Advent Reading: Week Three

I was hoping to at least do one post per week on Advent, but I missed last week. Oh well.

This week's theme was on anticipating joy. Anticipating the approach of Christmas Day, renewal, and salvation. Waiting patiently but hopefully. I have to admit this is a good but difficult practice for me. Most of the time I don't like to wait and when I have to, I tend to despair or get angry, not more hopeful. But then, I thought about childhood and waiting for a special gift. That kind of waiting I really never minded. I enjoyed all the anticipation.

So I am trying to apply more of my anticipatory Christmas joy to the other areas of my life that I need to wait with hope and joy in my heart.

I think the biggest area for me to wait with hopefully anticipation right now is in Fund Raising. Working with InterVarsity, a non-profit Christian ministry, affords me lots of opportunities I might not otherwise have in other jobs. One of these opportunities is in personally gathering support (financially, emotionally, spiritually) for the work I do, for the students I serve, and for the campus I am sent to.

I believe in fund raising; I even think God came up with this idea and that its biblical. More than that, I believe in the work that God is doing through me and through InterVarsity. If you want to know more about my philosophy and ethic on fund raising just ask, I am definitely open to discussing it. But that is not the focus of this particular discussion.

This week, with my students gone back home for the holidays, I have been focusing on my funding. Trying to use my time wisely and prepare for the spring. I have been praying often. And I realize this is just a hard area for me to believe, truly believe, that God will provide. I know (in my head, sometimes) that he will. I have experienced him provide before. I even had an unexpectedly large donation just this week! Thank you Jesus!

But when I really examine my heart I know that I have room to grow in living in this season with anticipatory joy, looking forward to January, expectant to see all the ways the Lord has provided for our family and this ministry. So I have been praying each day this week "Lord because you have called me and you are faithful, I believe you will do this."

I am very thankful that Jehovah has been faithful, is faithful, and forever shall be faithful. So for now, I try to wait on him, rest in his unfailing character (rather than my own worries) and anticipate with great joy celebrating his faithfulness.

Regional Staff Conference

I love working for InterVarsity. I love the work I do, I love my students, I love my co-workers, and I love my boss (who wouldn't want to work for Jesus?). I do have staff partners here in College Station with me  (below is a pic of me with Carolyn my staff partner at A&M) and for them I am very grateful, but I also have over 30 other co-workers that are scattered across Texas and Oklahoma. I do not get to see all of them very often, but once a year we all gather together to celebrate, reconnect, rest, receive training, and updates on the ministry in the region. This gathering is called our Regional Staff Conference and it was just last week. We focused on Spiritual Develop this year. It was refreshing and challenging. I am hoping to bring back some good habits to home and campus...its so easy to neglect ourselves as we pour out into students. I am so grateful for the guidance and time with Jesus I received at the conference.

We held it at Camp Tejas this year and last. Checkout their website! If you are interested in holding a retreat, conference, or just vacation in Texas you should check it out its awesome! We stayed in the building called the Four Seasons; every room is named and decorated based on a month of the year. I am including pics of our room this year, we stayed May. :) It had a nautical/lake house theme. Please excuse the messiness, we were in the midst of packing up when I took these.

These are my roomates, Sara and Sarah; they are on staff at Texas Tech and UT Austin (respectively). We usually room together at camps and conferences. I just love these women. They have awesome insight, godly wisdom, ask good questions, and are great listeners. Its always so fun to room together, its a little like a sleepover, or being back in college with roommates.So fun!

Crazy Christian Store

Drew and I had some time to hang out over Thanksgiving and it was wonderful! We hung out together in Bryan/College Station for a few days before heading up to North Texas to visit family.

One of the days we ended up going to the mall to browse the stores and see all the Christmas decorations. We ended walking past a Christian store that had some pretty interesting things on display. We just thought it was funny and would like to share:

Yup the two most prominent displays in the store were for a Christian version of Guitar Hero (which admittedly would be cool if it allows you to play popular praise songs) and a HUGE Chuck Norris table. Check out that round house kick caricature on the second picture!
Regarding Guitar Praise - I would just appreciate if Jesus followers would use some creativity in coming up with fun games to play rather than feeling a need to a) sink to the commercialism of every other toy producer and b) "clean up" already created products.
Regarding Chuck Norris - I have not read his book, so I have no comment on it. We just think Chuck Norris is funny :)

World AIDS Day

In honor of world AIDS day I thought I would post this article. It was sent to me by ACT:S which is part of World Vision. The article is by York Moore, he was our speaker last year at Breakthrough, where two of my students decided to follow Jesus for the first time!

Here is the link to the article as I cant fit it properly here on our blog.
York Moore "Why Should Christians Care About Anything At All?"

Advent Reading: Week One

I have been reading out of a new book I received for my time with Jesus in the mornings, its called Living the Christian Year by Bobby Gross (IVP). It is gives suggested prayers and scripture readings throughout the year focused on the traditional celebrations, seasons, and feast days in the Christian calendar.

I like it because even though I am reading by myself, it allows me to remember and know that I am part of something bigger. I am participating in something communal that women and men all over the world are taking part in. It also appeals to the Historian in me. :)

Today I read Isaiah 11:1-10. This week is focus on the longing and yearning we have for the Lord, for his Kingdom, and for the peace he alone can bring. I think many of us have experienced excitement and even a sense of longing for Christmas...a time to see family and friends, rest from work, step away from a diet, receiving and giving gifts, etc. To me, it has been good to reflect back on where that sense of longing really comes from. We live in a fallen world, where we are conscious of our flaws and the flaws of those around us more often than not. And yet, at Christmas we often have a feeling that brokenness and pain should not be. Sometimes we try to mask it with the bright lights, parties, presents, food, and company. (I am not saying these things are bad at all, but they are no solution in themselves).

I have been reminded that I am not so very different from men and women living over 2000 years ago, with great political upheaval, disease, hunger, unemployment, fear, and uncertainty surrounding them. I long for peace, health, an end to hunger, genocide, war, and even death. I long for people to live with purpose and hope. I long for a King who is good, righteous, just, powerful, and loving. I long for him to bring a Kingdom where evil cannot stand.

I know there is such a King and that he lived on this earth, and is coming back one day. So I try to honor him this week, the first week of Advent by longing for him and his Kingdom.

New Recipes

I used to be very unconfident in the kitchen. I was really insecure about whether people (mainly Drew) liked what I made and if something didn't go as planned I was really upset with myself. I could never get the timing right, one thing would be hot and ready and another item would be not yet started. I stuck mainly to recipes I got out of trusted cookbooks, and usually only tried the things that I could imagine in my head (if there was no picture provided).

Cooking almost every night has become less of a burden (i.e. probable stress and possible tears) and more of an enjoyable, de-stressing, nightly ritual. I dont really know when this happened, but I am thankful for it.

This is not to say that I am an accomplished cooked, by any means. But I'm really not trying to be successful or accomplished. Mostly I just wanted to be comfortable in a part of our home that I spend time in and find joy in providing healthy energy and nutrition for my family.

I still mess alot of things up, like tonight for instance...we were going to have a pesto pasta...but I opened the jar of pesto up (after making the pasta, cooking the shrimp, and roasting the garlic of course) to find that it was NO WHERE near as fresh as I thought it was. OOPS!

I am still off on my timing. This is really one of those things that just comes with practice.

I still use alot of recipes I find in cookbooks and online sites. They offer great explanations for dishes you have never made before and inspiration when you cant think of anything new.

But I am more aware that things will go wrong and I am a little more expectant of the kinds of things that will go wrong, and it doesn't make me stressed out any more. I think cooking has offered me the opportunity to overcome some of my perfectionism, because when I was trying to make everything perfect and couldn't handle some mistakes or surprises, it took the fun out of it.

Again, take tonight's pesto crisis for example. I had a moment of "well, what the heck am I gonna make now? and what am I gonna do with the stuff I already cooked?" And then I thought about it and realized we had plenty of other things to improvise with. Drew helped me too. And it turned out great!

So in the last few weeks, with my new found courage (and frankly, boredom with old recipes or recipes with too many expensive ingredients) I have been making up my own dinner ideas. I started last year by just changing a few things on recipes I really liked (usually this just meant omitting pricing extras or making them healthier - more veggies and fiber, less fat and sugar). I have come up with a few things I really like. One of them was this meal we had on Sunday:

Its Mediterranean style stuffed chicken, ciabatta bread with dipping oil, and greek salad.
I stuffed the chicken breast with fresh spinach, feta, and sundried tomato spread (I love this stuff its great on paninis too)
Greek Salad or country salad as the greeks call it is one of my favorites. It usually just has tomato, cucumber, green bell pepper, and some red onion in it, topped with feta and spices, but I added some spinach to that too.
Ciabatta is one of my absolute favorite things in the whole world. And I particularly like it (any bread for that matter) in olive oil and balsamic vinegar...but Drew hates, hates, hates balsamic vinegar. But I thought he was missing out, so one day I tried some red wine instead of the vinegar and he liked that. So that is what we usually do instead.

Halloween with IVCF students

This past Friday, the night before Halloween we had our usual Asian American InterVarsity gathering called Large Group. Some of the students prepared a some fun activities to emjoy hanging out with each other and specifically make the freshman and other new students feel more welcomed into the community.

One of the students from our sister fellowship, Aggie InterVarsity (mutli-ethnic group) came and shared about his experience on an InterVarsity Global Project in China this summer. He shared about living in community, and how letting others love us (though uncomfortable and requiring vulnerability) is often the first step to a deeper level of trust, love, friendship, and community in our own lives. He also shared some of the culture of China (the region he was in) and some amazing stories of God's provision (this student was provided with over $4000 to go!) and transforming power.

Admittedly, it was a little distracting for him to speak in front of the whole group of about 40 students, his peers, most of whom were dressed up in costumes. Take a look at some of their get ups:

I decided to dress up too, even though I was really tired from just driving in from a visit at Austin College. I drove home, kissed Drew, took a nap, woke up, got dressed, and flew out the door. I almost didn't take the time to dress up, but it was fun, and a great way to build trust with my students. :) Here is my costume:

I couldn't really decide what I was: a winter priness or the White Witch from Narnia. What do you think?
One of my students said I am not mean enough to pull off being the white witch. :) That was sweet of her.

Drew's Birthday

My dear, godly, wonderful, handsome, intelligent, wise, sexy, amazing husband is now 24 years old!!! I am so very thankful God gave him to me to take care of and support.

We got a chance to celebrate together this last weekend. He is pretty low key and prefers a night in to going out, so that is exactly what we did.

We ordered Pei Wei for dinner...btw, if you order take out online you get 25% your first order. That was a nice birthday surprise. We love saving money. ;)

Then we rented the next disc of ROME. (disclaimer, there are some more R rated parts to this show, I don't recommend it to everyone). We have been watching that each weekend for date nights. I studied Ancient History in highschool and college and loved every minute of it. Drew studied more of modern history, but is definitely loves the ancient stuff too. We love this series because it is soooo historically accurate, the sets are amazing, and the acting is very good too. I could go into more, but without writing an essay here...Americans are very similar to Romans and it makes watching this all the more interesting. I would not go so far to say history is repeating itself, but reflecting on the past always makes for good discussion. The writing on the show is also very well done, witty and ironic in the right places, and does an excellent job of highlighting sociological norms and political intrigue without getting preachy.

I also wanted to make a special treat for Drew. The first year we were dating I made the mistake of baking a chocolate cake for his birthday, forgetting that he doesn't eat chocolate very often. (he was very gracious about it and ate the cake anyway). :) However, I have since learned my lesson and payed careful attention to the treats he particularly likes (usually peanut butter cookies, apple turnovers, anything his mom makes but especially her pumpkin pie and german chocolate cake). So I called up Nanci to get her pumpkin pie recipe. I didn't make the crust from scratch like she does, I am just not that talented or confident of a baker. But I think the pie turned out pretty well. You can also see our fall table decorations :) I love fall!

Apartment Tour

I finally got a good video of our apartment. Those of you who live far from us can see our little nest. We have been enjoying it alot. It feels so much bigger than our last apartment. I especially like that there are a bunch of oak trees on the property and since we are on the second floor our living room (with the big window you can see in the video) feels like it is a tree house.

Here are the videos, one is our bedroom/Drew's study area and the other is our big front room (living and dining). I hope it gives you a little window into our lives.

Time Away

I am noticing a pattern in my blog posting. Anytime Drew and I both have time off (Christmas Break, Spring Break, Summer) I tend to post more often...which is funny because there is often less going on in our lives. I will try to keep you all better updated about the goings-on of our lives.

I just finished up New Student Outreach and am starting the more "routine" season of the year. We actually have about 7 weeks left in the semester for InterVarsity. So I will be brainstorming and vision casting with the students here at A&M (Asian American InterVarsity) and Austin College to get clear, attainable, plans in place and Lord willing accomplished before December 1st.

Drew just finished his third section (of four) for his Basic Block. He had a test on Monday and we were able to enjoy a nice date night together for the first time in a while. We had been getting quality time together, but it was nice to have the space of several hours without any pressure to go home and study at the end of our time together. :) We rented Wolverine (no, we had not seen it yet) and then went out to eat. I got sushi take-out from Atami and then we walked over to Pei-Wei (I snuck my sushi in) and ate there. I really enjoy cooking, but we both really enjoyed ignoring the cleaning we needed to do in the kitchen and reveling in being affluent Americans with food from around the world made in minutes and the table cleaned for us. :)

Drew is starting the last section of his Basic Block. After that he gets to start in on more Systems based blocks - like Respiratory and Cardiovascular systems; which are more enjoyable and interesting to him. So we are both looking forward to that. We also have an added insentive to get through this last section because when he takes his test in 2 1/2 weeks he gets a 3 day weekend. Yippee!

New Student Outreach

Life is busy and stressful around the Kelly house these days. I just returned from a retreat with my student leaders (execs) and am trying to gear up for two days of evangelism and outreach training. I am so excited that the students have returned. My life for the next 3 weeks will consist mostly of New Student Outreach (NSO) - InterVarsity students and staff engage in outreach on campus all across the nation at the beginning of the school year. I love this time of year, but it is also exhausting and I feel like I am barely keeping track of everything I need to do. It is good for me to remember that ultimately the success of NSO does not depend on me being perfect or accomplishing everything without flaw. Thank you Lord!

I could definitely use some prayers though as we walk through a busy and critical time. Please pray for me to lead with grace, patience, and love. Pray for me and the students to be open to and looking for opportunities to share the love of Jesus with the campus. Pray that the Gospel would be heard clearly and received well, and that students would be interested in learning more. I pray that the Gospel will go forth on the campus and bring healing, reconciliation, and hope to a broken world.

Also, please pray for Drew. He is in the midst of a particularly difficult portion of med school. He did well on his first test. However, he is starting to feel behind in his studies. He could also use prayer for motivation and excitement in his studies (there are some very boring things he needs to memorize). Drew is the most disciplined and driven person I know and even he is having trouble getting through this season with joy for the work before him. His next test days are Sept. 4th and Sept.28th.

So please pray for us! We are making time for each other even in the midst of hard work and we are so thankful for each other and the blessing of marriage. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Moving Back to Bryan

We moved back to Bryan/College Station July 19th and 20th. Moving is exhausting, this time was no exception. :)

Drew, being the kind servant that he is, also volunteered to help a good friend tile his kitchen the same weekend. Which, made things a little more complicated and definitely tired him out. I am really glad that he was able to help them out though.

We also had several friends and my parents come help us with everything, which was a HUGE help. Thank you so much!

Here are a few pictures of our move, well mostly after the move:The moving crew: Drew, Tiffany (from our community group), Clayton, and Sean (both med students)

My mom and me unpacking the kitchen

Chillin' in our bedroom...I think my dad and Drew are comparing toes. lol.

We are mostly unpacked at this point, so I am planning to take a short video tour through the apartment and load it later. Stay tuned. :)

I think we are glad, overall, to be back in Bryan. It was nice to see some friends the same week. It really made me realize how much community we have, especially compared to the same time last year. Also, we are super thankful for our new apartment. It is bigger and cheaper than the last one, better lit, seems safer, and has new carpet and paint! We really lucked out.

We are also a little sad though, as it means the summer is over. Drew has already started back to full time med school classes this week. Our together time has dropped, but we are still making an effort to carve out time and make it quality. :)

Drew also seems more prepared and better able to take on the fire hydrant of information they throw at him. Plus, we are both eager to get through one more year, so he is that much closer to being able to practice medicine and interact with the sick.

Harry Potter 6!

Drew and I were really blessed this summer with a house. We loved having some extra room, especially because we had an extra bedroom for guests to stay. One of our really close friends from Austin College came down to visit us, Kelly Stoker. She was my made of honor in my wedding. I love her alot and was SOO excited for her to come visit.

Her visit also happened to coincide with the newest Harry Potter movie, the Half-Blood Prince. I know, I know, I am a complete nerd who gets excited about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I was pretty upset when they moved the release of this particular movie from last fall to this summer, so I have been waiting!

We decided to go see the movie while she was visiting, since we all really like the movies. Kelly and I have read all the books. Drew hasn't but I filled him in when I read them, largely because I knew he would not be able to get around to reading them - the poor guy has so much required reading for classes he has lossed the desire to read anything else (apart from the news).

We were going to go to the movie theatre in Temple, but found out the week before that it is super old, gross, funky smelling, and worst of all...over priced! So we took a day trip down to Round Rock. Kelly and I showed Drew around the IKEA there; he had never been before. :) Then, we waited in line for the movie to make sure we grabbed good seats...its the movie of the year people, come on! ;)

I really liked the film, although nothing compares to the books. We were all very appreciative of the quality and consistency of all the Harry Potter films. I cant wait for the next ones! It made me want to go read the books again.

After the movie we went to dinner at Chili's and got a chance to catch up with another of our AC friends...who also happens to be named Kelly. So we had a Kelly clan reunion. I love our friends!

Independance Day

My (Nicole's) parents came down to celebrate with us on the 4th of July. We were still living in Temple at the time (we have since moved back to Bryan, but I will post on that later). My brother was invited to a lake house with a friend, so we missed out on seeing him too. It was a very fun weekend though.
Drew grilled out - chicken and (our favorite) angus hot dogs. He always does a great job grilling, much better than I could ever do. However, there were a few times (yes, more than once) that he dropped a chicken breast in the grass because they were so slippery. My mom gave him a hard time about it...actually so did I. There is even proof of me laughing at him:

Here is a pic of him trying to exact his revenge on my mom by hitting her with the raw chicken breast. Yeah, we a are a goofy family. :)
You can see the look she gave him before he did it. It can turn water to ice.


Here is a pic of the delicious food we had, once Drew finish grilling of course. In addition to hot dogs and chicken, we had watermelon, Greek salad, guacamole, green onion dip, and chips.

My lovely parents decked out in their patriotic t-shirts. I think they are so cute. We hope you had a wonderful 4th of July too!

We had planned to set off a few fireworks of our own, but never got around to it. Drew was definitely excited about it though.
After dinner we went to the local fireworks show. There was a band that played before the fireworks that was terrible - they were Elvis and Beatles impersonators. Drew said the Elvis had a range of about 4 notes, which seemed accurate. It was fun to see some of the local color though. Ah, small town America. :) The fireworks were surprisingly good. Temple has about 100,000 people, so I guess I shouldn't have been shocked that they would have a decent fireworks display, but these were really good!


Do you have any traditions for 4th of July? What did you do to celebrate this year?

Austin Trip

We headed to Austin two weekends ago for the wedding of some friends from Austin College. Drew served as an usher. Some really sweet staff friends let us stay in their guest room in their brand new house - thanks Sarah and Drew!

Here are a few pics of the wedding:

Drake and Callie Millier
A few friends from Austin College - we represented an entire table.

Drew was trying to make the party a little more interesting...I told him he didn't need to try. Need I say more? :)

Earlier that day we went to Chuy's Hula Hut on Lake Austin to enjoy the afternoon. It was SO GOOD! The menu is Polynesian Tex-Mex. The salsa was extra spicy and had mango and pineapple flavors in it, with lots of cilantro. Drew had the avacado & chicken enchilada and I got the shrimp tacos with this amazing jalepeno & cilantro cream sauce in them. We also splurged on their house blended drink - its huge, they literally serve it to you in a fish bowl! We made sure to share. I think its funny whenever I get Drew to drink a "chic" drink with me...this definately qualified, it had not one, but two pieces of fruit on the side AND an umbrella. :)

We ended up sitting inside (which I liked because we escaped the heat) but we got the perfect table, the windows were right behind us, so we could still see the lake. I must admit people watching was pretty fun.

Sprained Ankle

Drew and I both are trying to stay in shape and use this summer to get back in the habit of working out...actually to be more accurate, he was already in the habit and runs and lifts weights pretty regularly, even in the midst of a stressful med school week. I am very proud of him for being so dedicated. I might be tempted to be jealous of how athletic he is, but he's my husband, so I get to enjoy what a good looking man he is.

So I have been working out at a local gym (I don't do well in the heat) and Drew has been lifting weights at home and running around the neighborhood. The other day he came home in a good deal of pain...he had sprained his ankle. Its the same one he has repeatedly injured, so the tendons are very weak. He was running by the local junior high and stepped on the long jump pit, the concrete underneath buckled and he rolled his ankle.




He was able to get himself home so I could nurse him back to health. :) He especially liked that part - who doesn't like being served? It was also helpful that his main boss for his summer research is a physical therapy PhD - so she gave him all the advice he needed to heal quickly. You can see how swollen it was the first day, and this is after we had elevated and iced it.


He is pretty much all healed now. It will still be a while before he runs on it, but he can walk and do plenty of balance and stretch exercises.