Right now my name is Jennifer, white face, white wave; Lord, what name do You have for me?

 

I felt the need to journal/pray at those last two questions, and as much as I don't like the thought of putting something online out of the journal in which I bear my soul, I'm going to. I'm going to put my whole prayer, because the whole thing is necessary to explain what I've learned. So here goes:

You know, I used to hate what my name meant. "White face; white wave"? No thank you; too embarrassing. But white is the color of purity, of cleanliness. And waves are never ceasing; they just keep coming. As soon as one disappears, another one replaces it. But yet they are part of the whole.  Each wave bears the support of the whole ocean behind it. Put those together and you get waves of purity, never ceasing, with the full support of something deep and vast. What a beautiful picture! What a beautiful metaphor for where I find my worth, and what I desperately want to feel most: pure. Now that I've matured a lot since, you know, middle school, I love my name. I couldn't ask for a better one. And what about my stubbornness? waves continue to go forward and crash on the beach. They overtake the sand, flooding the ground where it had previously been dry. Then they recede, but not without leaving the land unchanged. Tide pools are full again. Things that need water for life can again breath that sweet, salty relief. Ecosystems flourish. Life continues. "What about tsunamis?" you may ask, but I've been known to have a few tsunami like, full-force and changing discussions in my day. Tsunamis run onto land, past the beach, past the shoreline property, and leave mass changes in their wake. Sure, destruction is caused, but unless the old is destroyed, the new cannot come. And look at how they bring people together! Rescue relief comes down to help clean up the damage, people open up their homes to friends or brothers and sisters in need. People cry out in outrage to God asking "Why!?", but in a few years time, that area looks and feels better than it did before. Plus it stirs up the ocean water. Same as hurricanes, the ocean water is mixed and churned, better spreading out the nutrients in the water as well as mixing and combining more. This causes a spike in CO2 eating plants, which keeps the world from boiling over. Waves don't leave the world unchanged; Jennifer doesn't leave the world unchanged. Thank You, Lord, and praise God!

 

Now, I'm sure there are parts of this that people will disagree with; I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm asking you to think. God created us to be in perfect fellowship with Him. He named Adam and Eve, He gave Abraham and Sarah new names, He named Isaac, He named John the Baptist, and Jesus, and Jesus renamed Simon; I'm sure there are more examples, but you get my point. The Lord has a name for each and every one of us which may or may not coincide with our earthly names. Has He told you your new name? Better question, have you let Him?

Jennifer - white face, white wave.

Project Week 6 has Come and Gone...

Wow. Talk about a fun week! I never thought that not having staff here to guide us would go as smoothly as it did, but it went so smoothly that you could hardly notice (apart from the lack of loud children of course).

So Sunday. We went to church, had our first prayer team meeting, had our regular Impact Team meetings, and then we played Capture the Flag with water balloons! It was super fun and a great way to build community.

Monday was a very relaxing day. I did not really do anything until we had pizza as a Project that night, and then we had our first meeting without staff. It went well, and I learned a lot.

Tuesday was my first campus day without staff. I went sharing with my roommate Katelyn and we had several good conversations, and then we had a great Action Group that night (complete with delicious food cooked by our new Action Group leader, Jaz).

Wednesday I went sharing again, but I also had D time with my discipler. Jaz is also my new, student discipler, and I took a few pictures from the West Terrace where we had D time.

This last picture was taken from the place where we had the second half of our D time. Campus is really pretty for being mostly concrete.

That night, we had the weekly Encouragement meeting with a new Optional Prayer Meeting afterward. Both of these events were lead by the Prayer Team.

Thursday was my final campus day for the week. I went sharing with Katelyn and then Amanda. Amanda and I met this other Christian group on campus while we were out, and we stopped by their "Bible Talk" that afternoon as well. For dinner, we went as a Project to Taste of Chicago.

 

I had a footlong Corndog for dinner.

 

My friends had  BBQ pulled pork from the same place.

Then we pooled our tickets (we each only had 12) so we could get some dessert. I don't remember what it was called, but it was some sort of something that is supposedly six times sweeter than ice cream. It was really good. We also got some sherbert with our last three tickets.

Our weekly meeting also went well without staff. And today I have spent the entire day Skyping my sister. It's been fun. And we have officially made it through our first week on our own!

Other than that, I finished my commissioned hat this week!

Based off of this pattern, I used Heather Grey Red Heart yarn and it took me about four days. I made it for my friend Beachball (his real name is Tyler, but his last name is Beachy so he goes by Beachball). If you would like to see more pictures of the finished project or read my notes, you can visit my Ravelry page.

 I also finished this dishcloth. If you click the pattern page, you can see that I've taken several liberties. I used a different weight yarn, a different hook, and added a border, but overall I love the way that it turned out. If you would like to see more pictures, or read more closely what I did to create this dishcloth, you can visit my Ravelry page.

So that's the CSP12 update this week! I really enjoyed linking up with FO Fridays today as well.

Until next time!
Jenn