pack o'poodles

Last Monday I went to Buenos Aires with Alejandra for the day... sounds exotic, but it isn't. It was all about visas: applying for them and renewing them. I've never been to BA for longer than a day, but I'm always glad to come back to Uruguay. We arrived early in the morning and the one thing that stood out the most to me about the city: the abnormal amount of dog-walkers. Really... they were all over the street/sidewalk/park. I laughed for a long time about one guy and the pack of miniature poodles he had trailing him around the park. He eventually walked by me and I snapped the first picture because, really, it was hilarious. Nothing says manly like a guy with 7 poodles.

Later, we went on a little (and obviously successful) hunt for the new Starbucks store and I ate the best-tasting blueberry muffin (it's been 9 months since a decent muffin!!) and sipped to most delicious vanilla drink (I always forget what they're called.) Alright, that's a whole lot of brackets in one small paragraph, my apologies.

I'm thrilled went when we did, because once school/work was out around 4pm the line-up was huge!! I was told that it was "Starbucks madness" in that part of the city, but I didn't believe it, until now. It's winter and these people CHOSE to stand outside and wait for an over-priced cup of coffee that they evidently could live without until last month, when Starbucks took over.

We also went to see 'The Hulk' because we had 12 hours to kill and what better way to spend time when you're over-tired then sitting in super-comfortable theatre seats watching a huge screen? Although, seeing yet another Marvel superhero movie makes me wonder, when will they finally make a movie about the Flash? I think he's the 2nd coolest superhero and needs his own major motion picture. End of discussion.

things I miss.

I keep forgetting that it's summer in Canada. As I go outside fully dressed for the arctic, people up north are sitting by the campfire roasting marshmellows. Summer is a special time... where you can stay outside and enjoy the warmth and the pool.

Last summer was really special for me, I had many laughs, sat around a lot of campfires and became a pro at smore-making. A lot of memories were made and when I think back on it, I realize that there are somethings that I miss. I miss bon fires, you know, the ones where you have to sit 10 feet away so your face doesn't melt off. I miss my friend Monja passionately playing the guitar late at night. Star gazing. Playing chicken in the pool for hours. Lifeguarding on 40 degree days as little kids have the time of their life in the pool. Eating a white freezie. BYOM (being your own meat) bbq's at the Thiessen's when they would leave for the weekend. Swimming with Josh and Millie in the deep end.

Memories that make me smile... things I'll never forget, things that will never be the same, but things I will cherish.

super cool mosaic

Here's a fun meme to do with flickr photos:

1. Name: Stéphanie

2. Favorite food: General Tao chicken

3. High school you attended: Lake of Two-Mountains High School

4. Favorite color: sky blue

5. Celebrity crush: Jude Law

6. Favorite drink: raspberry iced tea

7. Dream vacation: Fiji

8. Favorite dessert: vanilla ice cream with fruit

9. What I want to be when I grow up: a mom

10. What do you love most in life: Jesus, my Savior

11. One word to describe you: passionate

12. Flickr name: random

Open three windows. One with the list of questions, another open to Flickr and ready to do an image search, and a third to Big Huge Labs' Mosaic Maker (create a mosaic with four columns and three rows). Answer the first question, put your answer in the search field on Flickr and choose one of the images from the first page to represent your answer. Click on the photo then copy and paste the url into the first spot on the Mosaic Maker. Do that for all 12 questions, then click create and post the results to your blog. Sweet, eh?

something so simple

God loves me. Out of all the creatures and billions of people on this planet, He chooses to love me; have a day-to-day relationship with me. He desires to talk with me, to encourage me, to hear how my day is going, to see me delight in His creation... He loves me. He's not some imaginary idea that some people have about "something in the stars". He's real. He shows us His faithfulness everyday in the rising of the sun and shows us His love and provision daily; we just don't always take note of it. Pity. What's stopping us?

One thing I learned from Liliana this year in Uruguay is to never take anything for granted. During or after a meal, she always says "thank you Lord for that food, it was great" and she means it! I mean, we prayed before the meal, but that's sometimes just routine, but her expression of thankfulness always makes me smile inside.

Why don't we delight in what He's given us? Do we reduce our thankfulness to a routine, like praying before a meal because "that's what you do"? Why not praise Him for the little things in life that He delights in giving us? The butterfly that lands on our book as we read outside, the cloud shaped like an elephant (I'm convinced I once found a perfect star-shaped cloud; apparently it doesn't count because no one else saw it)... they're presents from the Lord because He knows we smile, our heart is enlightened. In this, He shows us His love for us. The huge waves I saw the other day while I was praying at the beach is God reminding how much He loves me. I was praying for my friends and family and I was so burdened for them, then a huge wave crashed (rare for here) and the spray caught me by surprise, so I looked up and saw them: waves like I've never seen at this beach before. I was so worried for everyone and He reminded me that He loves me and them and He is in control.

It's so simple... God loves us. He gives us this beautiful creation and playground to live in. In the movie Extreme Days one guy calls the beach "God's playground" and that stuck with me. He gives us this amazing planet to live on and love... do we praise Him for it? Do we praise Him for showing us His love daily? Do we praise Him for the simple things in life? I've realized that I don't. It's my prayer to fully enjoy His beautiful creation and the blessings I have in my life and give Him the praise for lovingly giving it to me.

Weather update: it's still raining here in Uruguay. Fantastic.

rainy day thoughts.

Yesterday was a "teaser"... it was warm and sunny. It made you feel like summer was around the corner and forget that days like today existed. It's cold and rainy, thankfully I don't have to leave the house until tonight for kids club. So here I am; wrapped up on my bed, sipping maté (Uruguayan tea) and working through kids lessons for the weeks to come. I counted the weeks to see just how many I needed to think through and I was a little taken back by the number: 10. I have 10 more lessons, 10 more weeks to prepare for; 10 more weeks to be with these wonderful children. Whoa. I thought, there might be a mistake, I'm not all that great with counting, but after 3 times of getting "10" I decided that I wasn't wrong.

I've been randomly asking friends for ideas for lessons to see just how many I could "rake up" to pray and sort through. I have been wanting to teach on the promises of God for several weeks... but there's not always ways kids living off the street could physically apply these promises to their daily lives. I see how they can, you see how they can, but they're so depressed sometimes, that they can't see it. So after praying about it, I've come up with 10 lessons. I'll give you a taste: Promise of a Savior (Genesis 3:16- Adam and Eve), God the provider, God the sustainer, the Uncreated one (I'm stoked for this one!!!!) and a big illustrated book by Max Lucado called "I Believe in Jesus". I'm looking forward to reading the book with them, after I translate it of course. These kids LOVE books, if I realized that, I would have looked for Spanish kids books for them. If you know a missionary going out soon, I recommend sending children's books with them. Small ones, in the language of the country. It will become an amazing tool, especially if they're just learning the language and don't feel comfortable teaching. Just an idea ;)

While we're on books, I've been reading Captivated by John and Stasi Eldredge and I recommend it to women. It's been interesting to see how pop-culture really shapes the women we are today. In fact, they trace it back to Eve (as in first woman created Eve); maybe that doesn't count as pop-culture...

moments

In one day we have the opportunity for 86,400 moments (note: the whole time I'm writing this I'm singing Seasons of Love, and I bet it's in your head now too). What we do with those moments is totally up to us... however, I'm learning that it's the moments that make us smile that outweigh the moments that break us (I'm a little slow). With this many opportunities during one day to have moments that make us smile, why do we allow the unpleasant ones to ruin the rest of them?

I went to the school today to help out and towards the end, one little boy named Augusto came up and came whispered in my ear "te quiero" (friendly version of "I love you") and then gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek (in Uruguay we can still hug kids at school and kisses are the greeting)... anyone who knows me, knows I love kids. That moment made my whole day worth it: every struggle, every frustration (there were lots), every urge to quit...

Did he know that he would encourage me like that? No.

The lesson I learned through a 3 year-old boy: don't let the horrible moments rob you from making them wonderful memories...


525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear...

vamo arriba Uruguay!!!!

So, after 7 months of waiting since November, the World Cup Qualifiers finally made their way back to the promised land, known as Uruguay. Don't tell the horrible second-half of yesterday's game fool you, these kids know how to play real well, they just weren't "into it" I guess. Didn't matter much to me, I was just so excited to be at the game. We had a friend named Andrew who is a missionary in Fray Bentos, a city on the west side of Uruguay. He's a huge futbol fan, so he came down for the game with the pastor of the church where he's working. A few friends from youth group ended up coming too :) good times... even though it was really cold.

worth a look

I found this post on SCL this morning and it really encouraged me, also it made me VERY thankful to have the privilege to call these people my brothers and sisters in Christ. If you have 5 minutes to spare, check it out. :)

have a good weekend!!

steady beau

If you've ever had the blessing of having a really loving church-family and overly-curious relatives, you've been asked: "soooo... Jenny 'so and so' is getting married this summer... anyone on the horizon for you?" Wedding season is right around the corner in North America and I've already been asked this by random people at least 4 times, this month. The answer is no. I'm not getting married anytime soon, there is no one on the horizon and no, I do not want to meet your really nice, but really shy nephew; thanks for the offer.
I got an email from a friend today and people have been asking him the same question because his younger sister is getting married this summer; apparently, it's not just me. Why do people feel the need to marry you off? What if we are simply content in being single at the moment? Just because I'm 22, it does not mean I'm never getting married!! I think in the Christian world, we have a hard time understanding that since it appears the average age to get married is 20; if you attend Bible school, it's pretty much expected you'll come out with a 'steady beau' (I watched a movie that used that term this weekend and I wanted to use it sometime this week).
I'm still single and I'm not scared that I'll be the "cat lady" in 30 years (contrary to popular belief). If you're like me, in your early 20's and single and have no intention of getting married and continually have people asking you if you will be tying the knot any time soon: let me know if you have any clever come back lines. :)

stickiness

What gave anyone the bright idea to give 12 small children the stickiest/edible substance in Uruguay? I was up to my wrists in dulce de leche (caramel- like substance thats almost like a staple here in Uruguay) and surrounded by a dozen over-excited super-sticky 3 year olds. We were making 'salchichon' a yummy dessert that involves the caramel stuff, baby cookies and sprinkles. In theory, it was a sweet idea for these kids to lovingly prepare this dessert for the moms visiting the class tomorrow. In application, it meant spending an hour trying to be vigilant enough as they kept licking off their fingers when they thought you weren't looking. Trying to clean their hands off after-fact was quite the process too... it was slightly humorous because a few of them had to pee, so as I was washing their hands, they were dancing around the sink with THE look of emergency in their eyes...

big brown eyes

I love their eyes...

weekend in Colonia

I'm back home, in front of my precious fire place reflecting on the weekend and watching 5 little MSN bars flash in the bottom of my screen. Why did the Windows people choose orange for the color that MSN appears in? Furthermore, why don't they let us change the color to match our computer's color scheme?! Probably because the people who designed Windows were men and they don't think about color schemes and how the orange doesn't match with my beach-themed desktop. Moving on - I spent the weekend visiting a new friend, Liz, in Colonia. She invited me to stay with her and meet some new people, so I jumped on the opportunity and the first weekend I could, I was there. I had a wonderful time and met great people! I think one of my favorite things about traveling and being a Christian is that you have an instant bond and relationship with people on the other side of the planet that you don't know; pretty amazing, isn't it?

this should happen more often.

This weekend was pretty sweet... after sleeping in on Saturday, we relaxed, cleaned, watched a movie then went to youth group and got to hang out with friends and talk about prejudices. Good times all around. They have some pretty impressive ones for Americans; of course, they clump Canadians in with them. :( Anyways, I went to that church this morning and found out they had soccer game/movie today, so after swinging to the other church for some lunch (basically, Uruguayan style pot-luck) and a youth meeting, I was back at the other church to watch Sparticus (or "300" in Spanish) and it was gross, I admit it. But it was funny to have the peanut gallery behind me making fun of every war scene... took the edge off. Before the movie arrived, we took advantage of the laptop and I think this should happen more often: we had a dance party. It was great. I caught the last bit on video. I'll post it another day when it's not 12:43 am. Here are some friends that I quite enjoy here (the last 2 are from December)