Update!

update- FIVE chinese girls came over for tacos! not to brag- but they LOVED them!! i invited them to the Art in me, and they want to come!! Yay God! we talked about america and china for hours last night-- what a perspective change i got! they also found housing-- in a safe apartment where we know some of their neighbors!! so i'm just figuring out how to balance participating in the art in me festival and hanging out with them-- thats where i figure the family will just naturally help :D... you all are so friendly, that i'm not going to or be worried about them!!

to be continued!...

-A

The Library

So friday i was working at the library right before my shift was over, and a girl came in looking for some help. she obviously wasnt from around here, so i offered to help her.
i got a nudge to give her my phone and email address, so i did. which for me is rare. her name is claire and she's from china. (outskirts beijing)
i also invited her to the movies in the park that night. she's also looking for housing-- umd doesnt help! awesome huh? not much... 
so i also found her jumpdrive and held on to it so i could see her again.
so that night she called me and i went up to campus to give her the drive and she asked if her friend could come to the movie too. so of course i said yes. so Lin is the next girl i've met. she's from beijing and got to see the olympics!! so then we go to the movie, have fun etc. then we are driving back and amanda tells them we know all the other people we met that night from church (IV is hard to explain). they ask if we are christians and claire tells us she's interested in learning about it. whoa right?! but theres more.
so sunday night i called her to see how things were going and to invite her to dinner tonight (tuesday). so now three chinese girls are coming over tonight. yay! she then told me that i knew a katie. (well, YES but which one??) and her husband brand and baby maddie... i realize she means some people @ anchorpoint.
so i call katie to figure out this connection. 
claire's boyfriend goes to school in phenix. he just became a believer. his mentor knew claire was going to duluth and knew of the Navs (katie and brandon work with the navigators on campus) and wanted katie to look her up. so she did and they hung out on saturday and claire ASKED to go to church on sunday. so they went! i had to go to early church b/c of other stuff, so i couldnt invite them, but it was already covered!!! is that insane or what?! so God is moving in huge ways.... and this story still has lots left too...we'll see where it goes!

God is moving

In some parts of my life, i am either content or just ignorant of the things God has been doing. sometimes i crave to know and realize that i wont. 

sometimes, like today, he is waving a huge sign saying "here I AM"

at work at the library, i help a new exchange student. she's from china, and has been in duluth for 3 days, america for 12. so she is very new. we got to talking and i gave her my # if she needed anything. she and her new friend (also from china) came to a movie with us. the thing is, she's interested in church. so of all the people to meet in UMD, for me to be willing to give out my number (which isnt normal) and for her to want to find out about God (we're assuming) is incredible. but i'm most humbled that i'm on of the ones who has a chance to stand up for myself.

also an interesting factor... lately i've been questioned wether or not i'm a christian, or i like to say christ-follower... and i hesitate too much but at least i say YES ... i AM a Christ-follower. and will be. forever.

fame to claim?

so on saturday i got to meet and give a short tour to the president of finland... very nice lady, too bad i dont really agree with their politics (social democracy) but she was nice and let me take a picture! also our secret service gave us little pins... pretty cool all in all!

Books!

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

The Rules:
1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) Post.

*1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
*2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Does it count if I've only gotten through Book 4? Probably not.)
*5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
**6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
*10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
*16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
*18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
**25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
*31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
*33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
*34 Emma - Jane Austen
*35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
*40 Winnie the pooh - AA Milne
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
*42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
*49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
*64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
*76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
*81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
*88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
*94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

a real post?!

isnt it amazing what a few weeks can do for perspective... i was in ireland for two weeks for school (lets be serious it was a vacation...) and it was amazing. but thats not my point here.. i was able to get away from conflict, emotion and to see things as they are. i did lack in seeing in HIS eyes... that is the only way to see things truly as they are. but i digress. stresses like school, relationships, friends, money melted like a semi-warm day. not completely melted, but goopy and easy to see how they lost their harsh edges and pointy barbs. i was glad to get away.... made things not so bad. realized that he wasnt for me AT ALL. cured that right up... getting home made me realize that maybe another he could be. but not to get too crazy about it. it was good to have things clarified. i'm getting in trouble tho- traveling like this made me crave so much more... i want to see the world!

leaving for ireland in TWO DAYS!!