Of these things I am sure...

1. I will always get marker on my hand if the cap is off. Sometimes even if it is on.
2. God made sure I had money to buy new backpacks for the older kids.
3. I will miss some things about El Paso: Sunrise walks, evening walks, phone call walks, family members, Saturday morning breakfast with my Tito and Tita, being late to every single one of those, being a place with so many people with so much love, city lights from Transmountain, making sahara ride in my dirty car at least weekly, live music at my Starbucks, driving fast and talking on my phone on Bliss and feeling like I am sticking it to the MPs, weekend adventures, living by myself, Yoga, HCC, Chi Alpha, all of the beautiful Sarah's in my life!, reading blogs all day and getting paid, foreign soldiers, watching AIT marching to lunch.
4. I love sitting by the window on a plane.
5. I want to live in Colorado again, eventually.
6. I will miss some things about ND: the stump, Club BFF, laying in the grass, The Channing Tatum, too many people to list, being hate boys with my roommates, ISI, retreats, cancelled classes, making the freshmen be friends with me, the first snow (but only the first one), getting packages, riding my bicycle, GCC, the 3 year olds, HH, Lauren Bible Gatewaying me, Lauren making me be a sane person, being surrounded by lovely, lovely people.
7. I have a lot to figure out about life and love.
8. I never want to not want to sail or climb mountains.
9. I see God in the sunrise.
10. I love remembering inside jokes and making people laugh.
11. I don't talk or think like a normal person.
12. There are many things more important than sleeping.
13. The man I marry will have to resemble my Dad in some way.
14. I will be a very scared mommy.
15. I am too young to be asking if there were kids before the divorce.
16. I refuse to settle.
17. It scares me that I might not ever be ready to settle down, be responsible for human life or find fulfillment in a job that will help support a family.
18. I've spent too much time being fake about things.
19. Honesty is probably the best policy, even if it hurts.
20. Africa will be hard for me.
21. My style is stuck somewhere between the ages of 12 and 15.
22. I'd rather turn 21 with the orphans than getting shwasty at the Feve.
23. I hope that never changes.
24. If we don't get along at first, that probably means we will be best friends. I usually first hate the things I end up loving.
25. I won't look you in the eye. Not because I'm intimidated, but because I concentrate better when my focus is elsewhere.
26. I have no idea what I want to do with my life.
27. I do know that I never want to grow up or grow out of the 'phase' of caring more about people than money, more about love than success, more about purpose than expectations, more about God's will than someone else's master plan, and more about dancing than who's watching.
28. I am not willing to cook chicken for anyone.
29. I think you should eat snow ice cream your brother makes for you, walk down some of the stairs at the Eiffel Tower, feel bad for the people running to catch their flight, but also giggle a little because in no other public situation is running like that really an ok thing to do, prepare and serve meals to people you have never met before, and don't judge them for being there to eat that meal, not base your political opinions on e-mail forwards, go out of your way just to make people smile, see God in the little things, dance in the rain, call old friends and hold hands the right way.
30. It's ok not to always know why, where or when.

kb

7 Sleeps

I will sleep seven times before I go to AFRICA. That is terrifying.

Sorry to all four of you who read this blog that I haven't updated in forever. Things have been crazy and will most likely continue to be for the next week or year or so : )

I am having tons of fun at Notre Dame and finally head home tomorrow to start packing and getting things together. I still haven't decided if it was a good idea for me to come here before leaving, but I have had some good/ridiculous times over the last few days and it has been good to see everyone, it just adds a new level of complication to my feelings about being gone for a long time.

I will hopefully have some more to say once I get home. I will for sure be updating more frequently once I get to Africa.

I might be a Pin Cushion

This summer I have had Hep A, Typhoid and Yellow Fever vaccines, a TB test, and at least 12 or 13 tubes of blood taken out of my body. Someone called me a pin cushion the other day (I don't remember who) and I thought that was funny. It also might be true. I don't have a problem with needles. Sometimes I freak out a little if they are in my arm too long (or if the vaccine burns and no one warns me, or if the needle is stuck in too far, and when they try to move it they accidentally take it out of my arm and my blood squirts everywhere or when they are trying to take my blood and miss the vein and try to take blood out of what is not the vein and then almost make me pass out) but I usually don't have a problem. I DO, however have a problem when the doctor put in for some tests last month and the fact that I have had my blood taken at least twice since then and they did not run all of the tests that they were supposed to. sheesh. Anyway, the moral of this story is that I am a pin cushion and that I also probably have no couth. I finally went in today to have more blood taken to run the tests that I need for my Cairo application and I wanted to check with every human and computer possible to ensure that they were going to run the correct tests this time. I asked the guy who checks people in to verify what tests they were running. He responded by saying 'they'll tell you when you go back there'. Which is a little strange because I know that they come up on the computer screen when you enter the patient's information. Fast forward a little to me sitting in the chair. The lady goes and gets my labels and I want to be positive that they are running the tests that I need so I ask again. She looks at the labels, looks at me and then very quitely says 'HIV and RRP' (I don't actually remember what she called the second one, but it had R's and P's in it, so that's what I came up with). I respond by saying 'ok, good, but what is that second one for?'. She looked at me for a little while and then told me that she couldn't say it out loud. What? So then I, in all my glory ask in a moderately loud voice 'oooh, is that the one for Syphilis?' She stared at me some more and then took all of the blood out of my whole body (that is probably not true, just some. some of the blood). It wasn't until I was leaving that I realized that people who go in to get their blood tested for HIV and Syphilis probably don't want everyone to know and the lady was probably just trying to respect that. I just know that I don't have HIV or Syphilis and just need proof so that Egypt can know that too before they let me into the country.

Oh also: in case you just skimmed that or got confused, I don't have HIV or Syphilis I just needed to get an official test for my Cairo application. Just thought I would make that clear.

In other news:
* Andrew told me that I was breaking some secret society blogger rules because my header was too big, so he made me a smaller one. That was nice of him.
* I have a dress for the wedding next weekend (it is brown and yellow and white and only $10!), but I need to try and bribe one of my aunts into sewing it up a little bit for me. Although I have created some masterpieces in my day (drawstring cow bag? hello? scrunchies for everyone? hello?) I don't trust myself to do it.
* Today is my last Friday at work and I also just sat through my last graduation and poured my last cup of punch! My coworkers/boss decided to give me a great gift called 'here is at least one infinity hours worth of paper for you to shred' so that was nice. I made an executive decision that Fridays were not created for shredding paper for a lot of hours, so I'm going to start that new and exciting project on Monday.
* Last night was my last Chi Alpha, so that was kinda sad. Tonight I am having dinner with Sara D, so that will be happy!
* The power went out for about ten minutes at my house last night and I FROKE out.
* All Africa prep things are going well and hopefully I will get some more stuff done this weekend.

18 DAYS to AFRICA!

kb

The Meadows

My dumb friend Andrew told me that Las Vegas means 'the meadows'. I mostly believe him because he won some sort of award for how good he is at looking stuff up online. I mostly don't believe him just because he is a brat and asked me if I had ever heard of Wikipedia, which obviously I have.

Anyway, here is Wiki proof if you are still doubting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas,_Nevada

I played Rock Band with some of my cousins last night at my aunt's house (oh hey family members!) and I am ballin at the drums on that thing. For reals. It was good times. I also went to sushi with my other aunt and that was a GOOD decision. I was impressed by my family's overall sushi eating ability. (Hey little cousin who gave me grief for writing about myself online- I just wrote about YOU online, how do you feel about THAT? : ) ) I did not spend as much time with my family this summer as I was hoping and won't be able to spend much time with them over the next year or so, but if you are one of my family members know that I freakin love you to death, even if I am bad at keeping in touch when I'm at college (and if I do bad things like that hand balloon blowing skill I accidentally taught some of your children yesterday, or poking people in the cheek, or that they all say 'shut it' now). In the meantime let's do fun things until I leave : ) You all are one of the reasons that part of my heart will always be in the TX.

The reality of what it will mean to be out of the country and away from school, family and friends is starting to hit a little harder. I will be going back to school as everyone is moving in and moving on to a new year without me. I have established a new life at Notre Dame and it is sometimes unbearable to think about leaving that behind. But I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and talking to Sarah (who is home now and a BEAUTIFUL human being) has made me more excited about what I am leaving everything I know and love behind for.

On a lighter note, I am certain that I am going to miss a lot of the holidays that we celebrate in the US and I don't mean 'miss' like I'm going to be sad, I mean like I won't know they are going on. If you know anything about me you know I have a horrible memory and if you are Lauren then you know the one thing I absolutely cannot remember is numbers. I can barely remember my own birthday. It will be interesting to see if I can forget things like Valentines Day and St. Patricks Day and those other silly things that I only know are happening because people talk about them. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not. I actually don't know what day of December Christmas is on and I have to text Ash every year and ask when my Dad's birthday is. True story. Also Ash's birthday is on the 30th? 31st? I've only known her for almost 10 years. Yeah, this is a real thing. Thank the Lord for Facebook. You probably think I'm a bad friend because I didn't send you a present or call you on your birthday, the honest truth is that I will never know when your birthday is, I simply cannot remember. I'm sorry if that offends you. It is just the truth. Also it is the way God made me, so you can take it up with Him : )

kb

LAS VEGAS

I spent the weekend in Las Vegas with Katie . It was ballin. (Balling, if you will) I got burned because I'm an "I word" but had tons of time to relax and talk to Katie about moving on to new things and time to reflect on the old ones. I am extremely glad I went and incredibly thankful for her amazing fam.

Things to mention about the weekend:
1. I Love Sushi= Yes please, and thank you. Worth the wait.
2. I was supposed to have a layover in Phoenix, but we couldn't land because the weather was bad, they re-routed our flight to Vegas, that was great for all four of us going there, but not for the rest of our flight. That's the greatest thing airline drama has every done for me.
3. The little kids being pushed in strollers down the strip at 2 am made me think about life a little.
4. The angry bride with her dress hiked up trudging down the strip with the groom following was hilarious and also made me think about life a little.
5. A six year old told me that she knows 16 bad words. Maybe even more. Maybe less.
6. Katie is going to do awesome things with her life and I'm excited to hear all about them. She is great and on a new ADVENTURE! So hooray for that.
7. I want to know what "Las Vegas" means. It's got to mean something. I'm determined to figure it out.

In other news:
More appointments today!
I have plane tickets for my trip to ND, so that's official.
Sarah comes home soon and I cannot wait to talk to her all about South Africa.
I have TONS to do and only about 10 days left in El P. WOW.

kb

Naming the Animals...

The honest truth is that I stole the title. Donald Miller wrote a book called “Searching for God Knows What” and you should read it if you haven’t because he has a BIG brain. In one of the chapters he talks about Adam and Eve as real people and love and relationships and the Fall and makes some really good observations about it all. Of course what I got out of the chapter was really not the main point at all, but something about the process of Adam naming the animals resonated with me even more than the other really brilliant observations that Miller makes.

Genesis 2:18-20
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

Here are some things Miller had to say:
“[God] did not give Adam what he needed immediately. He waited. He told Adam to name the animals…I actually thought about what would be involved in a job as big as naming the animals. In my mind this had been such an effortless action; Adam sits on a log with his hand on his chin, God parades the animals by rather quickly, Adam calls out names under his breath: Buffalo, chimp, horse, mouse, lizard, buffalo…uh, wait-did I already say buffalo? Um, well-how about cow; did I already say cow?...even if you believe in evolution, that means there were between one million and fifty million species around in the time of the Garden, and Adam, apparently, had to name all of them. The entire time he was lonely”

I feel like I’m at a place in my life where God is asking me to name the animals. Now let’s not be ridiculous, that is not a literal statement. First of all I don’t expect Him to remove one of my ribs when I’m done and make another person, also Adam was a man and (excuse me I have something to say) I am a girl. I could list of all kinds of differences, but that isn’t the point. God knew what would make Adam content, but before God created Eve, Adam had to be uncomfortable for a while. God left Adam lonely while giving him the task of naming all of the animals.

I honestly don’t feel lonely, I have beautiful support systems of absolutely wonderful people at home and at school and now even in Texas but I am going to Africa alone. Yes, yes I will meet people there and I will be surrounded by people there but I am making the journey alone. God knows what makes me comfortable and I am being asked, for a season, to step out of my comfort zone. I often worry about coming home to lost friendships, going back to school realizing that everyone and everything has changed and moved on without me. The truth is that I know there will be changes, but I also know that God is faithful. If God was willing to leave Adam lonely while asking him to name the animals, it is not unrealistic that He is asking me to go to the other side of the world alone.

Since the animal naming job was already taken, I am moving on to other adventures with full confidence that God can comfort the aches and pains that come with separation and uncertainty and loneliness and that His plan is good and that He really is faithful.

So here’s to seasons of change and challenges and the realization that stepping outside of the comfort zone is hard and painful and a little scary, but beautiful and exciting and where God is asking me to go. Alone.

Happy Now?

Ok, so this is officially the AFRICA blog. It seems as though more of you than I'm comfortable with would like an easy way to stalk me while I'm in Africa for the next however many months. Ya creepers.

I will try and update this blog as often as possible and will hopefully use it in place of silly mass e-mails to keep everyone 'in the know', if you will. So check as often or as little as you like, and leave me happy comments so I don't feel like I'm writing this for no one to read : )

Some prep updates as of now:
*I have my VISA! And it has NO typos! Now according to me, my family, my friends, the orphanage and the Republic of South Africa, I am spending the next four months out of the country. Unfortunately I am still enrolled at Notre Dame and have not declared my leave of absence... but once that's done I will be completely legit.
*Tomorrow I will officially have two weeks left at work and in El Paso
*I have decided to stop by Notre Dame before I leave, even though it will probably make me sad. I will be there from Aug24-27thish. Let's do fun things.
*I will be in the COS from the 27-Sep2. If you are there, I better see you. I have a list. You know who you are.
*I am almost done with the immunizations/physicals/blood tests/x-rays/appointments that need to be finished before I leave... only 3 appointments and a Yellow Fever vaccine left!
*Packing and traveling have not even started and are already stressing me out!
*I am trying to figure out how much/what I will be able to do to improve the preschool program, which is hard because I know hardly anything about the kids and need to make decisions about what I think will be effective and what I need to bring to accomplish those things.
*I am done with summer school which means no more classes, tests or silly paper writing until January!
*Sarah is there now and also AMAZING. Send her some love.

I will write more, like maybe why the title of my blog is about animals? But not right now, now I need to act employed.

26(ish) DAYS!

Craziness.
kb