I stink at blogging...but today I'm blogging about pizza!

There are so many great things to blog about in my life...I just don't take the time to do it!

It's way to easy just to post a pic and a sentence on facebook or twitter, and completely forget about my blog...

So today...on Jon's 30th birthday...I blog about pizza!

For the past year and a half, Jon & I have been on a weekly mission to recreate Monical's Pizza ...and drag as many friends as we can into our obsession!

I grew up eating Monical's Pizza nearly every Friday night, while watching the Dukes of Hazzard. My entire family is obsessed by it, especially my uncle Ben who moved to Indianapolis, a town that had not yet discovered the heavenly pizza. If we celebrated Christmas not on Christmas day, we'd eat a huge lunch, open presents, then follow it with a huge feast of pizza!

When I began dating Jon, Monical's Pizza quickly became a favorite of his when we would go back to Illinois to visit my family. We love it so much that we catered it for our rehearsal dinner!

So a year and a half or so ago, we decided that since we probably will never have Monical's Pizza here in the Joplin area, we would do our best to recreate it in our own kitchen.

We read everyone's advice from crust recipes to the layering of toppings, to cook times and utensils. We purchased a pizza peel from a local restaurant supply store, plenty of basil and we were on our way.

It is now our Friday night tradition to make our version of Monical's and invite friends over to share.

The Student Ministry Center at our church recently acquired a pizza oven. Fantastic! I thought to myself, "I'm the Student Ministry Assistant and I oversee our cafe for students. I should probably learn how to use this amazing oven, right?"

So this past Tuesday Jon and I loaded up our pizza peel, homemade dough, rolling pins, corn meal, basil and toppings and invited a few friends to join us.

Here are the results:

I don't know how I can ever make pizza in my own oven again!

And we're trying it again Saturday night!

Our obsession has gone to new heights!

A birthday gift for Jani

March 23, 2010 is Jani Bravenboer’s 30th birthday!!! I realized that she has been in my life for almost 7 years!

Jani moved to Joplin in May 2003 from Pretoria, South Africa. All by herself, she showed up to the Oklahoma City airport, with 2 suitcases, both bigger than she is. She came here to work for Jr High Believe at CIY. We traveled all over this country together and quickly she became my kindred spirit.

That summer in 2003, Martin also moved here from South Africa. Jani & Martin were certainly acquaintances in South Africa, but it took them moving halfway across the world to find out that they were to make a life together. Martin quickly became a true friend and confidant for my Jon.

We traveled many miles, shared many meals and holidays, and lived through many good and bad experiences during their time here. In December 2007 they needed to move back to South Africa, and we were all devastated.

However, trusting God's plan and taking with them all of their American experiences and opportunities, they are now living in Cape Town, South Africa, ministering to a new group of people, who desperately need to hear the Gospel.

Not only are they celebrating Jani’s 30th birthday this month, they are also celebrating the birth of their little girl, Anke Louise, who was born 2 weeks ago.

Today I wish I were taking cupcakes to Jani’s house, sharing a strong cup of coffee with her, and holding her sweet baby. Many things in my house, in my garden and in my heart are daily reminders of my dear friend. And today I celebrate her!

Since I can’t be with her today and give her a gift in person, a picture will have to do. This picture leaves my computer with much anticipation, and many plans still to be made.

Happy Birthday Jani!

We’re coming to see you next December!!!!!

I’m tired of being uncultured. I’m tired of letting that fear keep me from experiencing some amazing things. So I'm taking one step at at time. First, tell Martin. Second, get passport. Third, tell Jani! South Africa, here we come!

Soon we will be eating cupcakes, drinking coffee, walking on the beach and playing with your sweet baby TOGETHER!! And we can hardly wait!

I love you my dear friend! And I can hardly wait to hug you tight!

Happy Birthday!

Ever wonder if you have something to write about?

Looking back on this year, I realize I have had so much to write about, but just haven't taken time to do it.

Taking the lead from a dear friend who lives too far away, I'm going to "sentence blog" tonight.

I started working at our church in June. Amazing.

I started sewing again on my mom's Singer.

I found out that a dear neighbor is a card maker too! She has inspired me to make cards for all occasions!

I built a bluebird house.

My garden got a bit of a face lift, thanks to a dump truck of dirt, a truckload of mulch and good friends.

Jon and I took our vacation in October for 3 days to busy New York City followed by 3 days to the peaceful mountains of Highland County, VA.

I love coffee more than ever!

I'm learning to Tweet.

We bought a fire pit - which I've wanted for a long time.

Jon tiled our guest bathroom!

I'm trying to read more.

My community has grown especially now that I work with the student ministry.

I've seen God work in the lives of many people and in many ways.

Jon bought me the best coat ever for our 7th anniversary!!

My car turned 10 years old this week.

I have always struggled with putting words to my emotions and experiences. There's always something to write about. I just need to take time to find the words.

God has been so good to me and I'm so thankful to be in His presence every moment of my life.

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.