Hello, everyone, from lovely Romania. I managed to find a computer with free Internet access at our hotel, so I thought I would briefly escape from all the assorted Hungarian relatives of the family for an update. A few interesting cultural snapshots for you all...

First of all, I knew bad things were going on today when the Bogdans decided to go offroading in the minibus. Not a good idea, my friends. It was like being on a roller coaster... you came to the crest of the hilltop and knew you had to get down somehow, so you just hung on for dear life and hoped for the best. Thanks for all the prayers, folks.

You should also be cautious in foreign countries when your boyfriends aunt starts grabbing you and speaking in a language you do not know. I was smiling and nodding away as she chattered on in Hungarian... and then David said that she was asking when we planned on getting married.

Culturally, people greet one another here by kissing each other on each cheek. I have now officially kissed half of Romania.

That is all I can think of now to tell, and the hotel staff wants me to get off their computer. I will pass this back to Brianne, and update you all when I get back.

(Sorry, I cannot quote a Bible verse since I do not have one handy. Think of John 3.16 and we will call it a day.)

Kelsey

I am back to guest blogging for Kelsey whist she is on her wonderful vacation in Romania!
Me you ask? I am good and adjusting quite well to Louisville-finally.

I had lunch today with Rick, a fellow intern until Sept. for Collegiate Ministries, Sarah, intern before Rick, and Laura, who works in World Ministries. It is good to, "eat off-campus" as Rick says. Rick is leaving for Montreat tomorrow and the other interns, along with everyone else in the building, is at Peacemaking in New Mexico, and Kelsey is gone. Everyone I know in this town has left me. So, this weekend shall be a slow one, filled with laundry, cleaning and (what else from me???) movies.

Last weekend I attended the PEER 1 event sponsored by PSST (Presbyterian Student Strategy Team) and PACHEM (oh I can't remember, go to their website, www.pachem.org). It was for College Ministry folks, student ministers (aka: PEER ministers), college chaplains and many others involved with collegiate ministries. I was able to meet 2 members of NNPCW, Sheena and Omayra. It was great to finally put faces with names and be with women who were so excited to meet me?!

Things are all coming together for the Leadership Event! Pre-Conference packets were sent out today. So if you are supposed to get one and haven't received one in 10 days let me know! I found some great things to add to the Conference Packet that I am putting together. It is called, "When We are all Strong Together" by Jennifer Butler and Melissa Gillis. I am pretty sure that we are going to give them out at the conference. So, if you want one you will have to come!

The next two weeks I will blog for Kelsey. I hope that this all got you up to speed on what has been going on here.

"But be holy in all that you do, just as God, the One who called you, is holy." I Peter 1:15

Grace,
Brianne

So it comes to this… two slices of toast, a glass of water, and a suitcase stuffed with random things I may or may not need for the trip. C’mon, you didn’t honestly think I could leave without sending out one more blog post! I think, against all odds, that I’m just about ready to go. It was tough crawling out of my new bed this morning (which is indeed a worthwhile purchase that DID NOT come from Sam’s Club), knowing that I will be leaving it behind for unknown sleeping conditions in Eastern Europe. But I know it will be here when I get back.

I’m sure that after my return, I’ll have several ponderings to share. Until then, though, I leave you with just one: if Robert Frost (I think) said that “good fences make good neighbors,” would a world without borders be possible? Is Frost just a Calvinist at heart, pragmatically assessing reality? Or would it be possible to escape the concept of the nation-state, with its specifically delineated boundaries (which historically, didn’t always exist as we understand it now)?

Okay, this time I’m really off to Romania. Over and out!

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” --Matthew 28:20b

Kelsey

PS—Mom and Rachel did indeed make it safely back to Seattle last night, where I’m sure Rachel had a heartfelt reunion with her longsuffering Labrador Retriever. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers their way.

Have you ever noticed that it is the time when you need everything to run smoothly that everything falls apart? This morning I locked my keys in the Mustang, only hours before I needed to take Mom and Rachel to the airport. And of course, when the AAA folks came out, they couldn’t reach me on my cell phone. So they’re coming out again (I’m sure they love me now), and will hopefully let me in the car before I need to leave for the airport. The spare key, of course, is back at my apartment—an apartment full of people who can’t drive. Grrr….

Well, my friends, I’m heading off to Hungary and Romania tomorrow for my big adventure. I leave Cincinnati around 5 pm tomorrow, and will land in Paris at 11 am on Thursday. I will continue on to Bucharest from there, and then drive to Transylvania, in Romania. I’m traveling with David and the lovely Bogdan family to their cousin’s wedding this weekend. They say the wedding will be an all-day event, but with no dancing at the reception. I assume that this means either: A.) the ceremony itself will be very long, or B.) we will be expected to eat a whole lot of food to entertain ourselves through the day. Actually, I think it will be a combination of both.

Frankly, I’m not sure what to expect from this trip. I haven’t had much time to prepare for it, with Mom and Rachel visiting for the last two weeks. Through it all, though, I’ve discovered several small points. First, I must wear conservative clothing. It isn’t that I dress inappropriately in general, but the less skin revealed, the better.

Second, I can’t wear black to the wedding. In rural Romania, black is a color reserved for funerals and mourning. It would be highly inappropriate to wear to a wedding. I solved this problem the other day by buying a rose-colored pink dress with a white cardigan. That way, I take care of the skin problem and the clothing color problem all at once.

So hopefully I won’t make too many cultural blunders while I’m there. One rule of thumb that has carried me through all sorts of intercultural experiences, though—keep your mouth shut, smile, and eat whatever they put in front of you. Don’t ask questions.

Seriously, though, I do ask for your thoughts and prayers as my family travels home today and I travel to Romania tomorrow. I will be back in the office after the 4th of July weekend. Sign up for the Leadership Event while I’m gone! There are still spots available!

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.” --Psalm 131:2

Kelsey

Anyone know who Biddy Mason is? Ever heard of Prudence Crandall? You guessed it, kids—it is “Kelsey’s Empowered Women’s Story Time”!! Today, courtesy of Vicki Leon’s Uppity Women of the New World, we’re going to learn the stories of Biddy and Prudence (don’t worry, there won’t be a test).

Biddy (Bridget) Mason was a slave born in 1818 in Mississippi. When her owner became a Mormon and moved the family to California, Biddy learned that slavery was illegal there. She immediately petitioned the court for her freedom and won it, despite her owner’s attempts to suddenly relocate the family to Texas. Leaving the family, she made a great life for herself in the land where dreams come true, Los Angeles—she got a job as a nurse-midwife and eventually became one of the first black women to own her own land in LA. She later became quite wealthy and used most of her money on charity, founding the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in the area. In 1989, Los Angeles named November 16 “Biddy Mason Day” to honor her struggle and her hard work in building up the community.

Prudence Crandall was what we might today call an anti-racist ally. She was a white woman who started a young women’s academy in 1833, in Canterbury, Connecticut. When young Sarah Harris, a black woman, asked for admission to the academy in order to better educate the black community, Crandall admitted her. And when community members pulled out all the white children, she reopened her school as one for African-American girls. Yet, as Leon tells in the book, “Locals threw manure in her well and rotting carcasses on her property. The school was physically attacked by angry mobs, and Crandall had to move classes for safety’s sake” (84). Crandall’s actions led the state legislature to pass the Black Laws in 1834, which prohibited anyone from establishing schools for non-resident black students without local consent.

Eventually Crandall moved to Kansas, after residents of Canterbury had burned her school to the ground. Only in the 1880s, after the death of her husband, did the town of Canterbury repent of their actions and petition the legislature to give her a pension. She refused their offer, however, to return back home.

Well, kids, that’s all for today’s history lesson on awesome, empowering feminist role models and rabble rousers. I’ll be back tomorrow with more reports from the NNPCW front.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise God, my help and my God.” --Psalm 43:5

Kelsey

Today I’m culling the post from the church’s 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, which we put out to encourage churches within the denomination to pray for one another and for churches around the world (the book also has a day of prayer for every General Assembly staff member—mine is September 28). Today the church prays for Israel/Palestine/Jerusalem, a church I have particular interest in after my trip to the Holy Land in April 2004.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has taken a lot of heat since last year about its stance on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. For years, the church has supported a just peace in the conflict, one that affirms Israel’s right to exist while also affirming the necessity of a Palestinian state and the human dignity of the Palestinian people.

For such a state to exist, essentially, Israel must relinquish Palestinian territory it seized in the 1967 Six-Day War from Jordan and Egypt (today we refer to this territory as the West Bank and Gaza Strip). Palestinians can then build a political state on this ancestral land (Palestine as a cultural and social entity already exists, and has for hundreds of years).

The difference between previous church statements and the most recent one is that the church literally decided to put its money where its mouth is. The General Assembly voted to “initiate a process of phased, selective divestment” from companies that profit from the occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as those who contribute to terrorist acts against Israeli or Palestinian civilians. What this means is that the church will study multinational companies doing business that supports the occupation, ask them to stop operations that harm Palestinian civilians, and then sell church shares of company stock if the company doesn’t respond. The church only sells its stock when all other methods of change have been exhausted. You can read about it at www.pcusa.org/mrti/guidelines.htm. The point is to take concrete action that will change the policy of the Israeli government and end the occupation of Palestinian territories.

When I first went to the region, I had a surprisingly minimal understanding of the situation there, given my background as a history major. But while attending the Sabeel Conference in Jerusalem, I met the people whose lives are irrevocably scarred by the conflict. I met the Christian community in Palestine, who has witnessed to the good news of Jesus Christ in the Holy Land since Jesus himself walked there—a community rapidly dwindling as Christians emigrate to escape the economic and social dead-end that is the occupation. I became convinced that as their sister in Christ, I needed to listen and learn from all sides of the conflict. And when I came back to the United States, I needed to tell others what I had heard.

On this day of prayer for all God’s children in the Holy Land, let me leave you with one of several vivid memories from my trip to Jerusalem. One day of the conference, our tour bus traveled to Ramallah to see first-hand life under the occupation. Of course, we had to pass through Israeli military checkpoints. Coming back toward Jerusalem, after young Israeli soldiers had come through the bus with their machine guns to inspect our passports, I happened to glance out my window to the guard station below. At that moment, one of the soldiers looked up. Our eyes locked, and he gave me a friendly, almost flirtatious, grin as we drove away.

The next day we visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque (better known as the Dome of the Rock, third holiest site of the Muslim world). We entered the mosque during the women’s prayer hour, and I was amazed to see so many Muslim women teaching, praying, and just resting in the peaceful confines of the sacred space. As I quietly wandered around the mosque, my eye caught that of a young girl, maybe ten years old. As I smiled at her, she shyly smiled back. I ran into her a couple more times walking around Al-Aqsa—each time, she looked at me with a smile.

Those two smiles—one from a Jewish Israeli soldier and one from a Muslim Palestinian girl to me, a Christian American—will always be juxtaposed in my mind. For in them, I saw people much like me: people who go out on dates on Friday night, people who get antsy during worship. People who, at heart, simply want a better life and a future with hope.

I want peace for the sake of that soldier and that girl. I want peace for the sake of our hotel staff at the Gloria in Jerusalem, for our cab driver Charlie. And as Christians praying today for all those in Israel/Palestine, we should expect nothing less from our God, through whom all things are possible.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” --Hebrews 11:1

Kelsey

Since my mom arrived in Kentucky, she has taken on a new project—get Kelsey to buy a bed. Those of you who have hosted me during World Tour stops know how infamously frugal I am with the church’s money. Don’t think I become a spendthrift when the money is my own! When I moved to Louisville, two years ago, I went out and found the cheapest possible twin bed I could from a store aptly named “Mattress Mart.” Last summer, David let me take an old full-sized bed from his house to sleep on. After thinking deeply on the topic, Mom has decided I need, as she calls it, “an adult bed.”

So last night we went to both the Serta and Seely mattress stores to look around. Obviously I’m not too picky about beds, or I would have ditched David’s 20-year-old set months ago. But after a bit I found a beautiful Serta Perfect Sleeper Amber Night Plush, Queen Size… for $850.

Here’s the dilemma—Mom tells me I can get a bed of comparable quality, for about half the price, if I’ll only go to Sam’s Club. Now personally, I’m not a Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart fan for a couple of reasons: I don’t really like the goods, to be honest, and I’m too aware of Wal-Mart’s business tactics. Things like the fact that the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in U.S. history was filed against Wal-Mart on behalf of 1.5 million female employees, charging sex discrimination. Or the fact that when workers in a Quebec Wal-Mart recently unionized for fairer wages, Wal-Mart shut down the entire store. Many people, especially from rural communities where Wal-Mart is the only game in town, don’t have a choice of where to shop. I do, and I choose not to shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club. It is simply a personal ethics issue.

Usually, this stand isn’t a problem when we’re talking about a $12 CD that I can buy just as cheaply elsewhere. But the temptation to crack becomes much greater when we’re talking about the difference between an $800 bed versus one for $400 at Sam’s Club. If you’re like me, in college or just striking out on your own, $400 pays your rent for a month. People my age, unless you’re Paris Hilton, don’t generally blow off that kind of money. Our resources are too limited.

But you see, that’s how they suck us in. I once watched an episode of a certain cartoon show about a “Wall-Mart.” In it, all the residents of a small town decide not to shop at this Wall-Mart because it is decimating the local economy. After the resolution, though, characters start obsessing over all the bargains they’re missing. When one of them finally goes to the store, secretly at night, he discovers all his neighbors have broken the boycott as well.

The cartoon eventually points out that the evil really lies within each of us—as consumers, we’re so individualistically-minded, so addicted to the best buy, that we ultimately destroy ourselves and our communities (lower wages, dying small businesses, outsourced manufacturing jobs) by letting our greed overcome our principles. Ultimately, unethical companies of any kind can’t exist without our collective consent. And we give it to them with our almighty dollar.

I’m still not sure how I’ll solve the bed problem. Maybe I’ll just keep the old bed, or maybe I’ll bite the bullet and get the $800 Serta. But really—what’s the point of having morals if you’re going to abandon them with the first $400 bed that comes along?

“You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt.” --Deuteronomy 24:15

Kelsey

PS—If any of you have recommendations for a good, comfy bed, I would appreciate it. I’ve read some online reviews that make me kind of leery of this whole bed-buying thing.

For the first time since January, we missed a blog post yesterday! I’m terribly sorry… it was a slip-up here in the office, as I took a vacation day yesterday for Rachel’s birthday. But never fear, because I’m back for another week before Romania.

Today is my “bring your mother and sister to work” day. This translates into extreme boredom for them—they are currently in the corner of the cube, playing connect the dots. I wanted to show them what my average day is like. My mom keeps claiming that she finds it interesting, but I question her motives.

Since I got back, I’ve been working with the Leadership Event. Registrations are picking up—a whopping six people from the University of Kansas are coming to the event! This ties last year’s Whitworth record, although Whitworth currently has four signups for 2005. Other students are coming from the University of Washington, Montana State University, and Rhodes College, among other institutions. In contrast to previous years, we may actually have more public university students at this event than students from the Presbyterian colleges. That should shake things up a bit.

We still have space at the event, however, and some scholarship money left. Here at NNPCW, we’re big believers in the parable of the vineyard laborers (Matthew 20:1-16). For those of you not familiar with the reference, this is the parable where the master pays the workers who come late in the day the same wages as those who come early. In other words, even those who sign up at the last minute will still be welcome at the Leadership Event. Please, though, just don’t wait so long that it turns into the parable of the ten bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13)!

So sign up now!! Believe me when I say that this is an event you won’t want to miss. Our planning team has put in many long hours coming up with an exciting agenda, and we’re looking forward to a variety of awesome facilitators and guest speakers. It will be transformative for all.

Well, Mom is now asleep in the chair next to me and Rachel is drawing her own interpretations of my co-workers’ cube decorations, so I’d better take them on the office area tour. Until tomorrow!

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’” --Matthew 20:8

Kelsey

Guess who’s back?? Yes, my friends, I have to-date survived over a week’s worth of family vacation, spanning several states and lots of late nights. Mom and Rachel are here in Kentucky, after Rachel’s lovely graduation in Washington. My family is wonderful, and I’m truly blessed to have them here. But I did think I was going to kill them when they insisted yesterday that I take them to Pizza Hut for dinner—not just any of the fine pizza establishments that grace this city, but Pizza Hut. And we couldn’t order delivery, either. Only dine-in would pacify their demands. Ah, family. Follow this up with a trip to Romania next week, and I think I’ll need a vacation from all my vacations.

I’ve lived on my own here in Louisville for nearly two years now. In that time, I’ve noticed that our adult habits display a creative tension between what we were raised with and our rebellion from that. An example: this morning, I led my mother through our kitchen to show her which foods in the pantry and fridge were mine. I said, “Most of the fresh fruits and veggies are mine, and a lot of the canned foods are mine. See all these potato chips and boxed foods, all the frozen foods? Those are my roommates’. We can’t eat them.” Our family ate a lot of frozen and boxed items when I was growing up. I still like a lot of those foods. But after moving away from home, I decided that I wanted to eat healthy, non-processed stuff. Hence my lack of foods my mom and sister enjoy.

On the other hand, their deeper influences still stay with me. I can’t seem to shake my people-pleaser tendencies, my hesitance to ask others for help, my desire to work hard and live with integrity. We may be able to change some of our habits, but we really are products of our families, our communities, and our societies.

We all go through that process of developing our own lives, lives that often don’t look like what we grew up with. Whether it is as simple as a change in eating habits or as challenging as embracing a different faith tradition, we all have to find our own paths. Yet the beauty of the college and post-college years lies in the freedom it allows for that transformation to take place. We can become a new creation, embracing the best in our own family traditions while challenging ourselves to change what hinders us from living out the Gospel.

I don’t know whether we’re doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes. I do believe, though, that when we follow the Spirit’s call, God can use our flawed imperfections to achieve mighty acts. So continue on the journey of discovery, knowing that God is with you.

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” --Matthew 6:34

Kelsey

Today is my sisters’ 21st birthday! Hooray for her. I can’t believe we are both IN our twenties! I will be going up to ‘the region’ to celebrate with her. Dinner, drinks, and fun for the family is in store for us this evening. Mom and Dad are even excited, even though now we are both adults and that makes them feel even older, than their mere hearts, minds and bodies feel. God bless birthdays!

Alright, so the NNPCW Leadership Event is exactly 6 weeks away. I hope you are all signed-up for the event. And more than likely you are not because I still have room at the event. The pre-conference packets are done and will be at the printers on Monday! Lots of fun stuff is in there, including: information on the 4 off-site visit places, fun things to do in Chicago on the 5 hours that you have free, and all the great workshops that we are offering. SIGN-UP!

I gave the devotional for the Women’s Ministries Staff meeting yesterday. I stated that I have over 50 hours of fun stories from camp if any of them would like to hear them. Well, today I was remembering a fun story about my second summer at camp and I think that I will share it with you.

We have Staff Training 2 weeks prior to the start of camp to learn our positions and get to know each other better. So our first summer we were at Staff Training and there was the “Round Barn Festival” in Rochester, Indiana going on. That year we watched the parade and went to the festival (I have stories of that day as well, maybe another time). The second year we were offered the chance to be IN the parade. Well, how could we pass up the chance? We were pieces of a house (each one of us a side or a roof of a house out of Styrofoam boards) for Habitat for Humanity and when Paige and Evan told us to, “build, Build, BUILD” that is what we were to do. We walked along Main Street with people, some of us had only known each other5 days, from Chicago, Rochester, Indiana, and Sweden. Crazy, but fun time!

Well, in a couple of weeks I will go and help build a real house for Habitat, built only by women. I don’t think it will be as easy as that parade, and there won’t be someone yelling, “build, Build, BUILD” at me but probably just as fun and 100 times more rewarding!

Genesis 11:4 “Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city with tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the whole face of the earth.”

2 Chronicals 2:5 “The house I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.”


Peace,
Brianne

I watched another movie last night, surprise surprise, my friends. My sister gave me this movie to watch. It is an HBO flick with Hillary Swank called Iron Jawed Angels. It is about the history of women’s suffrage between 1910-1920. Swank plays Alice Paul, a Quaker that has a head for politics and rights for women. Her story of heroism was amazing.

I feel like I write movie reviews for you all to see every weekend. “See this…This one is good…It was amazing…I hope you all have seen this…”, etcetera.

I went on to do my nightly devotions and have a few readings by my bed. One my mother gave me, I am not a fan of Joyce Meyers but it was free, and from my mom so how can I turn down a gift? So I read the devotion for yesterday and it had to do with being content with God. At first I thought that it sounded like a pretty good idea, “be content with God”. I am always asking God for things, wondering where God is when I am sad or unhappy, why God can’t do more for me. I have to be content that God is there when I need the support and affirmation. Then I got to thinking that I didn’t need to be content. The definition of content for me is “to be happy with an outcome no matter what it is”. Maybe I don’t want to be content with everything. So I decided to replace “content” with “understanding”. “Be understanding with God”, there, that sounded better. Do not mistake that meaning with, “understand” because God is mysterious and un-understandable (if that is a word). That is what faith is, belief in something that we don’t understand but trust.

If we were all just content with God and our and others’ situations we would never challenge anything. If we were all understanding of God and others’ situations we would challenge things, and probably be more effective.

Isaiah 11:2 “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord”

Peace,
Brianne

Alright, so I have an excellent excuse for this blog being later in the day. My goodness this day has been very busy. I have to say, the first busy day since I have been here. I have accomplished so much.

I have wonderfully and happily done the following today:
1. Stuffed envelopes for the Young Ministries Division
2. Ate lunch with Gusti and talked about passions and great ideas
3. Had my first, of many I am sure, conference calls with the Nominating Committee
4. Fixed my computer’s CD drive (with help from “The Company’s Computer Guy”- if you have ever seen the skit on SNL, I will let you know that I did feel very stupid after he told me that I didn’t have a CD burner and that is why I can’t make a CD data disk…duh!)
5. got the REYWT Retreat brochure ready to be printed
6. Talked to one of the REYWT members
7. Installed a printer to my computer (and didn’t feel so dumb)

Goodness, that is a bunch. It may not seem like it to the layman, but I am excited to have this all fly by. Well there is much more for me to do so I will leave you today.

“Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe to know what he ought to desire and to know what he ought to do." -Saint Thomas Aquinas

Grace,
Brianne

I am not used to this blogging thing so pardon me for the lateness in the day of this.

I have been looking for great things for our NNPCW Leadership Event participants to do for their free night in Chicago. Everything from the Museum of Science and Industry to concerts and fun venues is on the list. I might have to cut it down, but why? I grew up around Chicago so I know there is plenty to do you just have to know where to look for it.

One of the regular sites that I visit at least once a day is cnn.com. Without the comforts of basic television I have come to rely on cnn.com for headlines and blips for me to read to keep up to date. So, I am sure that this will be one of the many blogs that has stemmed from one of their articles.

On the front page are the GM cuts in jobs. Tragic I tell you. Since the Ford plant is here in Louisville I couldn’t imagine if only half of the 25,000 jobs were cut here. Computers are taking over, and if you are a Matrix fan we will have to wait for Neo.

I, of course, was drawn to the article by Peter Valdes-Dapena, about the difference between men and women in choosing cars. Women are, as we have always known, more complicated than men, when it comes to choosing cars, along with everything else. Or are we? I didn’t think that I was that complicated. I think that many of us are not and society seems to think that we are the over-analytical, over-drawn, over-the-top, and many other ‘over’ words that society seems to pin on us.

Sure, we are the ones to be told, “he’s just not that into you” in a book by the same title by Greg Behrendt. Are we making things that confusing? Dating, relationships, men and car buying, are they all that confusing? I don’t know…I’m confused!

Genesis 11:7 “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

~Brianne

So, it is hot! I talked to my parents in NW Indiana and a friend that just moved to Atlanta and thankfully it is not just hot here, but it is hot EVERYWHERE! As one newsperson said “It is a bad hair day in the entire US!” With the heat and humidity I didn’t even want to clean this weekend, and I so desperately needed to.

However, I did have a chance to enjoy plenty of videos and one in particularly that I had never seen before, and so wonderfully enjoyed was, The Joy Luck Club. My sister had to read the book by Amy Tan in High School but I, unfortunately, did not. I was so taken with the history and triumph of these women. It told the story of 4 women, all with daughters of their own, and their relationships with their mothers and their daughters and their daughters relationship with them. How 3 generations of women in China and America can be so different and yet so the same is amazing.

I will not ruin the movie (and book) for you, please go and watch it yourself when you get a chance. I suggest a box of tissues and a phone so you can call your mother (and the tons of other wonderful older women in your life) and tell her how much you love her.

“And to the disciple, ‘Here is you mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:27)

Some think that Mary Magdalene was the author of the book of John. If she is, this verse in John, means more to us women just as the telling of the stories in The Joy Luck Club. If you read the verse (and others) in John in the context of Mary Magdalene as the narrator and as “the beloved disciple” a new and interesting story appears.

Bless your mothers,
Brianne

Finally, the great day has arrived—I’m roughly three and a half hours away from my vacation! Yes, my dear friends… David and I are heading out late this morning to fly to Washington for my sister’s graduation. We’re all very proud of her. Not only did she get a $1000 scholarship for community college next year (where she can join our NNPCW ranks if she so chooses), but her softball teammates voted her team captain and outstanding player of the year! A very nice end to our family’s high school softball watching. While I'm gone, Brianne will continue as the guest blogger.

So I’m typing this over my usual breakfast of oatmeal, trying to get out the door as soon as possible. In other words, today’s post will be a short reflection. Right now I’m branching out in my biblical reading to include the Apocrypha, which is included in the awesome Harper Collins Study Bible I got for Christmas. Let me say this about the Apocrypha—I see why some of these books didn’t make the cut. It was almost impossible to get through the Wisdom of Solomon… ugh. Judith and Tobit were all right, though, especially since Judith depicts a female heroine.

What are these texts, you might ask? They are generally texts that didn’t make it into the Protestant Bible for one reason or another. Many are included in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Bibles. From my limited understanding, the reason many of them failed to make the cut is because of problems with finding reliable source texts. Remember that our humanistic Reformation forebears were all about reading and translating the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek. If they found unreliable or contradictory sources, then they questioned the book’s scriptural authority. Many of the books, though, depict Jewish history during the exile or the Hellenistic period, before the birth of Christ. So they’re definitely worthwhile reading.

I’m reading Sirach right now, a wisdom text kind of like Proverbs that was written between 200 and 180 BCE. This guy has pretty good stuff to say, particularly about social relationships. Many of the sayings deal particularly with class relations—you can get a sense of what he thinks about that with the following: “Humility is an abomination to the proud; likewise the poor are an abomination to the rich” (Sirach 13:20).

Strange to think, with all our advances in technology and learning, the accumulation of all our scholarship and deeper theological understanding of the divine, that we’ve changed that little over the past 2000 years when it comes to our relationships with one another.

“Whoever fears the Lord will do this, and whoever holds to the law will obtain wisdom. She will come to meet him like a mother, and like a young bride she will welcome him.” --Sirach 15:1-2

Kelsey

So you’ve graduated from college. The parties are over, the cake eaten, the real diplomas sent in the mail. And now you’re sitting in your parents’ basement, reading this at 3 am in your bathrobe between checking out Yahoo Personals and vainly searching the classifieds for jobs that don’t involve copious amounts of data entry. It’s okay—you’re not alone.

You’re probably asking the eternal question right now—how do I get a job? What mysterious quality are employers looking for that I don’t have? What will set me apart from all the other college grads out there?

Young padawan, job seeking is a long and arduous road… frighteningly arduous. I’ve been on both sides, actually. I’ve interviewed many times, both for jobs and scholarships, and have also been the interviewer a few times. Here are a few things I’ve observed in my own experiences, boiled down for your reading pleasure:

• Get your act together. Nobody is perfect, but prospective employers out there would like to think you are. Make sure your resume looks sharp and clean, with no spelling or punctuation errors, on nice stationary paper. Research the job—by the end of the interview process, you should practically be able to quote the organization’s website verbatim. The point is not to be a perfectionist, but to show that you care enough about the job to put some effort into it.
  
• A continuation of above, worth repeating—research the job. Your resume and cover letter should recycle “buzz words” from the position description (if you don’t already tailor each resume you send to the specific position, you should). When you interview, you should know enough about the kind of qualifications they’re seeking to anticipate some of the interview questions. It is just like taking the GRE, I’ve found—the key to the “job exam” is prephrasing their questions and knowing what answers they’re looking for.
  
• Know how to state your qualifications. When an employer in an interview asks you about how you handle conflict, for instance, you want to take an experience from a previous job where you dealt with conflict and plug it into your answer. Take a few seconds to pause and gather your thoughts before answering—it is better to wait a second and then give a clear, relevant answer that demonstrates your experience rather than stumble around the question or babble incessantly about nothing.

• Always be positive!!! If they ask you about something where you have no relevant experience, be honest, but confident in your ability to learn. Perhaps even refer them back to a job where you had to learn something from scratch. I can always talk about my experience as an English major giving guided tours about hydropower production as an example of my ability to quickly learn new information. And if you hated your last job, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell them that!! Focus on the positive!
  
• Finally, be enthusiastic. If you really feel called to a particular job, let them know how much you want it. My former supervisor still mentions this as the most memorable moment of my interview for NNPCW: I sat across the table from her in her office, looked her straight in the eye, and told her with conviction that I wanted to work for her. I wasn’t necessarily the most qualified person for the NNPCW internship. But throughout the process, I worked to show them that I wanted it. I felt called to the position, and I let them know it.

The bad news is that even if you really do all this stuff, you still may not get a particular job. Sometimes you can’t know what is going on in the heads of employers, or what they’re really looking for in a candidate. I firmly believe, though, that the Spirit is at work in these decisions. You will feel the leading and calling of God somewhere, regardless of the profession. If this job is where you’re supposed to be, you’ll end up there. The above tips might just help you along the way.

“But strive first for the realm of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” --Matthew 6:33

Kelsey

Ah… another early morning, another sleepy Kelsey. Remember how I tried to come in an hour early yesterday to make up for taking a half day on Friday? Well, my extra hour got eaten up by my sick ‘Stang. Yes, my friends, the Mustang was ill, but she has been healed!! Hallelujah!!

In more prosaic terms, the mechanic replaced some switch that was preventing the air conditioning from working—and with my mother coming next week to visit, we had to have A/C. Either way, sorting that out ate up the extra hour, so now I need two extra hours in order to get back on track. Hence my early arrival this morning.

And what was the second thing I did this morning after arriving? Yes, I rushed to the computer lockbox to see how many of you have sent in your registrations for the Leadership Event. Remember, you still have today to get that in, and I must say that many of you are being lax about it.

Perhaps you’re reading this thinking, “But I’m not a college undergraduate woman.” But you know college women! Even my very own mother (yes, you, Mom) knows several college women that she could recruit for the event. My sister, my first cousin, my first cousin once removed… see what I mean? All college women. You, too, know college women in your churches, your families, your knitting circles. So start telling them that they need to go to the Leadership Event!

Now, I’ve tried to sell you as much as possible on this event. Think about all the great reasons to come to Chicago this summer:

• Laura Cheifetz and Lisa Larges are going to be awesome plenary co-facilitators. They will challenge you to explore prejudices in your own lives, and will help all of us understand the social systems of prejudice that prevent us from seeing one another through God’s eyes.
  
• The service learning workshops will give you hands-on opportunities to dispel your own prejudices. We will visit the AIDS Pastoral Care Network, where participants will get to speak with people who live with HIV/AIDS; Sarah’s Circle, a women’s drop-in shelter where students will put on an afternoon carnival; Faith in Place, a faith-based ecology agency that will have students helping at its annual children’s summer camp; and Interfaith Worker Justice, which will take students to downtown Chicago for an action against hotels treating workers unjustly.
  
• A Thursday evening forum that will allow you to meet people working to fight prejudice and hate. Have you ever wondered about certain immigration issues? Wanted to know more about how people become homeless and how they can get out? Thought you would never be a victim of domestic violence? You’ll have a chance to ask all these questions and more to our five panelists.
  
• And for all the Presby geeks out there… one of our five panelists, coming to talk about issues on the U.S.-Mexico border, will be none other than Rick Ufford-Chase, Moderator of the 216th General Assembly and executive director of the immigration justice agency Borderlinks! Have you ever wanted to have dinner with a PC(USA) moderator? Here’s your chance!

Phew! Now, if that doesn’t convince you that this is a “can’t miss” event, I don’t know what will. This will be a great opportunity for you to put your faith into action, and to learn tools that you can take back to campus for change. I’ll see you in Chicago!

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” --James 2:18

Kelsey