C-ville love!

I just love a good Valley Forge '09 reunion. This weekend we met in Charlottesville at Lindsay's house! Charlottesville is awesome and the company was even better ;) Here are some of the highlights:

Interns with housemate Barrie

Hey Crusade Interns!

serious one.

Watched the Mountaineers make it to the Final Four!!!

This dude played 'Country Roads' for us at the Downtown Mall.

Thanks Charlottesville for being so great to us!

vball at the Y

Team Smash

I looooved playing in the volleyball league at the Norfolk YMCA.  Okay, I may just be a JV all-star.. but it was so fun. Look at those studs in the picture above. Pretty hardcore I'd say.  Our season ended last night as we went into the championship match in first place... but we ended up losing to the Purple Dragons.  It was only to their advantage that they had a 7 foot giant.. grr.. Our team may be short, but where we lacked in height we had in spirit. (And first place title at the end of the regular season..) 

I am going to miss Tuesday nights at Volleyball...

DFW

What a surreal weekend in Dallas. 

Sweet girl on the left... first time seeing her in 2 1/2 years. 

Sweet girl on the right... BFF from college

Look how they welcomed me to Dallas! I could have been easily embarrassed by the scene they made with the balloons, huge sign. and snapping of pictures... but I was anything but embarrassed! I was overjoyed! I didn't care who saw the chaos that we created, how often am I in Dallas?!

We rode bronze cattle in Pioneer Plaza..

Went to Forth Worth to buy turquoise cowgirl boots from a true Texan..

Then tested the boots out at a true Texas two-steppin joint.

ate at Joe T's mexican resturant..

was tempted to buy these... but refrained myself. 

When in Rome Texas...

Thanks so much to this couple

and this couple

for their great hospitality this weekend!

and this couple for making it all a reality :)

love you guys!

Disturb me Lord...

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

~Sir Francis Drake

the heavenly man

I just started this book a few days ago and I can't put it down.  Brother Yun is a faithful man of God who tells his story of suffering and persecution in China to bring glory to his Creator. By reading Brother Yun's story, I have been challenged in asking God how I can walk by faith and be eternally minded in all areas of my life, both personally and in ministry.   This section of 2 Corinthians really spoke to me as I am reading about this faithful servant of Christ:

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 esv