i love...

sunflowers...well all flowers really...but especially sunflowers make me so happy! they are so gorgeous, and you can almost watch their heads follow the sun when they are growing. how amazing is that?!! these are from my mom's garden:

my mom has what we call an english garden, but really we just throw a variety of seeds at the ground every spring, sit back, and ENJOY beyond belief throughout the summer. it's a perfectly unorganized mix of happy happy plants and i love every inch of it! every time i go to her house we walk around her yard, laugh at how good certain underdog plants have done, and wonder why some haven't done so well. nevertheless, it's something i always look forward to and a habit that my grandmother and i formed a couple of years ago.

whenever i go to my grandparents lake house, i set my alarm to wake up before anyone else in the house, (except my grandparents because they wake up instinctively at 5am) grandmother and i get our coffee and walk through her extensive, legitimate "english garden". it is such a treasured ritual of ours and she has taught me more in the last 2 years (the time i have been infatuated with all things plant) than i could probably have learned in a lifetime of better homes and gardens. i don't know if i love gardening because i truly love the process and the plants or because the 2 most important women in my life value it so much. i'm sure it's a combination of both, but i can say i'm hooked for life. i have never even had my own garden because of our apt living, so when i get complete control of my first plot of land just watch out. i may get lost in it. until then, i will live vicariously through all the other "english gardens" in my life.

daydreaming

i don't think i even need to explain how amazing this is, but i know i want one.

found here

i'll keep dreaming...

now reading

i know, i think because there are such serious, stressful things going on in my life right now, i just had the urge to read something easy and whimsical. i have always liked the harry potter movies but never read the books. my husband was one of those people who camped out at the book store dressed in hogwarts attire and fake glasses waiting for his copy at midnight. needless to say, we already had the books.

why not? they are exactly what i was looking for in an easy summer read, and i'm already on the 3rd one.

i will never dress up like the characters and it's definitely not an obsession, but it is a good escape for now. especially when the other book on my reading list is:

this is what we will teach from at avanti italia and what we will be taught from in our orientation week in searcy. it was written by one of the founding fathers of avanti italia, jim woodroof. so far it is great, but obviously a little deeper than harry potter. i like the balance.

here's the scoop

so i said i would give the deets about what avanti italia is, and what exactly we will be doing in italy. the truth is...i don't completely know.

the last 2 weeks of august we are going to searcy, ar for 2 weeks of missionary, evangelism, culture, etc training. i know we'll learn all we need to know then, but for now all we really know is that we are going to italy for 2 years to learn italian, use our italian and the bible to teach english, do work in the community in the name of the church there, and probably a lot of other awesome stuff. i love not knowing, that's the most fun part of the adventure.

i do know that for at least the first 3 months (language school) we'll be living in this city...

florence, italy. my favorite city in the world at this point in my life. i'm sure spending a semester there in college makes me a little bias, but i don't care. bias or not, this city is splendid.

there's a chance that after language school we could be sent to another city in italy and work with the church that is established there. fine with us, we told them that we would do whatever they needed us to do. of course, my brother and cousin will be doing their semester in florence the spring of '11 and we would love to be there for that, but we'll see.

that's really all the details i know so i'm just going to copy some info on here from the avanti italia website, and i'll leave you with that.

"Our main method of outreach is teaching private Bible lessons in the English language. In advertising, we are completely up-front about our purpose. Our team members teach an average of 15 Bible lessons a week, and we often have to place names of interested persons on a waiting list. We have developed our own curriculum, which includes basic grammar lessons, a set of "bridge" lessons that span the gap from grammar review to English conversation about the Bible, our own editions of the Shawn Daggett "English Using the Bible" books, and advanced studies in the core Gospel message.

Besides our private lessons, we organize an evangelistic study in Italian at the Bible School on Tuesday nights. We also have a weekly women’s Bible Study. On Thursday nights, we attend another Bible study at the church building for discussions among Christians. In addition, we strive to serve the members of the churches of Christ throughout the entire country by hosting seminars with guest speakers and sending invitations out to all of the Italian congregations. In August, we help with a yearly retreat sponsored by the Florence congregation. At this lectureship we meet Christians from all over the country who often invite us to help with their projects.

Much of our work could be described as friendship evangelism. We make friends with people and share God's saving message with them. To get to know our students better and to help them get to know each other and the members of the Florence congregation, we often organize evenings of games, music, food, or a video. Sometimes we help with summer camps for young people from the Italian churches. Whether we are having friends over, going to eat at someone's house, or taking an excursion together, we're never lacking opportunities to share the love of Christ with our friends.

Each team member is committed to finding ways of using his or her individual talents to contact more and more people for God's glory. For example, some have become members of the Scandicci band. As a result, several of our students have come from the band, and two have been baptized. Other A.I. members have coached boys' basketball, taught music in the public school system, helped with a local ambulance service, and volunteered at the local hospital. Each member tries to find his or her niche."

"Most of our work is centered at the Florence Bible School in Scandicci, which has a living/dining room, kitchen, large classroom, library, offices, and living quarters. We also teach some Bible lessons at the Florence church building located in Florence proper, and occasionally we travel to other cities to help out with special projects or seminars. After sufficient orientation and language study, A.I. members may be assigned to work full-time with congregations outside of Florence. In such cases, the workers are closely supervised by the local church leaders and by the Woodroofs on a regular basis."

something to blog about

can you believe it? it's almost been 6 months. but something happened in january that just made everything else seem more important than blogging.

i went to hear shane claiborne speak at caritas village one night. i have read his books, and i know he's just a guy, but it is impossible (if you have a soul) to listen to him and not be moved. he tells the most moving stories of LOVE...just pure love. rich loving the poor, good loving the evil, hopeful loving the hopeless, and the amazing things they do for each other when they are filled with GOD'S love. needless to say, i was encouraged, changed even. my experiences in guatemala, haiti, belize, ghana, and inner city memphis had made me restless with everyday life, restless because i knew there was so much more and i was not a part of it. hearing shane in person just pushed me over the edge. i couldn't sleep that night thinking of all the things i was going to do. buy a house in the ghetto and feed homeless people, move to guatemala and work in a clinic in the jungle, join the peace corps, open an orphanage, plant urban gardens... the list goes on.

while my husband (bless his soul) dealt with my multiple personalities, i tried to process my feelings. when i had finally come to the conclusion that for now i was just going to be the best nurse i could be, start tutoring for hopeworks, and keep tutoring for MUM, i got an email.

this was just a group email from the recruiter of avanti italia reminding me that when i was doing my semester in florence, italy during college, i signed my name to a list saying that some day i might be interested in participating. of course if i was single i would have signed up the day i graduated, but i never thought ryan would be willing to do 2 years of mission work outside the country. I WAS WRONG. a few days after i had deleted the email and wiped the impossible thought of avanti italia out of my mind, my husband came to me and said "have you ever heard of avanti italia?"

from that day, we started the long and laborious process of fundraising for 2 years of mission work for 2 people. everyday has been a test of our faith, and it has become stronger because of every day. there have been so many generous people who have come into our lives and made this far off idea so possible. i really can't even begin to explain the feelings of gratefulness that i have for these people who are supporting us in a mission to people none of us have ever met. we are still short a few hundred dollars a month, but i know that God will provide, look at what he's done for us already. i cry every time i think about it.

so that's the deal. we have a church that will manage and distribute our funds while we are there. we just bought our plane tickets last week, and we are now in the extensive process of applying for visas. our last day of work is july 31, then we will move out of our apt, visit family, go to 2 weeks of missionary training, and fly out september 8.

since we began this journey, it's like i have been holding my breath waiting for it all to work out. all my thoughts have been focused on this mission and if it's really what God has planned for us. i almost kept myself from getting excited or talking about it, because i couldn't stand the thought of it not working out and having to tell everyone. now i feel like i can let out the breath that i've been holding for so long, and then i can take one in and let it out... and breathe normally again feeling confident in the fact that THIS is God's plan for us right now. wow, it feels so good to say that, because i finally really know.

so, i think i'm back to blogging, that is. in the future, i'll explain the ins and outs of AVANTI ITALIA and what we will be doing during these 2 years. for now, i'm relieved. relieved that God is in control and not me. and i can't wait to see what else is in the works for us!

favor please

my friend from college, lauren setzler, was recently diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and is receiving chemo at UAMS in little rock.

before her diagnosis, she was collecting drink can tabs for the ronald mcdonald house and now we are collecting them for her.

we don't drink a lot of canned drinks, but i know some people drink a ton and if you wouldn't mind collecting them and sending them to me, i'll make sure they get to the ronald mcdonald house. thanks!

please email me if you can help: lalstephens@gmail.com

happy day

there is a new project brewing in the stephens home this week...making our own photo mats.

this came about when my husband (recently dabbling in photography because of his new nikon D3000) took some beautiful photos of a few landmarks of downtown memphis. he wanted to mat and frame them for our apt. and discovered that photo mats are not only expensive but hard to find in certain sizes. it was my suggestion that he buy his own mat cutter with his christmas money and make his own; his mind went from there. he stayed up late that night browsing the web for what he thought would be the best instruction for diy mat making. he came upon this blog and settled here for his tutorial.

the next day we purchased all the necessary supplies for mat making which, most importantly, included the mat cutter. this is a hand held mat cutter that you push up against a long ruler to get a straight line, and we went with this one because it was the least expensive and we thought "how hard can it be as long as you have a sturdy straight edge?" answer: VERY HARD! i thought the mat cutter was going to be hurled through a window or at my head. after using an entire 32x40 inch sheet of mat board "practicing" and not having a single mat that we would actually use and several hours of shouting at inanimate objects, we surrendered.

puzzled and flustered

today, we returned the original mat cutter and coughed up the extra change for one that is on a track (virtually dummy proof) for the sake of our marriage. it was actually a great price at the art center, and now the hubs is a matting genius. our minds can now be at ease.

yay for new mat cutter

before (1st mat cutter)

after (2nd mat cutter)

please note: these mats are not cut in a trapezoid shape, that is just how i took the picture. i promise they are real rectangles!