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!