{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