A Cup of Coffee and a Heap of Conviction

I visited my local LifeWay this week and picked up two new books. My love for reading developed when I was in seminary...because I was never a reader before then. Now I crave a good book that will challenge me, help me dig deeper into God's Word and help me fall more in love with my Savior. So what did I pick up this time?

The new buzz has been all about David Platt's book "Radical" so I wanted to see for myself what the hype was about. I was fortunate to attend seminary with David and we went to the same church where he served as the missions pastor. Before graduating from seminary he actually taught one of my evangelism classes and almost on a daily basis we were all in tears with a burden for the lost. You won't find a more passionate heart when it comes to world missions. I knew this book would be good but I wasn't quite sure I was ready to wrestle with the truths laid bare on the pages. I'm only four chapters in and it's been quite a challenge. It's an easy read getting through the text but the application...well that's another story. The nutshell summary is David giving a challenge to believers to forsake pursuing the American Dream to embrace a life completely surrendered to Jesus Christ. The truth is that this shouldn't be a "radical" life but to the outside world and unfortunately to a lot of professing believers this concept is pretty "radical." Truth be told if we truly lived this way the only thing "radical" would be the impact we had on the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The second read came pretty hesitantly. My dear friend Tina Propes turned me on to John Piper in 2003 when we worked camp together. I just recently finished the first Piper book I picked up in 2003. Just kidding....but he isn't an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. His writing is meaty and though you may get through a chapter it will probably take two or three readings to comprehend what you've read. If I'm in this boat alone please don't tell me how easy of a read Piper is for you. I grew to appreciate the writings of Piper in seminary but had to take a sabatacle recently because of the idol he was becoming for our Christian Studies majors. I felt like I was hearing the name Piper more than I was hearing them talk about Jesus. I reluctantly picked up another Piper book this trip. The name of the book is "Taste and See"...a book of 140 meditations on savoring the supremacy of God in our daily life. Much easier to take in 2-3 pages at a time...and it's been a great springboard into my time with the Lord in the mornings.

I'd recommend both if you're looking for something to read these days.

What a weekend....

This Saturday was our first home game of the season. The atmosphere on campus was simply electric. Residence Life hosted a tailgate party complete with an inflatable water slide, games, prizes and yours truly grilled about 1000 hotdogs. In fact when I got to the game I smelled like a walking hotdog and there was nothing flattering about that. Even though the game started at 6:00pm it was still in the 90's at kickoff and even after the game. Gotta love Louisiana weather! Here is a picture of Noah "enjoying" his first Wildcat football game.

Poor little guy was all dressed up in his Wildcat jersey but got way too hot. As soon as Amy took his clothes off he fell asleep. What a fan!

Unfortunately our Wildcats are now 0-2. We lost last week to Belhaven on the road and lost to Huntington College last night in overtime. It was such an amazing game...the Wildcats were trailing going into the half and made an incredible comeback to tie the game and go ahead in the 2nd half. Huntington tied the game in the last few minutes to send the game into overtime. Our defense just struggled to hold them and we lost 62-56...what a heartbreaking game. I have never been so proud of those guys as I was last night. They played with heart, determination and grit to the bitter end!! Keep your head up boys and get ready for Mississippi College in two weeks on the road.

In other exciting news this weekend I learned a valuable lesson. It's dangerous to cuddle too closely with a 70lb boxer who startles easily. I was taking my normal Sunday afternoon nap and was cuddled up with ole Matti and apparently went to snuggle with her a little closer or something and scared her in her sleep. Result....Matti's noggin to my cheek bone = one heck of a headache, a bruised cheek bone and the start of a black eye. Good thing I'm not married or people would think I was getting beat up at home. Check out the start of my shiner...


It certainly wasn't a boring weekend...that's for sure!

bad timing!

I have been neglecting my blog lately and for that I am sorry....it's been insanely busy around my neck of the woods. I am, however, taking a short break to express my frustration in the incredibly bad timing of our cable being out on campus. For some reason we are not picking up channels 15-22...which include ESPN and ESPN2 and for any of you who know me well enough you know I am a die hard AUBURN TIGERS fan....and they play tonight on ESPN against Mississippi State. Needless to say I have been on the phone with the cable company most of the morning trying to get this issue resolved before 6:30pm. I may have to visit our local pub if something doesn't get worked out today.

WAR EAGLE!!!

just me and little man...

I took a mental health day on Wednesday and spent the day with my favorite little guy...Noah Lee Chandler. I absolutely adore that baby boy. We ran errands and did some shopping and just hung out at home with Matti and I loved every minute of it. Spending the day with him was great for my emotional wellbeing and was just a foretaste of what's to come this weekend. Amy and Cory are going to Atlanta for the weekend for the LSU season opener and Noah is staying behind with his Aunt Kabes for the weekend. Three days of single parenting will surely tell me if I am as ready for motherhood as I think I am. Either way...I'm excited to spend the weekend cuddled on the couch with my monkey watching SEC football. I am sure there will be lots of pictures to come!

Too Much Fun For WEEK ONE

Well I have fallen off the face of my blogging world because it has been one crazy semester! The Lord brought me out of a spiritual drought at the right time. Had I started any other semester the way this one has started I might would have been committed to the looney ben. During RA training we had to move an entire wing of beds from Cottingham (the women's dorm) to Tudor Hall (the men's dorm) in order to make bunk beds and sleep three freshmen to a room. We are definitely experiencing some growing pains at LC. We have the largest freshmen class in the history of the college and no where to sleep these guys. For now they are sleeping three to a room and most of them aren't too happy about it. I'm so thankful for my RA staff who make the big bed move like champs!

About the time that phone calls stopped coming in from upset moms about the Tudor Hall situation...the dam broke in CDA. The very first day of classes I was having lunch with a friend and came back on campus to find fire trucks at CDA and the building was flooded by the fire sprinkler system. Really?!?! First day of class and this is how it starts? I quickly sent out an SOS and my RAs came running to move 45 girls out of the building. For two days we moved girls, their stuff and all the beds from CDA to the empty wing on Cottingham. Needless to say the phone starting ringing off the hook again with upset parents wanting to know what the plan was. Every time the phone rang I just had to chuckle because I have yet to find an instruction manual in my office that says, "if a dorm floods do this, this and then this." We are just taking it one day at a time and trying to keep girls happy.

To say it's been a crazy semester is an understatement but here's to hoping for an uneventful Monday starting off week two.

A New Semester

Well, I have officially kicked off the start of year five at Louisiana College as the Director of Residence Life. I have the gray as proof that position isn't always easy, but it's a fun job and there is never a dull moment.

I've been missing in action on my blog for the last two weeks because I have been in training all day, every day with my 2010-2011 staff. The first week of training was with my head advisor staff...I love them to death! We had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished in a weeks time. Here they are...

Hayden, Myra, Lizzie, Sara, Cory, Brian and KB

The second week has been spent in training with the rest of the RAs. By far the best staff I have ever worked with...I love them! I'm looking forward to an amazing year serving along side them. Here are just a few pics from our week of training...as you can see we played as much as we worked.



the head advisors making their giant clock that chimed "ode to joy"


one of the groups completing the "magic carpet" initiative at Dry Creek


this group was completing the "mohawk walk" initiative with a twist


playing the newly wed game...here are the cheaters..
I mean the winners, "the Terrells"


this is Lee Jones at our "white trash holiday party"

It's been a great week! Move In Day is tomorrow and we are busting at the seams with freshmen! I'm looking forward to a great year with a great staff!

why did the chicken cross the road?....

Funny you should ask why the chicken crossed the road. That's a joke we've all heard and yet in Uganda I discovered that the punchline is probably not "to get to the other side"...but rather "so I wouldn't cut his head off!" I realize that needs a bit of an explanation so here goes.

We hadn't been in Uganda long when I noticed just how many chickens were roaming around. In fact the first morning when I came out of my hotel room there was a chicken just walking in the parking lot. On our way from Gulu to Nebbi we stopped and purchased 7 chickens. Three of which were to be for our team meals and then we bought Geoffrey's family 2 and Stanley's family 2. We learned that eating chicken was usually a holiday treat and while we were there we were served chicken almost every day. You would have thought that we had given Geoffrey and Stanley a million dollars by buying them chickens to take home.

Back to the chickens....which I affectionately named Shadrack, Mishack and Abednigo. Probably shouldn't name animals that will soon be your dinner. We purchased the chickens and then tied them to the top of the van with our luggage. Those poor guys had to ride 4 hours strapped to the top of the van but all 7 were still there when we arrived in Nebbi. As the guys were loosening the ropes from our luggage (which was also holding the chickens) one of the little boogers got loose. Without any hesitation I reached for him and swiped him up by his legs. Not sure what got into me but I knew I couldn't let dinner get away. My team was quite impressed with my handy work.





If you haven't picked up on the fact that I loved every minute of being in Africa and had a desire to soak it all in...nows your chance to get a full glimpse into my experiences. While driving to Nebbi I told Geoffrey that I would like to get to kill one of the chickens that we were going to eat. I was mostly being serious and partly kidding. I have always wanted to learn how to ring a chickens neck and I knew if I was ever seriously going to move to Africa then I had to be woman enough to kill a chicken.

One morning...just happened to be the morning I wore a white shirt...Geoffrey and Stanley came to pick us up to head to some schools for ministry. Geoffrey told me that he needed to run to the bank but that Stanley was going to take me to his house so that I could kill the chicken that Joy was going to prepare for lunch that day. Oh joy! So remember how I thought I was going to ring the chicken's neck? Yeah, not so much. When we arrived at Geoffrey's, Stanley began to show me the process of how I was going to put Mishack to rest. You'll see the process in the next series of pictures but I had to stand on the wings with one foot, the feet with another foot and pull the neck up so I could chop off his head. Yep, I said chop. What happened to just breaking it's neck? Not the way they do things in Uganda. Not only did I have to cut his head off...they gave me a knife that was about as sharp as a butter knife so I had to saw the little guy in two.

Worry not...I didn't get any chicken blood on my white shirt. I was a champ at killing the chicken even though I was a little freaked out by the fact it's head was still clucking in my hand and it's body was flopping around under my feet and the two were not attached. All I know is Stanley told me not to step off the chicken until he stopped moving...so I didn't. Here are the pics of big big momma providing for the team.






I promise that is the only grusome story I will share about my time in Africa but I was too proud of my chicken killing adventure not to share. I promised my sister a new Uganda story by the end of the weekend and this was the easiest to tell.