January 2016 (25x25)

The highlight of this month was time with my family, since we didn't get together for Christmas. I had the unspeakably great pleasure of spending two whole weeks with my youngest sister visiting with (at various points) all four of our grandparents, our parents, and our middle sister and her husband.

On our drive from NC back to FL, I crossed one item off my list! We stopped in Savannah, GA, to walk and drive around a bit. It is a very pretty place, and now Savannah Sparrow has been to Savannah.

Thanks to generous friends of mine, we were able to spend a day each at both Sea World and Disney's Hollywood Studios. Both days were full of fun rides and adventures, including meeting Chewbacca and Darth Vader.

     

In other 25x25 news, I also found a very useful app (thanks to the recommendation of a friend) that has numerous free audiobook recordings of classic books. It's called Librivox. In their catalog they have a recording of an unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my three long books for this year. In 10 hours of driving on the trip I listened to the first 17 chapters...out of 117. I am now in the middle of chapter 33 so #progress. I am also nearing the end of reading The Silmarillion.

In Bible reading I have made it into the book of Daniel and past the halfway point in the year-long Bible reading plan I'm using, so that means I have also crossed off that goal!

So, goodbye January 2016 and onward goes February.

December 2015 (25x25)

Yup, I know it's February. Oh well...here are some December highlights:

I made a pretty gingerbread house.

I saw lots and lots of carved ice at ICE! at Gaylord Palms.

The nativity scene carved out of ice.

And in preparation for Urbana 15, I helped one of the writers at Wycliffe put together a story about how Urbana encouraged me, my dad, and my grandfather to support missions work. You can read that story here: Three Generations of Faith.

November 2015 (25x25)

This month, thanks to a visit from my mother, I was able to cross off two items on my list.

On the Saturday of her visit, we went up to Silver Springs State Park, home of the famous glass bottom boats. I had gone on them once when I was much younger, but the whole experience is just as wonderful as a 24-year-old. You can see it all: fish, turtles, birds, more turtles, alligators, and even more turtles - and of course, the silver springs.

On Sunday I finally made it to Leu Gardens. That place is 50 acres of wonderfulness right in Orlando. I'm definitely going back. Name any kind of remotely tropical plant that you might want to see and likely it's there. Also, roses. So many roses.

November means my 24th year is halfway through. I still have a lot more to do on my list, but I'm making progress. Here's to many more adventures in the next 6 months!

September 2015 (25x25) - Loving Well

Yes, I do realize that it is the middle of October BUT I wrote this in the middle of September...I just didn't post it. I was thinking about what love is and how hard it is to truly love other people well - people who are broken, just like me. So this is a very different post than my usual.

Loving Well

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

Love is not an easy thing. It is a really hard thing. Loving well and whole-heartedly means being vulnerable and real. It means talking about the hard things and being able to be yourself no matter what. Love looks for what you can give to the other person, rather than seeing what you can get for yourself.

The world's definition of love is entirely different than God's definition.

The world says love is all about me.
It is a transient feeling.
It asks “What I can get from this relationship?”
It says, if I don't feel it anymore or I'm not getting what I need, then it's time to move on.

God says love is action.
It's a choice.
It's sacrificial.
It's focused on giving.
It doesn't give up.
It forgives.

Only God can love perfectly. If you're looking for true love, it looks a lot like Jesus dying on the cross to make it so that we could be in a relationship with God forever. The rest of us just have to keep trying to imitate Jesus and looking for his love to fill us and overflow to others.

At the same time, though, we have to choose wisely who we love. Because loving someone who is just using us or who is totally lost in their own brokenness isn't healthy. At that point, that person needs to experience God's love to be able to love himself or herself and learn how to love others. We can't fix a person by loving them. God has to do that work of healing and restoration in them.

Fall in Maine. I wish I was there. Don't you? Photo credit: my mom

July 2015 (25x25)

Two months down! And I am quite excited to report that I have now officially crossed two things off of my list.

#10 Waterski twice this summer
#21 Visit Atlanta

And here's proof:

There's nothing like gliding over a still lake.

Atlanta involved seeing two friends and visits to the World of Coca-Cola, the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and the Georgia Aquarium.

So much sugar!

Still friends even though we haven't seen each other in 2.5 years.

Whale sharks! And manta rays!

I also started reading The Silmarillion. Life doesn't get much better than reading about elves in a hammock in the woods of Maine.

Oh, right, and there was that thing about my sister getting married on July 4.

The Way Life Should Be

I'm still alive! Since I haven't posted since May, here's the highlights of each month.

June - I totaled my car. Not cool. I'm ok. My car is not. I now have a new car. Thankfully, no one else was in the car, and no one else was nearby to be involved in the smash. So basically I spent most of June figuring out insurance stuff and buying a new car. I had the opportunity to face one of my biggest fears - car buying. I'm so thankful for all the people who helped me during this frustrating period of my life. Goodbye, gold 2004 Chevrolet Impala. Hello, silver 2009 Toyota Camry.

July - I spent the whole month in Maine. By Maine, I mean a very specific area of woods on the shore of Little Ossipee Pond. After only being able to spend a couple weekends there the past two years, being able to be there for a whole month this summer was an absolute joy. I packed all of the Maine things into that month:

• picking wild blueberries
• fresh blueberry pie
• eating lobster and clams
• playing SOOO many games
• swimming
• sailing
• floating picnics
• 4th of July fireworks (on the 5th) from the pontoon boat
• naps in the hammock
• reading lots of books
• stargazing on the dock
• canoeing
• ice cream
• seeing old friends
• volunteering at New England Camp Cedarbrook
• late night talks with my sisters
• dancing on the pontoon boat under the stars with my sisters to music from the 40s and 50s
• listening to the loons - and seeing their baby
• sunset boat cruises
• misty mornings
• rainy, thundery days
• singing with my family
• climbing a mountain

August - Now I'm back in Orlando with all the people and experiences that make living here an adventure. After being here for over a year, I'm glad to say that by the end of my time in Maine, I was looking forward to being back in Florida. I'm from Massachusetts and Maine, but now Florida is my home. If I didn't call this home, then I'd always be away from home and that wouldn't be pleasant.

And now I have a whole collection of lovely photos of Maine to look at whenever I miss that happy place.

Convertibles and Country Music

So I've been reminded by several people lately that I haven't been blogging. Sorry. I've been busy doing something called living life. It's kind of fun.

For example, last weekend I went up to The Villages to visit some relatives that are renting a place up there for the month of April. We rode around in their convertible, took a tour in their golf cart, and went swimming (in the adult pool, where technically you're not supposed to swim until you're over 30 years old...so I was 30 on Sunday - happy birthday to me!).

I got a haircut before I went up there. For the first time in about 11 months. It was about time. Here's a photo with both haircut and convertible.

We also bonded over country music. Have I shared that news yet? I decided in December that I like country music. It's now April and I'm still happy with that decision. Here's one of my favorites:

If you happen to also be a fan of the country music genre, feel free to offer up suggestions of artists or songs that you particularly like.

This weekend - today! - I'm headed down to Naples to visit MY SISTER who's staying there for Easter break with a college friend of hers who's from there. So excited!

That's all for now.

A Confession

So I haven't posted in a really long time. I don't really have an excuse, but if I was to give one, it would go something like this:

My family came down for Christmas and I spent two and a half weeks with them. So many wonderful things happened while they were here that I was overwhelmed thinking about writing about everything. Then more wonderful things happened in January. But I hadn't written about Christmas yet so I didn't write about January. And now it's February and that line of thinking has to stop.

In order to remedy this situation, I'm going to write up little posts more often, rather than one big one that would probably totally overwhelm me as a writer and you as a reader.

With all that out of the way, my mom is down here this week with my grandparents, helping them get a To Do list done. And they ended up coming down to visit me yesterday. Yay! So my grandparents finally had a chance to see the Discovery Center at Wycliffe, I gave them a tour of where I work, they visited my house, and we had a lovely visit.

My family is funny. And when I say that I mean it in both senses of the word. They are both funny - strange and complex in their own way - and funny - extremely hilarious and amusing. I love to laugh and I always laugh when I'm with my family. That is a very good thing.

Life on Fast Forward

The Day of the Doctor

Saturday, November 23, was a very special day. It was the 50th anniversary of the BBC show, Doctor Who. Yes, indeed, and I will admit to being a Whovian. I enjoyed seeing the special 50th anniversary episode both on Saturday afternoon - I was house-sitting so I actually had cable! - and on Monday evening in a movie theater IN 3-D with a friend. I promise I try to do lots of actually useful stuff with my life.

Thanksgiving at Dowling Park

At the end of November, I was finally able to go up to visit my grandparents in Florida - the snowbirds have arrived down south! When I'm there, I'm the chef and the chauffeur and the IT guy and the Christmas decorator. 

We ate Thanksgiving dinner in the dining hall with relatives, but I there were some traditional family holiday foods that I just couldn't live without. Behold a delicious slice of Dutch Crumb Apple Pie a la mode. Trust me, once you've had this pie, a normal pie crust on top will never satisfy. 

And if you desire a more tart experience for your taste buds, then you might be interested in this Cranberry Apricot Lattice Pie. This family favorite can be found on pages 288-289 of The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook. And lucky for you, these pages are available on Google Books for free.

Santa's Marketing Elves

And then, last week, Christmas arrived in grand style. Wycliffe had a building-wide Christmas decorating competition. I work with a bunch of artistic, creative people. Together we decided, go big or go home. Behold the wonder of Santa's Marketing Workshop. 

The Elves have a countdown to Christmas, a live feed to Santa's reindeer, a fire and stockings with their names on them, snow falling on evergreen trees, lots of Christmas lights, lots of paper chains, 6 Christmas trees, a photo booth, Christmas cookies, hats, signs, and presents.

Peppermint "Peppy" Sugarplum is head of Santa's Letter Reading and Response department. She loves reading all the letters that children all over the world write to Santa, even those that are skeptical of his existence.

Merry Christmas!

Mom, Mommy, Mother, Mum, Mumsie, Momma, Mama: Bottom Line = She's Mine

I love my mum. I only have one, and I'm quite satisfied with the one I've got. One is quite enough. I know all this because this weekend mine came down to visit, and we had 4 whole days together that we packed full of adventures.

On Friday we had a SeaWorld day, brimming with fish, aquatic mammals, and a variety of other living creatures. We saw Shamu, rode the Manta roller coaster, thoroughly enjoyed the dolphin show, and froze in Antartica.

It's Christmas in the ocean already apparently. It even started snowing - in Florida, I know! - while we were there. OK, it was only a snow machine.

 I made friends with some manatees.

And a colony of penguins. I may have tried to go native there. That plan didn't succeed. Oh well. What can I say? I like birds.

Saturday we drove over to the Cape Canaveral National Seashore. After eating lunch at a special little restaurant named Loyd Have Mercy, where we dined sumptuously on grits, collards, and other southern delectables, we spent the afternoon driving along the Black Point Wildlife Drive observing...you guessed it...the wildlife.

Although it was a gray day, the clouds mostly behaved themselves by not raining on us when we ventured from the car to get a beach picture. After being together at the Pacific Ocean only three weeks earlier, we needed a photo like this to bookend our fall travels.

We went to my church on Sunday and had Tijuana Flats for lunch with my roommates and some friends. In the evening we dined in a restaurant on Park Ave in Winter Park. It's a really fun place to walk and enjoy a Florida evening. And there was a beautiful full moon.

My half birthday was on Monday. I took my mom on a grand tour of Wycliffe. This fulfilled two purposes: 1) My mother had a chance to see where I'm working and learn about what I'm working on and who I'm working with and 2) my coworkers and friends at Wycliffe had a chance to meet my mom. 'Twas a grand success.

No picture for the final event which was five hours of clothes shopping that afternoon. Those of you who have known me for a while know that until about two years ago I was quite content wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie almost continuously. This was my existence for several reasons, but a few major factors involve me being born without certain genes that most other females seem to have in abundance. I hate shopping. And my 'oh, this is SO cute' meter is non-existent. Blessings on my mother for helping me through the transition of trying to expand and mature my wardrobe. I think we are moving in the direction of victory.

My mom's pretty cool. And she's super cute too. My meter isn't that broken.

Good Things

It is now November. Yikes. Well, I didn't post last week about my time in California, so here's a set of snapshots from my life over the last three weeks.

During the mini Stobbe reunion out in California, we had a chance to go walk along Hollywood Boulevard. My adorable mother persistently asked about Mickey's star on the walk of fame. When we found it, this picture happened. I love it. I love her more.

My week with the Nystroms went well. We drove a lot, talked with a lot of people and ate some fun food - including Hawaiian barbecue. I heard their talk so many times I can definitely tell many of their stories myself now. That's totally OK with me because the stories are great.

Hearing stories from people like the Nystroms is a powerful reminder of why the work Wycliffe Bible Translators supports is so important. After one little girl in Papua New Guinea heard a part of the Bible translated into her mother tongue for the first time, she said to her father, one of the translators, "Daddy, this is delicious. Will you bring us some more?"

In the spirit of giving, I invite you to check out the Wycliffe Gift Catalog - you can be a part of helping give this deliciousness to people all over the world.

After my time with the Nystroms, I got to see my lovely little sister AGAIN! She had a crazy week, but by the time she brought me back to her college on Friday evening, she had finished and turned in the first draft of her major term paper. I enjoyed celebrating this accomplishment with her and her friends - all in an honors program together - by dressing up and eating dinner at The Cheesecake Factory on Saturday evening.

Once I arrived back in Orlando, work started up again, but we had a special celebration at Wycliffe on Thursday. At our fall Scripture celebration, we made a big to-do about the new translations that were completed or are going to be completed this year. So cool!

There are now just over 1900 languages that have NONE of the Bible translated. That number is dropping as people keep committing to the job of getting the Bible translated into every language that needs it.

Sadly, I don't have photos of my next two events. On Friday morning I had breakfast with family friends who were in town for the Scripture celebration and some other events. It was lovely to talk with people who have known both me and Wycliffe for a long time and who are excited that I am now working at Wycliffe.

Then on Friday night I had a game night at my house with some of my friends from church. Since it's fall (although it doesn't feel or look like that here in Florida), I made hot spiced apple cider. It made the whole house smell delicious. We played Quiddler, Scattergories, and Taboo - all word games = a happy Bethany.

Saturday morning I went for a 12 mile bike ride. Once again I will say how much I love biking - especially on my wonderful bike.

In the afternoon I picked up a college friend from the airport and then we had a Disney weekend. We spent Saturday evening at Downtown Disney - eating Ghirardelli chocolate ice cream and buying a giant, stuffed Eeyore.

Sunday I finally went to Hollywood Studios, the one Disney World park I hadn't been to yet. It was kind of weird being in a place with all the Hollywood names that I had just seen for real for the first time two weeks ago.

There are so many good rides and shows at Hollywood Studios, but one of my favorite things there is the car stunt show. Go see it. It's intense.

So, I've been busy. And the crazy doesn't stop. My mom flies down on Thursday and I get to show her around Orlando for 4 days. It's going to be good.

A Not-Random God Coincidence

This is a story of how God likes to work out crazy coincidences, that aren't really coincidences to him.

I spent this weekend with my mom and youngest sister in and around Biola University in Southern California. We had an awesome time together and there will be pictures and stories from that coming in the near future. For now, though, I'm going to stick with writing about church on Sunday morning.

Since my youngest sister is a freshman, she's still looking around and visiting different churches near Biola. This spring, my parents went to a marriage retreat in Rhode Island run by our friends, Paul and Virginia Friesen. The Friesens had a couple speak at the retreat who were pastors of a church in a town near Biola. So this weekend Charlotte suggested we go visit their church, since it was on the list of ones she was considering.

When we got to the church we began worshipping God with everyone else, first through singing and then listening to the sermon. After the sermon, the pastor said that today was a special day because the church was celebrating the retirement of a Wycliffe missionary couple. I immediately became curious!

When he called them up on stage to have a question and answer time about their 55 years as Wycliffe missionaries, my brain began to have an inner conversation.

"Wait. Dick and Saundra Watson. I know that name. They're retiring. That means they get a commemorative plaque. I've been helping keep track of all the orders for designing and printing certificates like that over the past month."

I pulled out my iPhone (quite a handy piece of technology) and pulled up my Wycliffe emails (yes, I was kind of distracted). Sure enough, there was the email for the certificate for the Watsons saying that it needed to be at the church for this Sunday.

BUT WAIT. It gets better. The Watsons served in several countries over the years, but one of the places they served was Sudan...which is where one of my Houghton professors (Dr. Jon Arensen, who ran my semester in Tanzania) served with Wycliffe for years. Turns out they know each other very well. In fact, Dick used to go hunt buffalo with Bwana Job. [Side note: Bwana just published his third book, The Red Pelican. I got to hear his stories in Tanzania. They are good!]

In summary, of all of the churches we could have chosen to visit on Sunday near Biola, we chose the one celebrating the retirement of a long-term Wycliffe missionary couple. My job over the past month and a half involved helping make sure certificates were ready for events like this. And the couple that was retiring knows my professor from Houghton really well.

And here's a photo to go with it.

Biking, Baking, Beach Time, Traveling

This is a two-week post, since I didn't post last week. Let's see...what's newsworthy? Well, here are some highlights:

I bought a bicycle. This fact in itself makes me super happy because I've been saying that I want to buy a bike since January. Now that I live in Florida, it's perfect that I waited until the fall to get a bike because it's way too hot to go bike riding here during the summer and now I will be able to use it all winter long. True confessions: I hate running. I don't care what you say, running is a form of torture. I love being outside and getting exercise, though, so now I can do that on my bike. And there are even several bike trails in Orlando so I can go use those. Life is good. 

When one of my coworkers left our department in September to go to grad school, her absence made everyone sad for several reasons. One of those reasons is that she's an awesome person. Another reason was that every Thursday she would bring in cupcakes or some other delicious form of baked sugar so that we could have a Sweet Thursday. Luckily, I like baking for people - and it's always better to know that other people will be there to help eat the deliciousness - so I've taken up the continuation of Sweet Thursdays upon myself.

So far I've made beaver houses (you might know them better as no-bake cookies), chocolate covered strawberries, white chocolate chip banana muffins, and pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting. Tomorrow's treat is brownies, half of which have coconut. I'll put a picture up if I make anything particularly interesting looking - then you can all drool and wish you worked with me.

Last weekend my church had their young adult retreat at a hotel in Cocoa Beach. The retreat was an awesome time on many levels, particularly on the levels of 'getting to know other people' and 'God being SUPER awesome like he always is.' The theme verse of the weekend was Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Interestingly, this was the theme verse for New England Camp Cedarbrook my last summer working there. What if followers of Christ actually took time to think about what this verse means and intentionally lived with it in mind each day?

One thing I noticed this weekend is that, in my mind, a retreat equals cabins, woods, lake, hills, and probably cooler weather. Not so in Florida. Here a retreat is hotel, sand, beach, flat, and sunny blue sky days. Not bad, just different.

And to close out with a super happy thought, in about 36 hours I will be Southern California with my mother and my youngest sister! Why? you might ask. Because I have the best job ever. A Wycliffe missionary couple, John and Bonnie Nystrom, who worked in Papua New Guinea, wrote a book called Sleeping Coconuts, and I'm going to be traveling with them around SoCal next week selling books while they speak at different college and church events as part of a book tour.

When I found out that I might be going on this trip, I called my lovely sister, who is a freshman at Biola (one of the colleges the Nystroms are speaking at), to ask her what she was doing the last weekend in October, she said, 'Oh, that's the weekend Mom's coming out to visit me.' Mini family reunion coming up!

Because of this trip, it is possible that I might not write a blog post next week - we'll see. I'm sure a post-California post will have lots of good stories, though. 

P.S. In case you were wondering, yes, I've been to California once before, but I was only six years old. I went with my paternal grandparents to visit my aunt, her husband, and my baby cousin. We stayed in a time share in San Diego. Mostly what I remember is my uncle teaching me how to do handstands in a pool. And having a tea party with my aunt and my grandmother.