A Time Of Friendship And Fun

Wow, so many things have happened in the last week! It's crazy.

Wednesday night I went to the high school play which was a lot of fun. I love our high schoolers! They performed "A Murder Is Announced" by Agatha Christie. Here are a few pictures that you can click on to see better. I loved Alana's costumes (she's the one in the red costumes and the green costume)!


Thursday night I hung out with Betty, a friend of ours who goes to Moody Collage who lived at JPUSA last summer, and a friend of hers that goes to school with her. It was so nice to go out! I hadn't really hung out outside of the house for a while and the weather was GREAT!! I got so excited about the warmth (50/65 degrees F, which is actually 10/18 degrees C) and thought that Spring was finally here!

Friday I went to the South Side with two ladies that live at JPUSA. We went to see Maya Angelou at the Warnes' (my friend Michael's family) church and sat with Claire and Karen (Michael's sister and mother). I couldn't believe how old and fragile-looking Maya Angelou is, but although she had to sit because of her bad knees, the way she spoke and the things she said showed how strong of a woman she is! It was great!

Sunday....Well, first off, it snowed! And I don't mean just light fluffy snow slowly floating from the sky, I mean A LOT of crazy snow falling and blowing all over the place! It looked really beautiful, but unfortunately, my roommate and a few other people in the community had to run a 5 mile race in it downtown!
I, however, got to stay inside all day and have a very relaxing and nice day. =)
Church was good. Neil preached and I always love it when he preaches. He talked about a lot of things that I've heard before, but that were so refreshing to hear again. He talked about how being in community (in an intentional community like ours, in a church, in your family, etc.) you learn a lot about yourself and realize that dealing with others isn't always easy and that, most of the time, the main problem in community is actually yourself! That's why grace and forgiveness need to be at the core of community. Being Christians means to fallow Jesus, and the main thing Jesus did was to forgive others (including us!), so we need to do the same. Neil also said that we need to have more pic-nics, 'cause they're good for community =)
(A lot of what he preached actually comes from Jean Vanier's "Community And Growth", which he teaches a class on. It's a really good book!)
Sunday afternoon I also got to see the movie Mirror Mask for the first time and enjoyed it. It's really weird and creative and it really does make you feel like you're in a dream.

Finally, on Monday (yesterday), Carolyn and I (with Hannah's help, too) organized a Princess Party for all the single women in the house! We made all kinds of fun mini food for it! We made mini queches, little cucumber sandwiches, mini cranberry and walnut tarts, mini scones, mini pizzas, and mini cupcakes! We also had a variety of teas and Carolyn made some kind of drink with ginger ale and cranberry juice. And of course we all dressed up like princesses! It was all a lot of fun!
In between our party, we had to stop and go downstairs to the community's Women's Gathering which was SO GOOD! The worship was just fantastic and then Dawn Mortimer (the "founding mother" of JPUSA) spoke a little.
Then, once the meeting was over, all us princesses went back upstairs and watched Enchanted, which, if you haven't seen it, is a really fun movie that you should watch.
Here are a few pictures from last night...Enjoy! =)

Oh Boy...

Please pray for me. Every once in a while I have a really hard time with my job. There are a lot of people (including all of my closest friends) that live in the community that love their jobs...I'm definitely not one of those people. In fact, my feelings towards my job are the exact opposite.
I am so bad at being patient. Certain people are just so good at getting under my skin and drive me nuts...and most of them aren't even trying to! Unfortunately, there are a number of these people that work and live at the shelter. I understand that I need to get over it since I'm going to find people like this all my life, unless I decide to become a hermit, which is highly unlikely to happen....but it's so hard!!!
Right now I have this annoyance that I can feel in my gut like a big knot and I have all kinds of nasty words going threw my head that I could say out loud, but that I'm being good at keeping to myself, and I'm just ignoring the person as much as I can and concentrating on my work.
Ugh. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I didn't go home for lunch. Most of the people that work here stay in the office for lunch, but I always go home every day 'cause I know that I'll go crazy if I stay. Well, today, one of my co-workers decided that we should all have fried rice and went to the Chinese restaurant around the corner to bring some back for us, so I stayed. Bad idea.
Breathe Whitney, just breathe.
Lord, help me with my impatience and my inability to cope with stress!

Pigeon Men In Baghdad

I Felt Terrible

Last night, Hannah and I decided to leave the St. Patrick's day party early (9:30) to go to our room and read the first chapters of The Magician's Nephew.
When we got to our room, however, we somehow (I can't remember) started "fighting" in a joking way and Hannah then said that she needed to take a shower. The last part of "our fight" went something like this:
Hannah opened the door to our bathroom and my clothes were still hanging above the bathtub (I grew up in Europe, I don't use driers), so after asking me if it was ok for her to hand them to me, she grabbed them, flung them at me and yelled "Here!!! Why do you always have your stuff in MY bathroom!!??!!"
"It's my bathroom, too!!!", I yelled.
"NO IT'S NOT!".
"Yes it IS!!"
"NO!"
"Well, then where am I supposed to go to the bathroom?!?! IN THE GUEST BED?!!"
"Do whatever you want!! Just don't use my bathroom!!"
"Well, that will make our room smell!!"
"Well, then do it out the window!!", she said.
"I'LL JUMP OUT THE WINDOW!"
"FINE!"
"And I'll leave a note for all the coordinators saying that it was YOUR FAULT!!"
Hannah then closed the bathroom door, but then opened it again, giggled, and slammed it. We both started laughing. I then said "I'm going to go out in the hall way and make sure that no one heard us, and if they did, I'll let them know we were just joking". Hannah laughed at me saying that no one heard us and that I was being silly. I did it anyway, but no one in the hall way had heard us.
So Hannah took her shower and I read some of my book and then we got a knock on the door. After making sure that Hannah was holding the bathroom door (we don't have a door knob on our bathroom door, so if someone opens our door, the bathroom opens), I opened the door to find Cindy (a friend of ours who lives a few rooms down the hall way) with a worried look on her face. She asked me if we were alright. It took me a second to get what she was talking about and then I started to laugh. I stopped, however, when she told me that her and her husband were downstairs at the party when they got a phone call from Kolya (their 9 year old daughter who shares a bathroom with us) crying, saying that she heard "Hannah and Whitney fighting, yelling at each other and slamming the door" and heard "Whitney say she was going to jump out the window" and wanted her mom to come up. So Cindy and Eric came up and Cindy said she would go and check on us while Eric would talk to Kolya and calm her down. I felt so bad! I immediately ran to the Clayton's room where Kolya was sitting in tears with her father on their couch. I hugged her and told her we were just joking around and told her I was so sorry and soon after Hannah came running in, too, saying the same things.
We all started to laugh about it, but I still felt terrible!
I mean, imagine you're a little 9 year old girl, laying in your bed, about to fall asleep, and you hear these two older girls who you really love and look up to, who are friends with your parents, have babysat you, and share a bathroom with you, fighting, yelling at each other, slamming doors and you hear one of them say that she's going to jump out the window!!
But, that's life in our community! You have to be careful about everything, cause it's really easy for people to hear, see, or find out all kinds of stuff (and, a lot of times, get the wrong idea). Of course, you can't be paranoid about it (which I was the first 5 or 6 months I lived here), just have to be careful, especially around the children.
Kolya usually can't hear what we say or do in our room 'cause when she goes to sleep she is OUT. I mean, all kinds of stuff could go on and she probably wouldn't wake up! Last night, however, she got to bed late, so, for once, she heard our craziness and thought we were serious. I'm glad she called her parents, though, so that we could sort things out with her =)




Here's a picture of the Claytons (Cindy, Kolya, Eric, and Drexel).







P.S. We did, in the end, get to read the first three chapters of The Magician's Nephew, before going to bed, and LOVED IT! I guess my mom read it to me when I was little, but I don't remember it. The only Narnia books that I remember my mom reading to us are The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader....But I'm pretty sure we read the others, too and I just don't remember them.

Music

Here's a short article I just read on BBC NEWS that I really liked:

Making Music

Can a simple idea help make the world a better place? Each week we ask a guest to outline an idea to improve all our lives. Here, neuroscientist Gregory Berns believes everyone should learn to play music.

When I say make music, that means sing, play an instrument, or simply bang out a rhythm by whatever means that are available to you.

I do not mean computer games like Guitar Hero.

It doesn't matter whether you have talent or if you think you're tone deaf - the simple act of producing a rhythmic or harmonious statement, teaches us skills that so often fall by the wayside in modern life.

I think it's a shame that we take music for granted now, perhaps it is because music is so ubiquitous. But I see music as something to celebrate humanity.

I see it as something every man, woman and child should do on a daily basis.

Apart from developing communication skills, making music helps us to listen to each other.

It is impossible to make music with other people without listening to your fellow musicians.

Making music also develops motor skills. It develops parts of the brain that would otherwise not be used - and most importantly - it feels good.

Gregory Berns is the Director of the Centre for Neuropolicy at Emory University in Atlanta, USA.

By the way, Andrew and Amanda Sue's wedding was beautiful! I'm glad I wasn't too sick and therefore got to go and stay for most of the reception afterward!

I'm finally feeling better today! Yay! I really hope this is IT and that I won't get the flu anymore this year!

Today the weather is so great! It's sunny and blue outside and it's 60+ degrees!!!

Tonight, JPUSA is having an all-ages St. Patrick Day party, with treats, teas, The Crossing playing, and more! I'm sure it will be fun =)

Sick, AGAIN?

Ok, so, the first 15 months I lived here I only got the flu once (and it was terrible!). This year, so far, I've gotten the flu once a month! I had it for a weekend in January, then for a week two weeks later in February, and now, a month later, I'm sick again! Ugh.
Last time I got REALLY sick and it was Max and Melissa's wedding (Feb 14) which made me really annoyed (though I did go to the ceremony anyway even though I had a really high fever). And today is Amanda Sue and Andrew's wedding! Thankfully, I'm not as sick as last time, though I did throw up a lot last night... I'm hoping that I only have food poisoning so that it goes away soon, but there is some kind of stomach flu going on around the house again (even Andrew, the groom has it, poor guy!)...
Anyways, I hope I feel better for later today...At 4pm I'm supposed to help set up the room where Amanda Sue is going to hang out with her female relatives, have brownies and tea, get her dress on, and do her hair. And then I need to be there (along with the other ladies that set up) while she's in there just to make sure everything goes well and get stuff for them if they need anything. And then at 7pm is the wedding!

JPUSA weddings are really special, 'cause they have everyone helping out, and they decorate the Garden Room (the room where we have church and parties and stuff) so wonderfully for the reception (and it's always a big surprise for the married couple)! Every wedding they decorate it completely different, according to what the bride and groom are like. For one wedding they decorated it to resemble a dream that the bride had had and we had bunnies and cup cakes all over the place and the wedding cake was a giant cupcake! And for Erica and Josh's wedding they decorated the room with an Indian kind of style had a Taj Mahal made of ginger bread!
For this wedding, which the bride and groom want really simple, it looks like they are going to be hanging paper chains made out of pages from books, and earth toned colored paper, all around the room. I hope they were able to make all of them all right. (I had said that I was going to help them last night, but when I got there I started feeling really nauseous, so I had to leave)

Well, anyways, I didn't want to blab about me being sick.... I wanted to share with you another excerpt from Walter Wangerin Jr.'s "Reliving the Passion."
In this chapter, Wangerin is talking about Mark 14:26-31, when Jesus told his disciples that they would all fall away and Peter said to him, "Even though they all fall away, I will not." The author says that so many of us are like Peter; we think we're better than others 'cause we do good deeds, we pray, we fast, we do all that He wants us to do, there's no way we would ever deny Christ!
And yet, we need to realize this, "Peter, Peter, Christian! Soon, in pain, you will discover that it's not your love, not your goodness or knowledge or prayer, no, not all your strength that keeps us together. I do that. I alone, your Lord, do that."
I really like that.

Have a great weekend everyone!