An Extra Day

I saw a challenge similar to this on another site that I read...

Today is an extra day of our year. Once every four years we get a special day like this. So the challenge is to make good use of this special day. Do something extra special for someone you love (or for a perfect stranger...that's okay too!) You can share something that you did in the comments section if you want. Enjoy this extra day of the year!!!

Life

Usually I try to update my blog everyday, but looking back on this week, I haven't had much to say. Monday was the "big day". And from there.... I don't know, I just haven't had much to say. But I haven't had much going on either. Here's a glimpse into my week:

Tuesday:
No class!!! yay! I'm kinda ashamed to say that I didn't set my alarm clock and I slept until 11:45! I looked at my clock and literally jumped out of bed! Oh my word!!! I guess I needed to catch up from my lack of sleep this weekend. Well, my day was super short, I had to work at 1:30 and then I had a Mission Mobilization meeting after work. I had to leave that early to get to my dance class. It was super fun!

Wednesday:
School all day today. But it was fun :) I got out of my computer class after about 30 minutes (so 1.5 hours early!) so my friend and I went to the cafe and hung out there. Then we had a meeting for our book review group. I'm in a group with 4 others and we have to read a business book, The Innovator's Dilemma, so we had a meeting. My group is way fun and we get along great. It's more like hanging out with friends than it is doing work. So we did what we could and spent the rest of the time talking and joking around. Then we went to class. And we ended up doing group work with our book group. How much better can it get?!?! Then after school, we took a new way home, that's all I'm gonna say for that! :) And Heather and I stopped at McDonald's for shakes (shamrock for her chocolate for me). Mmmmmm Oh! I just remembered mine is still in the freezer...yummy! Then after supper, I went to youth group. I was super hyper because of all the sugar in the drink. My other leader/partner didn't come so I was "in charge" of 9 6th grade girls, but they were really good! Youth group is always fun

Today:
Driving into school was a waste of time, gas, and money today. Sorry, but it's true...just wait. So I only have one class on Tu/Th, my creative writing class. Well, our manuscript (I'll do a post about this some other time) was due today. Or it was supposed to be, the due date kinda got messed up, but anyway, mine was ready to be turned in. I thought we actually had class today though. So I drove all the way to school. 3 people showed up to class. That's including me!!! All we had to do was turn in our manuscript and leave! Grrrr..... so I drove back home. Then I baked cookies, magic bars, and blueberry cobbler to bring to my aunt's house tomorrow. I also cleaned out my car. And fixed my windshield wiper. (I'm sure anyone driving past probably wondered what I was doing sitting on the hood of my car!!!) And checked the levels of different things in my car. And then.....I was bored. So I went online. And on Facebook lol. And I talked to Alecia for awhile. Which brings me up to now.

Oh, by the way....as of 9:35 this morning....I'm officially on spring break!!!! (and it's snowing outside...what's up with that?)

So now you know (pretty much) everything from my week. Kinda boring right? Which is why it only gets one post today rather than one per day this week.

Tomorrow will be fun! I'm going on a roadtrip down to Ohio to spend the weekend with my aunt and uncle. I'm so excited!!! I've been told I have to post while I'm down there, so Brenda, I'm bringing my laptop and I'll do my best!!!!

Word Cloud

I saw this on Mari's site and I thought it would be fun to try. This site takes a bunch of random words from your blog and puts them in a cloud.

It was fun to see all the words it chose out. I see a lot of my friends' names on there, and it looks like everything it picked described me and my blog! :)

Scattergories

I saw this on Cheryl's site and thought I would do it...

**Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following --they have to be real places, names, things ...nothing made up! You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

What is your name........................... Melissa
4 Letter word................................Male
Vehicle......................................Mustang
City.........................................Midland, Michigan
Boy Name.....................................Michael
Girl Name....................................Marissa
Alcoholic Drink..............................Margarita
Occupation...................................Musician
Something you wear.......................... Make-up
Celebrity....................................Madonna
Food.........................................Mancotti
Something found in a bathroom................Mousse
Reason for being late........................Make-up took too long to put on
Cartoon Character............................Mickey Mouse
Something you shout..........................Make the shot!!!
Animal.......................................Monkey
Body part....................................Mind (that probably doesn't count!)
Word to describe you.........................Mischievous

Ain't GOD cool?

So, as many of you know, I've been praying about returning to Romania this year. I know that God is calling me to keep doing mission work in Romania, but I don't yet know to what extent. Anyway, ever since I returned from my trip last summer, I've felt that God wants me to go back.

At first, I planned on going back, just by myself. I had my own intentions of staying for longer than 2 or 3 weeks...like the whole summer. Well, apparently God had different plans. One day at church, Nate, asked me if I would consider leading a group on a mission trip to Romania. Of course I said yes, and I'd pray about it. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stand it if a group went and I didn't go, so I knew that I would be going with them. Well, I prayed about it. And prayed. And prayed. And I finally felt that God was telling me to go ahead and lead a trip. Well, then I realized that I couldn't lead a trip and then send them all home and me just stay an extra few weeks, so I knew I would only be going for a couple weeks.

So, I put an "ad" in our church bulletin. Nothing. Prayed some more. Still nothing. After about 6 weeks of the info being published, it disappeared (hmmmmm....). I also had our pastor announce openings for the trip at both services. And we announced it at authentic. Still nothing.

Ok God. What are you trying to tell me?

By now it's the third week of February. Usually, we order our tickets by the end of January to get the best price. I'm at work listening to the radio. And a song comes on that really makes me think... Am I so concerned about going that I'm not really listening to what GOD wants me to do? So I'm at work praying. And like a human, I test God. Okay God, if you want me to go, send me a sign. Let one of the songs that comes on before I leave the room be one that I also know in Romanian. Nothing. Now I'm thinking that maybe it is just my plan, and maybe God is telling me to wait a year. Then I hear the words (in my head) wait for me. Okay, that's what I've been doing, but alright, I'll wait.

This is Tuesday night. Wednesday, I get an email from Gerri, the lady I usually go with. She forwarded me an email she had received from Lavi, the pastor's wife in Romania. In this letter, Lavi said that they have a team from CERT coming in June, and maybe it would be a good idea for me to come at the same time so I could hook up with them. So I emailed the man from CERT, telling him that I'm a friend of Gerri's, and have been to Romania 3 times and am very familiar with the area that they will be working in.

I got a reply from him on Thursday. After reading it, I was so elated that I felt like I could run around the world and not be tired! :) The dates that they are going to be there are the exact same dates that I had planned on going. (I plan on staying a little over 2 weeks, they'll be there for 1). They are going to Medias, which is my "home". They will be doing VBS, which is what I always do and what I had planned on doing. They will also be running a medical clinic. He said that they would love it if I joined up with them for the week that they will be in Medias.

Now, if you ask me, isn't it pretty clear that I should be there??? It's so hard to wait for God's timing. Patience is not one of my strengths, but obviously God is trying to teach me that. So I plan to order my ticket in the next few weeks (I'm now waiting on a friend who is praying about whether or not God wants her to come with me.) Even though I strongly dislike waiting, I know that God has plans above and beyond anything I could ever plan out...I just have to wait for him!

30 Hour Famine

I was going to update yesterday, but probably would have fallen asleep halfway through :)

30 Hour Famine was a great success! We had about 65 kids come, which was much less than Brandon had told us to anticipate, but still a great turnout. From these kids, we raised over $9300 for World Vision! Praise God!

Friday night, we met at church at 6. After registration, we opened with a praise and worship time. We had free time and played board games. 2 and a half hours of Monopoly....if I never have to play again, I'm fine! :) We also had a dodgeball tournament. My team got out after the first game. It's hard when you're in 6th grade, and are a little scared of the ball. (this isn't a dig at my teammates, but most of them were scared of getting hit, and throwing, the ball!) But it was still fun!

Around 11:30, we left to go Midnight Bowling. Oh what fun! I think I lost both games we played. No suprise there, but I didn't even break 100! We had a great time though! When we got back to church, Tori and I watched some of her videos from Haiti and looked at her pictures. All the other adult leaders had gone to bed so I think Brandon and I were the only ones up. Tori and Anna had already warned me that I wasn't going to be allowed to sleep, so I was prepared for an all-nighter. Anna fell asleep watching a movie and got quite a bit of sleep. Tori and I played DDR and just hung out until about 5:30 or so. I finally convinced some of the younger girls that they should get a couple of hours of sleep, so most everyone headed off to bed. Tori and I decided to give in and sleep for a couple hours around 5:45. Nice try. Sleeping in a cold room on a hard floor is close to impossible for me! I laid there for about 2.5 hours, getting up and walking around every once in a while. I couldn't sleep, so I got maybe 5 minutes of sleep! Surprisingly enough, I was not tired during the day!

At 10, we went out on our canned food drive. We collected food and other items to stock the pantry at LOVE INC. Our team came in second place for collecting food. We had a really good time and were impressed with how generous our community is!

Some kids went sledding later in the afternoon. Those of us who weren't brave enough stayed back at church and played games. The afternoon passed really slowly. I think it was because we knew we would be able to eat soon and the anticipation of that was so strong that it was all we could think about. Some of "my" girls wanted to watch a video, so we watched No Reservations (this is a great family-friendly movie). The only bad part was that it is about people working in a restaurant, so food was still on our minds.

After the movie, we had another praise time. And then.... PIZZA!!! I've done the famine before, but I don't remember being this hungry! Vitale's pizza sure hit the spot! It's already my favorite but I don't think I've ever had better pizza!

The Famine was a great time. And I think Brandon did a good job of helping the kids keep the focus on why we were doing it. Not for ourselves or to brag about what we could do or to have fun with our friends. But instead so that we could feel the hunger that those in 3rd world countries feel daily. We knew that we would get our next meal at 6:00, but kids in other countries may go 100 hours without food, and not know where their next meal is coming from. We had a lot of opportunities to point this out to the kids. And I'll admit, it was hard to be collecting food and going to the grocery store and seeing the food and smelling popcorn and yet knowing that we couldn't eat it!!

30 Hour Famine

Last night, Tori, Anna, and I went out to Carino's for dinner. It was delicious! We started with bread and I had a salad with my meal. The girls ordered a pizza. They were whispering behind the menus about what to order and were trying to freak me out by faking that they were ordering $23 meals :) I had chicken alfredo. Then Jennifer gave us 2 coupons for free desserts, so we had Turtle Cheesecake and Apple Spunetelli (or something like that). It was sooooo good! We had a really good time. I think that Tori is going to tell you more, especially about my blonde moment, so go check out her site!

Today is the first day of 30 Hour Famine. I haven't eaten anything for the past 2 hours and 33 minutes. If you know me, that's quite an accomplishment! It's driving me crazy sitting around home on my computer and stuff and not being able to munch on anything! But it's for a good cause, so I'll survive :) Tonight at 6, I'll be heading to church for the next 24 hours. We'll be doing some midnight bowling, sports tournaments, board games, sledding, and a bunch of other fun stuff. I'm really looking forward to it. And I've been warned not to plan on getting any sleep. Lots of energy drinks right? :) So yeah, it should be really fun, I'm looking forward to it. Your prayers would be appreciated as last I heard we're going to have about 150 students, and I don't know how many adults are doing it. So a good mix of fun and staying safe are big issues :)

Life's Lessons From Science

Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? It was a really neat thing to see.
Do you know what causes a lunar eclipse? The earth moves between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun's light from reflecting off the moon, causing the moon not to glow. (In case you didn't know, the mooon is just a hunk of rock, it doesn't glow on it's own.)
Well, that got me thinking... As Christians, we are like the moon. We are just a hunk of dark sinful creatures...without the love of Christ (the sun). But the sun, or Son's, light reflects off of us, making us what we are. However, sometimes, we let our sinful nature or earthly desires, the earth, get between us and the sun. And that causes us not to let our light shine. Is your light shining or is there something blocking you from the sun?

Follow your heart...

Something (I can't remember what...haha) at school today caused me to think of this commercial. It makes me laugh...you too I hope :)

Can you help me?

Okay, here's my problem.... I can't use my camera anymore!!! Now, if you know me well, you know how depressing this is for me!
The problem is that my battery died. No big deal, right? Wrong! I went to plug the USB cord into the camera to connect it to my computer to charge it. The USB cord won't go into my camera! It gets about halfway, and then it won't go any further! I emailed the company and they tell me that they're so sorry to hear of the problem and they want to help. So far all they've done is asked if I am connecting it to the right spot! Uh...duh! So, I'm in limbo with them.
Now my question is...do any of you have a Kodak M753 camera compatible USB cord or one of those nifty battery charger kits for Li-ion K7600 batteries? And if you do, can I borrow it for a couple hours?
Ahhhhh!!! Why do these things happen to me? :)