"Consider the Ravens..."

Today was a very normal day in preschool: lots of kids, typical arguments, laughter, lunches, and learning.  But today I came away from work just a little bit wiser.  Actually, this is happening a lot more frequently -- I find myself working and then thinking about the bigger picture of life.  I often ponder why in the world God wants me at this preschool right now.  I dream about different directions my life could go.  I look at job boards, but nothing stands out.  It's an odd spot to be in, but today was a bit of an ice-breaker. It started on the playground, where most good preschool stories start.  (If you're my Facebook friend, you've likely read the myriad of hilarious things kids say, most of which happen on the playground.)  One of the girls approached me and asked me in moderately broken english to put her hair back into "tails."  She put her pointer fingers on her head almost like horns or antlers and I understood: pigtails!  We giggled and I worked on

Last week I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to Ecuador with 21 teens and three other adults to minister to both missionaries and local Ecuadorians.  The 11 days we spent abroad will likely remain a highlight of my year, and probably in my life for several reasons.  God showed up.  Here's my brief attempt to give you a glimpse of what happened. The team we took down was comprised of 21 very unique students, most of whom were 15 or 16 (the youngest we would allow).  I was nervous about our team being young and that so many of the students had never been out of the country, muchless to a place similar to the third-world set-up we were headed into.  There were very strong personalities and more than a few quirks (including my own) that made me wonder just how well we would get along for 11 straight days.  A majority of the students come from one of the wealthiest suburbs in the metro area -- not a bad thing, just another dynamic that would push the students further out

Next week I will, God-willing, turn 26. While birthdays have never been an overly big deal for me, this one is a welcome change. If I'm really honest, I have to admit that 25 hasn't been my favorite year of life and I'm ready to move on.  Being 25 for me meant moving all my stuff seven times in twelve months-- SEVEN! It meant one of those seven moves was moving back to MN and leaving Manila indefinitely after just beginning to really feel settled. It meant new jobs, a lost job, a bad job, and now two busy jobs that weren't even on my radar until October. It meant new friendships, old friends, and new sides to old problems i thought were a thing of the past. For someone who likes to have big plans and all the details figured out, being 25 has been exhausting. Sometimes it feels like I'm playing a never-ending game of pick up sticks. Just when it seems I've got everything finally in my hand, a few sticks drop and a few more reveal themselves. This morning I was