I am the Tate

rivers of joy

2010-09-05T15:08:00.000-06:00

Ok, I started this blog a few days ago and didn't finish because I was tired but I feel that the info is still good so here is a couple paragraphs from the other day...

You know how in the Gospels people were just amazed by Jesus? I mean he just spoke words and they were amazed. If you read my last post, you'll know that in Kenya we talked about being amazed by the work of Christ and how we don't give him enough credit for the work he does. And for some reason tonight I am about to go to bed with an overwhelming list in my head of ways I am amazed by Christ, or things that I'm just thankful for in life.

Jesus was a healer, no doubt about it. And while I maybe have never seen a physical healing, I have seen Jesus heal several broken relationships and stuff like that in my life. Sometimes it took years, but lately I feel like I've been seeing it happen in like super fast motion, like Wolverine healing fast, and it's amazing. Just stuff that has happened that I thought would take a really long time to move past, Jesus has just stitched up so quick so that I can just enjoy the people in my life and not hold on to stuff. I don't know how he does it. Good work Jesus.

And tonight, we had this All-Area worship thing where a bunch of churches got together and had one big worship service, and also took time to meet together in school groups to encourage kids to reach their schools for Christ. That picture is of a whole bunch of Ralston Valley kids praying for their school. It was so scattered and seemingly disorganized, but the youth pastors were able to cast the vision so well and so many kids left tonight pumped about living out their faith at school. Wow. Again, Jesus, mad props to you.

And that's about when I started falling asleep so I stopped writing. But the fact still remains true that I have been in awe of Jesus lately. I mean, I always have, but sometimes I think we really easily forget to give credit to God for what's going on in life, and lately I've been remembering and having my world rocked basically. It's cool. Try it. I dare you.

The past few days have been pretty sweet I must say. On Thursday I got to hang out with Kayanne again, she's pretty great.

That's us after we hiked a sand dune in Peru. No big deal, it's just on a long list of adventures we've had together, which, just as a review, include doing high ropes course things, hitchhiking, blowing out a tire on the highway at night, etc. She's in town for awhile, so hopefully something exciting enough will happen that we can add to the list.

Then Thursday night I relived NOLA days for a bit. My friend Tim bought a house in bad condition that he's gonna fix up and redo and stuff. Right now he's in the demo stage, during which he's essentially gutting the house. So on Thursday a few of us got to help by tearing wood paneling off the studs in the basement. It was funsies, and really took me back to the days of ripping out drywall in houses in New Orleans, as seen in that picture there. Man, I really miss those days.

Then Friday, Beth has 7th block off so she gets out of school early so we went swimming on what was one of the best weather days ever in life ever. That was probably the last summer-type thing I'll do. But then the next thing we did was even better...

See, Bethany borrowed this tandem bike from some people, and her and Bonnie rode it to school that morning. But Bonnie was not a fan so Beth and I went back to the school when it was over to get the bike and ride it home. I had never ridden a tandem bike, and I'm kindof scared of regular bikes as it is. But it was awesome, I must say. All the high school kids were like cheering for us and thought we were so cool for riding it through the school parking lot. Oh man, it was fun. I highly recommend trying one sometime in life. I'm sorry I don't have picture evidence.

Then the rest of the weekend since then has been filled with hanging out with people, including all the kids back in town for college, and it's way fun.

I'm just very thankful to God for all the people in my life. I feel so incredibly blessed. So many people to see this weekend, then my parents visit next weekend, then Jen visits the weekend after that!! Wow, so great.

Life's not perfect, but I'm loving it anyway. I love these rivers of joy...

The Kenya Story

2010-07-21T23:00:00.000-06:00

For those of you that don't know, I recently returned from leading a group from church on a mission trip to Kenya. It was an incredible experience, so here is my attempt to put in to words what it was like. It's pretty long, but I like writing, and I loved the trip, so.....enjoy!

The Beginning

Things got off to a rocky start for us. When we got to the airport, we were informed that Sophie could not travel with us because her passport expired in less than six months. By about a week. And apparently Kenya won't let you in if that's the case. Whoops. However, God was still in control. Sophie got a new passport a couple days later, flew out the day after that and met us in Kenya. And pretty soon we barely remembered anything went wrong.

The Safari

We started out the trip with a two day Safari at Amboseli National Park, which was pretty awesome. We stayed at a place called Kibo Safari Camp, where we slept in permanent tents I guess you could call them. They had beds and a toilet and everything though, so we were by no means roughing it.

That's Stephanie and me outside our tent-hut thing. And for some reason the camp had a man come around and do 6am wake-up calls, whether you asked for it or not. It was pretty weird and a little scary the first day.

From the camp we went out on four different "game drives" in these cool van things with pop-up roofs.

We saw all kinds of animals, I could barely believe we were really there right in the middle of them all. Lots of zebras and wildebeests and gazelles and water buffalo and flamingos and tons of elephants. The elephants were my favorite.

We also saw the occasional lion or warthog or hippo or giraffe, but those were much less frequent. And I was pretty content most of them time just driving through the park being in awe of God's creation and the fact that I was in Africa. It was pretty amazing.

Also as part of the Safari, we made a stop to visit a Maasai tribe.

It was kind-of cool, we saw them dance and do their singing deal, as well as make fire without matches and stuff, but it was kind-of a rip-off too. They made us each pay $20 to come see their tribe, which just seemed weird. And then at the end they try to sell you souvenir type stuff for outrageous prices. Not cool. But oh well, I guess it was a cool experience.

The Story of Tumaini

After the Safari we headed out on the four-ish hour drive to the Tumaini Shamba, which is the Swahili word for farm.

Tumaini Ministries currently has two properties just outside of Nairobi. One is the shamba, and the other is the home for the children. I guess now is as good as time to take a moment to explain what Tumaini is and how it all started (to the best of my knowledge)...

About ten years ago, a Kenyan woman named Eunice moved to Denver from the East Coast, and because of several different circumstances, her and her two children ended up homeless. Eunice and her family found help from the Denver Rescue Mission (they're great), as well as Mile High Ministries. During this time, Eunice began to feel a calling from God to go back to her home country to help the many children left orphaned by AIDS or abandoned by their parents.

After months of prayer and study, Eunice sensed that God was calling her to return to Kenya to start an orphanage yet, not an orphanage: rather, a home for children who have become orphans.
-Tumaini Web Site

In June of 2004, the Tumaini Children's Home began. Today, Tumaini is bursting at the seams with over 50 children in a house made for about 40.

But these kids are taken care of so well. It truly is a home, and they really are a big family. These kids are not waiting to be adopted or placed in another home. They have found their home--or really, their home has found them.

Before I continue to talk about how amazing Tumaini is, let me explain where Tumaini is going. As I said before, Tumaini currently has the home and the Shamba in two different towns. The eventual plan is to have all of Tumaini located at the 50 acre Shamba. One of the first building projects at the Shamba was the guest huts, where we stayed.

When we arrived at this hut area, Levi (our volunteer coordinator) told me that this was one of the most peaceful places on earth. He was right. The huts are tucked in a small corner of the Shamba, and it's just a beautiful and well-kept little area. I loved it. Although I think we probably disturbed the peace from time to time with our intense card games or soccer juggling.

But anyway, the next building on the Shamba was just finished while we were there, and it is the baby rescue center.

When you hear the stories of the little kids we played with, ages 1-7, you'll find that most of them were abandoned at just days or weeks old. But because Tumaini is over capacity, they cannot take anymore kids. That's where the rescue center comes in. Now they will be able to take in babies, take very good care of them, and place many of them in children's homes or with families.

Eventually, the plan is to build several different cottages on the Shamba and have all of the kids live there. Then they will be able to have around 200 kids as opposed to just 50. However, Levi and others continued to stress to us that it won't be an institution. The kids will most likely be placed in cottages and given a "mom" or "auntie," and each cottage will function almost like a separate family. The kids at Tumaini are not just numbers. They are individuals who are loved and cared for, and Eunice wants that to continue even as they grow.

Eunice's story is pretty incredible. God is using her in big ways to change lives in Kenya. We were incredible privileged to be a small part of this story...

Being a part of the story

Sometimes when people hear about a mission trip to a foreign country, they think building a house or a church or something. We knew from the start this one would be different. As we prepared for this trip throughout the semester, we knew we wanted to just humble ourselves before God and let him guide us completely. We knew we wanted in some way to be a part of God's justice work in the world. At one of our first meetings together as a team, we created this as our purpose statement for Kenya:

We are going to Kenya to serve the Tumaini orphanage because we want to love, serve, and learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ there.

Looking back now, I believe, by the grace of God, we did just that and more.

Work

Let's start with some of the "work" we did. We were there at an opportune time to help, as several finishing touches were being made on the rescue center, as well as around the farm to prepare it for everyone who would be there for the dedication, which took place a few days after we left.

First, we painted the rocks (zebra style) that line the drive up to the building...

Let's get a closer look...

I forgot my hat that morning. So I improvised. The final product looked like this...

Apparently they were super impressed with our work, so that's fun.

After painting, mostly just some cleaning was required. And what cleaning means is scraping red Kenyan mud off of every surface using brushes. It was...tedious. But that's ok. We scraped dirt off of the walkway rocks...

Don't I look so excited to be doing that? We also scraped dirt off of rocks and walls. And Stefan and Barry thought it would be funny to leave this small section unscraped...

Hopefully it's etched there forever. We also did some mopping and cleaning walls on the inside. And one day we did some landscaping outside the gates to make the entrance look pretty for all the guests that would be coming for the dedication.

Most of us wanted to do some work on the farm too, so we got put to work digging up potatoes in the potato field one day.

Fun times, but I don't really think I'm cut out for potato picking.

Barry also helped out our friend George one day with the pigs. George is a great guy. I met him the first day I was at the farm wandering around. His life is a great witness to Christ, as he works such a humble job with a servant's heart because he knows the greater good of what he's doing.

Two of the pigs had babies while we were there, so we made frequent trips to visit George and the piglets.

And...that was about the extent of our physical labor, but we were glad to be able to contribute.

The Kids

Most of the rest of the time, we played with the kids. My first experience with them was the first day we went to the school.

The school was a close walk from the Tumaini home, so a couple days we would walk the lunches over for the kids and then play with them there the rest of the afternoon, usually in this open dirt field. The actual classrooms were up the hill. We loved seeing our Tumaini kids at the school, and met some other not so well behaved kids there who were pretty crazy, but we love them too. The kids were just all over us--playing with hair, holding our hands, sitting on our laps, everything. And they loved being in pictures.

And then they loved seeing the pictures, and taking pictures, and then we had to put the cameras away. But it was fun while it lasted.

I loved playing at the school, mostly because we always ended up playing a soccer game. So the first kid I will tell you about is my soccer buddy Sevia.

Sevia is not a Tumaini kid, so I don't know his story or where he comes from, but we just bonded over our love of soccer. By the second time we went to the school, he was forming teams and said we were on the same team. He must have been watching the world cup a lot, because whenever he scored a goal, we would have a big celebration. And whenever he missed or messed up, he would jokingly collapse to the ground. He was entertaining and he knew it.

Sevia speaks great English, and one of my favorite quotes from happened when a little 3 year old girl was crying and he says, "Hey man, why you cryin?" We quoted him on that the rest of the trip. We got to play one last game with him the day we left, and after giving out water as part of our victory celebrations, we said our good-byes.

Ok in reality, we didn't actually say good-bye because once school is over the kids basically scatter. But I will most likely not forget my boy Sevia, or him yelling my name across the soccer field.

After school we would go hang out at Tumaini with the kids for a little longer and had our afternoon chai, while the kids had their porridge or yogurt or some unknown substance in a plastic cup at little plastic tables with little plastic chairs.

Our first Sunday there, we went to church near Tumaini and then went and spent the rest of the afternoon with the kids. That day is memorable to me for two reasons.

One, that's the day I met my friend Kimani.

Kimani is a special kid; he has cerebral palsey. I noticed him that day sitting on a chair and thought to myself, Jen would love him. (As in Jen Fogleman, she works with special kids). And then I thought, wow, I love him. So I eventually made my way over to him and sat next to him. And then pretty much never wanted to leave. He was a little feisty that day--he kept grabbing my arm and digging his nails in, and he even bit me once or twice. But I just sat there and let him play with my hand and my watch and my bracelet. That's usually what we did as friends.

One day Sophie and I got to ride along to go pick him up at his school. He goes to a school in Nairobi that has a program disabled kids, which I was pleasantly surprised to hear existed and seemed pretty good too. We went to his classroom with the Tumaini driver who takes him to and from school everyday. He was so excited to see Samwell the driver. Then Samwell, knowing that me and Kimani were bff, handed him off to me and called me Auntie, which is what they call the women at Tumaini. I loved that moment. I felt super honored to be in his life.

I'm not sure if he ever knew who I was or recognized me or anything, but I love that kid. And I love that he is part of the family. The other kids call him by name, they bring him things and they love on him, even though he tries to grab their heads if they come near. That's Kimani.

The other thing I'll remember about that Sunday was that I got to see how well the Mommas or Aunties, as well as a couple Uncles, love on these kids. They are not just employees, they're part of the family. The are so loving and caring and nurturing, and it was so incredible to watch. They were jump roping with the girls or having little conversations or joking around or wiping noses all the time. They are why those kids are going to grow up as strong and loving individuals. The kids are so well loved. I thank God for them.

One day of our trip we went to visit the Nairobi Children's Home, which is the state run orphanage. While the staff there is loving as well, it was just a very sad and dark place. There were a few smiling faces, but mostly the kids were sad and quiet and sick, and all they wanted to do was lie on us.

Levi kept telling us that Eunice is not allowed to go there anymore because she would always want to take every single one of them to Tumaini. Several of the Tumaini kids did come from that home originally. It's not meant to be a permanent place to stay. Those kids are sent to other homes or possibly adopted, but they just live in a very sad state there, mostly due to lack of funding.

Tumaini is like a different world compared to Nairobi Children's Home. It made me even more thankful for the work they do. The kids at Tumaini are happy and healthy and smiling and loved. Hopefully as Tumaini expands, more and more of those kids can leave Nairobi Children's Home and join the Tumaini family.

Another great day we had was the Saturday before we left, which was also a week before the baby rescue center opened. Eunice decided they should have a celebration for the completion of the construction of the building. So that morning while we were probably once again juggling the soccer ball in our yard, we see this bus roll in to the Shamba...

The kids were all just stacked on each other. Everyone came that day: all the kids, all the aunties and uncles, all the construction workers and farm workers, etc. For most of the day, a lot of the people there, including the older Tumaini kids, did some more cleaning and landscaping stuff. But most of us just played with the kids all day.

The coolest part of that day was when everyone first got there, and everyone stood at the front of the rescue center and they all started singing praises and celebrating that God had given them this place.

That's Eunice in the visor, and her daughter has the pink braids. It was just a really cool moment to watch, and to praise God along with them.

That day I got to spend a lot of time with another one of my good friends Issa.

We were drawing that day. Issa is about 7, and we became good friends about halfway through the trip. He learned my name, but then always asked me my name again. He also played soccer with us, and I loved hearing him yell my name on the field too. Issa was just kind-of mesmerized by us. We would walk in, and he would just stare. It was really funny. I love Issa, he's great.

Later that Saturday, we had a big celebration meal. The men had slaughtered a cow and cooked it up for us, so we ate beef and rice and cabbage with our hands all together. It was a great experience.

Well I've left a couple important kids out. Sophie and I had two boys that we spent a lot of time with, Uncle Charles and Peter. Uncle Charles is actually only 3, but Eunice had an Uncle named Charles so they just decided to call him that. The four of us were in a best friends club.

That's Peter in the KU hat and Uncle with me. We loved these two kids. Uncle Charles would typically be found either in my arms or Sophie's, and pretty much everyday would fall asleep in one of our laps.

He was way cute, and didn't really speak a word of English. I will probably always remember little Uncle Charles finding me out of a crowd of people and reaching his arms up to me to be held.

I don't know how you could ever resist, I love that little guy. Peter was awesome too, he had the cutest little voice and actually spoke a lot of English for only being about 4. Sophie taught him to say, "Sophie and Amanda are my best friends," and it was really cute. Peter also had a pee pants problem though, so you always had to be careful about picking him up, as Sophie discovered one day.

Yep, that's our pee pants Peter. Love him.

Well I could go on and on about the kids. They were all so great, and I hope I don't ever forget them...I don't think I will, they were way too awesome.

Transformation

I have so many more stories to tell--about visiting the slums, about funny things the kids did, about cool church services with awesome choirs, about encouraging words from the people we met, about Barry puking out the side of the van, the list goes on. But I feel like this is getting long enough, and I still need to make sure I talk about what we've taken away from this experience and why we even went.

Throughout the trip we studied the book of Luke and discussed it in team meetings, led by Mr. Rick Gager. From the beginning, I noticed how often Jesus did something and the people were amazed. I challenged the team to be amazed by the work of Christ. I feel like sometimes we forget to give credit to Jesus for the work he does in people's lives and in this world everyday. So several times throughout the trip I asked everyone to answer the question, how are you being amazed by Jesus?

Well, here's my answer. I am amazed at the work of Christ in Tumaini. It truly is an incredible organization, founded by an incredible woman. Before the trips this summer when we were having our "mission training" I guess you could call it, we talked about doing justice versus just doing service. As in, service is just giving someone water and justice is finding out why they need water and building a well or something.

Tumaini is an organization through which Jesus is bringing justice. They don't just merely give kids a roof over their heads and a couple meals. These kids receive better love and care than I would have ever expected. They are happy and healthy. The many of them with HIV are given proper medication so that you would never know which ones have it and which don't. Because of how well they are raised and the support that Tumaini receives, several of these kids will have an opportunity to go to college, or even just to high school, that they probably would never have had without Tumaini. The best part is, these kids are growing up understanding that Christ is their Savior, and being encouraged daily to follow Him.

To that I say, Bwana Asifiwe, Amen. That's Kiswahili for Praise the Lord.

Finally, throughout the trip, I felt like this one phrase kept popping back into my head: Let your lives be changed. This is another thing I asked the team to think about and consider, especially near the end of the trip. God is in the business of transformation, and I believe that through an experience like this, we need to seek what it is He wants to teach or in what ways He wants to change us.

Some members of our team realized they wanted to invest more in their relationship with God, others were encouraged by the relationships we formed with people there and wanted to take that back with them. The lesson that most hit me is one that has been on my heart for the past couple years. Through reading Luke and seeing the lives of the people in Kenya, I realized again that I want to keep working to live more simply. I continually remembered that phrase, "Live simply so others may simply live."

I want to live a simpler life. Jesus lived a simple life. The kids at Tumaini live a simple life. Why do I think I need so much stuff, so much complication, so many plans? I just want to enjoy people and enjoy God. Easier said than done, but that's what I'm going for.

I was amazed on this trip. I believe God worked on my heart in ways that I won't even really realize or understand, and that's awesome. I just love that we can go around the world and meet all these new people and still worship the same incredible God.

As I look back on this whole trip, all I can do is give all credit to the Lord for leading and guiding every step. I may have been the "leader," but I was only able to plan and lead any part of it by the grace of God. This trip was not about me teaching some kids about serving others, this was about God transforming all of our lives.

Well that seems to be enough. Like I said, I have a lot of other stories to tell, so just ask! I also want to take a moment to say thank you so much to all of you who supported us on this trip whether that was financially or in prayer or both. I really really appreciate you wanting to help make this trip possible, and I really do consider that you were a part of this experience too. God works through a lot of people to accomplish his purposes.

All I ask in closing is that you remember Tumaini and remember the work God is doing there. And maybe think about being a part of that too! Because they are da bomb.

Bwana Asifiwe! Amen.

saturday adventure?

2010-06-13T19:45:00.008-06:00

Ok, so it's been awhile. A three month while. My bad. I'm not even sure if people will check this again, but apparently Joe Kingry does seeing as the first thing he said to me after no communication for like 6 weeks was something about how I needed a new blog.

Props to my man Joe by the way. He just started the journey of becoming a pararescue jumper for the military. I'm still not quite sure what that all involves, but I'm proud of you Joe! Gotta love the Kingry family.

Yeah I took that from Ev's facebook. I may or may not be sucking up to Joe right now seeing as he is tateblog's biggest fan.

Anyway, if you do still enjoy the tateblog, you better tell me. Because I thought about just quitting recently. Everyone's all into twitter now. I gave it a try, and I'm still on it, but I'm not that into it. I think I don't get it really still. Plus everyone seems to be on facebook now, so they can see all my pictures there. My photos seem to sum up my life pretty well.

But here I am, I have barely had time to stop and breathe lately, much less unpack from my trip to St. Louis that I returned home from over a week ago or fold my laundry that has been sitting in the basket for about two weeks or do the dishes that are a result of kids being at my house practically every night this past week. So am I doing all that now? No, I am choosing to update the poor neglected tateblog. All those household chores can wait.

Seriously though, I have been managing to fill about every minute of every day lately. So to sum it up, here is the run down of things I have been enjoying lately:

1. Graduation and graduation parties (that's right, they're still happening).

I can't tell you how many free meals I've gotten lately as a result of graduation parties. It is so great. I think I went to almost 20 total. I don't know, I lost count.

Graduation was good times. I can't believe my little Sophie is all grown up, that's for sure. For those of you who lost track, I moved into Sophie's house at the beginning of her freshman year. She quickly turned into my little sister and lately has turned into my best friend here in Arvada I would say. So that's cute. Plus I got to spend lots and lots of time with the whole Wysocki family when they were all here. That was a great week.

And even though graduation was a few weeks ago now, the parties continued into this weekend. Today was Barry's, and I would have to say it was probably the best. The food was bomb, and then we got to play in the gym at Ralston Valley which included several games of dodgeball and a long game of soccer. Wow, it was great. Which leads to the next thing...

2. Soccer.

Last week I played a game of soccer Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I am playing in both an outdoor and an indoor league, and it is so much fun. Especially now that my ankles are getting better. In case you missed that whole fiasco, I minorly sprained both my ankles in a week in April, one on a trampoline, the other on stairs. And then I kept hurting them in soccer. And then it got to the point that everyone I know pretty much knows about my bad ankles, and anytime I do anything active, several people are bound to yell "Tate be careful your ankles!!!" That happened today many times.

Anyway, I went to physical therapy, got some stretches to do, and now they are getting better!! And I love playing soccer! Moving on...

3. My beeeeest frieeennnnnds

That's how we say it. And by my best friends I mean the people I have been spending all my time with lately: Sophie, Ben Zuehlsdorff, Barry Gager, Leo Marcelo, Rachael SaBell, and then some others but those are the staples.

There's a few of us there. Anyway, we hang out constantly it feels like. And then we sing songs about our days together, like a little number called Saturday Adventure which you can see on the facebook because it wouldn't upload here. But that song happened late one night whilst we were planning out an entire day of hanging out at different events. I love people this age because they like hanging out constantly. And so do I.

4. Leading worship in High Impact.

I put together an all-star band for the summer, and with major help from Ben Zuehlsdorff, the music sounds great. I just love working with these boys and playing music with them. This morning was especially awesome because I felt like way more than normal, people were able to really engage in worship to Jesus. I loved it. I love playing music, I love singing, I love leading others to Jesus, and I just love Jesus. And the fun part is that a big part of my job next year will be to keep overseeing the music and the worship. Sweeeeeet.

5. A recent trip to St. Louis

The highlights: Lion's Choice, Carl's, my mom buying me stuff, CARDINALS GAME (and they won), Ted Drewes after Card's game, par 3 golf slash golf lesson with Gar-man, Penn Station, and of course, hanging out with the fam--my little cousins and big cousins and aunts and uncles and Poshaks and parents. A whole lot packed into three days. It was great.

6. My best friend Jen.

I just love her. I am constantly calling her or emailing her with all my life issues, and she always listens and cares and makes me feel much better. And I am so missing being at camp with her right now. Jenny, I would be lost without you!!! Speaking of Lost, wait a minute guys....where are we?

7. Kenya preparation.

Ok, I'm gonna be honest. I'm a little nervous and stressed about this Kenya trip. We leave in SIX DAYS!! So many details, but after encouraging words from others, I totally trust God and that he is taking care of us and that this trip is gonna be awesome. Wow. I can't wait!! So, naturally, I will write another blog, and it will be about that. Please please please pray for me and us and everything!! Here we go...

old-school rap and life

2010-03-09T22:40:00.011-07:00

The human memory is amazing. No way that thing just happened by chance.

A couple nights ago I was procrastinating, and I found some old CDs that I listened to in high school. One of my favorite ones was a mix called, "Mint? Mix," which was songs I took from Ellen Wright's CD collection (the title comes from this one time when Ellen kept forcing me to eat mints from the Olive Garden. Mmmm....Olive Garden). Mostly rap--some Nelly and Bone Thugs and Sisqo, and then a couple Phish songs and some other random stuff. But anyway, the point of this story was that today I was listening to it in my car, and when one of the songs ended, I started singing what would be the next song on the CD. I was pretty shocked. How could I do that, after not listening to that CD in at leasst six years?? That's nuts.

So all that to say, I've been enjoying some turn of the century rap lately. I miss that stuff, and I miss listening to it while driving my Prelude. Those were the days.

By the way, sorry I haven't been keeping up with the tate-blog. I get a little busy and distracted. But today I realized that I don't feel stressed. I can't remember the last time I just didn't feel stressed. Well, probably at home over Christmas, but that's not normal life. I mean school seems under control, church seems mostly under control, and I'm just not worried about stuff. Praise the Lord.

I feel the need to tell give an update about something from my last blog: Remember how I was real stressed about Faceplant? Well it was awesome. It all went really well, plus I got to spend some quality time joking, dancing and working with Jill, Mestro, Leo and Barry Gager. Jill went and took a nap so she missed out on this dance party/jumping picture session...

A few last comments: I couldn't have survived that weekend without Jill, I really finally bonded with Mestro and it was great, and Barry and Leo....well, they're just Barry and Leo. Gotta love them.

Recently I've busted out the Boohbah into my living room. I love Boohbah, but no one else seems to appreciate him. Everyone says "OMG that's the creepiest thing I've ever seen." Doubt it. Quit exaggerating. Please go back and read this blog from '05 to understand why Boohbah is so dear to my heart.

My greatest love in life lately is snowboarding. Let me just say, I've come a long way since the dislocated elbow incident. I ride PARK now. That makes me sound more awesome than I am. It basically means that I find the smallest terrain park and go off of the smallest jumps. Here was my first successful park jump:

It was...freakin awesome. And now I go off the jumps all the time, never without a great amount of fear though, and never without Leo yelling at me. But man, snowboarding is fun.

And now, the rest of my life in list form:

1. I went on a mission trip to Louisiana. I worked with a group of people who were all much older than me, and most were Canadian Mennonites over the age of 60. But no, Gar-man, they did not just ride on horses. And, yes, I used a nail gun.

That's my Canadian friend Bill. He taught me everything I know.

2. I got to revisit my NOLA home. It looks so so different. Wow, I didn't even recognize the place after not having been there for 3 years. It was crazy. But also, I got to experience my first Mardi Gras with Dani poo.

Check out all my beads!! And contrary to popular belief, you don't actually have to do anything inapprop to get them. The parade people just throw them at you. Although one of my friends did warn me and said he didn't want to see me end up on youth pastors gone wild.

3. I love my small group. We're reading the Shack and it's awesome.

4. I'm ready to wear shorts and white v-neck tees again.

5. I can't wait until Daylight Savings this weekend.

6. I've been watching through Friends in order, and the other day I watched an episode I had NEVER seen. I still can't believe it.

7. I spend a lot of my free time hanging out at Max and Andy's. And now Tim lives there too. I think maybe they use me for my Netflix, because they use my account on X-Box live. But we watch a lot of movies. But they also pwn a lot of noobs. If you don't know what that last statement means, you don't want to.

8. I should go to bed because I have class in the morning. Right.

9. I saw Cop Out with Amanda Stooke and we laughed A LOT. We love Tracy Morgan.

10. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!! MARCH MADNESS BABY!!!

to make Joe Kingry happy...

2010-01-14T23:36:00.004-07:00

1. A week ago I found out I'm practically running Faceplant. It starts tomorrow. I now have an added 100% pressure on me for the weekend. And on my sinuses. Everyone pray I don't screw it up.

2. I don't get Angie's blog. Who is writing what, and how come you no write anything anymore?

3. Gwyn Kingry is one of the cutest little girls in this world AND Narnia.

4. Here's what me and Kayanne experienced on the side of I-25 about two weeks ago:

Blown out tire. Thank goodness for Joe Kingry.

5. Just now when I went on Facebook to find that picture and searched "Kingry," I noticed that Joseph Kingry is now back on the Facebook. Joe, quit toying with our emotions. Now I have to go update all my picture tags.

6. I love snowboarding right now, and I am slowly working up the courage to go off the mini jumps at Breck. My goal is to go off the first one without practically peeing my pants and being so shaky afterwards that I can barely get myself to the lift. I am pathetic, compared to my friends going off 65 foot jumps or whatever they are.

7. Christmas Spectacular was awesome.

I am still reveling in its glory. I don't even know if that sentence makes sense.

8. Jesus is so freakin awesome, I don't understand how people don't get that.

9. I never thought it would happen, but I think I am burnt out on NCIS. But I still make myself watch it every week, even though I'd rather just watch the Friends DVDs I took from Andy.

10. I love love love my youth group kids, past and present.

11. We're getting our new youth pastor TOMORROW!!!! Praise the Lord. I can breathe again.

12. The night of January 1 was by far the funniest night of 2010. And on December 31, 2010, I think I may still be able to say that. Thank you Jeff G. and Loaded Questions.

13. I should have gone to bed instead of writing in this blog.

14. 30 Rock. Best show on television. But I also can't describe the joy that Saturday Night Live has brought to everyone. Dude, freaking wow.

15. I love life. School starts in less than two weeks, so I better enjoy life now while I can...

16. Goooooooooooood Night.

the joy of being in Kansas

2009-11-19T11:06:00.005-07:00

This past weekend, I attended the wedding of the infamous Micah Thomas. And let me just say, it was bomb.

Ok that's not actually Micah. That's his face taped on to a Zac Efron cut-out. Love it. But I really was at his wedding, and it really was pretty sweet. And since I was with Jen, I helped light candles and get the drinks ready at the reception. Never thought I would be so active in my ex-bf's wedding (I mean, who knew I'd even be invited??). But yeah, it was a super fun wedding. I got to hit the dance floor with Kyle and Maggie and Emily, which is always a treat slash hilarious, not to mention Steve and Emma were there too. So many people I love. So congrats to Micah and Jess!

I also got to spend some quality time with the Garlichs (here's my boy Mason)...

my aunt and cousins, the newly added-to Velazquez family (Melis couldn't keep her eyes open, but then again, neither can little Robby)...,

Amber and Holly, Britters, and of course, the Foglemans. Plus, I got a staff hoodie out of the visit...finally!!

So I gotta say, it was super refreshing and so good to see everyone. Maybe (hopefully) I'll end up back there again someday. Especially since Alan repeatedly told me I'm on his list of the top six women he loves most. And I have told Jen that when I finish school, I'll move to wherever they live. You know, so we can be a family again.

And now I gotta go start packing or doing some work or something since, well, I'M GOING TO HAWAII IN TWO DAYS!!!!!!

carless

2009-11-07T20:22:00.006-07:00

I kicked off the busiest two weeks of my semester by wrecking my car. It's just funny how things work out sometimes, huh?

It was October 18 and I was taking Beth Gager home after lunch with some people after church. I rear-ended a truck in a right turn merge lane thing that I thought was merging but then stopped again. So I just have to say here that while I was the one rear-ending, and the one who walked away with a ticket for careless driving, it was not totally my fault.

The whole front of my car was basically indented. We were picking up pieces of my car from the road. The Gagers responded to the scene to help, and Mr. Gager informed me that I could not drive it. So then came the cops and the tow truck and there went my car.

But not forever. Just a long time. I won't get it back until November 19. That's a full month after the accident. So life has just been crazy to figure out without a car. People like the Gagers and Wysockis and my roommate Raychel have been great and let me use their cars, and that has been super helpful. I will make it.

And what's that statistic about most accidents occurring near your home? Yeah, I was 1 mile from mine.

I wish cars healed like bodies. And like if it's majorly broken, you rush it in to get fixed. Isn't it crazy how human bodies heal themselves? I love that. Good work God.

Speaking of cars, remember when I drove a red '91 Honda Prelude? Oh man. I loved that car. It looked like this, I think:

Boys in high school thought I was so cool for having that car. Thanks Gar-man, for one of many passed-on vehicles. The '86 Toyota Corolla (lovingly known as Cherry), the Prelude, and now my poor broken Passat, which I still like to refer to as the Gar-man mobile. I believe it received that name when he let me, Justin, Emjo and Katie Dennis drive it to DCC.

Well since this doesn't have any legit pics, here's one of Sophie all dressed up for homecoming, Angie dressed all stylish like she usually is, and me in my gym shorts. Typical.

I love my sisters.

So you know what's wierd? Trick or treating. This year was the first year that I gave out candy all by myself from my house, so it got me thinking about this whole idea. I mean when else is it acceptable to walk up to strangers' houses and ask them to give you candy? And then even weirder, everyone goes and buys candy to give out to strangers that come to your door.

I got a lot of trick-or-treaters while I was stuck at home writing my paper, and it was so fun. I loved giving candy to the cute little kids in Halloween costumes. NOT cute when they were like high schoolers though, I got a couple of those. I actually ran out of candy at 7:30 and had to turn off my porch light and stuff. But anyway, it was just weird to open the door to group after group, having no idea who they were, but handing them candy. And then all the parents thank you, which is cute and all, but I wanted to be like, by the way, who are you? I mean not to mention the even weirder part of all of this being that the kids are all in costume. Speaking of weird costumes...

Thanks for that throwback pic on the facebook Mel. Man we were cute. And here's the thing. We would walk up and down Rochdale, and we knew almost everyone we got candy from. Granted, my dad is one of the friendliest people in the United States, but still, I just think times have changed a little. I don't really know any of my neighbors, mostly because I'm scared to tell them all that we're a house of four girls, but also because I feel like people don't care as much anymore.

There's just no place like Rochdale.

I'm gonna leave it at that so that I can get back to the most productive Saturday night of '09. I've cleaned (and vacuumed!) my room, hung a picture on the wall, bought a wedding present, figured out my schedule for next year, and updated the tate-blog. Holler.

Five days until I get to be back in the great state of Kansas! Not to mention two weeks and I will be in HAWAII!!!! Ahhh!!!!

winter wonderland...in october

2009-10-30T11:51:00.002-06:00

Here's me YESTERDAY, October 29.

And my house...

Unreal, right?? I mean I've seen snow in October before, but not school-closing snow. I think it's a couple feet or something? I'm not really sure, but I wanted to post this before it all melts away this weekend and goes back to being fall again. This state is so weird.

Check out that drift thing coming off the garage roof. I'm baffled as to how it sits like that.

Anyway, I really didn't mind this snow storm. It was like forced rest. I mean sure, I have mostly been working on my paper, but there's no pressure to go anywhere or do anything. The church office closed Wednesday and yesterday, so I just chilled at home. I mean literally. I haven't been past my front yard since Tuesday afternoon. So I thank God for this snow storm. I needed it.

But alas, I must still continue working on my paper now, which is finally due Monday, and I will have a much less stressful life. Hopefully.

Oh, but check out the icicles on the back porch:

I enjoyed pulling a few of those off yesterday and breaking and throwing them. Some sort of stress relief.

Being in the snow in my snowboard gear (including my snowboard boots, since they're the only boots I have) made me really really want to go snowboarding really really soon. Oh man, I can't wait!!!

I also can't wait for Kansas and Hawaii and Christmas Spectacular!!

avoiding the plague

2009-10-07T23:00:00.006-06:00

If you search "Swine Flu" on Google images, this is the first photo that comes up:

That's disgusting. But man, the swine flu is seriously going around. Well, I'm just assuming that every sick person has swine flu. Because they probably do. I don't think I've ever been so nervous about getting sick. For awhile I was like, I CANNOT get sick. But then I was like, actually, I wouldn't mind sitting around watching NCIS on the couch all day. That sounds great.

I think I need a vacation. Not an illness.

But my roommate is pretty sick, Sophie was sick, several girls in my small group have been/are sick, a handful of church staff people have been sick...it's ridiculous.

Now I don't get sick much. The last time I threw up was in 7th grade, and if we do the math, that's about 14 years ago. Impressive, I know. It's my greatest accomplishment. But anyway, sometimes I get colds, or sometimes my stomach hurts because I ate too much, but rarely am I out of commission, lying on the couch for the whole day (even though that sounds awesome, as I said).

Anyway, I am a little scared about getting sick. In the end, it's just not worth it. So I've been pumping the Airborne and, in true Dustin Angell style, spraying my house with Lysol Disinfectant. Oh, and sleeping a lot. Which I usually do on accident, but now I have an excuse. I love sleep.

In other news, I'm currently watching the Cardinals blow it in the first game of the playoffs. The score isn't that bad, but it's been painful to watch. I think we're on like the 4th or 5th pitcher. And this needs to end soon because I need to go to bed. Maybe we'll get 'em tomorrow. Also, Brendan Ryan's mustache is ridiculous.

Just had a great Fall Retreat this past weekend, praise the Lord. It was my first time leading a retreat I think, and I don't feel nearly qualified enough (or maybe just don't have enough hours), but God works in my weakness, and let me just say, He did a great job. For reals. I am so thankful that we as humans don't just do it all on our own. God is in control, trust me.

But yeah, it was great. We played games, hung out, did some team-building with the girls, and heard some great messages from my friend Jason Phipps.

That's the girls doing a team thing where we all had to swing across a pit of poisonous peanut butter or something. Good times. I was blinded for most of it. It's a long story.

We also had our traditional fall retreat date night, where the boys pick girls names out of a hat and escort them to dinner. Then they pretend like they're on dates. It's probably one of my favorite things we do because it's hilarious. I can't really explain it. This year, Steph and Sophie tried to sneak my name in, and basically wrestled me to the ground to get the name cup away from me. I lost all strength and gave up. I blame the altitude. So I think my name was later removed by a leader, but somehow this boy came to the door with one of the girls' names as well as mine. I think he begged for it. But I humored him anyway and got in the picture.

Those high school boys always be trying to date me. If only I could say that about boys over the age of...say...21.

Well the game is over so that's all for me. And for the Cards, they lost. Oh well. Off to have sweet dreams about marrying Jim from The Office...seriously I dreamed that the other day. Too bad he's actually marrying Pam tomorrow night. And too bad I talk about them like they're real people.

I statements

2009-09-24T22:39:00.003-06:00

I'm a big giant slacker. In lots of things, including tateblog. But not today.

I get milk from a milkman now. It's delicious.

I watch too much TV.

I forget during about 75% of the week that I am in school. I remember for about 25%, and do something about it about 2.3% of the time. Just a guess.

I like to play on my keyboard.

I watched NBC tonight. Funny stuff. To quote Parks and Rec: "Hey Andy do you want to stay with us?" "Well I'm supposed to meet up with this crazy guy for a rock fight...but yeah I guess I can stay." (Or something close to that.)

I want 30 Rock to start again.

I watched the season premiere of NCIS Tuesday. It was awesome. I think I cried.

I'm disappointed that those last three paragraphs were all about the TV I watch. But also happy.

I'm always tired. Bye.

Oh wait, one more.

I like chasing cars.

too old to be scared of bikes

2009-09-17T22:48:00.013-06:00

Ok. In all honesty, I haven't written a blog in a month because my life has become consumed by watching NCIS. It's ridiculous. I've watched over 50 episodes, and I don't want to even calculate how much time that is. But it's like that whole "try to eat just one potato chip" thing. I've started watching the show in order from the beginning, and now I can't stop. Fortunately, I will eventually reach the end and hope to have a normal existence after that. And decent grades in seminary.

I'm gonna hit on a few random things now. Hopefully it's fun.

Today I got back on the horse. And by horse, I mean bike. See, I've been scared to ride a bike for about...8 years now. What had happened was, right around graduation from high school time (2001 baby), one of my good friends (Robbie Fischer) fell off his bike and (don't worry this is funny) broke like everything. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but he broke his collarbone and had stitches, and showed up to my graduation party the next day looking like this:

So the fear started. Then that summer at Young Life camp--Crooked Creek to be exact, which is weird because I go there with church now--we went mountain biking one day. First of all, I had many injuries/issues at camp that summer, from riding a crazy horse to getting a bruise that extended across my entire upper arm, you get the picture.

Anyway, near the end of the bike ride, the guide dude explained to us that there was a little bridge coming up and we could either get off the bike or jump it. I thought, well how hard can popping a wheelie up on that thing be? Well, harder than I thought, because my front wheel hit the bridge and flipped me completely over the handlebars and landed me on the ground. Grassy ground, but still.

Side note: I still have that shirt and those shorts.

Since then, I think I have ridden a bike once. And it was terrifying. But recently, I have been wanting to try riding a bike, because most places I go are in biking distance, and I'm getting tired of running as a work out. Even though I've gone running only about three times in the past month. Whatever.

Sorry, this story got really long so I will now conclude it. The Wysockis gave me Ben's old bike as a loaner, and an old helmet, and today I went on my first bike ride. It was awesome. I rode to Starbucks. On a trail, but also some on the street, and I felt really cool. I want to ride my bike all the time.

Let's see, what other fun things. Well, I hang out with Kayanne and Sophie constantly, so that's fun.

Kan, I stole this picture from your facebook, so thanks for not quitting. :)

Sophie is at my house all the time, which is cute. We can't be separated.

Kayanne and I go on fun adventures. For those of you unfamiliar with Kayanne, or Kan as I like to call her, she graduated from high school this year and helped lead my small group at church last year. She's pretty much da bomb, and since her school doesn't start until the end of September and all her other friends left, we hang out a lot. And it's awesome. A couple times we've ventured to Windsor to visit Ev and Joe, and one time we went hiking, which may have ended in us taking a wrong path and hitchhiking. Maybe. Maybe not. We survived, that's all I know.

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm old. But I got cookies (Beth) and cake (Kendra and Raychel) and breakfast (Wysockis) and dessert (Kingrys) and mostly food. And a high school boy bought me flowers. And Kayanne gave me a painting that she found on the side of the road but claimed to have painted herself. And Dani got me a KU Mr. Potatohead. And my parents gave me money toward buying a keyboard. And Wysockis got me Wolverine. And Cait is going to get me season 3 of 30 Rock. And Jen says there is something awesome on the way in the mail, but we'll see. And Sophie says she'll give me a present tomorrow. Here is a picture of my birthday presents:

Also, I got a really cute video message from Mason Garlich, AND I got to video chat with him/Andy/Jen/Alli tonight. Highlight of my day. Besides the bike thing.

But seriously, I can't believe I'm 27.

Well at this point it's probably about time that I highlight the wedding of the summer.

Introducing Mark and Kara Poshak. It was a pretty awesome event. Outdoor weddings are something of movies for me, I'd never been to one, and the weather was beautiful and everyone looked awesome and it was so much fun. And now they're married! And there's another member of the Tate/Poshak family.

It was a great reunion too. This will probably be one of the only weddings besides my own (someday) that had the sweet combination of good friends AND family. I was so excited to be able to spend the weekend with the Van Rossums...

And the Poshaks...

And the Tates...

And the McGintys...

And Angie...

And lots of Colorado friends...

It was sweet. Unfortunately we didn't get to take any official Tate/Poshak family photos, but that's ok. Maybe some other time in life we'll all put on our wedding clothes again and take one. Or probably not, but we can pretend.

And now Mark and Kara have moved on to California to fight fires. Well, not really. I wish they were still here so that we could hang out, but the great thing about being practically family with the Poshaks is that we have many more Christmases and Thanksgivings ahead of us.

So congratulations Mark and Kara! I love you guys.

Do you know what's hard about life? Well, a lot of things. But one main thing that sticks out to me is that in life, I am always missing somebody. No matter where I am, I miss someone. And I think it will be that way forever. Right now I miss Jen and my other Kansas friends, especially camp people. Next week I'm really gonna miss Kayanne. I wish everyone I love could just move to the same island and live there forever. Oh, and I would live there too. It would be sweet.

See you there!

my summer change of pace

2009-08-17T23:50:00.005-06:00

I'm sitting in my new house (well, it's really Mark's house, but us girls live here now) on a nice evening with the windows open listening to a rare event for Colorado--a rainstorm. I've got the Cardinals game on and Matt Holliday is up to bat, which is weird because for the first three years I lived here, I watched him play for the Rockies. This morning I slept until 10, watched some NCIS and did some work on my computer. All that to say, life is just chill right now. Possibly the calm before the storm.

But I needed a calm. This summer was CRAZY. From May 24 until August 8, I worked as a Cabin Leader Supervisor at Youthfront Camp West. Well, I did get a week off, but that week I went to CHIC, which was possibly more busy and stressful than camp. No vacay for Tatie this summer, but it was totally worth it.

I would say the best part about the summer was spending it with my best friend, Jennifer Lee Wilson Fogleman. Or more affectionately known as Jen, Jerbie or Jennie.

Yes. She is a delight. That's us preparing for our sweet Night Strike game. One of the main reasons I went to camp this summer was to have community with people (somewhat) my own age, and especially to hang out with her. Not only did I enjoy it, I wouldn't have survived without her. And now Jen is "one" with Als (that is, Alan Fogleman), so I got to be BFFs with both of them all summer.

That was us at one of the several Royals games we got to go to this summer, thanks to my cousin Steve Stewart who is one of the radio announcers as well as our hook up for tickets. Thanks Steve.

I have to take a moment here to thank the Foglemans. First for their hospitality--for a couch to sleep on for the weekends, for feeeding me, for letting me do my laundry, for Arrested Development--you guys gave me a weekend home and that was awesome. Also, they're just great people. When I remember this summer, I will probably most value the time I got to spend with the Foglemans. Sometime during the last week of camp, Alli Garlich walked by the three of us and said, "here comes the Three Amigos." It made my day. So...I love you guys, that's all.

I guess I'll just start trying to sum up camp in a few highlights. I, along with another guy, was in charge of training and supervising the Cabin Leaders at camp, which is what I used to be when I worked at camp in '05 and '06. I loved having this opportunity, and I loved them.

These were the awesome girls, and even though I don't have a picture of them all, the boys were awesome as well. When the summer was over, I felt like it was too short of time with all of them. Because of having to deal with a lot of businessy task stuff, I didn't get to spend time and build relationships with them nearly as much as I had wanted. But we had some great times playing games, sharing stories about campers, discussing the Bible, praying, and other random stuff.

I loved watching them in their element. Every Friday night we had a 50s themed pool party, and during one of those nights when I'm normally working some activity or running around getting things done, I just stopped for a moment and watched them in the pool as their kids just hung all over them and laughed with them and loved them, and I honestly got a little choked up. They were great. So thank you cabin leaders, you were da bomb.

Another love of my summer was the Garlich family.

That's Alli with Brody (please notice his Nuggets gear)...

...and that's Andy with Brody and Mason. Andy works full time for Youthfront, so this was one of many summers he's spent at camp, and then the rest of the fam just gets to come and hang out. Except if we have a Code Red and Alli gets put to work putting out a fake fire at a cabin that doesn't exist yet. They're great. And I don't think it's any secret that I love babies and toddlers, so it was way fun for me to hang out with them all summer. Me and Mason are BFFs now.

He's fun because he'll repeat anything you say pretty much, and it's hilarious. I especially liked playing with him while we all chilled behind the dining hall: jumping on the mini tramp, going down the slide, throwing frisbees, and of course, the occasional ride in the trike.

I loved that trike. Another one of my favorite times at camp is when I got to take that thing out for a spin around the camp. I'm scared of real bikes, but that thing was awesome.

Before we get too far away from the Garlichs, let's look at one more cute picture from the Homecoming Game Day event (explaining why Jen is a cheerleader):

And then you need to check out this cute video:

The story behind the chasing cars thing is that at the beginning of the summer, Jen and I constantly watched this SNL skit and I kept imitating the song and then Mason picked up on it and it was hilarious.

How about a few more pics? Here in picture form is all the weird/awesome things that camp entailed for me (besides the ones already seen)...

Blobbing. Enough said.

Every Friday was Frames Friday, during which you would wear frames without lenses. These are mine. Also I got to play with that radio all summer.

One mini-week (smaller kids, shorter week), I got to be "Sports Girl" because one the normal Sports Guys was gone. That basically means being the camp emcee, crazy person and celebrity. I loved it, minus the fact that that was the week I almost totally lost my voice.

And because I had become famous, I of course had to participate in the shaving cream war that we do for the little kids. Funsies.

Every night to kick-off the evening event, we have this thing called Hype where the kids just are really loud and have fun. During that time, the "Mail Gorilla" appears to deliver packages to the kids. First off, it's nearly impossible to see out of the mask so I tripped everywhere. Also, Mason is terrified of what he calls "the badrilla." One time he saw the mask and cried harder than I'd ever seen.

One of our themes was Pacman Fever, appreciating old school video games. This was the Duck Hunt station, where we filled up water balloons that the kids then launched at a staff person in a duck suit out on the water. It was awesome.

Probably the most popular event was the Renaissance Festival, which included all kinds of Renaissance themed activities (jousting, slaying dragons, etc.). I had the priviledge each week of being Lady Tate, the Funnel Cake Fries peddler. I walked around with my cart, or sometimes rode the trike, selling funnel cake fries to the kids.

The last night of camp was one of the best. We had a photo scavenger hunt, and it was hilarious. This was us accomplishing the task of advertising Youthfront. Pretty good, huh? Plus we got a stacked team of some of my favorite people at camp: Mark, Momo, Jen and Jordan.

Well that seems to be a pretty decent summary. It was a great summer, and I wouldn't have minded if it lasted several more weeks. I loved being back in Kansas and seeing my friends like Emily and Melissa on the weekends, and I loved that Danielle and Cait got to come to camp one week. I even got to see Steve one Sunday. So it was a great experience, and I am so thankful to God for that blessing.

And now I'm back in Arvada with a new challenge on my hands--running the youth group until we hire a new youth pastor. Should be fun!

living simply

2009-07-19T14:40:00.004-06:00

On July 14 of last year, I went to an event that World Vision was putting on at a church in Denver. It was essentially a guided audio/visual tour of the life of a child living in AIDS affected portions of Africa. We all put on headphones and walked through a sort of labyrinth in a large tent that showed different aspects of where that child lived, what they did, what their parents did, what school is like, etc. At the end of the tour, we saw photos and profiles of World Vision kids in Africa who need sponsors.

I stood staring at that wall of children's faces wanting to help, but thinking that as a sponsor of two Compassion children already, I couldn't justify sponsoring a third child. Yet as I stood there a little longer, I felt like God was putting something on my heart and mind. I basically felt God saying to me, "Amanda, just don't buy new clothes for a year, and you can sponsor a child."

Hold up, what? I thought to myself, I can't do that, can I? No new t-shirts or gym shorts, no strolling around the clothes section at Target when I'm really there for shampoo, no replacing the clothes I decide I don't like anymore? But that call from God was undeniable. I had to do it.

My eyes browsed the hundreds of photos and quickly landed on a little girl from Uganda named Aleluya. Perfect. That night I added one more to my sponsored child family.

The reason I write about this all now is that the one year mark passed this week, right in the middle of CHIC, the incredible Covenant youth conference I just got back from with my youth group kids. Through the mass chaos that was CHIC, I was able to take a few moments here and there to reflect on the last year, and thought that I should share.

I definitely didn't go the entire year without obtaining new clothes in some way. I decided from the beginning I wouldn't be super legalistic about it, but would just trust God to do what He wanted. Shortly after making the commitment, I had to buy a few crucial items for my first backpacking trip I took last August. And a couple weeks ago I bought a sports bra. Besides that, I don't think I purchased anything. I got a couple of free shirts here and there, used a couple gift certificates, and went on the traditional Christmas shopping trip where my mom buys me a few clothing items as presents, seeing as I am super picky and she gave up on buying things for me on her own. :) Thanks Mel.

For the most part, this was not difficult at all. Sure, there were a few times when I walked through a clothing section in a store and really liked something I saw, so I tended to just avoid looking at clothes at all. And I definitely had some moments where I was really tired of wearing the same clothes, or I felt out of style, or I felt like people would notice that I kept wearing the same things and I didn't like that.

In those moments, I always remembered how grateful some people are just to have one outfit of clothes. I remembered the homeless man in Denver from two years ago who wanted this old dirty t-shirt we had found in the trash. And the story from when a group from our church went to Uganda and gave out shorts to kids, who nearly knocked each other out trying to get a pair.

But most of the past year, I realized that I still have SO MUCH STUFF. And that a lot of the rest of this country has even more stuff. So when July 14 rolled around this past week, I was far from ready to go on a celebratory shopping spree. In reality, I honestly don't think much will change for me now. I may buy a new item of clothing here or there, but I moreso want to try to get rid of stuff and give it to people who need it more than me.

I don't write all of this now because I want you to think I'm awesome or that I'm better than you or something, because I'm definitely not, and I really don't like when people have that attitude. In fact, I only told a few people this past year that I wasn't buying clothes. But I feel like the lessons I learned and the things God was showing me this past week and throughout this summer were things worth mentioning.

This has been a little scattered, but to sum up what I've learned I'll share about two things that I heard this summer that God used to show me why I gave up buying new clothes. One week at camp, our speaker, Jamie Roach, talked about how his daughter had a great experience on a mission trip and realized how much she has and how little the people she went to serve have. She started selling shirts to raise money with a slogan on it that may be familiar to you (I think it's Ghandi), but one that is now sticking with me.

Live simply so others may simply live.

I need to continually watch my spending on things that I really don't need or don't matter so that I can be more conscious and able to give money to organizations like Compassion or World Vision or the International Justice Mission or the Denver Rescue Mission. Because let's be honest, the reason we buy new clothes is to impress others, and that's really lame. So I'm going to continue to try to live more simply, even if it means not being stylish or looking cool or having to wear some of the same clothes I have now for the rest of my life.

The other thing that once again hit me this week in a seminar at CHIC was that we have to be careful about our spending anyway, because so many retail stores and coffee and chocolate companies use slave labor to produce their products at some point in the process.

They may not ship their clothes directly from a sweat shop in Asia to the mall, but maybe their cotton comes from kids forced to pick it for 18 hours a day and little to no pay. From now on if I do decide to buy something, I want to make sure first that I'm not buying from a company that uses slave labor. At this point, some companies may not actually know if they are purchasing slave-produced items, and so the next step is continually pushing companies to stop living in ignorant bliss and start truly assessing their production line. For more info on this, check out Not for Sale. They gave us a great seminar and have a great web site, including a database of companies so you can see if your favorite companies are guilty of using slave labor. And remember, our speaker told us that a really good deal on a shirt probably means someone else paid the much higher price.

God has challenged me this week to stop giving in to the typical American lifestyle in some ways, and to truly try to follow the example of Jesus in all areas of life. I am nowhere near where I wish I was in this, but I really want to stop trying to be a comfortable Christian. It's uncomfortable to have to stop and think about that shirt you're about to buy--do I really need another shirt, was someone forced against their will to help in making this shirt?--but I believe that's what God is calling us to. I know I don't have it all figured out, but we need to start taking steps to readjust our lives to the life Christ truly calls us to, and trust that He will guide us in making good decisions about our spending and living.

As easy as it is, don't just be stuck in frustration over this issue or think you have to single handedly end oppression. At the same time, don't keep living ignorantly. But do your part to deliver people from poverty and injustice. I mean I'm no Bible expert, but I'm pretty sure that's what Jesus did. So that's what I'm gonna try to do. Who's with me??

back to my roots

2009-05-22T15:15:00.010-06:00

This tate-blog is coming to you live from Signs of Life bookstore/coffee shop on Mass Street in Lawrence, Kansas. That's right, I'm back in Kansas. I love this place.

Yesterday I had a nice long (about 8 and a half hours) drive. It actually went by pretty fast. I listened to music and the Bible, prayed, talked to Gar-man on the phone about TV shows and the good ole days of the 50s and 60s in St. Louis, and finally listened to some Scrubs and Saturday Night Live DVDs. Then I of course stopped in Topeka to get some Steak 'n Shake, which of course made me feel nasty because I ate it too fast while sitting and driving the last 30 minutes of the drive to Lawrence. Worth it. I love that stuff.

I saw this sign along the way, and it reminded me of Jake (because for example, I'll say something like, Yes, I found my shoe! And he'll say, Jesus is real!), so without looking I tried to take a picture, and I think it turned out pretty sweet. Oh the beautiful plains of Kansas.

The most difficult part of the drive was that I was, and still am, in this awkward in between time. I said some difficult goodbyes for the summer, and I won't really see why that was worth it until camp gets going, if that makes sense. So for a bunch of the drive I had to keep praying for peace because I felt pretty unsettled about coming here.

HOWEVER, once I got to see Emily and Jen and Alan, I felt much better, as well as just merely driving through the KU campus last night. Not that I'll be spending a ton of time in Lawrence, but it just feels like I'm home, and I like that. Not to mention, today I had lunch with Jen and the other supervisor-type people at camp and we talked about my job as cabin leader supervisor. So that got me pumped for camp, which starts Sunday....ahhh!!! Ok, maybe I'm still a little nervous. Whatever, it will be fine.

Today was Ralston Valley's graduation, where some of my favorite students from church walked across the stage and received diplomas. Unfortunately, I missed it. That was one of the hard parts about leaving. I love this senior class, and I will miss them a lot this summer and next year and always. I love the boys, even though they're a little bit creepily in love with me. We've had some fun times leading Fusion and snowboarding and hanging out at Mark's house. And the girls are rad. I've gotten to know all of them a lot just because they come hang out at our house a lot, but especially because we do things like make music videos to Beyonce or do cardioke (see previous post) or just talk life. Anyway, I love the class of '09, especially this one...

Kayanne was one of the student leaders for our small group this year, and she is awesome. We had lots of fun this year debriefing about our small group girls and the crazy things they would do and say. Good times.

Speaking of crazy small group girls, I will miss them mucho this summer.

That's Kelsey, Cori, Beth, Sarah and me on Monday when we took Kesley some fun stuff for her birthday. I feel like people in college or older are not too phased by a 3 month separation, but to high school kids, that seems like forever. Cori keeps telling me she's scared because I'm gone, and Sarah practically wrote me a love poem over text. But we'll be ok. I'm getting excited to hang out with all of them at CHIC again, which is our denominational youth conference. Woot.

Well I think that's all I say for now. I can't stop staring outside at Mass Street, so I think I need to go enjoy it for a bit. You never know what's gonna happen.

the week between

2009-05-16T21:55:00.007-06:00

Where has the time gone? Oh I know, it's gone fully to reading, writing papers, preparing presentations, and studying. But my semester officially ended Wednesday, and on a good note too. I mean I had a couple moments in the past month where I got really stressed out while staring at all the work I had to do and the small time I had to do it in, then I would break down for a minute and go, "It's not possible!! I can't do it!!" Just ask Sophie--she was there once. But then I would get a hold of myself by yelling "Get over it Tate!" and move on. All that to say, I wasn't even stressed for the last week of homework, so I feel like I finished well.

27 hours out of 62 done. Booyah. But I have a long way to go still...

I read some pretty sweet books at the end of the semester though, some books that kind-of changed my life, so that's always good. But I won't lie, I use the phrase "change my life" sort-of lightly. Anyway, one was Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry by Rick Lawrence and the other was Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders. I won't go into much detail, but I was reminded by these books how incredibly amazingly awesome Jesus is and how deserving He is of constant devotion. Some of what I read inspired the message I gave in High Impact, which you can check out on our HPSM web site under podcasts. It's the one with my name under it, duh. Anyway, I gotta give God all the credit for any good in that talk, and I was pretty pumped about the message he was helping me to give. Jesus is sweet, like Aslan. I miss Aslan. We haven't hung out in awhile. But I'm gonna read The Horse and his Boy this summer. Woot.

Speaking of summer, it's here. The weather has been so nice here, I love it. And it will continue to be nice until I leave Thursday for camp, when I will enter the beautiful hot and humid weather of Kansas!!! Oh my, I am so excited. So now I have the next few days to get packed and do a number of other random to-do list items before I leave. I can't believe it's here.

However, I am feeling a little sad about leaving for the summer. I will miss all my peeps here, and all the fun that summer in Arvada holds. But, I'll be back. Praise the Lord.

Speaking of people I'll miss, last night I had a sleepover with some of my freshman-sophomore girls, and it was so fun. We played games, laughed a lot, went to my soccer game, watched movies, and most importantly, we did Cardioke.

Cardioke is an excellent workout that can be found on Comcast's free On Demand, under dance workouts. It's led by Billy Blanks Jr., you know, his dad is the Tai Bo guy. Not only do you dance in this workout, but you sing along to the music, words provided at the bottom of the screen. It's pretty much hilarious. Sophie and Kayanne and I did it one night, and I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. So we obviously had to do it last night. The best part is the cool down because you get to sing along to the incredibly cheesy song that Billy's wife wrote entitled, "You are Enough." Wow. You've just gotta see it for yourself.

Today I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the second time.

It was awesome. I just love X-Men so much, I don't even know why. I recently introduced Sophie to all three of the first movies, so she now shares my love for the X-Men. Super powers are sweet. Jesus is sweeter than X-Men though.

Speaking of things I have loved lately, let's add NCIS to that list.

I blame my parents for this obsession because I watched it for the first time over the holidays when I was at home. But now I love it too. I have to have some self-control though, because it's on at least like 3 times a day. I am glad that Kara and Mark also love the show, because it gets a bad rap for being an old person show. If you caught 30 Rock 2 weeks ago, you heard Liz Lemon assuming that Tracy Jordan must be at least 60 because he watches NCIS. Whatever, it's awesome, and I love Tony.

I've been watching too much TV lately. I think it became a coping mechanism to get through the end of the semester. But recently I've had all of these shows on my list to watch each week: Amazing Race, American Idol, NCIS, Scrubs, Parks and Recreation, the Office, and 30 Rock. Too much. Good thing I'll be away from watching so much TV this summer.

Also, this is our newest favorite video to quote. It's from SNL:

You probably won't laugh much at first viewing, but give it some time, and it gets real funny. Or maybe it's just funny to me and all the high school kids. Whatever.

Well I'm pretty much still really tired from that sleepover, which consisted of almost zero sleeping for Tate but was worth it, so I'm gonna go to bed now. Ok love you too bye.

star struck

2009-03-21T21:52:00.009-06:00

Once again, school got real busy and tateblog got sacrificed. But not it's spring break, and it's time for another update.

Last weekend I got to travel to Oregon for a sweet reunion with some of my New Orleans people.

That's Jamie, Regan, me and Cait there. We had a great time reminiscing about New Orleans--laughing at some hilarious stories and once again standing in awe of the amazing work God did during our time there. It's amazing how much that time changed all of our lives, and so it's always refreshing to spend time with the people who experienced such a great event with me. In fact, Jamie has decided to work on writing a book about our experiences, which I think is a sweet idea. So sometime in the next 6-8 months we're planning to have a reunion that requires attendance by the whole team of nine: Kevin, Jeremy, Nik, Jacques, Regan, Jamie, Cait, Heather and me. Love those people.

And now I need to talk about the two big highlights of my trip, besides the obvious awesome time with my friends.

First of all, on my way to Oregon I was flying into Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon (and Caitlin Murphy). So on my layover in the Portland airport, I find myself walking behind a tall young black man wearing a backpack with the U of O logo and his last name. Just then we pass by some more very finely dressed and very tall black men, and I realize that this is the Oregon basketball team.

I then go sit down to wait for my flight, and several of these boys start surrounding me in the other seats. It was awesome. The problem was that they all looked really angry and unfriendly, so I looked up what game they had just played. Turns out they lost big the night before and I'm pretty sure their season was over. So I opted not to say anything. But they were on my flight and then waited for our bags in the same area, and I even got to listen in to a mini team meeting with the coach. I was like college basketball star struck, even though I didn't even know who they were. But I do remember that guy from the picture.

Oh and then, about an hour later, Cait and I took a walk around the campus, and as we headed toward the fieldhouse, I made a joke like, "Ha what if I see those guys again?" Sure enough, as we walked by a couple of the guys on the team were on their way out. It was awesome, but I was just hoping they didn't think I was stalking them.

Second awesome thing. Cait and I were getting ready to drive up to Portland to hang out with the others, and I mentioned something about the show Little People Big World (it's on TLC--watch it if you haven't). And Cait says, yeah I think they film that here. I immediately freaked out because I remembered that the Roloff family from the show lives on a farm in Oregon. One thing led to another, and we drove to Hillsboro, OR, just outside of Portland to take a look at the Roloff Farm. Unfortunately, they only allow visitors during pumpkin season, but at least we could do this:

Love it. We didn't see any people though, so that was slightly disappointing. I really wanted to meet the Roloffs! Sophie and I are planning to go back to visit during October so we can take a tour of the farm and meet the family. Because Sophie is destined to be with Jeremy Roloff.

In other news, Melanie Tate joined the Facebook, so that's fun. Also, everyone is whining about the new facebook layout, as they always do. It's so ridiculous. I just want to be like, people, it's a dang web site, get over it! If you are getting really worked up about a new layout on facebook, I would say that's a red flag that you need to get a life.

Not that I'm one to talk, because my life currently revolves around college basketball. I am watching games whenever I can and checking the scores constantly whenever I can't. I love this month!! KU made it past round one, so we'll see how they do tomorrow!

I'm getting really excited for the summer. Why? Because I'm going back to work at YouthFront Camp in Kansas with my BFF Jen. I am way way pumped!!

It was a difficult decision, but in the end I realized God was wanting to bless me by getting to spend the summer in one of my favorite places with one of my favorite people. This year I will be the "Cabin Leader Supervisor," which means I'll be in charge of training and leading those people in charge of the kids. I think it will be a sweet opportunity, so I am really excited. I will miss Colorado and the people here for sure, but I think it will be good to get away for a little while. Afterall, when I moved away from Kansas, I kind-of thought it might just be a year and I'd be back, but God had other plans. So yeah it will be good to be "home" for a summer.

So you may remember that holiday called "Valentines Day" that occurred about a month ago. Well, Sophie was having a girls night, and I came home from babysitting just as they were discussing making a music video. One thing led to another, and this was the result:

Yeah, I think I'll just leave you with that. Check out the facebook for a better quality version. Compare us to Beyonce, you'll be amazed.

mmmmmmarch mmmmmmadness!!!

2009-03-19T23:54:00.001-06:00

I love this month. I'm on spring break and snowboarding and watching basketball and praising the Jesus. New blog coming soon...(I'm too tired right now).

just some stuff

2009-02-13T18:34:00.007-07:00

Back by request.

Kim Burke has requested a new tateblog. I didn't even know she read it. I love when that stuff happens. So now I'll tell you about Kim Burke.

First off, we have matching jackets. Second off, she graduated high school last year and I miss having her around. She was one of the first students I ever remember meeting the day after I moved here. We've had some good times on the El Salvador and Peru mission trips, and also hanging out with the Kingrys, because she was like their BFF before she went to college.

One of the best parts about being in those countries with Kim was how she tries to talk Spanish to the kids we've met but then kind-of gives up and says things like "my b" to them. A lot of people that speak English probably wouldn't know what that meant. (It's "my bad," for those of you who do fall into that category.) And also, juggling the soccer ball with her is pretty fun.

So Kim is cool, and now attends the University of Colorado. Go Big 12. This blog goes out to you Kim. Let's hang out soon.

It just so happens that Narnia is on TV right now (the first one), so that is providing the background of this blog.

Speaking of Narnia, Keystone was looking especially Narnia-like today so I kept my eyes peeled for Aslan. Still didn't see him. Aslan probably doesn't hang out at Keystone or I never would have dislocated my elbow that one time. And if I had, Lucy would have come by immediately to give me some of that healing medicine stuff.

So what else do you want to hear about? Here's one of the best quotes I've ever read in my seminary reading, from a book about healthy youth ministry:

If you have a group of twelve kids who don't understand your illustrations and one of them wants to kill you, you have a youth group just like Jesus.
-Mark Yaconelli

That's awesome.

Speaking of seminary, it's back in session. Three weeks done actually. The first two were a little rough trying to get back into it, but we're cruising now. Also, I actually have seminary friends, and we went snowriding together over Christmas break.

That's Allison, Katie, Jamie and me. They're pretty sweet. I won't lie though, I really only see them at school, and I'm only there twice a week. Oh well.

Now I'd like to talk about KU basketball. We lost to Mizzou the other night, that is so lame. I don't want to talk about it. Instead, I want to talk about the team, which are the stars of this game I turn into reality TV.

Sherron Collins is obviously the best. This man can drive the lane in ways that didn't seem humanly possible. Then there's Cole Aldrich, who has been sporting a stylish face mask lately due to a broken nose. He's usually awesome, but sometimes he blows it.

Speaking of blowing it, Marcus and Markieff Morris. Mark really doesn't like these guys, he doesn't even care which one it is. They're so alike in their appearance as well as screw-ups that Amanda Stooke asked the other night, "Which one is Marquis?" Yeah, doesn't matter.

Tyshawn Taylor is a squirrely little guy, but he's pretty good. I say he's the next Aaron Miles, Mark says he'll be better. Fair enough. Mario Little also steps up and makes huge plays from time to time, so he's got potential as well. He is also the second black person to ever be named Mario. The first one obviously being Mario Chalmers. Nobody can forget him, and apparently he's dominating in the NBA.

Then we have some other white boys making some noise. Brady Morningstar and Tyrel (no he really is white) Reed, the Kansas boys, are actually pretty good and pretty consistent. Plus Tyrel thinks I rock. I'll show you that video again in case you forgot.

Boo-yah.

Ok this is getting a little old, and none of the other players really matter too much at this point. But let's not forget that while still not playing at all, Connor Teahan still looks a whole lot like Troy Bolton.

Gotta go play soccer, so I'm out.

P.S. Lucy just said "Weeelllllllll."

the wedding of Alan and Jen Fogleman

2009-01-24T12:00:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, I co-lead a freshman Bible study in my dorm when I was a sophomore in college. One of the regulars at this study was Jen Wilson, who I thought was cool but we never really clicked outside of the study.

The next year, Jen started being more and more involved in Campus Crusade, and so we got to know each other better and started becoming friends. By the time this photo was taken in December of my junior year,

I knew that I wanted to become good friends with her. Up until that point I had really only had one sturdy friend through college (Steves), and the rest were a little flaky on the friend scene. So I asked Jen if she would want to start meeting on a weekly basis the next semester to pray and read a book together. So we did, and an actual real friendship started forming.

That's us near the end of my junior year, her sophomore year.

Meanwhile, I was dating this dude in a band and started going to lots of their shows, and therefore started hanging around his cousin/best friend Alan Fogleman.

There's little senior in high school Alan playing the drums in Farewell to Ashlyn. I remember the first time we really hung out, and for some reason I wasn't really thinking before I spoke and I said, "I can't believe I'm hanging out with someone in high school!" I think Alan was very offended for several years, my bad.

Anyway, I continued to become better and better friends with Jen on one side of my life, and got to know Alan more and more on another side of my life.

In January of my senior year, I got dumped, and a month later, Jen got dumped. As we went through having broken hearts together, Jen and I really became BFF. I don't know how I would have made it without her. That summer we bonded even more when we worked at camp together.

We had actually become almost the same person, in a good way, and the names Jen and Tate were practically synonymous at camp.

Also at camp that year, and still kind-of a different part of my life, was Alan.

Even though things were now horrible between me and his cousin, Alan was still a good friend to me and I loved having him at camp that summer.

Anyway, sometime in the spring of 2006, while I was in New Orleans, some sparks started flying between these two friends of mine who I would never have guessed would end up together. But they did, and by the next summer at camp, my worlds had collided.

I loved these two people separately, and now I loved them together. A little less than two years after this photo was taken, Alan proposed and Jen said "Duh!" No but seriously, I think she really did say duh. That's my girl.

So a couple weeks ago, I headed back to Kansas for the wedding festivities. We kicked off the week by going to a KU basketball game, which is always an incredible experience.

Love my Jayhawks and my boos.

And I got to be reunited with all the besties at Jen's bachelorette party, which was also really fun.

Those are the girls that made KU awesome for me. I love love love them.

From that night on, I was almost constantly surrounded by Jen, Danielle and Katlin (Jen's sister). Sometimes I feel like I go back in town and me and my friends just reminisce about old memories. But this wedding weekend definitely created new memories, which I'm always a fan of.

Then came the wedding day. Jen looked awesome, obviously.

Ray Zuercher, our old camp boss, did a great job with the ceremony. And it went by very smoothly, no awkward moments, which I know Jen was happy about. Plus, as Jen noted several times, we were a very attractive wedding party.

Plus I knew all of them, and that always makes the wedding more fun.

My personal favorite part was the reception.

And despite the fact that the DJ played almost no songs from Jen's requested playlist, the party was bumpin. Unfortunately Jen had to do bridal duties and talk to lots of people, so she didn't get to hit the dance floor a whole lot, but Dani and I sure did. I was actually sore the next day.

And before we knew it, Jen and Alan were off. And the epic wedding weekend was coming to a close.

Katlin and Dani and I had to have one last moment of pretending that we were actually all getting married that weekend, not just Jen, so this is our, "We all got married!" picture.

So in conclusion, Alan and Jen, I am so happy for you guys. And Jen, it was an honor to be a part of all of this with you, and I am so glad to have you as a best friend. I love you so so so much!!

catch up. not ketchup.

2009-01-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile. So here's a blog I started a while ago to hold you over:

Don't mess with the Tates.

Well the rest of my time in St. Louis flew by. I got to see some more of my friends from back in the day, and that was sweet. Plus I got to see my little cousin Andrew again.

Yeah, he's pretty cute.

Other than that I hung out with the fam some more and beat them in Scrabble and Boggle. I am awesomely nerdy. Love it.

When I came back, I went snowboarding a lot, and still am. One day I had like the biggest fall of my life (besides the one that dislocated my elbow). Here's how I felt right after it happened (I'm in the red):

Yeah, I was totally fine!!! Praise the Lord, because Kristen said it looked like I broke my neck. Probably because of the multiple uncontrolled somersaults I did at a very high velocity. I did get a sore neck later, but I was fine.

Snowboarding has been way fun this year. I'm actually getting a little better and less scared, so I'm not so slow anymore. Still slower than everyone I go with pretty much though. But I love going with the high school kids, and the Stookes, and my girl Kristen.

Love her.

Also yesterday I went snow riding with three other girls from seminary. That's right, I have friends at seminary, AND they're GIRLS! Maybe a picture to come on that...

And today we head out for Powderburn, the high school ski retreat. It's gonna be sweet. And then I have a huge to do list for next week, but on it will be a blog about the great wedding of Alan and Jen. Get excited!!!

exciting moments of Christmas break

2008-12-23T16:18:00.008-07:00

Many of you know that I was a little concerned that I would be bored being home for so long on Christmas break. But let me tell you, I have been in St. Louis since Thursday night, and there has not yet been a dull moment. So now I'll share with you some of the highlights, and let's go ahead at start with the highlights of my whole Christmas break so far.

Christmas Spectacular was a success for sure. It was a lot of fun, and I'm pretty sure our step routine was awesome. But I'm kind-of glad it's over because I was getting tired of yelling at the boys constantly and feeling like a step nazi. They are ridiculous, but also hilarious.

I got to hang out with Cait and Angie for a few days which was sweet. Due to inclement weather, Cait and I did not go snowriding. But we did go see the movie Changeling, which caused me to periodically yell out "He's not my son!" for the few days following.

The Wysockis gave me some awesome Christmas presents which included Hancock, a ridiculously hard puzzle, a sweet water bottle that no one knew I wanted, a crossword book, and Jon and Kate's book, Multiple Blessings.

Love me some Jon and Kate Plus Eight. So thanks again to the Wysockis, you know me well.

Last Thursday I got two cavities filled. Not fun, but pretty entertaining to have my mouth numb for several hours. Just ask Sophie and Angie.

Four names describe why I did not have one moment of boredom from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon: William Hale Springer McGinty.

Also known as my cousin Bill (I don't know about the two middle name thing). I usually don't stop laughing when I hang out with him, but I don't see him nearly enough. We did lots of things this weekend, including buying Christmas presents, watching Prince Caspian, playing Disney Sorry with Stacey--and that was all just Friday.

Saturday we saw the new Will Smith movie, even though Bill continually repeated to me that the New York Times said it was one of the worst movies ever made (his slight exaggeration). I thought it was interesting though. Not awesome, but still good. Plus, it's Will Smith, come on.

Then Saturday night was my Aunt and Uncle's 50th anniversary party, which was fun with the whole family. My cousin Steve spoke about his parents for a moment, and the funniest thing he said was, "My dad had a peanut allergy before it got cool." Awesome.

Even thought most of the party was in their 70s, it turned out to be a pretty fun night. I stuck with the younger crowd most of the time.

Those kids in that picture are third cousins. THIRD. Who else do you know that hangs out with third cousins? Crazy.

There's no way to put in writing the hilarity that is Bill McGinty, swearing at our young cousins and all, so someday when all you tateblog readers are at my wedding you can hang out with him.

So since Bill left things have been a little less eventful, but my brother came in town and he can also be pretty entertaining.

Oh and yesterday I saw Jeremy Maclin at the mall. This may help in identifying who he is if you're completely out of the loop:

But more important than the fact that he is one of the best players in college football is that he went to Kirkwood High School. Joe knows that because I tell him at least five times every time we watch college football. But here's the story of the mall sighting:

My parents were in the Apple Store for like 8 hours so I was wandering elsewhere. At one point when I checked in on them, my dad told me he thought he had seen Maclin earlier in the mall. I did not believe him, because I didn't think Gar-Man would recognize him (I wasn't sure I would either) and I also didn't think it was possible that Maclin would just be hanging out at the mall in St. Louis this close to their bowl game.

But I left the store again and minutes later, sure enough, I passed by the very recognizable Jeremy Maclin. So I called my dad, who then was offended that I assumed he thought all black people look alike (which he doesn't), even thought that's not ever what I really thought. But we moved past that and the important thing here is that we saw Jeremy Maclin at the mall, and he went to Kirkwood High School, and I was friends with his brother at one point. Ok I'm glad we're all clear on that.

Just when I thought things couldn't get more exciting, today I saw six of my high school friends, and that was sweet. I had breakfast with Kristi, Sarah, Kelsey, Carolyn and Kerber, and afterward Kristi and I went to visit Alison. I love those girls a lot, so it was great to reunite.

Then if that wasn't enough reuniting, I had lunch with the one and only Kevin Butler. He ran the show in New Orleans, and I was like Associate Runner-of-Show or something like that. He lives in the Lou now and works at at church, so it was good to catch up and reminisce. Oh New Orleans, you will live forever.

And as one last piece of info, I am very excited to announce to the tateblog that Mark Poshak is engaged! Most of you already know that, but he'll be marrying Miss Kara Quackenbush in August, and I am pumped. Mostly for them to be married, but also because I am finally free of people constantly saying, "You should marry Mark." Phew.

Well that was long and informative, but it's been awhile and I do what I want. Now it's almost time to watch the Mizzou-Illinois Braggin' Rights game that my brother went to (boring), followed by the KU-Arizona game (booyah).

Merry Christmas to all my faithful tateblog readers, and to all a good night.

a quarter done

2008-12-11T16:52:00.007-07:00

I am done with all of my work for this semester!!

Currently, I am wasting time until I have my last class tonight.

Once that is done, I will officially be 25.8% done with my seminary schooling, assuming I pass all my classes, which I will duh.

And now I have lots to look forward to without the stress of homework and school getting in the way. Like...

Snowriding, tomorrow with Jake and Tuesday with...

Cait!! Which is an excitement in itself to hang out with her.

Also, Angie comes Sunday, holla! I love when we get to be housemates.

Christmas Spectacular! Sunday. I have once again created an awesome step routine that will be featured in the event.

And in a week I'll be on my way back to the Lou again, ready to watch TV shows and movies, read Narnia and some other books, and hang out with my long-lost family (AKA The McGintys and Ryan and Justina).

By the way Joe, did you know my brother is married? Here's a picture of them, just to clear up further confusion.

Then in the month of January I get to keep reading books of my choice, be in Jen and Alan's wedding, hang out with Kristen, and go snowriding some more.

Also, here's me and a baby working on homework.

Gwyn knows a lot about how the Israelites compare with other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, so she was giving me some pointers.

Then we just played on Photo Booth for a moment.

She wasn't that into it. She was however, pretty entertained by Sophie.

But who isn't really?

Well it's time to go eat some foods and then attend my final class of the semester. And then I'll try to sleep but I probably won't be able to because I'm so excited about everything happening in the next two months. If there were another Will Smith movie coming out, I wouldn't be able to contain myself.

Oh crap....there is!!!

THANKSgiving

2008-12-05T11:59:00.008-07:00

Next week is finals week, and guess what? I'm not even that stressed about it. I still have a lot to get done, so I need to start on some reading today, but I felt that I first needed to update tateblog.

Prince Caspian came out on DVD on Tuesday.

I of course watched it that day, despite the amount of homework I had. And I of course cried a little at the end. I can't help it. I just love Aslan. And Edmund. Anyway, it was great to be reunited with all of them, and I plan on watching it again this weekend. And then a few more times on Christmas break.

It's weird that I'm going home again in less than two weeks, because I feel like I just got back. Oh wait, I kind-of did just get back. But it will be good because I didn't get to see a lot of my friends over Thanksgiving break, besides my Ellen.

Thanksgiving was sweet though. We missed Ryan and Justina, but most of the rest were there. Including Angie and Kara.

That's us on the required visit to Ted Drewes (Kara on the left, Angie in the middle). For those of you who don't understand who these people are, Kara is "Uncle Mark girlfriend!" (as Kyle said it) and Angie is my friend who lives in Chicago. But Angie is also the oldest daughter of the family I live with. And she was also Kara's small group leader one time at 4Cs. And she also babysits for the Van Rossums, who were also at Thanksgiving. So I basically felt like she had more connections with people at Thanksgiving than I did.

But besides all the excitement of hanging out with the Poshaks, especially Kyle and Ellie, who are now over 2-years-old and hilarious, I got to see my actual family.

Those are my cousins: Jane, Charlie and John. Well, first cousins once removed, technically. Our family is a little complicated. One of my favorite parts of break was eating dinner at IHOP with these three, as well as little Margaret and Stacey, instead of going to the country club with the "adults." Stacey and I are 36 and 26, but we still tend to prefer the company of the little ones. No offense to the rest of you, we still like you too. But will you sing "The Boys are Back" from High School Musical 3 with me like 2-year-old Margarent did? I didn't think so.

Over break I also got to meet my first and only Tate cousin for the first time.

That's Andrew Tate. He's my Dad's only brother's first son. This is exciting stuff because the Tate family was down to just six members before Andrew came along. It's probably about time for Ryan and Justina to step it up now and contribute to our numbers, hint hint.

Some other highlights of Thanksgiving included cookies, 30 Rock, going up in the Arch, Thanksgiving dinner, and relaxing at home. I missed the Turkey Day game, but Kirkwood lost anyway.

I'm looking forward to being back in the Wood again real soon.

starting the week of thanks

2008-11-22T15:36:00.005-07:00

Yesterday was the inaugural snowriding day for me.

Beth's mom let her miss school, so we ventured up to A Basin for a day of riding the scrapies.

For those of you who are not familiar with my term "scrapies," it refers to patches of ice that when you carve over them make a scraping sound. I am terrified of that sound, and I sometimes wonder if that was the last sound I heard before I hit the ground and dislocated my elbow almost two years ago now. I don't really remember, but it seems likely. But anyway, scrapies aren't really fun, especially when that's what most of the mountain consists of. They just haven't gotten enough snow up there in the mountains yet. But it was still way good to be back on the board, and now I got my fix until the better snow comes. Hopefully really soon.

Speaking of injuries, I apparently have not shaken that soccer injury yet. I think it's been like two months now. I keep hurting my ankle in almost every game, for those of you who haven't been there to witness the scream and then the rolling around the bench in pain for the next 5-10 minutes that has occurred most Friday nights. But today I went to see Dr. Zuehlsdorff (the father of a couple of our 4Cs kids), and he gave me some pointers. Like practically overdosing on Aleve for the next week. Should be fun.

Oh and by the way, since I keep hurting my ankle I just play goalie instead. I've never played goalie in my entire life, but I'm actually kind-of enjoying it. Mark missed the first game I played and I overheard someone telling him that I was goalie, and he goes, "Tate? But she's scared of the ball!" True. But it wasn't as scary as I thought.

In other news, I love the Denver Rescue Mission. It's this organization that does all kinds of things to help the homeless and others in need. They're probably most well known for their facility in downtown Denver that serves three meals a day to the homeless.

But one of the coolest things DRM does is they have this rehab program for men who have struggled with addictions. The program has several phases that include working, classes and meeting with chaplains. They really put a lot of time and care into these men to get them out of addiction, out of debt and back into society.

This whole semester I have volunteered at DRM's Ministry Outreach Center, which is basically a clothing bank. I sort clothes, keep things tidy, entertain kids and help customers. And because most of the customers are Hispanic, I occasionally am called upon to translate, which is both exciting and slightly terrifying.

One of my favorite parts though has been getting to know the other guys that work there. Most of the men that work alongside me at the MOC are actually in the Rehab program, and working at the clothing bank is part of their phases. They are great guys, and some I would never have guessed were in the program. And this month I have gotten to see them more, as I led a team of students to The Crossing, DRM's housing facility, the past three Wednesday nights to serve dinner. The Crossing houses the men in the program, as well as families who have ended up homeless somehow. Here's a little video about that...

I love Denver Rescue Mission because they're not just about meeting immediate needs, but they want to help people really change their lives. I could go on and on about how much I love the work that DRM does, but I'll leave it at that for now, and with this one story from one of my mornings volunteering:

When kids come in, I'm usually the one to go find them a toy to play with and take home. One day a cute little boy came in with his mom, and he actually spoke pretty good English. But he found this flyer in the clothing room with a picture of a train on it. So he first went up to Eric, the guy who works the "check-out" and asked if he had a train. Eric told him that he'd have to ask me about that. So I go into the back to see if I can find anything close to a train, but all we had were some stuffed animals. So I came out and told him we didn't have any trains, at which point this little boy went in the middle of one of the clothing racks and cried. Oops. I think I crushed all his hopes and dreams. But he came out a few minutes later and was fine, so it's possible he was faking. Regardless, when he left we were back on good terms again. Phew.

Well tomorrow Mark and I head out to St. Louis for Thanksgiving week. Should be exciting being back in Kirkwood. I might even try to hit up the Turkey Day Game, even though it's at stupid Webster. Oh well.

Getting in the spirit, from this blog I see that I am thankful for snowriding, Bethany Gager, Dr. Zuehlsdorff, playing goalie, the Denver Rescue Mission, my limited Spanish conversation skills, my friends at DRM, the good attitudes of the students I took there, and that I get to go see my family and friends soon.

Oh and I'm also thankful for my sweet small group girls and our sleepover last night, even though I feel sick and exhausted today. Worth it.

Oh and also I'm thankful for my brother because it's his 29th birthday today.

Ryan Edward Tate, born 11/22/79, Thanksgiving Day. Now he likes to climb trees in the jungles of Seattle.

Ok I'm done.

class of '08

2008-11-14T10:45:00.004-07:00

Last night I received a great message on Facebook. This is what it said...

Anyways, when I am missing people in arvada, I often read Mark and your blogs. Usually there is a little shout out to people at 4c's. I thought I would give you some feedback.

-I am impressed with your ability to take something average (doing tae bo or running) and making it into something worth reading about.
- Sometimes I feel like I have to be a regular in your life to exactly know what you are talking about i.e. nike commercial, but you eventually fill-in the readers later on.
-Great job giving the plugs to people when you can, like when you commented on kayanne's radness on a side note.
-Your blog is evenly balanced with text, pictures and the casual video. I loved watching the nike video.
-Ease up on the HSM references.
-However, way to always bring everything back to, "in high school" because we all know that is really the only thing that matters in life... A person's success while in high school.
- I love your proper format of adding a quote from your brother.

keep up the good work, Tate. Hope all is well, and I will be awaiting your future entries.

And who might that be from?

Ah, Miss Rachel Larsen. She is da bomb. She may not have wanted that message posted, but I get really excited when I hear people are reading the blog, and even more so when they tell me good things about it. Made my night.

Anyway, Rachel graduated from Ralston Valley last year and was one of the 4Cs regulars. She's awesome. And awkward, which makes her even more awesome. I went to see her and Kim up at CU Boulder a few weeks ago and it was good to hang out again. I sure do miss those seniors from last year.

But tonight I get to go see another one!

Yep, Sophie and I are taking a field trip up to Colorado State University in Fort Collins to see Kristen. I'm pretty pumped. Oh, and I have no idea what was going on in that picture or why. But whatever, we're hanging out tonight and it will be sweet.

Rachel was right. I do tend to bring everything back to high school. Because it was awesome, duh. The other night I had a dream that I was a senior back at Kirkwood High School again, hanging out by my old locker (that I shared with Ellen) in the Senior Hall with I think Kristin Borgwald. Good times. I hope Heaven is kind-of like hanging out in the Senior Hall at KHS.

Well thank you Rachel, for your encouraging words to the tateblog. It is now time for me to move on with my day, which includes cleaning my bathroom. Gross.

pilates and tae bo

2008-11-06T17:12:00.006-07:00

So I've been trying to go running on a regular basis since like March now. Some weeks it goes well, some not so well. But I try. And I only run like 2 and a half miles, so it's not even a big deal. I pretty much am annoyed at myself after every run though that I can't run as fast as I did in high school. Oh well. Those days are over.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I wanted to run but it was real cold out, and I also didn't have a whole lot of time. So I decided it was time to try out one of the work-out videos I'd seen on the basement shelves forever. I grabbed the Pilates 20 minute full-body work out tape, took off the plastic seal that it's been in on the shelf for several years, and put it in.

Ever since then, I've been addicted to Pilates. And I got Sophie in it too, so now we do Pilates together in the basement with Mari Windsor. We like to make comments back to Mari and her little team of Pilate-ers a lot. Such as, "Shut-up Mari I can't reach any farther!" We've come to be good friends with Mari, Susannah, Dina, Brendali, Roger and Dagney. You're supposed to watch Dagney if you have any "delicate issues" or something like that, because she doesn't go full out. So we will tell Dagney that she's terrible every once in awhile because it makes us feel better about how bad and unflexible we are. And we don't like the other girls because they're too good. But we like Roger, even though it's still weird to us that he's one of the instructors.

Anyway, you've gotta see the tape sometime. It's an event for us.

Then today I wanted to run again but was too stressed out with school and didn't have much time AND it's cold. So I thought I would try a Tae Bo video I found in the basement. It turns out it's just a preview video, so it was really lame. But it did take me back, because the only other time I've done Tae Bo in my life was for weights class my senior year of high school.

That was the class I had with my friend Anthony Smith, who passed away in January. I will never forget watching my 6'8 somewhat lethargic basketball playing friend attempt to do Tae Bo. It was hilarious. If you knew him, picturing that image should make you laugh.

And while we're remembering Anthony again, I will also always remember him (and his brother Antoine) asking me "How you livin?" They taught me the correct response to that question is, "Large and in charge." Much more true for them than me, but that's okay. Much love to the Deez.

And much love to Mari Windsor and her Pilates crew. But not the same kind-of love. And not nearly as much.

Flying in Fear

2008-10-30T23:32:00.001-06:00

I went a large part of my life without realizing that I have a fear of heights.

But yes, I definitely have a fear of heights. You may be asking yourself why I am suspended in mid-air hanging by some ropes and screaming in this photo. The answer: High School Fall Retreat.

Not to be confused with High School Musical 3: Senior Year, which was released in theatres this past weekend.

We'll talk more about that later, don't even worry.

Anyway, this year we had Fall Retreat at Camp Timberline near Estes Park. In the past we've held it at the old Covenant Bible College in Windsor, CO, which has way less fun things to do and is in the middle of suburbs. But for some reason, our students thought it was the greatest place in the world. Like C.S. Lewis said, they'll be satisfied playing in the mud because they don't believe there's something better out there.

We got them out of the mud this year for sure. Not only is the camp actually in the mountains, but they have way cool things we got to do. And this is where my fear of heights came into play. First we did the zip line, which isn't bad because I've done a lot of them before.

Next was Gut Check. Great name. So first you sit on this ledge, which I have to say made me feel a lot better than standing.

Then they just push you off.

One of the girls working there said to me after I went, "I don't think I've ever heard someone scream before they were actually off the ledge." Yeah, well, I'm a sissy when it comes to falling off tall objects. And the scariest part of Gut Check was that you sort-of bounced in the air on the rope (like bungee jumping I guess), so there were moments when I just felt like I was floating/falling. Terrifying.

The scariest moment came the next day though.

We moved on to the Leap of Faith, where two people stand on that platform up there (that's Kayanne with me, she's rad), and then leap for this trapeze. Now I kind-of waited until the end and thought I could just not do this one and no one would notice. But of course, everyone told me I had to do it. So Kayanne volunteered to go again as my buddy. Just climbing up to the platform was scary enough.

But then came time to jump. This is my biggest fear. They have one of these things at Crooked Creek that I did my senior year of high school and I think I practically cried. So Kayanne jumped first. I knew there was no chance I was jumping for a trapeze, so now I just had to get off that platform somehow. So how did I do it?

I closed my eyes and pretended I was jumping into a pool. I believe I said something like, "I love the pool!" and went for it. Now we need a close-up of those faces.

There it is. Classic. I honestly think I am saying the word "pool" in this picture. So there was only one event of terror left.

The Silencer. Let me tell you, I was anything but silent. On this exciting event a team of people pulls a rope to elevate you to maybe like 60 or 70 feet in the air, which is about where I am in that first photo at the top. And then, guess what? You release...

Now I must say, while I did scream all the way up, and all the way down, and then some more after that, this one was awesome. Because not only do you get to feel like you're flying for a few minutes, you have this incredible view in the background. Sweetness.

Fall Retreat did include a few other things besides swinging on ropes. We had some great worship services feature the Senior Pastor Dave Sherrer as our speaker, some great times of talking about life and God and dogs and any other tangent you can think of, and of course, Date Night.

Date Night is a High Point Fall Retreat tradition, and one of my favorite moments of the year. We put all the girls' names in a hat and each boy picks one (or in this year's case, some pick two). Then they have to go knock on the door of the girl cabin, ask for their date, and walk with arms linked to dinner. Oh not to mention, they all must have a photo.

Oh Sophie. She's growing up so fast. Anyway, watching the students go on imaginary dates for ten minutes is more entertaining that I would have thought.

So that was Fall Retreat '08. It's one for the books. Whatever that means.

And then, as we said we would, Sophie and I, along with Steph, went to see at 10:10pm show of High School Musical 3 about an hour after we returned from Fall Retreat. As for my review of the movie...it was awesomely ridiculous. I can't help it, I just love these movies. And the soundtracks.

I think there's also sentimental value there. I still remember the fall of '05 when Dani and I watched the Disney Channel all the time, and they started showing previews for the first High School Musical. We were pumped. But then it came out in January while I was in New Orleans without TV (besides watching SNL DVDs constantly). I still remember my KU people coming down in March and Jen and Dani introducing me to the soundtrack. And I remember watching the VHS tape that my roommates taped for me when I returned in April that was missing the first scene and song of the movie. And I remember how much Emily loved the slow version What I Been Looking For. And I remember how I watched it over and over again.

And I remember how Emily and I took two guys we barely knew on a double date that ended with watching that movie. It also included a visit to Quick Trip and the batting cages--best date ever in my opinion.

So, I think that's why I love it. It's cheesy and hilarious and reminds me of my love for my Kansas boos.

Well it's late, and I still never got around to discussing the glory of that Nike commercial. I just keep watching it over and over again.

Oh wait, one last story. So, claim to fame, my brother used to play baseball against Ryan Howard.

You may recognize him from winning the World Series this year. Anyway, the dude graduated from Lafayette High School (same conference as Kirkwood) in St. Louis in 1998, the same year as my baseball-playing brother (also named Ryan and almost as good). So here's a little story from when my brother, as well as Mark, played against Ryan Howard (World Series champion) in freshmen baseball:

I played against Howard all through high school (including American Legion). You should ask Mark (I don’t know if he remembers, but he should) about the home run that Howard hit against us freshman year. We were playing at Lafayette on their secondary field, which had no fence in right field. Tim Miller hung a curve ball to him that Ryan blasted as far as I had ever seen a ball hit at that point in my career. Tim Adams was playing right field and had to chase this ball down which just kept rolling. Hilarity all around. The best part was how much crap we game Tim Miller afterwards. And he kept getting so mad at us and blaming Havener for calling a curve ball.

Gar-man will probably appreciate that story the most. Sorry for all the Kirkwood names for those of you not privileged enough to have been raised in that great town.

Ryan Howard may have won the World Series, but Ryan Tate is dominating on his Seattle rec-league softball team. They even have a web site, but I forgot what it is, so you'll have to check back later for that.

Fate

2008-10-26T23:49:00.004-06:00

I am still in recovery from a great high school fall retreat Thursday and Friday, and am in the midst of super-busy seminary times, so I need to go to bed like now. But I am writing this now for one reason.

As ridiculous as it may sound, this Nike commercial gives me goosebumps.

I don't even know who either of those players are, but when the one guy jumps up at the end and gives the other guy a good game helmet tap, I could almost cry.

Maybe in the next blog I'll try to figure out how Nike found a way to reach me to the soul in a way I thought only God, Narnia and Will Smith could.

kingry shout-out

2008-10-16T16:23:00.007-06:00

During in this past week, in some times of great procrastination, I made a few updates to the tateblog. You may notice them over on the side there. As I wrote that little description of the history of the tateblog, it made me really miss the days when I was better at it. I only write like once a month now, and it doesn't even compare to the college days. I think my life was more exciting then. Anyway, I now want to get better about tateblogging. We'll see how long it lasts.

To start this one out, I will now post a picture I meant to put up a long time ago of the first person who will read this blog, probably.

There he is, Mr. Joe Kingry. This is from Peru. He totally beats out anyone of being the most faithful blog reader now. I'm not even sure if that dummy Jub Jub reads this anymore. So disappointing. Although it should be noted that the other day, Joe "found the end of the internet," so maybe my blog isn't actually that special.

Speaking of Joe, I love hanging out with the Kingry family.

They're great. Plus Gwyn is my new BFF, even though we don't have a facebook photo together yet.

Yeah, she's cute and has a lot of hair. And is one of the best babies I've ever experienced. I don't think I've really even heard her cry yet.

I get to hang out with the Kingrys on Sunday nights for Amazing Race, which is entertaining although I'm still bitter that Mark and I are not on it. Also I like to watch college football there on Saturdays. Gwyn is a big CU fan. And by Gwyn I mean Joe. He might not invite me over again if I make any comments about Saturday's game, but let's just say the team with the fictional bird mascot won. Holla.

In other news, I really want to go see this movie called "Call + Response," but I think I'm too busy to see it in the two weeks it is showing in Denver. So if any of you can go see it, you should. It's a documentary about human trafficking. The president of International Justice Mission is in it, and I love that organization. They are da bomb in terms of bringing justice to the oppressed. I want to vote for them for president.

Finally, I just have to say that the other day, when I was once again procrastinating, I started looking at old pictures on the facebook and then missing college a lot. Here were two pictures in particular I liked:

CRU Halloween party '05.

Relief trip to Minden, LA, my birthday weekend '05. Clearly Lucas is struggling to hold me up. That face is priceless.

But what's new? I'm always missing college times. I can't help it if I had the most bestest friends ever.

OK, back to reading in the Denver Seminary library.

my best friend's wedding

2008-10-10T16:09:00.006-06:00

I'm currently sitting on my couch on a dreary-looking cold fall Friday afternoon in Colorado. Enough description? Oh, and I'm watching an episode of 7th Heaven. Classic. I remember the days watching this at Kentucky Place with Melissa and Danielle and whoever else was hanging around. It's a terrible show, but oh so entertaining.

I have a soccer game tonight. A few weeks ago I hurt my ankle in a game (I tried to block a really hard kicked ball), and it keeps getting rehurt. We'll see how tonight goes.

I'm getting really excited for Thanksgiving. Why? Because the following people will be on Rochdale (besides those that always live there): Mark, Julie, Bill, Kyle, Ellie, MACKIE!! (Maggie), Grandma Doris, Mark's new lady Kara, and Angie. Yeah!! It's still over a month away though.

Oh snap a pregnant girl just stole Matt's car! (7th Heaven. Gotta love this stuff.)

And now for the good stuff.

Once upon a time, I moved onto the 4th floor of a huge dorm called McCollum Hall in my first year at KU. At some point in that first month of school, I wandered down the boys' wing and met a funny kid named Steve Sweat. You couldn't always find him though, and he was hard to talk to because he was usually sitting in his closet with the door shut talking to a girl on the phone.

One day Steve walked into my room and asked for a ride to Dillon's, and our best friendship began.

Steve was my best friend for the first two years of college, and we were nearly inseparable. After that we kind-of branched out a little (and actually made other friends), but we always stayed tight.

Unless you were ever around us in college, it's kind-of hard to explain the relationship, but Steve was and is a huge blessing to my life. And just a couple weeks ago...

Little Steve got married! He's all grown up. I'm so proud. It's still kind-of hard to believe though. One of the best parts was getting to be reunited with all the KU peeps.

Yep there we are. Minus Justin and some others who were not present for this photo shoot. Anyway, it was a great night, and I'm happy for Steven and Emma Sweat!

Overall though, I loved loved LOVED getting to see my boos.

I miss them lots. And the next time we'll be together is...

The wedding of these two lovely people. January 10. Get excited.

everything new

2008-09-01T20:32:00.003-06:00

You know what? I love summer, but I also love fall. Mostly because I get to feel like a high schooler again.

You see, the fall means kids starting school again and having new classes and new experiences and I get to talk to them all about it. But also it means fall sports are in full swing. The other day I put into my calendar all the games I want to go to: football, freshmen softball, jv soccer, varsity volleyball, etc. I mostly go to these games because my youth group kids play on the team, but also to remember the excitement of high school.

This past Friday was a perfect example of my love of fall. And of high school. First off, I showed up at Ralston Valley, the high school that a bunch of our kids go to as they were getting out of school just to say hi. I love the look on their face when they see me in the hall. Simply because I am out of church context they are like ten times more excited to see me, so that's sweet. Most of them say, what are you doing here? And some of them say, you're not in high school anymore Tate, get over it. Whatever.

So I hang out there talking to kids for awhile, and Bethany decides to just stick with me instead of going home. So then we go pick up Cori and go over to the JV soccer game of one of the boys in our church. Plus, the weather was awesome. Anyway, then Beth and I grab some dinner with some other girls from the church and head on to the Ralston Valley vs. Pomona football game. We know kids from both schools. I am instantly reminded that football games are merely social events as I was only able to watch about three plays in the midst of being dragged all around the stadium by my freshmen girls. But I loved it. Most people thought I was one of them I think.

And then after the game, we sat around in the stands until the place nearly cleared out, just like we used to do at Kirkwood High School. It was sweet.

Speaking of high school, here's what I would have looked like had I been in high school in the 50s/60s/70s:

Yeah that's terrifying.

Nice hairdo.

Even better.

And last but not least, how much does this look like Melanie's actual yearbook picture from high school:

Scary, isn't it? We'll see if Mel can scan us her actual photo for comparison soon.

Oh also, Ev had her baby!!

Gwyneth Annelle Kingry, born on August 28.

The new happy family. Love them.

colorado is confused

2008-08-16T10:37:00.017-06:00

Yeah that's right. Sometimes I feel like there's things the state of Colorado just doesn't get. The confusion the past couple days has been that it has poured down rain and the temperature is only in the 50s. And it is AUGUST. Come on now. It should still be blazing hot summer weather. I'm sure that weather will come back in a few days, but I am annoyed. I wore jeans and a sweater yesterday and I was not happy about it.

Anyway, we're gonna move on from that. So all the kids have been going back to school this week, and some next week, so summer is basically over. I can't believe how fast it comes and goes every year. I mean I don't start class until the 27th, and in fact I still have one last vacation to Florida coming up, so that's good for me.

I guess the last thing I wrote about was Peru, so let's have a brief run down of how I spent the rest of the summer.

I saw a lot of movies. My favorite was obviously Prince Caspian, but I also really like The Dark Knight and Hancock and Kung Fu Panda. Wall-E...not that great.

A bunch of my Kansas boos came out to visit for Linsie's wedding.

Cloud Nine represented. (That's what I think Emjo named that dress a long time ago.)

I loved getting to hang out with all of them again, it had been way too long. Also, Jen and Alan are engaged now! Sweet.

I played a lot of soccer. A couple games on the indoor team, but I also played on an outdoor team with people from seminary. That team and league are so good though, and they make me feel like I've never touched a soccer ball in my life. Still fun.

Got to go to Seattle and play tourist with the fam...

Pike's whatever market place.

Up at the top of the Space Needle, which I accidentally called the Sears Tower like three times when I talked about my trip.

Here we are at some waterfall. Yep, that's Jeff G.

That's just funny.

Cute family photo. This was right after I downed about 20 pounds of crab legs at brunch. Best moment of vacation.

So I came home from Seattle and about two days later headed off on our High School lake camping trip in Glendo, Wyoming. Some of the most memorable moments of this trip actually occurred on our car ride there, thanks to my girls Kristen, Kelsey and Bethany, and of course, Smiley.

But here's a nice sunset.

I tried to put in a video of Mark water skiing, but I can never figure out how to upload those stupid things. So here's a picture instead.

He's good, but I'm still not quite sure where he learned how to do that.

So that was a fun trip. Then I came for about two days again before I left on my backpacking trip, which was actually a class for seminary. Awesome, I know. It was pretty intimidating because I was like the least experienced person in terms of backpacking, but I still made it.

This is my new friend Allison. She's pretty awesome.

I am partially giving a thumbs up because I'm excited to go, but at this point I think I was mostly excited that I had figured out (with help) how to pack and wear that backpack.

First we did some rock climbing.

Challenging and fun.

Then we did rappelling.

Absolutely terrifying.

Then we headed out on the trail.

We mostly were just hiking around this valley, so it wasn't like a constant uphill hike to the top of a 14er or something. It just looked really cool. Like Narnia.

These parts made me the most nervous, because I thought for sure that pack was gonna pull me over into the freezing cold water.

And I made it all the way out. Barely.

Here's the whole group at the end of the trail.
It was a great group. I really enjoyed getting to know them and hiking with them and battling the rain with them.

The trip overall was really sweet. I learned a lot, which is good considering it was a class, but also it was just a good experience. We got to enjoy some beautiful parts of God's creation and just be away from life for awhile. Yeah it was sweet.

Oh and then a couple days after that, we had a really cool baptism service and I got to help baptize a few of my girls.

It was really cool to be a part of that. I love those girls. I mostly loved that they all wanted to be out there to support each other.

And since then I've played with Cait and watched the Olympics. But I just watched a China vs. China women's badmitton match, so I think that's my cue that it's time to do something else for now. Like go running in the rain. Fun.

The Magical World of Peru

2008-07-16T16:40:00.001-06:00

Well I've been home for about two weeks now from my trip to Peru, but I'm still not quite sure what or how to write about the experience. I usually at least have some idea of what I want to say when I sit down to write these things, but I honestly have not thought about this tate-blog at all. All I know is that Joe has been waiting for it since the day we returned, so I guess I better try to make it good.

Most of you know that we went to Peru to help out a church that had suffered a lot of damage from an earthquake that hit several cities in Peru last August. We were in the city of Ica, Peru. Part of the cost of our trip went to purchasing building supplies to rebuild the second floor of one of the church buildings.

The reason the second floor is so important is that this church, much like the church we worked at last year in El Salvador, serves as a center for a Compassion project. We were essentially helping to build more classroom space so that the project can help more children in the area who are in need. So that's sweet.

And this community was very much in need. Most of the families living there already had it difficult before the earthquake, and since then shared with us that they were pretty much operating in survival mode. Many families could barely live each day with the money they made, much less think about rebuilding their homes.

Seeing all of this poverty caused a lot of the students on the team to either start thinking about or rethink what our response should be. If nothing else, just being in that community put our life here in the states and everything we have into perspective. Much of what the team struggled through were ideas I had thought a lot about last summer, and I have still never come to a conclusion, which I think is ok. I think the restlessness is good, because I'm pretty sure God is not comfortable with what is going on in the world.

I do know one thing--this trip again reminded me that joy in life is not a matter of how much money or possessions one has. It's about delighting in the Lord. Psalm 37. Check it out.

Anyway, I sure did jump into the big thoughts first, so let's go back now and throw in some trip details. Cool.

The church had hired some professionals to do most of the building, which I don't blame them for because I could not see our team of 27 mostly unskilled teenagers being able to make a reliable structure. So our "work" at the church consisted of four things. First, we did a lot of moving supplies up to the work site.

Mostly we passed up bricks, as you can see in this photo. But we also carried buckets of sand and bags of cement up that terrifying ramp. The first time I carried a bucket up that thing, my fear of heights kicked in and I had a slight freak out moment at the top. After that, I either only carried bags of stuff on my back (still scary) or just shoveled stuff.

Another job was tying rebar.

That guy standing behind Kim was the foreman, and he could tie that whole thing of rebar in the time it took like seven of us to do one (and not as well as him I'll add), but it still gave us a chance to contribute.

A team of students also started painting the bottom floor of classrooms.

Well, they also ended up painting each other a little. I just don't have a picture of the actual painting of the room.

And of course, our most important job was probably playing with all the kids.

They were great, of course. When our bus arrived at the church, a group of about ten little girls stood at the bus door to give each person a big smile and a big hug when we got off the bus. They were so excited for us to be there, and we were excited to spend time with them.

Most of our team really connected with the kids and had a lot of fun with them. I definitely enjoyed playing with them as well, but didn't quite make the same kinds of friendships I had the year before in El Salvador, and that was fine. My role on this trip became more about helping everyone speak Spanish, which is challenging enough.

I think my favorite part of the trip was having fun with our team.

So many funny moments, I wouldn't even know where to start. Plus we all the got to experience the amazing Machu Picchu together, and that was awesome.

So here's some pictures that just highlight a few more of the great moments of the trip.

One day in Ica, we went to a cool lagoon/sand dune place called Haucachina. And we got to try out sandboarding. It was pretty sweet, but really exhausting because of the whole lack of chair lift thing. So I only got to take a few runs because each one took so much effort. I felt awesome though, I'll tell you that much.

I got caught by the cameras several times taking naps. But man they were awesome. And I found out that if you laid down on the ground, a nice lady from the church would bring you a mattress. God bless that woman.

This goat seems like a pet but will soon provide a meal for the pastor's family. He has no idea what's coming.

We called this little girl diablo (it means devil in Spanish), because she seemed really sweet at first but then went crazy. This photo was taken just before she tried to attack Joe.

Smiley's hat is so amazing that no one notices how huge my hair is.

Here we are in Cuzco, taking a very touristy picture with a llama. I paid about 50 cents for that photo. Worth it.

Now the rest of these are just a few photos from the great Machu Picchu.

We took a hike up to this view. First of all, the hike was intense. Second of all, it was beautiful up there. Like Narnia. If you look between our heads, that's Machu Picchu in the background. You can click on it to make it bigger.

Jumping on top of the ruins. Fun.

Inca Kola. That stuff was awesome in Chile when we only drank it once a week at the Peruvian restaurant. We had it at every meal in Peru so I think it's lost some of its charm.

Yep that's sweet.

So that was pretty much the trip. It was truly a great experience. I want to say thank you to all of you who supported us, whether financially or prayerfully or both. Thank you for joining in on the work God was doing.

As a final note, I'll tell you one of my favorite moments of the trip. Our last night in Ica, the church had a service to honor us and say thanks. During this service, the pastor's wife spoke to us briefly. The comment she made that struck me the most was that she said she would miss having all of us around the church everyday, because she just loved our presence. With those comments she started crying. And this is a woman that we rarely had conversations with, mostly because she was usually working on feeding us. But it was so cool to me that she felt so blessed simply by us being there and playing with the kids that she cares so much about.

And that reminded me of how God just merely wants us to BE with him and is not so concerned with what we can DO for him. That's it.

Hasta luego...

will smith said it all

2008-06-09T16:45:00.012-06:00

I LOVE summer.

Last night at church Ev told this story about Rachel Larsen calling summer "magical," and everyone laughed because Rachel Larsen is just a magical person herself I guess. But the more I thought about, the more I realized she is right. It IS magical.

I mean it for sure helped that the summer kicked off with Narnia, but it also just feels so free. I can go running at 7pm, I can take junior high girls on a random adventure to the mall an hour before closing on a Wednesday night, I can go on trips, I can read books, I can lay on the couch and watch Full House after breakfast, I can take naps, I can watch old movies like The Bourne Identity and Sister Act 2, I can see Narnia three times in the theatre in the first three weeks it is out.

Basically, I have the time to just enjoy life instead of having every second of my day filled. Not to mention I love love love warm to hot weather. But we all know this about me already.

So in Angie Wysocki style, here is a brief rundown of my life since my semester ended in picture form:

The parents came to visit and we did some big-time touristy things in Colorado Springs. Wait that picture is from Estes Park.

Yeah this one is in the Springs at Garden of the Gods. We also did Pike's Peak (way up there) and Royal Gorge (way down there). My favorite was Royal Gorge because it reminded me of Narnia. But yeah we just saw a lot of stuff that makes you go, nice work God, love what you've done with the place.

Then the parents left and the Angie came. And we went to a million or so graduation parties. Our little Kristen was one of them.

She's like part of the family too.

Angie organized a little memorial day thingy, which I only half remember because I was still recovering from a junior high lock-in the night before. All I know is it was raining and cold but for some reason we still went outside and made s'mores.

Then I flew back to Chicago with Angie to eat Dunkin Donuts (three times)...

Ride the El downtown (during which I was constantly referencing The Fugitive, which then coincidentally was on TV a couple days later)...

And hang out with the Van Rossums...

Yeah we couldn't really get their attention in this one because they were really into the end of The Fugitive. But then we got playing with the Mac Photobooth...

Kyle looks awesome here.

And Ellie looks beyond awesome here. Oh wait, speaking of Ellie looking awesome...

Yep. They're great. My favorite thing Kyle did was call Maggie (the dog). It is the clearest word he says, and he says it loud. Also he like shooshed Julie away once because he just wanted to get Maggie all by himself. That was really funny.

So now I'm back, and now we've started VBS. I'm co-leading the video team and it's pretty fun. But I have not gotten nearly enough sleep lately and I should have been napping right now but I didn't.

Oh, and in case you're confused of the title, one of Will Smith's first hits as a rapper was called "Summertime." The song probably does not relate to my life at all but I love Will Smith and I didn't want to have some unoriginal cliche title about the summer. Ok bye.

For Aslan!

2008-05-29T21:37:00.001-06:00

Time to resuscitate the tateblog. I just learned how to spell the word "resuscitate." Awesome.

Learning. The reason the tateblog has been somewhat non-existent the past few months. It's good learning though. I survived my first semester of seminary, and as much as I complained about being busy and stressed out, I'd say it was worth it. And now I just want to keep learning. Weird, right? I have a list of like 10 books I want to read this summer now that I don't have homework. Granted, half of those are books from the Chronicles of Narnia, but whatever.

NARNIA.

For those of you that don't know, I have a slight obsession with The Chronicles of Narnia. I seriously love it. There's just something about it that I can't really put into words, but C.S. Lewis is a genius.

I was not one of those kids that grew up reading these books. I just read the Berenstein Bears, duh. My first reading of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was in my sophomore year of college, but I just thought it was another children's book. Then the movie came out in December 2005. I remember it well because I saw the midnight showing in Olathe, KS with Micah Thomas, Alan Fogleman and Linsie Eriksen. That group alone would obviously be memorable, not to mention it was like 10 degrees outside and Alan's windows were freezing on the inside. It was intense. The movie AND the whole situation.

I did like the movie, but my obsession didn't come until later. I think it grew when I moved to Colorado and started snowboarding in the mountains and I felt like I was in Narnia. Seriously, go in the snowy mountains sometime and find a quieter place and watch the snow fall and look how much it looks like Narnia. It's awesome.

So granted I was pretty pumped when the second one was coming around. When I first saw Prince Caspian a couple weeks ago, I liked it, but as I kept thinking about it for the following few days, I loved it. And now, I can't stop talking about it.

Just looking at that picture makes me smile. I mean yeah, it had a couple lame moments, but the incredible story was not lost. And I must say, I LOVE Edmund.

And I don't mean I love him the way 13-year-old girls might love him. I mean he is just all-around amazing. Yeah, he was a dummy in the first movie, but he was by far the best character and overall best aspect of Prince Caspian. If you haven't seen it, you should, and you'll see what I mean.

So now I am just trying to figure out why I love this movie so much. I don't usually love fantasy-type movies, and I'm not that into children's books. But I think two words sum it all up for me: adventure and power. Narnia (and the Bourne Identity too, but we're not talking about that here) brings out this desire I think I have for like great excitement and adventure in life. Legit? Maybe. And also I really do think the power that I see in that movie is such a vivid picture of the power of God. And for the sake of not wanting to sound too cheesy or overspiritual, and because I have a difficult time expressing my thoughts on this topic more, I'll leave it at that.

And my final thought is that Peter looks like Micah Thomas and it weirded me out the whole movie.

I meant for all of that to be a short lead-in to the fact that I am still trying to learn things this summer by reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Spanish. Then I'm gonna read the rest of the series in English. Also, Kristen and I plan to watch English movies dubbed over in Spanish in preparation for Peru. We started with Friday Night Lights and that's as far as we've gotten.

But we better get moving because we leave for Peru three weeks from today!!! I'm so pumped.

I think in this blog I also meant to write more about the fact that I'm in Chicago (ish) right now hanging out with Angie and the Van Rossums, but that will have to come later because this is for sure long enough.

For Aslan!

let's hear some praises people.

2008-04-26T17:32:00.007-06:00

So I'm nearing the end of another epicly long and challenging seminary paper, and I should be working right now, but also I thought it was 6:30 and I just looked at the clock and it's only 5:30. Holler! But I just had to share a few thoughts to the tate blog before moving on.

First, I got a 93.5% in my first epic paper this semester. I was shocked. That one was fifteen pages, and I spent 20 hours on that thing just in the three days before it was due. I got a much bigger head start on this one, so I'd say I have about 7 more hours of fully concentrated work left. The key words there are fully concentrated. I can't tell you how easily distracted I am getting.

I just now decided to write that title up there, because lately things have seemed pretty rough in life. Like there's been some big health issues with some people in the church, there's always some tought student issues, and I've personally been pretty stressed out and half the time really missing Kansas and the other half of the time just wanting to be in high school again! Plus winter just keeps dragging on at times as it snowed today. Ridiculous. So anyway, this brief blog is just some cool stuff lately that is exciting. And I wouldn't say a praise the Lord moment, (or PTL for by abrev. friends) because I guess that should be every moment. So all that to say, I just love moments like these...

Today we had this 5-hour confirmation class retreat which was actually really fun and I had a great time with the kids. Just me and 13 8th graders. Near the end of the day we were talking about the fruits of the spirit (from Galatians 5), and the kids got in groups and they had to act out a situation in which they would use those fruits.

So this group of boys had "goodness," and after awhile they were like, "can someone define goodness?" Now for my huge paper I am still trying to write, I just did a whole study on the word goodness in a different chapter of the Bible. And even though it was a different Greek word in this instance, it was still cool to be able to go over to them and give them a kind-of deeper understanding of what I've learned about word goodness. I didn't even realize how sweet that was until a little while later. So all that to say, as hard as seminary is, it is definitely already paying off, and that is awesome.

Also, the other night I got to play kickball. And it was SWEET!!!! I just really love kickball. And it was an incredibly beautiful warm Fusion night, and so relaxed too.

Dang. I love kickball. Especially when you get to play with a view like this in the background:

Also two weeks ago at Fusion we had a "celebrity golf tournament" and I got to dress up like Nelly, so that is always a good night to me. And go ahead and click on that picture to enlarge it and see the awesome Nelly-like hat I created for the evening.

Not to mention Amanda Stooke was Richard Simmons. Yeah, that picture is definitely a keeper.

Well, time to go get some din din and then get cracking on that paper again. Praise the Lord for 20 page research papers, because they sure do make you learn a lot.

marry me miracle mario

2008-04-16T17:30:00.008-06:00

It's beautiful, isn't it? But don't be deceived by the title, I still love Brandon Rush too.

I don't really know what else to say about the fact that the Jayhawks are national champions. It's a moment I've been waiting for since I attended my first game in Allen Fieldhouse in 2001. And one I've especially waited for since 2003 when stupid Carmelo Anthony and Syracuse beat us in the final game.

Man we were close that year. This picture of Melissa and me was taken the day of that game, because as soon as it started, all the RAs were on lockdown in the dorms. People almost quit their jobs over the game that year.

Despite the fact I didn't get to enjoy the game from Lawrence or San Antonio, we still had a pretty good group.

Everyone was cheering hardcore for Kansas, so that's all that mattered. We were all on our feet in those last couple minutes, and I think I stopped breathing for a second when Mario made that shot. Unreal. A few minutes earlier, I thought for sure we had lost it.

But I didn't have Bill Self standing next to me saying, "Believe! Believe!" Apparently it worked.

So anyway, I'm happy.

One of the best parts of the whole thing was all the text messages and facebook comments I got congratulating me. They really made me realize that I'm pretty much the reason we won. Duh.

In conclusion, there is one KU player in particular that thinks I am awesome (besides all of those ones I am married to). Just see for yourself:

Yeah, that's Tyrel Reed, the next Kirk Hinrich of KU basketball. I think he must have heard about me from reading the tateblog...

(or maybe gary wysocki interviewed him. whatever.)

reflections of a busy life

2008-03-06T23:38:00.001-07:00

A year ago at this time I was pretty bored. It's CSAP time here in Colorado, when all the kids are taking those lame standardized tests that now apparently actually mean something to their future and aren't just school assessments. Weird. I loved this week last year because kids weren't in school much so I got to hang out with them a lot, seeing as I didn't really have a job or much responsibility and I slept late and I was bored.

I feel like I am 100% busier now, a year later. Not only do I have a 30-hour a week job, I also go to seminary three days a week and have homework again. Stupid homework. Yes, it's interesting, and yes, I'm learning, but it's still work. And it's weird getting used to again.

But seminary is going well so far I'd say. I really feel like I learn something in every class and every homework assignment, for reals. Plus I have this sweet professor named Craig Blomberg who is really quirky and entertaining. A few days ago in class, this 50-something year old incredible, renowned biblical scholar used the phrase "OMG" in class. It was awesome.

The commute gets annoying. It's a good 35 or 40 minutes. But I recently got "The Bible Experience," which is an audio bible read by a bunch of famous black people like Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Cuba Gooding, Jr. So, needless to say, I love it. And I like listening to it in the car a lot. So since I'm in the car a lot, it works out.

I don't love seminary though. I mean, it's still school. But I'm only just beginning, and as time goes on and I start to see hoe much I'm getting out of it, I bet I'll like it more.

In case you're wondering, I'll tell you. I haven't decided yet what I'm doing with my life next year. Deal with it. I am, and my brain hurts trying to make decisions. I look forward to the day when God puts me in a place of settling. And not having to make decisions every year.

I've been snowboarding a lot lately.

Yeah, I pretty much love it. It sort-of ruined my winter last year (you know, the whole dislocated elbow thing), but I got back on the horse as they say. The beginning of the season was rough because I was always terrified, but somewhere in the middle there I got a lot of confidence back. That's all it took. That picture is Kristen Felten, Rachel Larsen, me, Sarah Zuehlsdorff and her brother Ben jumping in the background. We all went snowriding together one day and it was sweeeeetness. Even though Sarah is better than me and she's only 14.

Here's my soccer team:

We're awesome. We either destroy teams or they destroy us. So you know, it's great competition. No wait, it's not really, but it's still incredibly fun. And I almost always get cool bruises or kicked in the face with the ball. I love it. I also play soccer sometimes on Thursday mornings at 7am, which shows me I must really love soccer because there's not much else I would willingly get up that early to do.

Speaking of soccer, this week I started helping coach an 8th grade team at Faith Christian Academy. I ran a drill today and felt really cool. Even though this team is awesome and probably knows more than I do. Oh well, it's still fun.

Oh yeah, so a couple weeks ago was FacePlant, our Junior High ski retreat.

I'm pretty sure it was the best weekend I've had in awhile. I had so much fun hanging out with the kids, going snowboarding and being entertained by these boys:

I am mostly referring to the two on the ends, my friends Jacob Stooke and Max Neale (I write their whole names in hope that it will show up if they ever google themselves). Although that 8th grade boy they're holding, Mitch, is pretty entertaining as well. But Jake and Max together get really funny and I laughed a lot with them.

Plus these girls are cool:

Yeah, it's weekends like that one that make me love what I do, and feel like I'm on the right track, even if it is frustrating and difficult at times.

So throw in some American Idol, KU basketball and my growing excitement for going to Peru this summer, and that's pretty much my life. And when I write it all out like that, I realize how sweet my life is and how blessed I really am.

Now in honor of Bill Vogler, pastor of Grace EPC in Lawrence, KS and one of my heroes (seriously), and because I just studied the book of Jude this week, I will close with a benediction:

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

If you would like, it would now be appropriate to sing the doxology. I know Emily Ashcraft is at least singing it in her head.

in memory of the deez

2008-02-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

For everything there is a season. We’ve been over that before, but how easily I forget that when times get a little rough and I just want them to be easy.

On Monday, January 28, my good friend Anthony Smith passed away, just a day before his 25th birthday.

He had been diagnosed with Leukemia almost three years ago, but I had no idea something could happen to him so suddenly. As far as I know, he had been doing fine. But the Friday before he died, he went to the hospital as something with his treatments had gone wrong and he was not doing well. And I guess he was just never able to pull back out of it.

I met Anthony and his twin brother Antoine in kindergarten. We were all in Mrs. Mugge’s class at Keysor Elementary. The twins were part of the desegregation program in St. Louis, which means they were inner-city kids who rode the bus to public schools in the suburbs everyday. All that to say, we weren’t hang-out-after-school friends, but I still remember sitting at the same table with them (we shared the end of the alphabet bond) using those big kindergarten-sized crayons, thinking they were so cool. The crayons AND the twins. He's the one on the left. I'm on the far right. Cute.

We went together through elementary and middle school as friends, but not great friends. I just saw one of our middle school teachers actually, who remembered that the twins always called me Tater Tot. They probably weren’t the only ones, but they were the loudest.

My sophomore year of high school is when Anthony and I became actual friends I would say, and not just kindergarten buddies. We started hanging out with some of the same people, and all of a sudden we were back to the days of sharing crayons at the big round tables. That summer we both went to Young Life camp, and after that, we were tight.

Yep that's Castaway. I miss those times.

Anthony was one of the nicest guys I knew, seriously. He didn’t care who you were really, he would say hi to anyone. He didn’t really see those lines of popularity, I think he just saw people. He could also always make me laugh. A lot. I specifically remember a good amount of time in high school that he was obsessed with the word bamboozled, and I thought it was the funniest thing every time he said that.

Let’s not forget he was bomb at basketball. The best player on the team our senior year. But my claim to fame was that I could still beat him and Antoine in a game of knock-out. Their dunking skills didn’t help as much there. I remember one of the reasons I decided not to go out for varsity basketball my junior year was because I had way too much fun being the boy’s team’s biggest fan.

We called him Deez. I don’t know where it came from, but that’s what I called him. And if I were to see him today, I think I would still call him that. He was a great friend. He was loyal. He was inspiring. I think one of the last times I saw him was my junior year of college when Loyola came to play UMKC in basketball. He was on the team and got my friend and me front row seats. I mean the place was less than a quarter full probably, but it was awesome. I remember sitting at that game and thinking how proud I was of little Anthony all grown up, and how thankful I was to have him as a friend.

Some of the best moments with the Deez came my senior year, when he and Chris Jackson and I had weights together. The two of them were my best friends in the class, so I was a little conflicted when we had to find spotting partners that were around the same size as us. Anthony was far from my size at about 6’8, but he and Chris and I still broke the rules half the time and formed a three-buddy system of spotting. It still makes me laugh thinking of the two of them standing over me while I bench pressed about 50 pounds, and then me being completely helpless when it was Anthony’s turn.

Yeah, he's not small.

When I found out about his death, one of the first things that came to my mind was a story I heard about a comment he made at Young Life camp once. He was in a cabin time, and their cabin was talking about believing in God. And he said something like, and please excuse the language, “I don’t know why you wouldn’t believe in God, heaven’s gonna be the shit.” Maybe not the exact words of the Bible, but he got the point.

I flew home for the funeral. It was a stressing debate of whether I should go, but I’m so glad I did. It was a quick weekend of a lot of emotion. Sadness in the fact that he is really gone finally hitting me, but joy in all the time I did get to spend with him.

The funeral service was half smiles and half crying I would say. The hardest part was when Antoine spoke. The two of them spent almost every day of their lives together, and I just barely have a glimpse of Antoine’s pain as he now has to go on in life without his best friend and brother here on earth. There’s sorrow in the death of someone so young, but even more so I realized that day, when a twin is left behind. So as you read this, I’d ask that you say a prayer for Antoine, as he will need the strength of God more than ever as he copes with the loss of his brother.

Anthony’s death brought people “out of the woodworks” as one of my friends said, and also united all kinds of different people. I took joy in the fact that I got to be there in person to give Antoine big hug and to reunite with several friends I have barely spoken to since high school. That was also hard because this wasn’t really the circumstance to have big catching up conversations, and I was in and out of St. Louis so fast I barely feel like I was there. But nonetheless, it was great to see Ellen, Rebecca, Chris Jackson, Antoine, Darrell Redmond, Jarriott Stubblefield, Vance Joseph Ivory Jr., Ben Woolf, Robbie Watkins, and several others.

As I was going to bed last night, I had the strongest feelings of missing high school I think I’ve ever had. And I think it’s because I really miss when those friendships were easy. When all you had to do to be friends with someone was show up to school in the morning. I miss sitting in the senior hallway at contact and talking to all those guys. I miss going to their basketball games. I miss throwing pennies at Jarriott and watching him pick them up as if he didn’t know we were throwing them (thanks for that memory Ellen). I miss hearing Anthony from halfway down the hallway yelling, “Tater Tot!”

So I think the biggest thing I take from all of this is that I want to make just a little more effort to keep in touch with those Kirkwood High School people.

I wish I had talked to Anthony more after high school. And I don’t really want to have that regret about anyone else. The further away from high school we get, the more I feel like those people are long lost family. Whenever I say I’m going home now, I really just think of my regular family. But when I saw all of those people today, I realized my family and my home in St. Louis extends far past Rochdale. There are people in and from St. Louis that I once cared deeply about, once laughed and joke around with, and once had great friendships with. And I don’t want that to just disappear as time goes on.

I find it interesting that we as humans are so quick to forget how much we cared about something when we’ve found something new to care about. Well, I’m just really glad that’s not how God operates.

So Deez, you will be greatly missed. I am so thankful that God placed you in my life almost 20 years ago at a big round table at Keysor Elementary. And I am so thankful that the friendship that started there never ended. So, in Antoine's words, "I'll see you when I get there."

2008 already? really?

2008-01-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

Well, Jean Wysocki and Joe Kingry are demanding a new blog entry, so I guess I'd better deliver.

It's 2008. I just got back from spending about 24 hours in Frisco, CO at the very nice mountain house of Ev's parents. I did not walk outside the door once in those 24 hours I don't think. But it was good company and below zero out, so why leave? I spent this entire day watching football and putting together a puzzle. That dang puzzle.

1,000 pieces. I had to leave early, but I hear they almost finished it even though Joe was hiding a piece the entire time just to mess with us. He would.

Anyway, the laziness of my new year pretty much describes my entire Christmas break. Yeah that's right. Two years out of school and it's still "Christmas break" in my head. I went home for about a week to hang out with my family, play with babies and spend one evening with my high school friends.

I remember when I used to be home at Christmas and spend every waking moment with those friends. And now it seems like that one night is even hard to get us all to. It's weird how we all just all of a sudden move on. But as I looked through old pictures and yearbooks (which I always do when I go to St. Louis), I realized again how much I miss high school and the people there. I really miss the way you see people everyday and have to make very little effort to be friends. I think I took that for granted.

A couple weeks ago, I got to make my first trip to Oregon, and my first trip to the west coast states ever. The occasion: Jamie Powell's wedding.

Jamie was a part of my amazing New Orleans hurricane relief team. The funny thing is, we weren't really friends and actually didn't even get along that great for about the first month. But something finally clicked and we got to be pretty tight.

The weird thing was, I was not super excited about going to Oregon. I mean I was so excited to see all my peeps like Jamie and Caitlin and Kevin, etc., but I wondered if after these past almost two years of not seeing each other would make us not so tight.

I was wrong.

My time in Oregon was sweet. You've probably noticed how often I bring up something about New Orleans in my blogs, and know that it was an amazing experience for me, but it is so easy for me to forget that those eight other people on my team were a huge part of my great experience.

Being around them is awesome because they are the people that surrounded me for a few of the greatest months of my life. They get it. They understand. And it almost is a subconscious thing. By that I mean I was so immediately comfortable around them without even thinking about it. I don't know, it's hard to explain. There's just something about reuniting with the people who went through a profound experience with you.

Kind-of like hanging out with Rachel Cavanaugh. We were like barely friends when she was a student, but then we were both leaders on the Denver mission trip this summer and shared really cool moments. And now she's home on Christmas break and being around her again just gives me some sort of weird joy and peace. Because there's some big part of me she gets.

I really hadn't thought about any of this until I started typing, so I'm not sure if any of it makes sense. Man I love writing.

Anyway, so this wedding was great. It was great to see Megan, Kevin, Nik Stice, Heather, and of course, my two NOLA boos.

I would relive it all over again with them in a heartbeat for sure.

Some other exciting things have been going on lately too, like Angie being home,

Melissa coming to visit,

my Christmas Spectacular step routine and Emily Ashcraft being there to witness it, Sophie turning 16, me watching hours of Arrested Development and 30 Rock, snowboarding without breaking any limbs, and of course, our rec league indoor soccer team starting up.

Yeah that's just weird. Mark Cuthbertson is good at photo shop. We had our first game last Friday (the day I returned to the Mile High City from the couple hundred feet high city), and I pretty much have never felt so out of shape in my life. I think Jake Stooke said it well when after a few minutes of play he stated that he could already taste blood in his throat. I felt the same way. I cannot explain to you how horrible I felt after running around for two minutes. It was unreal.

But whatever we won, and our soccer team is awesome and it's gonna be a sweet season. As long as no one has to be hooked up to an oxygen tank and taken to the hospital.

Happy New Year!

weird feelings

2007-12-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad at tateblog these days. I just don't have the inspiration I had back when I sat next to a KU football player in Journalism class (see my September-December 2005 entries) or when I lived in a hurricane-devastated city (January-April 2006) or when I had a dislocated elbow and did cool arm stretches and wore a robo-brace (December-March 2007). Life is just normal now. Sort-of. Wait, never is life normal.

Things have been just weird feeling lately. I really think that's the best way to put it. I got to go to Kansas a couple weeks ago and see my homies, but everyone is all scattered now and doing their own separate things in the Kansas City/Lawrence areas. Good to see people, but felt a little weird. Weird when life moves on without you. And I mean really moves on.

But to all my Kansas peeps: Thanks for being awesome. I loved chatting with Melissa, and going to a basketball game and steak 'n shake and pizza and everywhere with Emjo, and staying at her and Maggle's sweet apartment, and spending an afternoon at Target with Steve, and catching up with Katie D., and being one of the first to see Linsie after she got engaged, and hanging out with Jub in his messy car again, and getting some quality Jen time at her new Kansas City apartment, and seeing the Browns, and just being in a place that held some of the best and worst times of my life. It's hard sometimes, but I gotta do it.

Especially when I get to see Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush in real life. Holler.

Anyway, moving on.

Another weird feeling: This Thanksgiving (pronounced THANKSgiving please) was the first year of my life I spent away from St. Louis. And probably the first in more than 20 years I spent away from 863 Rochdale...can you confirm that amount of years Mel? That was weird. But I still got to spend it with cool people, and I still got my sparkling cider.

Ok so that picture is a little weird of all of us. Or maybe just Angie.

Yeah that's much better. Oh what would I do without these girls and the whole Wysocki family? Well, life would be a lot less exciting. And I would live on the street. And I would watch Scrubs alone. And I would have one less best friend. And these days, they're hard to come by.

Two other highlights of Thanksgiving break: Turkey Bowl and our night downtown.

Turkey Bowl is this football game our church plays every year with current students and alumni and leaders and stuff. It was way fun. Here's the thing: On the Monday before, it was like 75 degrees. And on the Wednesday of Turkey Bowl, well...

It snowed. And was really cold. But that didn't stop me from scoring a touchdown or two and having a perfect game at quarterback. I may have only been quarterback for like 8 plays, but still. I never knew how valuable those countless number of games we played in the middle of Rochdale Drive growing up would be in my life.

And I love this picture because I clearly just caught the ball and I'm about to get dominated on by Smiley and Gomez. Awesome.

And then the night after Thanksgiving, Angie and cousin Laura and Kristen Felten and I went downtown. Just for kicks.

That's us in front of the newly lit capitol or city hall or something building. Whoops, don't quite know my Denver monuments yet. Usually I get stressed out for downtown outings, but this one was fun and chill and stress-free.

Also a side note: In Kirkwood, we just call St. Louis "downtown." So I still do that here. But everyone else says "I'm going to Denver" and it confuses me because I'm like, hello we live in Denver. And they're like no we live in Arvada/Westminster dumb dumb. Whatever. I'll always just call the major city that I live in the suburbs of "downtown."

I had some more to write about weird feelings, because lately we've been talking a lot about justice at church. And I even gave a talk on it, with the help of my friend Alan Fogleman from afar. He's awesome. And he led me to two web sites, love146.org and the International Justice Mission. I've been looking at these web sites a lot and seeing all the terrible injustices going on in this world. But all of this still feels really weird and fresh on my mind and I've nowhere near processed it yet. Nor have I given myself time to process. Dangit.

But right now I gotta go.

If you want to check out my talk, you can go to our High Point web site and click on the iTunes link and you can get our podcast with my talk on it. I don't claim to be an expert, or even close to one (not to mention it was only the second full-length message I've ever given), but I tried to present the things God was putting on my heart. Yep.

One last thought. My favorite CDs lately are the Newsies soundtrack, the Narnia soundtrack, the Home Alone soundtrack and Chase This Light by Jimmy Eat World. The end.

open the gates and seize the day

2007-11-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been on a Newsies kick. You know, that Disney movie from the early nineties about kids selling newspapers on the streets of New York.

Most girls were obsessed with this movie when I was in middle school, and I vividly remember watching it a lot of times over at Rebecca Wamble's house.

A couple weeks ago I was "babysitting" the Gager kids (from Ben down to Bryan), and since I had been telling Beth about Newsies, we decided we should watch it. We watched it on Friday night, and then watched all the good parts again on Saturday. And ever since then, I have not stopped singing the songs.

So I'm currently watching Newsies with Sophie and I just figured out that the movie came out when I was in 4th grade and she was 4 months old. Awesome.

My Newsies soundtrack is on the way.

Today I went snowboarding. First time for the season. Now ever since the whole dislocated elbow incident, I've been absolutely TERRIFIED of snowboarding again. I did go back a few times last year after I was healed, but I was still so scared today.

However, I feel like the fear will not last forever. We only did 5 pretty pathetic runs down the mountain today, and for the first three I was so frustratingly scared. It was like every time I turned I got this overwhelming fear that I was gonna fall again and hurt myself.

For the last two runs though, the fear started going away, and I actually started really having fun again. Here's me on the last run of the day:

Psych! That's definitely not me. I can barely go from toe edge to heel edge. I may never actually jump off things, but it's okay, I still have fun.

It will take a little more time before I'm really confident, but I am now officially excited about snow-riding season.

This past weekend our youth staff all got to take a little field trip to St. Louis for a youth worker conference.

Here's some of us by the glorious arch. It was pretty fun, but a really long ride in the church van. I did learn a lot, and it's always good to be refreshed and encouraged to remember why I do what I do. Gotta love those kids.

Also, in order to get even better at my job as a "youth leader" or whatever, it's very possible I'm going to start taking classes at Denver Seminary next semester. Stay tuned. We'll see what happens.

Ok I really gotta get back to watching the Newsies. Peace.

i am a raptor

2007-10-10T16:40:00.000-06:00

I felt like I should write a new tateblog, but I'm just not even sure where to start.

I didn't know you could love a job as much as I love mine. Granted, it's technically only a 30-hour a week job so part of the reason I love it is that I can still sleep until like 8:30 or 9. But still, when Sunday evening comes around and I'm thinking about the start of another week, I actually get excited. It's a contrary reaction to every year of my life before now. No joke.

In case you're wondering what I actually do at my job, I'll fill you in.

First off, I plan and run Fusion, our Junior High youth group.

Yep there I am leading the way, wearing my sweet Bayside Tigers t-shirt. That is awesome. We do all kinds of things at Fusion, but this night was old-school game night.

Wait. Let's get a little closer look at Mark there.

Ah yes. There he is. Way to be.

So we obviously played dodgeball that night, which was pretty awesome.

But what everyone should always remember about that Fusion was that it marked the birth of Mega Four Square.

Mega Four Square is a little game I invented for that night. It's essentially four square and volleyball combined, and it is a team sport. Each square is about the size of a normal four square court, with a team of four in each square. I won't give you all the rules here because I can't have everyone stealing my game.

That night at Fusion the game was off to a rocky start, but that weekend was fall retreat for the high school so I decided I should suggest we all play the first night.

It.....was awesome.

This game is weirdly incredibly fun and entertaining. I can't even explain it here, but we played that game multiple times that weekend, and everyone loved it. It was a little stressful for me at times because I had to keep clarifying/making up new rules. But it was fine because I designated my team as the International Mega Four Square Association (IM4SA), with our soul duty being to protect the integrity of the game.

I think I got off track, but I am just really excited about Mega Four Square.

Oh yeah, my job. Another great thing about my job is that "hanging out" is essentially in my job description.

The other day me and these people and some other people got to hang out on a beautiful Colorado afternoon and watch our friends play in the Powderpuff game.

They were so good. Powderpuff is crazy at Ralston Valley. They have eight different teams that play all afternoon a couple days before homecoming. Kirkwood didn't even have Powderpuff, and I'm still a little bitter about it. With all that practice playing with Mark and Ryan and Brendan growing up, I would have dominated.

Speaking of homecoming, Mark and Amanda Stooke and I got to drive a group of kids to dinner and the homecoming dance this past weekend in the church van. Holler!

My little girl is growing up.

Anyway there's more about my job but I'm tired of talking about it.

But I'll tell you about my other job now. I am the new Spanish teacher at Gager Academy. You may ask, what is Gager Academy? Well...it's not actually a school really. More of a big house of people. And two of the boys are home-schooled. And once a weekish I go to their house to help them learn Spanish. Here's my two little students.

Yeah they're not really little at all. They're in high school. Ok, and realistically me being their Spanish teacher means we eat lunch, talk about Spanish for 15 minutes, perhaps throw in playing a musical instrument, and then play Tanks! on the the Wii.

Tanks! Oh man. Best video game ever. Well maybe not best ever, but it's pretty sweet. We also play this at Mark's sometimes, and let me tell you, it is addicting. I love it.

Oh, and Gager Academy Raptors t-shirts are on the way, don't even worry.

Well I'm really hungry and I've been doing nothing at work for last...long time so I think I'm out. I hope you've enjoyed this random assortment of pointless ideas that cannot even compare to Rachel Cavanaugh's incredibly insightful blogs.

OH! And I booked a flight for Kansas today. Booyah.

fun with wheelchairs and video games

2007-09-20T16:28:00.000-06:00

Mark's house got so fun this year.

Not that it wasn't fun last year because I did enjoy constantly playing basketball and watching American Idol.

Here are the four reasons Mark's house is awesome: slack line, Wii, guitar hero, wheelchairs.

Now I will educate you on these things. A slack line is this flat rope tied between two trees that people try to walk and balance on. Sort of like a tight rope I guess, but the slack line is only a few feet off the ground.

I remember seeing hippie kids at KU doing slack lines on campus sometimes. But now there's one in my own (not really my own but sort-of) backyard. The thing is, I'm awful at slack line. I can't even really stand on it on my own, much less walk across it. But it's fine because other people like Mark and Max, or Marx and Mack as Rachel Cavanaugh and I call them, are really good at slack lining. Those hippies.

Moving on, one of Mark's new roommates Steve brought his video game systems with him--the Wii and PlayStation 2 with Guitar Hero. I've actually only played the Wii once and I haven't played his Guitar Hero yet, but I forsee myself playing these games a lot in the near future. Especially when it's too cold to play outside.

Finally, my favorite part of Mark's house is the wheelchairs. Mark is storing crutches and wheelchairs for this organization called Crutches for Africa. So naturally, we are constantly playing on the wheelchairs on Mark's back porch. The other night I mastered the wheely, which was an exciting moment in my life. Last night was the best though.

The Gager brothers and Lantz were over so the four of us were wheelchairing together. Then someone had the idea that we should make a train of wheelchairs. Then we decided to take the train out to the street. We escaped out of the fence and headed up the dark street. When we got to a satisfactory spot, we all hooked on to each other and started our train down street.

But then a car came. We all got freaked out and the train broke as we all pulled to the side of the road. Meanwhile the hippie guys that just moved onto the street came out of the house and were all watching us as we tried to get away from all the commotion. It was awesome.

Basically, I never realized how fun playing on wheelchairs could be. I'm not sure if that's wrong or not either. Hmmm... But anyway, they're so fun that playing on them was the highlight of my birthday I think.

Speaking of my birthday, it was sweet. Saturday night we went to dinner with the staff, and Sunday the Wysockis made dinner and dessert and peoples came over.

I love those peoples. It was fun.

So I'm 25 now. That's weird. I feel about 18. Maybe. Also I need to note that one of my favorite birthday presents was a Bayside Tigers t-shirt from Angie. It is awesome. Good work Ang. And thanks to everyone else that gave me cool presents too.

Anyway all that to say this year is going great and I am loving it. But I've already said that probably. I gotta get ready to leave for my birthday dinner at the Gagers now...holla!

the fall: past and present

2007-09-14T14:48:00.000-06:00

I'm tired today because I stayed up an extra 45 minutes or so last night looking at my old high school yearbooks. Mostly the one from senior year. This decision is a result of a few recent occurrences.

The first is that I went into Mr. Goodcents the other day (still not the same without Emjo), and I was wearing my Ted Drewes shirt. The guy at the counter says to me, "Oh are you from St. Louis?" So I said yeah and long story short the dude graduated a year behind me at Kirkwood High School. Weird. I didn't recognize him or his name though.

However when I was watching a Jay Leno that Mark had on his DVR the other night I did recognize someone. People from the show went to some comedy festival and had several different comedians tell a joke or say something funny for the camera. One of them turned out to be Nikki Glaser, who also graduated a year behind me at Kirkwood and apparently is making her way as a comedian these days. Weird, because she never struck me as all that funny. Oh, and she went to KU. Oh, and we were in To Kill A Mockingbird together in middle school. Awesome.

But I was mostly looking at my yearbook because I miss high school. I know I wrote about this a few months ago, so I won't really get into it completely. But lately I've been going to sports game after sports game and watching boys ask girls to homecoming and going to youth group and listening to first driving stories and I remember how freaking sweet high school was.

Last night especially hit me because I went to the Ralston Valley football game (on a Thursday night--weird, I know) and they were playing this team mostly made up of black players, which is rare for this area. And as insignificant as it seems, that little detail made me miss high school in St. Louis--especially high school football games in the fall.

I think I miss the simplicity of high school life. We had four years of high school, and when it was over, I knew I'd be in college for another four (or five) years. There were no decisions to really worry about. Well, most people worried about college I guess but I don't think I really did. Anyway I guess since I'm about to turn 25 I feel all these little pressures and worries that normal people don't have in high school. Like, when are you gonna get married? What are you gonna do next year? Why do you only have like 3 friends your own age and is that bad? You know, things like that.

I try to remember though, that those are mostly society pressures and I don't care about this so called "society" and what they think of me.

That being said, let me show you how sweet the beginning of the year has been.

That's me and Smiley, one of our junior boys at Junior High youth group the other night. We called this night banana night, which included an interview with "Banana Boy,"

A couple up front games of kids shoving bananas in their mouths,

as well as "Steal the Banana" and "Ultimate Banana."

Oh man. It was awesome. Especially since we all went to a high school volleyball game after that and Alan was still wearing the banana costume. I think there's like a prerequisite of being sort-of a weirdo in order to be a good youth leader. I'm fine with it.

Wednesday high school youth group was sweet too because it was "Man vs. Wild" night. You should really go watch the video Mark made from the night at www.youtube.com/highpointstuff because it was amazing. My favorite part, which you'll notice in the video, was when the students had to make "shelters" out of cardboard boxes and then see if the shelters could withstand the elements, which basically meant us pouring buckets of water on them and then shooting fans at them. I took great joy in getting them soaked.

I've lived here a little over one year now, and I can't imagine what it would be like to leave. I'm so blessed. And I'll leave it at that for now.

Satisfied Mark?

what in the name of me is going on in here

2007-08-24T14:14:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a sad day for me. Angie headed back to Chicago and Sophie started the first day of school. And you know what that means: the epic summer of 2007 has come to a close.

I wrote a blog in June about how blessed I have been this summer. And that was true for its entirety. Don't get me wrong, I love camp and I did miss working there this summer, but it was so refreshing to just be in Colorado, or on one of many summer trips, because it was a nice changed of pace. Plus, I am pumped for the beginning of the new school year.

But before that, I need to report on the last few weeks of summer. They have been very hectic and stressful at times, but I survived. And I finally got my stupid computer back. He had to spend way too much time in the hospital (aka Mac store).

A few weeks ago, there were some visitors in the CO.

I was way pumped to see my good friends Emjo and Maggles. I always get really excited when a piece of my life in Kansas is in Colorado. Plus, we all got to go to see The Fray.

It was a pretty awesome show. My favorite part was obviously when they covered Hips Don't Lie by Shakira. Who knew what an amazing song that was? Oh wait, Jub did. The only downside was that it poured down rain halfway through The Fray's set.

Well, it was actually pretty fun and sweet and reminded me of playing soccer in the pouring rain in El Salvador. The downside came when we were uncomfortably soaking wet afterward and Emily's phone broke. Sorry Emjo. I think it was still a good time though. My favorite part was how the girls were joking about how they would react when they met the band, but then I told them we're trying to be low-maintenance so we might not see them. At that point Maggie said, "Ok I'll put my low-maintenance face on." Oh I miss the Kansas people.

Unfortunately, my time in Colorado with those two got cut short, as Grandma Tate passed away that week. As most of you know, it was actually sort-of a blessing because she had been in such poor health. But still sad of course. The last time I saw her was in March.

She was a great lady. In all my mission trips and stuff she would write such encouraging notes and talk about how she and her church were praying for me. And she loved Easter. Every year she would make sure I wasn't too old for an Easter basket, and I said no way. I'm never too old for candy.

So Grandma will be missed, that's for sure.

It was cool being in St. Louis again too because I got to see some of my Kirkwood girls I haven't seen in forever. As in Alison, Sarah, Ellen and Kristi. Talking to them and just being with them in person again was great. Oh and I got to hang out with Nic and see his new church.

Even with all that going on, my parents and I still got to head down to the great state of Florida to meet up with Marjorie and the Nunns for a week.

Besides the fact that it was ridiculously hot, I had a good time with the fam. Playing in the ocean with my cousins Joey and Michael, doing crossword puzzles with Gammy (she's not my gammy but I call her that anyway), being treated to dinner every night by Gar and Mel, it was great. Plus how awesome does Gary look in this picture:

Yes. Also, my cousin Michael is pretty much obsessed with me and my dad, so that's always fun. I got him hooked on Scrubs. He's nine...is that wrong? It's fine. Plus I got to meet up with Danielle one day for lunch because she was in Pensacola for the week. Cool.

Oh and what is so exciting is that all the Africa people got home a week ago, safe and sound. I never thought about what the sound means in the phrase "safe and sound" and I don't think I really get it. But anyway, I was happy with their return. Things just feel normal again.

Sunday night I saw the Bourne Ultimatum for the third time. Awesome. I want to marry Jason Bourne.

And now...well now I'm just sitting at church. There's always stuff to do but sometimes I get bored of that stuff. But I'm excited because next week is our staff retreat and the week after that is the beginning of fall programming. Holler.

I think I'll go try to be productive until I have to pick up little Sophie from school. Peace.

love is all you need.

2007-08-07T00:03:00.000-06:00

My computer is in the shop. My brand new computer. I don't want to talk about it.

In routine with the rest of my summer, the past few weeks have been nuts. And awesome.

This past week a bunch of my friends left me and went on the mission trip to Uganda. I was so pumped for them, but weirdly emotional about it at the same time. I still haven't figured out quite why, because I was fine with not going, but whatever.

The hardest part of them being gone though is the fact that I am holding things down in the youth ministry department at church. Alone. I got pretty stressed out like last Tuesday and wondered why Ev and Mark would leave me all by myself, but I'm over it now. I'll be fine.

But let's start where I left off. A couple weeks ago we went on a camping trip to Lake Glendo (Wyoming) with the high school kids. We stayed right by the beach, so the view was sweet.

Plus I got to drive a mini-van of some of the coolest girls ever. We had some serious in-car dance parties to Shakira and Justin Timberlake. It was awesome.

The girl there in the sweet board shorts and soccer socks just happens to be the sister of Mr. Jacob Stooke, Amanda, who was our speaker for the weekend. We were friends before but got to be pretty tight on the trip.

At one point me and her and Max swam across the lake to the other side, which for most people wasn't too far, but I'm not such a strong swimmer so it was a little tough. Plus both Max and I have an irrational phobia of sharks. It was quite an accomplishment to say the least. Plus once on the other side we pretended to be Bear from Man vs. Wild and discussed our survival tactics. Then we spent a good amount of time figuring out how to get across a small patch of 2-feet-deep water. It's hard to explain, but that adventure was the best part of Glendo.

I know I like hot weather, so what I'm about to talk about might be shocking. But I'm gonna say it: Glendo was too hot for me. I think mostly because there was no escape from the heat ever. And when I get hot my bangs drive me crazy, and I never looked in a mirror, so the whole weekend I apparently looked like this:

There are several other pictures of me looking like that and making almost that exact same face from the weekend.

Maybe camping is just not really my thing. But I did enjoy the occasional camping trip when I was younger. I remember the time we went camping with the Poshaks but we forgot the tent poles for one of the tents so Julie and I slept in one of the vans. Good times.

We got home from Glendo on a Saturday night, then went to two services Sunday morning, and met to leave for the Denver Mission Trip at 2 pm. A little rushed. Fortunately Denver is not too far.

Despite the fact we did only travel about 15 miles, the trip was incredibly impactful for the students as well as the leaders. The trip definitely had its challenges, among them being the obnoxiousness that can be Junior High kids, but the need to be patient with them at the same time. Like when they decide it's funny to paint each other even after I continually tell them to stop messing around.

They're just lucky I love them so much.

Back it up. So we were working with this church called Open Door Fellowship, right in the heart of homelessness, gangs, drug deals, liquor stores and strip clubs.

Don't worry, we took all the necessary safety precautions. Open Door ministers to all sorts of different people who are caught up in some of the above lifestyles. They own a handful of houses that people live in to get back on their feet. We did work projects like landscaping and painting to make all these buildings more welcoming and nice for the people in the area.

The church also had a drop-in day care center for kids, and in the afternoons we did a VBS for them. They were way cute and that was a favorite part for most of our students. Unfortunately I don't actually have any pictures of that at this time. Sorry.

But I think the most impactful experiences came from meeting homeless people on the streets. We did this during a prayer walk, a poverty scavenger hunt and when we handed out sandwiches to people. Every person we met hit us in a different way. The staff of Open Door that led us around were amazing at really helping us understand the truth of poverty and all the other problems that exist in the Inner-City.

For me, God put homelessness and poverty and what our response should be into a whole new light. It would take a really long time to explain here, so I'll just use one word:

Love.

God loves. We should love. God tells us to care for the poor, so we should, no questions asked. One thing Walter from Open Door told us was, "Poverty exists because of sin. As long as there's sin, there's going to be homelessness." Profound. Yet so simple. There's no need to judge or play the blame game.

All we need to do is love.

To me, that's a very freeing statement, and that's what I'm trying to go on these days. But I more and more realize how bad I am at it. But by the grace of God, I believe I can love the way He does. And that's a lot of love.

I could write more, but I need to go to sleep, seeing as I am a working girl these days. But...I love you! Seriously. I do.

mcginty family fun

2007-07-18T17:01:00.000-06:00

Last night I went to Barnes and Noble and discovered something disturbing in the children's section. Actually, 2 disturbing things. One, they have a display rack dedicated to books on sharks. That is terrifying. Seeing images of sharks (namely the movie Jaws) scarred me for life. Granted, Jaws shows several instances of humans getting eaten by sharks, but still.

The second disturbing thing: I couldn't find any Baby-Sitter's Club books. What the heck? I loved those books when I was a kid, and I was so mad they didn't have any. Dumb.

But don't worry, I calmed myself down by performing some scenes from my 8th grade musical "How to Eat Like a Child" on the little stage for Sophie and Angie and Kristen. I'll have to bust that tape out the next time I'm in St. Louis. Especially to watch Alison's great solo about her birthday. Oh, and my incredible dance moves.

But anyway, the Baby-Sitter's Club. It turns out my cousin Jane, who in my head still should be like 3 but is actually 7, reads some of these books now and loves them. I'm so proud.

I got to see little Jane and the rest of my crazy McGinty family this past weekend in Dallas for Aunt Melinda's wedding celebration.

It was called a celebration because they were technically married a year ago but never had the party. And a party it was. For three nights.

One of the best parts of the weekend was being reunited with my cousin Bill.I can't really explain Bill, but just picture someone really loving and funny who doesn't hold his tongue much. And then picture that person on speed. That's Bill. There are very few instances when I'm around him that I stop laughing. But he lives in Boston, so I definitely don't see him enough.

That's us at the big event with Aunt Maureen. She loves us the most because I'm her namesake and Bill's her Godson. Holla.

The wedding celebration was crazy nice. Melinda and Bill went all out. The highlights for me were, obviously the dance...

...and also that chocolate fountain that you dip fruit and stuff in. So good. I wish I had a picture of it.

But besides the wedding and a dinner every night, we mostly just hung out at the pool. Here's me and my cousins Stacey and Charlie just chillin.

And by "the pool," I mean the pool at the hotel my parents stayed at, since our little Holiday Inn seemed to be lacking a pool. How can a hotel in Texas not have a pool? Plus the Four Seasons is probably the nicest hotel I've ever experienced, and I'm slightly convinced that it's a cult. Watch out for them. They'll win you with their charm. But not with their $10 a day charge for internet in the rooms.

So it was a great weekend. I wish my bro bro was there. He missed out for sure.

Tomorrow I head out for the high school lake camping trip. Should be fun, even though I'm not really into water sports.

Speaking of camp (sort-of), I never really got to write about that trip, but I'll just say it was awesome. It was camp. Plus I got to see some Lawrence peeps. Plus Emily and Maggie are coming to Denver in a couple weeks!!

I seriously love summer.

summer blessings

2007-06-25T18:00:00.000-06:00

I was a little unsure of how my first summer in Colorado would go. For the past several summers, I just have gone away to a certain place for a long time (like Chile or YouthFront), and that was pretty much my summer. Granted, my summer is full of trips, but it's been awhile since I've had this spurts of down time in between.

But let me just say now, it's been awesome.

I have just been so blessed by the friends I have here. And they are friends in a whole different way than I've ever had friends before. So now I'm going to try to explain how cool they all are.

For the fourth year in a row, I am part of a rec league softball team.

Yeah I look good. Even though it's a church team, I really don't know many of the people on my team. I was friends with two of the girls, but then they moved. So one of the ways I've been blessed is by people coming to watch my games. I'm pretty sure at least two Wysockis have been at every game.

Angie and Sophie are like the sisters I never had, and their family has blessed me in so many ways from giving me a room to feeding me to attending my sports events--and I'm not even that good.

Those pictures are from my game two weeks ago when Jeff G. and the girls came. I only know Jeff from being Mark and Angie's friend and from visiting, but for some reason he quickly became a part of my family of friends as well.

Then a week ago at my game eight people showed up to watch. And this place is at least 15 minutes away from Arvada. Jean and Angie were there of course, then my boys who are finally back Jake and Seth, two of my El Salvador girls Kristen and Kim, one of the senior guys Max, and Joe Kingry--along with his two dogs.

I was a little disappointed because I was playing right field that night, but I did get two hits which is rare so that's good. But anyway, I remember just kind-of pausing that night and thanking God for the people he has placed in my life here in the past 9 and a half months. Who knew rec league softball could be such a profound experience?

Sherpas, I'll always remember you.

On Wednesday Angie left town for five days. She gets back tonight. And Sophie and Mark and Nic and Ev have all been gone for the past 10 days in Alaska, and they get back tomorrow. So in all of those people's absence, I think I was forced to kind-of step out of my box in my friendships, or else I was gonna have a boring five days.

Praise the Lord for the El Salvador team because on Wednesday night I hung out with about half of them. All students. Wednesday night can also sum up why these past few days have been so awesome.

Jesse told me him and his cousin were gonna play disc golf, which I have been missing a lot here in the CO because not too many people play. So I passed the word on to Ben Gager, which is where another friendship blessing comes in.

The Gager family. I feel like I'm becoming one of them.

That's Ben and Beth and me. There's eight kids in that family, six of whom I'd say I'm friends with, with one more a soon-to-be-friend I think. Not to mention the parents are da bomb as well. That Wednesday they invited me to dinner before disc golf time, and after disc golf we went back there and watched a movie with like the entire family. On Saturday, I spent like six hours at their house playing on the trampoline, trying to beat Ben in this stupid tennis game, watching Star Wars, and of course, having dinner. The very next day they invited me to lunch with them after church and when I walked in, Mom Gager was like, "Oh here comes our eldest daughter."

As I told Jean the other night, the Gagers are like the big family I never had. Not that I don't appreciate my own family, because I loved growing up in the Tate house. But it's like life at the Gagers is never boring, and when I'm around them, I really do just feel like part of the family. Plus people always say Beth and I look like sisters.

Back to Wednesday night. Ben, Beth and I headed out to the disc golf course to meet up with Jesse, Laurel, Brittany (all of them from my El Salvador trip), Morgan and Jesse's cousins. The actual disc golf game was not all that awesome, considering the course is full of really tall grass, Ben and I were having allergy attacks, I lost my frisbee in this swampy tall grass area for 20 minutes and practically broke out into hives looking for it, but the company was good for sure.

Near the end of our game, we were joined by Kristen Felten. She's another new blessing to my life for sure.

That's us in The Salvador. Her best friend Rachel (also really cool) was out of town this past week as well, so Kristen and I turned to each other and it's been sweet. She's the first high school girl from church that I really feel like I've connected with.

So after the high-allergy game of disc golf, and before movie time, me and Ben and Bethany and Kristen all went to Cold Stone and talked about how we all miss our siblings in Alaska. And got in the fountain.

Not quite sure if that's allowed, but whatever.

Also in the past few days we've played two games of ultimate frisbee which is always bomb, spent some time with my junior high girls, went to a fire at Max's house with the boys and had a...somewhat okay day at Elitch's (the Six Flags of Denver) with the junior high youth group.

So to sum it all up, I'm finding that in this new stage of my life my friendships look much different than the usual all-peer friendships in the past. I've been blessed by cool people in my life from ages 8 to 50-something recently and they are all the reason this summer has been, well, da bomb. Plus after experiencing like the worst winter ever in Denver, we're now having one of the hottest summers ever, which you know makes me happy.

And speaking of my bomb summer, here's where I'll be for the next couple months:

July 1-7: Kansas for a week at YouthFront Camp South!!

July 12-15: Dallas for Aunt Melinda's wedding and practically a family reunion.

July 19-21: Glendo lake trip with church.

July 22-27: Denver inner-city mission trip with the junior high kids.

August 12-19: Wonderful beautiful Florida with the fam.

Holla! And don't forget to read my El Salvador blog right below here if you missed that one.

the story of the salvador

2007-06-24T00:30:00.000-06:00

As I begin this epic tateblog, I'd like to start by saying thank you to all of you who prayed for and supported me and my team on this trip. You are awesome, and God used you in El Salvador just as he used us. Amen.

We arrived at the airport at 8am on Friday, June 1. There was already a handful of students there even though they weren't required to be there until 8:30. Everyone was pretty much pumped. All 19 of us: 12 students and 7 leaders.

It had been three years since my last Chile trip, so I was getting so excited to be in a Spanish-speaking country again.

We landed in San Salvador, El Salvador at around 8pm. My weak Spanish skillz were immediately called upon when we realized the customs people didn't speak English. Fortunately for me, Chileans speak Spanish at a ridiculously fast rate and drop letters from words, so listening to the Salvadoreans speak was much easier.

The humidity hit my Colorado friends like a ton of bricks as soon as we walked out of the airport doors. I just felt at home. I miss the humidity. We got on a nice air conditioned bus that took us to our home for the night.

We stayed in San Salvador one night in a nice little bed and breakfast-type place and headed out to the village of San Isidro the next morning.

Pulling into that village was pretty intimidating. People just stared at us. I mean, I guess I understand why, seeing as not many cars even drive through there and rarely does a large group of gringos show up. I still couldn't help but wonder if these people would even like us.

I was quickly proven wrong. We were greeted at the church with smiling faces. The pastor went on and on about how grateful he was we were there. One of the first things we did that day was walk around the village just to check things out. I remember that first day I was wearing flip flops on those muddy streets and so scared of where I was walking. But San Isidro became home so quickly that none of that mattered within a couple hours probably.

One of our first visits was to a chicken farm.

The chicken farm, from what I understand, was a partnership with the Compassion project where we stayed. Basically, chickens and coffee are muy importante to this community.

As we left the farm and stopped to learn more about coffee, I noticed those two boys from the picture up there had followed us out and were watching us. I turned and looked just as one of them I think was making fun of my hair, because, well, it looked like this:

We wore name tags that day so the people we met would know our names. As we started walking away then, that same boy said, "Bye-bye Ta-tay" (which is the Spanish pronunciation of my last name, for those of you who are confused.) It was almost a little creepy sounding but I laughed anyway.

So those boys actually started walking back with us too, and Joe Kingry and I started conversation with them and talked the whole way back. Their names are Wilmer and Jorge, and they became two of our best kid friends we made there. And that all happened within like an hour, no joke. Because this picture was us all hanging out later that day at some other coffee place (I don't know, I was never paying very good attention during the tours.)

I don't really remember the timeline of that day, but somewhere in there we also played soccer and it was way fun.

It wasn't as fun though as when we played later in the week in the pouring rain. I mean seriously pouring. It was awesome; nothing can compare. As Mark said, we all looked like we were in a Gatorade or Nike commercial or something. One of those moments you see in movies or dream about but never think you'll live.

The rain comes out of nowhere in El Salvador. At least it did when we were there. We tended to just work and play straight through.

Life in San Isidro was simple.

We slept on air rafts in the classrooms that had already been built. The first night was a little rough. Those rafts are not too comfortable and also really loud. Nonetheless, it was fine.

We didn't shower much, seeing as there was only one showered that only worked sometimes. We just used wet wipes and water. A little gross, but it was fine. Plus the rain helped.

We all brushed our teeth together outside for the most part.

It was a great moment of community. Same with the bathroom we all shared. We all washed our hands using bowls we filled with water from the giant water source called a pila or something. I wish I had a picture of that, but I guess it's kind-of weird to take a picture in the bathroom. Especially since that was a place most of us hated by the end.

The streets were small, but we never needed to go anywhere anyway.

Except to occasionally walk down the street to get a 25 cent coke. We just lived simply, and it was great.

On Sunday we got up and got ready for the day. The locals told us we'd be taking a little hike...maybe about 30 minutes. At least, that's what we thought they said.

In reality, it was something like 4 or 5 hours long. Crazy. We hiked up a mountain.

The really cool thing, as you can kind-of tell from the picture, was that a whole bunch of the local people from the church--between 20 and 30 probably--just joined onto our hike. Just because they wanted to be with us.

There were kids and adults, women and men, most of them dressed in jeans and not carrying water or anything. But they hiked that mountain better than us. You could just feel the great sense of community they have, and how they were looking out for us and one another. It was awesome.

Not to mention the very top was pretty sweet looking.

The next day we began our work project on these grounds, the end result being to have mirror classrooms to those three already built.

I guess I failed to explain at the beginning that this work project was the main focus of our trip. We worked with Compassion International, which is an organization that provides classes and services and basic needs to children in impoverished countries around the world. We raised the funds to build more classrooms for the more than 300 children in the village of San Isidro.

That Monday was by far the dirtiest. We basically just dug trenches for the foundation all day. We were seriously disgusting by the end. And exhausted. All I remember is that when they called the day, this was me (in the front):

I literally just passed out there. Muddy legs and all. One of the best naps of my life.

Day two of work was mostly some shoveling some cement mixing cutting rebar and the ever-monotonous job of moving dirt. We did a lot of that. It was nuts. That was the day Mark and I were supporting the KWTA for Mel.

Kirkwood Women's Tennis Association that is. Holla.

The work project was great, but the best part of the trip by far for me was the kids.

Words can't describe the feeling I got from being able to communicate with them, joke with them, watch them play, play with them and just see the great joy in their lives. It was amazing.

On Wednesday we didn't do a whole lot of work because most of the day we were having a field day with the Compassion kids.

We played on this soccer field across from the church, which was the most well-kept clean piece of land in the entire village. I guess they like that game of futbol just a little bit.

Anyway, we played Tag and Red Light Green Light with the kids and then got in groups to play with bubbles.

They LOVED the bubbles. Blowing them, chasing them eating them, whatever. I've never seen such excitement over bubbles. Even my favorite little boy Jose, who seemed terrified of my most of the time, was jumping around in excitement and let me take his picture.

Actually, the kids loved pictures too. Anytime I took their picture, they ran over saying "I want to see I want to see." And then they would always want to take pictures too.

Anyway, for the rest of field day, we made some snacks and some crafts and ended the day playing with the giant parachute.

So that day was awesome for sure.

Thursday was our last day in San Isidro. In the morning a huge truck of bricks showed up, so we formed an assembly and got to work. By the end of the day, we had a massive pile of bricks.

And that's our wet laundry drying on the roof.

That was also the day no one was feeling very well, including me. I realized there were plenty of people eager to do the work that day, so I just took it easy after brick moving and focused on what I love most: playing with the kids. That afternoon was one of my favorites for sure. A group of kids were once again hanging around the work site, so Ev brought them all into the eating room and got the play-doh out.

At some point Ev left and I was all of a sudden baby-sitting eight to ten Salvadorean kids who don't speak English. I kept telling them they had to share and not mix the play-doh, and then they started mocking me. I would say "No mezclar," which is basically don't mix, and they would laugh and say "Si mezclar! Si mezclar!" And we would go back and forth with the whole "No!" "Si!" "No!" "Si!" thing. I loved every moment about it. Except for when they started telling on each other, which is when they get mad and the Spanish gets really fast and I have no idea what they're saying.

The kids were so loving. I spent like a half hour with them and they were jumping all over me and hugging me and wanting to show me their work. Then they invited me over to Carla's house (she lived across the street) to play some more. We ran around the house playing tag and hide and seek. And even though I was doing nothing with the work project, I knew that was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Everyone worked until dark that night. We even took two shifts of eating so we could get as much done as possible. It was an intense feeling moving concrete in the dark and rain. But we had to end quick, because our good-bye church service was that night.

The pastor gave us so many thanks. They made a certificate for each one of us, as well as a really cool jersey with their Compassion logo and name on it.

That's me graduating from El Salvador, as we like to say. Also my little 10-year-old friend William took that picture.

We got to sit by each other at church, it was cool. Anyway, while the people there thanked us so much, including a moment when William got up to say a few words,

I just felt an overwhelming amount of thanks for those people. For the men who worked with us so hard everyday, and always worked longer and harder than any of us. For the women who cooked us great meals (although completely unappetizing by the end) every day and were pretty much just wanting to serve us however they could. And for the kids who pretty much just blessed us beyond words.

I've gotta highlight some of my kids now, because they're the best.

This is Wilmer, Jorge and William. The latter two are brothers. They hung around the most. My favorite memory of those boys is one day they were asking me how to say "quiero" in English, which is "I want." So I told them and they all started saying "I want I want." Then I asked them what they wanted. And they said in Spanish chocolate. And that is how the phrase "I want chocolate" became one of the most commonly used English expressions from those boys. They were awesome.

The third brother to Jorge and William was Wilbur.

So cute. He was a little younger and therefore a little more shy, but he just killed us with that smile. Those boys lived right next to the church so we would often see them up in the tree overlooking our work site.

And I mean like really high in the tree. The kids just play there. There's so many less worries.

I can't forget Irvin.

He became best friends with Ben, and I would hang out with them a lot too. My name was always confusing to the kids, and one day Irvin thought my name was not Ta-te but Tatiana. I think my face of disgust at that name is what gave him the great idea to call me that constantly just to bother me. He wouldn't give it up, so I started calling him Irvina (clearly a girl's name in Spanish). He also lived across the street and was around all the time. So you could often hear us yelling across the street to each other "Tatiana!" "Irvina!" It makes you feel like you're really good at Spanish when you have inside jokes with kids.

Well if you couldn't tell, I could go on about and on and post a whole lot more pictures of the kids I grew to love in El Salvador, but maybe that will just have to come in person later. But I'll just say I miss them a lot. And they mean more to me than I think I can express here in a few memories and pictures.

But I do want to wrap this up by talking about what I learned from this trip because I'd say it's pretty significant. Some of the money we paid for this trip went to sponsoring four of the Compassion kids from San Isidro. On Tuesday, we went to visit those kids, and they were just so grateful to us and so happy to meet us. I'll never forget visiting Marlon, who lives in a one-room house. I always knew people lived in one-room houses but had never seen it. Before I always thought how awful this lifestyle must be and how depressed the people must be, etc.

But seeing the never-fading smiling face of Marlon (on the right) showed me something different.

While these people have "nothing" in our eyes, they still have joy. They still have great families. They still have an incredibly loving community. They are still blessed, just as much as I am. And you are.

We always say, "money doesn't buy happiness." But how often do we talk about how much more blessed we are than other because of all the stuff we have? Yes, those things are blessings, but God is blessing us in so many more ways than we even stop to realize.

I saw countless blessings to a seemingly "unblessed" village in El Salvador. I saw love, care, protection, joy, freedom, community, fellowship, talents, gifts, sunshine, humidity (hey, I think it's a blessing), rain, family, friends, food, God. Why should we think we need anymore than that?

God is present everywhere. And He is blessing all of us beyond belief. What I learned was so simple, and yet at the same time, so profound.

I almost just now started typing out all the blessings in my life, but then an overwhelming amount of them came to me along with the tears to my eyes. I wouldn't even know where to start. And you know what? I bet that most of the people I met in San Isidro would say the same thing.

May God bless you, and may you realize the great blessings in your life.

the exciting month of may

2007-06-16T11:15:00.000-06:00

As I start to type this blog, I am beyond overwhelmed with all that I feel I need to report on. But in the words of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, "let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." That's for Mel and Mar.

The beginning being where I last left off. The Tates and Poshaks and Cait all came to visit in May. It was way sweet. The parents came because it was our Youth Sunday, and that was awesome.

One of the highlights was a little hike we took. Here's our weird-looking family that went:

Not sure who's all related in that photo, but whatev. Here's our band pic too:

And me and the parents:

Also that weekend the parents all got to come to a Rockies game with us and the junior high youth group. I think they enjoyed it.

I cheered for the Royals obviously. There was more that happened that weekend, but I don't really remember it after all that's happened since then.

On Memorial Day weekend I completed my four states in four days trip. I first flew to Chicago, where none other than Steven Sweat picked me up, and spent the day with Julie and babies.

In case you were wondering, they're still really cute. Don't even worry. And they both liked me a lot up until bath and bedtime.

The next morning Angie picked me up and we started on our way the STL. And yes, after a nice dinner with the fam (including Poshaks), we did make a trip to Ted Drewes. How can you not? Saturday we made our way to Kansas, stopping in Columbia on the way to eat Lion's Choice. This trip was obviously all about the food.

In Kansas I got to be reunited with some of my fav peeps, except Emjo wasn't there so that's lame, but whatev. Here's some of the girls.

We had to take a walk around campus so I could relive 4 and a half years of memories in twenty minutes. Plus we had to stop and pray or whatever with Moses. Duh.

Oh, AND Angie had to experience what it's like to graduate from a big university.

There she is walking through the Campanile. Good work Ang.

And after some Grace EPC goodness on Sunday morning, we made our way back to the great state of Colorado. Oh, after getting some Steak 'n Shake in Topeka. That day got a little boring but at least Gar and Mel gave me a portable DVD player so we could be entertained by episodes of Arrested Development. Six of them in a row actually.

Once home, I then began my preparations for El Salvador, which I've decided to hold off a little longer on writing about because my computer battery is almost dead. Tune in next time, perhaps even later today, to read about my adventures in The Salvador. Get excited...

warm weather throws me off

2007-05-20T22:57:00.000-06:00

These days, I have two new hobbies: running and hemping. Unfortunately my new hobbies have pulled me away from tate-blog. My bad.

See, because of the unpredictability of available substituting jobs, I often find myself a little bored during the day. You know, until my middle school friends get out of school and I can hang out with them.

So last Sunday I happened to be talking to my friend Micah Thomas online. And I asked him to give me a job to accomplish by the end of the week. He first told me to make three friendship bracelets and give them to people I've never met, and he said I should run a cumulative of eight miles.

It was the new motivation I needed.

Running was ROUGH. Oh man. I can't believe I ran cross-country. But I did it. I ran four days last week, all adding up to about eight miles. I think. And I'm still going. I ran again today, and plan to keep doing so, at least in the near future.

I also became a hemping machine last week. Sophie taught me how to do it, and I never stopped. I started making bracelets and then people (like Andy, who is cool) would see me and be like, I want one. So I would make them one too. But don't worry, I made three extras and gave them to three new girls that came to Fusion on Friday.

I don't know what else to say right now because I actually wrote this blog almost a week ago so a lot has happened and I don't even know if that made sense up there.

My parents and the Poshaks were in town, oh and Caitlin, so all sorts of exciting things went on. It's summer! Ish. I love it. It makes life crazy fun exciting. But I'm exhausted now from youth sunday early this morning so I gotta go to sleep, and I'll write more about my recent adventures soon. Deal with it. And love. And be my friend.

Just a couple photo highlights that won't be mentioned if they're not now...

(dinner with small group girls)

(mother's day with my fake family and their other family)

(some babies I know that are cute. Duh.)

i been displaced

2007-05-01T00:29:00.000-06:00

The other night I had the glorious privilege of sleeping outside in a cardboard box. Along with 4,000 of my closest friends. In a big field. In Parker, Colorado. We only ate Saltine crackers for food. And it was pretty sweet.

I'll explain for those of you who may be somewhat confused.

There's this group called Invisible Children that aims to create awareness, raise money and provide help and care for the people of Uganda that are suffering because of the 21-year-long war that has been going on there. I won't go into a whole lot of detail here, but it's a cool organization and they're doing a lot of great things.

Displace Me was an event they put on in fifteen major US cities this past Saturday. See, 10 years ago many people in Uganda were forced to leave their homes and their land and now must live in displacement camps, which to my understanding consist of a bunch of tiny hut-type houses in a small area. In order to help raise awareness of the war, we simulated being displaced. We all brought cardboard and built our own little "houses." Well, ours was pretty much a floor and a few short walls, but still, it worked.

These were some of the excited attenders when we first arrived at the camp. I would say it was a good experience overall, despite the fact that some of my first words in the morning after a night of not much sleep were, "It is NOT this cold in Africa."

Sometimes when I see all that footage of the incredibly terrible conditions in Africa, I think to myself that if I'm not married in about ten years, I think I should go live there and help the people. And that sentence probably just freaked Melanie Tate out. But seriously, there's something inside me that just says, how can you not go help them?

Then again, "help" in God's definition is just as necessary in Arvada, Colorado as it is in Uganda. Deal. I'll stick around for awhile.

Here's some other quick notes about my life that don't require much detail but you should probably know:

-I'm playing rec league softball again.

-Lately a popular activity around here has been Ultimate Frisbee, which I love. But I realized I'm pretty bad defensively because I'm scared of being accidentally tackled by a boy.

-I'm going to El Salvador one month from today!! Ahhh!!

-I'm in love with Zack Morris. Duh.

-I substituted at Ralston Valley High School on Friday. AKA 4Cs High School. I felt more like one of the students than a teacher for most of the day. And looked like one too.

-Speaking of which, if I had to make an estimate, I'd say the average age people think I am/look is 18. Holla.

-I'm quitting Verizon soon. They dumb. Cingular anybody?

-Speaking of cell phones, Zack Morris' looks like this:

Which is not too far off from the size of my first cell phone back in '98.

-This is the current background on my cell phone:

-Since I've been watching all the episodes with Sophie, I've rediscovered so many great lines and moments from Saved by the Bell that I never noticed before.

-I ordered SBTB: The College Years online. It should be arriving any day now.

-It's really hard to find the Hawaii movie and the wedding movie to purchase anywhere. Except for the Spanish version. Plenty of those. So I've been watching the TV schedule to see when they air so we can tape it.

-I'm slightly obsessed/addicted to Saved by the Bell. That's the bottomline here.

-I really need to go to bed.