Blessed

Hey all!

As the time before I leave winds down, I've been blessed almost every day with an email, a card, a check, someone handing my cash, or any other creative way of people communicating to me that they are supporting my trip with prayers and finances. How can I properly express my massive "THANK YOU!" to all of you? I am so thankful for each and every one of you, not simply for your part in encouraging and preparing me for the trip, but for your roles in my LIFE - whether big or small, you've each contributed something to me. I am so blessed by ALL of you!

I've been housesitting for a couple this past week and one of the lovely things about their place is how the sun comes into the bedroom I'm staying in each morning (novel for me - in my room at home there's a big ol' tree outside the one window, which prettymuch blocks the direct sunlight, and besides that, I sleep in the bottom bunk in a corner with a dresser on the one open side... it's kind of like a little burrow/den thing... great for taking naps, cuz it's always kind of dark, but not so cool for that wonderful early-morning wake up call from the sun!). It's a big double bed, and I sleep on one side and just keep my Bibles, my notebook, a pen, and a couple books I'm reading on the other side. When my alarm goes off, I usually hit snooze once or twice, then I roll over, grab my Bible, and have some God-time in the bright, energizing, blissful morning light of the room. I'm one of those people who journals a lot and I usually start my QTs by journal my first prayers of the day. Each day I've been praying for one or more of you, and I feel like I'm just overFLOWING with thankfulness... and my journal is reflecting that! *smile*

I honestly don't know how much money has come in for me. Hopefully I can get an estimate tomorrow, but I kind of just want to hold out on the surprise for awhile! *smile* I've had about $200 come directly through my hands, and Gloria and Evert have been telling me that envelopes have been coming to the church, but I haven't found out an amount. I honestly have no idea - setting the total at $2000 that I hoped to take with me was just kind of a figure I grasped at. I don't know how much it will cost for me to stay, and I'd planned on just using savings, so ANYTHING that comes in is just a way cool God-gift! It would absolutely amaze me if the full $2000 came in from all of YOU, but it's been a huge surprise to see the $200 I know I have, so I guess ANY amount is just a way cool thing!!! I'm kind of curious to find out how else God surprises me before this is all done!

In other financial news, I received word this week that I was awarded a $2000 scholarship from a Credit Union, and a $1500 scholarship from a women's association. WAY to just keep pouring the blessings in here, Lord! I've been a little worried about how much money I'm going to go through with this school in Rome - I mean, I know it's a wonderful opportunity, and I really feel that's were God is leading me - WHY, I have no idea, but I'm just fine with waiting for him to reveal it to me! - but it also feels like a lot of money. But now I have at least $3500 from this year's scholarship, the $7500 President's scholarship, and I don't even recall how much I have left over from last year - I think $5000 is a low estimate. All total, though, that's at least $16000 that I won't be pulling directly out of my savings. Amazing! God is SO good to me!!!

I turned in my last paper at WSU on Thursday. It's been fun going there, and I enjoyed getting to know the people who sat around me and I've learned a ton from my teacher, but I am also excited to move on to John Cabot. Sometimes the thought of going to Rome COMPLETELY overwhelms me... I mean, I don't KNOW anyone there... AT ALL!!!! But then I remember that I DO know God, and not only is he a lot more big and powerful than anybody over there, but he also MADE the people that will be going there. I hope and pray that he will USE me somehow to reveal himself to the people I'll get to know. In fact, one thing that I think I've realized while being at WSU is that yes, Christian colleges are awesome for building strong Christian friendships - and I hope I don't regret not having that opportunity - but I really honestly feel that God has a special place for me at secular schools. The challenges are DEFINITELY there, there have been times that I've struggled with my faith and really questioned myself about things through the three years at LCC, and I have - and know I will - have to spend considerable energy sorting and sifting through un-godly ideas, but the PEOPLE at these secular schools, they NEED someone there to show what it is like to have a friendship, a relationship, a LOVE with Jesus. It may sound weird, but I feel like my first REAL mission assignment (after this whole Morocco thing, of course) will be to the school. I'm excited. Scared, feeling inadequate, and a little anxious, but also excited. God WILL be with me, I know that, and with him on my side, I'll make it!

OK, this has gotten long enough, I suppose. Mom wants me to cut Max's hair before church tomorrow, so prior to heading in to "my" house for the night, I think I'll whip out the scissors. Blessings and many thanks! I love each and everyone of you!!!

Hugs,
Dani

Dance dance dance

I've been taking Cha Cha and East Coast Swing dance lessons for three weeks. It's only a four week session, so it'll be over next week, which I'm bummed about (yes, DESPITE the fact that I've got PLENTY of other exciting things to look forward to! I know, pathetic, isn't it?)... It's been a BLAST to learn how to actually DO something on a dance floor. I mean, hip hop choreographed dance is definitely fun, but it isn't exactly something you'd do at weddings or really formal/fancy dinner events. NOT that I frequent formal events, but you know what I'm saying!!! It's important to at least have the knowledge of how to do these things, right? I mean, just in case?

Anyhow, I was dancing with my patient dance partner, Anthony, and I realized that life - and our relationship with God - is a lot like partner dancing. God leads, I follow. If I try to lead, it really doesn't work so well! Furthermore, if I'm not paying attention to God's leading, I end up tripping up or misstepping, or doing some other silly thing. It requires trust on my part to give up the independence of doing "normal" things, but it's worth it. It's so enjoyable and delightful to sweep across the dance floor in perfect harmony, matching step for step, move for move. And clueing in to the subtle, slight, almost undetectable body signals and movements that are necessary to CONTINUE dancing, it's certainly an art!

So I'm sad that after next week my opportunities to partner dance will be reduced significantly, but on the up side, JCU has "tango" listed for one of their activities... maybe I'll look into that when I get there next fall! They also have martial arts activities too... And THAT would be fun to take! Learn how to do some of Sydney Bristow's cool moves?!?! Woohoo! *smile*

Love My Enemies?

Hey Everyone!

I had Bible Study tonight at Dave and Linda's, and the lesson was from Luke 6, about loving your enemies. Love, in this sense, is referring to Agape love, which is love in ACTION, seeking the best good for someone else. It's love that God has demonstrated TIME and TIME again, and it's the love that he expects us to demonstrate towards our enemies. Not the feel-good, fuzzy-wuzzy kind of love... the "I'm gonna do this because it is what I know would please/help/bless you, even if it's the LAST thing in the world I want to do!" kind of love.

I don't usually think of myself as having a lot of enemies. In fact, I absolutely HATE people being mad at me. Really. It's awful. Or the silent treatment. Heath used to be an expert at that, and it always frusterates me SO much that I can't hardly handle it... Can't we just TALK!?!? I don't like being yelled at, but at least when you're yelling at me, I know what exactly is going on!

Anyhow, I had two revelations tonight. One is that, at a time when I felt someone WASN'T being very loving towards me, when I look at it from this Agape-love perspective, I can see that they really were. Even though it wasn't what I wanted at that point, what happened really was for MY best good. I'm so thankful that that person demonstrated - put into ACTION - the agape love they had for me. I don't know if they'd know who they were if they read this, and actually I doubt they'd ever read this! But "Thank you!" I appreciate it. I wasn't being Agape-loving towards you, but you didn't let that stop you from being Agape-loving towards me, and now I'm not only sorry I didn't act that way in turn, but I'm also REALLY thankful for your faithfulness!

The other thing I realized was that I do have ONE person who - for reasons I haven't quite figures out - appears to be frusterated/upset/annoyed/irritated with me. Now, we haven't had any personal contact in some time, and this person hasn't TOLD me any reason why they're upset, or gotten mad at me - or even been rude to me or anything - to my face, but judging by their actions, they are CERTAINLY not very happy with me! I realized tonight that I've been getting bitter towards this person. It's been a "gosh, well, they may think they're so high and might on the Christian ladder, but they were offended by THAT?" And because I don't see any reason for them to be offended, I think it's unreasonable for them to be offended. Then I just get frusterated and sad and depressed that that person is upset with me, and I get mad at that person and pretty soon I'm wishing the worst on them. But that is TOTALLY wrong! That isn't at ALL Agape-type love. While we were still his ENEMIES, Jesus loved us enough to come and die for us... How can I not reach out and try to make ammends? Or at the very least, try to do something kind for that person? It's really quite ridiculous how selfish I'm being about it! So I'm not going to be. I'm going to do an ACTION - Agape love is a verb! - and demonstrate Agape love to them and do something nice for them. I'm sure they don't expect it, I don't actually even know if it'll be welcome, but I'm gonna do it anyhow. Hopefully it'll be a blessing to them, even if they never do know it was from me. Anonymity is kind of fun, sometimes!

It's SUPER late, I'm tired, and I've got a lot to do tomorrow. I've been ripping down wallpaper and repainting ALL week while my parents were gone, adn tomorrow I need to get the house back in order and do some homework that i've been putting off all weekend *sigh*. Hope you have a lovely week!

New Camera!

Hey all!

I made a trip by Costco the other day on my way to school and bought a digital camera. I'd known that I needed one, but I haven't been wanting to spend the money... However, I decided I should probably just bite the bullet and get one, and have it for a couple weeks in order to learn how to use it. It came with THREE instruction manuals.... How on earth am I ever going to remember everything in them?!?! Maybe if I can just get the basics, that'll work!

Anyhow, I'm gonna try to be taking some pictures with my new camera, so I thought I'd try to be posting my pictures up here! I've got one that is of me taking a pic of myself (dorkish, I know!) in the bathroom mirror yesterday. Here it is:

And here's one from today:

You might say that the paint and I had a little war... I won, but took some hits in the process! *grin*

I'm gonna get back to mudding and painting (do people usually do that at the same time? I am...), so have a lovely day!

Time is FLYing

It's April 10th, which means I leave in less than a month. Wow. Sorry, I'm sure this whole countdown thing is getting annoying, maybe I'll try to refrain from it for the next couple weeks... but it's so exciting! And scary! And... exciting!!!

I've slowly but surely been sending out my "Danielle's Doings" newsletter to people (Tracy, if you read this, what is your mailing address???). And checking my email is turning into a daily encouragement! I've received several emails this week, and they've been so cool to read... THANK YOU if you sent me an email! I've got one person promising to pray for me on Mondays, another promising to pray on Wednesdays, and another promising to pray EVERY day... How totally cool is our God?! When He gave me the idea of having a "prayer calendar appointment" thing, I thought MAYBE I'd have a couple people that wanted to pray for me on a weekly basis (my goal is to have EVERY SINGLE DAY I'm gone covered in prayer from at least one person). I honestly thought I'd have more people sign up for ONE specific day to pray... but no, God is slowly showing me how he's working in other people's lives in ways that encourage and inspire me. I love that about Him!

I took part of my family to the airport this morning to fly down to visit my sis in Colorado. I love airports! They're pretty cool places. Unfortunately, with half my family gone, no one has been home for a good part of the day to deal with the fire or anything. It's freezing in our house right now. Also, I ran out the door at 10 this morning - after working on a scholarship and a paper, both of which were due today - and I was only home for a brief 75 minute stint until I walked in the door a little bit ago. I was supposed to do chickens, and I got some of them done during that short time home this afternoon, but I still need to go back out and finish them up. Sitting down with a warm laptop on my lap wasn't probably such a good idea... *smile* Now I'm getting REALLY tired! But on the up side, the barns will be warm!

I've decided recently that humans have a great capacity to love... Think of all the people that you genuinely really care about. Most of them you probably have at least SOME kind of love for, right? But there is no way that you can, like, have a conscious, intimate relationship with EVERY person in the world. But God totally can! As large as our "love tank" is, so to speak, God's is MUCH larger... HUGELY larger, as a matter of fact! That's so cool. I like that knowledge!

I had a good Easter. My church has the guys cook breakfast on Easter, which is usually kind of fun. Then we have a devo before Sunday School and Church. Heath and I played a song and I sang for the service. "How Deep the Father's Love" is a hymn I heard a couple months ago and fell in love with. It's pretty appropriate for an Easter service. Then after church I got to catch up with Becky, our Pastor's daughter, which is always nice, and then I came home and whipped up some dessert. We had dinner at my aunt's house and ate a ton and talked a ton... it was good! *smile* Then I got a 3 mile run in before dark, which was good since I needed it! I tried to work on my final paper that was due today (Tuesday), but I didn't really get much done. I ended up talking with my parents a lot... about school in Italy and my time in Africa and all that. It was good! I have neat parents!

It's funny - well, maybe just ironic - how life works sometimes. Goals, ambitions, hopes and dreams... and sometimes they're simply smashed to smithereens before your eyes and there is nothing you can do whatsoever... But then you realize that God was breaking the clay pot in order to show you the priceless jewels inside. Those dreams and goals sometimes are so much less than GOD'S dreams and goals for your life. But then again, there are other times when the clay pot is particularly beautiful, and when it's broken, all you find inside is an old treasure map that is supposed to lead you to big treasures... and yet you don't know if that treasure has been already found or not. You lost the beautiful pot in order to search for something, but who knows if what you're searching for will even be worth anything. As my cousin put it in an email to me - it's hard to let go of dreams when there is nothing better on the horizon.

But you know what I've decided? Even if there IS nothing in that treasure chest at the end of the map quest, the journey itself is full of learning experiences. So if I'd just sat and held onto my pretty little jar dream, yeah, I'd have had the jar... but I would also have been missing out big time on the adventures and learning experiences that the treasure hunt provides.

I smashed the jar, and now I've sorted through the rubble and I've got my map in hand. What's at the end, I haven't the faintest idea! Will it be worth the sacrifice of the jar? Well, there isn't much I can do about that now if it isn't. Sometimes you gotta look forward in life, I think, and not let the "what if's" pull you down. Even when your heart is SCREAMING "what if...." at you! *smile*

Not that I'm any expert on this, of COURSE, but it's my thoughts based on my observations!

Ahhh, that was a long winded, completely irrelevant, and probably very confusing thought process, wasn't it? Sorry! I guess the most important thing is that my treasures are in HEAVEN, and that's the best place to be storing them!

Chickens need my attention. Blessings to you all! Thanks for reading *smile*

21 tips for life - from my email inbox

I'm in the middle of trying to clean out my email inbox because I have so many stupid college newsletters coming in that I can't seem to find ANYthing... So I decided it was time to whip it into shape! While I was doing that, though, I discovered this cool email from my friend Michal. It was a forward, and I'm not sure where she got it from, but I thought it was good enough to post on here! *smile* If for nothing else so I'LL see it when I browse back through my blogs!

In other news, I'm drowing in paperwork like scholarship, writing essays for my class, housing deposit deadlines, financial aid deadlines, letters and emails and calls from the colleges I've been accepted to, student visa timeline worries, and all other manner of little, important things that need to be done by a certain day... *sigh* Only 5 weeks, though!!!

Here's the forward:

1) Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2) Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
3) Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
4) When you say, "I love you," mean it
5) When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.
6) Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
7) Believe in love at first sight.
8) Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.
9) Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
10) In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
11) Don't judge people by their relatives.
12) Talk slowly but think quickly.
13) When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"
14) Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
15) Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.
16) When you lose, don't lose the lesson
17) Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions.
18) Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
19) When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
20) Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
21) Spend some time alone.