the aftermath.

after a few days of processing and absorbing all of the news of sunday, i woke up this morning ready to face the day without all the "dave trotter bs". it takes so much work to be angry, so, i've let it all go. i've surrendered it completely to God, and trust Him to do what He needs to do with all of that...

i learned a lot from trotter. things that have changed my life forever, and i will always be thankful to him for helping guide me in the right direction...

i trust that God will do amazing things through revolution church as we continue to heal from this tragic blow.

dave trotter, if you're reading this... for what it's worth, i forgive you.

• you're an amazing man whose lost his way - i pray that you will be realigned with Christ again soon.
• you're a great leader who has been blinded by lust - i pray that you remember what you preached to us during the "sex.god" series about "lust" and how it's "animalistic" and how we, as Christ followers, are strong enough to fight it.

i miss the old pastor dave. you know... the one that actually cared.

bummer of a weekend.

for those that didn't know, i drove up north this weekend with my mom to attend funeral services for my aunt who passed away from breast cancer - that just so happens to be bummer #1.

so, we leave thursday night and head up to the bay. we leave the house around 9:30pm and arrived at our hotel at 3:30am. i guess there was a misunderstanding between my mom and my cousin (who got us the room), and well... long story short - me and my mom crashed out in the car at 4am. thank the LORD that my mom brought one of those furry mexican blankets with her so we stayed kinda warm. lol. that's bummer #2.

we wake up around 7:30 and i gotta use the bathroom BAD! so, me and my mom get out of the car, stretch our legs and proceed into the hotel to use the bathroom. we leave everything in the car 'cuz we know we're gonna be back in just a little bit. so, we hit the bathrooms and decide to chill for a little bit to enjoy the warmth of the hotel and ended up having breakfast... 2 hours pass and i have the FANTASTIC IDEA of going to Target to pass the time until our room is ready. we head back to the car and find the window bashed in... as i walked over the shattered glass to look inside the car, i noticed that they took my backpack! bummer #3.

THEY TOTALLY SCORED! in the backpack was:
• my macbook pro 17" 2.33 GHz computer with all of my artwork and information
• $500 that my Team and I raised together to give to a family that are going through some extremely HARD financial troubles right now.. part of my "I WILL" efforts.
• my personal history statement with personal information for this new job i was going for with the State of California.
• my passport
• some giftcards and movie tickets that i got for my birthday this past july.
• all of my team stuff - artwork, forms, etc...

oh, bummer #4. they bashed in the window of my RENTAL CAR that i didn't get insurance for. =T i always "use my own" insurance... but then my mom said... "uhh.. i'm not sure if our insurance covers rental cars". GUH-REAT! lol.

PRAY FOR ME! funny thing is... the OLD me would've been pist off, cursing up a storm because of this whole experience. the new me... well, i laughed and then i sat down and prayed for the guys who robbed me. i thank God and REvolution for helping me get this far in faith. Who knows, maybe the whole thing was an accident, and they "robbers" took the bag to keep it safe, and they're on their way to UPS or FEDEX to ship my bag back to me... lol. slim chance, i know - but you never know! lol.

PRAY FOR ME, PLEASE! ;) I need it!

... and another one.

i came home yesterday and my mom greeted me with, "hi, i have some bad news. your auntie jojo died."

she was struggling with cancer so in a way, her death was bittersweet. bitter 'cuz she's gone and left her husband and 2 (older) kids behind. sweet, because she doesn't have to live in pain anymore and can be with God.

pray for her family. we'll be going up next Friday for the funeral.

miss ya, pop.

i was just telling my friend frannie that i never in a million years would've ever thought "this" would ever happen to my family. losing a parent - there's no words to express the FEAR you feel as a child to lose someone who's always been your "security blanket". someone who's always been your support system. someone who you knew would love you NO MATTER WHAT.

i lost my dad to liver cancer 2 years ago, yesterday. it was the scariest thing ever to watch my dad literally deteriorating before my eyes. *sigh* that's probably the only thing that comforts me through all this though - just knowing that my dad's not in pain anymore...

anyway - if you could shoot out a prayer for me and my family, that'd be awesome. thanks.

suuucks!

so, has anyone else on the revolution church tear down team gotten attacked by the big, black, music stand case? that thing is evil. after all the stands dropped on my foot (yeah, i was wearing flip flops), i bent down to pick 'em up, and the top started falling and i hear keith say "watch your head!!" too little, too late! lol. it not only fell on my head, that POS (excuse my acronyms) left me a couple scratches and bruises. lol. here's what's left over... enjoy!

patience test? passed!

for months i've been praying, asking the Lord to bless me with patience. and, if you read my post about recognizing opportunities, then you know my view and standpoint on what i think God does when you ask Him for certain things.

so, when i started to pray more about patience, this is what God did. it's pretty funny...

• at vbs, He gave me the group with the rowdiest boys
• my advanced class turned into the laziest bunch (NOT okay with me)
• He blessed me with the busiest schedule ever.
• i work under two people who have no idea what design is all about
-- which makes it difficult when you're trying to get direction for a project.
• i have 3 little cousins living with me now
-- one of whom can be the most psychotic kid ever (i'm not over exaggerating)
• one of my students disrespected me like no other student has before.

now... to those that don't know Christ - you're probably thinking... "uhh... you prayed for patience and He gave you all of THAT?!?" here's my answer to that...

IT'S ALL ABOUT RECOGNIZING THE OPPORTUNITIES! i asked for patience, and God blessed me with all of those difficult situations so i can exercise it. the only way you can obtain something is by exercising it.

let me elaborate... when you're training for a marathon, you don't just sit on your couch watching tv, eating a big mac and a large coke and say "well i prayed about it, God will give it to me", right? no! most people (in their right minds) will get their butts off the couch, hit the gym, go for a run, and just train their hearts out so that they could be well-equipped for the marathon, right? right! same thing when it comes to things like praying for patience... in order to get it, you have to be put in a situation where you have to exercise it so you can work on BEING patient. make sense?

God is good. Scratch that. God is AMAZING.

rest easy, grandmaster

i just got word today that a grandmaster that i trained under has passed away. he was 73 years old. he was an amazing man who was firm in his beliefs, strict in his teachings, and strong from beginning to end. he was a great man who i'm proud to say i trained under - even if it was just for a short time. pray for his family. pray for his students. we've all lost a father.

Grandmaster Gerardo "Larry" Alcuizar

*UPDATE |
I went to the viewing/wake yesterday for Grandmaster Alcuizar. It was surreal. I went up to his casket, bowed my head, put my hand over his, and just prayed. After I prayed, I bowed to him. It's crazy to think that that was the last time that I will ever have to do that.

I also found out that he died from liver cancer. The same exact cancer that killed my dad. weird. he was complaining about some back pain 4 weeks ago, he was brought to the hospital and they found a mass in his liver and realized that it had already metastasized to his lungs and some other areas... 4 weeks later - he died.

Please keep him and his family in prayer. His body will be flown to Cebu, Philippines where he will be laid to rest.

ghosthunters.

so a few friends and i were bored on saturday night and decided that we'd brave up and see if we can handle visiting any "haunted" places. we did some research online for some local places - you won't believe how many "haunted" places there are around here! it's nuts!

the first place we visited was this place in whitter called "dead man's park". uh yeah, just the name alone is freaky, right? lol. well, they changed the name to "founder's memorial park" a few years ago... apparently, it's a cemetery turned park. they exhumed all the bodies and moved 'em over to rose hills, but supposedly, their spirits still linger and wander around the park. lol. it was scary! haha.

then we headed out to this insane asylum in downey. it used to be called "hollydale mental hospital" or something like that. lots of murders went on here. it's pretty heavily secured by the cops so we couldn't get too close before we saw a unmarked car following us - so we decided to bail. it was pretty eerie though. lots of boarded up, abandoned buildings. makes you wonder what went on behind those doors.

the last place we hit up was in north side long beach, right near jordan high. a park called "deforest park". there's kinda like 2 parts to this park. the regular park and the nature trail. i'll just say - the whole park is freakin scary. especially the nature trail. saw, heard, and felt a few things at this park... pretty weird.. our mind playin' tricks on us? or ghosts tryin' to mess with us? i'll let you decide! lol.

sharpshooter

ya so, me, sheri, and taisha (friends i've known since jr. high) went to the shooting range on thursday night. i went shooting only once before this and this was sheri and taisha's first time! it was suuuuuper fun! i requested a 9mm, but instead because we were all sort of "beginners" and we didn't have an "experienced" shooter with us, they suggested we rent a 22 instead. it was little, but it was fun, nonetheless. here are a few pics from that night... ;)





it was a super fun night! we're hoping to make it a monthly girls thing! watch out now!!! lol.

P.S. UPDATE!!!
I've got an update on the whole missionary thing to india. i went on my interview today. i was nervous, but i knew God was with me. He let the answers flow to every question they (pastor christopher, and larry & lisa shewfelt) threw my way. they're gonna let us know on wednesday whether we're part of the team or not! keep me in prayer! i really wanna go - the rest is up to God (and the ones that interviewed me, of course). you can check out my original post about india right here... ;)

goodbye.

goodbye. elephant glue.

Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt

happy father's day

so, this is my first video submission on this blogger thing. it's cooler than i thought! haha. ok, so this post is for all the dad's out there who deserve to be honored for this sunday's father's day! it's somewhat bittersweet for me... for those of you that didn't know, i lost my dad to liver cancer about a year and a half ago... i now know though, where i get my "fighter mentality" from. my dad fought it to the end...

so, here's to fathers! *cheers*



what'd ya think?