Thankful!

While procrastinating studying for my New Testament midterm tomorrow, I all of a sudden realized I haven't blogged in awhile. 9 days to be exact! So here I am procrastinating and doing some contemplative thinking.

On Mondays, I have my Foundations of Youth Ministry Class with Chap Clark (a pretty well known name in the youth ministry world). Today during the three hours of lecture, an interesting point came up that started to make me think. Chap began to talk about how adolescents need at least 5 Christian adults (other then their parents) who are know their name,pray for them, care for them and have regular contact with them long term. After hearing this, I asked myself the question, who were the five adults that where there for me? I came up with a lot longer list then I expected. To just jot down a few names of people who impacted me as a teenager (most of you won't know these names anyway so it's more for my own sake)
1. Vivian Edmond- the older lady at church who just knew how to love young people
2. Rick Tozer- who always had an encouraging word
3. Dean and Mindy Anderson- Dean was my youth pastor who was always watching out for me, His wife Mindy did the same
4. Julie Dwyer- definitely showed me love
5. Mrs. Myers- My High School Sewing teacher who truly did care for me
6. Mr. Tarr- One of the best math teachers I ever had who truly cared about his students and was constantly praying for us.
7. Mr. Miles- Again, a teacher who loved his students and in a lot of ways now that I think of it, reminders me of Chap Clark (the professor who introduced this idea to me)
8. My Grandma- Who was always praying for me and loving me no matter what I did.

I'm sure I can keep going on and on with my list, but for the sake of time, I won't.

I'm so grateful for all these people and those unnoticed who were praying for me and loving me in during adolescents. I know most if not all these people won't be reading this, but I still want to say thank you! Thank you for your love, support and showing me the love of Christ in what you said and did, and continue to do.

Many of these people probably have no idea how much they have impacted me just by taking time to talk, listen, pray and love me. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! To those of you who were loving, praying and caring for me during these years and I just didn't know it, Thank You! You were my safety net while I crossed the unstable tight rope of adolescents and I'm glad to say I safely made it across!

Reading, Papers, Reading and oh, did I mention Reading?

We'll that pretty much sums up my life! So exciting I know! I feel I have read more pages in this last month then I have in the past 4 years! The subject matter though is interesting and I have already learned so much! Other then studying, I had the opportunity to have dinner in old town with my friend Kendra (we worked at Mt. Hermon together my last summer), had a j0b interview with Starbucks (haven't heard back yet), Had my first So. Cal mall experience (pretty much it's a typical mall) and I am continuing to meet new people and create new friends.

Last week, I had the opportunity to take a walking tour of various sites in Pasadena for one of my classes. It was lead by the professor and all I can say is that I felt like I saw more of the city in those short 2 hours then I have the entire month and a half I've been here! Here are just some of the sights we saw...







Just to let you know, these aren't my pictures seeing how my camera isn't working!

Here is the Fuller Campus, I know not a pretty picture but there are some pretty parts, but then there are some buildings that just say "I'm UGLY"!!!!! Fuller is slowly working on it though!

Here we have a statue of Jackie and Mack Robinson! If you walk around the heads, you'll find different things engraved that were once apart of their life. It's actually kind of a freaky because the heads always look like they are staring at you!







Here is City Hall! It is seriously such a beautiful building especially at night.


Interesting fact:The width of the street pictures was determined by how many soldiers abreast would march in a military parade!





Here is 1st Baptist Church of Pasadena. It's a beautiful looking church, but so big and not very inviting! We'll especially when compared to the church across the street.













Here is All Saints Episcopal Church. While the doors are closed in the picture, this is the only church in Pasadena with open doors. They open their doors from 7 am to 8:30 pm every day and have created an place for people to pray and seek God.













We'll I hope you've enjoyed my abbreviated tour of a small portion of Pasadena! Takes me back to my college days of being a campus tour guide!

Just some random thoughts!

While looking at my blog I saw that It's been awhile since I last wrote an entry! I'm now ready to catch all of you readers up on the Life of Rachel...

Since you last read my blog, I've save a puppy from death, graduated from seminary, met the man of my dreams and had three kids! So as you can see I've been very busy these last five days! For those of you who don't understand my sarcastic humor, I have some ocean front property in Iowa to sell you!


Ok, now for the serious update. Life has been treating me well! I been busy with reading, writing my first grad paper (it was a pretty easy assignment so to some it might not count as a paper, but I feel like counting it so there!), have had some very interesting class lectures and found out that my new testament professor looks (minus the white hair) and sounds like Donald Sutherlan (Mr. Bennett in the new pride and prejudice and Keefer's Dad). When asked about the resemblance, he tried to persuade us that Donald was his Uncle.

Yesterday we had a community potluck for the complex I live in. It was fun! Lots of good food to enjoy! I made my pasta salad, which I am very glad to say I finally got right this time (sooooooo excited). The evening ended up with us sitting around a fire pit singing and just having great conversation. I love the people in my complex.

Today, I finished writing my paper, met a friend for coffee and we ended up talking about youth ministry for 2 hours, had dinner with my roomie, watched Greys again, and then ended up reading a chapter in one of my books.

Over all it has been a pretty relaxing weekend, I wish I could have gotten more done, but oh well!

OK, I should go to bed so I can get up and do a lot of reading before going to church tomorrow night!

Reading, Bowling, board games, worship, reading and a movie!

Well, that sums up my weekend!

If you haven't seen the movie "Once" do go see it. It's an Indy film that has an amazing soundtrack. I will warn you that it is technically a "musical" but it's not the sing and dance type of musicals I am known to enjoy. If you get a chance, do see it! It was beautifully done.

Went to Mosaic today (for those of you not familiar with Mosaic, it is the church Erwin McMannus teaches at and they have like 5 different campuses including one in Berkley now). It was a great experience, so different from what I'm use to but I really enjoyed it. They had a DJ spinning worship with another guy leading on keyboards and it was quite a fun experience. There announcements are pretty much all done by video which are funny and short and what I thought was fun was the offering baskets were paint cans. The teaching was great, they had a young lady who's involved in ministry there speak about caring for people. Planning on going back again but it was refreshing to see what they were doing there and in the community as well.