Seattle (part 3)

I have to admit, Seattle is a pretty rockin' town. I had only been to Seattle one time before this and that was nearly 6 years ago. And if I remember back to that time in my life, I was definitely more concerned with my hair and impressing my boyfriend's family than I was with finding the beauty in Seattle. So it was so great to be able to go again and see it all with new eyes. And what really made it awesome was having Katie and Charlie as tour guides. Since they have lived in Seattle for over 3 years, they were able to avoid the tourist traps and take us to some pretty spiffy places that Seattle has to offer that could easily be overlooked. 

For example: The Taco Bus

This is the taco bus. I was a little skeptical at first. I mean, just look at it. But I was quickly proven wrong....
Katie, TJ, and I all split a plate of tacos and they were awesomely delicious. 

In this picture you can kind of see the inside of the taco bus. It was surprisingly clean. 

So if you are ever in Seattle and you find yourself in the mood for some tacos with not a lot of extra money, do yourself a favor and go to the taco bus. You won't be disappointed! 

Seattle (part 2)

As I mentioned in my previous post, Elsa was a definite highlight of the trip. More specifically, the car rides with Elsa. I got to sit in the back seat with her, and 85% of the time, she was content and sweet. I had a hard time putting down my camera! These are some of my favorites. 

Seattle (part 1)

TJ and I each had 3 days off work and decided to drive over to Seattle to see his sisters, Katie and Karrin, and their families. We managed to squeeze in quite a bit, so instead of trying to fit it all into one blog, I will do a few blogs about it over the next couple of days. 

But first, I need to share a picture of our adorable neice, Elsa. 

She was definitely a highlight of the trip! 

Before even deciding to visit Seattle, Katie and Karrin had been talking about checking out some churches in their area, and we had offered to go with them. So it was perfect when we were able to be there on a Sunday. And I was even more ecstatic when TJ's sisters said they wanted to check out Mars Hill. Their preaching pastor, Mark Driscoll, has become known throughout churches and the media for his use of text messaging in his sermons and his unconventional ways of preaching. So of course, I was intrigued! 

Mars Hill has 7 campuses throughout the Seattle area, and we went to the one in West Seattle where Katie lives. That church only has about 800 members, making it one of the smaller campuses...the largest one is in Ballard, having over 3000 members. They make use of video technology so that Mark Driscoll is technically the preacher at all of the locations, but each location has separate church pastors that lead their members. Does that make sense? I think I said that right...

Anyway, we went to the 5PM service, and it was a little sparce, maybe only a couple hundred people? The building was large, but modest. There were no indoor fountains, coffee shops, or fog machines. They did have a little book store where they were able to sell Christian books for less since they are a non-profit organization.

The service started out with worship music. I did enjoy the worship song choices, but I was a little bothered that I couldn't hear anybody else singing because it was a little loud. And I like worshipping with people, and instead I kind of felt like I was singing along at a concert. But the worship band did play well and I appreciated that.

There were announcements and prayer after worship. Then they lowered the video screen and Mark Driscoll came on the screen. They had been going through 1 Peter, and were at chapter 3, verse 7, which speaks to men. Here are the sermon notes. I won't go to much into it, but overall he addressed some serious issues concerning men in the church and he preached very powerfully, but I felt there was a lack of scripture used. The text messaging came into play after the sermon, where people were allowed to anonymously text in their questions for him to answer. They closed with communion, a few more worship songs, and prayer. 

So has anybody else heard of this church before? Any opinions on the text messaging or the video sermons? I'm just curious to see what other people think. So let me know! 

 

to know

About 8 months ago, TJ was looking for something to listen to while he was at work, and he happened to find The Village Church podcast. Since then, God has used so many of these sermons to speak directly into my life. I was listening to this one today, and Pastor Matt Chandler addressed one of my biggest heart issues right now. His words are much more eloquent then mine, so I'm going to just copy down an excerpt from that sermon. If you get a chance, listen to the whole thing. 

"Now, spoken and unspoken, churches have this kind of unwritten code of Christian behavior...In fact, depending on the time of life that you get saved, the list looks different. Like if you got saved when you were in college, your heart was awakened to the reality of Christ in college, all of a sudden, you have to start playing the acoustic guitar. Because you can't be a Christian and not play the acoustic guitar in college, that's for sure. And you have to join a worship band or you start reading John Piper's books, and you've go to go here, and you've got to do that. And you start filling out that list. Now when you're older, it looks a little bit different. You know, you're Republican, you've got to fight this moral quandary that our nation is in, as we as Christians are hard pressed. And by the way, if you'd like to fly to Leberia or China, I'll pay for you to go, and then you can see what hard pressed is. And then you've got a checklist, you've got to study this, you've got to join this, you've got to go here, you can't do this, you better start doing this... Here's my point: what ends up happening is we begin, whether spoken or unspoken, to try to conform to this list of expectations on Christian behavior. We begin to work towards it and begin to master it, and where we can't master it, we begin to pretend to master it. And what ends up happening is we grow more and more and more in the knowledge about God and wake up and can't find Him anywhere. So that, what ends up happening is our knowledge about God has increased monumentally over that moment where He became real to us, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. Jesus is nowhere to be found."

One of the most haunting parts of scripture to me is Matthew 7:21-23 

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom  of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!'  (bold lettering added) 

And then I look back on all my years of religion classes, sunday school, church, chapels, devotions, and I have to seriously wonder if I just know about God, or do I actually know Him. 

the fam

Last weekend, my sisters-in-law and their families drove from Seattle to celebrate Emily's 1st birthday and give TJ and I a chance to meet our little 2 month old niece, Elsa. Here are a few pictures!

Karrin and Emily

TJ getting Emily started on the drum

Little Elsa Louise

Emily enjoying her birthday gift

Uncle TJ, Emily, and the pinwheel

Katie and Elsa

what I do

I work as a direct support professional for adolescents who have developmental disabilities. The children live in a group home setting and get 24 hour care. I can't go into a lot of detail because of confidentiality laws, but let's just say when the kids are having a good day, it's really good. Like I wonder how I could actually be getting paid for watching movies and going to parades. But when the days are bad, they're really bad. Like I might just spend 2 hours on the ground blocking hits, kicks, bites, hair pulls, pinches, and scratches.

And I love it. There's never a dull day. 

This week was a little crazy though. I found out what happens when a staff gets fired, but the children still need support. 

Overtime. 

Last night I recorded 58.5 hours on my time sheet for last week. It felt really good. This week I'm working a little less - 57 hours - but by next week I will be hopefully back to my regular 40 hour weeks. 

I tend to feel like since I worked a lot, I don't need to do anything else. And therefore nothing else (running, cooking, cleaning, reading....) gets done. For example, It's 12:39 PM, I've been up since 9:00, and I'm still sitting in my PJs even though I have to leave for work in an hour. And my one goal I set for myself this morning was to run and I totally didn't do it. So pathetic.

So there you have it. I hope your day is much, much more productive than mine. And sunshiny.  

proof

When we lived in Eau Claire I was always trying new recipes and was determined to make as many things from scratch as possible. Now that we're here, that's pretty much gone. Especially since I work at night. Even on my days off the last thing I want to do is spend my entire day in the kitchen. 

But last night, I made dinner and it was pretty good. So I thought I'd share the recipe. I found the recipe here, but I modified it slightly because of what I had. So here's what I did.

Tortellini Soup with Sausage and Spinach

1 lb. mild Italian Sausage

2 garlic cloves minced

1 lb. cheese tortellini 

1 bag fresh spinach

1 tsp thyme

salt and pepper to taste

3 quarts beef stock

1. Cook sausage over medium heat until cooked through

2. Add thyme and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes

3. Drain grease and add sausage, garlic, and thyme to beef stock

4. Bring to boil and then reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes

5. Add tortellini and cook for 5 minutes 

6. Add spinach and cook for another 2-3 minutes

One change I would make next time would  be to use either less stock or add more of everything else, because I like a good hearty soup. But I will definitely make it again!