Let me Entertain You!

So- we watched the first nite of dancing with the Stars- I've never gotten into this show before- and now I'm seeing why it's so popular!
I can't get the Robbie Williams song out of my head that the pros danced to last nite! it was amazing! the band they have rocks too! unbelievable!
so- I didn't get to see tonite's show yet- but here are my favorites from last nite:

Mario (the best one of the nite)

Christian de la Fuente (he's got an amazing latin vibe going)

Steve Guttenburg- not the best dancer of the nite- but looked like he was having the most fun!

I have my pre-seen women's favorites- but I'll wait to see how they actually do to form some opinions...

on april 5th- one of these puppies will be going home...

to the blauwkamp house!

got these pics last nite- the puppies are now 5 weeks old- had their first hair cuts!  

aren't they cute!

anyone dare to venture which one we'll pick?

we're still working on a name- xixi can only think of girl names...sophie, mia, tootie (don't know where that one came from!)

"And now compelled by the Spirit, I am going...

to McDaniel College,
though I know now what will be happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace." - paul to the ephesian church (acts 20:22-24)

the LORD had released me from my time of serving at johns hopkins (6 years!) and was sending me onto mcdaniel college. and despite some scary unknowns, i knew that my life call was and would continue to be to testify to the good news of GOD's grace to the next generation...

in some ways- this calling seemed like a "duh!" moment.

• i had a great working relationships with josh. we had always enjoyed serving together and had dreamed off and on about what it would be like to actually serve together on the same campus.
• i had developed a great rapport over the years with mcdaniel students. i had spoken at their wednesday nite fellowship meetings at least twice a year since coming to the baltimore area and i always enjoyed the time i spent with students.
• the campus culture was very community oriented and spiritually open. it was a "sweet spot" to use my gift mix of evangelism, high relational and incarnational ministry style and creativity.
• my going to mcdaniel seemed like a perfect "fit" for me- which was confirmed by all of my ministry partners and ross.

so- YAY! onto mcdaniel!

BUT....

as the pieces of this calling came together- I realized several things...
1) this was a call- not only to me- but to my entire family- we all needed to hear from the Holy Spirit that we were to move on...
from our life in baltimore-
our friends
our great house and neighborhood
our amazing church community
xixi's great preschool
our chinese adoption community
our love of charm city urban life

to "quiet carroll county living"

it was one thing to change campus assignments- I had done that already- U of Illinois, Loyola College, Johns Hopkins

it was entirely different thing to up and move.

we had done that 7 years prior with some painful outcomes in the process.

there were a few SCARY unknowns about this new calling to go to mcdaniel college- and before I was ready to go for it- i knew i had to wrestle with GOD about them. here were a few of the SUWIs (scary unknown wrestling items)

• will we find a good church community?
• will we be able to foster xixi's ethnic identity development in a similar way as we were able to in baltimore?
• how long will i even stay on staff? is a move worth it if we don't know?
• will we develop new friends and deep, meaningful relationships here?

good thing GOD can handle my wrestling matches

and it's awesome when GOD speaks to the SUWIs deep in my soul...

one year ago...

i was nearing the end of my period of discernment about whether after 6 years of hard and faithful service,  GOD was releasing me from my position as campus staff at johns hopkins and to transition to partnering with josh at mcdaniel college.

i spent about an hour a day for 3 weeks journaling, praying, and discerning where GOD was leading me.  my supervisor gave me some insightful questions to work through. i treasured afternoon nap times to sit with jesus and hear from him.

as i prayed and listened- jesus brought these verses to mind from psalm 71:

"but as for me, I will always have hope;

I will praise you more and more.

My mouth will tell of your righteousness, 

of your salvation all day long-

though I know not its measure.

I will come and proclaim your mights acts, O Sovereign Lord;

I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone.

Sine my youth, O God, you have taught me, 

and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.

Even when I am old and gray- do not forsake me, O God.

'TILL I DECLARE YOUR POWER TO THE NEXT GENERATION-

YOUR MIGHT TO ALL WHO ARE TO COME." -  psalm 71:14-18

at the time I read this- the words spurred me on to remember where my hope lies- in the Sovereign Lord.  the words spurred me on to remember the call i received 9 years prior to go and proclaim the love of jesus and the power of his kingdom to college students.  

even in the midst of a risky and scary discerning process- i wanted to continue to give praise to jesus more and more- to tell people about his righteousness and salvation.  

despite the events leading up to this process of discernment and regardless of the decision- my heart's desire was to continue to have hope in the true and living GOD and to proclaim that hope to the people HE put in my path.

as i marinated in the words and the truths that lay within them- i felt freedom to hear what jesus was calling me to- i felt a deep peace when i remembered the ways GOD had been there for and with me during prior times of transition- and that part of him being everlasting and unchanging meant that he would be there for me again on the next leg of my journey.

these words gave me the courage and strength to hear jesus say, "your time at hopkins is at an end.  well done- good and faithful servant.  i'm ready to reveal to you the next leg of your journey with me.  are you ready to receive it?"

i'll reveal that tomorrow!

He's in there somewhere

puppies at 2 weeks

puppies at 3 weeks

So-

in case you haven't heard- we're getting a puppy next month.

Yup- you read that right.  A puppy!  a black standard poodle puppy to be exact.

we figure with Simon's cancer and unknown lifespan, our probable traveling to China next summer to get XiXi's mei mei or di di, that now was the time to take the puppy plunge.

The litter was born on February 9th.  We have 1st pick of the two black males.

We travel up to PA (just north of Scranton for your Office lovers!) on April 5th to pick him up and bring him home.

I'm excited, yet becoming ever more aware that I have no idea what I'm about to get myself into.  Puppies are so stinkin' cute- yet a ton of work.  Kinda like a baby. 

the idea that my summer will be spent raising a puppy is slowly sinking in.  

At least this way we won't have two "diapers" at the same time (baby + puppy).

consider the lillies

one of my creative hobbies is floral arranging.  It all started back in 1995 when I took a floral arranging class thru the local community college while I was living in Illinois.  Over the years, I've enjoyed doing arrangement for parties and gatherings.  In 2005,  I did my first wedding.  

Since then, I've done 5 more. 

 I love working with the couple and dreaming with them about how they want the flowers to look.  Each wedding has been different and fun and a total reflection of the couples' personalities and how that is expressed throughout their wedding celebration!

Last June, I did the flowers for my friends, Nik and Laura.  Laura had some really cool, two-toned bridemaids dresses and wanted gerber daisies and roses.  the wedding was held at my old church in Baltimore which has a beautiful pipe organ in the front of the sanctuary- I knew I needed to have something tall and which some texture and height- so I used curly willow and hung votives down and put gerbers in them. 

 I was able to borrow some really tall, cylindar vases from my friend, Lela.  A challenge was hanging the gerbers within the arrangement of the curly willow!The flowers turned out great- the bouquets, centerpieces at the reception, the flowers at the front of the church, the boutinieres.  I'm still trying to get the corsage thing down...

Laura recently sent me a disk with photos of the flowers!

I love doing floral designing for big events- especially if it's for people I love.  Doing time sensitive, big events, like weddings, reminds me why I'm in full time ministry and NOT in a profession like floral design.  While I love the challenge of doing a time sensitive, creative events- it can be pretty exhausting!  

smack talking grapes

So I was urged by one of my blogging friends to post again- so here goes!

my lack of posting is due to four facts: sick kid, chinese new year, 2 back-to-back Wednesday Nite Fellowship talks, and winter conference- phew- would make anyone tired a bit distracted to blog about it all! 

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I did a two week series at Wednesday Nite Fellowship on "how's your breath?" looking at how our words can bring life or death to people- pretty intense- but good.  I was able to draw on

 a lot of my past failures in this area and the ways Jesus has redeemed my blunders.  I received some great feedback from the students.  We'll see what fruit it produces...

XiXi was out of school for 5 days which "conveniently" was in the midst of one of the weeks I was prepping to speak.  Needless to say, it made for some interesting time management- or lack thereof!

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my brand new- less than a month macbook pro decided to have a faulty video card last week- not the greatest timing ever- but what can I do?  Fortunately Ross hooked it up to our old mac monitor- so I'm still in business until I can take it down to the apple store to have them ship it off for repairs! ugh!

the nite it broke- I was rather upset- and Ross had to gently remind me not to take my anger out on those around me!  Good teaching example in the middle of my two week talk series!  Gotta love it when Jesus gives you those humble teaching moments and then you get to share them with others!

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Chinese New Years was a blast- we had to miss the first of the two parties we were going to attend due to XiXi being sick, but the second one in Baltimore was fabulous!  I've attached some pictures below. 

My parents and sister, Jennie, came up for the weekend.  After the party we went to China Chef in Columbia for some authentic Chinese food.  This is the best food we've have since being in China.  We love going there.  Their dishes are very authentically Chinese.  We were just bummed they didn't have fish- our FAVORITE chinese dish.  sigh.

My mom gave XiXi a few CNY gifts- a "beauty parlor" kit, some handmade doll clothes and hand made dog collars for Simon that fit thru his dog collar.  Pretty cute!

The next nite we invited our friends, the Burchs, over for a chinese new year dinner- XiXi and Chloe got the costumes out and I gave Hannah the camera to take some photos.  I'm featuring her work below!

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The well drillers came and dug 2 400 foot wells for the geo-thermal system- now there is a huge pile of ???? from the earth- the yard looks like something you'd see at Yellowstone Park in one spot- or maybe a 5th grade science project.  Needless to say- we'll be having some re-seeding and landscaping done once it gets warmer.

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Our InterVarsity Winter conference was last weekend.  I am continuing to learn more and more about McDaniel student culture at these events.  My latest discovery was watch the smack talk.

 One male student was licking the bowl our baked ziti was just in and asked me if I was grossed out.  Now having been the ONLY female in my high school percussion section and worked at a predominately male sports publishing company- it takes a lot to get to me.  So I stupidly said, "I'd be more impressed if you put grapes up your nose!"

BAD CHOICE!

in the next 5 minutes about 7-8 mcdaniel students put grapes up their noses!  One of them blew it out- another put grapes in both nostrils.  lesson learned!  although I have to say- I didn't know that grapes could actually fit up one's nostrils until Saturday nite.

despite this new and scary discovery- I was reminded of how grateful I am to be with this amazing group of students!

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Finally- the last bit of amazing news on our front involves new life...

the first was when I got a call during the Super Bowl from my sister, Debbie, announcing that they are expecting in early August!  I was shocked and estatic and made quite the announcement at the party I was attending at the time!

What's even more amazing is that our entire family was at the beach together for a week over Christmas and they didn't let on at all that they were pregnant!  Impressive- especially in my family!

my only wish as a doting aunt is that I knew if I'm going to have a niece or nephew.  It's so much easier to buy clothes that way!

the second involves the birth of our future puppy on Feb. 8th.  We got a call about 20 minutes after the first black male of the litter was born- there were 7 puppies total- 4 black females, 2 black males and one white male.  We get first pick of the black males.  We'll get him the first weekend in april!