unpacking my backpack.

I finished college last night. This morning I woke up and cried. 

I cried for a lot of different reasons. The first one always being just because I am an extremely emotional person. But also I cried out of relief. That after four and a half years, I have finally completed what seems like an impossible feat when you are a baby freshman. I am relieved that I actually did accomplish what I set out to do and passed with flying colors. I am relieved knowing that if I make it through these last four and a half years, I can probably make it through anything. Oh, and of course it is a major relief because I will never have another test, paper, speech, self-evaluation, or piece of homework. But also I cried because I am sad. Sad that I will never have another test, paper, speech, self-evaluation, or piece of homework. I am sad that I will never answer another roll question again in Dr. Burt and Dr. Dillard's classes. I am sad that I will never give another speech that really challenges me, to Dr. Clark. I am sad that I will never sit in a classroom in Arts & Sciences waiting for the first day of the semester to begin. I am sad that never again will Dr. Vail ask if I have any Questions, Comments, or Concerns and then genuinely care what my answer is. Mostly though, I cried out of awe. I am in awe at how The Lord brought me to a place that I had no idea about. I had no clue how perfect my college experience would be. How, from beginning to end, there is not one thing that I would have changed about it. And the people, OH THE PEOPLE I'VE MET! I hate knowing that not everyone has such wonderful people in their lives that love them so much and so well. All of the joy and encouragement and all of the disappointment and struggling has brought me here today and as cliche as it is, made me into the person I am. Even when I hated it, I've loved it. And now it is done. 

Before I formed in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; 

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. -Jeremiah 1:5

I could never have asked for a better place to spend the last four and a half years. Milledgeville is the absolute best fit for me that there ever could have been. Which makes this verse ring true more now than it ever has before. 

Mazel Tov,

Jessica

{happy halloweenie}

Have I ever mentioned that I love my house? Because, I do. 

I live in an old house in the historic district of Milledgeville. It is white and cute and has a big front porch with a porch swing. One of my favorite things is that my room is connected to the front porch so I get to spend a lot of time out there alone. My room is actually meant to be a living room but it never got used so it was made into a bedroom. Anyways, when you walk in the front door, you walk straight into my room. Here's a picture of it. 

The floors are all old hardwood expect for the kitchens {yes, there are two kitchens} and the living room and all the windows are really big. Oh, and the living room, OH THE LIVING ROOM! It is great, my second favorite room in the house after my bedroom. Two of the walls of the living room are completely windows from floor to ceiling. Our house is kind of on a hill so, the backside of the house where the living room is has the basement underneath it. I guess you could say the living room is on a second story, which gives the feeling that we are really high up when you look out the living room windows. And our back yard has a bunch of trees so, sometimes it feels like we are in a tree house or something. Its kind of hard to explain but I think you get the picture. I have to say, it's a pretty cool house. I will be sad to leave it one day.

However, the best parts of this house are the people that I have gotten to live in it with. Currently, there are eight people living in this house. I KNOW. IT'S A LOT. But the perks of living with so many people is that there is pretty much always someone home, which is nice. I moved in last summer to this house. Over the past year and a half almost I have experienced so much love living here. And with as many people as we have living in this house, there is hardly a dull moment! It is crazy to me how the combination of so many different personalities can work so well together.

Last year was very different from this year. I loved last year. We were all pretty much in the same places in our lives, graduating or getting ready to graduate, and we had also spent the majority of college with one another before we ever lived together. This made for some pretty close bonds. In May, two of my dearest friends lived here with me and it was really hard when they graduated and moved out. Honestly, its still hard now some days that they are graduated and moved out. And in December, two more girls that I have grown so close to over the last couple years will be graduating and moving out, as well.

So, four new girls moved in this August and it was hard at first. Not because I don't like them, they are fabulous, it was just different. But I have to say that the one thing I have been learning the most from the Lord is that everything is always evolving and we never stop growing because of that. These new girls, no matter how wonderful they are, they don't know me like my older friends know me and I was so scared that it was going to be too different. I was right, it is different. But it is not bad. It is actually really good. There are things that I miss everyday about last year. It was fun. It was what I knew. It was comfortable. Now, there are new things that I learn everyday about the girls that I live with. They have brought a new life back to our house, something that had, understandably, gotten bogged down last year in all the everyday hustle and bustle of trying to figure out what life is going to be like after Milledgeville. But these girls, right now their life is in Milledgeville and for right now so is mine and that is something I forget a lot. Even though my time is dwindling here, I would like to think of myself as in the same place as these mostly sophomore girls, just living and enjoying life in Milledgeville.

So, we are having a Halloween party tonight that I am especially excited about! I've been listening to this song from The Nightmare Before Christmas all day. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

TTFN,

Jessica

Rocky Mountain High

As some of you may know, I have always had an attachment to Colorado. I went there for the first time in 2008 after I graduated high school.

  Since then I have loved everything Colorado.

the mountains

 

the aspen trees

the flag

the fact that EVERYONE drives a Subaru

just kidding...but really, there are a million Subarus in Colorado

   I have always talked about going out there again but I had no one to visit and no where to stay.

Enter Caitlin Jenks.

I met Caitlin when we did summer staff at a Young Life camp in Canada called Malibu Club in June and July of 2011. While we were there we didn't spend an enormous amount of time together, but we had one of those weird connections where you just know that you are meant to be friends with someone. And it was just a perk that this someone I was destined to be friends with, also lives in Colorado, so eventually I told her all about my love for her homeland and we made plans for me to come visit. Well, you know how plans like that go, you want to but never seem to find the time, and so it got pushed off. Then, we met up again in LA for our summer staff reunion in December of 2011. This is where our friendship deepened. We were the only girls for most of the trip therefore we stuck together a lot. This time, when we made plans for me to visit, I knew I wasn't going to put it off. It was real this time. I was going to Colorado.

So, I spent the better part of this year figuring out when I could go and saving my money for a plane ticket. Finally, the date was set! I would be traveling to Denver on October 5-October 10 to see if all of my dreams would come true!And now, its already been two weeks since I stepped foot off that plane, which is crazy. I am still missing it everyday.

When I got there Friday night I had no idea what my agenda would be. I got to do so many fun things while I was there! I met so many of Caitlin's friends, her boyfriend, her best friend, her childhood friends. I went to a casino where I played blackjack for the first time, went up to a couple different mountains, I saw Red Rocks, I went to a festival put on by Chipotle, got some organic food and listened to some bands, went to the Coors brewery, saw where Caitlin works and got a free meal  at this awesome country club...fish tacos=YUM, walked around downtown Denver, started a dance party in H&M,  and laughed nonstop, so hard throughout all of it!

One of the best things that I got to do while I was out there was seeing how they do Young Life in that area. Caitlin is a WyldLife leader, which is Young Life but for middle school instead of high school. I got to go to their all area leader meeting, where I met all the leaders in her area and her area director, Jason. I got to go to a Young Life and a WyldLife club, where I got to see high school and middle school kids let their guards down and have fun. I also got to witness them hearing the Gospel in a different way.

Now it has been about two weeks since I was in Colorado and I am just now finishing this post. Even though a lot of the excitement about it has worn off there is one thing that has stayed with me. Contact work. For those of you reading that have never been a part of Young Life, those two words probably mean nothing to you. Contact work, in short, is just going where kids are. It's submersing yourself into a high schoolers world in hopes that you will be able to lay a foundation for a relationship with them. Contact work is no joke in Arvada, Colorado. I was so completely encouraged and proud of how this is the most important thing in their ministry and it is so evident. Whether its driving kids around to and from campaigners and club, hanging out after club, or going for some sweet little fro-yo, they are completely devoted to their kids. As I got to watch these leaders step into the lives of the middle and high school kids that I met, I was convicted. But a really good conviction. The kind of conviction that lights a fire under your ass, quite frankly. This year is the first year that I was walking into Gatewood without a set group of girls that I was pouring into. This past year, the girls that I had built relationships with graduated and are now at colleges around the state. This has been a starting over year for me and it has been hard. And I have made so many excuses because of that. But being able to watch these leaders love on kids whether or not they wanted to be doing something else or should have been doing something else, was incredible. The most wonderful part about all of this though is that The God that is working in Arvada, Colorado is the same God that is working in Milledgeville and Eatonton, Georgia. And that is good news.

Blessings, 

Jessica

happy fall, y'all!!!

It is fall!! The most wonderful time of the year and I am happy to report I wrung in the fall season the way any good southern girl should; camping and going to a college football game!

Friday, the eve of fall, I got to spend with some awesome people at a farm in Eatonton, Ga. It was cool, although I will say the peaceful thought of sleeping outside is actually a lot more peaceful than actually sleeping outside...BUT we did it! And it was fun, so what else really matters!?

I got to experience my first college football game last night! It was such a fun atmosphere to be in! Between seeing a million random people I knew to meeting new people that go to school at Georgia College to sitting in front of passionately, screaming fans, it is definitely an experience unlike any other!

TTFN,

Jessica

p.s. in honor of fall, here is, currently, my favorite song! HAPPY LISTENING!

going to the chapel of love...

Last weekend my best friend got married. Her last name used to be Cobb and now it is Chancey and I am still not ready to acknowledge it, no offense to Jonathan or anything it's just Cobb is a really good last name. The wedding was absolutely beautiful. They got married at a farm kind of on the out skirts of Milledgeville called Specht Farms. The ceremony was performed under a huge tree with rolling hills as a backdrop. And then we danced the night away under the trees and twinkle lights strung all around. It was awesome.

The story of how Amanda and I became friends has been told numerous times but, what the heck?! Why not one more time? Amanda and I met when we became leaders for YoungLife and we became friends on a trip to the Salvation Army where I was looking for jeans to make into shorts for a YoungLife character. It was POURING down rain but still we were determined to hang out with one another so we went anyways. After that, when we headed back to her dorm room, she showed me the proper technique to stretching out your pants when they are too tight. From there we became pretty fast friends. I was in her dorm room almost everyday after that I think. One night we sat on her futon for two straight hours looking at YoungLife camps where we could do summer staff and spoke in accents the ENTIRE time. It was strange. But that it us. The summer after our sophomore year was a pretty pivotal time in our friendship. We were among the few brave souls to stay in Milledgeville for the summer and through that we grew even closer. We began learning more and more about one another, mostly through talks about God and who we thought He was and also things we had always wondered about Him. It was great. We moved in together at the end of that summer and its all been history since then!

I met Jonathan through Amanda when we were freshman. One night us, along with a few other friends, went over to his dorm room where we watched Slumdog Millionaire. I couldn't tell you too many times I really talked to Jonathan between then and when him and Amanda started dating, maybe a "hey" here and a "how are you?" there, but nothing too significant I don't think. Then, when Amanda and I moved in together somehow the idea of a group date between his house and our apartment came up. We went to his house, ate dinner, hung out a little bit, and that was about it. A couple weeks later I knew something was brewing, I could feel it in my bones! Not too long after that the infamous "walk" happened where Jonathan told Amanda he wanted to pursue her and from then on it has been ROMANCE!!!

One of the cool things I got to experience throughout their relationship was the fact that Jonathan and I had almost all of our classes together. We have the same major therefore, I got to hear all the time about his side of the relationship. Mostly because I would ask him a million questions BUT, he would always willingly answer. I remember when he first told me he wanted to ask her to marry him. We were in my car and I was dropping him off after a thing we had for class. It came straight out of the blue and was also, by the way, WAY before he actually did it. They had been dating 8 or 9 months maybe. But he was so positive he wanted to marry her. 

It has truly been a blessing to my life to be able to witness Amanda and Jonathan's relationship grow and become what it has. It is unlike any other relationship that I have ever experienced. I quite literally watched them fall in love with one another. The thing that has been different about these two is that there has never been one moment I doubted that Christ was at the center of relationship. They have the most Christ centered relationship I have ever seen and what is so cool is that they are so young with so much left to learn about loving one another. And I have no doubts that the Lord will completely shower them with blessings in their future together. I don't know what my life would be like right now if they were not a part of it, which makes me especially thankful for them. Jonathan and Amanda are so consistent is the way that they both love me, encourage me, and support me, no matter what crazy thing I tell them I am doing or thinking about doing or have done. They are constantly pointing me towards Jesus in just the way that they live their lives for Him. And to that I say, thank you Amanda and Jonathan. I will always love and appreciate you both more than you realize and more than I will remember to tell you.

ON TO THE PICTURES!!

TTFN,

Jessica

whirlwind.

So it has been quite a while since I last updated you on my life. I don't even know where to begin really. Since I last wrote on here I have turned 22, added 62 new girls to my sorority, started my last semester of college, started working regular hours at the Dean's office, became team leader for my YoungLife team, started student staff with YoungLife, developed my topic for my senior capstone, started volunteering at a soup kitchen, went to the beach in North Carolina, pierced my second hole in my ears, went to a Ben Rector concert in Athens, and finally got to spend time visiting with my mom. You see now why there hasn't been much time for updates...BUT, never fear, i'll give you the highlights!

"..I have turned 22..."

This year my birthday fell on the first day of spirit week. If you have never lived in a college town the words "spirit week" and "rush" probably mean nothing to you, however if you have ever had the pleasure of  experiencing a college town at the beginning of fall semester, you may have an idea of what I am about to tell you. Spirit week is a week long preparation process for rush, which is the process of getting new girls in your sorority. Rather than bore you with details or even try to explain the happenings of spirit and rush week I will put it like this, it is the most fun you never want to have again. So I spent my birthday in a room with about 80 other girls. There were times it was boring and times it was frustrating but for the most part it was a lot of fun and I felt EXTREMELY loved and appreciated. And on the plus side I got this cake and more people sang Happy Birthday at once to me than ever before! So that was cool! Oh yeah, and here is a picture of the new pledge class we got!

"...became team leader for my YoungLife team..."

One of the many blessing of staying here another year in this wonderful town is that I get another year of doing YoungLife at Gatewood High School. This year looks a little different, however. I have the great honor and privilege of getting to lead my team, alongside Lucy, another leader at Gatewood. I was pretty apprehensive about being a team leader this year just because of knowing my own weaknesses and thinking that I needed to live up to some standard that only I, had set for myself. But, as always, the Lord is sovereign and has completely shattered any doubts that I had about leading other leaders.  There is no other explanation for the changes I have seen in myself other than Jesus. I have found myself thinking of others and the team as a whole before myself and I have been able to experience more grace and patience than I ever have before. And all the glory be to God because I can humbly say that those qualities are completely from Him. I'm not that good of a person on my own. So, its been an amazing ride so far. One of the coolest things is learning things from the people you are trying to lead yourself. When I say it is an honor and privilege to lead this team, I really mean it. They are some of the most amazing, passionate, talented, and loving people I know and I love them so very much. 

"...developed my topic for my senior capstone, started volunteering at a soup kitchen..."

These two kind of go hand in hand. As a rhetoric major we have a thing called senior capstone, which is  basically a long paper and presentation applying what we have learned over the past few years to something in real life. So, I am in this service learning class this semester and we started working in a local soup kitchen. I was excited to jump in and volunteer because I thought it was going to be a really cool experience. What I did not think about it being was something that would tug on my heartstrings so much. There are people of all ages, from babies to 80 year olds, some homeless, some needing a hot meal, and still some just hungry for a conversation with someone that will listen. This is a major operation that is all lead by a fearless leader named Ms. Ann. She is such a delight with more charisma than I have seen in someone in a long time. She started this soup kitchen a couple of years ago and was only feeding 17 people and now it has grown to feed around 400 people every Tuesday from 11a.m.-1p.m. So, now, enter my senior capstone. I have decided that this is something that I wanted to involve myself further by studying the communication in a place like a soup kitchen. I'm looking at how communication is an inherent need as humans so even in groups of people that are marginalized in society, they will still form communities in places like soup kitchens. Basically, I'm going to talk about how people can't not communicate. I think it will be cool. 

"...went to the beach in North Carolina..."

Over Labor Day we have our annual YoungLife leader retreat at the beach. It is loads of fun getting to hang out, play games, and bask in the sun all day together. It is always so good for my soul and good for relationships in our community. This year I was incredibly grateful to have been able to share with all the leaders in my area something that the Lord had really been teaching me about over the summer and at the beginning of the semester. I got to share 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 about believers being one body in Christ and how one part can never say to another "I don't need you". The Lord really imparted so many wonderful things to me during this talk but one of my favorite thing I think that I learned is that we can never begin to love one another the way we are called to until we realize that we are one body and we desperately need one another for the body to function properly. I think this goes not just for ministry either, it goes for communities of followers of Jesus, in general.

"...pierced my second hole in my ears, went to a Ben Rector concert in Athens..."

There's not a whole lot to say about either of these except for they were both extremely FUN! 

Here are the pictures to prove it. 

And by the way, if you dont know who Ben Rector is, you need to youtube him as soon as you get done reading this...not kidding. He is phenomenal. 

"...and finally got to spend time visiting with my mom..."

My mom lives in Louisiana. I live here. There's about an 11 hour difference meaning I don't get to see her too often, but when I do it is, without a doubt, so wonderful. I like her coming to Milledgeville because she gets to meet all of the awesome people that I spend day in and day out with and they get to see where I get so much of my personality from. And it is always a plus when I don't have to cook for myself...and it tastes a lot better. During this visit we got to take a trip to Macon, she cooked for a bunch of my friends after church, got to spend some quality time with my best friend, Amanda, did a little seamstress work, and got to see where Amanda was getting married the next weekend. All in all I would call her visit a SUCCESS!

Man, that was exhausting. I'm sure it was exhausting to read as well. How about you just relax a little preview of Ben Rector live from his concert at the Georgia Theatre? Sorry its a little shaky, I was having a hard time not dancing my pants off!

TTFN,

Jessica