Weird things are happening...

Appearances of Hippies...

Boys with make-up...

Men waxing their legs...
(this is John who got a "J" out of his...)

It must have been SPIRIT WEEK with a good ol' pep rally at the end! :)
...Which it was.

Which means...
There must of been a tournament! ...Which there was.
and we had FUN and did our best. ...Which we did.
So proud of you Warrior-ets ;)
(we won the first game & came close the second)

MK moments.

Because I don't have enough time to fill you in on all my life activities (I heard that sigh of relief) I figured I'd just highlight the "MK" moments.
Many people have lists of "You know you're an MK when" so I figured I'd make my own. :)

You know you're an MK when...(these all happened this week)

-When you have to stop during a road trip because a car in your caravan broke down, so you all jump out- run through the brush and wade into the cold river water for a bit of fun and exploring.

-Your class gets addicted to collecting praying mantises & you find extreme fascination in watching Stevey Jr. (our 3rd mantis) eating his dinner (an unexpected spider)

-You get a new hoodie (all the way from the States) and you can't stop smelling that "new smell", feeling the still soft inside and are surprised to see it actually has working elastic left in it every-time you put it on.
I love our Senior Hoodies :)

(excuse my "I'm extremely tired and my hair decided to go insane" look...it had been a looong day, just had gotten off work and ran around at a pep-rally :P)

-Second-hand shopping in a dirty dark store is a "luxury"

-You have a joint Church service with the natives and are touched by the diversity.

-One of your Sunday afternoon activities is going to a giant slip n' slide, where by the end (even after adding a catching pool- the exact color of pretty chocolatey chocolate milk) you have grass, dirt and bugs all in your clothes.

Fun fun! :)

That's it for now... :)

Quickstep

I've been rather bad at posting lately, but I really haven't found a chance to.
Yesterday, other then one 30 min period at dinner time to grab a bite to eat and clean up I was away from my house for 13 hours straight.
And this was not an in-ordinary day right now.
Between school, lunch meetings, SRC work, soccer in the afternoons, play practice every night, make up Bible Study times, training the new Treasurers @ Teen Center, home, attending school board meetings etc. there really is not much time left! :P
It will definitely prove to be a long 2 weeks, especially with a tournament in Goroka this week and full play performances next.
But I'll do my best to find time to post, because I have plenty to say :)

Have a good week everyone!

P.S. Stevey has been freed.

Happy "Heart Day"

Valentines Day. Feb. 14 evokes so many different emotions and thoughts for different people. Love. Candy. Hearts. Notes. Hugs. Pink and Red. Time with a loved one...
For me- I always think of heart shaped food. For many many years my mom has made us a family tradition "heart" dinner, where everything is in the shape of hearts. Heart sandwiches, heart shaped jello, heart cheese (on round crackers), heart cookies, etc. and this year- pink lemonade. :) It's a happy memory and valentine's day just won't feel right next year if my food doesn't come in hearts.
Today was also classified by many of my friends and I as "single awareness day".
It is kind of hard to watch all the couples be lovey dovey and people getting tons of valentines...but as I sat in class I had to remind my self "today is not all about getting lots of love, it's about giving lots of love". But the culture these days teaches that we need to have boyfriend/girlfriends, or to be loved and popular...One song I listened to several times today had a line that went:
"Why are you looking for love, Why are you searching as if I'm not enough..."
God's love IS enough, and we got to cling to that when we feel like we are loveless.

I cherish Zeph. 3:17:
"The Lord your God is with YOU, he IS might to save. He will take great delight in YOU, he WILL quiet you with his LOVE, he will rejoice over YOU with singing"
In Bible Study forever ago we came up with all the things God would sing over us...it was a beautiful picture.

My prayer today was "God- fill me with your love, so much so that it'd overflow to the people around me." And I drew a stick figure of a girl having hearts pouring into her head from above and some along her body then pouring out of her hands.

God HAS surrounded me with love. No, I might not be the one who gets tons of
Valentines or who has the boyfriend, I didn't come home with loads of chocolates or had someone ask me to be their valentine...but that doesn't mean I don't know I'm loved.

And let us not forget:
"We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19



So Happy Valentines Day everyone! Hope you had a special day and remembered how truly loved you are.

P.S. I think Elaini did a GREAT job at "explaining" love here: http://misselainious.com/uncategorized/day-208/

Thank the Lord for weekends

This was me at the end of last week:

Burnt out. Deflated. & Exhausted.

It was definitely a long week. Spending my whole weekend being sick. Being weak and missing school. Trying to plan the all school and get all that together. Play practice. Soccer game. Migraines. Not sleeping well at all. Working through some deeply rooted emotions and misunderstandings with a friend. Lots of homework. Pizza night, and more.
And I know I can't complain about being busy, because I signed up for all these various activities, so I'm not! I'm just saying that after going pretty hard out for a couple weeks at school, then having many unexpected hurdles appear in front of me, it was a trying week. Last week at Soul Purpose we sang the song "Still" by Hillsong, and I've been singing it all week.
It's such a beautiful song and so simple:
Hide me now
Under your wings
Cover me
Within Your mighty hands

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You, above the storm
Father, You are king over the flood
I will be still and know You are God

Find rest my soul, in Christ alone
Know His power, in quietness and trust.

After a long night of working at the window at the Pizza night I signed out and was done for the week. I grabbed a (root)beer, piece of yummy leftover pizza and plopped down by Kaela. We played a rather amusing game of pool...where we were tied with each only having one ball left- and I hit the 8 ball in. FAIL. haha
It was a nice night of just relaxing.
Saturday I had to wake up early (8:30!) to go to a MK transition seminar. I was reluctant at first but it ended up being fun and good to work through some things. But by the afternoon I just needed a chance to catch my breath, so I dropped by my Bible Study leader's house for some new tv shows and some baby Mel cuddles. Babies can make anything better :) Then I cuddled in bed with some popcorn, a coke and my new America's Next Top Model (guilty). Well...26 hours later and I've finished the entire season. :P
I just needed some time to check out and relax by myself for a bit. It takes me back to my time on furlough in 10th grade when there was America's Next Top Model marathon's every Saturday. I'd snuggle into my mom's bed and watch the entire season. Those are memories of happiness and contentment so this took me back to that. I also was able to get some sleep last night! :)
It was a nice weekend of not doing much. Thanks God for weekends!
I'm renewed and ready to get at it again.

Update on Stevey

Because I know you are all dieing to know how our beloved class preying mantis is doing...
Stevey is going strong! I can't believe our pet has lasted an entire week.
I'm sad to say that since my last update Junior has passed away. Stevey did not devour him. RIP Junior. haha
Freddy is missing, as well as Xamier. I don't think Stevey would eat them, but everyone convinces me that there is NO way they could escape, so it beats me.
The BIG news is that Mandy added Duracula Dose - a very large yellow poisonous spider (which she found in her room!! and saved all weekend just for Stevey) and boy did he like that little treat. Ate him all up.
I think we need to put him on a diet...he's eating a lot. haha

This is not Stevey: but is practically his google images twin :)
Maybe I'll catch a pic of our awesome set up in the lounge ;)

Satires to the extreme

I was going to write this post a while back, but totally forgot about it until now.

Satire:
the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.

Last week in my Consumer Economics class we were learning about values. How some people put so much value in money and buy into the whole lie that "money = happiness".
In true Mr. Johnson fashion, we watched a VeggieTales :) Yep. It was great. And it was one of my favorites- Madame Blueberry. Who doesn't like watching a kids show for class work?
It wasn't until later in English when we were talking about satire, that I realized Madame Blueberry was, in fact, a satire. It was using the funny extreme to prove a point of how some of the world has gotten so materialistic.

The very following class period in English we studied satire. But this time it didn't come in the brightly colored, animated, sing along version. It came in the classic piece of writing, A Modest Proposal. In a nut shell, Jonathan Swift published this essay(anonymously) in 1729 when England was so cruelly taking over Ireland and starving the country to death. In graphic detail he makes horrible suggestions of how the Irish should just sell their children for food, among other things. (That's as far as I'll go here...). The satire was that he so boldly ridicules the situation to get people's attention. Our teacher was nervous that she had made a mistake to share it with us, because she didn't want to upset us too much, but it was so cool to see how it had a positive impact on many people in the class, to fire them up to want to make a difference in the injustices that are still occurring.

I had to giggle a bit that night when I thought back on my day. One class I'm singing along to a child's show, and within an hour I'm reading these heavy columns of this potentially traumatic essay. I guess that's what high school is about, eh?
But in both of these I see how effective the use of satire can be (I feel so nerdy posting this...). A Modest Proposal made us walk away with a drive to make a difference in the world and you wouldn't believe how many times I've sang "I thank God for this day, for the sun in the sky, for the love that he gives, and this piece of apple PIE!" this week- continuously reminding me to keep a grateful attitude. They were both so vastly different, but both had the power to make a bit of a difference.
I guess school is good for something ;)