so about those pictures.

This post is going to be almost entirely pictures of my last two weeks here since my pictures didn't work on my last post. ENJOY.

Jessica and Heather at Buca de Beppos...our favorite friday night hangout..lovee


The girls and I schooled this massive chocolate cake.



Heather and I decided IHOP was a great idea for a Sunday morning brunch on a rainy Sunday...little did we know that we would leave with wonderful balloon animals. Heathers is a giraffe and mine is a weird bear thing with a daisy...who know i was uncreative under pressure

Heather surprised me with this AWESOME glove thing....please read the middle finger.

And more decorations have gone up! This was my bed sheet the first week i was here...now it is a decorative hangy thing in our room. love it.

HAIR CUT! Thats right...you may not be able to tell since its straight but i cut SO much hair off...i kind of hate it when its curly though....

This is directly outside of my building. If you look past the flowers and past the train you can see the mountains! :)


Jessica , Heather, Jessica's mom and I took our Somali family to the zoo...please notice the short sleeves and 80 degree weather and note that this was Saturday.


And this is my gord on my window sill on SUNDAY. The next day with SNOW! Absolutely crazy.



Jenna, Angie (my boss who i loveeee), me and Heather at the Denver Rescue Mission banquet...best food i;ve had all month. And an amazingly moving night. awesome time..however.....

....there was chaos that ensued beforehand. Heather and I had rushed from the zoo to get ready, and ran into some "mishaps" and our bathroom looked like this when we got back home. insanity.

So thats my world. One day I will post a picture of my office on here. until then....here are the churchs i have check out and loved out here.
adullam
next level church
greenwood

check 'em out....and let me know what you think.
I hope everyone is enjoying the random posts...I would say more meaningful things, but I want you to call me :) Miss everyone a lot.

ps....i am so going downtown during the world series craziness and its going to rock.

cha cha cha changes

So Denver is a little different from the East coast. Yesterday was full of fun activities. In the morning Heather and I volunteered at the emergency over night shelter downtown, so great and then in the afternoon, I was at the zoo with the Somali family we adopted. It was beautiful outside! I was wearing short sleeves and was semi sweaty..it was like 85 degrees and I loved it. We had this really great banquet, I watched Babel...and called it a night.
This morning at 8:30, I woke up for church, opened the blinds and discovered 30 degree weather and get this...........FLIPPIN SNOW. I mean...I guess this is normal for Denver and yes, people have been telling me this is what happens since I arrived here...but seriously. Snow.

This week was great though. Lots of fun things. I met a Bronco's player...Champ Bailey, he came and played with the kids, they had an "October birthday party". I went to this thing called the White Fence Farm with the family from Burma...they have animals that youo can pet after you eat some of their relatives inside. A sheep attacked me.

Overall, a pretty great week. I got a great haircut and stayed up way too late every night. Of course, I have pictures of everything...but this website is not working, so I will add them later.

God is good and I am hungry. Send me mail.

The Wind

Watch and enjoy. Thank you Elizabeth Leaver.

A peace that surpasses all understanding

The other day in work my boss was praying for one of my co workers health and he said "may we have peace that surpasses all understanding" and I feel like if nothing else, I hope that is was I learn in this year of service. If nothing else...a peace that I don't understand.

Everything at the mission is going really well, I love my job and my coworkers...it gets a little draining calling people, but I take frequent breaks that I don't really have time for :) But Angie (awesome case manager I share an office with) and I have the best talks and it makes my day seem a lot easier than it would if I didn't have anyone to talk to. Yesterday Dave Hong and Jay Ford came to visit Denver and Dave asked me how I deal with my job and all the heartbreaking stories I constantly hear...and it definitely helps being able to talk to someone else about whats going on and be affirmed in my sadness or frustration...depending on the client. I have a had a lot of tough cases lately...but I have been able to deal with them especially with so many familiar faces around Denver this past week :)
(Jay and heather and I stuffed in Dave's tiny car with all his stuff)

Friday...My Aunt Barbara came to town to "Spoil me" and holy crap did she ever. We went to an arts festival and an awesome Ethiopian Restaurant on Friday night and met some crazy people. Bust fun.


Saturday was long but so great. We explored Denver until there was nothing left to see, breakfast, pumpkin picking, shopping and went "hiking" in Boulder falls..so great. And then the Phillies lost :(



Sunday was an unexpected amazing day. Church, nap, and two random visitors from Maryland. Two amazing guys who I never realized were as amazing as they are until this weekend. We went to the Botanical Gardens and took tons of pictures........it was all Mike's idea. Mike who spells his last name wrong. And Reid, whos last name is actually Richards...His real name is actually Reid Paul William Richards Klopp and we have a cooler high five than you.




All in all Denver is challenging me. In such good ways and I have time and opportunity to really think about things and struggle with them and question them. Isaiah 40 has become a passage that I constantly look and and think oh my goodness I just want more. And then today when I was calling churches back...I stumbled across a website of this awesome church. They had their congregation sleep out. They invited members to come with only a pair of tennis shoes, pants, t shirt and a long sleeve shirt. then people from the community brought some blankets and food supplies, but not everyone had something...they only had what the community brought. And to top it off, the church had two cops come in the middle of the night, turn on their sirens and "rough them up" a little.....just to show them how it feels. They used this as a fundraiser and raised over $1300 to give to our program and donated all the blankets and supplies to our downtown shelter. Now that is visible love. On their website I found this....

Ignoring the problem won't fix it.

-------------Saturday, October 6, 2007-----------------

Love reveals itself in works of mercy. Among such works are to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit and help the sick and the imprisoned, to give refuge to the homeless, and to be concerned about orphans. All this should be done with sincere and unselfish love, without any boasting or expectations of gratitude.

beautiful. You have read a lot now, I'm going to leave you with some more pictures of my week :)

This is Boulder with weird box headed people playing music and dancing.

Three generations of social workers....me, my aunt and Alice. We went to see a play and Alice is awesome...she was my grandmothers best friend and travel buddy back in the day
The Amount of awesomeness from my Aunt's care package
FIRST CIRCUS EVER!!!
This is one of the refugee families that DRM adopted and the girl interns are working with. We took them to the Circus and it was awesome...I was just as excited for them.
This is my lovely roommate....right before we dyed her hair...she trusts me so much :)

okay and my computer is being weird and i am on a time constraint so more pictures will be coming next time...

ps anyone can leave comments :)