It's June now!

I'm in Holland, MI now. Beautiful weather. Beautiful place. We are sitting in a MOVE grid walk-through meeting.

Our getting here was very interesting! We left Joplin last Friday at 7:30am. Beautiful weather. A van with 10 people (3 of which are Jayson & Janice's awesome kids!) and pulling a trailer. We were moving right a long doing great. Kayla was driving. We made our famous stop at I-44 Exit 274 for lunch at QT.

We crossed over into Illinois knowing that we were most likely going to hit bad weather. We drove through Lincoln and were almost to Bloomington when the wind picked up. It started hailing and pouring down rain. We could barely see, so Titus got us to a rest area for a few minutes to let the storm pass.

Janice French started driving and we stopped for dinner around 6-ish for dinner just south of Chicago on I-80. By the time we crossed over from IN to MI...all crazy broke lose. It was dark, thundering and lightening everywhere. The rain was pouring down and the wind started to pick up just as we got on our final leg to Holland. Water was rushing over the interstate in several places...in the dark and the rain.

Hwy 31 was closed where we needed to go in Holland, so we had to snake through town. The roads were flooded. Cars were stalled. By they time we go to campus it was a mess. We had to park 3 blocks from our apartments and carry luggage, food, kids through knee deep water! It was a crazy experience at 10:30pm at night.

A lady had just tried to drive down the road in front of our apartments. Water started rushing into her car. We went to help them get out of the car. 4 people, a suitcase and 2 huge graduation cakes. We toted all of them across the street and up to the apartments until someone got there to help. Wreckers were making a ton of money that night!

A guy was kayaking down the street. Brave people were forcing there way through the streets hoping to make it. The "tidal" waves they created were rocking the other cars down the street! It was all very surreal!

The next morning when I got up around 7am...I thought was had dreamed it all...there was no water anywhere. Seriously!!!???

I promise I didn't make it up! See:








I was so excited to see the water gone the next morning! I got up and walked down to an amazing Farmer's Market. I got some fresh strawberries, nectarines and homemade spice cake doughnuts! Happy day!

So excited for the week to get started. It's going to be awesome!

New Hair Cut!!!

In May 2006, I had just resigned from CIY and began spending my mornings walking on the treadmill at the gym watching the Today Show on NBC. One morning they had the Rockefeller Plaza filled with 20 or more beautician chairs and hair dressers ready to cut hair. Their story that morning was about Locks of Love, which is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.

They filled the 20+ plus beautician chairs with people of all ages who were donating 10 or more inches of hair to Locks of Love. I was inspired by the stories of the recipients and the donors to do this myself. I've never had trouble growing my hair, and it isn't all that unmanageable long because it is so straight. I also found out that it takes 6-10 donations of 10 inches each to make one prosthetic hairpiece. So I decided to do it.

It has taken me a year and a half to finally have 10 strong inches of hair. I was anxious in October, so I waited 6 more weeks to cut it.

I love my new cut and my heart is so happy to help some child feel pretty and normal.  I plan on doing this again, but it will probably take 2+ years to grow it back out.

So much for keeping people updated...

Apparently I have forgotten the point of a blog.  Not having internet at home is about 90% beneficial.  The 10% that makes it not beneficial involve my time blogging and using facebook.

So, here's what's been going on...

Back to work.  I love my "employees."  It's hard to call them employees some days, because they have become my friends too.  I have 10 people that work under me in the Ministry Contact Center.

My morning employees, Sally, Lori & Ashton, do mostly data entry.  Last year they made phone calls, but because of our high volume of data entry needs, they were more than willing to take this on.  I enjoy our conversations about life, and coffee break time(s)!  I appreciate their life wisdom and their commitment to hard work.

My afternoon employees are all Ozark Christian College students: Curtis, Jeremy, Chelsea, Derek, Tyler, Cassa & Ryan.  I've found that I shouldn't offer them too much chocolate or candy, as things will get a little wild and crazy around 4pm!  I love the way they are learning and searching through life circumstances.  I also love to here about campus life.  I appreciate them for coming in each day with positive attitudes, and continuing to pick up the phone over and over again no matter the response of the people on the other end.

Kudos to my MCC Staff (and my friends)!!

Recently we've spent fall cleaning around our house.  


I bought 14 bags of mulch for around my trees and my flower beds.  I still need about 3 more bags, but everything certainly looks better and is ready for the winter.

While I mulched, Jon power-washed our house, thanks to our friend, Ryan, who graciously let us borrow his power washer.  Our house truly looks white now!  I've yet to get our water bill, but Ryan said it won't be as bad as I expect!  Regardless of the cost, our house needed a good healthy cleaning before winter.

The last cleaning that we did this past weekend was for a really great reason!!!  We had to clean out our garage to make room for a 2nd car!  Some of our friends recently purchased a Honda Pilot from a Honda dealer in Kansas City, so that kind of set us over the edge to actually pursue a car purchase.

Last Thursday, we drove to Kansas City, MO to look at a 2005 Honda Accord.  It's the same car we had looked at many times, but this car only had 27,000 miles and was priced $3,000 under blue book.   We drove it home that night!  And we absolutely love it!

Thanks for helping us make a good purchase, Dave Ramsey!!!

Next week Jon's parents are coming for a visit.  We haven't seen them since February!!!

Also, we've been helping out at the teen service at CCO on Wednesday nights called "Refuge."  We're helping with behind-the-scenes things and it's been great.  Our church is in the process of building a new youth center to be finished next spring.

I'm so much better at blogging random things.  Maybe I can try to do that more often!

MOVE

Over the course of the past year or so, Christ In Youth has been in the process of rebranding just about every program we have. We are celebrating 40 years of ministry this year. Probably the biggest branding change has been with the name of our high school summer events. In the past they have been known as "Summer Conference"...that's been real descriptive. That's like saying "Hey, let's go to "Restaurant" for dinner tonight. Other people have referred to these events simply as "CIY", which isn't accurate either since CIY hosts many different events through the school year for students from Pre-Teen to College.

After much deliberation the leaders decided to call our high school summer events "MOVE". The change has been amazing. The word seems simple, and it is, because it reaches every student and sponsor at their level. God is calling us to MOVE. For some people, MOVE means go to another country and tell people about Christ. For others, MOVE simply means become more Christ-like in your home and school. MOVE can also mean, when you feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit to say something to someone or do something for someone, do it. The word has become very powerful and the concept very concrete.

I am currently in Carbondale, IL, at the beginning of my 5th week of MOVE this summer. Though we've already seen almost 3500 students at the other 4 events I've been to, MOVE will come alive for another 1700 this week. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to witness thousands of students understand what it means to MOVE. Even sitting in the back of the room, you can sense the anticipation and the motivation in the hearts of these students to do something big for God.



CIY as a whole has also recently shifted its mission statement from "Change Youth, Change the World" to "Amplify the call of Christ." Both of these changes have allowed us to be more intentional. The noise in students' lives is loud. We want to be an agent of change by amplifying the call of Christ in their lives, and raising up a new generation of Kingdom workers.

Some pics from my Garden

I like to take pictures of my spring garden every week or so because once April is here, it changes quite a lot.

April 22


May 13



May 17

Purple iris from dad's garden & A peach iris from Grandma's garden




White Clematis & Jani's Gerbera Daisy

May 21



Oak trees from Martin & Jani

Sweet gum tree from dad's yard

May 23

Time of Death 152,000+ miles....

It was a very sad day in the Hill household. On May 7, 2008 Jon's car finally called it quits...
His dad bought the 1997 silver Ford Escort for Jon in 1997. It was his first and only car. "Silver Sally" served him well.

We had just gotten her looked at that morning. The mechanic told us she needed a new engine. We had resolved to drive her and keep a towing company's number with us. Wasn't even 30 minutes after we left the shop...she was done...








Because the car was still in relatively good condition, we could bear to just "sell" her to a salvage yard for them to pick her apart :( So we donated her to an organization who will spend some money (more than we wanted to spend) to fix her up and give her to a needy family. www.donateacar2charity.com

I'm really still here!

An update on my decision making blog from 2 MONTHS AGO...has it really been that long!?
What color to paint our bedroom? Or do I paint out bedroom?
YES!! We picked 2 shades of a blue/gray - Autumn Fog & Winter Flannel. We have almost finished our bathroom and will hopefully get the bedroom done before we leave for the summer.

How, where & when to dig a french drain in our yard...so that water doesn't sit on my foundation?
Well...it's been raining yet again...and we have a lake in our backyard as usual. Still not sure the best option.

Should I build a pergola in the back yard, or just a lattice wall?

Should I start walking in the morning at 6:15 or wait until after work when Jon can walk with me?
I didn't start walking, however I did start going back to Tae-robics...which is by far my favorite workout! Though it's only once or twice a week, I feel so much better!

When do we purchase a new car? Or do we just let one of our cars die before we think about it?
I'll blog about this real soon...but Jon's car finally gave up the fight. It died 3 weeks ago at just over 152,000 miles. Jon was very sad...for now we will remain a 1 car family and save some money over the summer.

Where an when to do we take a vacation this year?
As my friend reminded me...there's always Disney World! Not sure if we'll go again or not, but we are planning to take a couple of long weekend trips to Dallas and possibly Chicago.

Do we have children or not? ( I know. This is pretty huge decision compared to the others)
This one is still up in the air!
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We leave a week from Friday for the first 4 weeks of MOVE. We go to Anderson, IN for 2 weeks, then on to Holland, MI for another 2 weeks. We have a really great group of interns this year. They have only been in the office for a week, but are knocking projects out like crazy!

I've been "officially" off for the summer as of May 15...but somehow I'm still working between 6 & 10 hours a week...hhmm...

I have been cleaning out all of the closets in our 3 bedrooms, taking things to Goodwill, throwing things out, and selling books and other random things at a local flea market!

Book recommendation of the week (not that I'm one to regularly recommend books!):
"The Shack" by William P Young.

We read this book in our CIY wives book club a few weeks ago. It's blowing my mind! I highly recommend this as a summer read!

Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post next time :)