Alma de Color

Today marks the end of May, which means that I am just short of being halfway through my committment here. That also means I need to take stock of what I've accomplished, what my vision for the rest of my time here is, and how to go about it. As I predicted, since I will be staying here for the summer, the opportunities to serve in many/or all capacities are leaping around me, urgently begging me to pick them up. But this year is different than any other in my life. I refuse to become overbooked and inefficient. One nice thing about having so much need all around, I can more easily see that life goes on with or without certain needs being filled immediately. The first couple weeks of this month, we at El Camino School were finishing up final research papers and powerpoint presentations on Ancient Rome. One of the computers had been stolen from the school, and then Louis' laptop keyboard pretty much died, so we were down to trying to get everyone to work on their stuff o...

Our study began in Matthew 5:3-12. Dr. Jeff began by giving us some background of how this section of the Bible led to his own decision to follow Christ. We talked about the conflict that arises from so many interpetations and ideas about it, and how we wanted to not just skip over the difficulties, but address them head-on. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We talked about the meaning of the word “poor”, as well as what we thought the “kingdom of heaven” referred to. The consensus was that in the first step to becoming a Christ-follower is to recognize a poverty of spirit, the great lack in our lives of the ability to make things right by ourselves. We need to recognize our need for God before we can truly move on to understanding any of the rest of the relationship. We can then hope in the kingdom to come, and it seems that we will somehow have positions/jobs in the kingdom. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” ...

I have been experimenting with pizza crust. For Fellowship the other night, I used a basic recipe from someone else down here...and I decided to keep looking. I've found one right now that I'm needed to experiment with a bit more...but I'm liking it at the moment! I've also decided I enjoy trying out nontraditional toppings. Like I made this white sauce from ranch, onions, jalapeños, Pace Picante tomato salsa, garlic, spices, and milk. And then I covered it with Colby Jack and Parmesan. It was very different, and it all disappeared. Tonight, I made cheese pizza on a crust that I made several days ago and stored in the freezer. I am contemplating the crust. I think I like this one, but I will first have to take another bite... For my update on April, I will just copy my newsletter here. I know. I'm being lazy. But I want to catch up enough to be able to blog more frequently about not just newsletter stuff. So here's an attempt to catch up: I think I ...