Almost done with college…

Ok… so in 8 days, I’ll officially be done with my undergraduate career.

…

IS’NT THAT INSANE?!

I feel like an old fogy saying this… but it was only a few months ago (in my mind) that I was moving into my freshman dorm. I can’t tell you how weird it is that I am leaving this place. My life is here. My friends have become my family… and they are leaving too. It’s kinda bitter sweet… how I feel. I am so excited about the future… and what God has in the works for me.

As of now, I am working with a friend of mine, Travis… to build a youth ministry team from the ground up. We are interviewing with a church in Houston with hopes to work as interns for a year before we take our team on the road. Th idea is to have a traveling retreat ministry in which we could bring culture and Christ to the teens of our churches. Our goal is to cultivate a passion in teenagers and in their parents to find their unconditional NEED for God and his perfect Love. IT’S PRETTY EXCITING STUFF!!

So this summer I’m just gonna be chillin with the fam, doing some traveling, and going to my sisters wedding. My grandparents are taking me and my twin sister on a cruise for our graduation present… and thats REALLY exciting for us. We are so very blessed.

As for Harding, I don’t think I’ve truly come to grips with the fact that I’m leaving her. I know it’s time to move on. There is a season for everything… someone really wise once said that :). And I know this is a new season… that is going to be a new adventure for the books. People always say that college is the best time in ones life. Well I definitely agree that these were the best years of my life… so far. I know God’s got big things up his sleeves for the next 23 years though. I trust in that completely.

Being here at HU has changed my life for the better in more ways than I could ever tell you. But just for fun… I’ll tell you 5 ways…

5) Through my teachers- They cared about my life, not just my homework.

4) Opportunities to grow in the Word of God without being surrounded by overwhelming vulgarity (some call this the Harding Bubble, I call it the Harding Miracle.) I have been blessed by the Christian atmosphere, and would never give up this experience.

3) Through my overseas semester in Greece. I learned more about the world, myself and God in that semester than I had in the previous 20 years combined. Nothing can compare to such an enlightening experience.

2) Through the academic challenge of being a student. Though my grades did not always show it, I feel like I am completely prepared to start out in ministry because of the Bible college and incredible faculty that I’ve been blessed to work for.

&

1) Though Relationships with the best people I’ve met in my entire life. My friends have saved my life. God has given me more friends than I can count while I’ve been here… and that is priceless. Seriously priceless.

Please pray for me and my new future. I do covet your prayers.

“Here am I Lord, send me!”

signing off one last time…. your friend….

Jess

Tornadoes & My Spring Formal

OK so… I’m from Florida right… so I’ve seen natural disaster in the form of hurricanes from a young age. Storms don’t scare me. They never have. Lightning is actually one of my favorite things. When I was a kid, I can remember watching the sky in the summer during the heat lightning storms or during a storm, and I remember how I would just gasp every time the lightning raced across the sky. My little eyes were more and more amazed with every strike. Well, with that said… this past Thursday evening, I was in a pretty bad storm… and I was legitimately scared.

Marissa and I were in Little Rock Thursday night getting Sushi, shopping for a Formal dress, and looking around Target for shoes when… the Tornadoes came. As the employees of Target ushered us to the back of the store, we knew something crazy was about to happen. For about 45 minutes, we watched the news and learned that tornadoes were popping up all around Little Rock. The storms were coming from the west and were blocking our way back to Searcy. The tornado warnings were a few minutes apart from eachother, so when there was a break in the storm, we decided to drive to our friend Celeste’s house. She is one of our very best friends, and was home alone with her dog… pretty freaked out herself. We ended up putting pillows and blankets in her walk-in closet and sleeping there… in her closet (!!!) together. It was quite an experience. God took care of us though. I heard the next day that a Target not far from the one we were at actually was torn up pretty bad by a tornado. Is that not INSANE?! I praise God for taking care of us. Please keep the people of Arkansas in your prayers. There has been a lot of devastation cause by tornadoes and flooding, and I know that through all of this, God can and will be glorified.

Moving on…

This past weekend, I was happy to attend my club’s spring formal. My best friend Marissa and I went together (with our handsome dates of course) and had a blast. I’ve been starting to realize how little time I have left here…so in turn, I’ve been enjoying everything so much more. This was my last club function to go to… so it was truly special. I made the end of semester video… so check it out if you have a minute. I’m working on uploading it to Facebook right now.

Oh ya… one more thing. I got to take a ride in the Harding Jet yesterday with Dr.Burks (the President of our University) and it was such a blast! We went to church in Baton Rouge, LA and made it back by 3pm. How crazy it that?! I felt like a celebrity. No joke.

Ok I lied… I have one more thing to tell you.

MY SISTER MANDY GOT ENGAGED THIS WEEKEND!!!! AHHHHH!! & I’m SO HAPPY!!!!

God is SO good to us!

Well… thanks for reading my babbling. I appreciate you. Until next time….

Spring Sing Weekend

Spring Sing is a huge deal here at Harding. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s only the biggest University musical production know to man… (or close to it). Over 1000 HU students participated in a 3 hour production including 17 social clubs & friends, The HU Jazz Band, 30 talented students in Ensemble, and 4 unbelievably talented host/hostesses. You have to see it to understand how big of a production it is. This is how is goes… there are clubs at Harding who get together for basically the whole semester and prepare a musical show of about 7-8 minutes. Also, the Ensemble and Host/Hostesses do their own music numbers between the club shows. This year, by some luck of the draw… I got front row tickets… the day before the show! It was actually pretty exciting to be so close.

If you haven’t seen Spring Sing… you should plan on coming next year.

The show was truly entertaining. I was lucky to be in great picture taking seats.

Check of my facebook album for more…

It amazes me how many talented people go to school here. You’d think out of 5,000 students, we’d have maybe a hand full of people who would probably win American Idol or So you think you can dance, or act on the next episode of LOST… but really… there are hundreds of people here at Harding that fit that description. I’m not kidding. I feel like one day later on in life, that I will most likely know people in Hollywood because I went to school here. Maybe I’m exaggerating… because of my post-spring-sing-high? Who knows.

Jill, David, HaleyJane & Logan…. You guys were fantastic Host/Hostesses. Truly.

Photographer.

So I’m taking a photography class here at Harding and I really have been learning a lot, and enjoying it. I’ve always loved photography ever since I was really young, and that love has only grown since I’ve been here. I’ve been able to photograph some pretty incredible things… from the front lawn in the bright flowered Spring days to the pyramids of Egypt, the Acropolis of Athens, the Coloseum of Rome, the Bison’s Basketball victories, hilarious roadtrip memories, Snow days, Engagements and Weddings of some of my best friends… and now I’m working on “hands”. I have a project for Photography class and thats it. Hands. So here are my 4 favorite. I couldn’t take the picture that I really wanted to because I would have needed more models to stand in… but this is what I got with what I had.

Hands Eating:

Hands Relaxing:

2 types of Hands:

Hammock Hands:

Which one do YOU like best?

I’m on Spring Break… and it’s been pretty awesome so far. I was lucky enough to go on the Intermission Spring Retreat with Highland (the church I’ve interned with for 2 summers) and it was truly incredible. The camp we were at was really beautiful, and the speaker that came was from Jonesboro, AR was greatly effective. The kids really heard what he had to say about “Fighting the Fight” for God in our everyday lives. It was challenging and really fun. Donnie set up a “prayer labyrinth”  which was this awesome huge maze that led you to a center fire  and back out again. The teens seemed to really react to this in a big way. I get to have  about 4 really deep conversations with my kids at different points in the day and God was really moving in our hearts. The teens at Highland are really fighting the fight, and trying to keep the faith.

It fills me up to see that Faith in them. I sure LOVE these kids.

Oh… check out our new hoodies!!

Being around the HYG gets me so excited about being in youth ministry. I’m just really excited about the path God is paving for me. I still don’t know where He is leading me exactly, but I’m hopeful.

66 days until graduation.

Whoa.

Home cookin’ at the Farm

So… one of my roommates took a group of us out to her grandparents farm the other night for dinner and we got to eat a most delicious home-cooked meal I’ve had in ages. I can’t even explain to you how amazing it was. “Maam-aww” and “Pop-aww” were really awesome. Maamah had woken up at 5am to start cooking for us. She had made turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, fresh rolls and fruit salad… and all of it was made from scratch! The best part was dessert… she had made an unbelievably perfect apple pie. I wish I knew what to say to you so that you would understand how incredible it TASTED with the vanilla ice cream melting on top of it!! It reminded me of one of those pies that you’d see in the movies… sitting in a kitchen window cooling off. I sure am glad I finally got to taste such a pie.

So basically, I was inspired by Tara’s grandma… and I decided that I needed to learn how to be a little more domestic myself. So what I did was… I tried my hand at homemade chocolate chip cookies. Now, I know that isn’t the most exciting thing you’ve heard all day, but I it was really fun for me. The first batch I made turned out really flat and actually didn’t rise at all. They tasted amazing… but I guess I didn’t put enough flour in them because they weren’t really in any form that could be identified as a cookie. The next batch must of had too much flour cause they were like little tiny cakes. The third batch was better… and I was kinda proud of them actually. I just need to keep practicing. Oh, and just for the record, before you start to think anything… I’m not doing this so that I can be the perfect “Harding wife” or anything ridiculous like that. I want to be better at this so that I can bless others with that gift. Who isn’t comforted by good food? Isn’t that what we just learned? Yes. Yes it is.

Thanks for sharing your family with me Tara. The pie was to die for.

23 years

I think Birthday’s are so weird.

I’m just sayin’… it’s kinda weird to me having a day that changes something about who you actually are. Friday, I was 22 years old… and then Saturday I was all the sudden 23 years old. I feel like an actual adult for the first time in my life. 23 just sounds so freakin old… and close to 25! I wish I could explain what I mean. I am so content with how my life is panning out… and I’m so blessed.

So… the girls woke me up with birthday pancakes…

And then they through a dinner party for me… and we made my favorite food.

Sushi.

 

We ate, laughed, took way too many pictures, and played with my friend Celeste’s dog Gracie. Four of my favorite things. My favorite type of sushi is with shrimp. avocado, cream cheese and occasionally roe. Celeste was a good detective, and so created my favorite sushi roll. I was truly in Japanese food heaven. The fun thing about sushi is that it truly is an art.So we had fun being creative with it. Celeste even made me a wonderful white chocolate cake… also my favorite.

Celeste is too good.

I’m honestly blown away by her skills. Celeste graduated last semester and is now working in Little Rock with an Interior Design Firm. I wish you could see some of her work. This girl is just plain talented. I feel like everything she creates/designs should be sold for tons of money. I’m sure one day, it will be. Here are a few of the new things she’s designed…

(We did a few model shots for her web-cite for fun.)
So this is one of the hand bags she made, and this is one of her unique aprons. Pretty amazing huh?

I truly enjoy being a girl on days like this one. Pretty things just make me happy.

So incase you were wondering, the sushi was fantastic and the company was even better. I recommend finding friends like these. You can’t go wrong with quality of this magnitude.

Roadtrip to Branson

I am a member of an elite group called the CCC’s. This group consists of me and my 5 best friends. One of my best friends (Christy) moved to Brandon, MO after she graduated last May, and so this past weekend… the rest of the girls and I decided to go visit her. The 6 of us were finally together again… and it was truly encouraging to be with them.

We loaded up my mini-van Friday afternoon with our bags and a pack of Jones Soda, and some homemade hummus, compliments of Celeste (she’s the most domestic out of all of us) and we hit the road!

While in Branson, we got to see where Christy lives and her school and meets some of her new friends. She is at the Kanokuc Institute studying more about youth ministry. It was really cool to see the camps that she worked at last summer and get a glimpse of her new life there.

We saw the sights of Branson. And let me just say… it was kinda weird… but really fun. Branson is like an old fashion version of Orlando, FL to me. There were lots of flashy shows and stuff, but most of them where things my grandparents would go watch… like accapella quartets and stuff like that. It’s off season there now, so the town was kinda dead. That was ok with us though, because all we wanted to do was go to the flee markets and explore.

I found a really beautiful teapot at the flee market, and I got it for my Mom’s bed-n-breakfast. My Mom and Aunt are re-opening a beautiful old B&B in Savannah, TN in a few months and there’s going to be a tea house feel to it… so we’ve been collecting tea sets for them. The one I just got is a tea-for-one pot. It matches the B&B almost perfectly. Anyway, that was a great find!

When the 6 of us get together… crazy things happen. It’s just inevitable. We also always take a ton of pictures. What can I say?! It’s a girl thing I guess. Here we are shopping around… being girls.

This is the coolest place in Branson. Hands Down.

I mean… Mt.Elvis?! Really? How weird/cool is that?!

What a great way to spend my weekend :)… I can’t think of a better place to be. We decided that once we all graduate, and are scattered across the contry with our new lives… we are going to meet up at least once a year for a CCC trip. I love this idea.

Monster Trucks and Rednecks

One of the greatest club functions I’ve ever been to was this past Friday night. You might not see the greatness in the description I’m about to present to you, but I feel sure that you will appreciate the joy that came from such a ridiculous evening. I was honored to be invited to go on a blind date to this function, which was called the “Out of your League” Function. Basically, the men of Beta Omega Chi decided that they should have this theme in order to give their guys a chance to ask out the most highly saught after ladies on Harding’s campus. I feel silly telling you this because I wouldn’t want to toot my own horn, but it was seriously such an honor to be asked to such an event.

So I recieved the call on Thursday night from a freshman guy named Ben who had gotten my name from a friend of mine, and he told me to be ready in my “redneck apparel” by 4:45 the following day because we were going to the Moster Truck rally in Little Rock! Yes. I’m not even kidding. It was legit.

So, the evening started out pretty great considering the potentially akward situation that Ben and I were faced with. You see, after I talked to Ben Thursday night, and found out his full name, naturally I looked him up on facebook. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that Ben is not only in my 8am class, but he had been sitting directly on my right for the past 2 weeks of classes. (!) The funny part is, for some strange reason… I didn’t say anything to him! He didn’t say anything either, but we both knew we were going on a date that night! Weird huh?!But it was a great conversation to be had later on.

So he picked me up with another couple, gave me a flower.. well actually it was a kitkat bar on a wire hanger (redneck rendition of a flower) and we met up with the rest of the crew at Mo’s Burritos in Little Rock. Conversation was great, and during dinner we decided to give each other official redneck names. Ben was automatically “Wilbert” because of the name-tag which was so nicely imprinted on his Walmart employee jacket.

Linzi was dubbed as “Bertha”, and Caleb was “Cletus”. He originally told us he wanted his redneck name to be Jesse, which ended up being a really funny moment, considering that is actually very close to my real name. ha! So, after laughing for a bit about the foot-in-mouth comment, I kept my name and he took on the character of Cletus. We really took it all a little to far. Our dialog as redneck friends was truly hilarious. I’m serious, once we started with the accents… it was all down hill from there.

Linzi aka “Betha” and I even put the cherry on top of the redneck festivities by stuffing a balloon under our shirts to create the illusion of the pregnant redneck teenager. (I’m truly sorry if you are offended by this label. Please know this was all in good fun.)

 

So there we were… a Trucker named Cletus, a Walmart Guy named Wilbert, and Betha and Jessi… 2 pregnant redneck with nothing to do but laugh and have way too much fun. The truck show was pretty exciting… and we actually had an awesome time yelling for our favorite truck and basically acting like complete idiots. By the end of the evening, we were complete exausted. Being redneck is a fun, but extremely draining. Not to mention, my vocal cords were strained to the point of pain from being in character for so long.

You should seriously trust me and go to one of these truck shows. Really though, I know that it was actually fun because I was with awesome people. We could have been doing anything really… and I’m confident we would have made it into an incredible memory. That’s one thing I know about Harding, the people make everything worth while.

One time we went on a road trip…

Not so long ago, me and my best friends here at Harding decided to go on a road trip. Let me tell you about it, will you?

This was one of the dearest memories I’ll ever have. It was Thanksgiving break, and so the 6 of us decided to take the week and spend it together. So, we packed my wonderful mini-van with our junk, a cooler of snacks, and a couple road maps, and we headed out for an adventure we’d never forget. Our first stop was at Celeste’s house in Columbus, OH. She gave us a tour of the beautiful town and showed us her favorite markets and shops. We also got to enjoy a OSU Buckeyes Victory while only about a mile away from the game. That was really fun to experience for sure. As you can see, we also did a lot of silly girl photography. Always a must. Celeste needed to stay home with her family, so sadly, we had to leave her. We felt incomplete without her, so we decided to make a “flat Celeste” and take her with us. If you’ve never heard of the children’s book called “Flat Stanley,” then I guess you might be a little confused. Essentially, we made a paper doll of Celeste, and carried it with us everywhere. Yes, I mean everywhere.

From there, we drove through to Salem, New Hampshire, which is where Marissa lives. On the way though, we took a stop at Niagara Falls! (I mean, you can’t blame us!) While at Marissa’s house, we drove into Maine and did some shopping, learned about the miracle that is Marissa’s Grandmother’s famous Italian spaghetti sauce (to die for), and also spent a day exploring the beautiful city of Boston.

I truly loved Boston. We were freezing, but really enjoyed the Northern hospitality :).  Our next stop was at Rachel’s house in New Jersey. That is where we spent Thanksgiving. Rachel’s family had recently experienced a great loss of a dear, dear family member… so the girls and I had made it a point to be there with her. We had the best holiday we could, and we were most thankful for each other. The day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, we went to New York City.

That was my first time to spend time there… and let me tell you… I was overwhelmed. We saw everything we could fit in from ground zero to the statue of liberty, time square to broadway… and we even saw Rent! It was truly a wonderful day. We even met up with a friend who had already graduated from harding. Small world huh?! Our friend Daniel met us that day and toured NYC with us. Ok, so from there… we drove back down to Tennessee to Christy’s house. We got to meet her Mom and step Dad, and try on her Mom’s prom dress. Ha! Good times. After getting back to HU, I figured out that I REALLY needed to change the oil in my minivan… cause we had driven over 3,000 miles in 10 days! I think that’s pretty impressive. We couldn’t have asked for a better trip. We sure did get sick of each other at times, but man I wouldn’t trade that trip for anything. I think that this trip was when I truly found my best friends.

I couldn’t have better friends than the ones I have here at Harding. That’s just plain fact.