Holi Festival

Ahhh the Holi festival. What a fun time that was! I had never done something like it before, and let me tell you, it was the best! I mean, what's more fun than throwing colored powder on your friends? It was a great way for us as a student body (at CBU) to become more culturally aware. Here are a couple of things that I learned from this experience.

#1- I love learning about other cultures. Being someone that comes from two cultures, I love getting to to experience other cultural rituals and customs. That includes food of course :)
#2- Make sure you get a darker colored powder such as blue, purple, or pink. The yellow and orange didn't show up so well.
#3- Don't run around with your mouth open. I made that mistake & was coughing up some powder later on.... haha ;)
#4- Wear white!! If you show up with a dark colored shirt the colors won't pop!
#5- Hide from your friends.... they'll get you in the face (at least my friends will).
#6- Have a camera! Capture before and after shots, its so much fun!
#7- Don't wash your clothes with other clothes (that don't have the powder on it already), it will bleed.
#8- Don't throw all your powder at once... you'll be left with no amo to attack.
#9 Bollywood is amazing! If you have a chance to watch it, do so!


I am so thankful that my school put these things together for us. Hinduism is practiced in part of the 10/40 window which is the window that is un-reached (meaning that the gospel has not been heard).
I realized that I needed to pray for the missionaries that are out there bringing the gospel in such a confused and lost land, and also continue to support them financially. And who knows? Maybe one day God will call me or one of my close friends to the 10/40 window. We must be educated & PRAY!


Here are some aftermath pictures.. 

Family ,Friends,& Jesus

<--- The art of slacklining. It's harder than it looks. But its fun :) 


So I need to be posting every week. This is good practice for me,
I need to become a better writer (for my profession of course). So I will try my best to post weekly.
This week is about my easter break :) Since I go to a baptist school I
get to have Thursday through Monday off.

Thursday my friends and I decided to head to Hunington beach.
We brought firewood, towels, a guitar, a slack line and s'mores stuff.
We walked over two miles to go get lunch at TK Burgers.
Once we returned from lunch we decided to start our fire and start singing worship songs.
This, my friends, was the PERFECT afternoon.
Let me paint the scene for you..
Some of my greatest friends, music (guitar and scratchy beach voices), sound of the crashing waves, smell of the fire (I like it ok..), chocolate (my favorite thing in the world), a gorgeous sunset with beautiful and vibrant colors, and Jesus in the midst of our worship.
Here's a picture of what I'm trying to paint, I promise, it is much better in person! 

These are the awesome moments that I await for in heaven..
The moments when we can just spend time in fellowship with one another with Christ as the center. 
These heavenly moments are glimpses of what is to come, without the pain, fear, and hurting of course. 

Another heavenly moment was on Good Friday. My sister, brother and I went to the OC to watch 
one of our favorite Christian Spanish bands "Rojo." Man, oh man, are they filled with the Holy Spirit! 
They sure can bring worship, heaven on earth style. I was crying my eyes out, overwhelmed by the lyrics
of their songs. They encouraged us to pray for the nations, to reach out to those countries that have never 
heard of the love of God. It was such a great way to spend my Good Friday.

We were so close. It was awesome :) 

Last but not least, I want to talk about Easter.. for me as a follower of Christ this day is extremely important. It is the day that broke any wall of separation between mankind and God. Jesus, the son of God, gave himself, and was crucified on the cross for all of our sins. Three days later, Jesus resurrected from the dead, proving that God has all the power and all authority. Victory was proclaimed over all the earth. Satan no longer has a hold on us, Christ does! On Easter we celebrate that victory, my family has a tradition 

of attending my parents church for their sunrise service (which starts at 6). We also got to spend some time 

with my extended family, prior to that. We watched my uncle get baptized, it was a big blessing to be a part of that. 

I know, I write a lot... I want to say more, but for the sake of this post not being a novel I'm going to cut it short. 

I hope your Easter was as blessed as mine was! :) 

Breaking Spring

Ah spring break, the time that college students have to go crazy before their life is turned into a hole of stress and no sleep. Many students party, vacation with family, or just chill.  CBU gives us a week to prepare for this home stretch. It was a much needed break from all the busyness in my life. For my spring break I decided to take the first half of it to spend much needed time with my family, run errands and do any catching on homework. I was VERY productive; I got a hair trim, did my taxes, went to Starbucks, did my comparative religions midterm, hung out with my siblings, caught up on Once Upon a Time and New Girl, and I applied for internships.. So, technically I didn't take a break from the busyness... I brought it home with me. I'm the type of person who isn't good at relaxing.... ha. 
Anyways, so that's the first half.. the second half I got an AWESOME opportunity to spend some time
in Solana Beach, CA at one of my good friend's grandparents' beach house. The house was great!
The company was awesome as well. I love spending time with people, turns out that it's my love
language (quality time). We talked, watched movies, sat by the bonfire, walked along the beach and 
ate (a lot). Here are some of my favorite shots taken by Fletcher Perkins and myself.

Two of my best friends and I, standing on the lifeguard tower on Solana beach, it was a cloudy day, 

at the end of the day I was still as pale as can be ;) 

 My roommate & I

Jessica, myself, & Jackie

 We explored some caves that were along Solana beach. The guys that were with us are photographers,
they were going picture crazy. It was too cold to go in the water or to lay out, so we decided to just explore and take pictures.

Here's a picture of the house were we stayed. It was right on the edge of the cliff. It was great waking up and having my devotional with the beach as my scenery. 

Here's some of the gang (Scott, Jackie, Jess, Evelyn, and Nathan) in front of the house. These people are great :)

Ok, I know. There are a lot of pictures... we took so many. We decided that we would create a hashtag in order to document our trip. If you want to see more the hashtag is #fletcherscove2013sb.

My Relationship with God

 Jesus is everything to me. I have truly learned this in the past year. God has showed himself to be my friend, father, mother, counselor, redeemer, savior, comforter, guide, etc. There are so many different things that I can say about who Jesus is to me, and there are so many other things that Jesus is continuing to demonstrate to be on a daily basis.            

Jesus has showed himself to be someone who loves me and is there for me no matter my circumstance. He has proved himself to never leave my side. He is my best friend. The relationship I have with him has increased significantly over the past years. For every decision that I have made and will ever make I will look to him for guidance. I trust the promises that God makes in his word (the bible). In Psalm 32:8 God promises to guide us, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.” I am dependant on him for everything. This is something that I have experienced greatly this semester; He was the only one who could grant me energy, hope, patience, endurance, joy, contentment, and strength.

My life has been changed because of him. Starting from my way of thinking (on a daily basis) to the way I live my life and carry myself. My morals, values, and ethics are becoming those that are pleasing to Him. Like it says in Phillipians 4:8- "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." These are things that I strive to think about daily, I want to please Him and draw closer to Him as much as I can, and I believe that striving to have a cleansed mindset is very important. 

Jesus is the friend that I can confide in and he’s the only friend that will never let me down. He is someone that I love too much to let down, which is why I try hard to please him in every aspect of my life. My love for him has grown significantly in the past three years. I pray that my life may revolve around delighting in him, being obedient, and being willing to do the work he has for me as his servant (I believe that I am here for one purpose only, and that is to do his will in order to glorify His name). However, as much as I try to not let him down I am only human and do fail daily, therefore I know that I must repent daily and continue on. I can truly say that if I hadn’t gone through all the trials and tribulations that have come my way, my relationship with Christ would not be where it is today like it states in James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (NIV)." My relationship with Christ excites me; I know He has so much in store for me. I want God to continue to be present in every aspect of my life therefore I continue daily to draw closer to Him, because like His word says in James 4:8- Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

The way I carry my relationships with others has changed as I continue to get closer to the Lord. Like it says in John 15: 12 “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you (NIV).” I want to be more like Jesus, therefore I strive to have relationships with others in the way that Jesus would. Everything that He is for me, I want to be for my friends. Jesus puts his friends before himself; He chooses to serve them even though they should be the one serving Him. I want to serve my friends and love on them so that they can see Christ in me (doing it all for His glory of course) In my relationship with others I make an effort to reflect what kind of a friend Jesus is to me. This is a prayer that I have on a daily basis. I want to see others the way that Christ looks at them, I want to love them passionately, I don’t want to it to be my Christian duty. I want to serve them out of desire and be able to guide them closer to Christ. 

Christmas Break

Well its really weird for me to not have anything to do.

On a regular basis I spend most of the day on the go with only a lunch break and a dinner break.

But for the past two days all I've done is watch netflix and hulu, read, and play guitar/sing.

Its been a nice time to relax, but I'm already getting anxy... haha.

Other than the holidays I do have some stuff planned to keep me entertained. 

I will be going to Disneyland with most of my close friends on Thursday.

& then I have to work the rest of the weekend. 

A couple of Christmas celebrations in between and lots of catching up with old friends. 

Then a new years eve party at my church (this has been a tradition for the past 7 years). 

I'll also probably head down to Universal Studios with my sister sometime within the next two weeks. After that its back to school for me for the Leadership retreat and debriefing (i'll get to that later) 

This first semester of my Junior year has been a crazy one. 

This year I took on the leadership role of Resident Advisor at CBU, 

Assistant editor for our school's magazine (Pursuit) and yearbook (Angelos), 

and started singing with CBU's amazing choir and orchestra! 

First off, I'd like to say that this has been of a HUGE blessing. I really don't

deserve any of this. 

It has also been a big opportunity for growth. I have been 

stretched in so many ways throughout the past couple of months (and let me tell ya,

Im sure wore out) 

But in all honesty, this life is not mine, this life has been dedicated to Christ, 

so with whatever its is that I do, I will honor Him & please Him.

I know that from Him comes all my strength and that He will 

make all things work together for my good. 

I'm happy to announce that I got straight A's in all my classed this semester! 

This is a big accomplishment for me; Not only because its a 4.0,

but also because I didn't think I could do it, 

especially with everything that I have going on. 

Let me tell you, it took a lot of determination and organization and strength

from God to accomplish this. 

There's a bible verse that has been my motto for making it through this semester. 

The verse comes from Romans 12:12

It say's 

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

Finals & more.

Happy December!

As the semester is coming to a close, finals are around the corner.

This semester all my finals are projects.

In a way it's a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.

I have 5 different projects and I know how to do all of them but 1.

You know, its from that one professor who didn't teach much throughout the semester

but then hands you a huge project and you're like

"how the heck do I do this?" Regardless, I am very thankful.

No exams for me! I hate exams.. I'm sure they hate me too.

This week is going to be intense. There is SO much going on. 

On another note, its almost Christmas! 

My playlist consists of nothing but holiday music. Mainly Buble.

PS. My favorite song on this album is Mis Deseos/Feliz Navidad           

Disneyland

Yesterday I got to go to Disneyland with some friends from CBU.
For some reason I am very fond of Disney.
 I don't know why, but God has given me a love for it.
I have the Southern California Annual Pass.
It's great, the only days I can't go are on Saturday, & I don't mind.
People always ask me why it is that I like Disney so much, 
and I never knew what to tell them. 
I just know that when I do go, I have tons of fun, 
No matter who I'm with. 
Disneyland was the place to go for me as a child.
I went with my parents and my aunt multiple times.
I had a annual pass for the longest time. 
I've gone with many different groups of people including
-My immediate family
-Family from Ecuador
-Family from that lives in the U.S. 
-Friends from church
-Friends from high school
-CBU peeps 
-Friends family
-4th grade field trip 
This place will always hold dear memories for me.
Memories that I hope to share with my future family.

:) Shantal 

Ps. my favorite ride there would have to be either tower of terror or California screamin'