Give more of yourself

For this post I wanted to talk about serving in a church community. 

I'd like to say that at a Christian Univeristy like Cal Baptist, it is a common act. Many spend part of their first year, as a student, visiting churches. 

After becoming a member, they typically choose a ministry to serve in. 

Some however, spend a lot of their time church hopping or simply attending.

I attend Sandals church in Grand Terrace, Calif. and I serve in the worship band. I volunteer at least once a month, lending my singing voice for the weekend. I recently started attending Sandals, and I didn't really know too many people there (because it's a big church) to begin with. 

Last weekend I was there rehearsing, singing, and getting to know those who attend and serve. I enjoyed my time so much. Serving was a breath of fresh air. I got so much out of my time, and I kept thinking, "Why doesn't everyone serve in a church?" 

Later, I sat down and came up with 4 reasons (not in a particular order) as to why people should serve at their church rather than just attend. Hopefully this encourages someone to get connected to a church. 

Your gift for His glory 

God has given everyone a specific gift. We, as believers are to use it for His glory. We are to do with our gifts whatever points to Him. 

The bible tells us in 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV), "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." 

Building those bridges 

When you serve at a church you build relationships with those serving alongside you. 
You will begin to notice that those people that surround you will become your family and your support. 

Two weekends ago I probably spent a total of 14 hours at Sandals. I was around the same people for those hours, and I can say that relationships have developed and with confidence say that they will continue to develop as I serve.

The best way to connect with people at a big church is to invest your time. No way will you build relationships if you simply attend a service and go home.

Some of my closest friends, people that I even consider my family, have come from friendships I made while serving at a church. 

Serving to learn

Serving for the experience; when you use the talents that God has given you, you develop your skills. This is important for a college student. The church can be a great field to put to practice what is learned in school. 

For example, if you're studying graphic design, use that gift to design a logo for your small group, or to design the weekly announcements.

Not only that, but some churches offer internships where you can use your skills in your particular major, network with those around you, and build your resume. 

The hand of God

One of the biggest blessings that comes with serving, at least for me, has been seeing the work of God first hand. Christ wants us, as believers, to be part of the miracles that come to place in His temple.  God seeks to show us more of himself in order to understand who He is. Through serving, we enable Him to do His work through us. 

This post is for a class assignment.
I basically have to post some of my photos from the semester on this website to show off.
I don't think that they're great, but its all worth the grade :)

Not feeling sorry for myself.

My current status: Hiding behind this laptop while several freshmen are sitting in this hole of a "RA box," watching Harry Potter. Which one are "we" watching? I have no idea. What is it about? I don't know, I have never seen it. Why haven't you seen Harry Potter? I'm not American and I have no interest? #noh8

I thought this might be a funny way to start this post since it describes my weekend. 

Everything this week has been, for lack of a better term, off.

To start things off I caught a cold from one of my freshmen girls, this time making my body very weak and squeamish. It's been hard to get rid of it due to lack of sleep and nourishment. 

I found myself behind in all of my classes (this rarely happens in my case), seeing as I've been putting my two jobs before my schoolwork. 

Then, I had to deal with the unpleasant part of my job as an RA, asking God, "What is your purpose in this?!" Twice.

Eventually I realized that I was "unhappy" with how low my dosage of adventure has been. If you know me, you know that I  love adventures, and lately my biggest adventure has been a trip to the Daily Brew to get some homework done. 

I rejected serving at my church this weekend due to a conflict in schedule. This made me very sad, because I always look forward to serving at Sandals, it's normally the highlight of my week, and a breath of fresh air. 

There was one big deadline and one big Cottage event all in one week, both in which I played a big part in. The weight felt like it was on my shoulders, but alas, it had to get done, and I'm a "Get it done" person. 

Then I planned to go home so that I could spend some quality time with mi madre and have her work her mommy ways and heal me of my swollen throat (and also escape the CBU bubble for a bit), but no, I realized that I was on duty this weekend, meaning that I would spend six hours of my Friday and Saturday in a tiny room, mainly by myself. 

Then this weekend I felt lonely- there is nothing more to that, I just felt lonely. 

Ok, so its been a rough week. But there were also things that I was very thankful for this week. 

Like, having the chance to do the favorite part of my job as an RA at the same time of doing the unpleasant part of my job. God opened BIG opportunities with this situation, and I couldn't be anymore thankful. 

From another situation came the opportunity of getting to know some of my residents on a deeper level. 

From my sickness has come, well,  self-awareness. I know that I need to get more sleep, and also to eat healthier. I can't turn to chocolate every time i'm feeling low, I need to turn to celery... or something like that. 

This week, I grew closer to one of my dearest friends, a person who is upfront with how she feels, and real with herself. We hung out a lot and this made me really happy. 

This weekend I got caught up with my homework! Hooray! I'm no longer behind!

This weekend, I drew closer to God. Through all this hoopla I saw the hand of God guiding me in my words, actions, and emotions. I didn't see any of my "struggles" in vain, God opened my eyes to His purpose and His glory once again and I'm not bitter of my circumstances.

I read a devotional today that reminded me how pointless all this complaining and feeling sorry for myself really was.

This passage is what stood out to me as I reflected on how low I felt this week: 

"I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, 'Lord, this causes me such heartache.' To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy 'world within the world,' and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being 'frost-bitten.' "

If you want to read the rest, here is the link: http://utmost.org/fellowship-in-the-gospel/

So, the purpose of this blog entry is not for people to feel sorry for me, but rather to see that God is glorified even when one fails, feels lonely, or has an "off" week. Our lives should be used for God's purpose to be fulfilled and not for our own comfort or happiness.  

Abiding in Christ

It has been a while..

A little update on my life:

I moved back to the CBU campus, for the last time as an undergrad student.

I started my job both as a Freshmen RA and as Editor in chief of our yearbook.

God is so intentional, he has placed the perfect people on both of my staff's, I love getting to work beside them for a common cause.

I quit choir... yes shocker, but I have been using my singing ability at Sandals church in Riverside and it has been a huge blessing/ learning opportunity.

I have been beat up by the enemy, he constantly feeds insecurities into my mind.

I have seen the hand of God deliver me of my insecurities on a daily basis, He has come to rescue me every single time.

I have learned more about time management and diligence.

I have learned that I love my freshmen girls a lot. They make me so happy! The fact that I get to live life with them, listen to them, and give them advice is the best.

Confession: I was really skeptical about God placing me to be a freshmen RA, I didn't think that I was the right person, and/ or had the right heart for it, but alas, here I am having the time of my life teaching them about the CBU culture and what Christ has for them.

I have felt the presence of Christ with me more than ever before, I can't do any of this without him, nor do I want to try.

I have learned that being obedient to God's will, as much as it hurts, is hard but utterly worth it.

I have learned that I can make a difference in someone's life, even with the small amount of time I have.

Reading my bible and having alone time with God has been a crucial aspect of my daily life.

I learned that the Holy Spirit intercedes, especially when I can't put my words together.

I have seen the power of prayer more apparent in my life and in the life of others.

I have seen God's joy take over moments of my life, "I've tested and I've seen."

In the past, I have never been one to be in touch with my emotions, it always took me a while to figure out how I was feeling and/or to even voice to others my emotions.

This isn't the case now... I am too aware of my emotions, and it weird.

As a girl, I have learned to give God control of my emotions because they are just too much to handle, and also I see them as a distraction. I know that with time I will come to understand more about the culture of emotions, but for now I really don't want to deal with them. As i'm typing this I'm thinking that maybe this is what God is trying to teach me? Oh boy.

Anyways this quote has taught me a lot about what I am learning:

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

Summer '13

It has been two months since summer break started.

Besides all the sleeping, lounging around and sunbathing (which I don't really get to do because I burn easily), this summer has been a life changing summer for me. 

After some unfortunate change of plans, I wasn't sure what would become of my summer. You see, I'm a very productive on-the-go person. However, this summer,  I was left without a plan. 

I was left without any responsibility, my summer was open for anything. 

I began praying for God to really use my summer as a time for me to grow and to prepare me for my busy senior year of college. 

Everything in my life began to dwindle down-- for the most part that isn't a bad thing, but for a person who loves to stay busy, it was.

So I quickly turned to look for something to do. I searched for jobs and internships, prayed about getting involved in a church (somewhere close to CBU where I could serve for the next years to come), started planning for the development of the yearbook and my staff, and sought to spend time with old friends and family. 

So far, God has answered all my prayers. Every single one of them. Without a doubt, He has blessed me. 

I started an internship with a local newspaper called The City News Group in the beginning of June. This internship has been such a blessing, an awesome learning experience. I have the privilege of writing, editing and taking photos for the paper. I get to go to different events within Redlands and report on these events. 
Then, my writing gets published! It's such an awesome feeling, seeing your writing printed and on newsstands.

I have decided to become a member at Sandals Church. Currently, I am working on finishing their membership classes
(These classes are awesome, they have taught me a lot their doctrine, you know, their foundation). 
God truly opened the doors for me to be a member at Sandals.
 It's a crazy long story, but if anyone wants to hear it, let me know :) 

Planning for Angelos, our school yearbook, has also been a task this summer. As Editor-in-Chief (EIC)
I have the privilege, along with the Art Director and Managing Editor,
 to come up with a theme that will represent our year. 
Also, this year we are really working with our leadership, to not only have a title, but also to influence (lead) our staff. 
It has been awesome to be working together, as a staff, to put this book of memories together. 
I am beyond excited for next year 
and for the wonderful staff that the Lord has provided. 
I'm also very thankful for my director and professor who will be mentoring me and 
working with me to be the best editor that I can be. 

It has also been really neat to spend time with people who seem to get neglected whenever I'm in school.
I promise, I don't do it on purpose. Sometimes it's hard to see some of my extended family and friends because of distance, 
but thankfully I have been able to spend precious moments with those people during this summer. 

I can say that even though things didn't go as planned, God had something better for me. He ALWAYS does. 
I always feel so discouraged when things don't go the way they were planned, but then the Lord reminds me that 
I must trust in him and in his perfect plan for me.

A reminder...  

Proverbs 16:9 "We can make our plans,
    but the Lord determines our steps"

#ucotour12

Its been a while since I’ve posted.. I’ve had a crazy busy month of April and May (so far). 

School is now over and summer has begun!

This post will be dedicated to telling you about “Tour.”

Being a member of the California Baptist University's Choir and Orchestra I get to travel with the group at the end of the school year for two and a half weeks.

This year UCO toured through some towns of Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

It’s very interesting to see how Tour works.

The first thing you should know is that tour is paid for by the school, students don't have to put any money into the trip. 

For UCO all of the members were flown out from Ontario, Los Angeles, Orange County California to Houston, Texas.

From there, UCO got on charter buses that took us to each destination.

I thought that I would write about certain terms that are repeatedly used during the tour. This will hopefully give you more of a glimpse of what life of a UCO member is like.

Home Stay- This is when the members of UCO are accommodated to stay with different families of the churches we visit, we normally stay with them for one night. Home stays are an awesome way to meet people and build connections. Each night we are paired/grouped up with different people from the choir, allowing us to get to know one another on a better level. I have some pretty fun and crazy stories from the past three years; don’t hesitate to ask for a story :) 

Here's a fun photo we took during one of our home stays
The family we stayed with insisted that we have a photo shoot in their beautiful backyard!

 

Sacked Lunches- These are our lunches during the two weeks. Host families put together a sacked lunch for us to take with us on the road. Typically these are composed of a sandwich, fruit, chips, and a water bottle (normally we all get tired of the sandwiches and we start to get creative).

Dinner- Our dinner is normally provided by the churches prior to our concerts.

Bus rides- These happen every day. The duration of each drive can vary from 1 hour to a 11-hour bus ride. Time is normally spent sitting on a seat either reading, watching movies, playing games, writing a blog, eating, or talking to people on the bus.

Rest Stop- This is the time (the very small amount of time) that is given to use the facilities and get anything that we might need for the remainder of the bus ride. Normally we stop at a truck stop.

Concerts- One of the best things about tour! This is when we, as a group, get to worship with people from other parts of the U.S. Our group leads a church into worship, we guide them with our voices and instruments for a time spent with the Lord. Every concert, this year, for me, was a time spent in heaven! It might have been just glimpses, but that was all I needed to know that there’s nothing more that I want than to spend eternity in heaven worshipping God. 

All the churches that we had concerts at were beautiful! Here's one :) 

Call Time- the hour that is given to us to return to the church from our home stay in order to hit the road and proceed to the next location. Sometimes this hour can be as early as 6 a.m. or as late as 10 a.m.

Free Time- I'm not sure if there was even such thing for UCO.. i'm joking. We did have some free time during tour, although it was not a lot, it was nice to have some time to relax. This year we got to have a recreational day at the Sam Houston National Park. Here is a photo of a beautiful trail. :) 

We had a couple more free time activities; two mall stops and a stop with a shopping center, lake, and a mall. 

I’m sure there a plenty of other terms that other members of the choir can come up with, I just didn’t want to make this blog post too lengthy ;) 

Here's a picture of myself and one of my dear friends in our "choir attire," dress, hair, lipstick and all. 

For the past four years choir has played a huge part of my life. It has taught me a lot of things about professionalism, worship, excellence, dedication, practice, diligence, maturity, I can keep going on and on. 

Choir has helped me improve vocally and as a person, believe me it has helped me grow, it's not easy being part of a 150 member group.

The opportunity for ministry is awesome, whether it's within the group or to the churches we visit. 

UCO will be something that I am going to miss dearly when I move on to the next chapter of my life. 

Grand Canyon or Bust!

<--- Myself at the grand canyon :)

I am an enthusiast for adventure! This spur (sort of) of the moment trip was exactly what I needed!
I'm not going to lie, I was nervous about the 7 hour ride there and then the 7 hour ride back.
All you need is some good company, and you're set to go!  :)

The company: I got to experience the beauty of the Grand Canyon with my wonderful staff (the girls I work alongside with as a Resident Advisor at CBU). They are such an awesome group of girls. We all have such different personalities but we work together so well, and we always have so much fun!
I love taking the time to bond and live life with these great women.

Here are seven reasons why you should drive to the Grand Canyon.
Especially if you live in Socal :)



1. It gives you something to do! If you have at least two days with nothing planned, a mini road trip will fill in the time and give you an adventure!
2. You can get deep with the people in your car. Tired of the shallow conversations you have sometimes between friends? haha, Put them in a car with you for over 3 hours and you'll get them talking about their life (I love to talk to people, so for me this was the coolest thing!)
3. You can stop at cool places along the way or on the way back :) We stopped at cracker barrel, which I had never been to before. The food was delicious! Definitely going there again!
4. You can say you've been to one of the seven wonders of the world! Take that off your bucket list! ;)
5. You might take a killer profile picture (for your facebook, tumblr, Instagram, or whatever), the grand canyon makes a beautiful backdrop to any photo.
6. You can experience the grand canyon in so many different ways. You can hike it (which I plan on doing soon), you can go camping, you can ride donkeys down the canyon (how cool is that?), you can watch the sunrise/sunset (perfect for a date eh? ;), and you can just sit there and geek over its beauty!
7. Do it because it'll be a great story to tell. "I remember that one time in college when me and 9 other girls drove out to the grand canyon, watched the sunrise, went to cracker barrel, and drove back."
Of course your story will be different, but it'll still be an amazing story to tell :)

My beautiful staff, I love these girls so much! They have been such an encouragement to me, challenging in my faith and helping me grow closer to Christ.