not afraid to be me

5:00 a.m. call from Lea. She has the flu. Let the scramble begin.

I didn't get back to sleep after that. All I could think about was how I was going to pull off the special without a pianist. So, I did the unthinkable. I PLAYED MYSELF! I'm happy to say, it went well. Even happier to say, it's over! :) We focused today on debt. Greg freezed his credit card in a block of ice and really reinforced what I've been feeling about spending for a long time. It's so silly that we have to buy peoples love at Christmas with gifts. I'm sad that gift giving (for some people) is the only thing they can think about when it comes to this time of year. How do you break into a persons heart on these matters in a way that still communicates care, but also communicates your new sense of gift giving? Being a student/intern with a minimal amount of money, it's become so real to me that some people want a gift so badly, they don't care what it costs the other person. This is so stupid! I loved his idea of a cash free Christmas. Which is too late for me considering I already spent $350 on a plane ticket home. Even as a person whose love language is gifts, I still have enough common sense to draw the line. No gift is worth getting if it means financial hardship for someone else. So, this is the song I chose to sing today. I felt it really digs deep on the matter of personal transformation and freedom.

Not Afraid To Be Me
By: Kendall Payne

I’ve got a new way of living now a little less of a lot

A little more of nothing

Thought you might have seen the change in me

Little quicker to listen little slower to speak

I was wrong when I said I was strong

I am weak and I need All that you have to give
I cannot keep the voices quiet inside

Hear them sing hear the scream, at least I know I’m alive

I am meeting myself and

I am liking what I see

I am not afraid anymore
Not afraid to be bored

Not afraid to be me

Every battle leads to another war

Every day I’m reminded of what I’m fighting for

It’s never easy and it’s never the same

But it’s worth all I’ve got and so I’ll give it again

Now I don’t know why, I don’t know why

But it makes me want to cry, cry
I’ve got a new way of living now a little less of a lot

A little more of nothing

Thought you might have seen the change in me

Little quicker to listen little slower to speak.

It was cool to feed the worshippers today with my personal soul food. You've heard me mention Kendall in previous entries. She's a great singer from Los Angeles. I hope to hear her again at the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego.We changed all the worship songs last minute too, so Greg and I could play them and help lead. It was fun to play piano and minister from that side of the sanctuary. The band did an awesome job of picking up all the songs and playing their hearts out. It was fun!

Advent is upon us. We got to partake in the Advent Festival at church, by making wreaths, sharing a potluck supper, and worshipping together. For whatever reason, I thought they just handed us an artificial wreath and had us stick the candles in it, but NO! They used REAL greens, and each person got to decorate and fancy-up their wreath however they wanted to. Singing Advent hymns was a great way to begin the celebration. The kids were super into it. And Greg shared a funny little message that got everyone involved. What an awesome celebration!

Well, 5 church services in one day. And I'm spent! Time to get to bed. We're surfing early in the morning.

magicalifornia mountain

Ever since we drove by Magic Mountain (Six Flags) on our way to the National Youth Workers Convention, I've been dying to go! The view from the road is Valleyfair x 10! Oh baby! Lucky for me, my dad loves roller coasters too, so we went today and had a ball. We hit all 10 roller coasters, and rode them in every position possible: on our backs-backwards down, on our stomachs flying through the air, standing up, sitting down, man, they have the best rides there! Superman goes from 0-100 mph in 6 seconds. We waited an hour and a half to get on the first ride and had enough of that, so we headed to the far end of the park and walked on all the roller coasters we wanted. Our longest wait after that was 30 minutes. I got to ride Batman the Ride, and even had my picture taken with a real live Batman. He wouldn't smile, so I did! We thought it was pretty funny that "Goliath" the ride had huge letters in the front of it. One being an "a" and the other a "t"! A woman was kind enough to take our photos next to our first initial. A few of the rides were neck breakers. I might need to see a chiropractor this week after all the jerking and jolting I did. More incentive to ride the newer rides. Even though the wait is longer, the smoothness is worth it. Of course, I snuck the camera on for many roller coaster photos. I can't believe I didn't get caught for all the photos I was able to take. The park was playing gobs of Christmas music, and all the characters were wearing holiday scarves and hats. It it really winter? I walked around today in shorts and a tank top. It's hard to believe Christmas is less than a month away! The weather is really messing me up!
Magic Mountain is about 45 miles north of Torrance--meaning we had to take the 405 the whole way there! We got lucky on traffic though. We made it there right at 10 when it opened, and left at 6 when it closed. We were back home by 7. It's an interstate miracle!

Tonight I got a chance to paint my fingernails! That's what I like to do on a day off! After two days of REAL vacation, it's time to go back to work tomorrow. 5 services (including the Advent Festival), that'll make for a long day! I hope we can spend the afternoon sleeping. I need it.

this is no vacation!

I'm not used to all of this...go go go! I feel like we covered virtually every square inch of the South Bay today. UP to Wayfarers Chapel, DOWN to Trump's Golf Course, UP the hill to San Pedro, DOWN to eat at In-N-Out, OVER to Costco, AROUND to the mall, DOWN to Goodwill, DOWN further to the beach/pier, BACK UP to go home.

We had an awesome time hiking at Trumpland. It's a beautiful walk down (a little steep) but with my Keen's, it was no trouble. We walked around on the beach. Of course, I hunted for more rocks to make jewelry out of. Not to worry, I got a bunch of good ones. There was a dead walrus lying on the beach. It was disgusting! He was all bloated, bruised, and nasty. I take back every bad thing I've said about the marine life. Except the seals--they can bite me! There are two options for the walk back up from the beach--one was more adventurous than the other. And that it was! HOLY COW! We should've been harnessed in for it. The problem: once you got started, it was more safe to continue up. We made it back (obviously), and I can't wait to get back down there for more hiking fun.

San Pedro was a bust. We were so hungry...we ended up driving down some scary streets, so we hustled back to Torrance. Costco was a complete zoo. People were loading 72 inch TV's into their over sized carts, and trying to navigate them through the store. C'mon people!

On our way to the mall, we saw a motorcyclist being loaded into an ambulance after getting hit on Hawthorne. A reminder: don't accept a free motorcycle ride from anyone in CA. The mall was too busy for comfort, Santa was there, and so were 10,000 other people, so we headed down to Goodwill. They were having a special event for black Friday (which I'm now calling DEATH Friday after what happened in NY), 100 things were marked FREE in the store. One free item per customer. Well, here's the deal: I've been looking for a green or blue shirt to match this vest I brought out here. Seriously, nothing I owned would match it. Well, I'm browsing through the clothes racks, and spot a green striped shirt with a cute little hood. The hanger said FREE! It's the same Old Navy brand as my vest. It's a perfect fit, and FREE! Check out the photo for evidence! Then, I found a pair of Gap jeans in my size that were also free! So, I called out to my dad and he picked them up for me. I happened to bring my vest along so I could try to find a match. What are the odds??

We got to watch the sunset at the pier, looked at the cute little shops, and just about got pooped on by all the nasty seagulls. FUN FUN! Once we got home, dad fell asleep on the couch by 8:30, so I sent him to bed before his snoring woke up the rest of the neighborhood, and I continued to work on photo orders. A fun filled day!

i'm (full) day

Incase you don't watch Wheel of Fortune, I'll explain the title of this blog. Before and After is a category which uses one middle word that can be used in both phrases. Get it?

I spent this morning doing all the cleaning and laundry that have been neglected for the last 3 weeks. Wow, does it feel good so sweep, mop, and spray for spiders. I was invited to the Luhmann's for Thanksgiving lunch. All the good stuff, including Nestle Tollhouse pie! AH! So good. I'm lucky to have received tons of invitations to Thanksgiving meals. I did what was fair: agreed to the first invitation. We played some fun games and browsed the black Friday ads. I had to leave their house early to go pick up my dad from the airport.

Perfect timing: I pulled into the airport as he walked out. It was super slick. We tried getting to the beach quick before the sun set, but we missed it. This was my dad's second time out to CA (the first time was in 1970-something!) We walked out on the Mahattan Pier and then came home to have a lovely supper with the Long's. Some games followed, my computer cord started sparking (I gotta get a new computer), and then I spent the rest of the evening doing Christmas card and photo orders. I don't know how many more I can get done before the 25th. That's my day in a nutshell. Sounds like dad wants to see all California has to offer tomorrow--I better get to bed. Peace out.

now showing: thankfulness

No cornucopia allowed. I'm boycotting it this year. I decided my first Thanksgiving sermon wasn't going to be all warm fuzzy thankfulness like we're all used to. Instead, I used it as an opportunity to move people to action. For some reason lately, I've been feeling an incredible draw to social justice issues, and used the story from Luke of the 10 lepers to demonstrate how we were all outcasts at one point. There are outcasts still among us. We need to reach out to them out of gratitude for what God has given us. In my opinion, it was my best sermon yet. I wrote it in 24 hours. Unbelievable.

After my word explosion on Sunday, I really felt it was a chance to redeem myself and SLOW DOWN. I asked God to keep me calm, even when I fumbled words or lost my place. Stay calm. It worked. Not only did it work, but I didn't fumble words, and kept my place just fine. Remember to pray. We have a tradition of meeting in the prayer chapel 10 minutes before every service begins. Tonight one of the prayer ministers spoke a word of blessing over my message and asked that God send the Holy Spirit to stir up the hearts of the people. I've been consciously breathing a deep breath in when the Holy Spirit is mentioned. Taking a moment to truly allow her to breath calming air into my lungs. The 30 minutes prior to the service was mighty hectic, rounding up greeters, ushers, making sure everyone had a canned good to bring as an offering, getting the sound and powerpoint people squared away. I needed that last 5 minutes to allow God to enter into the situation.

Once the service started, it was out of my hands. This was the first service at Good Shepherd that I planned myself. Of course, there were people who sat down and helped me come up with ideas, but for the most part, the final word rested on me. There's more pressure there than I realized. But with each passing minute of the service, my level of appreciation seemed to deepen more and more to the number of people who made the service just what God intended it to be. If one person slacked on their job, the whole service might suffer. But everyone brought their A-Game tonight! It's a matter of teamwork and trust. I preached about thankfulness for what God has given us, and tonight am so filled with gratitude I can hardly put it into words. I'm guessing there were around 200 people there tonight who stopped what they were doing and decided to start their holiday of thanks by centering it on the giver of all we should be thankful for. Again, there was laughter, seriousness, and a serious commitment to action at the end of the service. Toward the end of my sermon, I asked everyone to get out the thank you cards that were provided for them in their program. We took a minute to write down something we were thankful for, and not only that, but how we plan to SHOW our thankfulness for it. Get it? Now SHOWING: thankfulness. No simply saying it, but showing it! On their way out the door, people dropped their cards into a mailbox, as if to say: I'm going to do it! I'm excited to hear whether or not people follow through with what they wrote. Oh, and I also got to talk about my "spread infectious glee" mission. I think others will do the same. Success.

In the front of the sanctuary, there was a beautiful table set with plates, utinsils, cups, flowers. No food. People were asked to bring some non-perishable food items to worship, and I watched as the table slowly began to overflow with food as people brought them forth for communion. A perfect example of living out our thankfulness for the food God has given us.

If you can't tell, I'm giddy about tonight. I'm so thankful that after all the constructive criticism from Sunday (all super helpful), that I was able to turn around and preach another sermon. It gave me a chance to put those tips into practice much sooner than I'm used to. I'm so thankful for the people who willingly jumped in to help at the last minute. I'm thankful for the amazing gospel choir tonight who cheered me on and who let their praises fill the room for all God is blessing us with. Being asked to sing a gospel solo really freaked me out, but then I discovered how fun it is to get to dance, move, and sing freely as the spirit moved through me. More gospel please! :)

This afternoon I got a chance to go by King's Harbor Church here in Torrance. Volunteers were setting up and getting ready to serve a Thanksgiving meal to the homeless. I could only stay for a little while (sermon stuff to do), but I couldn't believe the number of volunteers who showed up to help. They were lined up...there wasn't enough for people to do. How awesome to see so many people showing their thankfulness in a powerful way. Kids, youth, grandparents, nearly every age was present to show love to the homeless people. There were stations for feet washing, for haircuts, for prayer, and for food. I wish I could've stayed and had conversations with the people in need who went to the church for food.

Of course my heart is sad tonight as I continue to see new pictures from the bombings and shootings in Mumbai, India. I've been on cnn.com multiple times tonight to see what the status is. Please keep these people in your prayers tonight.

unbelievable

If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I wouldn't believe it. A weather man just came on the TV and said the following: "We're tracking a major winter storm folks, up to an inch of rain is headed for the bay area!" I can't stop laughing. I sent Bill and Jane to the store to stock up on water and toilet paper. With all that rain, we may be "rained-in" for days! Maybe school will even be cancelled tomorrow. It is a lovely sound to be sitting in a nightly meeting and hear the rain smacking the roof. Ah...I knew I should've brought my rain boots! Ok, no time to joke. Sermon writing today, worship run through, ITF...I have a sermon to give in 21 hours. It's only half done...YIKES!

this is the feast

Sermon #3. Well, there's not much to say. I was more nervous than ever before. Lots of people = Amber's loss of focus. There were numerous times I can remember starting a phrase, looking out at the people, and completely blanking on what I was going to say. My goodness!! It's so frustrating when you feel God has a really strong message to say through you, and it flops. Of course, lots of people laughed at my jokes, no sleepers this time, but if I could just get rid of that stupid nervous bug, things would go so much better. It's hard enough to give a sermon about money, but even worse when a strong sermon (in my opinion) gets lost in the nervous energy of the preacher. UGH!

Luckily, there was a fabulous skit tied into my sermon to make things all better. You can always count on Mabel and Gert to save the day. They did a fantastic job! Charlie & the Chocolate Factory clips were used to illustrate how we need to prioritize our spending and to stop seeking value in our earthly things. The sermon will be online soon. You can judge the effectiveness for yourself.

Thanksgiving Feast Day: a whole crew of GS women prepared a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch today. I wasn't planning on going. Someone handed Bob a free ticket before worship, he handed it to me, and I said, "Awesome! I'll use it!" Someone couldn't make it, so I was able to go and share in fellowship with the GS family. I'm really starting to feel right at home here. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and sweet potatoes in orange peels were a hit. Not to mention homemade truffles, pies, and cookies. I'm full! I'm heading home for a few minutes to take a quick nap and regroup before worship tonight. It's going to be another busy week as I prepare another sermon for Wednesday evening. Keep the prayers comin' please!

terijaki splat

Kevin, what exactly is Terijaki Splat? "It's when you're walking home from Rascals, you take your leftovers out of the bag and throw them at the windshield of the first annoying driver who honks for no good reason. That's Terijaki splat!"

I never laughed so hard. Kevin and I went to Rascals for lunch, chicken teriyaki bowls, of course. Then, on our way home, we noticed...way too many people honk their horns around here. Horns are as common as turning signals. Now, I don't believe in flicking people off, but I'm thinking about ignoring that belief for the next 7 months if these CA drivers don't settle down. Swearing, throwing hands up, speeding around...my goodness. I'm going as fast as I can...what's the big hurry? That's a big change of pace from MN. And, I live in the cities. Traffic is thick and people are nuts, but not like here. What's going on around here that has caused people to drive like maniacs and get so angry? I'm planning to figure that out by the time I leave.

So, Kevin and I came up with a solution. Step 1: keep a fresh bag of leftover Rascals in your car. Step 2: the first person to honk at you gets a fist full of teriyaki rice thrown at their windshield. Step 3: wave. I think this will solve the problem.

Kevin and I got up at 5:30 this morning to go out and surf. I don't know why I bothered going. I was feeling so stressed out about my sermon and about Kevin leaving that I should've just stayed home. The waves were huge today. I had the hardest time yet paddling out into the waves. Too much flopping around in the water. Saturday is the busiest day for surfing, so we were surrounded by a whole host of eager surfers. We were blessed to see an absolutely gorgeous sunrise. Kevin stayed on shore to take pictures, but we eventually drifted so far south he lost us in the sea of surfers. I had to get out of the water to flag him down so he'd know where we were at. I didn't catch a real wave. So, I played around in the white water until I gave up. This surfing stuff is way too stinkin' hard! Kevin got a photo of a guy who snapped his board while surfing. This is why I get nervous about borrowing someone else's board. If I break it. I buy it, and these beasts are super expensive. 7 months left. I hope I can go without breaking one! :)

Because I was so worried about the sermon, we went back home and I got to work on it right away. Kevin graciously read some more while I typed away, and was there to dialogue with me about different sermon ideas. How wonderful to be with someone who understands what I'm doing and can contribute ideas and suggestions at will. Realizing that he was leaving in a few hours, I set the computer aside and tried to stop worrying. We made a chocolate bundt cake treat (courtesy of Greg and Dana Barker), and then headed to the airport. BOO!

I dropped Kevin off at 3, and went to church for the next 5.5 hours to finish my sermon. I hope sermon writing gets easier with time. I'm always so concerned with being long winded in my sermons, so I chopped idea after idea out to keep it to the timeline we're given. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

short and trout

Can you say "Lazy day?" Kevin and I used to have a lot of these when I was living in the cities, so it was nice to take a break from the tempation to go-go-go and just relax for a day. Again, we slept in, got ready, and took care of one of our traditions: chocolate chip pancakes. There's an Original Pancake House on Pacific Coast Highway, so we drove over there and filled ourselves full. Then, we ran to Costco (on a Friday) BAD IDEA. There were so many people there, I thought I was going to go crazy! So, we grabbed what we needed and freed ourselves from the madness.

We had planned on a Friday afternoon surf session, but the waves weren't cooperating, so instead, we invited Pastor Bob to Paradise Park for his first slack-line lesson. He did quite well. He was walking about 3-4 unassisted steps on his own by the end of the lesson. I haven't had much time lately to get on it, so took this opportunity to try a new trick--running and jumping on it. By the time we were finished, I was doing it on my own! What fun! We took a few grass pictures at the park, but declared ourselves pooped. But, I needed to work on my sermon. Kevin read, I wrote...an hour later, Kevin and I were both sawing logs...and frantically woke up to see if we had overslept. Hoofta...we were safe.

Greg and Dana Barker invited us over for a delicious supper of salad, quiche, trout, corn, and of course chocolate dessert. I got to help Dana get things ready, and even cut the head off one of the fish. It was sad, yet yummy! We enjoyed a lovely meal and great conversation. We even got to head outside and hop in their whirlpool. Greg has quite the collection of surfboards. This is one he had custom designed with a landscape and cross sunrise in it. When I move to CA, I'm going to start a collection like this as well! As if we weren't sleepy enough...the whirlpool knocked us out! We made it home just in time to hit the hay. Kevin has to head back tomorrow already. Where does the time go?

fondu you wanna hug me?

Well, Kevin arrived safely last night. So glad he is able to come for a few days. A young couple from Kevin's church said they wanted to give him a gift, and paid for his plane ticket out here. I'm so grateful for generous people who support our relationship in such an incredible way. Thank you!

I drove down to LAX to get Kevin...had to make a lap before he came out, but then missed him on the way by (I would've had to cross over 5 lanes of traffic), so I pulled over when I could, and watched him hustle down the sidewalk toward me! This gave me a chance to get out of the car, take a picture of him running toward me, and jump with joy a little myself! How awesome to get a tight squeeze from my love. Again, the LAX police were thick, so we hurried back in the car and headed back to Torrance. We have our ordinary hero training on Wednesday nights, to Kevin got to come with me. I was able to introduce him to a few key leaders from Good Shepherd. We were both pretty well shot by the time that was over, so we went home to crash. Kevin always walks into the door and says to Bill and Jane, "The prodigal has returned!" Bill was Mr. Witty this time and said back, "Kill the fattened calf!" Too funny.

We were both so exhausted this morning that we took the opportunity to sleep in, and got going at our own pace. Eventually we got up, took showers, and matched our outfits. Kevin graciously brought nice shirts so we could get a Christmas card photo taken. We went down near the Redondo Pier and snapped a few before the heat killed my hair. Here are a couple from that fun little shoot.

Then it was off to the Getty Museum in LA. Carla's husband works there, so he got us a free parking pass. And, the Getty is FREE...it was a pretty cheap afternoon. We got to see some pretty incredible pieces. Kevin bought a poster from the Getty last year, so we got to actually see it in person. You know how most paintings are much small than you expect them to be? Yeah, this was not the case. We walked into the room to see his painting, and both said, "HOLY COW!" It was huge. Wall-size. I think that made Kevin's day! The gardens and grounds at the Getty were truly beautiful. We couldn't bring my tripod in, so we had to get creative with our shots, and were fortunate enough to find a photographer to take this photo of us by the ivy. I mean, it matched my dresss perfectly...we had to get a shot by it! :) For those of you planning to come out and visit, this is one place I'm willing to see again. I'm sure we missed some of the hidden treasures there! The Getty is set up on a hill overlooking the city. The parking structure is tucked deep into the ground, and you get to take a free tram ride to the top. Bob is letting me borrow his little digital camera while I'm here, so Kevin used it to take a few shots of his own! What a great adventure!

Thursday night: date night. I made reservations for us at The Melting Pot in Pasadena, so we drove over into Old Pasadena to eat. Of course, we brought a change of clothes and took turns crawling into the back of Vera until we both looked smashing! I love any excuse to wear a cute dress and uncomfortable shoes! :) If you've never been...spend the money and go. It was a romantic evening. 4 courses of food, cheese fondu, salad, meat fondu, and FREE chocolate fondue! YUM! We walked around downtown after our meal to take in the beautiful city, and then hopped back in the car for a long drive home. It was a great way to celebrate our 18 month anniversary!