The last couple days ...

- On Friday, I got to dress up like Mrs. Claus for Santa's Workshop -- its an event hosted by Baylor (and planned by my fabulous roommate!) for around 900 underprivileged kids to come and eat lunch, make a craft, decorate cookies and get a present. Matt, the head of Student Activities, and I donned some North Pole garb and hung out with a ton of little kids! I felt like a celebrity -- we walked down the aisle between all the tables, waved at kids and wished wished everyone a Merry Christmas! We took a billion pictures, sat on Christmas thrones, and smiled more than I can possibly communicate (my face literally hurt at the end of the morning)! It was beyond fun ... it is doing things for other people that really makes Christmas awesome!

- I bought a plane ticket on Thursday night to fly to Georgia for the weekend ... spontaneous, eh? I went to find out more about the internship at 12Stone Church that I have been thinking about since March. It was a whirlwind weekend ... I had to drive really early to get to Dallas for my flight, and I got to spend most of Saturday hanging out with Sammi ... love that! While she was at work, I got to talk with Seth (who has come to Philly both times) about being an intern, and it was awesome. And then I went to church the next morning ... it was crazy! 12Stone is a mega-church for sure ... and the prettiest one I have ever seen. Worship was sweet, the pastor was great and the church gave $100 to every family that committed to spend it on "intentional acts of Christmas." It was pretty cool to see ... although it was kind of weird to have a lot of police officers milling around the church (in light of the fact that the Lord was present ... could He not watch over that money?). It was definitely an experience ... a big change from Church Under the Bridge, thats for sure ;) It was especially interesting in light of the chapter of my thesis that I have been working on ... I wrote a whole section about churches who cater to the every whim of their congregants. But in the face of my little frustrations with the apparent wealth of the church, the Lord reminded me of two things (1) who am I to talk? (2) that the hearts of everyone that I have met at 12Stone are awesome ... they are clearly seeking the Lord so I need to get over my critical attitude. I got to grab lunch with Miles (the college pastor who is in charge of the internship program) and Anson (the high school pastor) and it was great. The questions asked were very interesting... and I am not sure what kind of impression I left. Hopefully a good one ;) I left GA much more comfortable with the realities of the internship, which was much needed. It was neat to see how my passions aligned incredibly well with Anson's dream for his group ... way to orchestrate that, Lord! All that said ... I need to pray a lot (and I need other people praying). I want whatever the Lord wants ... but I think this might be it!