Kristin’s Blog

Current temperature: 34 F
Currently listening to: "The World Spins Madly On" by the Weepies
Current imperative assignment: several... Church History I exam on Monday, research essay for Advanced Composition, finishing Macbeth for Shakespeare...
Current mood: charged for the weekend away at Jodi's!

It happened like this. I was sitting in the library, typing away at my Unit for Teaching Methods class (which I FINALLY finished today...and there was much rejoicing). And my friend Chris walks by and mouths, "It's snowing" through the window to the computer lab. I didn't believe her. And then I looked, and lo and behold, it was true. Large white chunks of snow fell like rice-cakes from the sky. I couldn't believe it. October 28th and it was snowing.

And around 1:40 the electricity went out. It was laying, you see, enough to toss snowballs at each other as we walked back from lunch and catch large communities of snowflakes in our mouths. It caused a bit of disturbance for the cars...unfortunately. So the lights went out.

I was supposed to be working in the Admissions office at the time, of course, but we couldn't work because we couldn't use the computers! So we all piled into one of the offices and stuffed envelopes and talked, secretly hoping for a snow day for the rest of the evening.

And, lo and behold, it was true!!! A snow day in October! So instead of going to work at night, I went back to my apartment and watched The Chronicles of Narnia with my beautiful roommates.

I had a stressful week, but I got a lot accomplished, for which I am glad. And small moments like that just made it all happy.

Tomorrow I will be going to visit my roommate's house in New Jersey! It will be a grand time. LOVE IT!

So the moral of the story: embrace life. God has blessed us with so much...and not just with the Phillies winning the World Series (which is its own little City-of-brotherly-love miracle), but with beauty and wonderful friends and trials which bring us closer to him.

Posted by Kristin at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Current temperature: 42 F
Currently listening to: "One of Those Days" by Joshua Radin
Current imperative assignment: Unit on Poetry for Teaching Methods in the Secondary School
Current mood: relaxed and happy

So tonight I came as I do every Wednesday night around 9:50 pm. I open the door, and Jodi pounced on me. We quickly assessed that all of my roommates were wearing different colored sweatshirts. I ran to put on a green one so that we could complete, *dun dun dun…* a representation of the WORDLESS BOOK! We are such good education majors…such good Biblical University students.

Here are the pictures from the extravaganza:

Aren't we cute?

Mhmm...

My heart was black with sin...
Until the Savior came in...
His precious blood I know..
Has washed me white as snow..
And in His Word I'm told..
I'll walk the streets of gold...
And to grow in Christ each day, I'll read my Bible and pray...

I love those girls. They have truly made my junior year an exceptional. <3

Posted by Kristin at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It creeps in like the touch of the sun, lighting dim earth, transforming it, saturating it with color. And it warms through the entangling of arms and the clasping of hands. It surprises us and mystifies us. It forces away all frowns, all fears, all frustrations and replaces it with joy. Nothing on this earth is so powerful and moving, so rich and so satisfying. And we crave it and desire it and pursue it and are afraid of it, we run from it, we run to it. We are amazed by its mystery. And we try to explain it in words and we flail our arms when we attempt to communicate what it means to us, but we fail. We fail every time.

Because nothing affects us like love does.

But we know it moves us. It does not allow us to remain stagnant or the same. I think it’s because God is its inhabitant. And God never leaves things unchanged. He reaches down rubs our tired feet and kisses our cheek and grabs our hand and runs through fields with us. And he sings us to sleep and gives us handfuls of wildflowers and proclaims his affection. He does it not because we are beautiful or useful or talented or deserving. Because we’re not. He does it because we are his. He does it because he is Love. And we cry and we stare and blubber words and fall on our faces and we seek and we run and we try to communicate what he means to us, but we fail. We fail every time.

Because nothing affects us like Love does.

Posted by Kristin at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Current temperature: 59 F
Currently listening to: "The Lion's Mane" by Iron and Wine
Current imperative assignment: Prophetic Books II Midterm exam tomorrow
Current mood: tiredly content and excited for the weekend

Well, I know I haven't written in a while and I am sorry about that. Life has been pretty outrageous, to be perfectly honest. I was very much looking forward to having some time to relax and be home.

Unfortunately, last Thursday my uncle passed away. He had been dying of cancer for several years now, so we were expecting it. In fact, we were kind of waiting for it. I hated seeing him in pain. His death definitely put a kinker into my break.

But there is something so lovely about returning home in order to relax. I find that my relationship with my family has only gotten better since I have been away at school. Perhaps it is because we do not get to see each other as often and it allows us to appreciate each other more. I don't know.

My family is my favorite thing in the world. Truly. We were sitting around at a table after my uncle's funeral talking about school and life. We laugh at each other and discuss topics from gun violence to the opposite sex to God. My little brother is now going to school in Virginia and my baby sister is in high school. My other brother, Ben, has a girlfriend and is a junior in high school. It's just so strange how we grow and change. And even stranger how sad circumstances bring us together.

My sister and I baked cookies over the weekend. That was the only thing I really wanted to do: bake cookies. I love getting all Betty Crocker-y when I am home because I just don't have time to cook here. It was awesome.

And while Fall Break was not all that I expected or wanted it to be, it was worthwhile.

Now back to the world of Units and exams and papers...but I love it here.

Posted by Kristin at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a lovely weekend.

Well, it was Homecoming on campus. Lots of fun festivities! That's for sure. On Friday night, my roomie and I shared dinner before heading over to the MAC where they had the ever-popular Donkey-Ball. This was an experience in itself considering half of the student body was crammed into bleachers, watching their classmates compete against faculty and staff on donkeys. All the while, two of our Senate representatives are working as commentators of the action (which mostly consisted of trying to move the donkeys with little success).

That night, Betsy and I came back to our apartment and ate ice-cream and had a good long chat about life. We went to bed, or tried. Then I headed home the next morning because my little brother, who is going to college at Eastern Mennonite University, had a concert. My brother, Ben, and I drove five hours, watched the concert, spent some time with Andy, slept, and turned around and came home the next day.

There's something so soothing and comforting about returning to music of comfort. We listened to some old school dc Talk and Newsboys on the way home, all the while singing along even though we haven't listened to their music in years. Beautiful.

And yesterday was my twenty-first birthday. Betsy and Elise awoke me with breakfast in bed at 7:30. I spent the day remainder of the day reveling in the love of my friends. Dave made me a little "card" and passed it around all day. I found it in my mailbox later, complete with lots of signatures from some of my most favorite people at PBU. My Advanced Composition class sang to me, and Dr. Bancroft grabbed my arms and smiled at me and wished me a personalized happy birthday. I ate ice-cream under streamers with my roommates, and concluded the evening by "stooping" with my favorite girls across the parking lot.

Could life get much better? I think not.

Posted by Kristin at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it has been another busy week. This weekend is Homecoming, so there have been lots of awesome things going on around campus. There was a campus-wide Amazing Race (which five of my favorite friends won, by the way...shout-out to the awesome WWC boys), there were dorm-site activities, and tonight, perhaps my favorite, was the Boat race.

Groups of people made boats out of anything (inflatable mattresses, garbage bags filled with air, floating balls, coolers, etc). Then they were timed as they cruised across Crystal Lake. Perhaps my favorite moment was a group that made a whale-like boat. The guys got inside and paddled (it looked like flapping fins) and they got stuck in the middle. Definitely cool.

So I wanted to share that.

The other thing I thought I would share about is my ministry. Now, all PBU students have the opportunity to do ministry here on campus for a few hours a week. My campus is with my home church. I do several things: I teach Jr. High Sunday School every other month, I mentor a girl, and I help lead Worship with my worship team group.

I love helping out at my church. I love my church so much; we truly are a family. It is so nice to know that I can be there and use my talents to serve God there. Last week we had a Fall Fest at our church for the people in my church's community. We had several new people come. I enjoyed talking with them and watching the kids play games. Then, we had a worship service. It was cool.

I'm glad that we have ministries at PBU, because it really does give us an opportunity to use what we learn in practical ways. Rock on.

Our group leading Worship.

My darling sister and I!

The awesome girl I mentor, Emily. She is awesome.

Posted by Kristin at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)