UPDATE: i just got back from the doctor and I got a cough suppressant and an inhaler. All in all though i think I'll be okay. We had the day off so i'm resting and hoping to go look for some souvenirs!!

love y'all

June 24th

a quick update!

THE WHOLE AMOR OF GOD

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,[a] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—

THIS IS MY PRAYER FOR MYSELF. So basically I woke up this morning with a sore throat. ehh not that bad. Well throughout the day it got progressively worse and i started to feel a bit dizzy and then I got the chilly willies. YIKEs!

THis is actually what's been going on:
As some of you may know, I almost missed my first flight when I left Saturday morning ( I literally had about 3 minutes to spare). Yesterday i spilt a full fruit punch gatorade in my purse...the result: dead iPod. THis morning, my throat. When I got home, my computer wouldn't turn on. So to sum up, Pray. I know that the Devil knows that I have such a hungry soul and heart right now that he is attacking me. I'm surrounded by most Christians than I ever have been who all relate to what I want to do to serve the Kingdom (Social WOrk, those of you who don't listen :P ) ANway, after spending the morning learning about the prisons we are going to visit and getting some training on behavior we all split up and went in small groups to. My particular group went to a branch of the Pierce COunty CCO offices.-- DOn't know what CCO stands for? Community Corrections Officer. DOn't know what that means? THey are the lovely, underpaid Parole Officers!...It's okay, i didn't know any of that until about noon today. SO Megan and I (megan is one of the Campus Crusade Staff Interns) and I met up with a Lady named Julie who was a Sex Offender CCO. SHe was SOOO funny!! maybe later I'll type out a story she told us! SHe went over a few of her different cases with us (she has a total of 41!) and a "typical" day for her. I say that because they told us that NO day is ever typical...ha! story of my life! So we hung out with her for about 2 hours or so. Other people went to do ride-alongs and a few had a lecture over sex offenders. When we were all back, we went out to dinner at a "Mexican" food restaurant. That's all i'm saying about that. NOw we're back home and soon we will head down to form our mission small groups.

Can I tell you something? All of this is filling me with more determination than I have received in a long lONg time!
God's Blessings to All.
Also, can you say a prayer for my momma--she is having to start taking insulin tomorrow and it's tearing her apart a bit.

Happy Father's Day!

Howdy!

SO right now a group of us are downstairs singin around a piano. It's awesome. I started tearing up a bit actually because it was such a beautiful sight to see. If you don't know what it's like to be surrounded by peers that are singing from their souls about something that means (litterally) more than life to them...well it's an awesome feeling; I wouldn't do it justice to try and explain it. so i won't =) i'll just say i hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

ANyway let me give you an update on what my first 24 hours have been like.

I'm rooming with a LaShandra (My friend, Sam says when you say her name you gotta say it with flava). LaShandra reigns from Atlanta, GA. She's what some might call a "soul sista." Basically, she's awesome! super sweet and a little shy. SHe got in about 11:30PM last night, so we talked for a bit and then drifted off to sleep.

So this morning I woke up. Good start to the day, huh? I thought so to! It was already light out, and i thought it must have been at LEAST 8 or so...right? No. 4:55AM, actually. Apparently Mr. Sun wakes up early over here. haha so I went back to sleep for a while. we had to be ready to leave at 9:59AM for Seattle International Church, a predominately black church in West Seattle. Man, let me tell you it was neat! Can I say that I thought that my pastor, Matt was treated with respect (and he is, don't get me wrong), but not like this. Rev. Dr. Bishop Hampton (try saying that 5 times fast!) was given more respect by not only his congregation but also is family than i have ever seen. His wife, Julia, was the church "Mother" which, we learned, is a norm in black churches. So after some great worship, it was time to appreciate the father's! EVery father, EVery weather they belonged to the church or not, received a gift. then we listened and studied the Word. The moral of what we learned was the the Lord overflows our hearts. That to have true faith, you must have true belief.

After that we went to our underground tour. I also got my first Seattle cup of Starbucks! yay!...but i also spilt a whole bottle of fruit punch gatorade in my purse and killed my ipod. that was sad. After the tour (which was really cool! check back for pics!) we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant .

Then came the really fun part! we went to Kelly Park where you can see the whole Seattle Skyline and waterfront. It was at this tine that Drew, Chris and I decided to roll down a huge, rather steep hill...covered in hay. I love rolling down hills.this is why: when I roll down a hill, i feel like a kid, when I feel like a kid, I feel innocent, that innocence reminds me about how I strive to be the innocent daughter that has been made in His image.

then we came home and went over tommorows plan and a bit about what we will be focusing on during our time.

You know what's awesome?? I'm starting to see just how the Lord has prepared my heart for this trip. I'll explain that more in future posts, but let's just say that the struggles that I have gone through in the past few months the reasons for them are starting to unravel.

I also want to take the time to introduce the rest of my team since I will be speaking about them a lot, i figure it might do y'all some good to know a bit about them. I'll try to do that tomorrow, but now I'm going to get ready for bed since it's 1AM and I have to be ready to leave for Prison Mug Shots at 7:14AM...i'm starting to think Uncle Tom (our project director) has a very similar since of humor.

Phoenix

I'm in Phoenix.

I see some mountains.

I didn't get a window seat from Austin to Phoenix; I love window seats. My last plane trip I had a window seat; I flew across the Atlantic and high above the Sahara Desert--it was very long but much more exciting than West Texas and New Mexico.

My computer still thinks I'm in Austin, silly Brooko (that's my computers' name--named after Brook Ellsworth, if you were wondering).

I'm really excited to be in Seattle. I hope i don't freeze. I miss Texas, it's warm there.
I'm excited to meet my new friends face-to-face and not through Facebook.
I'm wAY excited to see how God shows up when i'm there!

I'm going to finish my breakfast now: a blueberry muffin and a Naked Mighty Mango smoothie.

God's Blessings to you all =)