Michigan Bound

So on Tuesday I am bound for Grand Rapids, MI. I will be working with a NGO called Women at Risk International, aka WAR Int''l. I am really excited to get out there and start this summer internship! I really want to take full advantage of where I will be living. I am going to be in great hiking, biking, camping, boating area! I have a friend who should be coming up this summer and I think we are going to do a grand camping trip one weekend! Also I have the joy of looking forward to Denver, CO and Cody, WY in early August. I am excited! I think I will also take a weekend to go hang out in Chi-town! I want to go see the Hull House, the first home for women and children in the USA. It was like the initial start of social work in the States! I cannot wait! I am a huge fan of Chicago. I have been many times, last being a road trip my freshman year of college in Jan 2009. So that is the next group of traveling I plan on doing. A possible trip to LA is being planned for October! So many places to go, see, explore!

< at Niagara Falls, NY, after our road trip to Toronto, Canada!

Transitions and convictions

Today I finished my junior year of my undergraduate work. I only have 12 months until I will be called to walk across a stage and accept my diploma. That is amazing to me. I honestly can't believe time has flown so fast! In the past 3 years at Union, I have:
1. Been a president of a student organization
2. Lived and studied abroad in Florence, Itlay
3. Lived in Tennessee, Ohio, and soon to be Michigan
4. Had a job, quite a job, still have job
5. Had internships with Druggies, Alcoholics, and soon to be prostitutes and slaves
6. I am applying to graduate school.

The list can truely keep going! And I still have a year here!

Not only that, but today I went and saw the movie "Something Borrowed", and then as I came back from a movie that I originally didn't think was that bad, read my old friends blog about movies and what we choose to put into ourselves. I watched a movie that was about cheating, sleeping around, searching and finding what YOU want, not caring much about others in those situations. It was really convicting. I just paid 5.50 to watch sin. And then I wonder why I feel so down in the dumps afterwards. No duh Kate! Its because you just spent and hour and a half watching sin. Just a revelation I was brought to today. Gonna be considering the movies I go to much more carefully now.

Me in Greystone, Ireland in the fall of 2009

2 weeks to go, until WAR

I offically have 2 weeks, 14 days, until I will be finished with my third year of college. I am overwhelmed with work, but eager for summer to come! I am going to yet another place for my summer. I will add living in Grand Rapids, MI to my list. My list so far looks like this:

- AFB, MA
- Dayton, OH
-Jackson, TN
- Millersburg, OH
- Florence, Italy
- and now Grand Rapids, MI!

I enjoy adding to this list. I qualify it by if I have lived in that place for over 2 months. 1 month to me is still considered short term, you don't know the place well enough, but after 2-3 months, you start to know your city and really live in it. I know some people who qualify where they have lived by living there at least 6 months. Maybe I will change to that standard later, but I really think it takes at least a summer, 2 months, to call a place one of your "homes".

Where was I last? Lousiville, KY. Where will I be next? St. Louis, MO.

When I was in London, in March.

So question to think about: Where should I go to grad school, asssuming I get into all of them?

1. Univ. of Denver

2. Washington Univ. in St. Louis

3. Univ. of Washington, Seattle

4. Univ. of Penn.

Change of heart

Hello all who care to read :)

I haven't written in over a year! That amazes me that its been that long since I lived in Italy. I miss it on a daily basis still.

Anyways I have been reading other blogs on a continual basis, and thought, why don't I just keep writting. I enjoy it. I enjoy sharing where I am going and have gone. Like for example, in the past year I havea been to Toronto, Canada, Jamiaca, and in 2 weeks I am going to London, England! I just keep moving. So I have decided, lets keep it going.

So look for new posts coming about my trips and life in general as I am going to start my last summer before I graduate college, my senior year, and all that God has in store for my life!

Ciao!

Another day in Rome

Hello all. This will be my last blog from Italy. I might keep it up in the states just for fun, but I am glad that I got a chance to come here and live this experience. Thank you all for reading and being part of my time here! Hope to re-connect with all of you soon! Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year.

saying from the wise

Becca gave me the book "And the Shofar Blew" by Francene Rivers. I just started reading it and there is SO much wisdom in the book! Things that I think are actually teaching me for my life ahead of me, and how to view church and work as a body.

Here are some of my favorite quotes so far and then my thoughts on them:

"...watching the swirling koi and thinking how people could swallow bits of truth on Sunday morning and then dine on garbage all thourgh the week. They caould look beautiful, sleek and healthy and be filled with all manner of evail..."

kate -- I think that that is such power and such truth. How many people go to church on Sundays or even more than that to church and just eat their bits of truth on Sunday but go home and watch MTV and the repulsive things that are in our world. How many are out there that think that is okay? I even realize in myself that if I am not in my word and in constant prayer then I begin to confirm during the week. And I fully believe NO ONE can say that they are different. That they are fully satisfied with one or two days with the spiritual family at church and say that that time fills them to TRUE satisfaction. Thats just not how it works.

"your heart is like a rosebud. You'll grow taller, stretching up, and inside you will want something that you can't explain and then you will come to know Jesus and feel the light and wartmth of God shining down on you. And your heart will open little by little until you are open wide."

kate-- How neat of a picture is that! In the book this is what an elder of the church is telling a 4 year old. WHAT DEPTH to say to such a young child! But isn't it said that we should all have faith like a child! We always think a child couldn't understand something that deep, but how do we know that. Maybe they hold all the wisdom that we can't even grasp! No longer will I treat a child that way, for even Timothy said "Do not be looked down on for your youth"! Time to change the view of how the church today sees the youth of this world!

"Good pastors weren't born, they were mentored"

kate -- How true. in this book it talks alot about how young pastors are and how they view their part in the church and the pride they hold in their hearts that they think is praise from God. It is overpowering reading this book and seeing so many familiar things from my past pop up and the godly way to handle these sensitive situations. Praise God for such insight!

I suggest that everyone pick up this book! Even if you only read the first 4 chapters, what insight you will see on how people are truely acting in the church and the sin that is in actually being done!

other than reading great books, I have finished 2 finals and I have one more. I will be finished tomorrow by 530! All the glory to God for the great ability it has been to study here and the great knowledge I have learned here!

Buon Natale tutti!
kate

pazienza

Pazienza translates to Patience in Italian. That is what Pastor Solomon talked about tonight at church. Today was the beginning to an end. Today was the last Sunday that Kezia will be here! And I only havea 2 more Sundays with Becca. Its just ending to quickly! And that leads into the patience that I am learning here and will be learning for a long time.

1. Patience with seperation. That is something that I started with here. I missed my family and friends so dearly when I first got here in Italy. And now I can't bear to leave my family here! And the seperation that I will have with them will be for a long time! But I think that knowing that even if I don't see them again here on earth I will worship the God of the Universe with them in heaven for eternity!

2. Patience with school. I still have a slience in my heart about where my life is taking me. But I have strangly learned to love that silence. I have learned to enjoy every minute that I have no plan. I enjoy the freedom that comes with wandering. Both in concept and reality!

3. Patience with those I live with. My roommates are a strange mix of good and bad. I have learned how to live with people that have worldviews and truely different lifestyles. It has formed me into a person that can have patience with people that I never thought I could have dealt with before living here.

4. Patience with God. This is tender. But its so true. Learning to be patient in Christ is hard yet rewarding. And I am still learning everyday.

5. Patience with myself. Hardest and still learning how to put up with myself.

Patience. It is every where and everyone has to deal with it and learn how to do it better.