At last

Something I heard in chapel that I can actually take with me:

"If you are bored, then you are boring. " ~the speaker's 9 year-old son.

If you don't like the weather in Kansas...

...wait 5 minutes and it will change.
Two weeks ago, it got up to the upper 80s.
Last week, there was a tornado watch.
This Friday, it blizzarded (if that's even a word!). Hesston got about 8 inches of snow!
So yesterday, some of us were bored and stir crazy. Since we couldn't really go anywhere because of the icy roads, we decided to walk over to Mount Hesston. Mount Hesston is to Hesston kinda as Indian Rock is to Salina (at least when it comes to sledding). The people who go to HC who are Hesston natives say that Mount Hesston is a big pile of trash and junk that the city decided to cover up with dirt years ago so they could build a park next to it. They say there's entire cars under there. But what matters is that it's pretty high and really steep and makes for good sledding.
Being college students, we didn't really have any sleds. But that's ok. Being college students, we're also pretty ingenius. We found a wide variety of substitutes.

Things That Worked Well:
~the one actual sled we had
~the sled that we stole...er, borrowed...from the middle school kids who were also sledding there
~lids of those big plastic storage boxes (the kind that go under your bed or in your closet)

Things That Worked Fairly Well:
~a large cardboard box
~a plastic garbage can lid
~a large garbage bag filled with Styrofoam peanuts*

Things That Did Not Work:
~laundry baskets

*This was a very random addition to our sledding adventure. Donny found it in our mod right before we left and declared it his sled. He went down the hill on it once and it actually worked. Unfortunately, the bag ripped and shed most of its contents all over the hillside, making further experimentation with this "sled" impossible.

A plauge on lethargic Mennonites!!

Ok, I can't blame it completely on the Mennonites, because people tell me that there are some Mennonite churches that actually have life in them. But there are times I get so sick of this school! You see, yesterday in chapel, a group of college-aged musicians based out of Minnesota called CTI Ministries led us in worship. Now, chapel at HC is usually so boring. The last one had been one of the art professor droning about African-American art. So when I came in and saw big speakers had been set up, and drums and electric guitars on the stage, I got a little excited to see what chapel was going to be like. And when the band started in on the opening chord of their first song, a big smile spread across my face. This is my kind of worship! We actually sang modern worship songs instead of old hymns nobody knows (there's nothing wrong with hymns, don't get me wrong, but on a college campus, there's not much energy in that kind of singing really). I was excited! But as I looked around, I was surprised and then disgusted: hardly anybody was even singing. Nobody was standing, or moving, or clapping, or ..... praising. Soon the band started in on "Mighty to Save" which is one of my favorite worship songs. I almost stood up, even though nobody else was. I knew that if somebody started, other people would stand up too. But I chickened out at the last second. I tried to focus on this amazing opportunity to worship God, but a part of me kept screaming inside at my fellow students "How can you sit there with bored looks on your faces!?!? This is incredible!!" My friend and I actually went to talk to the musicians immediately after chapel ended, told them it was incredible and we wished we had stuff like that more often, and apologized for the rest of our school.

Still, getting to sing like that was awesome. And next time, I'm standing. Even if nobody else does.
Saviour
He can move the mountains
Our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
My Jesus conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave

Nostalgia

"Kokomo" is playing in our bathroom as I type this.

My roommate was playing "My Girl" on her computer yesterday.




Ah, CYIA........

Crazy Random Happenstance

This is mostly for you Michaela....and anybody else who remembers my comments on Jenna's blog a week or two ago. When I kept quoting a children's book. So today for speech class, we went over to the preschool in town and read to the kids. And I guess what book I was given to read to them - yep....Dr. Seuss' ABC. How cool! I was pretty excited. Crazy random happenstance, that......

One last thought: I was sooo happy to see everybody here. After being separated from them for only a week. I didn't realize how much I missed until we were actually reunited. It makes me wonder how I'll ever get through the summer.... :)

Because Michaela told me to blog about it.....

SPRING BREAK:

Otherwise entitled: Epic Scenery Overload For A Girl Who's Lived In Flat, Boring, Ocean-less Kansas All Her Life.

The Blue Ridge Mountains. The Atlantic Ocean.
Walking down the beach in the shallows + Hiking all over the place in the mountains for 2 days + Hanging out with Nara = an awesome spring break.

And that about sums it all up.



P.S. There are plenty more pictures where these came from. Hopefully if you copy and paste these links into your browser you can see my Facebook albums. And no, I'm not techno-savvy enough to just make them actual links. I could probably figure it out but I don't want to take the ti- wait a sec, what's this button here? Hmmmm......*Rachel experiments with button* Haha ok never mind about copy and paste. Just click on those suckers.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65744&id=724143438&l=e1406df389

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65752&id=724143438&l=7676b0a9d4

Spring break!!!!!!!

For anybody who doesn't know (or anybody who cares) I'm spending most of spring break in North Carolina with my cousin Nara!!!! I'm so excited! I fly out tomorrow afternoon, so prayer for smooth travel would be appreciated.

How did I get so lucky? Well, that's a slightly long and complicated story. You see, I've been looking forward to spring break for a long time, but it was for a different reason. The chorale here at HC (of which I am a member) was going to go on a 10-day tour to California, Oregon, and Washington! And it wouldn't have cost us students anything. So that would have been an AMAZING trip! Unfortunately, it got canceled. Great sadness. But before I could get really depressed about this, I got an email from Nara, asking me if I had any plans for spring break. If I didn't, she said, how about coming out to see her in NC? That is about the most amazing alternative plan ever! So I am super stoked!

This reminds me of that one song by Jo Dee Mecina. In my case, the coin came up heads. :)

Heads, Carolina; Tails, California
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together - I've got a quarter
Heads, Carolina; Tails, California

"Middlest"

Sitting in the lounge:

Abigail: Hey Rachel, do you know what the middlest verse in the Bible is?

Me: No, what?

Abigail: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." (Psalm 118:8)

Me: That's a pretty good middlest verse.

This night doesn't look too promising....

It's not a good sign when you're writing a lab report, and you've typed two and a half pages so far.....and you still haven't included everything the professor wants in the INTRODUCTION!