The Nut Cart

So this week I have the greatest privilege of working all by myself on the nut cart.  The Nut Cart ONLY sales cinnamon glazed almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, ohh and mixed nuts; point is that the job is not that strenuous.  To make matters even more enjoyable is the fact that this nut cart is broken so I don't even have to make the nuts! So for about six hours I stand by myself with maybe ten customers! (maybe you can sense the sarcasm of how enjoyable this job really is) 

First Day on the Cart:

Going into work knowing that I was going be on the Nut Cart I had the best attitude, thinking "oh this won't be bad I will just be able to enjoy having solitude with God!" Well I found out that I didn't really know how to open the nut cart so some of the production workers came and helped me, the only thing is that they can't really speak english and I can't really speak spanish..you can guess how that went.  We each had to make two trips back to the main Marini's store! I thought to myself "rough start but its okay it will only get better"

Little did I know my day was just going to get worse, I had NO customers so I did NOTHING.  I started people watching and that was fun until the devil got a hold of my thoughts, I began to judge everyone and anyone who walked by.  Comparing myself to them and normally making myself look better then them.  Around 1:00 I was getting really frustrated that I was judging but I couldn't stop and on top of that I still had not had my break.  By this point I thought all shots were broken for having a good day.  

I finally got a break around 2:00 and they said they had forgotten about me, which made me pretty sad.  So I knew this day wasn't going to get better unless my attitude changed, I talked with Tom, who God uses so much in my life to encourage me and help me bring the focus back to Him!  I knew the devil was still going to tempt me to judge, but I talked to my friend Jill about it and she gave me a great idea to memorize a verse so that when I catch myself judging I can refer back to it! After getting some food and going back to work I began to see that I had no reason to complain. I had the most amazing view of the beach right behind me, I had a job in an economy where jobs didn't come by so easy, and the best thing was that God was so evident in my life and that He was/is holding me in His hands!  

"There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you-who are you to judge your neighbor?" James 4:12

The Dream - chapter seven

After much discussion about what was to be done next, they realized that what was truly important lay ahead. Facing forward they saw the giant mountain completely coverying the sky. It appeared as if there was a statue on the side of the mountain or some kind of writing. They couldn't make out the whole figure from the beach so they decided to go to the water and get the perspective from on the boat. After replenishing their supply of food from what they could manage to take back to the boat in the dingy they sped off to their yacht over the suprisingly calm waters. Once aboard they perched themself on the stern of their boat and saw what seemed to be an arrow. An unordinary trailmark! By taking a step of faith they began to follow it in hopes that the direction eventually would bring them to Hawaii. Upon leaving they prepared to make way and head off to the horizon. They immediately started to get their bearings and started planning for their arrival at Hawaii. The sun having set painted a twilight sky filled with soothing dark colors that glimmered with the stars. In the morning, they would be closer and closer to their destination. And with that in sight, they knew nothing could stop them.

Day of Outreach

So here I am all the way across the country in Santa Cruz! I've been here for about three weeks and we have already seen God working in the city.  Every saturday night we are going to have some sort of outreach, last week I'm not going to lie I dreaded it and I felt that I wasn't cut out to do this kind of ministry.  As the day progressed today I started feeling this same dread and it showed on my emotions.  At the beginning of our outreach we were assigned to different parts of Santa Cruz and I said to myself  "as long as I'm not assigned to stay at the peter pan I will enjoy this experience." Well God must have been laughing at me because I was assigned to the peter pan area.  I felt like I could cry, I truly did not want to be there, little did I know that God was going to use me.  So I knew that this night was going to be miserable if I didn't suck it up.  So Casey, one of the guys that was in my group, and I began to pray together, and as I prayed I just prayed that the Lord would fill me with His joy, knowing I would not be able to be joyful on my own.  Right after that I just felt like this burden I was holding onto was lifted, and this might sound ridiculous or crazy, but I knew that my prayer had been answered, the Lord had filled me with His joy!  Our group prayed some more then we began to ask people walking by if they wanted to do a survey (we were using soularium) most turned us down.  But a group of about five people came by, the first thing out of one of the guys mouth was I want to take the survey if you don't mind that I'm high haha, so lets just say that it was an experience, but I just pray that they saw Christ through us.  So Brian and I decided to go to the other side of the road to try and engage in conversation with those people.  Well we meet this guy named Eridmus (not really sure how to spell opps) and I started to go through soularium with him, he didn't really catch what he was supposed to do so I just jumped ahead to the third question and asked what picture represent God to you? He said "what is this God you're talking about." WOW I was so taken back, right then I knew (I'm sure Brian did too) God put us right there to talk to Eridmus and share with him about our great God.  I pulled out the KGP booklet and together Brian and I went through it, sharing parts of our testimony and really showing Eridmus how much joy we had in our relationship for Christ.  Eridmus seemed to be really taking in what the Lord had to say through us! At the end he still had many questions so we knew he wasn't ready to accept Christ into his life, but we knew this wasn't the end of how God was going to work in his life.  So we got his contact information and invited him to dinner at the pan!  This night was so awesome, so many times we are so frustrated to share our faith seeing no results but we have to trust that God is using us to planting seeds in peoples lives.  "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow." 1 Corinthians 3:6-7

The Dream - chapter six

The saw the land quickly approaching, the wind helping them gain speed and their anticipation intensified. They searched and searched for a dock, thinking they had merely landed on the side of the Hawaiin island Oaho that was uncivilized. After about an hour, they suddenly realized that things started looking all too familiar. "This doesn't make sense", said the boy, "we must not be at Hawaii, and we've been circling a small uninhabited island". "But we need food!", replied the girl, "lets at least anchor the ship and see if we can find anything to eat here." Upon agreeing, the boy got the anchor out and fasted the ship to the bottom of the sea. They lowered their ladder and sped to shore in the dinghy they had on the ship hoping to find food for now and the rest of their trip. Once they brought the raft to shore they went to the first trees they saw...they got coconuts. Hard to open and not enough for now, maybe later. Later on they found berries and some other small bananas that gave them relief from not having eaten for 2 days. Food on the island was pretty scarce and they gathered what they could. They found the island to be pretty small but in the middle, was a large pit. They circled it for a while trying to find the easiest way down. It was pretty deep, maybe a hundred foot drop or so, and there were other trees down there with maybe some more food. It was getting dark, and they decided that it would be best to start heading back to the ship. Without a safe way to get down they had no choice but to use the food they had for the time being. Suddenly while walking back through the jungle the wind picked up, and the ground started to shake! They started running towards the beach, "Could it really be an earthquake in the middle of the ocean?", the girl asked. "I don't know", the boy replied, "But I had hoped that we'd get to finally have a nice quiet dinner...oh well."

The Dream - chapter five

The two woke up the next morning to the loud sound of their growling bellies, from all the disasters the day before they had neglected to eat. He gave her a tender kiss on the forehead and then went to fix breakfast as she fell back to sleep to rest a little more. The boy began to look for food but after searching up and down through all cabinets he found nothing; when he began this journey he never prepared for extra days on the open waters. Thinking they were still on track he thought they would come to the harbor soon enough so, not wanting to upset the girl, the boy hid the fact that they had no food. Little did he know that the storm had blown them far off course into no-mans land. As he frantically searched to get back on course the girl woke up wondering why he had not brought the food yet. She went up to the deck and when their eyes meet she knew there was something terribly wrong. She went over to him, covered with chills, uncertain what he was going to say to her. He took her hand and holding it tight told her the bad news. Immediately she broke down crying, still not so healthy from the cut without food they both worried her health would continue to decrease. All the boy could do was hold her tight and pray that they would be brought to safety. After a while they both knew that crying wasn't going to solve their problems so they cleaned up and began to search to get back on course to Hawaii. The girl was relieved when she was able to collect fresh water, enough for days, that the rain had brought in. It became dark out and they decided to rest some for the long day or maybe days they had ahead of them. It was one of the clearest nights, the stars lit up the sky and the water was calm, so they brought up blankets from below and snuggled together to star gaze. Putting all the worries from that day and the ones tomorrow would bring they fell asleep underneath the stars. Rising early to the sunrise reminded her of God's beauty and the truth that He was still taking care of them. The boy woke up a few minutes later to watch her marvel at the sunrise. The two spent the morning in prayer thanking the Lord for his beauty. The boy got back to the map, although he really had no idea where he was going he acted like he did so not to frighten the girl. Suddenly the girl started jumping for joy, seeing land, she shouted "We made it to hawaii!"

The Dream-chapter four

Plunging back into the deep, the water had seemed to have gotten colder from all the rain they had had that day. The kind travellers had lent them, what the boy thought to be, enough supplies to get the girl to recover from the loss of blood. He began to swim faster and harder through the waves to get to his boat, but it seemed to be floating farther and farther away! He was definitely taking a lot more time and he worried that by the time he finally got there it would be too late. He finally made it to the boat and climbed aboard, running into the room where she lay, exhausted and breathing heavily. He set up the equipment he had and knowing they both had the same blood type began to give her a blood transfusion using his own. As he patched up the wound on her head, she lay there quietly with her eyes closed, beautiful as always. He began to think of the days long ago when they didn't have to be separate, he couldn't lose her now, she was too beautiful, too perfect. He cut off the transfusion before it started to affect him and make him feel too dizzy. He let her rest and he himself collapsed on the bed by her side. He woke up an hour later to see her beautiful blue eyes staring right back into his.
"Thank you", she sighed. "You saved my life, didn't you?"
"Of course!" he replied, "I could never be able to live without you."

The Dream-chapter three

The rain was coming down harder than before and the boy was beginning to lose faith that the girl would make it. She had a gauging cut on her head and the bleeding would not stop. As she went in and out of consciousness, the boy searched vigorously to find medical supplies. After searching everywhere and finding nothing the boy didn't know what to do, so holding her in his arms he let the continual flow of worry race through his mind; "No one is going to find us", "She is going to die right here in my arms", "Why can't I save her?". Trying to put the worries from his mind he began to pray, pulling her closer to his body. All of the sudden out of the corner of his eye he saw what looked like a ship, surely his imagination was playing tricks on him! But as the ship came closer and closer he realized that the ship was really there, right in time to save them. He flagged down the boat for help, but the boat tried and tried but couldn't get close enough, due to the waves, to bring the boy and girl aboard. The boy knew there was only one thing he could do, he dove into the water and swam against the waves to the boat. He climbed aboard and was able to borrow the medical supplies he needed from the fellow travellers to save the precious girl, that he was so madly in love with.

the dream-Chapter Two

Only a couple of miles away from the California coast, they suddenly approached some winds that looked like they were bringing some heavy storms. The waves were tossing the ship up and down up and down. they clung on to each other for dear life. Wondering if they were going to make it through the storm. But she knew that he would be there for her the whole while able to protector her and keep her from harm There was water flowing onto the ship deck constantly and at times they couldn't even see the horizon because the waves were so high. It seemed as if there would be no end to the night, wandering on the open sea, not even a clue where they were or if they were headed on the right track. They so they propped the wheel to steer westward they ran down short hall way to their quarters but SUDDENLY a giant wave crashed on the side of the ship! they hit the wall and were knockout OUT. Much later, he woke up noticing that she was no longer by her side. he noticed that his shirt was matted with blood where her head was resting. he got up and ran down to the bathroom where she was resting her head on the sink breathing heavily. "its bad" she cried. He looked through her hair and noticed the wound on her head. she wasnt breathing normally and he knew he had to get her help fast. but in the middle of the ocean, he had no idea where the help would come from. he didnt even have the slightest idea where they were. It was raining, and it wasnt going stop anytime soon.

The Dream - chapter one

Once upon a time there was a young girl and a young boy who couldnʼt be together.
Far apart from each other, she lived in California and he lived in Hawaii. To keep in touch they would talk on the phone for hours and hours. The boy bought two tickets to a show for his friend and him to go to in Hawaii, but his friend bailed on him. The extra ticket became the girls new destiny. So they would dream up dreams about how to get her there but with limited money and not a lot of time they knew it wouldnʼt work. Two days before the concert they realized she wasnʼt going to be able to come. The following morning still sad because of the disappointing realization from the night before, her day was brightened by an unexpected text from the boy. It said “You should go down to the dock I hear its pretty nice out today.” So she decided to take his advice, but when she walked to the dock she saw an unusual boat. It had a Hawaiian flag attached to the stern of the ship, and it was much more beautiful than any of the other ships docked in the marina. Then coming out from the cabin he appeared! She was over taken with joy to see him, she couldnʼt even move! He began to move closer to her and she ran jumping into his arms. They enjoyed each others company all day, exercising and taking in the beautiful California coast. Afterwards they headed back to his boat for a lovely candlelight dinner. But finally it got to be around two in the morning, which was when he needed to leave in order for him to make it back to the show in time. With tears in her eyes she began to realize that he was about to leave her. They started to head out of the cabin to get her home, and when she opened the cabin door, she became ecstatic they were already on the open ocean. He was taking her with him back to Hawaii!

the wonder wall

Hey everyone, this is going to be my blog for as long as it lasts! I'm working on a few things right now and about to head out on summer project with Campus Crusade in Santa Cruz, CA so I'll keep you updated on that. For now this will just be the place to put my thoughts. Talk to y'all soon!