Recuperation

So... It has been a little over a week since the fire broke out. The RA's were called back to campus on Monday where we met for a 4 hour debriefing. We were trained in basic grief counseling, had our questions answered, and were filled in on the plan of action for the next week. Tuesday and Wednesday RAs were on campus 11 to 8 organizing students trying to get things out of their dorms and for general cleanup on the campus. It was a long 2 days but it really helped with closure.

It was really amazing, by the time I left campus on Wednesday, grounds crews had made huge progress in clearing put burned brush, contrustion crews had cleared the site of math building completelt and had begun to rebuild path bridges, and cleaning crews had made almost all public buildings habitable. School has been canceled until December 1 and faculty decided that distance learning was the best option, so we are still following class sylabi while we are in our respective towns. Praise God: my biomechanics project was the only thing stressing me out about this semester and it was canceled because its a group project!!So the only homework I have to complete over break is a painting for my art class which isn't really homework.

I am currently in Monterey with my dear friend Aubrey and her family who have become my adopted california family. It has been nothing but relaxing. Aubrey's Aunt's significant other has been spoiling us and treated us to a nice lunch and pedi- mani's. Joyce is a fantastic cook and I've had nothing but fantastic food thus far. I've been going to bed at 10 and getting up at 10 the next morning and there is nothing on my schedule. I miss my family terribly but this is a nice alternative for the time being. Hope everyone else is well!!

The Tea Fire

I cannot believe that it has only been 48 hours.

Thursday evening, Wesmont College and the surrounding Montecito/Santa Barbara area was ravaged by fire. The Tea Fire started about 5:30 pm in the Tea Gardens right above the college. I left campus at 5:20 after I got out of class and had no idea what was to come. I had called my mom when I was walking to catch the shuttle because the wind was unbelievably strong and I wanted her to hear it in my phone. I missed being evacuated with the rest of campus by about 15 minutes.

I sat down in apartment when I got, to relax for a few minutes before cooking dinner and as soon as I sat down, I hear some of my residents in the courtyard yelling about a fire. I opened my door to tell people not to yell "fire" so loudly and could see a huge plume of black smoke from the hill behind us. One of the girls that lives next door, came and told me that Westmont was on fire.

I turned on the news and discovered that a fire had broken out and that the strong winds were spreading the fire extremely quickly. As the evening progressed, we learned that all of the students and staff on campus, including 170 high school students on campus for Preview Days, were evacuated to the gym, the community's wildfire evacuation place, where they stayed for the rest of night and many, into the morning the next day. The picture to the left was taken by a Westmont student, Jessical Conrad, from her dorm (Van Kampen) as she was evacuating. The apartment that I live in is an off campus dorm, so all of our students did a fantastic job of helping us track down every student' s whereabouts. We watched the orange glow against the dark sky grow bigger and closer to our apartment and watched the news closely. Around 8 pm, the fire was moving quickly down the hill and we decided to encourage our students to evacuate. By 9 everyone was out and our neighborhood had been deemed a mandatory evacuation zone. My room mates, some students who had been off campus at the time of the evac, and I drove south and stayed the night Carpenteria. Friday morning, most everyone with family in California went home. I spent the day with some local friends and continued to track the devastation.

At Westmont, we lost our Physics building, old math building, psychology offices-Bouder Hall (housed in the historical carriage house of an estate the school bought), Freshman dorm Clark hall- buildings M, S, and the resident director's apartment were lost and slight damage occured to various other dorm buildings, and 15 homes in faculty housing. Alot of the beautiful landscaping on campus has been wiped out, but miraculoously, alot of it was saved. Fire burned right up on both sides to the Friendship Gardens but the actual gardens were left green and untouched. School has been canceled until at least Wednesday, but conference calls Today (Saturday) and Monday will confirm the college's plans. I am safely back in my apartment this morning and residents have been coming and going quite frequently.

Please pray for the 110 home that were lost in this fire and the families who have been displaced. Many of these families are friends of mine and the college's. Pray for the students who have lost their dorm home, and for the quick return to the academic semester. Pray also, for the fires that have broken out in LA county this morning; many of the students evacuated from Westmont now face the same threats at their homes. Pray that everyone involved remembers that our posessions are not our own, but belong to Him who provided them first.

Stupid F

This is one of the few times that I am grateful for commercials. Typically, I get angry because they always break for commercial right when the TV show is at its most intense part. But maybe... maybe they do it that way just in case people like me are watching.

I'm an INFJ. While I don't use that an excuse very often, tonite I'm playing that card. Its the stupid F (for Feeler) that makes me cry during almost every tv show I watch. As I type, I'm watching Grey's Anatomy. I've watched this show from day 1 and since day 1, I've cried during almost every episode. This episode is no exception. Infact, this episode is making me cry a little more that usual. If it werent for the commercial breaks, I might be borderline hysterical right now. Something about old people in particular, really tugs at my heart strings.

So here I sit, more or less sobing. My room mate who's working on homework at our kitchen table just asked me if I was ok. Yes, I am, just feeling a little more than usual because old people are involved.

And for all of you die hard Greys fans, The whole thing with Izzy and Denny was what, in season 2? I still cry when he comes back to talk to her.

These at least, are sad things. I got teary-eyed earlier today when asked what I really love. Besides my family and friends, I explained how I really love what disneyland represents (a fantastical, romantic, break from reality where everything ends happily-ever-after) and it made me rather sentimental.

I am such a girl.

She's at it again!

Geez, it's been a long time since I was on here. Sorry for the delay- not that I don't have a million things to talk about. I've got a whole post it of 'blog about ......' to go off of.

Hope everyone had a good Halloween. My room mates and I stayed in and doled out candy. We dressed up of course. I was a hippy, Cassie was Sarah Palin, and we weren't quite sure what Beth was. It was a good night.

So thought for the day: 1 Corinthians 13:4

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I know that this your traditional wedding verse, but in chapel the other day, we were challenged to think of it in a new light.

God is love. We are created in His image and should, therefore, be love in the flesh, if we are being fair representations of God like we are supposed to be. These verses from Corinthians are more or less describing the characteristics of God. If you replace the word Love with God, it still makes perfect sense. So the challenge is then to ask if you (or I for that matter) can use those descriptors for ourselves. Am I patient and kind? Do I not envy, boast, 0r be prideful? Am I rude, self-seeking, easily angered. You know where I am going with this. I think that those descriptors apply to me maybe half of the time, at best. Simply put, I am not a fair representation of God's Love and therefore will work harder.

The second point to this post:

In John 6, we read the story of the feeding of the five thousand. After having just had it pointed out to you that we are not good at representing the characteristics of God, I hope this makes a little better. When they realize how many people there are to feed, and all they have is one little boy's lunch

"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"

To which Jesus replies, "Bring them to me."

Jesus doesn't care what you have or what you are, he just asks that you give it to him. If all you have is 2 fish and 5 loaves worht of patience or kindness, that's fine- Just give it to Jesus and he'll feed 5,000 with it. In Christ, we are never inadequate.