So Much Grace

One of the biggest things about talking with Mormons is realizing how much I am covered in God's amazing grace, that He loved me so very much that He saved me, ME, gathered me into His fold and drew me close and called me His own. There is nothing that I can do as a fallen, sinful and depraved human being to earn God's grace, but it is only through the blood of Jesus on the cross that I can gain my salvation. while I was still a sinner, God chose to give up His one and only precious Son to die for me. What could ever surpass this? How can anyone ignore this grace? Why me, why did I get to receive this love?

"But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."

Galatians 2:17-21

Back Tracking!

Wow! What a whirlwind experience these past 13 days have been!

We have stayed in a total of 5 different towns; slept on beds, floors, couches, vans, and tables; visited countless other towns; gone to 6 different college campuses; served with 6 ministries & churches; had to bathe the entire team in lice shampoo, procurred some minor injuries and ailments, got lost several times; met tons of amazing people and really saw God's love and movement here in Utah.

We are now preparing to wind down the trip and head back home to California while surely leaving some part of ourselves here in Utah. This morning we are worshiping with Grace Bible Church in Springville and then loading up into our van train to drive about 4-5 hours south the St. George. There we will be doing our last campus visit to Dixie State College and will then spend the rest of our time reflecting and debriefing as a team.

I cannot say thank you enough for all of the support and prayer, our trip to Utah would have been completely different without it!

I'd like to share a passage that we've really been coming back to during our time. I encourage you to read the whole thing, I will just share a part.

Romans 10:1-15
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

It goes on to talk about the need for Christ followers to go out and speak the truth to those living in darkness. This was our call to Utah and it has been so encourraging to see God flowing through us!

It's about time for church to begin and then our long drive, but more updates on what we have been doing to come!

A Little Nugget..

This is just another thing I stumbled upon from our day at Temple Square, which I will have to give deets ('details' for those un-hip readers out there) on that day soon!

We have been crazy busy lately, going non stop but ever more experiencing the amazing love and grace of God!

I meant to add a little explanation for that photo...

So this is a statue in one of the buildings at Temple Square. The two sister missionaries that were leading our tour explained it as Jesus being at the center of our universe. What you can't really see in the picture is the painted mural of the universe everywhere around this room.

Over the years, our team has come to refer to this guy as 'space Jesus' which is not intended to be offensive to anyone, I promise. it's just that when you see the room as a whole, that's kind of the impression one gets.

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Quick Prayer Request...

Of course, as it goes with many missions trips, our team has been facing minor injuries and sicknesses. One of our wise leaders, Kate, made a great decission to force us all to to take 1 chewable vitamin C a day.

Great idea- this is what happened.

Here is a rightside up view

Salt Lake Temple! This may be sideways but I had to get moroni on the top there..

Pizza @ The Temple

Today is Temple Square day!
Our team waved goodbye to our lovely host families and the congregation at The Adventure church to head north to Salt Lake City to walk the grounds of the Salt Lake Temple in hopes of engaging in conversations with LDS (Latter Day Saints) members.

On the way, we stopped off at Sandra Tanner's bookstore where she shared her story of coming out of the LDS church and finding hope in Christ alone. She provided us with plenty of knowledge and resources for the journey!

Tonight we will be staying at Sandy Ridge church and finally getting in some wholesome team debrief time and partaking in some general shennanagins.

Hopefully I will be able to back track a little to tell some of the amazing stories of what God has been doing through our team for the past few days!

Please keep us in your prayers, we are definitely experiencing the effects!

Day 2: Ephraim, Tri-Grace Ministries & Snow College

We are in Ephraim, Utah!

Fun notes from the day: our 4 vehicle caravan spent about 4 hours on the snow swept highway, passing breathtaking scenery and exchanging hilarious walkie talkie babble. At one point, we even got stuck behind a GIANT herd of sheep on the highway! Luckily, their shepherd (El Shepheardo) was nearby to usher them off to the side.. although two of the four vans were stuck for quite some time.

When we finally made it to our destination, Tri Grace Ministries headquarters, the Solid Rock Cafe, we were greated by an enthusiastic bunch of college students and our lovely hosts, Chip, Jaime, Shane & Kim, who run the ministry.

We settled in, got to know some of the students involved with Tri Grace, ate some delicious home made diner and prepared to hear the testimonies of former members of the LDS (Latter Day Saints, Mormons). These are individuals who have decided to leave the Mormon church, and in this case, have found the true Jesus and the free gift of grace offered to those who call on his name. It was an amazing and convicting experience to get to hear thes stories (possibly, when i am near my computer again, I will add more detailed stories).

Tomorrow we will be doing some event advertising across the street at Snow College for an event tomorrow night called 'Scarf Your S'mores'. Looking forward to another day of opportunity!

(oh, yes, and we closed out the night with some line dancing at the Ephraim social hall!)

'Abide in me, and I in you.' Romans 12:15

First Stop- St. George Utah

After 7 hours on the road, 3 pit stops and some sweet scenery changes, our team has arrived in St. George, Utah where the lovely members of Calvary Bible church will be hosting us for the night. Tomorrow, after some maintenence and cleaning projects around the church building, we will continue our journey north to Ephraim to pair up with Tri Grace Ministries.
Tonight on the agenda: plenty of fellowship, getting to know each other better, loads of tomfoolery and eventually (maybe) sleep in our snuggly sleeping bags.
God is good!

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Our fearless leaders are with us, even if they aren't in the same van.. on the road to Utah!

T-Minus... 2 days of growing anxiety??

Two days from now I will be loading into a multi-passenger van, fully equipped with pillows, snacks and a plethora of iPod playlists and embarking on the first leg of the journey to Utah in order to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Mormon populations there. Our team of about 20 students will be serving alongside Evangelical churches already stationed in Utah and also will be starting conversations with Mormons we meet on the streets, on college campuses, in institutes and at religious centers, such as Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

My heart has been breaking for the Mormon church ever since I built strong relationships with Mormons during my high school years and I've always wondered whether or not those individuals saw the light of Jesus in me. So as we are preparing to leave for this amazing adventure that God has put in front of us, I feel a mix of the excitement of the possibilities and also the weight of the reality that these people are living.

The training that I've received from my education at Biola has prepared me well and I know that God is going to use me in great ways, yet I there is a faint whisper rattling around in my head telling me to be nervous because I'm not really as prepared as I think. In the support letters that I sent out, I emphasized how extremely crucial it is that people pray for our team. We are about to engage with a religion that is based on lies and one that is widely accepted as 'morally' good by many and therefore deceptively being passed off as glorifying to God. Please, please, please continue in pray for our team, we can not do this alone! Thank you so much to those who have been giving support in many ways, I can't wait to return with stories of God's amazing love!

"For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your sevants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body."

2 Corinthians 4:5-11

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind..

The ever popular Green Day song.

Used year after year to commemorate the end of a landmark life experience.

The end of high school.

College.

Single life.

Adolescence.

Although it may be over played and cliche, the lyrics resonate with that desire to mark the big moments of change in our lives. While this is an important part in our continuous development, the true depth and meaning withers away if we do not intentionally learn from ourselves.

That being said, I'd like to introduce a new series for my blog (one that I intend to keep up with). As I am approaching the end of my undergraduate experience, there is some intentional reflection that I would like to do, as one of my Anthropology professors would say, it's time for some "navel gazing".

It seems that many college students don't spend a lot of time really thinking about their experience until long after it ends, until maybe they are married, have a career or have kids of their own.

My hope is that there will be some insight to be gained while I can still take action to do a few things differently.

Time grabs you by the wrist;

directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test

and don't ask why.

It's not a question

but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable

but in the end it's right.

I hope you had the time of your life.

Katie Steslicki is...

a Vagrant, a Nomad, a Transient.

but not Rootless.

I'm Standing Right Here!

Early this morning, my roommate and I took a beautiful walk to the Starbucks in downtown Los Gatos up in NorCal where a group of our fellow South Horton staff were visiting C.J.

As we waited in line to order, Meghan pointed out a little boy standing with his dad at the register. The dad was ordering but his son was trying to tell him something and was clearly getting frustrated that it was so difficult. As they walked away from the counter, the boy, finally at the end of his rope, says to his dad with a mixture of frustration and maybe insecurity, "I'm standing right here and you're not even listening to me!"

It was one of those moments that you laugh at because most things that come out of little kids are funny and I think I even made a comment to Meghan that adults can't help not always hearing kids because their voices are so little.

However, later this evening, that moment came back to me. I was getting frustrated with someone I am close with who tends to miss the things I say or doesn't always take the time to lend an ear to the rather random things I beg of them to listen to... and I'm not saying I'm always in the right. I do have a tendency to drop whatever I'm doing when something interesting comes along and I have a passion for sharing with others, which can get overwhelming at times.

But in that moment, the little boy's helpless and frustrated moment came back to me and all I wanted to say was,

"I'm right here and you're not even listening to me."

My couch may be extremely comfy, but it is also faulty. If you lay too long on it, you begin to develop back pain

I've learned a lot of things about life during my time in college.
I have learned what it means to make your money work for you, what it looks like to glorify God through mundane things like doing homework for a class, I have learned that it actually isn't possible to stay awake until 4am every night and still function properly.

I have learned a lot of things.

And of all these lessons, the one I have not quite learned yet but am constantly improving on is this:
Don't get comfortable.

It is when we get comfy that we miss out on so many opportunities to grow more in the understanding that God is the supporter of all, that Christ is at the center of all.

So, when we begin to settle into a satisfying posture, whether that be a situation, a relationship, a place, a state of mind, one of two things happen:

1. We become complacent. We slowly ween off of our trust in God and begin trusting in ourselves and relying on our own humanly understanding and ability to get by, ignoring the movement of God in our lives.
or
2. Something happens to disturb the cushion; a lump forms in the couch cover or you realize you left the book you needed on the other side of the room and you have to get up. In other words, God provides an event or occurrence to help upset the comfort that we have managed to achieve and settle for through our own meek abilities.

I know people who are fine placing themselves in the first category, maybe not admitting totally to the terms, but still accepting the comfort and desiring to stay there.
I'd like to think that I'm a person who desires the second category, one who can notice the moving of God as a sign that something about my life or actions or faith needs to change. Of course it is hard in that moment of upset to say, "yes! I want this!" but if we can be prepared for those moments to come, maybe it will be more possible to be open to the Spirit in that.

Currently, I am experiencing a time of discomfort. I had come up with a plan, a wonderful amazing humanly plan, for how the next few years of my life would look, exactly how certain events would work out. However, at the beginning of last semester, I began to feel the tiniest hint of discomfort.

You know like when you have a tag on your shirt that just starts rubbing you the wrong way, but not enough to do something about it.. it was kinda like that.

Anyways, to make a really long and drawn out story short, I have come up against a difficult financial situation that affects my last semester of college, which will be this coming Fall.
In the past, I would have freaked out at this and immediately begin to worry myself crazy about how it would all work out.
But because of the great glory of God that I have experienced thus far in my academic career, I feel much more at ease in the present situation. While I'm not slacking in figuring things out, I am no where near as devastated as I would have been in the past. I know that God is good and that He works all things out for the good of those who trust in Him, whether or not that means my idea of good or His.

I would definitely appreciate prayer for this time, that things will be sorted out and that I will, of course, by the grace of God be able to complete my final semester here at Biola.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand.

Monday Morning Beauty

I watched a music video by a guy named Jonsi who was previously a member of an Icelandic rock band called Sigur Rós.

I think it's safe to say that English was probably not this guys first language. So, I'm watching this video, assuming he's singing in Icelandic, but every now and then I think I hear a word in English. I decided to look up the lyrics, and to my surprise, they were in English.

But you can definitely see some of the carryover that is common among non-native English speakers, the syntax just isn't always quite right.

And that's what I LOVED about his lyrics! They are purely his feelings, passions, translated the best he knows how so that they can be shared with the world!

Go Do
by Jonsi

Go sing too loud
Make your voice break - Sing it out
Go scream do shout
Make an earthquake...

You wish fire would die and turn colder
You wish your love could see you grow older
We should always know that we can do anything

Go drum do go out
Make your hands ache - Play it out
Go march through crowds
Make your day break...

You wish silence released noise in tremors
You wish I know it surrender to summer
We should always know that we can do everything

Go do you´ll know how to
Just let yourself fall into landslide

Go do you´ll know how to
Just let yourself give into low tide

Go do!

Tie strings to clouds
Make your own lake - Let it flow
Throw seeds to sprout
Make your own break - Let them grow

Let them grow (Endless summers)
Let them grow (Endless summers)

(Go do endless summers)

You will survive we´ll never stop wonders
You and sunrise will never fall under

You will survive we´ll never stop wonders
You and sunrise will never fall under
We should always know that we can do anything

Go do!

And we don't care about the old folks, talkin' bout the old style too

Aside from my grandparents, I've never particularly enjoyed old people.
You know how most people, when walking by an old couple or seeing that one elderly lady walking down the street will say, "aww they're so cute!"... that's not exactly my reaction.

To be honest, the elderly kinda freak me out. They are basically a demonstration of what we are to become x# of years down the road (and when I say "old" people, I'm referring to those of 60+ years.. although I am aware most people would not classify that as old). They are sometimes senile, smelly, slow, alone, lost and basically nearing the end of the journey, so seeing them as they are right then, I feel that it makes sense to be kinda offset about them.

However, this morning, my original paradigm received a little bit of a challenge and a push.

It started last night around 11:30pm when Meghan and I were checking to see who would be speaking in chapel this morning. The previous speaker had been ok, but her message was definitely intended for an audience of hormonal high school students and I just didn't think I could take another day of that. Luckily, this speaker was not going to be there, but in her place was a man named Dick Foth, age 68, Minister-at-Large; Washington, D.C. and he was going to speak on politics.

ehh...

I resolved that I would make sure to bring my most recent crochet project (ha, speaking of old people...) and go anyways. I was really just expecting a guy with a cane, perhaps, to hobble up to the podium and rattle off terms and names and ideas that were way over my head and before my time.

To my surprise, the person that stepped up to the podium looked exactly like the man in the photo online, but once he began speaking, he sounded completely different than what I was expecting.

This man spoke with passion, wisdom, love, experience, yearning and joy. Very different from the old people I so often envision as decrepit.

He shared stories of his life and continually related it all back to how we are to be like children before God. During his message, it hit me: old folks have lived a lot more life than I have and they are going to have way more wisdom than I could ever expect. Why hadn't I ever thought of this before?

Probably due to my lack of wisdom.

Title 22

Today was an overall great day.

While I did have to spend the majority of my day sitting at work doing Title 22 training, a special kind of first aid course that all first responders (firefighters, police, lifeguards) are required to take, I did get to learn something new- how to deliver a baby.

Wow.

My first thought was, "let's hope I never have to actually use that skill"
My second thought was, "sweet, I now know how to do something that most people don't"
And my third thought was, "so much for my future children!"
*please note: previous statement still under review

The evening was the best part.
I was able to get together with some of my very best friends for a night of easy going and relaxing fellowship over frozen yogurt and a great chick flick (She's The Man. Watch it. Life changing).

I know that I've been really needing to work harder on defining my goals, not only for this semester, but for my future, but there has never been a more tangible motivator than the joy that comes from spending time with my friends, especially the really good ones (you know who you are, I bet you're even reading this!).

This semester, I am looking forward to making so many more crazy memories with the girls that started it all, from our first year together as new students now to the second half of our third. We've grown so much, yet we have remained together, somewhat, and although two are off in other countries, I know we will reunite the first moment we are able!

Here's to Carsten, Chelsea, (K)Aryn, Casey, (K)Irene & Katie..
Here's to this semester.

Adventures in Baking Pt. 1- The Great Cupcake Catastrophe

It's the beginning of a new semester which means the start of trying new things and looking forward to doing better than before!
I figure that being a college student provides me with the perfect opportunity to start exploring new hobbies since I'm basically in the prime time space for learning right now. Anyhow, after spending a six-week long winter break in households of amazing cooks, I was convicted to finally buckle down, pick up a spatula and begin creating!

I'm starting small. Baking. It looks fun, relatively easy and delicious!
Cupcakes are the first task on the menu, there are tons of recipes online and they are easy to share with others. I already have a motto: "I bake to share!"


So armed with a small starters artillery of baking supplies, I boldly went where I had not gone before... the kitchen! My lovely friends over at the Cove allowed me to use their oven while watching The Office and then Superman Returns and I'm sure keeping them up past their bedtime. My first batch took forever and frosting the darn things was ridiculously difficult! I left those behind as a thank you to the Cove and decided to wait until the next day to frost the remaining cupcakes.

It took me forever to figure out how to make the frosting soft enough to spread on a moist cupcake so the first half of them look like they were ground into the dirt but I eventually got the hang of it and ended up with some really sweet (ha, pun) cupcakes!



Unfortunately, these beautiful cupcakes met an untimely doom...
The night I finished frosting them, I was carrying them over to share with Erik and his roommate when I missed a few steps at the end of the stairs and went tumbling down to the ground, cupcakes and all. Campus Safety was called and an EMT came to help me out. I ended up with a sprained ankle that was salvaged with an ace bandage and an ice pack, however the cupcakes were not so lucky.

It was a bittersweet moment, piling them back onto the plate and then later dumping them in the trash. Hopefully my next delectable dessert will be more lucky!