Sophia

Sophia- that is the beautiful name we had picked out for our beloved little sister we were never given the chance to meet. Why God chose to take her before we were given the chance to spend any time with her, I don't think I will ever understand. All I know is if it wasn't for this little sister of mine, I don't think I would be at the place where I am in my relationship with God. It took having things I cared so much about taken away to make me realize my life is nothing without God. He needs to be my everything and I need to rely on him in every area of my life. Everything, including the life of my unborn siblings belong to him, not me. It took the loss of a sister for me to really comprehend how great God's love for me is, in that, He loves my sisters and family more then I ever could, and yet he was willing make her life so incredibly short to bring me back to him. If I think the death of those I love is hard for me, God loves them even more than I do, he made them and planned their lives, and yet he used their life and death to show me his love and faithfulness.

I looked up the meaning of Sophia's name and this was something I came across today-

Sophia means Wisdom-

Job 28:12-13
But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
No mortal comprehends its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.

How appropriate that the name we had picked out for our sister meant wisdom. And wisdom is from God. All wisdom is of God not man, It belongs with God. God understands it's true worth, Man can not even begin to understand. God understands the worth of my sister's life more than I ever could.

Our sister belongs to God and belongs with him. He chose to keep her with him. While she is not here in broken land of the living with her family, I have every reason to believe she is with her Heavenly Father, where wisdom dwells, with the creator and sustainer of all life and wisdom.

I Surrender All?...

Why why why??? Why do I always get writers block as soon as I have a great idea for my blog? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. I have a very important spanish exam tomorrow and I should probably be studying for, but thats the problem. I have studied sooo much the past week for this exam my mind needs a break! also there have been so many things on my heart I can't just sit back and not voice at least one of them. and as anyone reading this who really knows me, you understand that I am not the quiet type, I do the things you are told not to do in polite company, I have no problem addressing religion, or bringing up politics and arguing about what i believe to be right. It just doesn't bother me, so when so many things that need/ I want to be addressed are on my mind, the last thing I want to do is tell you in spanish what color my backpack is.

One thing that has been on my mind the pass few days is a hymn, it's called "I Surrender All".
here are some of the lyrics...

I surrender all, I surrender all,
all to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
humbly at his feet I bow,
worldly pleasures all forsaken;
take me, Jesus, take me now.

Ok so I realize whoever wrote this song probably either was at a very good point in their relationship with God that they truly were surrendering their all or they wrote it hopes of getting there, but for me, I have such a hard time singing this.
Because I can assure you, I do NOT surrender all. Everyday I sit there giving God this and that, but those things that I really value, those friendships or grades, nope God those are mine, cause I'm just not sure I trust you to give me what I want when I want it. Which in some ways is a realistic view ( I didn't say correct), God probably won't give me what I want, when I want it, but is that reason to not surrender all? absolutely not, God is giving me those things in his timing because that is what's best for me and because he loves me enough to be patient with me in my stubbornness until I finally turn to him.
So maybe God is challenging me now to be in such a compete surrender to him that I can sing that song and not feel like a fake and a liar.
A song I do like in replacement of that one for now is this...

Take me past the outer courts
Into the secret place,
Past the brazen altar,
Lord, I want to see Your face.
Pass me by the crowds of people,
The priests who sing Your praise;
I hunger and thirst for Your righteousness
And it’s only found in one place.

Take me in to the Holy of Holies,
Take me in by the blood of the Lamb;
Take me in to the Holy of Holies,
Take the coal, cleanse my lips,
Here I am.
Take the coal, cleanse my lips,
Here I am.

I love this song because unlike I surrender all, I don't feel like I have to already be there. This song to me is a begging to God to help us surrender, to not care for the things of this world, or what the crowds think, but to surrender our everything in the hope of becoming more like God, longing for HIS righteousness, not our own. It's the surrender of everything we are to be made clean by Christ's blood.

Just something to think about, are we fooling ourselves, thinking, we've made it! We have completely surrendered to God? Or are we allowing God to change us through a daily surrender to him?

Also one totally irrelevant thought I thought I would share was this, when I was re reading to make sure this made at least a little sense I thought of this. I had a friend tell me once, think about this.

Every other religion is based off what you do to earn your salvation, next life, karma etc... your good works, your kindness, you humble living circumstances and trying to reach the gods or your next life, but Christianity is the only religion where God reaches down to us while we are turning away from him, it's the only religion where "admitting you have a problem" -and confessing it and acknowledging your need and that you believe that your need is met through Jesus blood-is what saves you, not anything you do, but what God has already done for you.
Just something to think about.

Well now I really really really need to get back to studying. But maybe a different attitude, with one of trying to use the abilities that God has given me to the best I can, not trying to get a good grade so it reflects well back to me.

I hope this encourages you to not feel like we have to have it all together, but rather to remember that His power is made perfect in our weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9- But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Girls don't like boys, girls like Cars and Money.

Alright, first post for things I like.

SUPER CARS!!! which as you can guess from the name of the post cost a wholeeeeee lot of $$$$$$.

Money is whatever, but... unfortunately my favorite super car cost about $1.5 Million. Soooo no money, no super car.
But I'm not actually here to talk about money, so let's pretend for the duration of this post that money is no object and we could all get any super car we want for the price of a cardboard box.


Super cars or cars in general tend to get put into the list of "guy" things. Which I think is bunch of crap to be honest, because chances are good I know more about cars that half of the guys I know. So we're just gonna break that little stereo type right now.
Cars are amazing, I love them. Everything from the engine to the rims, Paint color to weight. But more than anything, I like how fast you can get them to go.
I mean seriously, 200 some Miles per hour is pretty amazing! But don't get me wrong, just because you can get a car to go super fast does not make it a super car.
Examples-

For starters, Rice Burners- if you don't know what these are, well it's ok. Rice burner is kind of the derogatory term given to them by people who like REAL cars, like BMW, McLaren, Mercedes AMG, Basically anything German :)
A rice burner would be something a Honda Civic that someone has modified to high heaven just to get it to be a decent car.
Sure they go fast, you may get it to be considered a racing car), but... when you step out, or open the hood, you're still driving another little Asian high MPG car (which after being modified, get pretty much no MPGs anyway). You might as well show up to race day in a Prius.

notice the engine didn't make it in the picture ;)

The next type of "fast car" that I don't like is anything driven in NASCAR.
GROSSSSS!!!!! All you have done is take an ugly, unreliable, Cheap piece of American engineering ( if you can even call it engineering, taking other companies designs and making it cheaper, I think engineers deserve more credit than to be lumped in with these cars) and super charged it and changed the exterior and chassis to plastic and the windows to net and then called it a super car.
Now sure, I know more goes into it than what i mentioned above, but really, it still is not a super car.

see plastic cars don't work.


A Super car is something so amazing that it earns the Super part in not only speed, but engineering, how smart they can make the car, the technology in it. All the thought that goes into every single inch of it. How they can shed more weight, how they can make the strongest car while still keeping it light and safe.
The engine is obviously one of the most important parts, but so is every other thing in the car from the air conditioning, to the Navigation system. From the headrest to the 3 point racing seat belts. It takes so much time and care to build a true super car. Hence why, when you open the hood to your Pagani Zonda, this is what you see...


Thats right, German engineering. Only the best for the best cars. Something very common is for Super car companies and any car really is to be owned by one parent company and get there engine from another (most commonly a German engine).
For example-
Volkswagen owns-
Audi
Bentley
Bugatti
Lamborghini


So for the most part, the super cars are owned by Germans and have German engines and an Italian (for the most part) exterior. Of course, some of the most insanely awesome Super cars (that no one can actually afford, or would never in a million years drive on a public road are 100% DEUTSCH!!!



The Gumpert Apollo - a beautiful car, 100% German
Price- $600,000
650 HP, V8 engine
0-62 3.0 seconds
0-124 8.9 Sec.
Top speed-224 mph
Total weight- 3,000 lbs

These are some of my favorites/ the most well known.

The Pagani Zonda F Roadster
Price- $1,448,000
602 HP, AMG V12
0-60 3.5 Seconds
0-100 6.0 Seconds
Top speed- 214 mph

Lamborghini Reventon-
Price- $1,454,400
605 HP, V12
0-60 3.3 Sec
0-124 11 Sec
Top speed- 211 mph

Bugatti Veyron 16.4-
Price- $1,738,080
1,001 HP, , W16 with 4 turbo chargers.
0-60 2.5 Sec
0-124 7.3 Seconds
Top speed-253 mph

Ferrari 430 Scuderia
Price- $235,000
510 HP, V8
0-60 3.4 Seconds
0-124 11.5 Seconds
Top speed- 198 mph

Koenigsegg CCXR
Price- $2,173,950
1,018 HP, V8
0-60 2.9 seconds
0-124 8.9 Seconds
Top speed-250 mph

Just a few of my favorites, But as you can see. There is no modified Honda or Toyota in the midst. Or any car with an Asian engine in it, now don't get my wrong, I have nothing against Asia or the people. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you they make the best cars, because the bottom line is, they don't. And until they and the American's stop using cheap materials and finally buy a German engine. They have no chance of making it in the world of super cars.

So you see, there is so much more to a super car then speed. Plus they are beautiful. And that my readers, is why super cars are one of my favorite things in the world.
Even though I will be lucky if I ever even get to sit in one. They're exclusivity doesn't hurt their appeal either. Who wants to blend in when you could stand out on the streets by driving this...

Things I Like.

Today my sister Em told me that I needed to write on my blog more. So here I am, writing on my blog. I wasn't quite sure what to post, but then I decided, why not give my readers something that will help them get to know me better.
so for the month of January I am going to try to write 7 post of things that I like.

These are some of the things I have first thought of-

Cars- particularly Super cars. Yes the gas guzzling, seemingly pointless ( to some people) super cars.




Football, Fussball, Futbol- How ever you want to say it ( as long as you don't call it soccer). It's a sport that quite literally unites the world, and what's so great about it you ask? well wait for my second post and I will give you a few reasons why I am excited just thinking about it!



Family- my family, who we are, what's so awesome about us (besides the obvious stuff :P). also what it's been like to grow up with 5 sisters, cause to tell you the truth, to a lot of people, we're kinda considered freaks, and I like it like that :)



New York City- Mainly the Bronx, but also the rest of the city, and the people from there. Possibly the greatest city ever. sorry DC, you'll always be my hometown.

Social work/ Justice work- It's what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, so I probably will have a good bit to say about it.

My faith- Why I don't just call myself a Christian on Facebook. What faith really is to me. It isn't just a lable I put on myself when asked what religion I believe in. It's a relationship, not just a religion.

My Puppy Eve- Yes you can call me a crazy dog lady for dedicating a whole post to my Pup, but seriously if you ever met her, you would understand why, she is the CUTEST THING EVER!!!

and Last but definitely not least...

RAP- what it is, what it can be, and what to me it most definitely is NOT. Everything from good hooks to the hip-hop culture and era itself.

Tomorrow I will post my first real blog of the year- SUPER CARS!

And yes I realize that there are 8 things on that list.

Justice

Free writing-

I wrote this a few weeks ago for an english assignment and decided I would post it on here and see what people think :)

Free writing-

I was told to set a timer for 3-5 minutes and free write. In other words, write about something that interest me and write whatever came to my mind about that subject for a few minutes. Here is goes...

Justice- one word, one word heavily laden with so much meaning for so many. Justice, something some never experience in their life due to many circumstances. Some never seek justice, instead they chose to sit back and ignore the plights of other people's lives, While others assume because they have never directly experienced injustice or met some who has, it simply doesn't exist. But for me, it is something I have always felt a strong pull to bring into the lives of those suffering from injustice. I myself have lived life in a country where injustice never effected me personally. But as I get older I realize more and more how much injustice is in the land of the freedom, and equality. Justice is something that is needed everywhere in the world. In some places it may be more apparent than in others. In some countries the world can see the injustice people are suffering at the hands of the government, in other countries, such as the United States, people don't seem to realize the injustice and corruption, because of the freedoms we have in this country, most people don't realize the severe injustice being suffered in this country. People assume corruption of the police and law enforcement is a thing of the past, unfortunately it's not. And how do we explain the massive numbers of children being sold into forced prostitution in our own country? This is just one example of the injustice being suffered in one place in the world. There are so many more! So why do we not fight for justice more? Why do we fear those who bring injustice and persecution?
The need for justice in the world is so great. So what are you going to do to fight for justice?

Day #1- Sunday

I know this is wayyy over due, considering it has been over a month since I posted the teaser, But here it is.

Our first full day in the beautiful state of NY was spent in the city itself. But thats not how our day started.
At 7:15 am we had to meet outside to pray before boarding our blue school bus into the city. (it blended in so well in the south Bronx, not!). Little did we know before boarding our bus we were gonna need a lot of that prayer for our bus. We had some pretty major mechanical problems, things like the brakes not working very well and reverse not working hardly at all. Minor issues of course...
One our way into the city we had a group prayer for the day and how God would be using us to minister to the city, then we had 30 minutes of silence to do our morning devo which Ben had prepared for us. This first morning we read Psalm 48:1-14
It talks about how the temple was a place of refuge and shelter at the highest part of the city and we were challenged to think about how things have changed in our cities because of sin, the church is a place of hypocrites and people are afriad that they are too sinful for church so they just never go because they don't want other people to judge them.
At Revolution Church we were able to see how Jeff and Rachel and the others involved in ministry there have been able to start breaking down the stereotypes and get a big variety of people through the doors. People who may not have associated with a church before a church like Revolution came to their area of the city. And get people united with others believers in the congregation they may not have otherwise even talked to. The diversity in the room was so refreshing. One thing I was challenged so much by at Revolution was the way these people, who live in an area of the city where they could very well be killed for their beliefs, were absolutely living out Romans 1:16-
I am NOT ASHAMED of The Gosple, because it is the POWER OF GOD for the SALVATION of EVERYONE who BELIEVES: First for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
They were so unashamed, they didn't care what Joe Schmo sitting next to them thought about how they were worshiping, they were there to worship God and live unashamed for him. It was very challenging for me, how many times am I more worried about what other people think about what I am doing during worship, am I singing on key? did I just clap to loud?
And the truth is, even if I was singing horribly off key, clapping as loud as possible on the off beat, if I am praising God and only focused on worshiping him, nothing else matters. Why do we worry about what other people think, we aren't there to worship them and make them happy, we should be worshiping to bring glory and honor to God.

After church we stayed to have lunch with the congregation and were able to talk to some people about why we were there and just meet other members of the church. Then after we finished lunch, we all got back on the bus and we brought a few people from the church with us. Some we dropped off at their appartments, and some we brought with us to go on our NYC exposure trip. We first drove around quite a bit and then we went to down town Manhattan.

In Manhattan we walked around time square, and my group which started out as me and Ali, joined up with big John, and Josh S.
We went into the HUGE toys-r-us, Madame Tussauds, the Ripley's believe it, or not museum. We also went to some famous singers restaurant he recently opened on broadway, I can't remember who he was but I know his guitar was named and is almost as famous as he is!
We walked around times square and the surrounding areas for about an hour, handing out tracts and seeing the sights, then we walked over to meet our bus.
From Manhattan we made our way over into Brooklyn and drove past some beautiful neighborhoods, then we made our way to one of my favorite places of the week...
CONEY ISLAND!!!
Coney Island, seems like a pretty normal place from the movies and the name right? WRONG! That place was pretty crazy, But I loved it! The people were... well they were people. It was pretty fun to sit back with a Nathan's hot dog from the original stand on the board walk and just people watch to relax. I again ended up in Ali's group, it was just her and I. We were given tracts to hand out by Jeff and big John. So as Ali and I were walking trying to figure out who to talk to first these two guys probably in their mid twenties walked up to us and asked Ali to take a picture of them. Some background, Ali is an AMAZING photographer, and she was carrying around her quite impressive camera, which these two clearly noticed. So after Ali took a picture of them I took advantage of them standing there to hand them a tract, we ended up having a really awesome chance to share with them as to why we were in NY and what we were doing here. They were both from Long Island and the one remained pretty quiet after reading the tract but the other who had originally approached us starting talking about how he had been saved the year before while serving our country in Iraq. He was stationed in a very war torn area and was the only troop from his unit who returned. He said it was after is best friend was killed within an hour of being with him that he realized he needed a savior and ended up going to a fellow soldier who he knew was a believer and accepted Christ. It was a pretty cool conversation to have in a place like Coney Island. After we said by to them Ali and I were walking around and saw the same 2 guys talking to 3 guys from the revolution church who had come with us. We thought it was pretty funny, and also God clearly had more to be done in their lives, such a cool moment.
After this Ali and I decided we were ready for our Nathan's hotdogs and went over got our dogs and were just sitting on the boardwalk staring out at the water which was really pretty the way the light was coming down from the clouds. Perfect timing of course, right as we started walking to meet up with everyone, the rain that had been holding off all day started to come. We then decided where we were gonna head for dinner, we decided to head back to Manhattan for pizza.
When we arrived in Manhattan we went to the uno's at pier 16 in downtown by the water front, while some of us were a little disappointed we didn't get to have pizza in little Italy and had to have Chicago style in NY we were just excited to be eating!
Dinner turned into quite the event when I had a small altercation with another girl in the bathroom. It mostly consisted of a girl clearly under the influence of alcohol screaming profanity at me and me barely being able to understand a word she was saying while trying to explain to a girl from Italy who spoke very little english what was going on. Needless to say there were MANY misunderstandings in that 5 minutes. If you want the whole story just ask me about it sometime.
I also forgot a pretty big detail about this first day of the trip. I might have mentioned it in passing earlier, but here it is in detail. Saturday morning I hadn't been feeling great, sinus headache, ear ache, but really nothing out of the ordinary for me. Then as the day went on my symptoms seemed to get worse. By lights out Sat night my voice was a little raspy. And then Sunday morning rolled around. I had NO voice. For one of the first times in my life I had completely lost my voice! I had “lost” it a few times before, meaning it got a little worn out by the end of 3 day swim meets. But never like this, I could barely say a word. But if you know me at all, you know that not having a voice does not stop me from talking!
I made it through most of the day having to whisper to whoever I was sitting next to, or shout to be heard, well what I though was shouting and apparently I was still very quiet!
Who knew quiet would be used to describe me, ever! Especially when I am with my best friends in one of my favorite places in the world!
So as you can see, this complicated things. Me trying to speak to someone to explain what was going on (which I was a little unsure of myself) when they didn't speak the same language, and I am sure my own english was almost as unintelligible as the girl who was slurring her speech like NO OTHER!
So over all, it was an interesting first day. From Uno's we drove around manhattan for a bit, slowly making our way back to the Bronx. We got to drive through Alphabet city where the German consulate happens to be located which made me VERY excited! Then from there we drove back to the bronx to drop the people who had spent the day with us back at their various apartments and then headed back to camp. We got back really late after a 6:15 am start. It was sometime after midnight by the time we got back to our dorms, just in time to go get in bed for a longgg nights sleep... NOT! Maybe in some alternate universe, nope, we had team debriefing. Which thankfully was pretty short. Not super short but it could have been much longer!
After that we truly crashed into our bunks after a LONG day!
Plus we had to be up 7:30 technically but if you wanted any chance of a shower it was up at 6:30 to have time to get ready for a long day of physical labor around the camp.
Well there will be more about day #2 Monday in a post hopefully later this week.

Thanks for reading about my adventures so far!


In service to Him,
Abby
Galatians 2:20

New York Overview!!

Alright, So I am not much of a writer but I recently took a 1 week trip to The Bronx NY that changed my life and I just have so many stories to share and things to say about that trip that a blog seemed like the only reasonable way to get everything I wanted to tell everyone,out. That is without spending the rest of my life talking about it. So here we go!

This will be short because I really need to get some sleep. So this will be just a quick explanation about what I, a 16 year old girl from the Washington D.C. suburbs, was doing in an area like the South Bronx.

My youth group from church took a trip to partner up with Children's Bible Fellowship (CBF) based in Carmel NY, about an hour north of the city, and The Revolution Church located in Hunts Point, South Bronx.

CBF runs two summer camps in Carmel. One, Camp Joy, is a camp for kids from the inner city, most all from families living in poverty, and who otherwise wouldn't get the chance to experience a summer camp.
The Other, Camp Hope, is geared also towards kids from the inner city, however, Camp Hope is for kids who are typically outcast and scorned by society where they are from, it is a camp for the Mentally and Physically handicapped.
All the campers are sent to camp on money donated by the generosity of others, they don't have to pay anything. A large number of kids who come to the camp have never been out of the boroughs of NYC. A few of the campers are from the projects of Jersey also.

The camp is where we stayed for lodging, so for 2 of the days we spent time doing various jobs around the camp. But there will be more about that later on.

The Revolution Church was our other "base" in the city if you will. Revolution Church is also supported in part by CBF.
The Revolution Church is based in Hunts Point South Bronx, It meets currently in a small rented space Located in downtown Hunts Point on Lafayette Ave, and Longfellow. The Revolution Church is an urban church that reaches out to the many hurting people in the Bronx. The need in the Bronx for a saviour is huge! The Church works to reach out and share God's love with the community and has been blessed with some great growth over the past few years. The church is made up of Pastor Jeff and his family, Jon who works for CBF, pastor Bryan and a few others also help out. This is the "staff", most are volunteers. There are also a few members of the church who are very involved who are from Hunts Point.

We did work in the city with pastor Jeff and some of the other members of Revolution church.

Most of what we did in the city was handing out tracts, giving meals to the homeless, doing shows and performing for kids at the park and doing outreach with them, and singing on the subway and Staten Island Ferry.

We also went to the Sunday service at Revolution, and the Wednesday service at Beacon Bible Church in Kingsbridge near Harlem, and the Thursday service at Revolution church.

So basically most of our work on this trip consisted of reaching out and loving those who didn't have a whole lotta love in their lives.

Over the next few post I will share a favorite story or two from each day and a basic outline of what we did each day.



Well that is all for this post.


So Thanks for reading!!!!!
Abby