Permanence

As my new friend Jak told me, it's just as permanent as we are.

What does permanence look like today? Markers claim to be permanent, but wash off with a little bit of elbow grease; marriages should be permanent but seem to end just as easily as they begin; tattoos...uh oh, here I go getting a little taboo. I used to be so guilty of stereotyping when it came to ink. I used to think only trashy people who have no respect for themselves get tattoos, right? The Bible is pretty clear about Christians honoring God with their bodies and this would include tattoos...right?
I suppose this is one of those issues that confronts you when you are an adult. You have to formulate your own opinion and it may or may not be the one that was spoon-fed to you by your parents. After battling with this issue for over a year, I took the plunge and added some ink to my body. Does this mean I am not a Believer anymore? I am sure some would argue that Christ has spat me out, but I disagree. My skin may have a new addition that will be with me until the day I die, but my heart has not changed one bit.
So many people remark that tattoos are flippant signs of crazy periods in a person's life, and that may be so, especially when I see people with Care Bears or Gumby tattooed to their butt cheeks....you may regret that. But I would have to disagree with the thought that every person who has a tattoo did it out of rebellion.

Oh yeah, I would also warn you about Twilight tattoos...Edward's not worth it.

This academic year has been huge in the learning department for me. I gave my future to God this year, and that fact will not ever change. My tattoo is a statement of my readiness for God to do whatever craziness he deems appropriate in my life. I truly believe while man looks at the outward appearance, God is looking at my heart and sees that I am truly seeking to honor him with my life. In no way am I rebelling.
So is there anything that is really truly permanent? I can think of one thing that will never go away, Christ's love for me. He wants my heart, and he has it. My tattoo is a lyric from the song "So, in This Hour" by The Rocket Summer and the "Grafted in" symbol. The symbol represents salvation as a gift that should not be squandered and the lyrics are a statement and a request for Christ to use my life for something bigger than I can imagine.

So before you go and start judging people for having tattoos, maybe you should first check your own heart, or check out Matthew 7:5, either one.

Sorry for the word vomit. Take it away Katie. Brucie

What she said. -katie

I snagged the picture above from TRS's facebook page. It's a fan tattoo and I love it...Just appreciating the art...no stealing here.

We'll do the big reveal of our ink at some point...probably after the nasty peeling business stops...stay tuned.

Phone Jail

I have been making it a priority to smile at people
lately. On campus it feels like eye contact is sinful and a smile may just be pure adultry. I do not know when this thought began to creep into our society, but I hate it. Not only do I hate it, but as Christians, aren't we supposed to be showing love to our world? If we can't even smile at other Christians on a Christian campus, how the heck are we going to make it in the real world?

story time:
So, I am sure you are thinking, "Why are you getting in a tizzy about something so insignificant?" I know that human trafficking is our normal topic, but I feel like this issue needs addressed and it needs addressed fast.

For all you IWUers, this will probably make more sense, but I also expect good imaginations out of you others who don't reside in my current bubble.

Let me set the scene:
I am walking back to Martin (my dorm room) today after an exhausting test. I am walking down a fairly small sidewalk right next to old college church. You know the one? Anyway, I see a boy coming, a far way off, and I decide that I am going to smile at him. Not because I want to marry him (SHOCKER right?!? I know this may be a current misconception, that somehow an exchange of smiles between different genders means that a kind of covenantal relationship is being made, but for whatever reason, I think this concept is ridiculous).
Back to the story: so as he is closely approaching, and I am ready to get my smile on, you know what he does???

.................

he sticks his left hand in his pocket and rummages around, only to find his....cellphone. Yes. his cellphone.

Now you could be thinking, "well... maybe he just got a text!" or "he may need to call someone! leave him alone!" but do you honestly think that while I was walking past, at that precise moment, he got a text or a phone call? that is probably 1 in a million chance.

and, you haven't heard the rest of the story. Just as he is looking at his cellphone (to avoid eye contact with me), he places it right back in his pocket.... WITHOUT texting, WITHOUT calling.

and yeah, maybe he needed to check the time, but I feel like there is more to this story that applies to us than meets the eye.

I rarely know where my cellphone is and people get truly upset with me! Like I am no longer their friend because, oops, I am sorry, I am actually hanging out with friends that are probably a bit more important than you at the moment. "Oh my gosh! I cannot believe she just said that!" Yeah, guys, I am sorry, but I love my friends and I love hanging out with them. I usually leave my phone somewhere else so I know I won't be bothered.

Have you ever been around someone who is there in front of you, but they are texting the whole time you are hanging out and at the end of the "meeting time", you never really felt like the person was actually listening to you? It is probably because they aren't. Do you feel completely worthless like I do when those meetings are over?

Calling out! Who wants to rewind and freeze? I do. I want to show my friends I truly care about them. I want to feel completely fine if my phone isn't in my hand at every moment. I want to know that my friendships will still exist, even if my texts do not get back to them for a few hours.

Cellphones aren't bad, but they are getting there. Man up and say you have a problem. Let us get back to truly caring about people and showing love.

Reach for a smile.
Instead of your phone.

Seven

All right it's time to pull a little Wishbone and hop in a time machine. Go back to age seven. I all of a sudden feel extremely ancient when I say that I have to rewind 13 years. What were you doing then? I think that was around the time that my horse obsession began. I was probably in first grade at Deer Ridge reading Junie B Jones books like it was my full-time job. I know that I was in Girl Scouts and the troublemaker of the troop who ruined the Christmas photo that we put in macaroni frames. There is a point to this little travel through time, I promise. The conclusion I want you to come to is this, life was fun and fancy free for most of us at that age. My biggest concern was making it off the bus in time to watch Arthur after school. All right well prepare yourself for a doozie. There are some girls who have a lot more to be concerned about at age seven. Right now there are seven year-old girls in brothels who are having their innocence and dignity ripped from them by sick men who want to fulfill twisted fantasies. SEVEN. Can you even imagine that? Rape is terrible at any age, but what has this world come to that the demand for child prostitutes is through the roof? If that doesn't absolutely shatter your heart....I went to a jewelry party for Destiny Rescue last night and I was soaking wet by the end of the movie because they showed real footage of young girls walking the streets of Cambodia offering sex. People, we need to be absolutely exhausting the phone lines to God. This is no joke and with more children being trafficked each day, activism cannot wait.


Daily Commission: Pray pray pray pray. Pray for the demand for children to decrease. It is breaking God's heart to see these young children violated. Check out organizations like Destiny Rescue to see what you can do to help.

Brucie

we can make the world shiny as plastic...but without words we are only painting caskets-kelsey skaggs-

darkness.

what does it make you think of?
shifty eyes? drunkeness? debauchery? drugs? shadows?

my father always used to tell me, "nothing good happens after midnight katie." The older I get, the more truth i see in that statement. can you think of anything good that happens in the dark? eh, maybe you think what you do in the dark is fun, but when it really comes down to it, is it good? is it wholesome? is it pleasing to the lord? probably not. i continue to see more and more why god created sleep at night. he wanted to give us a way out of the darkness, but knew that while many would innocently sleep through the horrors of the night, many more would have their very lives stripped from them during the night. the lord knew that eventually someone would have to pay the price for darkness once and for all.

and no. i don't mean someone will have to pay for literal darkness, i mean sin.

and while Christ came and died to allow a way back to the lord, it does not mean that evil has been conquered. it is our job, as people, christians, made by the true and living god, to love his creation and come to rescue them.

-have nothing to do with fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather, expose them. -ephesians 5:8-

to me, saturday night, at breaking the chains, was not only a time of education, but a time of experiencing darkness. the room emily and i sat in to listen to the speaker was dark, except for small lamp lights that illuminated only enough of the place to allow the speaker to see her notes. to me, it was symbolism. as more and more people come to know the hugeness of human trafficking and decide to do something about it, the more light will be shed, and the more people will be freed from the darkness.

like emily said in our previous blog: awareness is crucial. tell anyone, tell everyone.

daily commission: did you know that the main reason people become slaves is because of a lack of education? it only costs 135.00 to free a slave.

find out how at: freetheslaves.net

a little check from reality

I am supposed to be doing a take-home exam right now, but for some reason I cannot seem to concentrate on corticosteroids or antitussives. For one thing my body is trying to pull some narcoleptic action on me and fall asleep, but my mind is racing so fast that sleeping soundly would not be possible. Katie and I woke up well before the sun this morning and prayed for the anti-human trafficking event going on in Marion today. I have learned that I am easily distracted if I simply sit and pray in my head. I have also learned that while I may not be the most gifted/eloquent writer, when I pick up a pen, I go nuts. I write in a super-cute totally not my style hot pink journal almost every day. The words that fill those pages are random thoughts, the cries of my heart, and prayers. Today the pages are filled with prayers.
We were there for most of the morning and afternoon, and I think it is pretty safe to say that the block party was a success. I'm not just saying that because the BMX trick riders ended their show with no broken bones and the sun was working hard to turn my pasty skin different shades of red. I am saying that because I think this event rocked Marion. The organizations there were focusing on awareness. The United States is the #1 location for victims to be trafficked to. I can feel the bile rising in my throat thinking about that. Did you have any idea?
Our so-called "land of the free" is the #1 place for slaves to end up....not Africa, not Europe...OUR DOORSTEP. Reality check kids...This is no joke.
Wake up...this battle is no longer thousands of miles away, it's in our neighborhoods...
While awareness of social injustice was a huge part of the event today, the bigger focus was the sovereign God we serve. And I do not know what happened in hearts, but I know lives were rocked. I saw two IWU students laying hands on a man to pray for him...who knows what was going on, but I know God was working.

Daily Commission: The lady that Katie and I talked to from World Hope told us some pretty sickening stuff today. She mentioned that one of the most important steps to ending this business of buying and selling humans is AWARENESS. So be aware today.... A group recently rescued a toddler from having his eyes harvested to give to a person for a transplant. A healthy, living human being unable to speak up for his rights. Trafficking groups are going after girls in affluent suburbs whose parents do not suspect a thing. It is no longer safe to let your children ride to the pool by themselves or assume their safety at a new friend's house. BE AWARE...Know that you should not live life in fear, but be cautious and not ignorant. Don't claim that trafficking could not be going on in the U.S....don't hide your head in the ground...Become educated and be vigilant.

Katie will probably be covering the Night of Freedom event when she writes tomorrow, so check us out tomorrow for some crazy info from a member of George W. Bush's staff.
Be informed. Don't live in fear. Fight back. Brucie

the first single

Hey mom. You're probably the only one reading at this point so you get a special shoutout. So what on earth do you say in the first post of first blog of all time. Shoot I'm at a loss. I guess I'll mention how crazy awesome God has been to me the past few weeks. I don't know what I have been doing the past 20 years and some odd months with my life, but I feel like (prepare yourself for some cheesin) a veil has been lifted. I have been so focused on petty, menial crap that I was missing out on some big stuff God was trying to show me. Sorry I'm late God, but that's just another example of why humans are kind of major dim wits and you are as wise as they come. Anywho, it's funny how when you clear your mind of the crap, God comes in and plants some seeds. So to make a long story short, did you know slavery still exists? Did you know that God hates that 27 million of his children are enslaved in various forms and a ginormous number of his children have no idea that their brothers and sisters are enslaved? If that does not royally tick you off, then we need to have a chat. With the state of our world, it is no longer acceptable to sit around and talk about change. Let's get our hineys moving. Satan is a tricky dude, and it's obvious that he likes to work under the radar. Well guess what, I am on to your scheming and I'm done with letting you pull crap like this. So basically I am making a declaration to God that my life is not my own anymore...not that it ever was, but some of us are slower to figure that out than others. And in the words of my friend and yours Bryce Avery, "Take my life and use it, I'm ready." And I'm serious...I'm done with sitting idly. I don't know what God is going to use my life for, but I'm finally ready to say that I am sincerely and truly open to whatever crazy antics he wants me to do...bring it. Join us on whatever roads God takes us on...It does not take a famous person to change the world. It take a call from God and a major burden on your heart. Peace and Blessings. Brucie



well. i guess i should give a shout out to mama brucie as well. i mean, since we are in the shout-outing mood.
so while i was waiting for brucie to write her two cents, i was cutting my split ends. cutting your split ends you may ask?...yes, sometimes when i think, i look at my hair, and there are some split ends that i never knew about before. but since i know about them now, i can't leave them there. so. i cut them with scissors.
anyway, so while this is occuring, i think of all the profound things i have to tell the world. things that have been stirring in my heart the past few months. things that break my heart. things that make me cry. things that piss me off. (yes. i said piss. sorry for those that may be offended). and you know what evicts all those emotions in me?

human trafficking.

here's the deal. there are young women being sold into prostitution. if that was your child would you be sitting around doing nothing?

yep. i didn't think so.

so help us. helps us find ways to end this horrific thing that we thought was already abolished.

slavery. it still lives on.
- katie -

daily commissions:
did you know that one of the leading perpetrators of forced bondage is the chocolate industry? while it may say that your chocolate bar was packaged and made in Pennsylvania, it neglects to tell you how the main ingredient, cocoa beans, were harvested and sent to america.

70% of the world's supply of cocoa beans come from west africa, where an estimated 15,000 children are forced into slavery to harvest them. -notforsalecampaign.org

check out the not for sale website (mentioned above) and click on FREE TO WORK to find fair trade chocolate companies that do not use slaves to make their chocolate.