Well I hope everyone had a VERY merry CHRISTmas! :)
I know I did!
Wow I can't believe how busy things have gotten!
For some reason, I seem to have thought that things would slow down and I would have a lot of free time after I quit my job, but no! Hahaha
Things have just gotten even MORE busy - what with weddings, working for the DP Museum again, spending time with friends and family, holidays, shopping, portuguese lessons, traveling, and church - why, is there even time to sleep?! haha ;)
But I can't complain - I love it! I enjoy spending time with so many different people. This month, I was able to go sing Christmas carols at a nursing home (which I haven't done in quite awhile) and spend time talking with them, go visit a friend in Colorado and play in the snow!, run around Houston with one of my best friends and stay with an AMAZING family there, went to several different Christmas parties, and spent Christmas day with my family.
Unfortunately, the last few days my brain has gone numb -
1) b/c i have a bad cold
and
2) we're doing inventory at DP & i'm SO tired of counting things!!! haha
Not sure what my plans after new years day are...
But for now, I'm just trying to get everything together for BRAZIL!
Wow who knew time could fly this fast??
Seems like only yesterday I was thinking this was a far fetched dream and yet here I am, on the brink of leaving...
SO EXCITED but i'll miss everyone
But i've always felt like I should be doing more and this is it!
God called me and I answered! :-D

IMPORTANT!!!!

Sorry haven't updated in awhile

and I promise that I will REALLY update this blog after Christmas,
but there's a slight snafu in the Brazil plans and I just need to address it.

I'm not sure how many of you read my blogspot currently
but if you do, and you are wanting to sponsor me on my trip
I need to know by New Years THE ABSOLUTE LATEST!

No you do not have to send in all the money right now
but I at least need a head count of everyone who IS going to be sponsoring me in the upcoming months, whether it's a one time thing or $15 a month like most people.

If you read my blog and ARE wanting to sponsor me,
please email me as soon as you can at
korean4christ@gmail.com
so that I can get a head count.
Please let me know who you are and how much you are pledging/sponsoring

Thank you all dearly for your continual prayers and support!
I appreciate it much more than you know!
And if you've called & i haven't quite gotten back to you yet,
I apologize profusely! and if i haven't called you back after Christmas,
please call me again or remind me! This last month has been kind of crazy busy for me :) but I still love all of you!

I wish everyone the MOST AMAZING Christmas EVER!
And remember why we are celebrating!
Not for Santa or holiday seasons or even gift giving -
We are celebrating the ultimate gift given to us - JESUS :)
Spread love and warmth to your own families and friends
cuz "all ya need is love" ;)

In Other News....

First of all, I just wanted to say...

My baby sister Tisha is pregnant!!! :)
I'm going to be an aunt and I am TERRIBLY excited about it and for her!
Please keep her in your prayers, she has had a bout with cervical cancer (including surgeries) before so I'm hoping no complications with the baby...

2) I had my vaccinations on Thursday :/
Haha 3 shots in the left arm, 2 in the right
let me just tell you... my left arm was THROBBING for the next couple of days but if this keeps me safe from diseases in Brazil, NO PROBLEM! ;)

3) This weekend was thoroughly refreshing :)
I was blessed to travel to Oklahoma City to visit my good friends, PJ & Katie



We took a trip downtown and went to the Botanical Gardens, Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, Oklahoma State Capitol and ate at Abuelos (which I had never been to - YUM!)

Although it's always strange to me to go to a memorial site of a place I had never been to before or people I never knew, it still shakes your foundation a bit to see the kind of destruction and pain that can come out of situations like that. How people can go to these kinds of extreme violence is unfathomable in my mind.





The State Capitol on the other hand was very beautiful and would be a GREAT place to live in (if it was a house) haha
I can only imagine the hide & seek games there...
Also we discovered that they did NOT like it if you brought certain things IN to the building... but there was no security at all if you wanted to take something OUT of the building... haha
Not that we did of course...

After I got home from my short trip to OK, I got to hang out with my other close guy friend from high school - my scotty! :)
(and sadly not alissa) :(


We went to Starbucks for coffee and then to see the new James Bond (which surprisingly was really good!)
In both instances where I would have had to pay money (lunch at Abuelos & the 007 movie) I didn't have to pay :)
Which increased the loveliness of my weekend

Now back to the ole DP
which I am somehow STILL working at haha
6 years later & I still can't leave ;)

And in other news....

Last week was my goodbye party at work :(
Although this may not be what I wanted to do as a career, I still loved all the women there and had a lot of good times and did a LOT of hard work and long hours haha ;)
It was sad to say goodbye but I wish them well with the rest of their journeys and hopefully will still keep in touch with some.
If you are one of those women following along with my blog, helping me spiritually or financially, then thank you very much!! I'm already bored being at home all day long as well haha. Also if you're one of the few who didn't know that I talked, well you're certainly in for a shock because wow i can talk! ;)

Also just wanted to post that if you haven't already or would like to make a monetary donation to my travels/to help support me in Brazil, either for a one time or each month while I'm gone (January through May) tax-deductible donation (is that the correct term??) then you can send your checks to :
Victorious Life Church
7459 S IH-35
Robinson, TX 76706
And they will make sure everything's taken care of.

The monetary side is important, but even more so PRAYER!
Not only for me, but also for this nation.
Although I personally did not vote for Obama, He is the candidate who won so we should take the hand that we're dealt with and back it - especially with PRAYER! Change is not always a bad thing, and if we pray for God's guidance in our lives and for our president's and the rest of the official leaders, things will turn out for the best. So pray with me please. :)

In other other news, I am learning portuguese. Very interesting and I'm going to test out my new skills on Pastor Kevin in a week or so. This weekend, I will be in the DFW area doing a million bridesmaid things for a wedding of one of my dear friends, Christina on sunday. So will be out of town this whole weekend.

God is doing amazing works in my life and each day I just pray for continual guidance and openness for whatever He wants to lead me into. One of which I just found out today - pretty exciting news for me and would change quite a few things for when I get back from Brazil but can not disclose until next week... so stay tuned!! ;)

Lastly, I would love for any of you to make comments...
I'm just not sure how you would do that...
If you figure it out, then please leave a comment so I know that other people can haha

God bless!!

several updates...

I wrote this for my myspace page
but it pretty much sums up everything
so i decided to copy & paste & put it on here.
Still trying to figure out how to set up my page better
but i'm sure i'll coerce marianne into helping me later this week :)
so here goes!

Update on this crazy korean!

Hello friends!
Yes I know I haven't blogged in... oh well QUITE awhile haha
But I just wanted to keep everyone posted since I will be leaving soon...
Yes you read me right! :)
I am leaving for Brazil 1/5/08 to 5/25/08 (tentative/expected date)
I'll be staying in Campo Grande but I will get to travel all over the country
helping out in different orphanages & different sides of the ministry there!
I am very excited to have this opportunity before I go back to the rest of my so called life ;)
What brought me to this drastic change in scenery you ask?
Well I had a somewhat dear and very young friend pass away earlier this year
It was very sudden and a little before her graduation from high school
and I changed the way I looked at things from then on
Instead of thinking :
here I am in a job that I don't mind, but certainly don't love
waiting to finally go back to school b/c some family money problems are over
thinking i haven't accomplished much in life b/c i still don't have a career, husband or kids at my ripe old age of 24 (yes these are real things some of my friends & peers have pressured me about)
to : wow I am so NOT hindered by anything right now
I have always wanted to at least once in my life go overseas and work w/kids in some sort of ministry or orphanage, to really get out of my privileged existence here in America (and if you don't believe we are privileged here, you better start believing b/c our nation is very blessed... we'll see after this next election though haha)
and to see the reality of poverty issues & just go help out where needed
The Bible talks about helping the widows and the orphans
And I want to live it out instead of just talking about it
I thought wait! I am single with no husband, no kids or career!
This is the PERFECT time for me to do this!
And thanks to a wonderful pastor & gracious support network
I actually have the opportunity to do it now, while I still can :-D
And it just amazes and astounds me every day that I'm getting closer to it
Now don't get me wrong - I do want all those things.
I want a guy to come find me, see me for all that I am and sweep me off my feet
I want to have kids and find a job that I truly love and pour everything that I am into my family and home
But all that can wait until AFTER my trip haha
So please I'm asking for prayers, for guidance and for me to just follow His perfect and pleasing will wherever that takes me. To have peace and not worry. And to just be able to spend as much time with as many people before I go haha
If you for some reason don't know me very well,
then let me just say - my faith is the most important thing in my life.
And if you don't know about it and are curious, ASK ME!
I love talking in general, but even more about my faith!
And if you really don't know me well for some reason,
then message me! I'd love to get to know you better!
Or hang out if you live in town! :)
Anyway all of that to say I will keep everyone updated as I get closer to my trip
especially since when I cross over, I will only have the internet for social connections
Please comment or message me
and your prayers are truly appreciated!
Thank you all for being my friends and God bless you!! :-D

Fear of the Unknown

Tonight, during youth group, Pastor Kevin was doing a series on fears and one of the bible verses really hit me.

2 Timothy 1:7
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.

Not gonna lie, I have my fears about going to Brazil. It probably didn't help that once I decided to go, I looked up all the poisonous and scary creatures that could possibly harm me. ;)
The Brazilian wandering spider for one.
You should look it up, it's pretty fierce haha.

There's also the lovely fears my mom has instilled in me since hearing I'm going, like the robberies, drug trafficking, and disappearances.
(Thank you mom!) :/

But someone asked me recently if God had called me to do this, in which I answered truthfully, "I think so" :)
I know that God has called me to help with kids
and its been burning in my heart when I read about how we need to help the orphans.
And then once I allowed myself to be open to whatever God wanted,
all of this fell into place.
So yes, I feel like this is what God is calling me to at this juncture in my life.
She said then that God would equip me with whatever I needed
and He would watch over me.

And then the Bible verse just reinforced it -
God did NOT give us fears
but POWER, LOVE & SELF DISCIPLINE

Well I have the love in abundance...
Equipped with power by following through with this trip
....
Still working on the self discipline of not fearing haha
But it was a powerful scripture
And definitely changed my outlook on what my focus of Brazil currently is
(I really love how a good Bible verse you've read many times over
can suddenly have a new impact on your life.) :)

So pray for me -
self discipline to let go of my fears
and patience for what's to come :-D

I hope you're blessed in whatever you do!!

My First

Well since I'm leaving soon for Brazil,
I figured I'd start a blog page so that all of you lovely people
(who can handle reading my "books" as they're called haha)
can keep up with me amongst my journeys, whether abroad or in my head. :)
Unfortunately I decided to start this on my lunch break at work
so not a whole lot of time to figure this out.
But i figured, if I didn't start one soon,
I would never remember. So stick w/me through this rough first blog haha
and it'll get better, I promise :)

Romans 12:12
Be joyful in hope, patient with affliction and faithful in prayer.

Ps. All my Bible verses will be from the NIV version if you're wondering.
I'll notify if I put one out of another translation. :)