curacao

we're here.
we finally made it to the island and are totally loving it.
some highlights...
we're staying in this hotel that overlooks a beautiful canal. we've been walking around all day in the hot hot heat sweating like crazy only to be cooled by the intense winds coming from every direction. This is probably the windiest (?) island ever. we ate dinner last night at a place called hooks hut that sits right on the beach. We got to put our feet in the water before dinner and after dinner went to an outdoor club on the beach. it was incredible. today we shopped around for a bathing suit. who forgets a bathing suit when going to a beautiful island? I do. we headed over to the curacao distillery today too... got to taste me some liquor...delish.

aisea's chillin upstairs in the room while my bro and i are looking for somewhere to eat dinner.
tomorrow we're moving to the marriott, the nicest hotel on the island. We'll have our own private beach, snorkling right outside our door and some good ol' AC.

until then... or until i get to another internet cafe.

hope

i watched the movie "the fountain" with a couple of friends last week and there's a quote from it that i can't quite get out of my head. the movie deals with this guy seeing death as a disease you can cure and goes around trying to fix death and possibly find the fountain of youth in the process. there's a part where the queen is being threatened by an enemy and while trying to encourage her soldier says this (or something close to this cause i can't find the exact quote.)

"the deepest darkest shadows are always threatened by the morning light."

the movie is confusing and maybe a little too intense for me but this quote hit home. I sometimes find it hard to be hopeful in a hopeless world. A world that has maybe forgotten what hope looks like. I guess i just wish to be a part of that morning light bringing hope to a dark yucky nasty world. Sometimes it feels like the darkness is overpowering and might be too much to handle but i know that the beauty in the dark will never be seen if the light never shines.

that's all.. just an awesome quote in a crazy movie that has changed the way i think and the way i see jesus.

my week.

got my wisdom teeth taken out.
looked like a chipmunk for a week.
forgot what happened this week cause i was drugged up.
hung out a bit with he cobalt season.
got taken care of like a queen by a big strong tongan man.

it was a good week.

goats pigs and fishing lures

My birthday was this last month.

I hear that when you get old you stop celebrating your birthDAY and start celebrating the whole month long. I like this idea and since 24 is older than I've ever been, I decided this would be my first birthMONTH.



The celebration started on one of the best days I've had while I've been here in Santa Monica. Aisea and I headed to the beach for smores, football and a bon fire with our high school kids. A fabulous time. On our way home Aisea told me we had to hurry. We arrived home to some of my closest friends waiting to give me my birthmonth present. I opened three different envelopes each holding something more meaningful than could ever truely fit in an envelope. The first was a goat, the second a pig and the last was a fishing kit. Each of them were given through World Vision from my friends to a family in another country. As soon as I had realized what they all were, I began crying.



You have to understand something. For the last four years during Christmas or my birthday people ask me what i want. This isn't uncommon because you usually get presents on the day you were born.... or the day (not really) Jesus was born. Well, for the last four year i've been asking for a goat or a pig or a fishing kit or SOMETHING through world vision for a family and not myself. To finally have people in my life who understand that about me and know what's really important to me was incredible. i wept as soon as i realized because i never knew when i would get a gift like that.

anyways. it's good to be heard and hopefully i can do a good of a job at listening to my friends as they did for me. thanks family.

back

i'm back
it's been a good break but i'm back.

airborne

we're off. we'll be leaving sydney in a matter of hours. we just got back from watching an opera in the sydney opera house. it was rad. We finished some last minute shopping today and still have the airport for those lastlast minute gifts. we'll be seeing you all soon!!

land

we're back on solid land. It feels so good. We stayed onboard a boat for four days and three nights scuba diving. It was incredible. We saw some real cool stuff... the picture above is of a cuttlefish. That was probably one of the cooler things. It changes color to camoflauge itself into the enviroment. We also saw a ribbon flatworm swimming, white tip reef sharks, turtles, parrotfish, a ray... and on and on. It was beautiful. We're still rocking a bit like we're on the boat. Walking in a straight line has never been so hard.
We'll be here in Cairns for today and tomorrow and then we're off to Sydney. There's lots and lots to do while we're there so that will be heaps of fun. Hopefully I'll get to update you on that while we're there too... Sorry about the no family pictures in australia corie, when we get home we'll post some i'm sure.

miss you all..
christina

here and safe

so we're here. we've been here for a while now but thihs is the first chance we've had some extra time. We've been super busy these last few days. We headed out to a wildlife sanctuary for the day and got to do some amazing things. We watched koalas pertched in branches sleep for days... fed kangaroos as they slept on the ground... and fed a dingo out of our hands. It was incredible. After a long day at the sanctuary we walked to a honey factory and a chocolate factory. This chocolate is all hand made and probably some of the best stuff i've ever had in my life.

Yesterday we traveled through the Tamborine mountains and wine tasted. It was fun and we met some pretty interesting people on our voyage. Today has been great so far. We took Surfing lessons from Michael "Munga" Barry today. He's supposedly a great surfer. We all were able to get up and stay up for at least a while. We're off to bake on the beach for a little bit of a calmer day before tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're gonna drive four hours to rainbow beach, a beach were there's all different colors of sand and then take a ferry to fraiser island. Fraiser island is the largest sand island in the world. We'll probably do some 4 wheeling swimming and... napping on the sand.

We leave the Gold coast on saturday and then it's off to Cairns for some scuba... until then mate!!

australia

I'm headed out to the land down under. I've been there once before so I'm excited to go back and visit. I'm leaving tomorrow with my two older brothers and my dad. We'll be gone for about three weeks and headed to three major cities, Brisbane, Cairns and Sydney. As often as I can, I'll be posting updates of our adventures. We're going to try to do everything from surfing to scuba diving to wine tasting. For right now, I'm gonna try and pack...an adventure in itself.

uganda or bust

i started a new blog for our africa trip. Soon we'll have some new postings with updated progress of our trip. Please be in prayer for this journey as we fight to balance life and planning and life...

here's the address to our africa site

ugandaorbust.blogspot.com

blessings

boat shoes?

i've been going through a war these last few weeks. I decided to give some stuff up for lent and well... it's been hard. Not super hard but hard enough. Even before lent, i told myself i wasn't gonna buy anything for myself until africa. (by the way, we bought our tickets for africa and we're leaving on June 5th!!!) I decided i didn't need anything before africa cause i already have too much. Today, i threw that rule out the window. I bought myself some Sperry Top-Siders. They're these wierd boat shoes that dont scuff up boat decks and are great to keep your feet dry when you're walking on boats. These shoes would be amazing if i walked on boats often or thought i was going to be getting my feet wet everyday. I'm not. They were on just on sale... and bright orange. But it doesn't matter when i dont need them.
Since i can remember, i've felt guilt about almost every single purchase i make. It's always impossible for me to ever justify spending any kind of money on myself. This seems funny because i can go on these crazy shopping binges guilt and all. You would think that guilt would make me return the stuff or give it away or something. Nope. i just hoard more crap. Store it up so that i can use it once a year. It's gross i know. We all do it... which makes it even grosser. Some people tell me i shouldn't feel guilty about every purchase i make. Some probably think i shouldn't buy as much as i do. As for me, i'm always caught in the middle. Torn between a world that doesn't own even one pair of decent shoes and a world that tells me "i deserve it." I dont know if my soul will ever be a peace with buying things for myself... i also dont know how much "i deserve it" when there's people who deserve it so much more.
So i might keep my shoes, i might not.

mono

i have mono. i'm not very excited about it all... my lymph nodes in my neck have been swollen for about a month so i thought my body was just figting some infection. Turns out they were fighting mono. I've never in my life cried when i tried to swollow. I seriously avoid at all costs the need to swollow. They think i have mono AND something else...which explains the ridiculously inflammed tonsils. They are also covered in puss and blood spots. Kinda fascinating while at the same time ... hecka gross.

I guess i just find it funny how God works. Like for a couple of months now there's been some pretty amazing people in my life trying to tell my to slow down. I said i couldn't. I said i had too much to do and too many deadlines. Instead God slows me down a bit with some Mono. By the way, when you have mono, all you really wanna do is sleep and die. Not eat. Not drink. Not play. Not study. Not anything. SLEEP and take advil for your achy body and tonsils. Oh, and sometimes spit.

My work load hasn't lightened.. i'm still super busy but i'm learning how to prioritize. So... fortunatley, sleep has become number one!! yay! Just thought you should know that now, if i dont answer the phone it's cause i'm in bed :)

happy heart day!!

happy valentines day everyone.
i know i haven't blogged here lately. life has been super stressful.
i'm the maid of honor in my best friend's wedding. i'm trying to go to Africa this summer. i'm applying to nursing programs throughout california and possibly arizona. I'm working at a church trying to disciple high school students and teach them how to be followers of jesus. i have an amazing boyfriend who lives way too far away and after spending some good quality time together my heart breaks because i have to leave and not see him for a while again. I have this funny thing with the way my heart beats. the doctors say it's nothing... i sure hope they're right. just watched brokeback mountain... they're good actors those two boys.

i probably wont be posting for a while again. things are crazy.... maybe not even slowing down any time soon either. sorry for being out of touch... i still answer my phone though... well... sometimes i do.

feet

so i think i'm going to africa. i mean i know ive said it a bunch... but this time i think i'm going. someone asked me what i'm gonna do there. i said... love people. That's kinda broad, but we'll see what that looks like when I get there. I talked to the pastor that's gonna work out some details for me, and he showed me a pamphlet of the clinic i might get to work at. I saw the most beautiful little kids on there. So I dont like feet. But i saw this little boy, and he had clubbed feet. I just wanted to kiss his little feet all over the place because they were the most beautiful feet i have ever seen.

i dont know if this africa thing will happen. I pray it does though. I hope i fight for it with everything in me. there's this song, it's amazing... and it says this

may your heart break enough, that compassion enters in
may your strength all be spent upon the weak...
may your weakness be your only sense of pride...
and when you look upon the broken may mercy show you what you could not see...
may your passions be tried and tested in the holy fire
may you fight with all your life for what is true

be blessed friends... and may you fight hard for what you know is true

cafe'

a friend of mine told me i should post again. so here goes. Right now i've been wrestling mostly with the idea of fair trade coffee... along with child labor.

my good friend recently got a job at starbucks. Actually, a have a few friends that work at starbucks. Now i started hearing rumors about Starbucks not providing fair trade coffee and so i decided to look up on it. I read that to be fair trade certified, you have to be a small scale coffee grower. Well, starbucks doesn't purchase much from small scale growers because they're so enormous. So if you go into a starbucks you'll only see one out of the 39 different coffees being fair trade. Anwyays, i still am not convinced that starbucks is supportive of paying fair wages for their coffee all around. I mean that's what they advertise... but i just dont really believe it. ALSO...Supposedly each startbucks is supposed to brew fair trade coffee once a week as the coffee of the day. I never see that happening. You're also supposed to have the option of having fair trade coffee even if they aren't brewing it. That means the employee is supposed to french press the coffee for you. According to some website, most of the employees are super annoyed when you do that... so if anyone goes to a starbucks and is just getting coffee, you should ask for it. maybe just for kicks, maybe to see the importance of fair trade coffee within our local coffee shops.

just a bunch of random thoughts i guess.. as soon as i learn more, i'll tell you more. as for now, annoy a starbucks employee by asking for fair trade coffee... support a mom and pop coffee grower trying to get by in columbia... be educated on fair trade coffee.

blessings

life...

got back from the conference.... still feeling a bit wierd.

the sox lost it in the playoffs.... that was the most stressfull game i've ever watched... and then i was depressed after.

school is still kicking my butt... two tests on thursday... one more on monday.

on a high note.... my best friend just got engaged and we're going wedding dress shopping this saturday.

that's all

good night.

life...

got back from the conference.... still feeling a bit wierd.

the sox lost it in the playoffs.... that was the most stressfull game i've ever watched... and then i was depressed after.

school is still kicking my butt... two tests on thursday... one more on monday.

on a high note.... my best friend just got engaged and we're going wedding dress shopping this saturday.

that's all

good night.

...

i'm going away this weekend. i'm going to be filled and refreshed and to let go. i'm going to discover and learn and grow and wrestle. Hopefully my passion doesn't get the best of me... but then again, when it does, life is a bit more exciting. i'm going away to Sacramento to a youth specialties conference. They're gonna teach me how to be a better communicator and teacher and friend. i'm stoked.

also... a friend told me this quote. i guess it's in a nike football commercial or something... but i love it...

"the man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can't, are both right. which one are you?"

so i like it and thought i would share it... oh and the red sox are playing the yankees on friday saturday and sunday... GO BOSTON!!!

blah

you ever been so busy that you're empty? working so hard to get stuff done that you can't focus on one single thing instead your whole life is a big "blah"?

i'm sick. not enough sleep and lots to do gets you real sick. not sure i like it. maybe God's way of telling me to slow down. maybe my body's way of telling me it's mad at me. maybe an excuse to miss my micro lab. that's what it was today. i'm not really excited about it though cause i have a super fun weekend coming up. i dont wanna miss out cause i'm sick. But my usual way of dealing with things like this is the "you'll be fine, you just gotta sweat it out and suck it up and move on" idea. this concept doesn't work so good when your sick.

on a side note. talking about humilty and remembering tomorrow night ... kinda getting excited about it :)

totally out of control

Are we so great a nation that we should only concider ourselves? Are we so freaking proud that humility doesn't matter? Now, i had quite an interesting weekend. I was with a friend, Chantelle and we were hanging out with some old high school friends. Now old like i haven't seen or talked to them since we graduated and some of them i went to elementary school with. One "old friend" asked me what i was doing with my life. Now... i honestly dont know. But i do know that eventually, some things will happen. So i mentioned one of them. I said, "Well, i'm doing some school stuff so that i can eventually be a nurse and go to africa for a while." A " Not Old friend" (i just met him that night)interrupted with a very sarcastic "Why?" I dont expect people to understand. I dont even fully understand to tell you the truth. God has placed Africa deep in my heart and i cant run from it. Now someone asked me this weekend what i'm passionate about. I said people. That's true. I love people. I adore them. I think i love poor people more though. I think i love the people that are unloved within our american nation. anyways, back to the story. The "not so old" friend then proceeded to tell me that people like africans choose to live that way. They choose to be poor. Now, i've never wanted to punch anyone...untill this night. I didn't know what to do with myself. SO i lost it. My voice rose and i asked him if he would like to be born into a family of five children, only to have your parents die so you cant get an education cause you're taking care of your younger brothers and sisters by working in th fields tyring to grow crops that wont grow cause there's a drought and no fertilizer and america isn't doing much to fix it. I asked him if he's like to be a mother of a family that had her youngest baby so malnourished that you can't even get him to eat anymore so you have to force feed them through a tube in they're nose...only to get that tube and that food you have to walk miles and miles in the blistering sun in order to find a place that will give your baby food so he wont die, meanwhile worrying about your children and if they're safe from the lord's resistance army who really just want to kill or kidnap your children and brainwash them to kill people so they can overthrow the government. He didn't like that so much. He left and went to bed.

i didn't control myself. I wasn't very gentle. He tried to sound like he knew what he was talking about but well... i just dont think he does. He's a super lucky guy that's white and who was born and raised in suberbia america. How would he know what it means to suffer? How would he know what it means to truely be hungry? How do i even know? So i lost it. Sorry everyone. Once again my passion got the best of me. I'm working on it though, really trying to at least.

On a side note, Powerhouse raised $1036 for Niger's famine relief. I love high school students and that they are learning what it means to love and give and sacrifice. Be blessed people.