Snow Stories to Share?
If you’re not from the Pacific Northwest, then maybe you haven’t heard about our bout of winter weather up here. This entire week has been insane… Check out what the news says about it:
SEATTLE (AP) — A monster Pacific Northwest storm coated the Seattle area in a thick layer of ice Thursday and brought much of the state to a standstill, sending hundreds of cars spinning out of control, temporarily shutting down the airport and knocking down so many trees that members of the Washington State Patrol brought chain saws to work.
Read more: Times Union . Com
And this:
250K without power in Wash. as flood worries rise
SEATTLE – A powerful Pacific Northwest storm knocked out power to about 250,000 electric customers around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia after it coated much of Washington in ice
Read more: Fox News
Yep, John and I are among the 250k without power, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, John and I had to work from home. Since we don’t have internet yet, we had to work in the “Clubhouse” of our apartment complex which has free wifi! Last Friday, seeing the forcast, everyone at YMI checked out their work computers, so working from home wasn’t a problem.
The lighting was terrible, so John had a heck of a time getting a picture this clear… so here I am working and sorry for the blurriness.
So, the snow started out looking like this:
You can still see the tiles of the bricks on roof and the trees look mostly green with a dusting on top. This amount of snow was enough to close schools and close the YMI office.
Yep, then our apartment complex turned into this:
No more tiles visible. but the trees are holding up the snow well, and it’s snowy, not icy.
In this weather, John and I ventured out to run a few errands. We elected to walk because we saw a lot of people in their crappy cars attempting to drive around. Here I am all bundled up.
What this picture doesn’t show is my crappy, crappy shoes. I DON’T OWN ANY SNOW SHOES! or waterproof shoes of any kind, or boots that won’t soak up moisture like a sponge.
So, our trek out was fun for my feet. Where the snow was packed, I did just fine. But if we walked through unpacked snow, John had to walk in front of me, shuffling like a party rocker to pack down the snow for me.
On our way out, I took pictures of my poor truck which just got accosted by the snow.
And look at the load of snow in the bed…
This is an incredible amount of snow for our area. Normally an inch sends the area into a tizzy (because we don’t have tons of snow plows/ we get a lot of ice since the temperature hovers around freezing/ and our region is very hilly), but this is just insane.
Then, John and I headed out of our apartment complex.
Our errands included getting some food, mailing some letters at the UPS store and picking up a Redbox movie. The Redbox caused us some heartache the next day. Freezing rain had coated the road, so when we went to return the dvd, it got a little dicey, especially since we got halfway there and realized that we forgot the DVD. And when a car attempted to back into us. and when my shoes got totally soaked in slush.
Anyway, here’s John at the intersection…
And me! Ignore the mascara spot… You cannot tell from these pictures, but it was sleeting on us which made my make-up run.
You can see a little bit the water droplets on my coat and scarf. That sleet turned into freezing rain.
The next day, Thursday, we woke up to icicles coating EVERYTHING. I took pictures of our tree which had branches coated with ice.
And it got worse throughout the day. Then, we lost power. After 5 hours without power, we abandoned our apartment and fought our way down the icy freeway, to my sister’s house who still had power.
So that’s how things are now… Luckily the ice is melting today and we hope to have power when we get home from work!
How about you? Any snow adventure to tell? Anyone forced to take refuge away from home? Any cool picture of the ice?
A weekend trip? Ya shure, you betcha!
I have a tenuous relationship in my life. It’s complicated and please don’t judge me.
It’s with the state of Minnesota.
No, No I don't.
I’m serious, I struggle with this particular piece of US geography. Nearly any other state, I have moderate to friendly feelings toward (except maybe Illinois, but that’s a different story from when I lived there as a child).
But Minnesota… that’s where John would go when he was away from me. From before our relationship started, when I just had a crush on him, Minnesota was a cold, snowy, stupid place for this guy that I really liked to go to college. Then, when we started dating, my resentment of Minnesota just grew worse. Even my handful of visits out to Minnesota, where the state tried to win me over with its outdoorsy, artsy charm, I remained obstinate. I would not like it there.
Then, John transferred schools and my feelings should have evaporated. After all, I won over that state. But John does not share my cold feelings. And this continually irked me! How could he miss it there? But he did. And he particularly missed the people he met and became friends with in his two years of attending Bethel University.
So, when his good friend, Zach, got engaged, John told me, “Rose, I really want to go to his wedding out in Minnesota.” And I agreed.
I watched the months tick down to our trip with a mixture of ambivalence, horror, and excitement (It was, after all, John and my first trip since our honeymoon).
Then, the time came, last weekend. Minnesota began their overtures with unusually fair weather (no snow, temperatures in the 40s-50s). We landed in Minnesota at 2pm and the wedding began at 4pm, so we hurried to the hotel with a ride from John’s friend, Liv, and switched clothes, then continued on to the Theodore Wirth Chalet.
The wedding was a beautiful, intimate, meaningful ceremony and reception.
Justine (the bride) has similar taste to mine, so I loved her decorations with maps, garlands, and candles. I do not know Zach or Justine very well (I had met Zach before, not Justine), but the toasts by their families almost had me in tears!
John and I are so excited for Zach and Justine and the life they have just started together. They, like us, feel called to full-time ministry and we are so excited to see and be involved in the path that God has for them.
We spent the rest of the weekend meeting up with various friends of John. We had lunch with one of his professors from Bethel where I learned a lot about music, getting gigs, orchestration, and how orchestras for musicals work. Then, we had dinner with John’s classmate, Robert, and his wife and baby. We talked about theology, life being married and other random topics. Sunday, we went to lunch with Becky who played clarinet with John at Bethel.
Spending time with John’s friends and getting to know more about his world made me appreciate John’s appreciation for Minnesota. The weekend forced me to see some of the charm of the state and especially of the people that John grew close to out there.
But I still think the state gets way too much snow.
The Holidays with the New Stiffler’s
I love the holidays. Celebrating the birth of Jesus in the midst of the dark, cold winter just gives a warmth to the season that isn’t found otherwise. For John and I, this was our first holidays as a married couple. I wanted to share some of the details of our holiday season.
It was a lovely season filled with cookies…
… and decorations! My Sister made us this lovely wreath. Since we don’t have a hook to hang it on our door, it became a table centerpiece with the addition of a white candle in the middle:
And my amazing sister made that bow herself. It was not pre-made. She’s pretty crafty.
John and I also got a 7 ft pre-lit fake tree from Joanne’s on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was an amazing doorbuster deal! It originally cost $139 and we got it for $40.
John and I affectionately call it our Charlie Brown tree due to its sparse branches. I managed to bend them into looking a bit fuller, but we are very glad that we spent only $40 on it. It worked great for us though! Our 1 bedroom apartment had very little extra room, so a fuller tree would have taken up our entire living room. Unfortunately, when I decided to take pics around the apartment, it was daylight and so I didn’t take a picture of the tree. So I drew this illustration for you:
Yes, the tree is sitting in front of the sliding glass door that leads out onto our patio. And the tree plugged in behind the table, so whenever we wanted the tree on or off, we had to shimmy in the small space between. (And we have four chairs, I just couldn’t figure out how to draw in the fourth one without blocking everything.)
Our holidays were fairly chill with time spent with my family and John’s family. We spent Christmas with my family. The highlight of the day was probably when Jacob was completely entranced by his Thomas the Tank Engine train set from Grandma and Grandpa; and Ranelle, his mom, stuck a green gift bow on his head. He didn’t notice for a good 4 minutes. Here is a pic of him with the train set sans bow…
Trains ended up being the theme of the day as John and I got my parents the game Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. We played it later with my dad dominating the teams of John and I, and Brian and Ranelle.
The day after Christmas, we went to celebrate with John’s family! One of the funniest gifts for me was something I didn’t get. Since, Anne (my mother-in-law) and I both compulsively straighten table cloths, put away stray shopping carts, smooth out the arm covers on couches, et cetera, she almost got me a shirt that said, “I have CDO. It’s like OCD, but with the letters in order like they should be.” However, the shirt was bright orange, which dissuaded her from getting it for me. She put a picture of the shirt in an envelope and wrote a sweet note about our shared compulsions.
She did get a shirt for her husband that said, “It is what it is,” which cracked me up. She could have gotten John a matching one since he repeats the statement almost as much as his dad. My first Stiffler Christmas with Dave, Anne and Katy was a blast.
For New Year’s Day, our church had small gatherings in people’s homes. John and I went and ended up hanging around after the “service” ended… for about 8 hours. The family was super sweet and we enjoyed getting to know them better!
How were your holidays? Crash anyone’s house for an obscene amount of time? Have little ones in your family? Jacob makes the holiday’s so precious to me. Get any super thoughtful or outrageous gifts?
Happy New Year from the new Stiffler’s!
Are you a candidate?
Lately at YMI, we have been busy promoting, recruiting, and interviewing candidates for a new position: Mission Mobilizer. If you follow YMI on Facebook (or Google+ now!), then you probably have seen us posting about this new position and you can skip the next paragraph.
But if you haven’t heard anything, basically, a YMI Mission Mobilizer is a representative of YMI in a particular area of the country. They work with the churches in their area to offer mission training and trips to people in that area. Something that has hampered YMI’s growth in other areas of the country is that we aren’t there! We have volunteers who are awesome up and down California, but we are not able to equip them as much as we would like because, again, we aren’t there. So a Mission Mobilizer will solve this problem, help us grow, get more people involved in the ministry and help us serve more individuals and churches!
So, a Mission Mobilizer isn’t mobilizing just any mission, but as Garrett pointed out in his post on the YMI Alumni Blog:
So then, a YMI Mission Mobilizer does not draw from their own resources to conjure up a mission worthy of a following but points to the One from whom we have received the ultimate mission worth living out: being witnesses of who Jesus is and what he has done.
At YMI, we try to continually point back to God throughout our work with churches and individuals. We are a training organization and we believe that people are best trained for a life of service to God through living out and sharing their faith.
I love our training. A training weekend, while exhausting, is also the main reason I came on staff with YMI. Training youth and adults to share God’s word is a blast and very rewarding. I have seen the training help me in my own life! For example:
- Eating something I don’t like without showing it on my face? Check.
- Being willing to be uncomfortable physically (cold shower, sleeping on a hard surface, etc) to serve someone else? Check.
- Able to say how God has worked in my life? Check.
As we fill the Mission Mobilizer positions (we have 8 that we’re targeting first, but we won’t stop there!) our training that we offer as an organization will only improve. With more trainings happening and more people running them, we will be able to draw ideas from the knowledge and experience of our Mission Mobilizers. Innovation and creativity will create a better training for our future teams! I am stoked.
So, what do you think? If you’ve been through YMI Training, how has it helped you? And if you haven’t, what do you think is important to teach teams that are going on a mission trip?
Also, have a blessed Christmas season! I won’t be posting next week since it is Christmas break! I hope that you all have an amazing holiday surrounded by friends and family.
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If you are interested in learning more about the Mission Mobilizer position for your own curiosity, you know someone who might be interested, or you yourself are interested, check out these links:
YMI President Blog on the Mission Mobilizer Position
Google+
Part of my job for YMI is updating our social media presence. Since I am a social media nerd, I think this is very fun. I update our Facebook, Twitter, and our YMI Blog. YMI also has a YouTube page, but I do a terrible job updating that. It is a goal of mine to get better with that (we did just buy an HD camera, so it may be getting better shortly).
So the launch of Google+ (Google’s new social media network, meant to be competition for Facebook… eventually) sent my little geeky heart all-a-flutter. But since the network is young and small, I didn’t know if it would be worth my time to make a brand page for YMI. So, I researched the issue and came up with this:
Reasons to have a Google+ Page:
- YMI should be represented on all the social media platforms that it can be. This guarantees maximum exposure across the internet.
- Eventually, our Google+ page may affect our standings in Google search results (and since many people have found us through Google, we need to be high in the standings!), so having a Google+ page is a good strategy to keep our name visible.
- Google+ is visually more beautiful than Facebook, so highlighting our pictures on the page looks lovely.
Reasons NOT to have a Google+ Page:
- More work for me.
- …. yep, that’s it.
So I am happy to announce that YMI now has it’s very own Google+ page! Check it out! If you have a Google+ account too, add YMI to your circles, please? And if you haven’t jumped on the Google+ bandwagon yet, you can still admire the page by clicking on the image below 
A Thanksgiving Wish for You!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! And I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! So I whipped up this graphic for you:
John and I have a packed weekend in front of us: Thanksgiving Day at his parent’s, Friday at mine, Saturday we’ll get to spend time together, and Sunday John has rehearsal for SPU’s big Christmas concert which I am going to see on Tuesday at Benaroya Hall.
I am so excited about the official start to the Christmas season! For some reason, this year the dark, rainy weather got to me sooner. I’ve been counting down to the Christmas season since before Halloween. Generally, I’m a purist i.e. I don’t play Christmas music until the day after thanksgiving. However, I’m listening to Christmas music right now… I justify myself by the fact that it’s almost the holiday weekend and if Thanksgiving music existed, I would be listening to that instead. But let’s be honest, Christmas music gets to sing about the birth of our Savior while Thanksgiving music gets a big meal with the Pilgrims and Indians (who did not form a strong bond of friendship… ever). It really is no wonder that there isn’t thanksgiving music*.
What are your Thanksgiving plans? Making the family rounds or do you host Thanksgiving at your place? Anyone else been sneaking the Christmas music early like me?
Have a safe and festive holiday weekend!
* With the one exception of “Over the River and Through the Woods” which is about traveling to Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. Yep, blew my mind when I read the whole poem in my fourth grade English textbook.
Wetlands Park
A few weekends ago, John and I decided to explore a park in Federal Way. We went to West Hylebos Wetlands Park. With the name “wetlands” in the park, John and I expected the park to be super lame because wetlands basically means swamp, and not a cool swamp with alligators, just mosquitoes. But we thought it was too cold and late in the year for many mosquitoes, so we checked out the park.
We were pleasantly surprised by the coolness and largeness of the park. There were a few trails, all with boardwalk paths keeping you out above the wetlands. We followed signs to a sinkhole, and discovered no hole (maybe it’s just really small?), but we trudged onward to the lake and there was a lake! We liked walking through the different ecosystems (grassland to swamp-ish to lake) and seeing the trees wearing their fall finery. Here are some pics from our time at the park. And yes, John is acting ridiculous in quite a few of them.
This is the best picture of John and I.
John next to a historic cabin at the park. We peeked in the window and it has stuff in it! There must be times when it is open and you can walk around in the cabin.
And here is a picture of the lake that John and I walked out to. Sunny!
And here is a picture of John being ridiculous. And no, I didn’t realize he was doing this at the time. Despite how it looks, he didn’t actually lick me.
And here is a pic of John refusing to smile… He frequently provides me with 6 bad picture for every one good one. Though, I look kinda funny in this pic too, so no harm no foul. (and yes, I know “kinda” isn’t a word.)
So I told John that my battery was about to die, so he finally smiled.
We plan to continue exploring Federal Way’s parks. It’s fun to discover things together and since the area is pretty new to both of us, we have a chance to do that.
Health Update: We are feeling better. It seems the cold is mostly behind John and I.
And the winter cold takes another casualty.
It’s Friday afternoon, a rainy and cloudy November day in Washington, the perfect weather to be working out of a coffee shop, which I am (along with John). Amid the sound of cups clattering and coffee steaming, I am reflecting on this past week. It was an eventful one, with both good and bad events.
On Tuesday, I went to Seattle for the Seattle Pacific University Job Fair. It was a great time to talk to students about opportunities to be involved with YMI. We also used a new brochure that I helped design! So it was cool to see my handiwork in action. Unfortunately, half-way through the job fair, I got a sore throat and started to fill dizzy. Dang it! I knew that John’s sickness (he’s been fighting something for a week) had finally gotten a foothold in my system. After the job fair, I drove up to Stanwood with Juca and Rosemary Cerpe (missionaries from Brazil) and Brian Hughes (YMI Prez). We met a board member for dinner. We had fun sharing and talking about YMI. The board member and his wife have known Juca and Rosemary for many years, so it was neat to hear them catch up and reminisce about the past.
Wednesday, I woke up and felt like a brick landed on my head. My sinuses were stuffed, my throat was sore, and I felt exhausted. But I dragged myself out of bed. On the way to work, John and I stopped at Safeway to buy some medicine that we both needed. During the day, I gradually felt better, but the exhaustion stuck with me. That evening, our YMI Team training began. I needed to run a volunteer training for some of the people helping out at the training, so I skipped dinner and drove down to the training. At around 9, I finished and was able to go home and eat!
Thursday, I took a sick day. While I watched copious amounts of TV and munched on Satsuma oranges, popcorn, and chicken noodle soup, I was able to get some YMI work done. I took some sports curriculum developed by our YMI Brasil partners (Juca Cerpe) and changed it into a format where we could get it professionally printed for him. It was tedious work, perfect for my half-zombie state.
I’m feeling better today, but not 100% yet. My poor husband is still sniffling and feeling terrible. Tomorrow, he was planning to help with the outreach day at the YMI Team Training, but I may end up going in his place so he can get some sleep. We’ll see how he is feeling tomorrow.
Please keep the health of John and I in your prayers, especially John as he is finishing his senior year of college. He is part superman, so he can power through sleep-deprivation and illness like I can’t fathom, but he is still part mortal.
We are working today, so Monday we’ll have off. I’m excited for the long weekend, being able to rest and get healthy. And as I finish this post, the rain has stopped and I can see blue sky… love Washington.
Translating, Training, and Sight-seeing!
These past two weeks have been a whirlwind. First, Julio and Rosario, our YMI Peru National Directors, visited us in Washington. It was great to have them here in the US and hear about their ministry!
On Tuesday, we had a get together at Sunrise Baptist Church where Julio shared about his ministry and I translated! This was my first time translating for an event, so I was fairly nervous. But, like Brian (prez of YMI) says, It’s good that I was nervous because if I wasn’t, then it wouldn’t be important.
The event was a great success. Everyone was very jazzed to hear about the work that Julio and Rosario are doing in Peru. Their vision is for the indigenous people living in the jungles of Peru. They have planted an evangelism training center called “Hope Mountain” that will care for the spiritual and physical needs of the people. They will train in evangelism and theology as well as sponsor children to go to school, help develop hydroponic agriculture to offer variety of vegetables, and many other projects. It is very exciting! They want to start and maintain 5 of these evangelism centers throughout the jungles of Peru.
Here are two pics of the event:
Julio presenting and me translating.
Julio and Rosario and members of the YMI team to Peru last year.
On Wednesday, we toured Seattle and showed our Peruvian friends our beautiful city! The weather wasn’t the greatest, but we still had fun. We went to lunch at my favorite Seattle restaurant: Jai Thai!
My parents, me, Rosario and Julio in Seattle
Then, after Julio and Rosario returned to the East Coast to visit some churches there before returning to Peru, John and I spent the weekend at Hansville Community Church. This was the second training that John and I have done since we’ve been married and it was a blast.
The youth group at Hansville Community Church was tons of fun and did well throughout the training. John and I got along well with the youth pastor and his wife who are another young married couple. Love making friends.
Here are some pics from the training:
The Group during a team building activity!
John teaching a session on how to share the Evangecube
The view of the water from across the street from the church.
After the training, John and I drove to Miracle Ranch and saw his sister, Katy, at work. She is an intern at Miracle Ranch. They were throwing a harvest festival as a fundraiser. John’s parents came with us and we all had a good time slinging pumpkins, riding the hay bale wagon, walking through a hay bale maze and, of course, seeing Katy!
Grainy cell phone pic of Katy riding with the flag at the beginning of the Rodeo.
John, me and Anne on the Hay Wagon
Using the pumpkin catapult... I had way too much fun with this.
At the end of all of this, I was exhausted (as you probably are too after reading this really long post… sorry about that). But now I’ve had a week to catch up on sleep and my every day work with YMI. I am excited for this next month as we have Juca and Rosemary Cerpe visiting from Brazil, more trainings, a board meeting, and a myriad of other events and tasks. I praise God that He has allowed me to be involved in this ministry!
Here’s to changing the stats…
The Barna Group, the premier Christian Research organization in the US, recently released an article titled, “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave the Church” (you can read the article for yourself here).
YMI exists because our founders saw young people leaving the church and desired to partner with the local church to stop this trend. Of the six reasons, YMI particularly focuses on one… As the article states the problem:
Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%).
Now, there are five other reasons in the article which are all significant and need to be addressed. At YMI, we don’t think we are THE ANSWER to keeping young people in the church, but we hope to be a part of the solution. We want to help the church leadership provide deep missional experiences for their youth, that fuels a cycle of serving God, experiencing His power, drawing closer to Him in prayer and study, and desiring to serve Him more.
The article is just an excerpt of the research that the Barna Group conducted on the topic of young Christians leaving the church. They wrote a book titled, “You Lost Me” that more fully discusses the nuances on the subject. The staff is reading this book.
Reading this article, I identify deeply with the issues presented in the article. I have not and will not leave the church, but we have to answer the concerns! With YMI, we focus on one part of the problem, but in my own life, I need to help with more than just that. John and I have recently found a church that we want to make our church home. I’m excited to get involved and help my church reach out to this age group.
I feel like a big answer to this problem is just being honest with ourselves and people we come into contact with. We as Christians don’t have to have all the answers, we just point people to the one who does, Jesus. And we can admit our struggles and things we’re not sure about with our faith. Now, this isn’t easy. It’s hard to be transparent with people because that makes you vulnerable. But as we get real with ourselves and others, this will help change the trend of young people leaving the church.
How can you be involved in changing the stats?
