lovin the UCC

	My Church And this is why I love it... http://www.stillspeaking.com/resources/ejector.mov Enjoy!

UPDATES Grant and I have been in our new apartment for 1 month now. There is still a pile of boxes and crap in the middle of the bedroom. On Saturday night I broke down and started stuffing things into the closet, randomly. See my disorganization, my husband came over and started organizing things in the closet and putting more stuff away. Finally, I succeded at getting him to do something that I wanted him to do. The pile still takes up the same area, but the volume has decreased. Our church had a retreat this weekend at a B&B about 5 miles away from the church. It was a last minute thing so we didn't go to far away since so many people had conflicts. People came and went through out the whole retreat but Grant and I stayed for the whole thing. It was a tough and challenging retreat. I've been feeling without spirit for a while now and this retreat definately didn't help renew my spirit, however, I have a new motivation to do something about my lack of spirit, starting with reading a book called, "the meaning of jesus" by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright. Last week at school was among the best weeks I've had in a very long time. By now the students have self-selected if they want to be students or not. So the good students have remained and have been able to bennefit from my full attention. I got a couple kids transferred out of my 5th period horror class and that has made all the difference about my mood after school. I now see the jewels in that class and they've noticed the difference in me too. Next week will be an anxious one. I've spent the last month almost working with my sophomores to get them ready for the California High School Exit Exam (which happens Tuesday and Wednesday). They have to pass this test to graduate from high school. We want them to pass it on the first try. We want them to take it seriously because it means money for our school. They think they have 5 more chances later, why worry now? For the second time in my life, I might be ordained a deacon. But this is a different church and a different denomination so the word Deacon means something completely different. And for this reason, I'm continually amazed and so very proud to be apart of the United Church of Christ. We are a congregational church and our congregation can define Deacon however it sees fit to its community. I'm so excited that I'm able to be a part of this defining process. Being a part of a church revitalization is just so cool. (side note, the first time I was ordained a deacon was when I was a sophomore in high school at 16 years old in the Presbyterian church, I was the youngest one ever at my home church, a pioneer of sorts, b/c now I think they require at the church that a youth sit on the board of deacons and session). This opportunity to be a deacon is scary too. The pastor said today that she believed that we were the type of people who could take on this responsibility. I have doubts, especially recently. I've been noticing that the people I've been hanging around at my church are older and just know so much more. Everyone in my life group has had at least 12 more years than I've had as an adult to read books and gain knowledge about this world. How does one start to catch up? Will my youth hinder my ability to serve in this capacity? Grant has had some revelations about school lately. You'll have to ask him for details if you're interested. Does anyone out there pray for cars? If so, please pray for my venture. We took it in for service last week to fix a coolant leak and it came home with a transmission problem. It shifts really hard in the first few "gears" around 15-20mph, only when accelerating. It's like a tremor that joults the entire car for a quick moment. We're afraid this is the beginning of the end. How much money will it take for us to finally let the friendly white van go? And what could ever replace it? Who knows of a car that is roomy enough to put two bikes it (mostly assembled), two kayaks on top, can fit tons of camping gear, gets awesome gas mileage, has seats for ~4, and is NOT an SUV? Grant things a Jetta wagon can do most of that. Any thoughts on a Jetta? Grant's B-day was on Wednesday, February 8. Birthday wishes for the 24 year old would be welcomed and appreciated. We're going out on Friday night to celebrate and then we'll probably go away for President's Day weekend to continue celebrating with some fun in the snowy mountains... yosemite? tahoe?