Intro + Part 1 = I'm tired of writing.

Ok, fine. You got me. It's been __ weeks since my last post. And, as one might guess, a ton has happened. So much so, that I've dreaded writing because SOME OF YOU decided to move overseas and I can't tell you personally about everything that has happened and you're really the only one who is clueless at this point. A lot of work for 2 people....(cough-jess and mike-cough)

But since I love you and miss you (man, do I miss you), I'll write you a freakin' blog. 3 part series, like I suggested a few days ago. I even thought about what my 'parts' would consist of. And, just like me, I forgot. Sooo here goes on-the-fly thinking.

Part 1: Serious Chiner.

Part 2: Funny Stories Chiner.

Part 3: Post Chiner.

Thus begins my story.

China was pretty awesome, but probably in a different way than you think and one that I really can't explain. It was really sweet to see a completely different country than I have never experienced in any fashion before, but I'm not sure what my true feelings toward China are. The best way to describe it, at this point, is that awkward place when a guy and girl are maybe thinking about a possible relationship but they're just not sure if they're ready or if their heart is truly in it. Funny, I've been back 2 weeks and couldn't figure out where I was, but that's a pretty accurate description...

So anyway, in case I didn't tell you (and I don't care to bother to look at previous posts to make sure), we hosted Christmas parties the first week and shared Jesus with over 500 university students that week alone (INSANE!). The following week and a half was spent doing follow-ups with those who seemed interested in knowing more.

Nearly the entire trip was g0-g0-GO! which was really good; God blessed us abundantly with the energy needed to build a lot of relationships and hold out patience for the communication barriers. Surprisingly, our last party was just as energetic as our first, and that is ONLY by God's grace.

At one point, I was able to share a part of the gospel using a few Chinese words I had learned; I loved how their eyes lit up when I (attempted to) use Chinese! Granted, it may have been because I had tried to use their language, but I know that greater work is done in their hearts when you use their heart language to speak truth to them.

The biggest lessons I learned while in China didn't come through interactions with the Chinese people or even through China itself; it came through realizing my own shortcomings and dealing with the sin issues that resulted.

On this trip, I lost a lot of possessions; it seriously seemed like every other day, I either lost something, or would have lost it if it hadn't been for team members saying, "Danielle, do you have your hat? Gloves? Bag?" I swear, I'm not that irresponsible! (But see?! Even there, you can kind of see what sin issue I have...[yes, the ONLY one ;) ]) The climax came when I reached into my bag and realized that I had lost my portion of the trip money. Oh my word, I just wanted to collapse and cry. How could I, the ACCOUNTANT, lose money?! My team was amazing and said nothing of it. "Danielle, really, it's ok! It's better the money than you. Don't think anything of it." But no consequences? No punishment of having lost so much already and then losing the money?! I couldn't accept that, so I punished myself by consistently guilting and beating myself up. Go figure, team unity wasn't too strong at that point. But God laid it on thick the next morning during personal time.

1 Peter 5:5-7 "Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

Thank you, Jesus. My teammates were extending grace toward me and wanting me to be free of the guilt, but my pride wouldn't allow it! Dang, it's one of those sin issues that, if you think you don't have it, you do. And just to drive the point home, God gave me this one the next day:

Philippians 2:3 "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."

Touche. I considered myself better than my teammates because I was the co-leader, and the oldest at that! I am better than that. I'm above losing things, like some 5 year old. Ahh, but then, there's that nasty haughty spirit, another facet of pride. Darn you, Satan!

So yeah, lesson learned. "Thanks, God! I'll be on my way..." Nope, He had more plans and lessons on humility. More on that in part 3 though. (Gotta have the draw! Ya know?)

I also learned more about what ministry I'm suited toward as well. (This is it, I promise. I know long blogs are hard. :( ) I adored Kosova and really am indifferent to China; in Kosova, I did more philanthropic work and manual labor whereas in China, it was ALL evangelistic. Makes sense if you look at my list and ratings of spiritual gifts; serving/helping hands is at the top of my list and evangelism is quite low.

In the past, I've struggled to reconcile the fact that if, Lord willing, I go overseas for missions work, that I'd be in an office doing accounting; it seems to me that if I'm a true missionary or working in missions, what I'm doing should be hard or it doesn't count. But God equips us with different gifts for a reason; we can't all be evangelists or accountants or technicians or teachers. Evangelism is definitely not my area of skill; I felt like regardless of how many times I practiced sharing (remember... the gospel was shared with 500 people. Lots of practice.), something just wasn't clicking in their minds and I wasn't being effective. That's ok though; God can use anything, and I'm only responsible for planting the seed, not forcing it's growth. Wherever I go and whatever I do, I'll share. But it's comforting to see, with finality, that it's ok to be an accountant.

(lol, that last sentence just sounds ridiculous.)

Stay tuned for part 2

I've officially completed my last exam, all my papers are turned in, no more assignments....

This can only mean I'm ready to graduate! Wooo! Now I can REALLY sing, "no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty look" and MEAN it!

And then it hit me. Like, 2 minutes ago. (And the first thing I did was come here to tell you!)

I'm done. I'm not a student anymore. It's been a part of my identity for the past EIGHTEEN years. And now, under "occupation" on applications, I'll be forced to write something other than "student". Currently, that's "unemployed".

After this realization and before I finished typing the blog, I went to the kitchen to cut onions and cried. The tears were because of the onions, of course - not because I'm sad to be done.

(yeah, my roommate didn't believe me either.)

insert Flight of the Conchords:

I'm not crying...It's just been raining... on my faccce

I'm not crying... I've just been cutting onions... I'm making a la-san-gaaaa

For your information there's an inflammation in my tear glad

My eyes are just a little sweaty today

I don't know what I should be feeling now: disappointment or embarassment

I've always held the position that drinking isn't all it's cracked up to be. I wasn't ever curious to know what it was like, and consequently, didn't have my first drink until I was 22.

So what did I do for my 21st birthday instead of going out to the bars? I went to the gas station and bought scratch and play tickets.

I just realized today that you only had to be 18 to buy those tickets.

I explained to the cashier why I was buying the tickets - to celebrate that I finally could. The odd look she gave me explains so much now...

I think someone's confused...

New Huffy Disney Princess Bike Commercial:

Girl 1: "Where's the prince?!"

Girl 2: "He's stranded in the castle! We have to save him!"

Both, throwing fists into the air: "Princess to the rescue!!"

Enter heroic music: Girls save Prince Teddy Bear

Girl 1: "The prince is safe now!"

Both: "Time for another adventure!"

At what point did princesses begin saving princes? And since when did princes start getting stranded in the castle and unable to get out? Are our princes so oppressed by princess-led feminist revivals that they can no longer defend themselves? Or do our princesses feel that they cannot trust their princes to take care of themselves?

I'm just kind of in awe of the whole thing. Never before has a commercial gotten me to think so long after it aired. (Currently, probably 4 hours ago) Don't the Huffy marketers know that the prince saves the princess, not usually the other way around? Or are they picking up on some trend in society that the woman needs to 'save' the man and are subliminally teaching 'our' children this? (I say subliminal because the two people I showed this to didn't even notice the dialog behind the advertisement)

Putting 'prince saving' behind, I would think that the background music would match more of a princess theme, not 'knights storming the castle' theme. So at the end of the commercial, when the announcer says, "With Disney Princess bikes, every girl's a princess!", I fully expect to hear "hero" instead of "princess", based off the music.

Maybe I'm going too far with this. Maybe I need to actually put my thinking behind the multitude of assignments and exams that I DIDN'T do this past week. But this commercial thoroughly bothers me. Gender remodeling at it's finest.

(To see the commercial: http://www.huffy.com/Default.aspx and click on "see our new commercial" at the bottom left)

Aw, man. I suck at being funny on purpose.

There's really no reason to tell you this, other than the fact that it's true. I've seriously contemplated blogging several times the past few weeks, but all I've got is a few updates that could be accomplished in a few sentences. Nothing amusNO WAIT!

Since it was the Friday before Thanksgiving Break and my student teacher for recitation knew that no one was going to show up, we watched a History channel special on "The Black Plague!" It started out talking about how nasty the plague was and how you could catch it even if someone breathed on you if they had it. (Thank goodness, you don't catch the plague from people just breathing on you even if they don't have it....although when raunchy breath is involved, sometimes you feel like you could) Oddly enough, some people survived for no apparent reason; they just had this crazy immunity to the disease.

enter Danielle's amazing ability to sleep anywhere at any time....

I wake up half an hour into class to deep thumping music and gyrations on the screen. Um....gross. Somehow they made a segue-way from The Black Plague to the AIDS virus... And now I'm thoroughly awkwarded out. Turns out some people, no matter what "risky" behavior they've involved with, cannot catch the AIDS virus. Ah, there's the connect.

Unfortunately for me, after that class, I just felt weird all day. Nothing like waking up from a nap to male gyrations and retro photos of men lounging pool-side. ~shudders~

Now for the update:

• I'm cool if God moves me to Denison. I'll still have my connect to Cornerstone, and who could complain about that?
• I'm packing my apartment. It's slow-going, but not because there's so much. It's because there's almost nothing to pack and it just feels weird seeing everything...empty.
• I'M GOING TO CHINA.
• 3 weeks of school. And then I will no longer hold the status that I have clung to (exaggeration) for the past 18 years. When asked for my occupation, I'll actually have to put an occupation. What will I choose?! There's just so many....
• Speaking of which, I've only applied for one job and it's not looking promising that there will be any others. So here's to praying I get the job? (By the by, I did get a second interview. December 2nd. Pray. for. me.)
• I'M STILL GOING TO CHINA.
• I got new glasses. Way excited. :D
• Still LOVING this November weather. Screw snow.

Yep, that's pretty much it. See you in 3 weeks.

allow me to be vulnerable... and lengthy

I'm terrified into oblivion. And it makes me cry, but not the "weeping and sobbing" kind, just the "single tear that rolls down your face" kind. Much more mature.

Rest assured, I'll probably be ok tomorrow. Or in an hour, after I've read me some Jesus.

What am I terrified of?

Not being happy.

I'm paralyzed into indecision because I'm afraid that if I take the job (that, by the way, hasn't even been offered to me yet. yeesh! I'm ridiculous...) and move to Denison, away from my amazing church and close friends and all the support anyone could ever need, I'll fall apart into a small pile of lonely, unhappy Danielle-crumbles.

I desperately need people, like I need food and water and sleep. I become a very crabby mess if left by myself for a day or two.

This isn't to say that Denison is inhabited by antisocial aliens, plotting to ostracize me in response to my coming and disturbing their peace. I know that people are there and maybe even a few Christians.

But I'm afraid. What if there aren't people in my demographic? (20-something, fresh out of college, taking the world by force [clearly me]) What if I find that no one can relate to me? What if there isn't a Cornerstone Church there? (ironically, there is. But I bet you anything, it's not my Cornerstone Church)

Or even scarier... what if this is all just a disguise for me not wanting to trust God in this area?

The tears that are welling up say I may have hit the nail on the head.

I don't think that it's that I don't WANT to trust. It's that I've become comfortable where I am, and just like anyone else, I'm uneasy when it comes change, especially the radical variety. Things will be much different. Things will be much harder. (more sniffles) But God can still challenge me and grow me and love me, even 2 hours and 29 minutes away from the body of Christ I've become a part of.

Have you noticed that I keep referring to a certain church? Mom dropped me in our wrestling match (metaphorically speaking) when she said, "You need to start worshipping God and stop worshipping Cornerstone Church." Sucker-punch. More introspection.

I had, essentially, rejected everything else she had said up to that point (because she just doesn't understand [rolls eyes now]), but this.... this made me stop and think. Am I really 'worshipping' Cornerstone and not God? The fact that I fell prostrate on my face during worship and wept uncontrollably (man, this post is making me look weak!!!) tells me differently. But then again, any time I refer to what God's doing, it's in reference to a group affiliated with Cornerstone or Cornerstone itself. Oh, I know it's all from God. But I tend to mention the church more than the true source.

That begs the question... If I claim to know it's all coming from God, couldn't those same things be happening in Denison? Assuming of course, that God is in Denison. By resisting the move because God's moving in Cornerstone and I'm a part of that, implying that I wouldn't be used in Denison like I am here, am I putting God in a box? (That, by the way, was not what my mom told me last week... [clears throat loudly])

Clearly, I have issues. And answers.

So I'll give Denison a chance. Who knows, just maybe, God will push me out of my comfort zone to share the gospel with all those unbelieving Denisonians.

And how bad can a town be that has an open burning of all their leftover pumpkins from Halloween?

Ever get excited about something and forget about it the moment someone/something distracts you?

All the time.

My frozen pizza has been sitting on TOP of the stove for half an hour 'cooking'. Yay me. :) I don't even remember what distracted me...

I know I do this frequently though. I'll think to myself, "Ok, I've GOT to get this done today! As soon as I get home, I'm going to make that phone call/finish that paper/reply to that email!" And then I'll get home and all I can think about is those wonderfully soft warm blankets calling my name. (cause it's so cold here...[sarcasm]). Phone calls/emails/papers are forfeited for ... man, I don't even know. I just forget.

I should probably call the next time they have those infomercials for My Lil Reminder.