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my life in colorado

ok, so Colorado is probably one of the most beautiful places in the fall.  My camera cannot capture how beautiful the yellow leaves are, but here are a few pictures of my apartment and life at Focus.

Our apartments are really great.  Here is the front view:

Every morning I get to go outside on our porch and drink coffee while I see this view:

And this is pikes peak a little bit to the left of that view:)  It is gorgeous!

So, welcome to my apartment:)  This is the kitchen and desk/dinner table area:

And this is the living room (and Callie):

Then you walk a little farther and you come to my bedroom and bathroom:)

So this is my home.  I love it here!  My roommates and I love to take pictures so here are a few from random days at the institute:

Here is a pic from our first day of school:

And here is a pic of our first day of church in the Springs (p.s. look at the mountains in the background!):

So there were a few september birthdays.  One of our friends had a birthday party next door so our apartment decided to go to goodwill and buy some fun party clothes (This picture still makes me laugh):

I shared my birthday with another student here at the institute, Ashlie.  She is pretty much my twin.  We have taken a bunch of personality tests and we are both the "powerful hammer" and a "lion".  This means we are take control/competitive girls. lol  Anyways, we went to an airforce football game for our birthdays.  Then for dinner a whole bunch of us went out for dinner.  It was so much fun!

We also had a girls weekend retreat in the mountains and here is yet another roomie pic.:)  This is prob my fav pic so far!

We have also done a lot of hiking and I have made some really great friends.  Today was a super cold and foggy day.  We watched some college football and then decided to take a short road trip to denver to visit the outlet mall.:)  Getting new jeans on sale at the gap outlet for $20 (that actually fit well) is just SO exciting:)

why is he so popular?

I need your help:)

Hi everyone!

So my practicum for Focus on the Family is with the group Axis and we will be going to christian high schools and colleges, presenting different worldviews through media targeted to their age group.  To give you an example last night I went with my team to go watch the first presentation at a youth group in Colorado Springs.  We present a gird of 6 questions addressing:

reality: what is real?

origin: where did we come from?

identity: who am I?

ethics: what is right and what is wrong?

purpose: what is the meaning of life?

death: what happens after I die?

And the worldviews we present to the students are:

naturalism: the belief that only the natural realm exists (i.e. Atheism, Humanism, etc.)

spiritualism: the belief that only the spiritual realm exists (i.e. New Age, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.)

theism: the belief that spiritual and physical realms co-exist (i.e. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc.)

So last night two of the questions we presented to the students was: whoa am I and what is the meaning of life?

Then they played a clip from a song by the Pussycat Dolls: When I grow up---

(here are the lyrics)

But I ain't complaining 
We all wanna be famous 
So go ahead and say what you wanna say 
You know what it's like to be nameless 
Want them to know what your name is 
'Cause see when I was younger I would say 

[Chorus] 
When I grow up 
I wanna be famous 
I wanna be a star 
I wanna be in movies 

When I grow up 
I wanna see the world 
Drive nice cars 
I wanna have Groupies 

When I grow up 
Be on TV 
People know me 
Be on magazines 

When I grow up 
Fresh and clean 
Number one chick when I step out on the scene 

This song has such a great beat and a lot of the students in the youth group were singing to it and dancing in their seats but reading the lyrics made the song open up such new meaning.  The media is targeting students like no other! 

Anyways, I have to find these kinds of clips.  If you watch any movies or see a youtube video or reality show, or music video and you see how it has a specific worldview, let me know!!  It can even be a song or a billboard picture or magazine.  Anything that has a clear message from the media to students enforcing their worldview on their listeners.  Even websites would be helpful to me:)

With this assignment I'm pretty ruined for life. lol  I can't watch anything or hear anything without thinking really hard about the lyrics and what message the artist is trying to express/teach.  It is scary how oblivious we are about the media.  

Thanks for your help!

JFA

ok, so I borrowed a friend's camera memory card reader, so now I have pictures to share with you!! :)

So, the Justice For All day was a really great experience!  I learned so much and was able to really share Christ with a few students.

Thank you all for praying.  Here are a couple pictures of the and our couple days.  I want you to be able to see how big the exhibit is but some of the pictures are pretty graphic...so just a warning:

The 2 days we were on the Colorado State University campus was absolutely amazing. I had some really great conversations with students. I'd like to share some of those conversations with you.

One of the girls I talked to the first day was just staring at the exhibit so I went up to her and asked her what she thought. She replied that she really didn't know what she thought about the issue. It really has amazed me how we have been trapped by what the media is telling us about right and wrong. I talked to so many people who would say that they would never get an abortion and they would agree that the unborn was still a human being but that they still couldn't tell a woman what she should do with her body. It was amazing. It was heartbreaking as well. Anyways, I talked with that girl for about 15 minutes about the issue and she asked me what I thought abo

ut the cases of rape and incest (that was the most common question...and those cases only make up 1% of all abortions). I was able to share with her about how much I valued life and although that was such an AWFUL situation, it still created a life and there is a reason that the life was created. We were also able to talk about our world and society and by the time she walked away she had an opinion about the issue and she understand why she valued human life. 

I have a million stories about people who flat out just wanted to fight and yell, but the cool thing with JFA is that we want to share the love of Christ in our actions so when you looked at the people around the exhibit, all of the students that were having conversations with us were being loved on. I can't believe how many students we were able to pray with. 

But another story I want to share is that I saw this other girl just staring at the exhibit with such despair on her face. I went up to her and asked her how she was doing. She said that she was feeling so depressed. She had a cross necklace on (I know that doesn't mean much) and so I started hinting at Christianity a bit. I explained why we were out here. She said that she was pro-life but that these pictures make her even more pro-life. She then said that it seems hopeless though. I told her about the other story of the girl I talked to that morning and explained that no matter what, people are talking about this issue more now. After she heard that story she lit up. I told her that I was praying for the Christians at the school because I knew this was going to affect them so much. I knew that the professors were talking about it in their classes and probably harassing the students. She was SO grateful and so encouraged. She told me that she would be praying for us. It was awesome to meet her because I was in her shoes 2 years ago at my school.

So anyways, thank you SO much for praying. Oh One last story I HAVE to tell you is that one of the girls from Focus (Jenna) shared her testimony with one of the students at CSU and she told Jenna that she had taken a pregnancy test that morning and called to schedule an abortion appointment for that afternoon. She tole Jenna that she wasn't going to go to the appointment later on in the afternoon because of Jenna's testimony! So amazing! Praise the Lord! He is so amazing. Thank you thank you thank you for praying!

JFA is coming to UCLA in May.  I'm planning on helping out there so if anyone wants to get trained and help out let me know (especially you CBU students since we are so close!) let me know and I'll keep you updated.