3rd Trimester

Today's Project 12's third trimester....wow! Time goes by real fast.

Here's a slide show of pictures referring to my last post...

Lately I've been really impatient about my life. I keep thinking about when I'll leave and what I'll do and what I wish I could do now....Something inside me always lights up whenever I hear or read about someone's experiences traveling, visiting countries I was to see (rich and poor) and getting to know the people there and their culture and serving them in some way. Or I get all excited thinking about different possibilities I have when I'm done here... But I need to realize that I made the commitment of finishing Project 12 and staying here at least till December (when I'll be going to India with a group of people here at JPUSA) or till next summer. I shouldn't think about it so much. I need to be patient and live in the now. I need to fully enjoy my time here and get the most out of it! Right now I live here, right now this is where I'm supposed.

Oh! I just saw that they put the other videos they showed during Fest For Us on youtube!
This one has some of the kids in it and Neil Taylor who is one of my favorite teachers and pastor =)


And here's one with a bunch of people in it.

I'm Known To Do Embarrassing Things

So Fest for Us was great, though I was kind of in a bad mood sometimes.
As I said in the previous post, I had to act and dance for two videos that were done for the Fest. In one I had the main role and in the other I had a small role. I was really looking forward to seeing the second video, but the audio doesn't work on it, so they weren't able to show it for Fest for Us, which I was really sad about. So instead, I was able to make a fool out of myself AGAIN. As if I hadn't done it enough already.
When they showed the music video for first thing at the party on Sunday after the Easter dinner, I pretty mush turned bright red. Fortunately, no one saw it cuz I was sitting in the very front and the room was really dark. Then, afterwards, they did a Makeover Show which was really funny, but the three people that they made over actually looked really good. After that, they did a whole "JPUSA Awards" thing which was really funny and I was one of the nominees for the H.O.T. (I can't really remember what it stood for. I think H was for Hard Working) Single Girls Award. For that, they put up silly "trying to be hot" pictures up, and mine was the first one. Betty, my roommate got the award =) A lot of these awards were just silly things. There was also a "Person that is going to try to take over the community" award which got won by Chris Aron who's about 10 years old. haha. Some of the awards were serious. I love the fact that the Hills got Best Parents Of The Year award. They are such great people and they are so patient and devoted to their kids. I can't even imagine how hard it must be for them sometimes. They have three kids and all three of them have severe health problems and their oldest is also autistic.
I am also so glad that Ed Bialach got Best Man of the Year award! He does SO much for the community and Cornerstone, it's crazy.
Later on, they had a dating game (which was what we did instead of the movie I really wanted to see). Betty was the girl who had to ask questions to three guys behind the curtain and then pick one, and Lyle was the guy. I was one of the bachelorettes and Lyle picked me. We could hardly hear him when he spoke, so the other two girls didn't really answer his questions, but somehow I would come up with funny answers (though I'm not really good at improvising). It was funny, cuz I was using this very low and scary voice (kind of like an old smoker lady's voice) and pretty much made a fool out of myself AND THEN, when I won I acted like girls act on tv shows when they win and JPUSA's photographer got the whole thing and posted it here. I wish someone would have gotten the whole thing on video.

During the Fest for Us week, other than making a fool out of myself, I also finally moved out of Grace's room on 6th floor and into Bethany's room on 2nd floor and for my Fest For Us work I cleaned and painted every afternoon (and sometimes late at night too). I wish someone had taken a picture of what the room we worked on looked like before we touched it! It was pretty much a mess, with all kinds of stuff all over the place, big piles of debris, splattered old paint on the floor...it pretty much looked like a room you'd find in an abandoned building! And now it's a beautiful art gallery!! Amazing...
Everyone did such a great job at setting up everything for the Fest! It was a lot of fun =)

Ok, so here's the remake of the 80's Resurrection Band music video. I'm the rebellious girl with the crazy outfits and the short black hair (It's a wig). Oh gosh haha


And here's the original. (You can play them at the same time and see how close we got!)

Crazy Weeks

These last weeks have been like an ocean. Sometimes I have calm peaceful waters under blue skies, other times I have gray days with little waves and then suddenly I'll have storms rise up with a lot of rain and huge waves. (That reminds me that I haven't been to the lake in a LONG time...I want to go as soon as I have time off.) It's obvious that Satan is very aware of my growing and dealing with a lot of stuff and so he keeps bringing in me feelings that make me miserable. Fortunately, God is by my side, and so are all my friends, even in moments of weakness when I don't feel like fighting back and just let the waves and wind keep coming. I've been so difficult, I don't know how people can put up with me and I feel so bad about it. But as Hannah said, I don't have to beat myself up for having a ruff time, "we're not just friends who hang out together, we're people who live together and everyone has bad days".

Different people have told me that when I feel like crap, or jealous, when I'm judging people or am mad, I should pray right that moment (not at the end of the day, when I usually do) and I should do something for someone else, that way my attention goes from myself to others.

Passing on to a different subject...
So far, I've missed all the DM and family dinner nights this month which basically means that I've been busy every Thursday evening!
On March 6th I was convinced to go along with Jesse, Cindy, Nate, Michael, Betty, Erica, Hannah, Alana and Donna (Alana's mom) to a casting try out! They were looking for swing dancers to be in the new Johnny Depp movie ‘‘Public Enemies.’’ It's a gang movie set in the 1930s so they wanted us to come dressed up. I was super nervous the whole time cuz I hadn't swing danced in months and my feet were killing me cuz I was walking around in high heels (which I've never done before) and I still have that gross wort under my left foot, but it was a lot of fun anyway! It was crazy how we waited for forever and then each of us danced for only 15 minutes or so! If they call us, we get to be payed extras and we might be able to see Johnny Depp!! =)
After the dance, we all went to Kopi's which is a cute cafe' that a lot of JPUSAs got to. Almost everyone had something good to eat, but I didn't get anything because my stomach felt weird. I then found out that it was because the dress I was wearing (which was Alana's) was too tight on me so Erica unzipped the back for me and I just sat with my back against the wall to hide it. We all laughed at how relieved I was to be able to breath normally and not feel like my stomach was being squished! I can't believe I didn't really notice it before AND that I was able to DANCE in it! haha
Here's a slideshow of pictures from that night....

The next Thursday, March 13, I had to act and dance in one of the Fest for Us videos. It's a remake of an 80's Resurrection band music video. For those who don't know, Rez band was a really big Christian rock band (one of the first) that was formed by ex and present JPUSA members (and leaders). Rez band was actually the first and main mission of JPUSA when it first started out and they were also one of the first bands that my dad toured with in Italy and around Europe.

So anyways, back to the silly remake I was part of....I had to wear crazy 80's clothing and a wig! It was so funny that when I walked around the house with the wig on hardly anyone recognized me!
I was kind of stressed out and in a bad mood while we did the music video (as kind of mentioned in beginning of this post), but it was actually a lot of fun! =)

And now this week, I've been working like crazy for Fest for Us, cleaning and painting the first floor of the Wilson building (building across the street where we usually have our classes and where there are offices for different JPUSA companies) cuz we're turning it into an art gallery!

Tomorrow is the first Fest for Us night and it will go on till Sunday night. I'm excited to see what it's like! =)

I Feel Like Watching Cartoons

Today I'm so exhausted...
and tired
and giggly.
I even fell on my head while doing yoga. I laughed. I cried. Erica and Carolyn tried to stay in the pose and not fall as well while laughing at my craziness.
My head still hurts a little.

I should get back to work....

I'm so happy that I finally got my newsletter sent out! Yayyy! Now I just need to get all the other million things on my You Had To Do This A Long Time Ago list done.

Have a great day and week everyone!!!
Smiles,
Whitney =)

I'm Loving DM!

Wow tonight DM (Discipleship Ministries) was sooo good! It was my group's turn to lead it and we decided to have an "alternative worship time" or whatever you want to call it. We had two people lead worship, two people available for prayer and we had an area with candles, paper and crayons where people could draw. Guess who were the two people leading worship? Me and Brach!!! I was really nervous and didn't think it was a good idea, but when we did it I loved it so much!!! It was great! Both Brach and I sang and he played guitar. In between songs he just played instrumental music and during that time people were free to pray, read scripture or share. During most of the time I felt a great peace and happiness and wasn't self conscience about my voice at all. However, after the second to last song, I prayed out loud and started crying like crazy and for once I wasn't ashamed of it at all! I was able to sing the last song fine, but afterwards I couldn't stop crying!
I'm so glad people like it though! I really liked it, too. In case you hadn't noticed =)

(Oh, and for people that don't know me, I don't like my voice, don't like singing in front of people and I hate crying in front of people, so this was a big thing! =) )

Lessons and Weekends

Sunday was Kriss' birthday (she's my mentor) and after we had our One on One time (which we have every week after church) she invited me to go out with her and her husband to get her present and then to hang out at Starbucks. It was really nice and I was so happy that I got to do that with them cuz I kept telling Kriss that I wanted to do something with her and her husband! Sometimes I feel like Kriss is like my psychologist or something and I hate that...I want us to be friends, I want to get to know her and I want to get to know her husband (we always need to kick him out when we have our meetings so I've never really gotten to know him).
We just finished our Accountability class which I really liked. I have the tendency to find a person that I really connect with and then confide in that one person only and become really close to them. Then, after a while, me and that person slowly "detach" and I find another person to "latch on to". I really don't like it and think that it's really odd...but anyways, in my accountability class, Tom (one of our pastors...most of our Project 12 teachers are actually pastors of JPUSA) told us how we need to be accountable to someone if we want to really change and make sure that we don't fall (or find out that we are falling) and he also said that it's good to have many people that you are accountable to. So now I'm making sure that I'm having more than one person with whom I'm accountable and that these people are different and have different connections to me. I have Kriss, who is my appointed accountable person, I have Becki who's my family head, and I have different people that I've naturally become good friends with.
Sunday and the days after Sunday I was able to talk to these different people about the different things I was going trough lately and now I feel SO much better =)

Another good thing that happened this week was that I got to meet a young couple who just moved into the shelter and who are on the waiting list for JPUSA. They were SUCH a big encouragement to me. With all the drama and craziness that goes on at the shelter and with all the complaints and seeing the condition in which those people have to live, I tend to feel really sorry for those people and feel kind of a burden for them. This couple, however, told me how our shelter is the best shelter they've ever seen. They said that they were at a shelter which many people had told them was the best and that place only has little mats to sleep on in a big room and they make you leave at 8am with all your stuff. Our shelter, instead, has real beds and each person/family has a little bit of privacy (a room or a cubicle) and these people live there. That was really really nice to hear. Also, one day during this week, I was asked to go through the surveys that were given to all the people that live at the shelter and type in a word document what the people had answered to the questions "what would you change about the shelter?" and "what do you like or don't like about the shelter?". Reading the answers to those questions was also uplifting to me. Sure, there were a few people that didn't like the shelter, and some of the single women wrote some crazy stuff (a lot of them have mental problems though), but most of it was positive. It made me smile =)

Today was a really nice day =) It was sunny out and Carolyn, Hannah, Amanda Sue, Betty and I went to Devon Avenue, which is the Indian part of town. The things in the shops were so beautiful and the Avenue smelled really yummy. A few days ago I decided to just say yes to the India trip. It's going to be great, I'm sure!!!
After Devon, we went to a tea and coffee shop where I was finally able to buy a bunch of different good teas!!! I'm so happy!!! =)
Once we got back, Bethany and I made a really good dinner together! The highlight of the feast was the tuna steaks which Bethany found in the donation room yesterday!! They were so good!! After that we watched a total girls movie and had fun.
How nice it is to just relax and have fun during the weekend!!! =)