from the nato's: let's get praisy link up.

from the nato's: let's get praisy link up.

BEST BIRTHDAY

Ok my last post i said that i would write about my surprise birthday present....well here it is....

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LES MISERABLES IN LONDON!!!!

This trip started out as a simple idea a couple months ago that slowly but surely grew into a reality. Ever since last year i have had a newfound appreciation and love for musicals. And one of my FAVORITE shows is Les Miserables. I have never seen like a huge professional production before, like i've never been to Broadway or anything, so coming over to Europe i knew i wanted to hopefully get some shows in. A few weeks ago me and some people went to see the Legally Blonde Musical (i know, shot to manhood) in Dublin. and it was actually really good. But I Dreamed a Dream to come over to London of all places to see my favorite show, AND IT HAPPENED! Me and one of my best friends on the trip, Corrie, bought tickets about a month ago  and were so excited ever since. Our trip was literally only a day. We left Saturday morning at 8 and got back Sunday morning at 8. So you can imagine how jam-packed, busy, awesome, exciting, tiring, adventurous, and incredible it was. The night before we left i walked into our computer room and Corrie had already printed off google map instructions for every place we were going. haha She was amazing. So, we got up early on Saturday and were off for my birthday present!

Here we are in the Aircoach in our way to Dublin airport. we started off the day with a little Mickey D's breakfast at the airport (Micky D's breakfast, always comes through in the clutch) and then hit our plane ride to London which was about 45 minutes long haha. So we got to London and had to ride the bus from London Stansted airport to downtown London. On our way there it was so cool because we completely forgot that we would get to see all the Olympic stuff. So we drove buy this huge area with all the stadiums and it was just nuts. I took this picture of the stadium and we thought that red thing might be where the light the torch.

Once we got there, we walked out of the bus station and started heading towards the heart of it. A quick stop at Starbucks (a ton of coffee consumed on the trip) and we were good. With how much we saw in a few hours, it felt like we were there for three days. It was the perfect trip. It took me a few minutes before it hit me i was in London, but gadzooks it was amazing.

This was when we got to Westminster Abbey and i was so pumped. I have never seen anything like some of this stuff. The detail on these buildings blew me away. There is just so much history there. and we got to go into St. Paul's Cathedral and it was just unbelievable. Here is a picture of Westminster Cathedral...

And of course Big Ben. Which in case you did not know, Big Ben is the name of the bell inside. Not the clock. interesting!

So we walked through London for a while and saw a ton of cool things like this and although it was drizzling throughout the day had a blast. We knew that we were in London to go see Les Mis and nothing was stopping us. However, Les Mis was not our ONLY reason for coming to London. Because in all of Europe, there is only one city that contains one of the most glorious eating establishments (next to Chick-Fil-A) of all time....can you tell through my blurry photography what exactly that beacon of hope is?!?!?!

if you guessed CHIPOTLE, youre correct! words cannot describe this moment. Earlier in the semester, we googled "Chipotle in Europe" (just corrected my 2 misspellings of Chipotle. ouch i feel ashamed) and the only ones are in London. I think there are 2 or 3, but this one is like a 5 minute walk from Les Mis. So there was no way we were going to let this slip by. The blood in my veins had been Burrito free for i think 5 months, so you can imagine the withdrawal i was going through.

I should not have been this excited. and by that i mean this was my birthday presentr, so take it easy

The experience was great. The guy who helped me was a big black man named Everton. he just had this huge smile on his face when he saw we were American. So he starts making my burrito and he didn't put too much rice on, so I ask him for more rice, and then he knew it was go time and Daddy was hungry. He LOADED me with chicken and all the goods. biggest best burrito ive had from chipotle. AND THEN the cash register guy gave me an extra bag of chips for free cause he saw how excited i was. 

This is me thanking the Chipotle gods.

HAHA!

So Chipotle was a success. Now, by this time it was about 6 and we had already picked up our tickets from the box office. We had some time to kill os we went to Costa Coffee which is like their Starbucks and killed more coffee. Then i threw on my tie (Sarah!) that i brought to look sharp for the show, but i knew something wasn't cutting it. This was a London major theater production, i could not go looking shaggy as a dog, I NEEDED A HAIRCUT! so at about 630 (the show started at 730) we start walking and looking for a barber shop of some sorts. We had no idea what we were in for. within a few minutes we saw a sign for 5 dollar haircuts. I knew right away that was about as sketch as it gets. just what i like. So we walk into this sliver of a barber shop tucked between the huge stores and buildings to find this Asian gem. It was the Chinese buffet of barbershops. I went to the back and found this guy and asked him if he knew how to cut hair, he hesitated and then told me to sit down. yikes. Corrie was laughing the whole time and being so patient. I sat down and told him what i wanted with my hair,.

I then asked him how long he had been working there and he said 2 weeks. to which i made this face...

However my nervousness and questions soon went away. He took off and went at my hair like a boss. I told him i wanted something european, but not too crazy. He quickly nodded then went Edward Scissorhands on my gourd. It didnt take long for me and him to become best friends. he started asking about america and New York, then he started making jokes about me and corrie, it was epic. shady as crap. but epic.

and he did a good job! i dont think this picture does it justice, but ive gotten a ton of compliments on it. its kind of fohawkish (spelling?) but he knew what he was doing

So then after this, Case and I bid farewell and we were off to Les Mis!

Now already this was one of the best days ever, but to finish it off with this was the icing. What immediately struck me was the Queens Theater. It reminded me of in like "The Prestige" when they would have old timey magic shows and what not. crazy. The show was UNBELIEVABLE. the actors were just so good. every role was perfect and their voices were flawless. they do this show so many times that they all just have it down. the place was sold out and we didn't have bad seats at all. we had great seats for the tickets we paid for. I could go on and on about the show, but i wont try and put it into words.

I tried to get a shot of how the three sections are broken up.

And so after the show we got a taxi, which was an adventure in downtown London on a saturday night, to our bus station and drove back to the Airport. This is where things were really nuts, because we got to the airport at 2AM but our flight didn't leave til 6! so Corrie and i had a few hours to kill. It was so weird being in the airport that late. so many people had sleeping bags and were sleeping on the floor. it was weird. but we found a coffee shop that was open all night and sat on these couches and talked. it was great. Corrie kept dozing off, but i stayed awake the whole time for our luggage's sake. But when we eventually did get on the plane, i fell asleep faster and hardeer than i ever have before. I dont remember taking off, the flight, or landing. just getting on and getting off haha. So then we got on our bus and came back home. I slept allllll day. and am still tired now. But i wanted to post all this, pretty much for my mom and sister's sake, before too long. It was one of the best days of my life, and for sure an incredible birthday gift.

I am sorry for the lengthy post, but with all that being said, I am amaxed that the program only has a week left! We are officially done on saturday, even though i am travelling a bit afterwards. There are mixed feelings here about leaving. People are sad that it is ending, but happy to come home. I know i am SOOO PUMPED to see family and friends before Kamp starts, which i am also pumped for.

All i know is that I am constantly reminded daily how good our God is. He is better than London. and way better than Les Mis. and 100% without a doubt he is better than the Kansas City Royals (however dont give up hope on the Royals) I am still loving getting to know Him more on this trip and cant wait for this new year in life!

LOVE YOU GUYS!

LOVE YOU FAMILY!

p.s. sorry for typos in this blog, im freaking exhausted.

BIRTHDAY!

i know i havnt posted in a while :/ and since the last time i posted a TON has happened. it has been like the craziest time of my life. the biggest thing being that im not a teenager anymore! Last monday i turned 20 and it was probably one of the most memorable birthdays of my life. the week prior we had our trip to Killarney and the south of Ireland. It was my favorite trip we have been on and we saw a ton. I am for sure going to post pictures about it soon. but it is real late and i honestly just kind of felt obligated to blog since i havent in a while. PLUS i know that i want my next blog post to be about my birthday present tomorrow which i am so excited about. but ees a surprise...

Anyways, the whole trip is still going so well. I cannot believe the program ends on May 5th. so so soon. It has gone by so fast but has been one of the best experiences of my life. There have been so many things happen that i know throughout the rest of my life i will be reflecting on how God used everything i have encountered to strengthen me. Turning 20 last week was kind of the climax of it all. Being able to reflect this whole time about the last 20 years of my life has been eye opening. It has felt almost like an out of body experience being over here and looking back on my life in the United States has made me really think a lot of things out. And above all that I have been able to take everything to God over here in amazing ways. Having my own places where i can go and be in His presence is something i know I am going to take back. there is so much to say for one post, but all i CAN say is that i have experienced so much inward change in these past 3 months. And it is without a doubt nothing that i have accomplished on my own merit but the Holy Spirit working from the inside out. I cannot wait to get back home and hit it hard. God has been so incredibly good. AHH i am getting so excited talking about it.

I just wanna go tell people about Jesus.

But i love all you guys and thank you so much for the birthday wishes!

And happy birthday shout-out to my mom (April 17th) and dad (April 26th)!

If i had to express my love for you guys, i would have to start another blog for space

i love everyone!

The Good Life

First of all in this post, I need to ask that everyone be praying for Taylor University! last week, on April 4th one of our students named Josh Larkin died unexpectedly and it really had an impact on our whole campus. The response was amazing because our campus is so close and countless people have just been praying and praying. It has been weird going through the whole situation being so far from school, but it has been good to grieve with close friends and ultimately all of us have grown so much in the Lord for it. We do not know why God works in this way most of the time, but the great thing is is that we dont have to know because he makes all things work together for His good! and we are confident in that.

Ok I know i have not posted in a long while. And i feel kinda bad about it. But anyways things are getting really crazy with homework and a lot has been going on. The last time i posted was right before we had our spring break. and from March 28th to April 1st me and three other girls went to Ibiza, Spain for spring break! the Island of Ibiza is located off the southeast coast of Spain. it was one of the best times of my life. Initially when we booked our tickets, we soon thereafter found out that Ibiza, Spain is the clubbing (as in partying) capitol of the world haha. Literally i guess in the summer all of these famous DJs and rappers and whatnot go to Ibiza and play in these humungous clubs. so at first we were kind of worried. but we did a lot of research as to where we were going to go on the Island and we settled on this little city called Santa Eulalia. And not only was it calm and relaxed because it was spring and not really when things are crazy, but Santa Eulalia has to be the retirement center of Spain. We think that we were the only people in the city under the age of 50 for the weekend and it was awesome. I have too many crazy stories to share, but i got to talk in spanish to a lot of people and made a ton of new old people friends! it was awesome.
here are some pictures of where we were.

IBIZA

From a beachside restaurant

ANNNND this is from when i volunteered to be on a "game show" at the local retirement center/hotel in front of 300 old people who only spoke spanish. loooooong story. but one of the best nights of my life.

So then we came back late sunday night and have had the past couple weeks of going hard in all things Ireland again. it has been awesome. We are getting a lot of our school work done and also trying to soak in our last month here. i cannot believe there is only a month left. so nuts. but this has been an incredible experience for me in my life and i have learned so much.

Another huge highlight, other than the Royals season starting, is when Trip Lee came out with his new album, The Good Life, on Itunes. I bought it the second it came out and i have been listening to it non stop. it got all the way up to like 3 on the top albums and lyrically and just overall has been blowing my mind. You all should go buy it. even if you dont like rap. just do it.

I have also been reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer and has opened my perspective on so many theological aspects that i have never thought about. it is amazing. and you should read it. But other than all that i am getting pretty excited to get back home soon. I miss my family a ton and for sure all my friends from school. But when i get back ill have a few days at home and then ill be off to work at Kanakuk K2 from May 20th to July 14th! then i will have about a month before school starts to be at home and work at chick-fil-a which i miss so dearly. I cannot wait for the summer! and with that i will let you all go. But you should check out this website that my mom and I look at which is daily devotions from this book called Jesus Calling. it is an amazing devotional book. and it wont change your life, but it will everyday point you to the one Book that will! CHECK IT OUT! ill try to post again soon...

http://sarahyoungdevotions.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html

LOVE YOU GUYS!

West

Things have been really crazy lately but good. On March 15th i think it was we had a Taylor literature prof come in to teach our Irish literature class. and from the morning she got here, we were full go. She had us reading poetry and plays and all sorts of shananagans. but last week on the 19th we left for the west with our Lit prof. Ok side note, her name is Beulah Baker and she was hilarious. Normally i like it when teachers are real relational and want to come in and get to know everybody and stuff like that. Not Beulah. She just came in and got everybody to work. And on our 4 hour trip out west to study the famous writers she was on the bus microphone pretty much the whole time giving us every detail about the life of W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney. Zoinks. Plus her name is Beulah, which is awesome in itself. As much as we wanted to refer to her as Beulah, because we knew she is going to be the only Beulah we ever meet again, we had to respect her and call her Professor Baker. Lame.

Anyways, out west it was great. Monday and Tuesday night we stayed at this incredible hotel in Donegal.    I should be able to tell you a lot about Donegal and the famous Irish figures that lived there, but the only thing i for sure know is that it has a rockin hotel in the heart of the city with an amazing restaurant where we ate like kings. So good. And one of the best parts about this trip is still the fact that the 20 girls on this trip never finish all their food when we eat together so we get to clean up afterwards.

Wednesday we were in Galway which is on the coast. the hotel was not as nice, but still sweet. I got to run along their coast line which was a good change from Greystones. Honestly i really did love the west. it was such a good change in pace. There was so much history out there and it was definitely the more rural Ireland with sheep EVERYWHERE and more mountains and stuff like that. Thursday we went to the Cliffs of Moher which are in one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride (The Cliffs of Insanity. Which we watched the other night and it made me miss my sister really bad) so that was awesome. it was ridiculous and i got super close to the edge!

I will sum up our drive 8 hour ride home by saying that the smell of our bus snacks, popcorn/chips/cookies, combined with the smell of 25 humans was about to make me vomit. yikes.

Holy smokes i just remembered i have not poste since St. Patrick's day. oops. Well, it was the craziest day of my life. I have never seen so many different kinds of people, all drinking, in one city. ever. I am pretty sure it is the one day in Heaven where everybody leaves Patrick alone. Cause he probably doesn't want to talk about it.. It can basically be summed up with my profile picture on facebook right now. which was one of the best things ever to happen. speaking of, a ton of the girls here take way more pictures than me and put them on facebook fyi. (go to my wall and watch the video of me and steve having an epic thumb war match in the Donegal ring fort that is on top of this huge mountain. i think it is hilarious)

ok next, i wanted to post tonight because tomorrow will be nuts and thursday morning starts our spring break! Me and a few of my friends are going to Santa Eulalia, Spain which is on the southwest island of Ibiza. We are so excited. i cannot wait to just sit on the beach and read books. im so pumped. we will be there til late sunday so i will be out of commission until then. we for sure will have pictures up from that. Our school work is piling up some, so it will be good to have a break from that and then come back to hit it hard.

Ok i will wind down now. i feel bad this post was kind of rushed and i did not have any pictures. But for sure the biggest thing, i was reminded this week how easily it can be to lose my focus on a trip like this as to why i came here in the first place. But constantly I remind myself that the one reason i came was to get away to dive into God's Word and basically let him transform my life. And He has. He is teaching me to let go of things in life so i can move forward and be full go for Him. His timing was better in this trip than i ever could have planned. And although i really miss the guys back at Taylor, and my family at home, I am soaking up my last month or so here so i can come back ready. And i am so excited for that!

And now, really randomly switching gears, since i did not have any pictures i want to leave this video which i had not seen in a while but for some reason wanted to watch on youtube. We were in Dublin all day today walking and i am about to fall over im so tired, so maybe thats why it is so funny. But i hope it makes you laugh as much as it did me... Enjoy!

I love all of you guys back home and cant wait to see you soon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmDTSQtK20c

im good

Im sorry i have not updated in a while. things have been nuts. literally, Crunchy Nut is this type of cereal here and it is incredible! i wish we had it back home. it is so big here that they even have tempting signs...

so let me go ahead and sum up these past couple weeks with some super legit pictures that im taking with my camera! First item of business... we were walking on Grafton Street one day (Where a lot of one of my favoirte movies, Once, is filmed. Boss) And looked over to see this nut who literally made it look like he was frozen. he made his tie stick up like that and just stayed in this position for a long times, with his briefcase open for money. haha. CRAZY

Next up: Our trip to Howth. Howth is a ton about 20 minutes north of Dublin. and a few of us went there one Saturday to do a hike along the cliffs there, and it was one of my favorite days since i have been here. It is this incredible seaport town with this huge pier and awesome restaurants with really fresh fish DA BESSSS MAINNNN!!! (Just double checked and saw i posted about Howth in my previous post. Oh well. it was great)

Here is a view of Howth, and some rocks?

Best part of the day. Finding a boat named Willie. HAHA!

All the other lame boats.

Crazy cliffs that i threw a few pieces of fruit off. it was neat.

Ok so now this is our trip up to Northern Ireland (Which is a completely different country. nuts.) We stayed in Belfast which is a town with a ton of history but it was really sad also. In short, Catholics used to really not like Protestants in this area, and many people suffered. Yikes. But we stayed at this awesome Hostel that was literally right on the beach. it was super great. The trip of north was great, but pretty exhausting after your on a bus for a lot of it. It was really interesting. We were there for three days and honestly it was really good when we got back to Greystones. It is home.

This is a castle we saw and we got to go inside and look all around. it was pretty great. but not necessarily da besssss.. 

next was this crazy bridge! it was kind of da besss....and a lot of people were really freaked out about it.  especially when we went across the bridge, people realized the only way back meant crossing the bridge again. haha! 

now this part of the north trip was definitely DA BESSSS. Its called Giants Causeway. and my sister told me before i came on the trip its the strangest thing ever, and it honestly sooo nuts. it s just this huge mass of hexagonal stones stacked on top of each other. it was so weird. But incredible to see how creative God is. it was AWESOME

And then we came home and like i said it was so nice to be back. The trip was great though. ever since then things have been good. we are starting to get into classwork a little more which is a little stressful for people. But ultimately, im trying not to let anything get in the way of the fact that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity so i want to make the most of it. I am so glad that coming into this trip i knew the one thing i wanted to get out of it. It has helped me step back at times to remind myself why i am here. And that is to grow in my relationship with God through Jesus. I am continually learning what it means to be still before the Lord and it is an extremely humbling experience. And getting to do it in Ireland is just an awesome plus. I run every other morning and stop at my bench. It is the one on the left, and being able to sit there and watch the sun rise over the Irish sea is one of the best things ever. so im soaking it all in for sure.

The things i dont have pictures of right now are when all the guys went and got our straight razor shaves after not shaving all february. it got to be pretty brutal. But the warm towel shave was incredible. the place we went to is called Sweeney Todd's. haha it had posters of the movie all around and these 3 guys working it. it was one of the best things i have ever done. Our faces were so smooth. 

Other items of importance: There are like 3 girls who just never stop baking things in our kitchen. and 89% of those things include Nutella. So i have had to be careful. But our food here is sooo good so thats boss. I miss everyone from school a ton. and for sure back home. my email has not been working the past few days which has been a bummer. so if you have sent me anything in the last 48 hours, i probably did not get it. sorry :/ but it is working now! so pumped.

And yeah, ultimately I am growing a ton. I have loved listening to all the sermons from my church in Kansas City. It has been so encouraging. And i am still listening to a ton of Christian rap. which is where i will end.

"Satan uses guilt, to strip away our hope" -Lecrae

Every once in a while if I have a rough day, i feel like Satan does just that. He tries to make me dwell on my mistakes and make me feel not da bess. But something i also have been reminded of lately is to have an Eternal mindset. My small group is reading Mere Christianity...

"Aim for Heaven and get earth thrown in. Aim for earth, and get neither" -Lewis

THE TRUTH! so good. Between Lecrae/Tedashii/Trip Lee(my post title=his new single. boss)/C.S. Lewis/C.T. Studd(I am reading his biography, insane)/And ultimately getting in the Word every morning, I am growing in ways i never knew. Loving my life, but missing everyone back home! But we will be together again. I love you guys and will post soon. St. Patrick's day in Dublin next Saturday. Lord help me.

PEACE!

1 Month

I have been in Ireland for a month now. It has flown by. but continues to be the best experience ever. Tomorrow morning we leave for the North and will be in Belfast for three days two nights so i wanted to post for Mom before i left. We have to get up early and are out the door by 7 AM. I am a little uncertain about the bus trip to and from because every time we have been in a bus i have been getting motion sickness kind of. it is weird. but i am going to take some medicine tomorrow before we leave. Ireland is just so hilly. which is a great thing. especially good for hiking. Which is what i did a lot of this last week. On Friday we went to Glendalough, Ireland which has like one of the oldest monasteries in Ireland. So that was neat. and we hiked there and it was boss. Here is Glendalough (Glenn-duh-lock) Oh, and these are just pictures off Google, i forgot my camera...

And so then on saturday me and a few other people went to Howth which is like an hour away from Greystones and is a huge seaport town. It was easily one of my favorite days since ive been here. we walked all along the peer and the weather was so nice. It was a great little town with all these different seafood places. some were expensive but i want to go back for a nice dinner one night. However we went to this incredible fish and chips place. and with all the restaurants, its the type of deal where they serve you the fish that was caught that day. so good. but the main thing we did when we were there was go on a 3 mile hike along the cliffs of Howth. it was one of the most incredible things ever. here is another google image of Howth. it was sooooo boss. It was a great day.

And then this morning for one of the local churches here called Hillside they had their family service where Taylor students usually come and help out. So i actually ended up speaking at church this morning! it was awesome. I had them laughing. I told them that when i was born i weighed 11 1/2 lbs and i basically looked like a rugby ball with a face. And that my Mom was still accepting sympathy cards if they wanted to write her. so they were laughing at that. and then i got real and talked to them about da gospel and stufff. it was super great. and then i encouraged them to all get in the Word in the morning. And i told them the line that Dad always says, "You have to fill up your coffee cup in the morning because the whole world is just going to try and pee in it the rest of the day." the place lost it. it took a minute for everyone to regain composure. because coffee and tea is such a big thing here, i think it really struck a bell with them hahaha. so that was great too. We are starting to kind of get into classes a little bit. but it still is money compared to actual school so thats great. Im still loving my life. but missing home too. I have never been so excited for a Kansas City Royals season in my life. so i cant wait to keep up with that. But i will blog after our trip north and it will be SUPER LEGIT!

I love everybody.