It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Although we didn't put up any lights outside, when you step inside our house you get a nice dose of holiday cheer...

Most of the decorations are compliments of Mom's basement (we've got enough to deck out my house, her house, and a lot of other people's houses for Christmas). A Christmas tree pillow on the couch, a red and green basket to hold the remotes, a Mistletoe scented candle, pictures wrapped on the walls, and not one, but TWO fully decorated Christmas trees.

A few years ago I convinced my parents to get a real tree for the first time in my whole life. I also convinced them to let me decorate it with white lights (instead of the traditional colored lights) and glass ball ornaments (instead of different kinds of keepsake ornaments). After that one year, Mom decided it would be best to stick to tradition... and we ended up with an entire tree's worth of lights and ornaments. I was happy to use them on these two small trees, that used to reside in Sara's room and my room when we were young.
close up of the tree decor

Our TV is right in front of our boarded up fireplace, so Mom bought me a great DVD of a fake fireplace :) I think this adds to the wintery feel....

Kitchen, complete with stockings, red and green tablecloth, and pointsettas. We're ready for Christmas at my house - are you? :)

My new residence

Here's my new address in Bloomington ...mail is always welcome :)

512 University
Bloomington, IL 61701

My 3 housemates and I live on the first floor of the house and the upstairs is rented out to another group of students. My room is the front bedroom, that's my window right next to the front door.

Also, here are some pictures of our place!

EntrywayI'm not really sure what to call this area because this is only the entrance if you use the front door which we dont usually do. That's ok though. We've got a mirror, coat rack and beautiful shelving that mom and I found this summer. That open door is my roommate Michelle's room (its alittle messy so no pictures in there) The door to my bedroom is right off of the living room here.

My Bedroom


Right before I moved in they painted one of the walls cranberry, so that was kind of awkward, but I bought stuff I liked that match each other and I just try to ignore that one pesky wall... I inherited that lovely futon from my old roommate Maura and I LOVE it. On the other wall next to the futon is my desk area. And my
window looks out on the front yard. And of course I have to have a world map:) I'm still working on things for the other walls.


I recently had to move that wooden bedside table because I discovered my heat vent under there (very necessary!) I also got curtains for my room that are black-out and insulating (notice the space heater at the end of my bed). My closet is huge, which meant I didn't need a dresser and therefore could have the futon - yeay! I'm trying to keep everything neat and organized because I have people over alot and obviously I want it to look nice.




































Living Room

Above is the old setup when we first moved in... we didn't like it very much because the two big couches kind of made the bookshelves and corners of the room unaccessible. That blue chair also leaned into the walkway between this room and the kitchen.

Our new living room setup... we clean out those corners of junk and also got some fall/thanksgiving decorations (thanks to mom and Sara) Our fireplace is boarded up, but Mom and I found this great DVD for $1 that shows fireplace scenes and plays Christmas music so we like to put that on and pretend it's real. :)

Kitchen
Here's where I'm trying to learn how to be an adult and cook for myself... Luckily I have some helpful roommates.

Bathroom/Laundry Room
Yes, we have 1 bathroom for 4 girls, but it works because we all have different schedules. It's also really nice to have our own washer/dryer included because alot of student housing in the area doesn't have that.

Well, that's pretty much it. I like it for now, but I will be moving somewhere else in June when my lease ends. Feel free to come and visit, you're all invited!

Intersection's Fall Festival

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of serving at a Fall Festival in Bloomington, hosted by the ministry Intersection (a division of Spread Truth). We set up hot chocolate, popcorn, games and an inflatable slide for the kids at the Orlando Northbrook Estates. Orlando is a low income government sponsored housing complex in Bloomington where we have done service projects before. Volunteers went door-to-door with pumpkins to invite kids of all ages to come out and join us for games and pumpkin decorating. Tons of kids and their families came out to enjoy our fall festival on that beautiful fall day...all set up and ready for fun

We used this time to promote a free babysitting program that we are doing at Orlando starting this week. One of the problems we found in the past working at Orlando is that people leave their children home alone while they go and run errands or something. And the way we discovered this was going door-to-door to invite the kids to come out and join us for our activities, and found these small children home alone opening the door to us (strangers) - not ok. So, seeing this need, I have worked with Intersection to organize a group of volunteers to spend Saturday afternoons babysitting the kids of this neighborhood for free. Our hope is that families will choose this time each week to get their errands done and not leave the kids home alone during other times.
It was such a joy to celebrate fall with these families and see their smiles match their pumpkin's... Happy Fall!

Packing Thanksgiving Boxes

Last Tuesday, October 23, we had a great day at the Midwest Food bank working with our volunteers to pack the Thanksgiving boxes to send to New York City. Some of us from Spread Truth arrived at the Food Bank at 9:00 a.m., along with several volunteers from IWU, ISU and local churches. We had a daunting task - filling over 400 boxes with lots of different Thanksgiving food. But with the help of our eager volunteers, we finished all the work by 2:30pm - it was amazing! And with all the extra time and manpower, we were able to continue serving at the Food Bank and bless them by helping sort their food. What a great day to be a part of, where lots of different people from the community came together to serve God and help people. Here are some pictures from the day...

After taping the boxes together and putting Spread Truth and Food Bank stickers on them to identify them, we started to fill them up with food!me helping fill boxes


Green beans, corn, cranberry sauce - lots of cans!

me, helping direct traffic :)
When we were done we had over 400 Thanksgiving boxes ready to send to families in New York City!!!

We are still taking donations for Thanksgiving boxes. Right now we need to raise the money for about 25 more. If you would still like to contribute, you can send us a check made out to "Spread Truth" with Thanksgiving in the memo line. Send checks to our office at 1801 W. Hovey Suite D, Normal, IL, 61761. Thanks to all of you who already donated, and to our wonderful volunteers! Happy (early) Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving for Thousands

Imagine 3,000 hungry people waiting at your dinner table on Thanksgiving…

Now imagine 3,000 hungry people – dads, moms, grandmas, children - in New York City without anything on their dinner table for Thanksgiving…

Which image worries you more?

This thanksgiving, you can make a difference in the lives of over 3,000 people (and you don’t have to invite them all to dinner). Spread Truth Ministries is partnering with the Midwest Food Bank to supply 500 thanksgiving boxes to needy families in New York City. Each box will include a turkey, stuffing, and other thanksgiving food for one family who will truly have a reason to be thankful this year. These boxes will be distributed to families in four different locations in New York City: the Brooklyn Tabernacle, First Baptist Church in Spanish Harlem, Bronx Bible Church, and the Love Kitchen.

The Midwest Food Bank will supply the semi-truck, drivers, and fuel to get these boxes from Bloomington, IL to New York City. Also, a generous donor has offered to pay for 300 of the boxes. Spread Truth will purchase the turkeys and food for the other 200 boxes.

*2 ways you can help*

Volunteer: We need volunteers to help load the trucks before they go to New York City.

Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Time: 9:00 am-9:00pm
Location: Midwest Food Bank,
1703 S Veterans Pkwy, Bloomington, IL

Donate: The cost is $25 per box. Each box provides a turkey, stuffing and other thanksgiving food, and a Bible for each family to enjoy.

Checks can be made out to “Spread Truth” with Thanksgiving in the memo. We will be receiving donations at our office, located at 1801 W. Hovey Suite D, Normal, IL, 61761.

Maybe you are a student or recent grad that gets to enjoy a home-cooked meal this Thanksgiving. Maybe you and your family will have enough food this Thanksgiving to last you until Christmas. Or maybe you don’t even like Thanksgiving or eat turkey, but appreciate the tradition of this holiday.

However you are going to enjoy thanksgiving this year, please remember those who are less fortunate, and consider donating a Thanksgiving box to a family in need this year.

Thanks!

For more information, email me at susie@spreadtruth.com or call us at 309.452.3213.

Introducing...my new job!

SpreadTruth seeks to actively participate in God's story of redemption through
Gospel Conversion,
Cultural Renewal,
and Social Justice.
http://www.spreadtruth.com

Spread Truth is an umbrella organization for 7 other ministries throughout the country. 3 of the main ones I work with are:

NYC Ministries began in 1994, sending student and church groups from across the United States to New York City to minister to the poor. They set up prayer stations on busy street corners and in subway stations, conduct religious questionnaires in local parks, and share their faith with New Yorkers. Currently we are working on a fundraising banquet in South Carolina, winter and spring break NYC trips, and a thanksgiving box hand-out (read more about that in future blog entries).
"If you reach New York City, you reach the world."
http://www.nycm.org


Intersection is an annual community service project that takes place in both the Bloomington/Normal and Aurora/Naperville areas. Through an entire day of service, love and bettering the community, we seek to find commonality and blur the dividing lines for people of different ages, races, nationalities, and economic class. This service day takes place in April, but we also have year-round projects, including baby-sitting and giving blankets to needy families.
http://www.oneintersection.com

DRL exists for students to become active characters in God's prevailing Story creating a community committed to live by faith, be known by love, and be a voice of hope to all through the message of Jesus Christ. DRL is currently on the campus of Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University.

The main focus of my job right now is working with DRL at IWU. I am working with the leaders to organize missions trips for winter and spring break. I also mentor/disciple many of the female leaders and members of the ministry. DRL was my main extracurricular activity when I went to IWU and I am excited to return and continue working with this ministry.
http://www.drlministries.com

Other ministry divisions of Spread Truth include:
~Above the Rim, a basketball camp for inner city kids
~Spread Hope, offering short term trips to the Gulf Coast for Hurricane Katrina relief and to South Africa to serve at an AIDS orphanage
~Lingua2, teaching ESL in impoverished areas and the new Oral Bible Project
~Chicago Outreach Ministries, reaching the poor and homeless of inner city Chicago

Spread Truth Ministries is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. This means that Spread Truth is a public, charitable-donation supported entity, whose mission is to benefit the public. Having achieved this status in the summer of 2002, Spread Truth has worked diligently to meet its mission. A majority of our income is derived from donations, including gifts which are fully tax-deductible.

Travel Update - Hawai'i

To end my summer of amazingness, I went to Hawai'i with my dad. It was a totally unbelievable and unforgettable experience. We were there for 7 days, and every day I woke up and was like, "I can't believe I am actually HERE!" I got to go to Hawai'i partially thanks to my dad and his awesome job with Toyota and partially thanks to my mom, who hates to fly and refused to go with him. Lucky me! Toyota has their National Dealer Meeting in Hawai'i this year, celebrating 50 years of car sales in the U.S. And boy did they celebrate!

After a 9 hour direct flight from Chicago, we arrived in Honolulu in the early afternoon and took a bus to our hotel. After years of my dad traveling 3-4 days a week, I finally saw the benefits - when we arrived at the Marriott, they upgraded our room to a 23rd story ocean view room, thanks to my dad's extensive stays at their hotels. Way to go Dad!

view from our hotel room, complete with a real Hawaiian rainbow :)

That first night I got a special visit from a friend that I met when I studied in Spain 2 years ago. Although she is from Iowa, she moved to Hawaii with her husband and has a 6 month old baby girl, who is adorable! Her husband, who is in the military, was returning from Iraq the next day, so she was excited to get to hang out, in order to help pass the time more quickly.

Wednesday morning Dad and I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, a park made up of 7 native villages, where you can experience the cultures of the islands of the south Pacific. (http://www.polynesia.com/) My dad played huge drums with in the Tonga village and I did the hula in Fiji and Tahiti!

Dad banging on the Tonga drums

After we visited all 7 villages, we went to a huge luau, where we ate all kinds of Hawaiian food and watched different hula dancers perform. It was the kind of luau everyone who visits Hawai'i should experience! They also had a huge show to end the night , where all the villages perform their traditional dances in their native clothes and everything, including Samoan fire knife dancers. Me and Dad at the luau, with our real flower leis and pineapple drink

On Thursday, Dad and I went to Pearl Harbor and visited the USS Arizona memorial. They have a nice museum there, and also a video about the Pearl Harbor attack that you watch before you take a boat out to the memorial. The USS Arizona sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and has since been the final resting place for over 1,000 U.S. military officers. A floating memorial has been placed above the sunken ship, but you can still see many parts of the boat both submerged and above the water.

After Pearl Harbor, we continued our tour and drove around downtown Honolulu. We drove through Chinatown, past the state capital building and 'Iolani palace, the only royal palace on U.S. soil. After our tour, we gathered our things at the Marriott and headed over to the Hilton Hawaiian village, where many other Toyota employees were staying for the convention. After we got settled into our room, we had our first trip to the beach, then dinner then bed.

Friday morning we got up really early (5am!) to meet our tour guide that would lead us to the top of the Diamond Head crater. Although I was kind of dragging at first, it was worth it when we arrived at the crater just in time to see the sun rise...After an hour climb, through tunnels and up World War II stairwells, we finally made it to the top - and what a view!

us with Waikiki in the background

view of the inside of the crater - our tour bus is among the white buildings on the left, the ocean is on the top right

Even after this early morning hike, that wasn't enough for me! That afternoon, we took a tour of the north shore of the island (my dad is such a good sport!) Our first stop was a Japanese temple, then an orchid farm, followed by the beautiful beaches of Oahu's North Shore, where they hold all the famous surfing tournaments. One of the beaches also included and up close encounter with 2 giant sea turtles, who were just lying on the beach, basking in the sun! Finally we stopped at the Dole pineapple plantation, where you learn that pineapples in fact grow out of the ground, and that they can make anything taste like pineapple! We liked the pineapple ice cream the best :)

That night, the Toyota festivites finally began, starting with a fun luau at a nearby tiki bar, full of people from the Chicago region. This is where I was asked many time how I got to be so lucky to accompany my dad to Hawai'i instead of my mom... but with a mom who doesn't like flying, hot weather, going to the beach, or climbing craters, I'd say it wasn't much of a competition!

On Saturday, I finally let my dad relax and we spent the whole morning at the beach (only after the huge Toyota breakfast buffet, of course). In the afternoon, while he went to the Toyota business meeting, I went shopping at many of the 200 stores they had at our hotel complex. Another amazing thing about our hotel is that they had penguins - real life African black-footed penguins...and I got to pet one! yea! A lifelong goal was realized that day- as I was returning from shopping and the workers were feeding them, they brought one onto the ledge to pet. And I possibly may have pushed a few little kids out of the way for my chance to touch my favorite childhood animal, but hey, you only get to pet a penguin once in your life, maybe, so there was no way I was going to miss my chance. :)

That night I took a cab over to the University of Hawaii (where they were holding the Toyota convention) and joined my dad for dinner and drinks, before the evening ended with a Stevie Nicks and Aerosmith concert. Wow, thanks Toyota!

Sunday was another amazing day of Toyota fun... it started with my surf lesson in the morning, which was great, although I realized I would need some major upper body strength if I was going to make this a hobby of mine. I did get up several times and surfed those waves - with Pearl Harbor to my left and Diamond Head to my right, it was just perfect.

me getting ready to hit the waves

Sunday afternoon, we headed back to the University of Hawaii for Toyota's big Product Reveal. I was excited for this because you get to see all the new cars for 2008 before everyone else. What I didn't know was that the Goo Goo Dolls would be there to open the show - AND they had Jay Leno as the host for the evening! Crazy! After they showed us all the cars, we got bussed over to the Honolulu convention center, where they had all the food, drinks, and Toyotas you could ever want. It was truly a spectacular evening...

Dad and I at the convention center, in front of the first model of Camry

For more great photos of my Hawai'i trip, visit the links below:

Album 1 - http://iwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026069&l=4fdea&id=41603236

Album 2 - http://iwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026094&l=f2f7f&id=41603236

Shopping Penguin

Here is a video that my wonderful friend Beth Lanza showed me because she knows about my childhood/adulthood love for penguins. I can't believe this is real - but it is! This give me hope that one day, I too can have a penguin as a pet! Check this out!

Travel updates - North Carolina

As my time in Costa Rica came to an end this summer, I became excited to come home and anxious for what was next. I had a wonderful time serving on the mission base, and traveled a lot (including a trip to the west coast of Nicaragua), but by the end of August, I was back to driving my car and talking on my cell phone in the good ol' U S of A.

After a week at home, just getting settled in and unpacking my suitcase, my mom and I packed up the car and headed to North Carolina to visit my sister and her boyfriend, Lance. We had a great time doing "southern things"... first we went to the county fair, where I milked a fake cow, we watched a swimming pig race, and ate funnel cakes and fried oreos. The next day, we went to a tractor pull... talk about culture shock in my own country! While locals watched from couches in the back of their pickup trucks, I worried about not getting splinters in my butt from the sketchy wooden bleachers. I had my first experience with southern sweet tea, which was great considering it was over 100 degrees. milking a fake cow at the county fair
me in a tractor at the tractor pull

After the weekend festivities, my sister had to go back to work, so my mom and I were left to fend for ourselves in a place where they still think"the South will rise again!" We did some shopping, visited my sister at work, swam in her pool, and did a little bit of exploring on our own. This included a trip to Waxhaw, North Carolina (which interestingly enough you have to drive through South Carolina to get to. There we visited two amazing musuems founded by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)- the Museum of the Alphabet and the Mexico-Cardenas Museum. First, the Alphabet museum takes you through the history of different alphabets from all over the world - greek, japanese, mayan, brahmi, etc. The second part of the museum has real life accounts of missionaries that have developed alphabets for indigenous groups in isolated parts of the world that previously didn't have one. This was especially interesting to me because this is the type of work that I would like to do one day. The Mexico museum diplayed many artifacts from Mexico and explained how former president Lazaro Cardenas worked with the SIL to improve literacy in his country. This also was great for me, obviously, because I love anything about Mexico. :)me with some Mexican figures in the Mexico museum

After a week in North Carolina, my mom and I made the 14 hour road trip back home... at Christmas, they can make the drive to us!

One more job...

For any of you that think that my time in Costa Rica is like a vacation....ha! Missions is really roughing me up! Check out ¨Farmer Susie¨...

Me...Milking goats! Who would have thought it??