picture time?

So my wonderful leaders have started to send out weekly emails so that we can start to see some more pictures of our future home!

I was debating on sharing them now, or posting my own when I get there. But I figure, since I'll be caught up in the excitement, I should cover my bases and post them now : ) Plus more is always merrier when it comes to pictures, so here they are! 

Makua Theatre - On Campus Movie Theatre

Banyan Tree Cafe - On Campus Coffee House

Treehouse at Banyan Tree Cafe

Prayer Room

Kailua Bay

DTS Dorm Building

Breakfast (all meals outdoors!)

I'll keep y'all posted with the updates!

like, official .. official

So its been a while, and I thought it may be time for an update!
Excitement has most certainly been building up, we are now at
42 days y'all! 

Update numero uno:
We are currently standing at...
35 students: 13 guys, 22 girls.  
Ages 17-34. 
From: USA, Canada, UK, France, Netherlands, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and still growing! 
... and they are all AMAZING! you are bound to hear me mention that little fact time and again, but I just cannot get over how wonderful and supportive and excited everyone is! It is going to be a marvelous time guaranteed.

Update number 2:
DEPOSIT IS DOWN!
I am going to be a student at YWAM (yes, we assumed this already... but now its official! ... like official, official!) 

Those are the two major things! But I'll just give you a rundown on the less exciting, but still mildly relevant things going on!
- making business cards to hand-out to people so that they can read my blog and find out more about YWAM. (hopefully donate as well!)
- talked to my new manager about leaving and he wants to know all about it! WOOT!
- dentist appointment this week
- TB shot sometime in the near future (yay....)

... and that is pretty much it folks! I will be working on my quilt a bit tomorrow so I'll try and get some pictures up if its anywhere near presentable. 


Talk to you soon!
Becca

fearful and wonderful

About a year ago, I stopped straightening my naturally very curly hair. I was getting split-ends, and was trying to grow my hair out, so I wanted to see if that would help repair my damaged hair.
A few months ago, I started to stop wearing makeup. It wasn't because I had flawless skin, but because my skin was starting to breakout, and I wanted to see if giving my skin "room to breathe" would help. 
A few weeks ago, I stopped washing my face with products, and went back to just regular tap water. My skin wasn't flawless, but I decided that maybe just letting it be all natural would help in the "airing out" of my skin. I didn't want to wash anything off my face that wasn't my own sweat or tears. 
A weeks ago, I stopped washing my hair with shampoo everyday, and reverted to conditioning it everyday, and shampooing once a week. I was finding my hair dry, and the damage, while better, hadn't entirely been repaired from all those days of straightening my hair. 


About a month ago I straightened my hair for the first time. Half way through I wanted to stop because I hated it, but was too lazy to go take a shower. I could see the beginning of split-ends the next day. 
This morning, I washed my hair with shampoo, my hair felt dry. 
Today I went to the salon with my mum. I hadn't gotten a haircut in 8 months. They barely needed to cut anything off, and I got my hair cut specifically for curly hair, so now if I straighten my hair, it won't actually look right, because its designed to be curly. 
I love it! best cut I have ever had. 
I was so excited, when I got home I decided to do a mini photoshoot of myself so that everyone could see it. 
I decided to put make-up on so that I wouldn't have to edit the pictures as much (we all do it, don't lie). 
It turns out I didn't need to edit the photos. My skin looked flawless despite the blemishes. The makeup, frankly, did hardly anything, except make my eyelashes appear on a picture. 
And, I couldn't wait to take that stuff off! 
Unfortunately, this involved make-up remover, face wash, toner and moisturizer, all for a teeny bit of foundation and eyeliner.
I washed my face afterwards with water to try and get that suffocated feeling off my skin. Frankly, when I looked in the mirror, I was just as pleased with my face then, as I was when it was make-up'd for my pictures. 

No makeup, no edits.

Make-up, no edits.

Makeup and edits.

Makeup, minimal edits... Mostly just to show-off my creativity : )

The first thought that popped into my head after telling y'all this, is "I'm not trying to brag and say that I'm beautiful or anything like that"...
Frankly that's a lie. I am beautiful. Naturally. I realize that I can dress up to go out-on-the-town, do my hair different than it normally is, and throw on some makeup to play up my features. But those are, my features. They would be there with or without the makeup.
Now I'm not trying to brag, and that's the truth, the only one that gets bragging rights for me, is God. 

"For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." 

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

That, is the truth.
We need to start peeling back the layers, that people tell us we need so that we're beautiful. It can be fun! Like dress-up when you were a kid, but for it to be a habit? Something were we wake up earlier in the morning just so we can have time to "put on our face" that is crap folks. 
Become comfortable in your own skin, love your body, love your face, love your hair... don't cover it up! My skin may not be flawless, I have naturally rosy/blotchy cheeks, but its me! and its quirky and looks like pillow marks, but when you learn to love that quirkiness, than make-up becomes fun, and straightening your hair is an occasion, and that is a great feeling!


Not one of us, should ever feel or be convinced that we aren't fearfully and wonderfully beautiful. Because God, creator of the universe? Yah, HE says you are. And as far as I'm concerned, what He says, goes. 

part of the glue

Dearest humans that read this blog, 
I am sorry that its taken me this long to post something new, I really wasn't sure what to write about! There have been some wonderful mini-blessings, a few melt-downs, and then some bigger blessings. All of which were very scattered and spread-apart, so I wasn't sure how to collect them into a single post. But I now have some glue to hold them all together!

Recap on the blessings: $200 from random Starbucks regulars. Mother pays insurance. ! WOOT

To start off with, I have to pay tribute to my lovely mother. Hopefully she doesn't mind me posting this on the internet, but seeings as I have only kind things to say.. I suppose i can't get in too much trouble : ) (love you mum!)

This woman has been more of a blessing than I can fairly describe! She has this mother's intuition that exceeds "my child is crying in her room alone", to knowing when I need an extra pick-me-up and somehow knowing exactly what the looks like. The other day we went to do an exchange of pants-to-hiking-shoes. Shoes are not generally a fun thing for my odd feet to become friends with, so its a very long process and an expensive one which was money I did not want to be spending. So what happens? We go through the whole process of trying on 10,000 pairs of shoes, and settle on a really great pair. I stressed-out about buying them all the way too and past the cash register. Get in the car. Mum says she'll cover off whatever wasn't covered already by returning my pants! AWESOME. She's also said she wants to give me a monthly allowance while I'm away, which is superb! (I can now do laundry folks!... all my roommates i'm sure, will be very pleased). Isnt' she awesome?! I think so. LOVE YOU MUM!!! <3

So that's Part 1 of "The Glue" dun-duhn-duhnnnnnnnn.....

PART 2 of "The Glue": meeting with financial adviser (duh-nuhnnnnnnn)
This lady is another wonderful human! She met up with me to help me sort out bank accounts and all the technicalities surrounding paying for YWAM. And then, like it was nothing, whips off ideas for about half-an-hour about all the things I could do to fundraise for my trip. I think I may have come-up with 1 in the amount of time it took her to come up with a solid 5. Getting these all rolling maybe an entirely different story, and there is still the whole process of praying through them and hearing what God wants me to do. It was just so great to get that creative wheel spinning though, and starting to think about what I can actually do for this. So encouraging! 

She is a great woman who has totally helped me to see that what I'm doing is something people want to support, cause as much as I have been supported, there can still be that lingering thought that maybe I shouldn't be asking for help. And that's not cool, because everyone needs help, and we all need to be OK with asking for it! 

PART 3 of "The Glue" (can you tell I get a kick out of the "the glue"...?):

So I finally have had the glorious opportunity of going to church this morning (my job has generally kept me from this for the past 2-3 months)! IT was FANTASTIC, and a wonderful set of events made this Sunday even better than I could have expected. 

For those of you who may not have grown up knowing what "prophecy" is, I'll do my best to give you a brief explanation here, so my story is that much cooler! 

Prophecy: is basically God speaking to a person and giving them insight, encouragement, instructions, or a prediction, if you will, over someone else's life. It is always supposed to be an uplifting and encouraging thing! So if you've gotten deep, scary, twisty ones in your life, chances are its wrong! :)

Anywho, back to my story! So today another wonderful lady (I have a lot of these in my life, its truly grande) prophesied over me. Here is the basics of what she said:

God is taking me into a new place, and that I shouldn't be worried or stressed over how to prepare for this or the things that I need to get done. That I just need to be in His presence, and be listening to His voice and reading His words. That He will bring in everything that I need and all I need to do is just to spend time with Him. 

This is more amazing than you may know. Because this week, while there has been so many obvious positives, has been tough. It can almost be addictive, being blessed by God, because you just want more! And I am sure that's a good thing. But being a human, I've managed to turn it into a stressful thing. Instead of just reminding myself that God does bless me and that I don't need to worry about when the next one will come because He has been so faithful in blessing me already.. there is no need to worry. 

Essentially "the moral of the story" is to be reminded by the blessings in your life, that there are more to come! There is no credit-limit on what God is capable and eager to do in your life. Or mine. He just wants to spend time with His kids, for us to remember that He is there, that He loves us, and that His one desire is to see us become people that are so totally soaked in His glory and His love that we can no longer contain ourselves! 

So folks! Lets remember God this week. Spend time with Him, love Him and let Him love us back! It'll be fun, I can guarantee it : )